Latest / In Wheel Time Podcast / Unveiling the Evolution of Automotive Excellence: Insights into Quality, Innovation, and Industry Challenges

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Unveiling the Evolution of Automotive Excellence: Insights into Quality, Innovation, and Industry Challenges · In Wheel Time Podcast

• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Welcome to another In Wheel Time podcast.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: He's up early waiting for Santa, our go-to expert, author and guy who gets an audience with the king of England, jack Nerad.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen standing by in the green room, jeff has the racing calendar, mars has this week in auto history and I'll get you caught up on the stories making automotive news headlines.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Howdy, along with Mike, out of this world, mars.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: We always need more.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Jeff Zekin, I'm Don Armstrong, glad you could join us today.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: David Ainsley will be joining us a little bit later on.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: We're going to join all the way out to Southern California and Mr California himself.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: He's got the tan, he's got the look, he's got the convertible, ladies and gentlemen, and the surf's up dude From America on the road.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: It's Jack Nerad.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: We love you, man morning hey now, what an introduction, really incredible I I do appreciate it well, uh, we, we love you and think the world of you and your knowledge when it comes to cars and um, you know we talk to you often and um, I quote you many times hey, jack knee red thinks kind of like I do on this.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: You know the buttons here, the buttons there.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: We don't like those buttons there, we don't like how they work or whatever the case may be.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting to talk to you because you kind of are right in tune with me.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, every car.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I must be a really smart guy, right.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Well, either that or the other way'm not sure, but no, I think.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I think that's true.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I think you're a very bright guy and we agree on most, any, everything well, you know, and people ask me all the time so, what's your, what's the favorite car?
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: You know, I really don't have a favorite per se.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, mean, let's drill it down.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: You're looking for a small, a subcompact, an SUV, a truck, whatever it is.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Let's talk then.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: But for the most part, manufacturers do a pretty good job when it comes to the tens of thousands of parts that they assemble and put on the road.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: And you compare today's vehicle to, let's say, a 1980s vehicle or a 1990s vehicle, a Yugo, not that, but you know you get the point.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I mean every manufacturer.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: If every car were perfect, we wouldn't have things like NHTSA and recalls and that sort of stuff.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Repair shops, yeah.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: But I don't think there is such a thing as an absolutely perfect car, but there are some that are better than others and, um, you know, even the good ones make mistakes sometimes and uh, yeah I absolutely agree.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I when I started in this business, there were some truly bad cars.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, I mean just stay away from them.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: You know, rust buckets almost immediately, just terrible.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Handling Just totally unreliable.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: We just don't see that anymore.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: You know, from any manufacturer the price of admission is very high quality and I think that's a good thing, obviously?
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Yep, I do too, and there's a lot of fierce competitors out there in the car industry and you know, one guy does one thing and they go.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Hmm, that's pretty good.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: We're going to put that into play in our next redesign, which could be five and in some cases, 10 years down the road.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true, I write a lot of comparison tests for jdowercom and in doing these tests, it's really fascinating to see how closely aligned competitors are, because in terms of interior space, in terms of trunk space, in terms of horsepower, in terms of just what they offer, these competitors are just almost on top of each other.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: You know could put the same hat on all of them pretty much, and it just shows exactly what you're talking about how immensely competitive this industry is and how manufacturers work really hard and look at their competitors every day.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Well, back when cars were being built by just the big three rather than all the imports and everything overseas, they used to say don't buy a car built on Monday or a Friday, and that held true for a long time.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: The imports and everything overseas.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: They used to say don't buy a car built on Monday or a Friday.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: And that held true for a long time.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: And I think by having these businesses and these companies that regulate that kind of thinned the herd on that and then you got the abundance of all the imports and then building overseas.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: So I think having those organizations kind of calmed it down to where we are today.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the level of the playing field is much better today than it was just a few years ago, as a matter of fact, yeah, and I think my former boss, dave Power, who I worked for for a couple of years, really changed the industry and did exactly what Jeff's talking about.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, it kind of held every manufacturer's foot to the fire and let people see what quality was really like, and it's changed the industry pretty significantly.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Well speaking, of quality.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: You know, I do the recalls every week and I look at some of them and it just major, glaring mistakes that have been made, just major glaring mistakes that have been made.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: But one of the things that comes to mind is, first of all, who designed the item that's being put onto the car?
