Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / What Should I Buy? - The Gray Market Collector’s Guide to Cars & Coffee Glory!

Transcript

What Should I Buy? - The Gray Market Collector’s Guide to Cars & Coffee Glory! · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  Our panel of break fix petrolheads are back for another rousing
• 0:03
  what should I buy debate.
• 0:05
  Using unique shopping criteria, they are challenged to find our first time
• 0:08
  collector the best vehicle that will make their friends go, where'd you
• 0:13
  get that, or what the hell is wrong with you, at the next Cars and Coffee.
• 0:19
  We dive into the world of forbidden fruit.
• 0:22
  Cars that were never officially sold in the United States, but are now hitting our
• 0:26
  shores thanks to the 25 year import rule.
• 0:29
  From turbocharged rally monsters to high revving Asian exotics, these gray
• 0:33
  market gems have long been the stuff of dreams for American enthusiasts.
• 0:38
  And now, many of them are finally within reach.
• 0:41
  On this episode, we'll explore the art of the possible.
• 0:45
  With some special guests, we're welcoming back Chris Bright, formerly
• 0:48
  of Collector Part Exchange, along with John Summers, the motoring historian.
• 0:52
  And then we'll round out our fabulous, what should I buy panel with
• 0:55
  veteran members, William, Big Money Ross, Mark of the Daydare Cruncher
• 0:59
  Shank, and the one and only Don Wieberg from Garage Style Magazine.
• 1:03
  Thanks, Brad.
• 1:04
  And on this episode, our panel of extraordinary petrol heads is challenged
• 1:07
  to find our collectors something that will make their friends go.
• 1:10
  Wait, how'd you import that beer?
• 1:12
  At the next Cars and Coffee.
• 1:14
  With that, gentlemen, welcome back.
• 1:16
  Welcome back, Chris Bright.
• 1:17
  Great to be here.
• 1:18
  Really excited.
• 1:19
  This is a hot topic.
• 1:20
  I'm really excited to get into it.
• 1:21
  Well, Chris, I have to say, first of all, it's been a minute.
• 1:24
  I think the last time you were officially here was the Italian exotics episode.
• 1:28
  So we went right off the rails from the start.
• 1:30
  Crack pipes.
• 1:31
  and stolen Alfa Romeos and stuff like that.
• 1:34
  Is that, is that where we're going to go this time?
• 1:36
  I got my car back.
• 1:37
  For those that don't know it, my car had gotten stolen and I recovered it.
• 1:41
  I have a 1974 Alfa Romeo Giulia Super.
• 1:44
  That's my daily driver.
• 1:45
  It got lifted one day and I got it back through a network called
• 1:49
  the PDX Stolen Car Network.
• 1:51
  I'm out in Portland.
• 1:52
  It's a Facebook group and everybody just keeps an eye out for stolen cars.
• 1:56
  Mine was pretty easy to spot, but I got a bonus crack pipe and, uh, some other
• 2:00
  paraphernalia out of the whole deal.
• 2:02
  Nice.
• 2:03
  Still driving that car every day though, by the way.
• 2:05
  Nothing like a bonus crack pipe.
• 2:07
  It's a good return on that.
• 2:08
  I almost kept it, but then I decided no.
• 2:12
  It's a green skull.
• 2:13
  It was kind of cool.
• 2:14
  All right.
• 2:14
  So Brad, this particular, what should I buy episode comes courtesy of you.
• 2:20
  By way of drive through number 53.
• 2:23
  So do you want to set the stage for our panelists and kind of paint the picture of
• 2:26
  why we're talking about gray market cars?
• 2:28
  Because in the words of the great Conan O'Brien in the year 2000, apparently 2000,
• 2:35
  everybody's been waiting for this moment because there are so many really, really
• 2:39
  cool and exciting cars that for whatever reason came out in 2000, the last couple
• 2:44
  of years have been really good too, with the Skyline R33s and stuff like that, but.
• 2:48
  I think this is the first year the Skyline R34 is eligible to be
• 2:52
  imported and another slew of just amazing cars from around the globe.
• 2:56
  So it's a really exciting time to be alive as a content.
• 2:59
  That and one of your favorite influencers was talking about this and his Barker
• 3:03
  lounger and his garage sort of mumbling and trying to eat the microphone.
• 3:07
  You know, I don't even know that guy's name.
• 3:08
  Yeah.
• 3:09
  So James Humphrey, the dude who used to be on the donut, who's not on the donut.
• 3:13
  He's on.
• 3:16
  Is that how he does it now?
• 3:17
  It's not all like everything you did already got to get him to speak.
• 3:21
  It's it's it's it's spelled with about four E's.
• 3:23
  Oh my goodness.
• 3:24
  But, but anyway, yeah, he did an article in a YouTube video highlighting some
• 3:28
  of the cars that are eligible now, and I thought it would be a great kind of
• 3:32
  what should I buy to see if we could.
• 3:34
  Come up with things that might not have been on his list.
• 3:36
  I think we were sort of satisfied with what he put on the list, but
• 3:40
  it just didn't really, there were only a few cars that got us excited.
• 3:43
  Yeah.
• 3:43
  His list was very basic to use the basic girl kind of terminology.
• 3:48
  His list was basic.
• 3:49
  It was pumpkin spice latte.
• 3:50
  That's what it was.
• 3:51
  We need to be a little more exciting and a little more different or at mid break.
• 3:54
  What is it that the Gen Alpha say now?
• 3:56
  It's mid.
• 3:57
  It's it's mid.
• 3:58
  His list was mid.
• 3:59
  This was mid.
• 4:00
  My daughter said that to me right before this call.
• 4:04
  Gentlemen, we are going to slay.
• 4:05
  This is not going to be skippity.
• 4:08
  Please.
• 4:09
  Okay.
• 4:09
  Please tell me you're going to edit all of that out.
• 4:13
  So like all, what should I buy episodes?
• 4:15
  We are buying for a fictitious collector.
• 4:18
  In this case, we are sort of.
• 4:20
  Ignoring the one thing that Chris hated the most, which was the bracketing.
• 4:24
  The money is no object.
• 4:25
  We are at the point where we are buying cars for a collector who's
• 4:29
  coming through the x gray market.
• 4:31
  So really money doesn't matter at this point.
• 4:33
  But what does matter is something that Brad Said which is skyline
• 4:38
  skyline skyline and much like our muscle and malaise episode.
• 4:42
  No kudas.
• 4:42
  No mustangs No camaros, so no skyline So if you have skyline on your list,
• 4:47
  just go ahead right now and put a line Right through it because we're
• 4:50
  not going to talk about skylines.
• 4:51
  We know we can import them.
• 4:53
  You've been able to import them For the last decade through companies
• 4:56
  in Florida and things like that.
• 4:57
  So we're trying to find something a little different, something a little
• 5:00
  obscure and plus the skyline are 34.
• 5:02
  It's almost unobtainium because everybody's been waiting for these cars.
• 5:05
  So anybody with enough money, I mean, they've pretty much just all taken
• 5:09
  care of at this point, I would say.
• 5:10
  Surely though it's the Porsche nine 12 syndrome, the nine 11s.
• 5:14
  They're like, so you look for the nine 12.
• 5:17
  I mean, I'm no JDM expert, but I've spoken to two people in the city
• 5:22
  here who are like, I was on bring a trailer and was looking at a Stygia.
• 5:27
  Now, Eric, I don't want to mess you up, but don't Stygia's GTS versions rather
• 5:33
  than the GTRs, they do a sedan version of most of what kind of looks like a Skyline.
• 5:39
  There's a lot of Porsche 912.
• 5:41
  Yeah.
• 5:41
  If you were in the business of flipping to make money rather than
• 5:45
  being a collector and wanting the very best, you wouldn't need a GTR.
• 5:49
  You could do with a GTS or a Staggier or something.
• 5:52
  For sure.
• 5:52
  Absolutely.
• 5:52
  That's a great point.
• 5:53
  John set us off down the path of JDM.
• 5:55
  So why don't we continue with some Asian cars?
• 5:58
  Who's got something on their list?
• 5:59
  I saw one that was fun.
• 6:00
  I didn't read this article on the list of 25, but The Toyota Chaser.
• 6:05
  Ooh.
• 6:05
  It looks like a Camry, but it's rear wheel drive.
• 6:08
  It has the Jay Z Supermotor 5 speed.
• 6:11
  It's not actually separated and bring a trailer.
• 6:15
  There are four transactions listed.
• 6:18
  Now, I realize you just were telling everybody that, kind of money's no object.
• 6:21
  These are certainly on the lower end.
• 6:23
  They've sold Between 000 on bring your chair out here.
• 6:27
  So last year, one sold for 13 actually looked pretty clean and then one sold
• 6:31
  very recently for 23 just a few weeks ago, but it's a really cool car and
• 6:35
  you're certainly not going to see anything like that at cars and coffee.
• 6:38
  And I think with the cult following around the JZ motor, it
• 6:41
  would certainly have some fans.
• 6:43
  Yeah, the only equivalent that was sold in the U. S. I guess is the Lexus G. S.
• 6:47
  Yeah, you get that three leader in that.
• 6:49
  Yeah, but it's the styling.
• 6:51
  You're right to an unsuspecting person.
• 6:52
  It's a Camry sleeper.
• 6:54
  Yeah, but then you add the rear wheel drive and all that fun stuff.
• 6:56
  That's a cool car.
• 6:57
  I like it.
• 6:58
  Okay, so rear wheel drive toyotas that are sort of Lexi that have to jay Z's
• 7:03
  when you want to Step it up a notch and go full grand Turismo and do like a
• 7:06
  Toyota soarer at that point and import that, which is basically the LS 300.
• 7:10
  You're getting the stick in the chaser.
• 7:12
  To me, the chaser just is a little bit more of a sleeper.
• 7:15
  Like it looks like a total dad car and it's a bad ass.
• 7:18
  Yeah.
• 7:18
  I like it.
• 7:19
  I will say I'll, I'll see your, your sleeper chaser.
• 7:22
  And raise you, of course, to the pinnacle of the Toyota Century.
• 7:26
  Yeah, I had that on my list.
• 7:28
  Yeah, it was next on my list.
• 7:30
  If anybody's got an unlimited budget, pull one of those over because
• 7:34
  those cars are just immaculate.
• 7:36
  They're beautiful.
• 7:37
  Yes, they're very unique.
• 7:38
  They've On the bringer trailer, just in the last 12 months, they
• 7:43
  went from having eight transactions in the last 2018 to 2024.
• 7:48
  In the last 12 months, you've gotten 30 transactions.
• 7:51
  What's the, the average price for those transactions?
• 7:54
  They're all pretty cheap.
• 7:55
  They range from sold for 5, 000.
• 7:58
  Very recently all the way up to the most expensive one.
• 8:02
  They have recorded is uh is 27 000 It's not for a century interesting.
• 8:06
  That's not bad at all.
• 8:07
  They depreciate guy retires.
• 8:09
  He buys it new.
• 8:10
  It's it's an accomplishment thing It's it's putting a capstone on his career
• 8:15
  And then they sit and I think I saw a special on the centuries and like
• 8:19
  parts availability, especially for the older ones is very, very difficult
• 8:23
  to obtain replacement parts for them.
• 8:25
  Well, they were super specialized.
• 8:26
  Yeah.
• 8:27
  Yeah.
• 8:27
  I mean, they're, I think they're like all hand built and everything.
• 8:29
  It's yeah.
• 8:29
  They're very special cars.
• 8:31
  And when I was looking into this, I also thought I saw that there
• 8:34
  was a variant on the Sentry that actually came with a V12, which is
• 8:37
  like super rare coming from Toyota.
• 8:39
  Yeah.
• 8:40
  If you're gonna go ridiculous and like, oh, everybody's getting a
• 8:42
  Sentry, I'm gonna get this one with a V12, you know, just to be different.
• 8:46
  Oh yeah, you got to.
• 8:47
  Since we're talking about JDMs or Japanese car not Japanese domestics, because
• 8:51
  we're importing in post grey market now, is it worth even talking about
• 8:55
  some of the more desirable Subies and Lancer Evolutions and stuff like that?
• 9:00
  Yeah.
• 9:01
  Yeah.
• 9:01
  All the Special Editions, because it's always about the Special Editions.
• 9:05
  That was actually my next bullet point, was with the Subarus.
• 9:09
  Maybe 10 years ago, I was approached by a friend of a friend, who was
• 9:12
  like, hedge fund, can we do a hedge fund around classic cars?
• 9:16
  And I narrowed it down to Subarus and things like that.
• 9:20
  There was some BMWs as well, but the point is that.
• 9:23
  I reached a point where I felt like I didn't know enough about the Subaru
• 9:26
  Special Edition to be able to know what was going to be valuable and what wasn't.