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: And I'm not talking about engines and transmissions, that sort of thing, but all of the other stuff that's on there.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Those are designed and manufactured by suppliers to the automotive industry.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: What kind of standards that the manufacturer places on the supplier?
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: We don't know.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: That seems to be a big mystery.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: And what kind of a penalty do the manufacturers place on the supplier when they have, for instance, the airbag thing?
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, I mean, that was industry-wide and it seems like everybody was doing takata airbags and I think that that certainly has changed since then.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: But but put takata out of business.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: And, um, where where does the industry stand today when it comes to first designing the part?
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Here's the part we want you to design.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: How much is it going to cost us to build it?
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Do they always go for the cheapest?
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Or do they look back and say you know, they don't have many recalls on the stuff that they make.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Let's spend a few more dollars on this particular part.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: We're going to pass it on to the buyer anyway and we won't have to mess with it.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: It gives us a good rating.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they're getting there.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: You know what you find out when you look.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: You know under the hood and everything is that so many manufacturers use the same suppliers.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: You know so you see very common systems across various vehicles out there.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: In some ways that's good, because if it's a reliable system, it's great that it's on multiple vehicles.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, if you have a situation like the Takata airbags, where they're across many, many brands but they're kind of disastrously bad, you've got a big problem.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Well, the one that's working right now, and has been now for over a year, is the backup cameras on a lot of different manufacturers' cars, and you know darn good and well that that's got to be the same manufacturer yeah, absolutely true, and, as you know, testing cars every week talking about some of those backup cameras and the displays of those backup cameras are a lot better than others they're higher fidelity I.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: What always amazes me and I I do this every week, because I test a car in america on the road every week is, um, how different the guidelines are like.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: What is what are those guidelines actually showing me?
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Is that the edge of my car is that where the tires are is you know?
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: That kind of thing when you're backing up is kind of good to know, but it's different across various brands?
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, particularly if it's got green lines and yellow lines that are side-by-side.
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: I know green's good, but how bad is yellow?
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, the one thing is speaking of that, and it's a silly little thing, but it also shows you at which angle your front tires are pointed, yes, and helps you get back into a parking spot perfectly, if you use it.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: A lot of times it's easier to back into a parking spot than it is to pull into a parking spot these days.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: Yes, oh, absolutely, because you have that guidance for you.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: And you can't see the front edges of your vehicle.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: That's right, Right.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: So what comes to mind?
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: You know, I have to ask you this uh, the stelantis thing.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and somebody has finally said hey, carlos, yeah, not so much anymore.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Um, I know that you planned on another year of torture for all of us, but, uh, bye-bye.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: And so what's going to happen to Stellantis now?
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I know that Elcan, the CEO of Stellantis, is looking for a CEO.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: First of all, let me ask you this, and this goes really across every corporation in America why is it that they pick somebody, pay him a bajillion dollars to ruin a major manufacturer like Stellantis?
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: It's a really good question.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure that was the goal.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: I mean they pick people with track records.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: I think they might look a little deeper into track records sometimes, because we see some executives go from car company to car company, you know, leaving disaster in their wake every time they go, but they seem to fall up.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: You know we've seen that with several executives, so I don't know whether they talk a good ballgame or what actually is happening there.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: And this is a very, very difficult industry to negotiate.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: There is no doubt about that, there's.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: You know, the winds blow different ways.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, look at the changes we're liable to see in regulations now, where, in some ways, maybe going slow on EVs, what Toyota has done and, frankly, what Stellantis has done might be a brilliant move going forward.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: It didn't look all that swell maybe five years ago, but uh, it's looking like well, this seems like a pretty good idea right now well, taking jeff's story, that I know that you heard about cadillac maybe going to nascar, which is hard to believe, but um, all I can think of is why did stelantis drop the biggest money makers that they had and go this whole all-in thing with an electric vehicle?
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: That an SUV that is.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: It's just like all the other SUVs.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: There really is nothing outstanding about it.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Then they're putting a horsepower spin on it in an SUV.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: No, let's leave that to Porsche.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're seeing that from so many SUVs.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, at the Los Angeles show we saw the introduction of a performance version of the EV9, kia EV9.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're seeing these performance three-row SUVs.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: And I asked Steve Senter, who was the Chief Operating Officer of Key of America, you know, is there a market for this?
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: What is the market?
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: And I don't know that.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: We know if there is a market for this.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Is there really a market for performance electric vehicles?
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: You know I was driving Dodge Charger Daytona this past Thursday.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: I can't talk much about it, but you know it's kind of a head scratcher.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Is the person who buys the current Dodge Charger going to be interested in that vehicle?
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: And they're hoping yes, but I think the jury's still out.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: But I think, jack, I think some of them are coming to realize, particularly with Stellantis, if you look at what they did with Dodge, the Chargers, the Hellcat, the wide bodies and all that stuff, the commercials they put out, people talked about the commercials even if they didn't have the cars.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: So there is to me there is an interest there because they've sold basically every one of them they ever built and maybe they're trying to figure out okay, we had to go EV because we were pressured to, but we've lost our performance market.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Now let's see if we can kind of pull them along with us here, because if we't, we got to go back to building v8s.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Well, I think what they're going to have is performance, uh, evs and kind of nothing else, not very mundane evs and I don't know that, the ev buyer, the typical ev buyer.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Of course, when you look going forward, they don't want just the typical ev buyer, they want the typical buyer yeah, exactly to my point.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: with the commercials they said does that thing have a Hemi in it?
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: Exactly Now, does that thing?
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: That thing doesn't have a Hemi in it.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: It should reverse that.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Does that thing got a battery in it.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: It could be there you go.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Marketing.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, the performance is a mind blower.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: I can tell you that.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I will tell you this Believe me, I love performance and I love, you know, what Tesla has brought to the market, especially with the plaid.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: My God, I mean.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know if a car can beat it at a straight line, for you know a quarter of a mile, but why on earth would you venture down the road?
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I keep thinking Stellantis Okay, now that they're a global company, it's not Chrysler anymore.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: What's going to happen to that company?
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: They're bleeding money.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: I think that's the problem, and it's the problem here in North America in particular, is their eyes are not on North America.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, they have concentrated on other markets, kind of makes sense.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Their headquarters are in another market, right, so they're not looking out the window, although North America is the number two market behind China.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: So you kind of have to pay attention to what's going on here and they've kind of taken their eye off the ball.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: And they used to have people that were focused, like the Jeep or the Ram.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: They had people okay, you're in charge of North America.
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: They had somebody designated for that and they've kind of done away with all that.
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: They may still have them there in name, but as far as somebody that's actually running that market, it just seems like they're just not.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Well, let me just also add to that in the fact that you know, we have a new president that's going to take office here in January and he seems like a no-nonsense kind of guy.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: And when it comes to China, we're going to.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: You know what's that going to be like?