• 9:31
  So to illustrate it, there was a version that was available in
• 9:34
  Britain only that was called the RB5 that was tuned for British roads.
• 9:39
  RB stood for Richard Burns.
• 9:41
  It was tuned by Richard Burns.
• 9:43
  It was a four door one rather than the two door one.
• 9:46
  Which is less collectible now, but was more practical in period it had.
• 9:50
  I feel like there's pretty rich niche you could explore, but I'm
• 9:56
  not your guy, because I don't know all the different versions.
• 9:59
  You had to be the geek in period to be able to understand
• 10:03
  what you were doing with that.
• 10:04
  So in looking at that RB5, it's the generation after the one everybody
• 10:10
  salivates over, which is the 22B STI.
• 10:13
  We got the 2.
• 10:15
  5 RS.
• 10:15
  Here in the United States, a sort of like massively detuned
• 10:18
  neutered version of that car.
• 10:19
  The RB5 looks to be like the next generation.
• 10:22
  It's not a bad looking car.
• 10:23
  I see your point.
• 10:24
  It's a four door.
• 10:25
  So that would be maybe more everyday friendly in that respect.
• 10:28
  That would be interesting.
• 10:29
  I mean, if you can't afford a 22B or you can't find one, I
• 10:32
  wouldn't mind this RB5 at all.
• 10:34
  Mark, are you seeing any on Bring a Trailer?
• 10:36
  Has anybody started to bring them into?
• 10:37
  the country.
• 10:38
  Not at all.
• 10:39
  I haven't seen anything.
• 10:39
  And they're legal.
• 10:40
  I mean, they're from 1999 and around there, so they should
• 10:43
  be able to bring them in, but nothing's coming up with the evos.
• 10:46
  It was the Tommy Mackinnon one.
• 10:48
  And I looked at those and even thought of buying one myself personally, but
• 10:51
  those hideous Marlboro colors, I mean, now it's collectible, but years ago
• 10:55
  it was like, it looked like you were an advertiser in a cigarette company.
• 10:58
  It was just, they weren't that appealing.
• 11:00
  But now that's cool.
• 11:03
  You want to be the Marlboro man now.
• 11:05
  And I agree with you, John, on the Evo, because you can import an Evo 2
• 11:09
  and an Evo 3, the really old ones, if you want to, but you sort of lose all
• 11:13
  the technological whiz bang stuff that really started to happen in the Makinen
• 11:17
  editions, like 4, like those Evos.
• 11:20
  But since you brought up Mitsubishi, if I'm going to import one of those
• 11:24
  brands, I'm going to go after the Pajaro.
• 11:26
  The little bird, the Evo, the truck.
• 11:28
  It's basically like a homologated rally truck, typical of period
• 11:33
  flared fenders, big wheels, the whole nine, you know, turbos and
• 11:36
  snorkels and spoilers and all that.
• 11:37
  But if you have to get a Pajaro or Pajero, I guess this is like the
• 11:42
  halpa jalpa thing all over again.
• 11:43
  Right?
• 11:43
  So if you were to import one of those and you're more of a truck
• 11:47
  person than a car person, I would definitely look for one of those.
• 11:50
  Ooh.
• 11:51
  All right.
• 11:51
  That is cool.
• 11:52
  Right?
• 11:52
  So the Pajero.
• 11:53
  All right.
• 11:54
  They're very popular in Africa, by the way.
• 11:57
  Yes.
• 11:57
  Well, a ton of those in the, uh, when they do the Dakar classic too.
• 12:02
  Yeah, they had an evolution Dakar homologation special.
• 12:06
  I've always liked those.
• 12:07
  I think they're just absolutely sick.
• 12:08
  It reminds me of that is Zuzu.
• 12:10
  You mean the trooper?
• 12:11
  Not the trooper.
• 12:12
  Whatever it was that they sold here in the States for a short time.
• 12:15
  I can't remember.
• 12:16
  Don't say the Via Cross.
• 12:17
  The V Cross?
• 12:18
  Yes, the V Cross.
• 12:20
  Oh yeah, that thing.
• 12:21
  220 horsepower.
• 12:23
  Didn't they have like an Iron Man edition or whatever?
• 12:25
  They were awful.
• 12:26
  The Evo version of this looks absurd.
• 12:29
  It's rad.
• 12:30
  I mean, this is one of the most ridiculous, it looks like something
• 12:34
  from a nineties TV show for like the bad guy to, to drive in the future.
• 12:41
  like retro futurism.
• 12:42
  Now you know why I like it.
• 12:44
  You know, I really struggled with the JDM.
• 12:47
  I don't know about you guys.
• 12:48
  And I tried to go backwards too, where it's like, don't give me the
• 12:50
  top 20 Japanese cars to import in 2025 because the list kept to Brad's
• 12:56
  point earlier, Skyline this, Skyline that, Skyline Skyline Skyline.
• 12:58
  And then it's like Honda S2000.
• 13:00
  I'm like, other than the fact that they were right hand drive,
• 13:02
  we can buy an AP1 and S2000 here.
• 13:04
  That's not that big of a deal.
• 13:05
  MR2s, I was like, all right, let me subtract a year.
• 13:09
  I went all the way back to like 2018 and I was like I wasn't seeing anything that
• 13:14
  was really sticking out to me other than the few that we've already mentioned where
• 13:17
  it's like there was an American version of these cars and I was trying to stay
• 13:21
  away from Silvias and S14s and S180s and because we got a variant of those here
• 13:28
  too as well they weren't nearly as good.
• 13:30
  But they sort of already exist, you know, 86 is all that stuff.
• 13:34
  So really looking for some diamonds in the rough.
• 13:36
  I have a Honda for you, Eric.
• 13:37
  Oh boy, let's go.
• 13:39
  It was a UK market only because Honda had a factory in Swindon, west of London.
• 13:44
  There was a UK market only developed for the British touring car championship.
• 13:49
  Accord Type R. So it was the like, blobby Accord body style from 20 years ago.
• 13:56
  It had some super high revving VTEC motor.
• 13:59
  Front drive, and then it had a Ferrari F40 style hoopie.
• 14:04
  Because it was the sedan body.
• 14:06
  They weren't that loved in period, and they were like a cheap used beater 10 15
• 14:11
  years ago when I was around in England, but they were a UK market only car, and I
• 14:16
  think they've become fairly collectible.
• 14:18
  And if you had one of those, you'd be the only bloke with them, because
• 14:21
  they were only right hand drive.
• 14:23
  You know what's funny about this car as I look at it now?
• 14:25
  At first glance, I thought it was an IS300 from the late 90s.
• 14:30
  Honda tried really hard to copy that Lexus look.
• 14:33
  From the back, it looks very different.
• 14:35
  And I see that whole F40's high spoiler and everything you're talking about.
• 14:38
  But the front, my goodness.
• 14:40
  Yeah.
• 14:40
  I thought it was a Mazda Speed 6.
• 14:43
  I remember those.
• 14:44
  Those with the turbo.
• 14:45
  I mean, those, I mean, here in the States, you get them, but this is,
• 14:48
  I like this, this is really unique.
• 14:50
  So it's worth importing, you know, the right hand drive Accord would
• 14:53
  certainly throw somebody off.
• 14:55
  And then the, I mean, everybody wants a good VTEC motor.
• 14:58
  Yeah, I mean, I don't want to move on so quickly from JDM and that
• 15:01
  they did have where Jonathan was going with the special editions.
• 15:04
  You've got the Type R NSX.
• 15:06
  Sorry if that makes me basic, but it was still pretty badass.
• 15:08
  Pumpkin spice, Mark.
• 15:10
  Civic Type R.
• 15:11
  I mean, but like we haven't talked about the Silvia.
• 15:13
  Yeah.
• 15:14
  Which I feel like at this point, I give more street credit to the Sylvia
• 15:17
  importers than the Skyline importers and they had some, uh, spec R and
• 15:22
  other kind of special editions.
• 15:23
  I don't claim to know them all, but yeah, I mean, outside of the special
• 15:26
  editions and outside some of the obvious or more niche market ones, they had
• 15:30
  some crazy minivans from the nineties.
• 15:32
  I'm just saying they're out there.
• 15:34
  He wants a Toyota Hiace.
• 15:36
  That's what he wants.
• 15:36
  Right.
• 15:38
  Which actually now's the time to import a Hilux as well.
• 15:41
  Right?
• 15:41
  Yeah.
• 15:42
  I thought about that and I was looking at them and they're that year.
• 15:45
  They're pretty God awful.
• 15:48
  I would just buy a Tacoma here in the States.
• 15:50
  I mean, they were pretty terrible.
• 15:51
  But trying to do a little bit of research and I was watching some YouTube
• 15:54
  videos and I found that apparently there is a Buick not sold in the U.
• 15:58
  S. Mark went down the minivan thing.
• 16:00
  There's a Buick minivan that was not sold in the U. S. It was built
• 16:04
  specifically for the Chinese market of all things that you can import now.
• 16:08
  I can't remember what it was called, but it was like a luxury minivan and they were
• 16:12
  trying to market it as This transporter limousine kind of minivan thing.
• 16:16
  And it was a Buick.
• 16:17
  Well, it was because the Buick was the first car that the emperor
• 16:21
  rode into the forbidden garden.
• 16:23
  Well, something like that.
• 16:25
  I would say there's some like special relationship between the emperor and
• 16:28
  China, which is why Buick survived.
• 16:31
  Yeah.
• 16:31
  Buick crushed there for years.
• 16:33
  The Buick GL eight.
• 16:34
  Yeah.
• 16:35
  It's because of this special thing with the emperor.
• 16:37
  It's really weird to me because I have an old Pontiac.
• 16:40
  And if you think of it, Buick, old Pontiac, really Pontiac with the
• 16:43
  coolest mark, they were the one that should have survived, but they're gone.
• 16:46
  And Buick survived thanks to the emperor in China.
• 16:49
  Very peculiar.
• 16:50
  Mark's going, what?
• 16:51
  See this, we're used to this with John.
• 16:53
  He's an encyclopedia of automotive history.
• 16:55
  I'm just letting you know, since we're in this kind of a mode of,
• 16:58
  you know, subsidiaries, I have an off the wall one, which is.
• 17:02
  In that part of the world, but not exactly, it's from Australia.
• 17:06
  Oh boy.
• 17:07
  You may recall I'm a whore for racing additions.
• 17:10
  I would love that Tommy Mackinnon Marlboro.
• 17:12
  I'd ride around that in a white cowboy hat just like Arturo
• 17:16
  Marzario, if you know who that is.
• 17:18
  I do.
• 17:19
  But down there they have a brand called Holden, which is a subsidiary of GM.
• 17:23
  And we're now starting to get a little more aware of the V8 series, but
• 17:27
  they've had the Australian supercar challenge and whatever variance it is.
• 17:30
  So this Holden, they did like a Holden HSV club sport R8, it's right
• 17:35
  hand drive, you know, and there's all sorts of different variants that
• 17:38
  they did because they've been very successful in the supercar championship.
• 17:42
  So they're just kind of cool, hot sedans.
• 17:44
  They look kind of American, you know, they're Pontiacs or GM.
• 17:47
  Variants and things like that, but I, I don't know.
• 17:50
  They're pretty cool.
• 17:50
  And if you want something a little different, so the Hs VR eight's a
• 17:53
  lot newer though, so we have to kind of go rewind the clock a little bit.
• 17:56
  Right.
• 17:56
  So we need to talk about like the Commodore vt Yeah, yeah.
• 17:59
  The and the vi.
• 18:00
  Yeah, that's right.
• 18:00
  That's right.
• 18:01
  Yeah.
• 18:01
  And the ute, the Malu.
• 18:03
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:04
  You gotta get the Ute.
• 18:05
  You're gonna do it.
• 18:06
  Get the Ute.
• 18:06
  No, but there were special Peter Brock edition of the HSV weren't, no, there
• 18:11
  was a bunch of different edition.
• 18:13
  And I think that was when Peter Brock was going through that
• 18:15
  peculiar phase where he was doing.
• 18:17
  Or the spiritual healing.
• 18:19
  So there was even an edition of the Holden you could get that had
• 18:22
  this magic spiritual box in it.
• 18:24
  If you Google up Peter Brock and that time that he spent, he got with
• 18:28
  this weird hippie woman and really went off the rails at the end there.
• 18:32
  I can't use a weird hippie woman, but that's another story.
• 18:37
  And you're so Oregon.
• 18:38
  I love it.
• 18:40
  Am I to believe that there were chakra stones on the dashboard that you needed
• 18:44
  to rub before you started the car?
• 18:45
  Like he got some stones rubbed.
• 18:49
  Something of that sort.
• 18:50
  I disappeared down that rat hole some years ago when I was looking at.
• 18:56
  You don't have a cigarette lighter.
• 18:57
  It's got an incense lighter in it.
• 18:58
  It's really teeny.