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: And, let's face it, the automobile industry is kind of like it is here.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: They're closing shops in China because they can't sell enough cars.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: Volkswagen just closed up in China.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Volkswagen is moving out of China.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: So there are those kinds of things that are in the tide, so to speak, and I'm not looking really positively about the American automobile industry.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Well, the auto industry as a whole.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: The biggest problem for the auto industry and it has been for the last 20 years, maybe longer than that is overproduction, the ability to build a lot more cars than there are people who can buy them.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: So when you combine that with lack of affordability I mean try and find a vehicle you want that costs less than $25,000 or maybe even less than $30,000 in America I mean that's kind of a problem.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: You've got to sell a ton of cars.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: We've kind of been flatlining in terms of sales for the last couple of years, I mean since COVID, and at the same time there's all kinds of really interesting, cool cars being introduced.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: You would think that that would promote higher sales rather than just kind of flatlining.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: But you know, that's what we've seen and I think there's a lot of issues with the industry At the same time.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: This is a golden time for the consumer because there's so many incentives out there.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: There's so many desperate manufacturers.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: What was the attendance like at the la auto show?
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: have to ask you I think it was pretty strong.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: I think one of the things that hurts the auto shows now is the fact that most of the luxury brands just don't exhibit at auto shows anymore.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: And I don't know about you, but when I, as a kid going to the auto shows, or as a middle-aged man going to the auto shows back 20 years ago, you know seeing all the vehicles you could buy, from the least expensive to the most expensive, from luxury cars, and you know sit in them, play with them, you know fantasize about them.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: That's the beauty of an auto show Exactly.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: That's the the beauty of an auto show exactly.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: And we're kind of losing that when you don't have the most desirable cars or the luxury cars.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Uh, as part of the mix who's made that decision?
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: is it the marketing department of the manufacturer?
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: The marketing?
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: department is thinking well, we don't need to have all the you know uh, populace you know, many of which will never buy a luxury car, you know soiling the seats of our luxury vehicles.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: What that neglects is the fact that this is where people fall in love with luxury vehicles, the car I'm going to buy when I graduate.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: Growing up in Detroit, going to Cobalt Hall the main thing as a kid you have all the catalogs.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: You're bringing home all the pictures all the ads.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: That was the best.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: I mean probably all of us fell in love with cars among the first times at auto shows.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: I grew up in Chicago.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: I went to the Chicago Auto Show every year with my family and you know I vividly remember auto shows from you know way, way back, let's put it that way and they made an impression on me, jack we're just about out of time.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: What are you?
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: going to review this week on America on the Road.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: I am reviewing this week the Mazda 3.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: On America on the Road.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: We have a double hit of Mazda.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: The Mazda Miata and the Mazda 3 are our review cars this time around.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: America on the Road.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Where can we find it?
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: You can find it on any podcast outlet.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: We're also on the sports byline network radio network, so we're on, you know, something like 200 stations, I think, around the country well, we wish you a very merry christmas and a happy new year yeah, we love you and uh, be safe out there.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: In la, I got one last question when is the movie coming out for your latest book?
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: I boy, I wish I knew I I'd love to have that happen.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Actually, I'm going to have.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Another crime novel is going to come out, probably right after the first of the year, in January or February, it is called.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Only One Thing Stays the Same One thing if you've got a second too, is the book behind me, the, the gr factor, uh, a management book that I wrote I'm giving away for all of december.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: So all you have to do is write to editor at driving todaycom editor driving todaycom request the book and, uh, we'll get a copy to you.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Nice, nice, awesome, thank you, jack.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Thank you, sir, we appreciate you, it's always great to talk to you so much.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you, love to talk to you.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Merry christmas, merry christ, it's always great to talk to you.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Love to talk to you.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Merry Christmas to all of you.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Merry Christmas, jack.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Thank you, jack.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Talk to you again.
• 19:12
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• 19:21
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  Speaker 1: This is our live show on Saturday mornings between 10 and noon Central Time, and we hope you'll join us every Saturday.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: And if you can't, plenty of podcasts out there and reruns and whatever have you, let's do the racing calendar, jeffrey Well we've got one wrapping up for Formula One, my favorite.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: It's going to be 8th Head Airways in Abu Dhabi.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: It's the Grand Prix.
• 21:51
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• 21:59
  Speaker 3: They've already got champions announcing and all that good stuff, and I say good for them.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: Don just handed this to me and he wants me to go ahead and do some e-racing in the future.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: The cars look really cool I know Well, they look like Formula 1 cars and Indy cars, so we'll be talking about e-racing next week.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Formula E yeah.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: And also Snowball Derby.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: The winter race was last week and I guess there was some controversy with accidents and crashes, and you know, I'm going to hit you with my purse oh no, you're not and all this other stuff.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: We're going to get into that as well, so look forward to it.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Tune in Subscribe.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Jeff's Racing Calendar is brought to you by the Texas Muscle Car Club Challenge and we're going to have the head of that coming up in the next hour, so we invite you to stay tuned.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Auto history, mr Mars.
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: Yes, sir, found a few things that are interesting this time of year.
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: December 1, 1928, the Duesenberg Model J debuted.
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: On this date, duesenberg unveiled the Model J at the New York Auto Show.
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: Now, this car was designed to complete directly with the likes of Rolls-Royce, and the Model J was unlike anything to hit the road at that time.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: Before the show, they only had time to get one built and they had it in there, and, of course, the serial number was J101.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: Finished in silver and black Got a lot of people paying attention to it.
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: Part of that was because it cost $8,500 back in 1928.
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: Now, that was for the chassis alone, mind you, and the sum in 1928 equals about $175,000 in 2022 dollars for the chassis.
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: Now, this car wore a dual cowl and underneath that cowl Was a 7 liter, 420 cubic inch.
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: Duesenberg designed Straight 8 engine.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: They advertised it at 265 horsepower, which is big at that time.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: It's pretty big right now.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: Now it powered the car to a top speed of 91 miles an hour and it was the most expensive production and the fastest production car of its time.
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: Then, on December the 3rd 1979, was the last AMC Pacer.
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: This car came out in February of 1975, and AMC thought they had an instant hit because they sold 145,000 in the first year of production.
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: It was advertised as the first wide small car because it had 37% glass built into the body of it, so it's like a big fishbowl and a lot of people called it exactly that.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: But, like a lot of the 70s, the sales ran out of gas.
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: There was a general lack of power.
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: People just didn't like this fuel economy.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: What a freak.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: Couldn't compete with all the imports.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: God, that car was ugly.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, by 1979, that car was selling about $35,000 a year and by the time they actually ended production in 1979, $280,000 were actually made.
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: Just a little side note a place called the Electric Vehicle Association of Cleveland offered a change of pace to the model.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: They took the pacers and they converted them to EVs in 1978.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: Oh that was a big hit.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they sold 100 of them.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: Those taillights look familiar.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: They even put those taillights on something else.
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: December 1, 1913, ford's moving assembly line begins operation.
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: Now this is really important.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: We've talked about this a lot of times, but it was the change that he made to actually make the assembly line move, so that the workers didn't have to change stations.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: The car came to them and what it did?
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: It reduced the production time from 12 hours to build a car to just 93 minutes by moving it and keeping the people in the same place, made them much more efficient, reduced the cost, improved affordability and that was one of the reasons so many people could afford to buy one.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: And of course, it increased wages, and this bled across the entire industry a lot of different levels.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: December the 3rd this is for you, don 1965.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: Ralph Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed is published.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Actually that first gen Corvairvair, no I had the second gen.