• 19:00
  To add to Chris's imagery of the big white cowboy hat.
• 19:04
  I think you'd look good in a ute.
• 19:05
  There's gotta be a ton of utes from Australia that it's
• 19:08
  time to import those things.
• 19:09
  Tons of them.
• 19:10
  I had that on my list too.
• 19:11
  I had the Holdens, I had the Commodore VT, I had the Maloo.
• 19:14
  And then I, I dawned on me sort of a. Vauxhall, but of Australia,
• 19:19
  of Holden, partnered with Lotus.
• 19:24
  It's one of Mark's favorite cars that he's brought up before.
• 19:27
  What about the Carlton?
• 19:28
  Yeah, I have that.
• 19:29
  The Lotus Carlton.
• 19:31
  I have that one down as well.
• 19:32
  I feel like there's so few of them that you could control the market.
• 19:35
  Without wanting to sound like an investor.
• 19:38
  There was only a couple of hundred of those built, wasn't there?
• 19:40
  Especially, they were mostly black, but there were a few green ones.
• 19:44
  And I think there were a few blue ones as well.
• 19:46
  And if you look at the Sierra Cosworth market, the rare colors,
• 19:50
  they're worth a ton more than the more common colors, even though.
• 19:53
  You know, I don't know.
• 19:54
  I mean, I sound like a crypto person.
• 19:56
  If you expect one to do the same as the previous, you know, if one's
• 19:59
  a cycle behind, if you assume that the Lotus Carlton is going to do the
• 20:03
  same as Sierra Cosworth's have done, then I feel like that's a really
• 20:07
  good investment and linked to that.
• 20:09
  The police in Britain used to use a model called the Vauxhall
• 20:13
  Senator that had the same motor but without the twin turbos, basically.
• 20:18
  You'd have something nobody else would have if you had a Senator in America.
• 20:22
  They were German built.
• 20:22
  You can get those Lotus Carltons in left hand drive too, right?
• 20:26
  Mm hmm.
• 20:26
  As Opel Omegas.
• 20:28
  Oh, the Omega, yeah, that's right.
• 20:30
  So you just have to rebadge it.
• 20:31
  Like the Holden's and the Chevy SS's, you know, it's a bit like that.
• 20:36
  And I'm glad you brought up Opel.
• 20:37
  They're going to come up again in this conversation here probably pretty
• 20:40
  shortly, but that reminds me there's the Omega, the Vectra and the Calibra.
• 20:45
  The Calibra especially is a DTM dominator.
• 20:48
  That's another car that it's about time people started importing
• 20:51
  them into the United States.
• 20:52
  But guys, I need to place a disclaimer at this point, right?
• 20:56
  I was a sales rep in period.
• 20:58
  I thrashed the crap out of all of those cars.
• 21:00
  Boards were good, the Renaults were okay, the Vauxhalls, ooh.
• 21:04
  Ooh, I've had a lot of moments of massive understeer on greasy roundabouts.
• 21:08
  I don't matter whether it was a Calibra or a Cavalier or what it was, they were
• 21:12
  understeery and you didn't want the keys.
• 21:15
  Give me the Subaru instead, if I can't have the Ford.
• 21:18
  That's how I used to feel.
• 21:19
  Fair enough.
• 21:20
  Fascinating tale from Jonathan.
• 21:21
  I like it.
• 21:24
  Mark is scouring Bring a Trailer right now.
• 21:26
  What are you seeing?
• 21:27
  Let's go in a little bit different direction.
• 21:28
  I always had a soft spot for TVRs and maybe that's because
• 21:31
  I never drove one or owned one.
• 21:33
  Oh, you're speaking my language.
• 21:35
  I just coveted them from the other side of the pond.
• 21:38
  I feel like the Cerbera and some interesting options that are coming
• 21:41
  of age around that 2000 timeframe.
• 21:43
  That was when TBR got an injection of, I think, Russian investment, uh,
• 21:48
  right around then, and they did some remodeling and of course they crashed
• 21:52
  and burned like they always do.
• 21:53
  But it was an interesting time period.
• 21:55
  The movie swordfish.
• 21:56
  Yes.
• 21:57
  The TVR Tuscan speed six.
• 21:59
  That was TVR coming of age.
• 22:01
  All I remember that movie is Haley Berry.
• 22:03
  I thought there was a spiker in swordfish.
• 22:05
  That was a TVR.
• 22:06
  I thought that was the spiker.
• 22:09
  There's a Tuscan in it.
• 22:10
  Yep.
• 22:11
  They look really cool.
• 22:13
  I don't know.
• 22:13
  I think they hold up.
• 22:14
  I feel like they do as well with the Tuscan, particularly that that swoop over
• 22:19
  the hood, which sort of emphasize that.
• 22:21
  TBR at that time were doing their own inline six engine,
• 22:25
  which was commercial suicide.
• 22:27
  But as a collector now, just such a cool thing.
• 22:30
  Yeah.
• 22:30
  And they, they had some power too.
• 22:32
  Yeah.
• 22:32
  I know traction control.
• 22:33
  They were like a cross between a Viper and a Corvette.
• 22:36
  They're like a British Corvette.
• 22:38
  Yeah.
• 22:38
  It's a good way to die.
• 22:39
  The town that they were from Blackpool, it's the town that working class
• 22:43
  people used to go on vacation to.
• 22:46
  So even if it rains, they'd be on the beach and.
• 22:49
  Then they'd go out and get plastered in the pubs and, you know, go build a car.
• 22:54
  Well, yeah, do the same thing the next day because TBR it's the guys, the
• 22:59
  founders initials, his name was Trevor.
• 23:02
  So he just sort of abbreviated it.
• 23:04
  I would love to import a Trevor.
• 23:06
  Have you seen this model?
• 23:07
  I was thinking about them before we came on air here.
• 23:10
  Have you seen this model?
• 23:11
  The 450 SEAC, this is what they were doing immediately before the sort of swordfish.
• 23:18
  Tuscan.
• 23:19
  Oh, that's the Tasman 280i on steroids.
• 23:22
  That is an interesting car.
• 23:24
  Look at that.
• 23:24
  I drove a Tasman 280i.
• 23:26
  It was Cortina engine, two frame car with half of it was Mercedes parts out of a
• 23:31
  bin, you know, all this kind of thing.
• 23:32
  Interesting car, you know, it felt almost like a Triumph TR7 in that realm,
• 23:37
  but I always argued that it needed more power because I thought that a
• 23:41
  Cortina engine was just a little too anemic for the weight of a Tasman.
• 23:45
  And the Tasman's not that heavy, right?
• 23:47
  Because it's mostly glass and the whole nine yards, but the 450 is
• 23:50
  indicative of the four and a half liter V8 that's in this thing.
• 23:54
  So it's like, yeah, okay.
• 23:55
  That's a good plan.
• 23:57
  And that motors, the Rover V8 Rover.
• 24:00
  The 8, which was the old Buick all aluminium 215 that Rover bought
• 24:05
  off Buick all those years ago.
• 24:07
  So it's fundamentally an American motor.
• 24:09
  It's, the car's kind of transatlantic.
• 24:11
  The styling is so, the 420s and the 450s, they've so
• 24:15
  obviously got a Ford Capri door.
• 24:17
  That's what I sort of struggle with a little bit with them.
• 24:20
  I was almost going to say, it's a good thing Don's not here because I feel like,
• 24:24
  and this is probably an unpopular opinion, it's like a better looking DeLorean.
• 24:27
  Ooh.
• 24:27
  Ooh.
• 24:28
  That's not hard to do in my opinion, so I have to agree with you.
• 24:31
  That's true.
• 24:31
  I think it's like a shittier looking Halpa.
• 24:36
  Well, everything's a shittier looking Halpa.
• 24:39
  It screams Gembala 944.
• 24:43
  It has that body panel kind of like look to it.
• 24:46
  Like it's very.
• 24:47
  80s body kit, but the Tasman that it's based on wasn't completely
• 24:51
  terrible, but it's a wedge.
• 24:53
  Classic Lotus, Triumph type of shape of that period.
• 24:56
  What kills me is that wing in the back though.
• 24:58
  That is just, what is that?
• 25:00
  After the wedge era, after the 450 SCAC, that's when they went
• 25:05
  to the Chimera and the Griffith.
• 25:07
  And the Sagittarius or whatever that other one's called.
• 25:10
  Oh, no.
• 25:11
  The Cigaris.
• 25:12
  Yeah, that's it.
• 25:13
  Cigaris.
• 25:13
  That's one of the last ones.
• 25:15
  We should talk about the Chimera and the Griffith.
• 25:17
  They're the two like open top V8 ones that if you were going to make
• 25:21
  a business importing them into the U. S. and flipping, it would be,
• 25:25
  I think, Chimeras and Griffiths.
• 25:27
  And the thing with them is that they're fiberglass.
• 25:29
  And then the under bits, they all rust out.
• 25:32
  So you need to have somebody basically roll around underneath them.
• 25:35
  Somebody who knows what they're doing.
• 25:37
  And then you could, I reckon, buy them remotely from auctions.
• 25:40
  And, you know, the Griffith 500s, those obviously they have the most
• 25:44
  growth potential, but a Chimera is like a 15, 000 or 20, 000 proposition.
• 25:50
  I mean, that seems super reasonable for something that was built in its
• 25:53
  hundreds, not in its thousands, you know, in terms of a future collectible.
• 25:58
  The other thing I'd noted down here whilst we're talking about these is
• 26:01
  there are a number of cars that were built, especially for Peter Wheeler.
• 26:05
  All for special customers.
• 26:06
  And there are rumors of a 3000 M. So the model before the wedge one, most
• 26:12
  of those add Ford V sixes, those rumors of one that was built, especially
• 26:16
  for Peter Wheeler that had a Mustang three Oh two and it was breathed on.
• 26:21
  So something like that, that would be a one of one.
• 26:24
  I mean, is it ever going to be worth what Ferdinand PX personal 911 is?
• 26:28
  No, absolutely not.
• 26:29
  But is that going to be sort of peak TVR?
• 26:32
  Yeah, probably.
• 26:33
  And those cars are out there.
• 26:35
  So since we stumbled backwards into the UK, Please mind the gap
• 26:39
  between the train and the platform.
• 26:41
  Is there anything else from the Asian domestic market or from Australia
• 26:45
  that we didn't cover before we dive a little deeper into the Brits?
• 26:48
  I think we've covered it.
• 26:50
  Yeah, I'm, I'm ready to go with Brits.
• 26:51
  I don't think anybody said Ford Falcon.
• 26:54
  I think everybody knows it exists and it's cool.
• 26:56
  Yeah.
• 26:56
  It's called the Mustang in the United States.
• 26:58
  They have the Street Six.
• 26:59
  Turbo Street Six is a different setup.
• 27:01
  But them offies love their four doors.
• 27:02
  That was the thing though.
• 27:03
  I'm just trying to think about Jonathan has suggested like an import car
• 27:07
  business that we should set up and thinking if we want to make a little
• 27:10
  money importing these types of cars, we should start with a lot of money.
• 27:13
  Yeah, I end up with a little, it's the final effect.
• 27:18
  That sounds like a startup there, Chris.
• 27:20
  I thought about the TBR thing and I was discussing it with my wife and
• 27:25
  we would drive into a baseball game.
• 27:26
  My son, who's 10, was in the back and I was doing quite well.
• 27:30
  And then my son went, Oh, you'll fall in love with the
• 27:32
  car and want to keep it, dad.
• 27:33
  You'll never sell it.
• 27:34
  And my wife was like, we're not discussing this anymore.
• 27:39
  Well, John, let me throw a curveball at you.
• 27:41
  Let's bring us closer to the late 90s, early noughties.
• 27:44
  What about the Puma?
• 27:45
  Especially the RS edition of the Puma.
• 27:48
  Oh, good one.
• 27:50
  Good one.
• 27:51
  So those Pumas, they were available in 1.
• 27:53
  7s and 1.
• 27:54
  4. You could thrash the Propolar out of them and they were really good.
• 27:58
  They actually were based on the Fiesta, but as a blokey sales rep, you could
• 28:03
  still sort of get away with them.
• 28:05
  They all rusted away though, they had problems with rust,
• 28:08
  so they mostly disappeared.
• 28:09
  The RS ones, you never saw those on the road, so I feel like those
• 28:13
  have already entered Ford and Obtanium, because Fords are on a real
• 28:18
  pedestal, in Britain at least, I'm not sure about the rest of Europe.
• 28:22
  But in Britain, you guys will remember the Mercury Capri that
• 28:26
  was sold here in the early 70s?
• 28:28
  I love it, everyone!
• 28:29
  It was a sort of junior Mustang.
• 28:31
  Those, I feel like you could make money taking them from California
• 28:35
  and selling them in Britain.
• 28:36
  Because any Beta V6 Capri With a stick is a 5, 000 pound car.
• 28:42
  I mean, cause there were no Mustangs or Camaros, right?
• 28:44
  So now we're exporting cars.
• 28:45
  Chris, you hear this?
• 28:46
  The business goes the other way.
• 28:47
  Now, I know.
• 28:48
  And well, that's you, you make money shipping them out and you
• 28:50
  lose money bringing them back.
• 28:52
  I'm sure we would hit it about the time they got tariffed, but that's a whole
• 28:55
  other, we're going to tear up 1989 to.
• 29:02
  2001. We're going to leave that right where it is.
• 29:05
  All right.
• 29:06
  So Ford Puma is an interesting one for me, but it also led me down the slippery slope
• 29:11
  of, well, if you didn't like the Puma, did you know you could import the car now?
• 29:16
  Why not?
• 29:18
  You remember those commercials?
• 29:19
  The car commercials are awesome!
• 29:21
  With the cat?
• 29:21
  The evil car?
• 29:23
  The one with the cat that loses its head?
• 29:24
  Yes.
• 29:25
  The evil car?
• 29:26
  The sports car?
• 29:28
  They were, um, they were good.
• 29:30
  I had Easter 1999.
• 29:33
  Two friends and I drove a rental one from London to Amsterdam and slept
• 29:39
  in the car and then drove back again.
• 29:41
  We went to Brussels and then Brussels was boring.
• 29:43
  But, I mean, that illustrates how they're actually pretty practical.
• 29:47
  They're actually a good site.
• 29:48
  You wouldn't import it.
• 29:49
  It's too boring and terrible.
• 29:50
  It's too much like a Geo Metro and not enjoyable on American roads.
• 29:54
  I mean, I've got a Fiesta ST. My best friend in England's got a Fiesta ST. He
• 29:58
  thinks his is the best thing in the world.
• 30:00
  Mine's eight years old.
• 30:01
  I've only put 20, 000 miles on it.
• 30:03
  Because here, I'd rather drive something with automatic transmission, and high
• 30:07
  seats, and comfortable, and all of that.
• 30:09
  Whereas in Europe, you can make do with the lanes, and all
• 30:12
  the winding, and all of that.
• 30:13
  But the car?
• 30:14
  No, it can stay in Europe, if you ask me.
• 30:16
  What about the original Focus RS?
• 30:18
  That's old enough now to come over.
• 30:20
  It is.
• 30:21
  You'd have to fight the European enthusiasts for it.
• 30:23
  That one, it was Ford's first attempt at doing one of those trick differential.
• 30:29
  Torque sensing, yeah.
• 30:30
  The motoring press at the time said that it didn't work very well.
• 30:34
  Everyone was struggling at that time with more than 200 horsepower through the front
• 30:37
  wheels, and Ford didn't do the job as well as Volkswagen or whoever were at the time.
• 30:42
  Although the value on those Mark 1 Focus RSs have gone up.
• 30:47
  The sort of sleeper there is there's a sort of Focus RS light called the ST170.
• 30:52
  Oh yeah, I remember that.
• 30:53
  Sometimes if I'm in England for more than a couple of weeks, I always try and look
• 30:57
  at buying a car rather than renting one.
• 30:59
  And for a long time, those Focus ST170s have been the sort of under
• 31:03
  a thousand dollars kind of might not break down kind of thing that I've
• 31:08
  just about almost persuaded my wife that it was a good idea to do instead
• 31:12
  of the rental car and then not.
• 31:14
  It's funny.
• 31:15
  All these gray market cars that we want to import are all Fords.
• 31:19
  It's like, why didn't Ford just give us the good cars in the first place?
• 31:23
  Which is funny because when John was talking about the Sierra and the Lotus
• 31:26
  Carlton a little bit ago, I was thinking to myself, our audience doesn't know
• 31:30
  what that is because we got the Mercure XR40, which is a big piece of crap.
• 31:34
  I personally, I think those cars are terrible.
• 31:37
  Brad, they're another one that we should ship home to Britain.
• 31:40
  They were a hundred and seventy horse.
• 31:42
  I look on Facebook marketplace.
• 31:44
  They're cropping up all the time.
• 31:45
  Even ones with stick shit.
• 31:46
  I feel like you could chuck a couple in crates, ship them home,
• 31:50
  take them to a Ford show in Essex.
• 31:51
  You could triple your money.
• 31:53
  I really think you could.
• 31:54
  I really think you could, because they're so similar to Sierra Cosworths and Brits
• 31:58
  are so mad for any hot rod Ford, Cosworth.
• 32:03
  Yeah, I think that shows though, Brad, like the hot hatch market and all those
• 32:07
  sorts of things really come out of Europe where they have smaller requirements,
• 32:11
  you know, there's Regulatory limits on engine sizes and things like that,
• 32:16
  that really drove those cool, small cars, you know, and that's why out
• 32:19
  of my world, I being an Italophile, all those cool, old, small engine,
• 32:24
  Italian cars, Fiat's and Alfa's I'll get to my list of Alfa's that I've got.
• 32:30
  Assuming the one 47 is on there.
• 32:32
  We're going to work our way into the Italians.
• 32:36
  But I agree with you.
• 32:37
  Like, I think in our market in the U S you know, we always had these big
• 32:42
  ideas of muscle cars and big motors and big white spaces and not having to
• 32:46
  handle well, but get off the line fast.
• 32:49
  Right.
• 32:49
  Yeah.
• 32:49
  These cars are so much more interesting and engineered.
• 32:51
  And that's why I like when NASCAR is trying to sell.
• 32:54
  crappy rear wheel drive cars back in the eighties and stuff.
• 32:57
  Actually, they raced the rear wheel drives and they sold front wheel
• 33:00
  drive cars, which is just terrible.
• 33:02
  Right.
• 33:03
  Yes.
• 33:03
  So, but, but you look over in Europe and you go, you know, again, kind
• 33:06
  of getting on the racing theme.
• 33:08
  You look at the rally cars and you look at the touring car championships all over.
• 33:13
  They are so cool.
• 33:14
  I mean, I would own any of those before a lot of the cars that we would get here.
• 33:19
  And I think to your point, like here in the U S especially with the American
• 33:22
  brands, they had the muscle car, the Camaros, the Mustangs, the Firebirds, but
• 33:26
  then they had the rental cars, the Taurus.
• 33:28
  It's the Impala Malibu.
• 33:30
  There was no like fun in between things unless you went
• 33:33
  Volkswagen or something like that.
• 33:35
  I mean, there was nothing in between, but to stick with the British
• 33:38
  cars, the one that I would import is the Ford Mondeo, but they had
• 33:42
  a Ford Mondeo as state ST two 20.
• 33:44
  Oh man.
• 33:46
  I was wondering.
• 33:47
  You and your Mercury Sable wagons.
• 33:50
  Hey, this is not a bad looking wagon.
• 33:52
  It actually reminds me of your Jetta.
• 33:54
  So the Mondeo ST two twenties of that time.
• 33:56
  Those are cool.
• 33:57
  I always liked that front end sort of angular, like the original mark
• 34:01
  one focuses were and all that.
• 34:03
  That's a good looking car.
• 34:04
  I will give you that.
• 34:05
  It is an ST two hundred version of the mark two Mondeo that was super rare.
• 34:11
  And that Mk2 Mondeo, arguably is a better looking car than the Mk3.
• 34:16
  The Mk3 was quite square.
• 34:17
  The Mk2 is a much swoopier shape.
• 34:20
  If you google up the ST200.
• 34:22
  I have a particular love of these because 10 years ago, I was successful in buying
• 34:27
  a cheap Beta for a trip to England.
• 34:30
  And it was a Mondeo ST24.
• 34:32
  That thing was awesome.
• 34:33
  That Yamaha motor, it would do 140 miles an hour.
• 34:37
  Really would.
• 34:37
  And it would do it all day long.
• 34:39
  And I paid.
• 34:39
  300 pounds for it in a Sainsbury's car park the day before Christmas.
• 34:43
  Awesome car.
• 34:44
  Isn't that considered child abuse if you had your kid with you?
• 34:48
  No, I didn't have my, that was pre child.
• 34:50
  All right.
• 34:50
  One day I was, uh, was pre child.
• 34:52
  I was a little worried there for a second there.
• 34:55
  I gotta say though, it's very intriguing to me to want to show up at a Cars and
• 34:59
  Coffee with a right hand drive Ford.
• 35:03
  I mean, that would blow people's minds if you just showed up at a
• 35:06
  Cars and Coffee with a right hand drive forward here in the States,
• 35:08
  and people wouldn't know what to do.
• 35:10
  So here's where I disagree with John in the respect that I like the very
• 35:14
  angular and clean look of the Mark III.
• 35:17
  It's just something about it, it's very much more German, and I'm okay with that.
• 35:21
  But when I look at the ST 200, I go, oh yeah, I remember this one.
• 35:25
  And then immediately my brain went, didn't they sell this here as the Jaguar X Type?
• 35:29
  You can buy the same car, right?
• 35:31
  No, no.
• 35:32
  I watched a video just recently.
• 35:34
  So it's YouTube, so it knows whether it's true or not.
• 35:37
  But it was making the point that the X Type and the Mondeo were
• 35:40
  actually quite different cars.
• 35:42
  And people say they're the same, but really they aren't.
• 35:45
  The engineering, the suspension, the gearbox, all of that stuff is different,
• 35:49
  even if the platform is the same.
• 35:51
  And again, I don't know if it's true or not either, that they shared a lot of
• 35:54
  similar DNA though, at the end of the day.
• 35:57
  But the Mondeo shared a lot of parts and DNA with Aston Martin too, but I
• 36:00
  wouldn't say that Aston Martin's a force.
• 36:02
  Well, you know, Hey, they're all Tata's now.
• 36:05
  So, you know, Hey, do we have anything else for the Brits?
• 36:08
  Cause I have sort of a crescendo as we move into mainland Europe for the Brits.
• 36:12
  I have a couple of like PVR lights, you know, instead of the nine 11.
• 36:18
  of the TVRs.
• 36:19
  There are other stuff.
• 36:21
  If it was Italian makers, you'd call them the Ezzettarini.
• 36:24
  That's what the Pebble Beachers call, like, the Morettis and the Direttis
• 36:28
  and Otto Bianchi and all of those.
• 36:31
  So I've got Ginetta, Elva, Ilburn, Marcos.
• 36:36
  Noble and Ultima.
• 36:38
  Oh, the Ultima GTR, yeah.
• 36:40
  Yeah, and they're kits, but some of them were built professionally, and
• 36:44
  they've got Chevy small blocks, a lot of them, so does that really count?
• 36:47
  I'm not really sure.
• 36:48
  But the Noble, they're really well built, boutique British.
• 36:52
  You're talking about the M600, the big one, right?
• 36:54
  Because that is within the time range now.
• 36:57
  Yeah, it would be an early one.
• 36:58
  Marcos, I dislike TVR, but kind of uglier.
• 37:02
  Yes.
• 37:02
  But the Cos is the Costin of Cosworth.
• 37:05
  Ginetta and Elva, you know, they are kind of racing cars.
• 37:08
  So you'd be getting something that was very lightweight and
• 37:11
  flimsy and not as well built as a Morgan and not as flashy as a TBR.
• 37:15
  So there's another one, the Aero 8.
• 37:18
  If you like the aesthetic of it, that's a car you can gray mark it in now.
• 37:21
  And that's really something because they have a E39 M5 drivetrain.
• 37:25
  Chris with the Roman boat, he downboats.
• 37:28
  Nope.
• 37:29
  They are so ugly.
• 37:31
  Do you guys remember the original Total Recall and the scene in the
• 37:34
  bar, the woman with the three breasts?
• 37:36
  That's what the front of the Arrow 8 looks like.
• 37:38
  Oh, cross eyed?
• 37:41
  Oh no.
• 37:42
  Why did you have to do that?
• 37:43
  Oh god.
• 37:45
  All right, you can't unsee that, now you know.
• 37:47
  Can you cut his mic for a little while?
• 37:49
  Put him on timeout for a friend.
• 37:52
  I had a couple more as well.
• 37:54
  The two others I had were the Jaguar XJRS, which is like an
• 37:59
  XJS but it was a British version.
• 38:02
  It had a body kit on it, it had different wheels on it.
• 38:05
  I never felt it was that good looking in period, it was mildly breathed on.
• 38:09
  But again, if I've never seen one here, it was a TWR body kit.
• 38:12
  So Tom Walkinshaw, it was those.
• 38:15
  I was kind of thought about those, but you know what?
• 38:17
  I really think there is a market around and you could make a market around it.
• 38:20
  If you had booleaned it, you know, if you really talked it up and
• 38:24
  were like Lamborghini, Lamborghini, Lamborghini, these are awesome.
• 38:27
  Lamborghini, Lamborghini.