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: Thank you so this book was published 1965, exposing the automobile industry's failure to prioritize consumer safety.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: They he was saying that because it focused on style and profit over safety, particularly the chevrolet corvair.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: In fact, the Corvair was chapter one of the book and the name of the chapter is the Sporty Corvair, the one-car accident.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: He argued that manufacturers deliberately ignored risk in creating these poor vehicle designs and made a lot of changes in the industry, led to congressional hearings, creation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and a lot of the safety standards, crash standards and things that we have today are attributed back to that initial book by Ralph Nader.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: Thank you, ralph Well.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I mean he had a point.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Well, he did, but it was.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: The swing axle on the Corvair killed it, and a lot of people too, and a lot of people.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: But you know, the swing axle on the Corvair killed it, and a lot of people too, and a lot of people.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: But you know that wasn't the first car ever made with a swing axle.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I believe a Porsche started that I was about to say a Porsche was the one that created that.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as far as stories this morning on our news headlines and this is kind of dear to my heart, for some reason I'm not really sure Department of Energy is racing against the clock to finalize a $335 million grant to help Stellantis overhaul its auto plant in Belvedere, illinois.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: The project, expected to cost about $5 billion but result in 4,000 jobs, has been in limbo since it was announced a year ago as part of a new contract with the United Auto Workers.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: The Department of Energy announced the Belvedere grant in July, but the agreement hasn't been finalized.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: The department is negotiating with Stellantis to wrap up the agreement by the end of the year.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: According to sources briefed on the matter, once the agreement is finalized and funds are deemed obligated, it makes the money much harder to resend Because of federal budgeting rules.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: If the funds were canceled after being obligated, they wouldn't count towards savings for future budgets Come on.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: Can I ask a question?
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: They're getting a grant from the government to do this.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: I'm sure because the government has offered it, because it creates more jobs.
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: We are paying for them to.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: If you knew what we pay for, you would move to another world, not even the country.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: You'd move to another world.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: We pay for everything, so why not give them a measly $335 million?
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Hey, they're going to redo the astrodome for a budget of one billion dollars.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Are you kidding me?
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: A billion dollars?
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: No, you know what we I love the astrodome.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I want to save it, but not for a billion dollars that's nuts I, I don't know what.
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: What are you going to do with it, even for a billion dollars?
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know, because what are you going to do with it, even for a billion dollars?
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: I don't know because it's going to cost millions to tear it down.
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: Are they going to tear it down?
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: They're not going to refurbish it.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: The refurbishment is the billion dollars.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: It's full of asbestos, it's nuts.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're done.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: We'd love to hear from you.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Shoot us an email.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: The address here is info at inwheeltimecom.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: We're back after this.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: The holidays are upon us and Pro-Am Auto Accessories is your local one-stop for the auto enthusiast on your gift list.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Pro-am Auto has been serving Houston since 1984, providing world-class products for sports cars, european sedans and American muscle.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Pro-am was one of the very first distributors in the US for brands such as Recaro, redline, momo Corbo and Simpson.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Located in the heart of Houston's premier shopping corridor, the Galleria area, pro-am's walk-in storefront includes an 8,000-square-foot warehouse and showroom with installation and service bays.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Pro-am reaches a worldwide audience through Pro-AmAutocom, taking its local reputation to the rest of the world.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Holiday gift-giving is alive and well at Pro-Am Auto.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: If you don't see what you're looking for on the website, call and Pro-Am will lend you a hand.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Pro-am Auto, 6125 Richmond at Greenridge in Houston's Galleria area.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Call them at 713-781-7755.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: The award-winning In Real Time Car Talk Show brings you great guest interviews each week, from manufacturers and suppliers to the aftermarket, racers, enthusiasts and other friends just like you and me who love to talk about all things automotive.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: The In Real Time Car Talk Show takes you to the road too, with remotes at popular cruise inns and shows In Real Time's live video and audio stream can be found on the Odyssey Radio app, youtube, facebook and InRealTimecom every Saturday 10 to noon Central Time, or grab a podcast anytime from your favorite podcast provider.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: That's it for this podcast episode of the In Real Time Car Show.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I'm Don Armstrong inviting you to join us for our live show every Saturday morning on Facebook, youtube, twitch and our InWheelTimecom website.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, spotify, stitcher, iheart Podcast Podcast Addict TuneIn, pandora and Amazon Music.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Keep listening and we'll see you soon.