• 38:28
  I do this.
• 38:29
  I do that.
• 38:29
  I'm cool.
• 38:30
  young'uns be like me with my cool beard and my cool shoes.
• 38:34
  Be like me.
• 38:35
  Buy my watch.
• 38:36
  Buy Lamborghinis.
• 38:37
  You know, if you really Trump shilled it up in the way that he
• 38:40
  did, I feel like you could really make a lot of money with Lister
• 38:45
  Volga hot rods, but they're so rare.
• 38:50
  That if you get enough modern idiots in them, the same will
• 38:53
  happen as to Lister prices.
• 38:55
  It's happened to roof prices.
• 38:56
  That's my theory.
• 38:57
  If you were being very cynical, I mean, so Lister Jag.
• 39:00
  Do you remember the Lister Storm?
• 39:01
  The one they used to race back in like IMSA?
• 39:03
  That was really cool.
• 39:05
  Yeah.
• 39:05
  That a seven liter V12, didn't it?
• 39:08
  Yep.
• 39:08
  Seven liter Jaguar V12.
• 39:10
  That's when IMSA was still great.
• 39:12
  Yeah.
• 39:12
  Unlimited classes, man.
• 39:13
  They were awesome.
• 39:14
  Oh man.
• 39:15
  I was going to Watkins Glen and watching the Jags and the Corvette and the.
• 39:19
  Porsches and Mazdas and the Nissan GTPs.
• 39:24
  Those are the days, my friend.
• 39:25
  I'm in on the Lister Jag.
• 39:27
  Those are pretty, yeah, they are sweet.
• 39:28
  That's a good poll.
• 39:29
  I forgot about Lister altogether.
• 39:30
  It's sort of like the Tresser cars on the German side, right?
• 39:33
  They had their whole thing with the Volkswagen's and the Audi's
• 39:36
  and the Mercedes and stuff.
• 39:37
  So yeah, Lister, that's a good poll.
• 39:39
  So anything else on your British list?
• 39:42
  Only Shooting Brake versions of Jaguar.
• 39:45
  Okay.
• 39:45
  They get Shooting Brake XJS's and things like that.
• 39:48
  I think that's a great call, because for me, Shooting Brakes or
• 39:52
  any wagon, they are so underrated.
• 39:54
  We race over here stupid trucks.
• 39:57
  Why don't they have a series where they race?
• 39:59
  Station wagons and shooting brakes.
• 40:00
  That'd be amazing.
• 40:01
  They would do it in Australia.
• 40:04
  Those are great cars and they're super practical too,
• 40:07
  but they look amazing, I think.
• 40:09
  As we wrap out the Brits here and move to mainland Europe, I'm going to throw
• 40:12
  out one car that is actually like six cars in one, all based on the same
• 40:17
  thing, Vauxhall VX220, Opel GT Speedster, Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky, it's
• 40:23
  all sort of the same car at the end of the day, but specifically gray market.
• 40:27
  The Vauxhall VX220 and the Opel GT Speedster.
• 40:31
  Love it.
• 40:32
  Yeah.
• 40:32
  How can you not like those cars?
• 40:33
  Brad doesn't like those cars.
• 40:35
  I already know that.
• 40:35
  I don't fit.
• 40:36
  So I don't care.
• 40:36
  That's his answer to everything.
• 40:39
  Brad?
• 40:39
  Ozempic.
• 40:40
  That's all I got to say.
• 40:42
  Nice.
• 40:42
  I'd say it's not my weight.
• 40:43
  It's my height.
• 40:44
  Yeah, I know.
• 40:45
  Yeah.
• 40:45
  It's six foot four.
• 40:46
  He doesn't fit in a lot of things.
• 40:47
  Comfortably.
• 40:48
  There's like no room in those things.
• 40:50
  And I'm six feet.
• 40:51
  And like some of these cars are just.
• 40:53
  You got to break your knees to get the steering.
• 40:56
  I have a friend in the city who's bought and built a Caterham Super 7 recently.
• 41:00
  And when I said to him, you need to worry about the size of the, he's a big guy.
• 41:04
  I'd said to him, have you driven one before?
• 41:05
  He said, no.
• 41:06
  I said, you need to worry about the size of the pedal bar.
• 41:08
  Because I remember the first time I drove one, going for the brake and hitting
• 41:11
  the throttle as well at the same time.
• 41:13
  Terrifying.
• 41:14
  It's even worse when you've driven an original.
• 41:16
  Seven that we won't even go there.
• 41:18
  But that being said, let's dive into mainland Europe now.
• 41:22
  And we'll give the mic over to Chris and William to talk about Italian cars.
• 41:27
  And I'm sure the list is as long as your guy's arm.
• 41:30
  And William, if you have some strong opinions, we probably share a common list.
• 41:34
  I bet, but I'm an Alfisti, so I'm just going to start there.
• 41:38
  The Apex Predator, I think of that era, is the 147 GTA.
• 41:42
  That doesn't even count as a hot hatchback.
• 41:43
  That's a lot of power.
• 41:44
  And that Busso engine is just one of the all time greats.
• 41:48
  There's just no two ways around that.
• 41:50
  To be in a car that small with the Busso engine ripping along, screaming, it's hard
• 41:55
  to imagine something better than that.
• 41:57
  Yeah, you know what's better than that?
• 41:58
  The Alfa Romeo SZ.
• 41:59
  That's what's better than that.
• 42:00
  Yeah, that's cool.
• 42:01
  It's a little earlier than this vintage.
• 42:03
  I looked that up.
• 42:03
  In fact, I pulled out all my Alfa books and it's like, there's the SZ right there.
• 42:07
  I love that car.
• 42:08
  I saw one at a Cars and Coffee down here in Richmond not too long ago.
• 42:12
  Little secret.
• 42:13
  We'll see if I can post about it later this year.
• 42:15
  I'm going to get the opportunity to drive one here stateside, so.
• 42:18
  I saw those cars when they came out new, and I have been
• 42:21
  salivating since I was a kid.
• 42:22
  So let me tell ya.
• 42:23
  They're so rare, they still look incredibly interesting.
• 42:27
  That's the right word for it.
• 42:28
  Yeah.
• 42:29
  It's Italian Brutalism, isn't it?
• 42:32
  It's Brutalism like when you go to EUR Ugly concrete and it's all
• 42:38
  like is Mussolini still with us?
• 42:41
  Has the look of like Mussolini in the side and and so on yeah I was
• 42:46
  going to say the 147 gta and my understanding was the 156 gta was a
• 42:50
  sort of more complete car to drive True.
• 42:54
  And older, I think.
• 42:55
  Yes.
• 42:56
  I think this whole era of Alpha is really, the good cars are built around the Busso
• 43:00
  engine, you know, the 155s, all that.
• 43:03
  The 155ti, I mean, if you're going to import anything, right?
• 43:07
  There's a sport wagon that they did, kind of on that platforms.
• 43:10
  And then they also, at that time period, they had the new The re
• 43:13
  release GTV6 at that time, right?
• 43:16
  The really angular one.
• 43:17
  Yeah.
• 43:17
  Just called the GTV and it's like the ultimate wedge car.
• 43:20
  It's amazing.
• 43:22
  They were pretty good with the twin spark.
• 43:23
  Correct.
• 43:24
  I mean, they were, they're worth more with the Busso.
• 43:26
  Yeah.
• 43:26
  Twin spark's great.
• 43:27
  Yeah.
• 43:28
  And they, and handles better, you know, I, I feel like, you know, in these ages we're
• 43:31
  moving towards where, you know, whatever you're driving is going to be slaughtered
• 43:34
  by the Tesla minivan next to you, that.
• 43:37
  Handling and the theater the buso is great because the noise but
• 43:40
  those twin spark motors in the 75 at least, you know, Milano That
• 43:45
  was a better car without the buso.
• 43:46
  Yeah, I couldn't agree more that they had some really good lumps at that
• 43:50
  point in time And the one that I'm waiting for it's not eligible yet for
• 43:54
  the gray market, but it's a few years out still is the Alfa Romeo Brera.
• 43:58
  Yes.
• 43:59
  I'm salivating until I can get one of those here.
• 44:01
  And the coupe, it's kind of like, it looks like a shooting break, actually.
• 44:05
  I mean, I think a shooting break technically has four doors though,
• 44:07
  if I'm not mistaken, but, or five.
• 44:09
  We had this argument on a whole nother episode.
• 44:13
  Those Breras, I think if they just sold those today in the same
• 44:17
  exact body styles, when they came out and they still look great.
• 44:20
  I a thousand percent agree with you.
• 44:22
  And I always saw the Brera as.
• 44:24
  The modern version of the SZ especially from the front because
• 44:26
  it's got the six little headlights and all that kind of thing.
• 44:29
  I see that.
• 44:30
  I wouldn't have thought about that.
• 44:30
  But there's an alternate version, but unfortunately it's in the
• 44:33
  same timeframe, which is the Brava, which is more like the 147.
• 44:37
  So if they're all like the next generation to your point, Chris, so you're going
• 44:41
  to have to wait now another five years or so before you can get them in.
• 44:44
  I was so excited to talk about that.
• 44:46
  And then I looked and it's like, yeah, we're missing it by just a few.
• 44:49
  But you know, it's like for a runabout car, like a family car, they are just so
• 44:54
  freaking sexy and they're very capable.
• 44:57
  They're incredibly capable.
• 44:58
  Anyhow.
• 44:59
  This car is very much like the Italian version of the new Scirocco to me.
• 45:03
  A hundred percent.
• 45:04
  It's all in that same sort of design language for sure.
• 45:07
  I had one for a bachelor party years ago.
• 45:09
  Oh yeah.
• 45:09
  Bachelor party to the Nürburgring.
• 45:11
  So I rented it and did it and did that.
• 45:13
  It's a bit understeery and it was diesel one.
• 45:16
  It was a 2.
• 45:18
  4 JTD.
• 45:18
  It was new and it was rung out 149 miles an hour.
• 45:22
  That was, I had no more to give.
• 45:23
  149 in a diesel?
• 45:25
  That's.
• 45:26
  John, you seem to have the same problem with all your cars
• 45:29
  with understeering problem.
• 45:30
  Yeah.
• 45:31
  Are you trying to say it might not be the car?
• 45:33
  It might be the driver.
• 45:36
  That's a good call.
• 45:37
  That's a bit understeering.
• 45:38
  It's like, you said that before.
• 45:41
  Could be the driver.
• 45:42
  Could be.
• 45:43
  I'm just saying.
• 45:44
  So let me, let me ask you, William, is it even worth
• 45:46
  talking about F40s at this point?
• 45:48
  No, I mean, yeah, all the difference you got, I mean, obviously
• 45:53
  the big thing is the tanks.
• 45:54
  I mean, that was kind of personal preference, but a lot of people
• 45:56
  switch them over because the U S gas tanks were aluminum, whereas the
• 45:59
  European ones were bags and he had to change it was every five years or
• 46:03
  something, no matter what you had to change the gas tank got out of any
• 46:05
  thousands of dollar proposition for it.
• 46:07
  But I mean, there's really no difference.
• 46:08
  The ones you're looking at, it's not available yet.
• 46:11
  will be the Enzo's that these are going to try and change up the market here
• 46:14
  in the United States because there's only the 120 some Enzo U. S. production
• 46:18
  ones and especially you start getting into colors and stuff so once you also
• 46:22
  you could open up into the European ones that people bring them in because
• 46:25
  it's just having the car because I don't think it really affects price
• 46:28
  so much because if you look at F50s European versus the 80, whatever, 55 U.
• 46:33
  S. Prussia.
• 46:34
  I mean, you're still in that 4.
• 46:36
  5 to 5.
• 46:37
  5 million range on them.
• 46:38
  I think the ends of one's going to be interesting because they
• 46:40
  were so few in various colors.
• 46:42
  I mean, majority of them are red.
• 46:43
  So I think that's going to be interesting.
• 46:44
  And then the other one would be, you know, now, especially with doing
• 46:46
  these swaps is the five, seven, five.
• 46:48
  Yeah, especially manual.
• 46:49
  I mean actual factory manual.
• 46:50
  So I mean, you can bring in a European one, you can start getting your hands on
• 46:53
  them instead of having to do that swap.
• 46:55
  But, you know, I guess it's all personal preference.
• 46:57
  What's the price difference on a 575 with a manual and a 575 with the.
• 47:03
  Oh shit, you're probably at least double on a factory manual.
• 47:06
  I mean, that's why I always tell them, look, I mean, let's, if you
• 47:09
  want to do a 575, you're just saying you want to drive it, why not buy
• 47:12
  the F1 tranny, maybe drive a little bit, then do the swap if you want.
• 47:15
  After even doing the swap, what's going to cost you, everything like
• 47:17
  that, you'll save a hundred grand.
• 47:18
  But if you're looking for it, cause you want to try and make an investment,
• 47:21
  find a factory manual, but then you're afraid to drive it cause
• 47:24
  putting miles or anything like that.
• 47:24
  I mean, if I had my drugs, I'd just buy an F1 tranny one and do the
• 47:27
  swap and drive the piss out of it.
• 47:29
  I mean, I think we're all in agreement.
• 47:31
  I mean, anything we buy, we're going to drive.
• 47:32
  We're not just going to sit there and stare at it.
• 47:34
  Absolutely.
• 47:34
  Hell yeah.
• 47:35
  And the Enzos are definitely within the time window, 2002, 2003, 2004.
• 47:40
  We're getting close, meaning in the next couple of years.
• 47:43
  Yeah.
• 47:43
  So let me actually see how that plays out.
• 47:44
  I didn't think about the exotics because, you know, they were already
• 47:47
  so aimed here, you know, in terms of all the Lambos, all the Ferraris,
• 47:52
  uh, even the high end Maseratis, which came back online at that era.
• 47:57
  That's when they were the.
• 47:58
  Made in the Ferrari factory like the 3200 and the coupes and those sorts of things,
• 48:04
  you know Well this thing with those is a lot of time I don't think so much
• 48:07
  lamborghini either you find this with I guess a lesser valued cars usually saw a
• 48:11
  big difference between the u. s market car and a european market car in regards to
• 48:16
  Horsepower engine choice wise as you get into Ferraris Lamborghinis and stuff like
• 48:20
  that You're pretty much spot on with the mechanicals and horsepower wise and stuff.
• 48:24
  So it really wasn't much of a difference It was just some of the things to
• 48:27
  meet us dot standards and shit.
• 48:29
  Yeah, I found an interesting italian one digging around It was interesting
• 48:33
  because it's so expensive over here, if you can find one to buy,
• 48:37
  which was the Maserati Shamal.
• 48:39
  Oh, yeah.
• 48:40
  It's not a bad looking car.
• 48:41
  Yeah.
• 48:42
  It looks great from every angle except directly on the side.
• 48:45
  It looks really oddly proportioned if you're perpendicular to the car.
• 48:49
  Not really weird rear wheel on every other angle.
• 48:52
  It looks great.
• 48:53
  It's like a Lancia Delta or something, but I think the Lancia is better.
• 48:57
  But yeah, I think it's a handsome car to be honest with you, but I just thought
• 49:01
  it was interesting because the only transactions I can find for it are in
• 49:04
  the eighties of thousands of dollars.
• 49:06
  And it's based on a bi turbo, which I think comes free.
• 49:09
  If you buy a sweater at a Maserati gift shop or the factory or something.
• 49:16
  They're still trying to get rid of old stuff.
• 49:18
  If you go on any search and do like Maserati lowest price, the
• 49:23
  first half dozen entries are always basket case i turbos, aren't they?
• 49:27
  And I mean, William, is that why the Shamal suffers in price?
• 49:31
  Because people look at it.
• 49:33
  But it's so expensive.
• 49:34
  It's not suffering.
• 49:35
  It's crushing it.
• 49:36
  It's a good car, but mechanically wise, it's a little touch
• 49:39
  and go as with any Maserati.
• 49:42
  See, this is the moment that Don would have gone off the
• 49:45
  rails and talking about the T.
• 49:46
  C. Maserati.
• 49:47
  They keep bringing Don in, he's here in spirit.
• 49:51
  Yeah, that would have been an hour.
• 49:55
  So, I agree with you there.
• 49:57
  I look at this and I just immediately think Maserati Bi Turbo.
• 50:00
  And you know the joke about Bi Turbos.
• 50:02
  You buy the one with the highest mileage because you know it was a runner, right?
• 50:06
  Otherwise, don't walk, run away from a Bi Turbo.
• 50:09
  It does scream 90s bolt on JC Whitney body kit stuff.
• 50:14
  Like it is so un Italian in a way.
• 50:16
  It would pair well with the TVR 450 SDAC.
• 50:20
  Thousand percent.
• 50:21
  Especially if they're in similar colors.
• 50:23
  You did an ugly car show.
• 50:25
  Yeah, you'd have a hell of a pair for Radwood.
• 50:27
  And the back, the back looks like there was a Peugeot.
• 50:30
  The later.
• 50:31
  405 or 505 or whatever, like from the nineties had that
• 50:35
  same rear end as the Shamal.
• 50:37
  Like, ugh, it's not for me, bro.
• 50:39
  I'll pass.
• 50:40
  I like the front end.
• 50:41
  It's got a very slopey.
• 50:43
  That rear wheel arch, trapezoidal rear wheel arch is amazing.
• 50:48
  That is amazing.
• 50:49
  Kuntosh, the Kuntosh had weird stuff like that.
• 50:52
  I know everyone's like doing Google search.
• 50:54
  Like, did you see that Restomod of that Shamal?
• 50:56
  Yes.
• 50:57
  With the big flares.
• 50:58
  Oh, it looks awesome.
• 50:59
  The Restomod looks.
• 51:00
  Really good.
• 51:01
  Yeah.
• 51:01
  M8 01.
• 51:02
  Yeah, that doesn't look bad at all.
• 51:04
  I mean, obviously it's all new body work and everything on that thing.
• 51:06
  That's not bad looking.
• 51:07
  All right.
• 51:08
  You know, you mentioned the launch of Delta Integrale.
• 51:10
  It's the R34 of Italy.
• 51:12
  Yeah.
• 51:12
  I took all those off.
• 51:13
  I just struck all those through, I mean, as much as I'd love to talk about, you
• 51:17
  know, the 93 different versions, the flared, the unflared, the eight valve, the
• 51:21
  16 valve, the gen one, the gen two, the, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 51:24
  It's like, they're all the freaking same and they've been importing
• 51:26
  them now for a bunch of years.
• 51:27
  So we could just kind of scrap all those cars.
• 51:30
  And the HF Turbo, the little one, was just too poxy for American.
• 51:35
  Well, and the fact that the Stig, Ben Collins, and then the
• 51:38
  other guy from counting cars in the UK, would have Chris Harris.
• 51:41
  So Chris Harris and Ben Collins have been going back and forth
• 51:44
  in this sort of urinary Olympics about their launch of Deltas.
• 51:47
  And at that point, it sort of got turned off.
• 51:49
  Even though I love those cars.
• 51:50
  I'm like, yeah, I'm kind of done.
• 51:51
  I don't really care anymore.
• 51:53
  Too mainstream for me.
• 51:54
  Before we move off the alphas, the one six, six, you got the one six four
• 51:59
  here in the States, the one six, six.
• 52:01
  I don't know when that would be eligible.
• 52:03
  2003. That's the Busso motor.
• 52:05
  It's a good size American car.
• 52:07
  The stylings I, it worked for me, but a lot of people don't
• 52:11
  like that funny clamshell.
• 52:13
  Hood.
• 52:13
  I like it.
• 52:14
  I like it when people mod them and give them more like fender flares
• 52:17
  and things like some kits you can do.
• 52:19
  I kind of like those versions a little bit more.
• 52:22
  They look more like the touring car, the racing.
• 52:24
  They have trans I mean, they are great cars.
• 52:27
  They really drive amazingly.
• 52:29
  But they're ugly.
• 52:30
  Yeah.
• 52:30
  It does have a very Cyclops from the Odyssey look to it with that.
• 52:34
  Oh, like that front end is.
• 52:36
  That's a face only a momma could love.
• 52:38
  Pindu, you're a momma joke, but I decided to win.
• 52:45
  All right, so, so Italian cars.
• 52:47
  I got to give a nod to my sister.
• 52:49
  She's here in spirit.
• 52:50
  I'm just going to say pretty much any Fiat Panda, because you
• 52:53
  can, and they're pretty awesome.
• 52:55
  And the 4x4 one.
• 52:56
  The Sisley, yeah.
• 52:58
  Now my car YouTubers in Britain rave about the 4x4.
• 53:02
  Pandas.
• 53:02
  And the early ones were built by stare poo.
• 53:05
  They weren't even built by fear.
• 53:06
  James May swears by them.
• 53:08
  Yeah, 100%.
• 53:09
  Loves them.
• 53:09
  So I wanted to just say the panda, I wanted to put it out into the universe
• 53:13
  and all that, but did you know you can now import the ugliest of uglies?
• 53:19
  Go ahead, Eric.
• 53:20
  I thought you were going to say the Fiat Coupe, Eric.
• 53:23
  Oh, okay.
• 53:24
  The 20 valve coupe?
• 53:25
  Fiat Coupe, yeah.
• 53:26
  Yeah.
• 53:27
  You stole my Trump card.
• 53:28
  I was going with ugly and then uglier.
• 53:31
  I'm sorry, Eric.
• 53:33
  No, to your point, both of those, right, are in period, they're cheap.
• 53:37
  The Multipla, I've seen some crazy stuff with that now.
• 53:40
  There's some guy that's got this rear engine Nürburgring monstrosity that
• 53:44
  he's running around sort of like a ring taxi and it suddenly is super cool.
• 53:47
  It's still way ugly.
• 53:48
  But the coupe, we saw that on the, was it the police
• 53:52
  interceptor episode of Top Gear?
• 53:54
  If anybody remembers that far back, he put the Bodecier spikes on the
• 53:57
  wheels and the whole nine yards.
• 53:59
  I saw those cars again when they came out new and I happened
• 54:02
  to be in Italy that year and I thought they were just so quirky.
• 54:06
  I don't feel they've aged well.
• 54:07
  No they haven't.
• 54:08
  You know when you judge cars at car shows you try and judge elegance and those Fiat
• 54:13
  coupes they're cool but are they elegant?
• 54:16
  No.
• 54:17
  Not in the way that like an Alfa 159.
• 54:20
  But what does it is if you've ever heard that motor and if you've
• 54:23
  ever heard that 20 valve run.
• 54:25
  It sounds really good.
• 54:27
  And that's sort of what makes up for it.
• 54:29
  It's like, well, it's ugly, but they say they're fun to drive.
• 54:31
  I've never driven one, but they sound really good.
• 54:34
  And so that's sort of like what makes up the difference, right?
• 54:37
  I guess maybe it's like that alpha one, six, six.
• 54:39
  So the, I think the early ones were four cylinders, weren't they?
• 54:42
  And then the later ones were five cylinders.
• 54:44
  Hence there was a 16 valve and 20 valve and a 20 valve turbo.
• 54:49
  You could get that 20 valve motor.
• 54:51
  In the sort of golf sized hatchback that Fiat were doing
• 54:55
  at the time called the Brava.
• 54:57
  And I actually tire kicked one on a used car lot in Liverpool
• 55:01
  some years ago, a Brava HGT.
• 55:04
  But anytime you put the key in the lock and try and start the car and
• 55:08
  it cranks and won't start on their dealership lot, that's probably a sign
• 55:13
  that you should thank the man and leave.
• 55:14
  So sadly, I didn't buy a Brava HGT, but yeah, that was the
• 55:18
  other home for that five pot.
• 55:20
  Actually, I say that.
• 55:21
  There was also a, the Mireya, there was a sort of boring midsize called
• 55:25
  the Mireya and that five cylinder 20 valve motor was in the Mireya.
• 55:29
  And those of you who like wagons, there was a weekend version of the
• 55:33
  Mireya that, I don't know, I mean, I don't know if you'd want to import it.
• 55:36
  There's a guy in Britain who's got one, one of the British YouTubers.
• 55:39
  That's like saying you want to import a Lancia Tema, really?
• 55:43
  I already have a Geo Metro, I don't need one.
• 55:46
  Those Temas, I thought, as in a bit boring.
• 55:49
  Bobby Basic, you know, the obvious one of those is they did one of
• 55:53
  those with a Ferrari motor, the 8.
• 55:54
  32. Yes.
• 55:56
  Yeah, they also did one with the turbo one, which is vaguely interesting.
• 56:00
  Uh, they also rebadged the Chrysler 300 later as the Tama and tried to have us
• 56:05
  like, come on, this is a joke, right?
• 56:07
  Anybody got anything else on the list coming from the Italians?
• 56:09
  It's actually worth, I want to take it to a car show.
• 56:12
  The Fiat Strada 130 TC, the greatest hot hatchback of the 1980s.
• 56:19
  The advert in the 80s was a photo of the car.
• 56:23
  And underneath, just a table that had horsepower, top speed, and 0 to
• 56:28
  60, comparing the Strada with the Golf GTI, whatever, Peugeot 205,
• 56:33
  309, whatever you care to mention, Escort XR3i, the Strada was faster.
• 56:39
  It was bigger.
• 56:40
  It had two Weber carbs instead of fuel injection.
• 56:43
  It was super unreliable.
• 56:45
  It rusted away.
• 56:46
  Hardly any of them are left.
• 56:47
  They're unobtainium now.
• 56:49
  Really cool.
• 56:50
  That's my vote.
• 56:51
  They're not because of the Fiat Ritmo lineage.
• 56:55
  And so suddenly I get the Agida.
• 56:57
  Just burned them all to the ground.
• 57:00
  You're a Ritmo hater, are you?
• 57:02
  Oh god, they're awful.
• 57:04
  The big problem though with those Stratos was though.
• 57:06
  Understeer.
• 57:10
  I was going to say William, I don't know, I've never driven one.
• 57:14
  I mean, when you, especially the Mark IIs, it looks like a
• 57:18
  Saab 900 had a baby with a GTI.
• 57:22
  It's like, I don't know, they just make me cringe every time I look at it.
• 57:25
  Yeah, everyone, that was the thing in period.
• 57:27
  Nobody even knew what they were.
• 57:28
  Right.
• 57:28
  So you just floated below the radar and looking back, I wish I'd had
• 57:32
  the courage of my convictions to say to my dad, I'm going to get one.
• 57:35
  Instead of when I put it to my dad, it was like twin carbs.
• 57:38
  Oh, I had a friend who had a tripe PI.
• 57:41
  He could never balance the carbs.
• 57:43
  You know, you can't buy it.
• 57:44
  You need a special tool.
• 57:45
  And I shouldn't let me put me off.
• 57:46
  I might have said about having had three Cortinas.
• 57:49
  I might've had a fit strata one 30 instead.
• 57:52
  Well, I see that Fiat all of a sudden came back with it, reintroduced it, but
• 57:56
  it looks like it's a pickup truck now.
• 57:58
  Oh, that's awful.
• 57:58
  In this time frame, the late 90s, Italy, we haven't brought up this brand at all.
• 58:03
  The DiTomaso, what do they call that?
• 58:05
  The Guara?
• 58:06
  The Cuvale.
• 58:08
  Oh, yeah.
• 58:09
  No, they have, it's, it's with a G. Guara?
• 58:11
  Guara?
• 58:12
  It's a very cool looking car.
• 58:14
  It was very 2000.
• 58:15
  The Guara?
• 58:16
  Yeah, I see what you're saying.
• 58:17
  Yeah.
• 58:18
  It's like the Jaguar XG.
• 58:19
  220 kind of kind of, but if you're going to buy at that time period,
• 58:24
  you buy what they called the Q valet, which was the 1999, which was also sold
• 58:28
  as the new Mangusta, which it looks nothing like the original Mangusta.
• 58:32
  If you're familiar with those cars, it's all very low to Ceylon
• 58:37
  MG F. It's all, I disagree.
• 58:40
  I think it's cool.
• 58:41
  That was a good call.
• 58:44
  No, it's definitely cool.
• 58:45
  Eric's just wrong.
• 58:46
  It's okay.
• 58:46
  Yeah, is that its own chassis and everything?
• 58:48
  Mustang based, I thought.
• 58:50
  I thought so too.
• 58:51
  I thought it was a Ford, yeah.
• 58:53
  Well, because like your point, Eric, with that Corvalli thing, whatever it was,
• 58:56
  wasn't there a Ford version of that they had here you could get in the States?
• 58:59
  I'd have to think about what it was, unless it was based on like,
• 59:02
  the Mustang Well, before the SN95, I think it was the Fox Body.
• 59:05
  So, okay, then it would have been the first of the new
• 59:08
  stuff, then after the Fox Body.
• 59:09
  Or was it, what's his name, um The Shelby?
• 59:12
  No.
• 59:13
  Atlanta.
• 59:13
  Don Pano's?
• 59:14
  Yeah.
• 59:15
  Did Pano's do something with the Cavalli?
• 59:16
  The Pano's Esperante?
• 59:18
  Yeah.
• 59:18
  The Guara is ugly though.
• 59:19
  I know he dabbled in a few different things or his kid did whatever.
• 59:22
  Yeah, the Esperante looks similar ish to it, but I think it's a bigger car.
• 59:26
  Probably just the body.
• 59:28
  I'll pass.
• 59:28
  That's not for me, Don.
• 59:30
  All right, so Italians.
• 59:32
  Anything else Italian before we move a little bit more?
• 59:34
  Inland in Europe.
• 59:36
  Go for it.
• 59:36
  All right, how about the French?
• 59:37
  I mean, we all know what car is coming with them.
• 59:48
  Can you guys guess which one Brad and I have already selected?
• 59:51
  R5 Turbo is the R34 of France.
• 59:55
  Well, the next generation, so not the Williams Clio.
• 59:58
  But the, the Renault Clio sport V6, the mid engine one, those
• 1:00:02
  are right for the picking.
• 1:00:03
  Yeah.
• 1:00:03
  That was my top pick.
• 1:00:05
  That good.
• 1:00:05
  Didn't they call it the Clio 24 valve?
• 1:00:07
  Yes.
• 1:00:08
  It came out alongside of the R32 Volkswagen, not the skyline to compete
• 1:00:13
  with that and other hot hatches of the period, but it is the ultimate
• 1:00:16
  B road bomber if there ever was one.
• 1:00:18
  And it's still, if you don't look at the mark one Clio
• 1:00:21
  sports, you look at the mark.
• 1:00:22
  Two's slightly newer, like 2003, 2004 timeframe.
• 1:00:26
  Still again, within our window, those are the ones to have, I've seen that
• 1:00:30
  there are some Mark ones running around in California and stuff like that.
• 1:00:33
  They've already been imported, but if you can get your hands on that 3.
• 1:00:37
  2 liter mid engine.
• 1:00:38
  Second generation that is still a good looking car to this day and a performer.
• 1:00:42
  I don't think it's very understeery.
• 1:00:44
  I believe it has some snap throttle oversteer.
• 1:00:47
  The last car I had in England was a Laguna.
• 1:00:49
  So that was like Renault's Mondeo with that same V6 motor, which it was a revver.
• 1:00:55
  It was a 24 valve revver, but it was down on power next to the other stuff.
• 1:01:00
  So when that Clio V6 came out.
• 1:01:02
  It didn't have the impact that I feel like it should have had.
• 1:01:06
  And when you listen to people who have them now, they
• 1:01:09
  have a hell of a reputation.
• 1:01:11
  They're sufficiently rare.
• 1:01:12
  You compared them with the Golf R, but the Golf R still got the engine in the front.
• 1:01:16
  I feel like they're not in the same category.
• 1:01:18
  It's something far more like the Puma RS in terms of something.
• 1:01:22
  Really special.
• 1:01:23
  The advantage that the R 32 had the original golf R had over the Clio was
• 1:01:28
  that it was all-wheel drive so you could put all 250 horsepower to the ground
• 1:01:32
  versus the Clio was rear wheel drive, which makes it more fun and more agile and
• 1:01:36
  all the other things that come with it.
• 1:01:38
  But the R 32 wasn't a normal GTI.
• 1:01:40
  It was a TT with a GTI body on top of it.
• 1:01:43
  So it's a whole different ball of wax at that point.
• 1:01:46
  'cause you've got Quatro and a really smart Hal deck.
• 1:01:48
  Yeah.
• 1:01:49
  So the only other car I came up with.
• 1:01:52
  And it's an oddball because it sort of leans into what
• 1:01:55
  we talked about with Toyota.
• 1:01:57
  Mark, you brought up some of the big cruisers and the sleepers, and I sort of
• 1:02:00
  found a Renault sleeper that's in this time period, and it came as a twin turbo.
• 1:02:05
  The Saffron Bi Turbo.
• 1:02:08
  Right?
• 1:02:09
  It's an elegant car.
• 1:02:10
  It's kind of handsome, you know, in that sort of subtle Cosworthy
• 1:02:14
  Vauxhall sort of way as well.
• 1:02:16
  And I think nobody's looking at these.
• 1:02:19
  And if you dress it up with a set of wheels, you've got
• 1:02:21
  something to write home about.
• 1:02:22
  Now that's super rare.
• 1:02:24
  They were not sold in Britain.
• 1:02:26
  And because I had the Laguna at the time, the Saffron looked
• 1:02:30
  like a big version of the Laguna.
• 1:02:31
  And it was the time in Europe when.
• 1:02:33
  Big Renaults, big Vauxhalls, big Fords just weren't selling.
• 1:02:37
  So that's the Franc.
• 1:02:38
  The high trim ones never came to England.
• 1:02:41
  We never got right hand drive ones.
• 1:02:43
  And the last time I had a vacation to France, I actually frustrated my
• 1:02:46
  family by stopping and turning around.
• 1:02:48
  Getting out at a garage at the side of the road and looking,
• 1:02:52
  because I thought I saw a saffron by turbo in the yard at the back.
• 1:02:56
  It wasn't.
• 1:02:57
  It was a Saffron Monaco, which had the same wheels and trim, but it
• 1:03:01
  was not a by turbo rated at over 400 horsepower back in the late nineties.
• 1:03:05
  That's crazy.
• 1:03:06
  Total sleeper.
• 1:03:07
  Yeah.
• 1:03:08
  It's ugly as sin, though.
• 1:03:09
  Just blobby and ugly, right?
• 1:03:11
  Yeah.
• 1:03:11
  Very 90s.
• 1:03:12
  And inside, plasticky.
• 1:03:14
  The Laguna was, I had a top trim Laguna, and it was still plasticky.
• 1:03:17
  My understanding is the Safrans weren't much better.
• 1:03:20
  Maybe the Biturbo was.
• 1:03:22
  The other Renaults to think about in that period that are much
• 1:03:25
  more interesting than the Safran, Is the Valsatis and the Avanti.
• 1:03:30
  The weirdly angular hatchback van thing.
• 1:03:33
  One was a coupe, like a minivan, a two door minivan.
• 1:03:36
  I think that was the Avanti.
• 1:03:37
  Yeah.
• 1:03:38
  And then the, so one was like way out there.
• 1:03:40
  And then the other one was like, let's try and be a bit practical here.
• 1:03:43
  And that was the Valsatis.
• 1:03:45
  I always felt that was pretty interesting.
• 1:03:46
  That would be best had probably with a diesel rather than with the V6 petrol.
• 1:03:50
  If I'm going to go that way with it, I would then just buy a Renault Esprit.
• 1:03:55
  Time period because that's one of those minivans sort of like the euro van and I
• 1:04:00
  hate to say the dustbuster the silhouette and some of those other quirky ones
• 1:04:04
  where people are like, that's a really cool van because it's so different.
• 1:04:08
  So if I'm going to spend the money on something very French, the Aventine, I'm
• 1:04:12
  going to kind of push to the side and go, I'm going to get into spas because.
• 1:04:15
  I'm gonna show up at the Cars and Coffee and be like, Wait, where'd you get that?
• 1:04:17
  That's cool.
• 1:04:18
  The Esplats is a boring shape.
• 1:04:19
  The Avantime and the Valsatis, if you want something unique.
• 1:04:23
  I wouldn't do them.
• 1:04:24
  I'm not trying to buy a Valsatis.
• 1:04:25
  I'm getting out looking at the Saffron by Turbo, aren't I?
• 1:04:28
  In that same time period, you said something that triggered it in my head.
• 1:04:31
  One of the best movies of the late 90s, which is right in this time period.
• 1:04:35
  And you can gaze at all the cars in the background while you're
• 1:04:38
  watching it as the movie Ronin.
• 1:04:39
  And in Ronin, you had that Citroen XM.
• 1:04:43
  So what about something from that camp?
• 1:04:45
  All right.
• 1:04:46
  So Citroen for me, the AX GT, the AX was the little one.
• 1:04:50
  The GT was the hot rod one.
• 1:04:52
  This thing weighs about the same as a Coke can.
• 1:04:55
  They were fun to drive.
• 1:04:56
  Super dangerous, but fun to drive.
• 1:04:58
  How understeery was it?
• 1:05:02
  Bigger model, the BX.
• 1:05:04
  There was a version of those that had, we'll talk about Peugeots in a minute.
• 1:05:07
  The same as the Peugeot 205.
• 1:05:09
  Same motor as that 1.
• 1:05:11
  9 16 valve head thing could do 140 miles an hour and it had Citroën's
• 1:05:16
  weird hydropneumatic suspension.
• 1:05:18
  So if you look up Citroën BXGTI 16 valve, there's one that the British YouTubers
• 1:05:23
  have been sharing that's called Tomato.
• 1:05:26
  I mean that car, it's not super weird old Citroën like Citroën GSA was
• 1:05:32
  sufficiently mainstream to have real.
• 1:05:34
  appeal and actually cross over to Cortina man, but if you're going
• 1:05:38
  to spend that kind of money, you wouldn't go back and buy a BX four
• 1:05:41
  TC, like the rally car that never was.
• 1:05:44
  No, because that's like a full on rally car, right?
• 1:05:47
  This BX 19 GTR.
• 1:05:49
  That's like a hot rod, that's a five, ten, fifteen thousand dollar proposition
• 1:05:54
  rather than a The other one I've got that I think is really interesting,
• 1:05:57
  and if I was actually trying to help a collector build something that was going
• 1:06:01
  to impress people out of cars and coffee.
• 1:06:04
  How about the Citroen CX Turbo?
• 1:06:07
  You can get a three row wagon version of that as well.
• 1:06:11
  Oh yeah!
• 1:06:12
  They're rare!
• 1:06:13
  There's even a version of that a newspaper firm in France used.
• 1:06:18
  If you look up, so there's like a van version of it that was designed to
• 1:06:22
  deliver like Figaro all over Europe.
• 1:06:25
  It's like a three axle trailer one that some guy in Paris used to build that I
• 1:06:30
  fell down a rat hole of reading about.
• 1:06:32
  But look, a turbo Citroen CX, that has to be a wow moment.
• 1:06:36
  The problem I've always had with is the same problem I have with the DS, right?
• 1:06:41
  The Diane.
• 1:06:42
  I just I can't and then I look at it and I go was Citroen challenged
• 1:06:47
  to make an Audi 200 Avant because that's what it looks like.
• 1:06:51
  I don't know there's something about these Citroens that makes my blood curdle.
• 1:06:55
  I mean Citroens you do either love them or hate them and I am not a Citroen guy.
• 1:07:00
  To drive they're really weird they have like hydropneumatic brakes so the brakes
• 1:07:04
  are like really really sensitive and they have this super like Bloaty ride,
• 1:07:08
  like a lot of French cars of that period have a good ride, Peugeot or whatever
• 1:07:11
  will handle well and be compliant.
• 1:07:13
  But Citroens, they were in a different class for ride quality.
• 1:07:16
  The big ones in the BXs, you know, the AX is just like a little hot rod.
• 1:07:21
  I don't think it got mentioned, but the Peugeot 206, they had a rally
• 1:07:26
  car version, hot hatch kind of deals.
• 1:07:28
  Any of those hot hatch special editions, I think just are automatically cool.
• 1:07:32
  I agree.
• 1:07:33
  Yeah.
• 1:07:33
  For Peugeot, I had the 6, which had the same wheel as.
• 1:07:39
  The 205 Turbo 16, the 205 GTI 1.
• 1:07:43
  9 that had different wheels on it.
• 1:07:45
  That's how you can tell them apart.
• 1:07:46
  If you're watching Anglia car auctions and watching them roll through, there
• 1:07:50
  was also a model called the 309.
• 1:07:52
  Now that was interesting because that was designed by the team in Coventry before
• 1:07:57
  Peugeot took over what was left of.
• 1:08:01
  Chrysler and it was due to be the last Talbot or the last Sunbee and
• 1:08:05
  the 309 in GTI form is considered to handle better than the 205.
• 1:08:11
  I never had one.
• 1:08:12
  I came close, 500 quid was agreed in the pub car park and then the bloke
• 1:08:16
  no showed and I never did get the 309 GTI with the two week MOT on it.
• 1:08:22
  The other one to think about, and these are rare now, is the 405 MI 16.
• 1:08:27
  So that's the same motor as in the BX 16 valve, but a Peugeot 405.
• 1:08:32
  So arguably more boring.
• 1:08:35
  Well, aren't those 205s hugely popular or even now and back then?
• 1:08:39
  People are importing the rallies as well, which is like the
• 1:08:42
  base model version of them.
• 1:08:44
  Pricing are crazy from my understanding.
• 1:08:45
  But the rallies were rarer and were arguably an even more pure
• 1:08:50
  form of what Peugeot were doing.
• 1:08:52
  There's another model, they did a smaller model called the 106, and the
• 1:08:56
  106 rallies are arguably even cooler.
• 1:08:59
  If we're looking at that small size, talked about the Clio 24 valve, that
• 1:09:02
  had the engine sort of in the back seat and like wide tires and a good stance.
• 1:09:06
  You could get like a Clio William, as in the Williams Formula One team.
• 1:09:10
  So this was when Renault were in bed with Williams and had Williams building
• 1:09:15
  their British touring car team.
• 1:09:16
  There was a special Williams breathed on version of the Clio 16 valve.
• 1:09:23
  So this was like 1.
• 1:09:24
  8 liters, 180, 190 horse, but tiny little car, lovely gold
• 1:09:30
  wheels handling by Williams.
• 1:09:32
  I feel like the challenge with those is that they're so well loved at home.
• 1:09:37
  that you wouldn't buy for a cheap price.
• 1:09:38
  If you were trying to impress people at a Cars and Coffee, great,
• 1:09:42
  nobody else is going to have one.
• 1:09:43
  If you're trying to make money, I feel like if you filled a shipping crate
• 1:09:47
  with Alpha GTVs that you'd paid 3, 000 for in England and you could sell here
• 1:09:52
  for 8, 000 or 9, 000, I feel like you might be able to make money with that.
• 1:09:56
  Similarly with the TVRs.
• 1:09:57
  But I feel like with the hot hatches, They're just too poxy and slow for
• 1:10:01
  American enthusiasts to really get them.
• 1:10:03
  Perhaps with the exception of Chris there.
• 1:10:05
  Didn't they make that Cleo Williams?
• 1:10:07
  Did they make a super special rare one that was named after one of their drivers?
• 1:10:11
  Like they make like one was like 25 cars or something.
• 1:10:14
  And that's like your JDM special edition ones that if you.
• 1:10:18
  of a guy that remembers that, because one of the reasons why I like TVR is
• 1:10:22
  that my best mate in England lent a car to a TVR guy to go to Le Mans one
• 1:10:28
  year because his TVR was broken and that favour has never been repaid.
• 1:10:33
  And I've always said to my buddy, you know, if we ever want to buy TVRs, you
• 1:10:36
  know, get Stu, come car shopping with us because Stu still has TVRs, still knows
• 1:10:42
  people in the community and knows which mechanics are the good ones and which
• 1:10:46
  are the expensive ones and And I feel like you need that unfair advantage if
• 1:10:50
  you're going to make a business out of it.
• 1:10:51
  If you're just going to impress people at the cars and coffee,
• 1:10:54
  totally different matter.
• 1:10:54
  Well, that's what we're all about here, John.
• 1:10:58
  Well, I've got one for you from the French camp that you all
• 1:11:00
  have probably forgotten about.
• 1:11:02
  Three letters, sort of like TBR.
• 1:11:04
  Instead, this is MBS.
• 1:11:05
  They created the Venturi, they had the Atlantique, they had
• 1:11:09
  the 300, the 300 GT, but more specifically the MVS Venturi 400 GT.
• 1:11:15
  That is the car to get.
• 1:11:17
  Yeah, that was on my list.
• 1:11:19
  I was about to bring that one up as well.
• 1:11:20
  I was going to be a little more brave.
• 1:11:21
  The whole, all Venturis are cool in my opinion.
• 1:11:24
  Thousand percent.
• 1:11:25
  That was the one that they erased it actually didn't do too bad at Le
• 1:11:28
  Mans, didn't it, in a couple of years?
• 1:11:29
  Correct.
• 1:11:29
  They erased it in their version of IMSA over there before it was WECC.
• 1:11:33
  But yeah, they did pretty well.
• 1:11:34
  And they were just an independent French brand kind of shooting
• 1:11:37
  after the likes of Lotus.
• 1:11:39
  I mean, the cars have similar design and things like that.
• 1:11:41
  And in borrowed parts, like always, they still look good today,
• 1:11:45
  especially if you buy the right one.
• 1:11:47
  But the 400 is a little bit more ostentatious.
• 1:11:50
  Because it's sort of the last of the line, it's got the most horsepower.
• 1:11:53
  It's got the big wine, it's got the big wheels and the flares.
• 1:11:56
  And it just, it looks like a homologated GT three car, right?
• 1:11:59
  So that to me is a huge draw and you show up with something like that.
• 1:12:02
  And immediately people are going to ask you what body kit
• 1:12:05
  is that on your Lotus Esprit.
• 1:12:07
  But the reality is it's French and it's cool and I wouldn't
• 1:12:11
  kick it out, that's for sure.
• 1:12:12
  I think it's a little bigger than that though.
• 1:12:14
  Like if you want your Lotus Esprit body kit and a low volume French
• 1:12:18
  maker, how do you, is this Hamel?
• 1:12:20
  Hamel?
• 1:12:21
  I only knew it from Gran Turismo 20 some odd years ago.
• 1:12:25
  And then doing some research for this caused me to kind of dig it back up.
• 1:12:29
  But the Pommel Berlinette, it's a short wheelbase wide.
• 1:12:33
  It was made by a former race car driver.
• 1:12:36
  He started the company and they made one model 1990, 2003.
• 1:12:40
  Like I said, I only knew of it cause I, 25 years ago, I played it in Gran Turismo.
• 1:12:44
  But it is very much in that kind of 200 horsepower, lightweight
• 1:12:47
  four cylinder kind of style.
• 1:12:50
  I think probably going head to head to the, with the Elise in
• 1:12:52
  the mid nineties, when the Elise first started coming around.
• 1:12:55
  So the Hamel or Hummel, depending on how you put it.
• 1:12:58
  Yeah.
• 1:12:58
  Yeah.
• 1:12:59
  It has that sort of Celica STS look to the front of it, like the gen
• 1:13:03
  three, you know, X rally car with the four headlights in the front.
• 1:13:06
  And it has some design keys from some other cars.
• 1:13:09
  It's peculiar, especially that GT 40 reverse scoop in the hood
• 1:13:13
  and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:13:14
  I mean, it's different.
• 1:13:15
  I would drive one, I just wonder how understeery it is.
• 1:13:17
  LAUGHING You're joking the show.
• 1:13:21
  No, but we've been talking about those hot hatchbacks, this is what,
• 1:13:25
  as Americans, get enthusiastic about.
• 1:13:27
  They are understeery.
• 1:13:28
  Since we're talking French and we're talking quirky, and I think, unless we
• 1:13:31
  find something totally obscure outside of that, I want to give a nod to Sort of
• 1:13:36
  a French cousin coming from the Swedes.
• 1:13:38
  And we actually have an episode in our catalog that you can go back and listen
• 1:13:42
  to about importing a gray market Volvo.
• 1:13:44
  And that's the Volvo 480i turbo, which shares a lot of Renault parts.
• 1:13:49
  It's an interesting design.
• 1:13:50
  It gave way to cars like the C30 and, uh, things like that.
• 1:13:54
  So it's another hot hatch coming from Sweden.
• 1:13:57
  That's another one that there aren't many.
• 1:13:59
  I mean, I know there is one a couple of miles from me.
• 1:14:02
  I can go see it whenever I want.
• 1:14:03
  And they're super nice people.
• 1:14:05
  And, you know, they told the whole story of how they got it here and
• 1:14:07
  all that, but you're not going to see too many of those in the States.
• 1:14:10
  I know when Nate and Emily take theirs to a show, people are like, what is that?
• 1:14:14
  I didn't even know Volvo made a hatchback.
• 1:14:16
  So that's another kind of cool one to consider.
• 1:14:18
  And that sort of brings us to the last country.
• 1:14:21
  I think we need to talk about, which is the Germans.
• 1:14:24
  Do the Germans really have anything that they didn't send to the States?
• 1:14:29
  RS2?
• 1:14:29
  You can build an RS2, that's the problem.
• 1:14:32
  Fair enough.
• 1:14:33
  That's that Audi wagon that Porsche built, is that right?
• 1:14:37
  I don't even want to get into a debate on that one.
• 1:14:39
  Yes, so Porsche supposedly, allegedly, massaged the engine.
• 1:14:44
  And as like they did for Mercedes and some other things.
• 1:14:46
  But the reality is that car Once you take the 911 wheels off and the big
• 1:14:51
  brakes and you know, whatever they did to the tuning of the motor, it's still
• 1:14:55
  a boxy Audi 90 Avant with a big turbo.
• 1:14:59
  Right.
• 1:14:59
  That's why I say you can build those cars.
• 1:15:01
  My dad had a replica S2, which is the coupe version of that Avant.
• 1:15:06
  And that was built in Florida by BAT.
• 1:15:08
  So it was a North American S2.
• 1:15:11
  It had all the bits and pieces from Europe and all that stuff.
• 1:15:13
  Brad remembers that car later got a V8 because he wanted more power.
• 1:15:16
  That being said, I mean, yes.
• 1:15:18
  Sure, but doesn't, what's his face from Cars and Bids have one of those?
• 1:15:22
  Doug DeMuro?
• 1:15:22
  Yeah, Doug DeMuro has one, right?
• 1:15:24
  He's got the S2 wagon, yeah.
• 1:15:25
  I was offered one, my last job in the city in London.
• 1:15:29
  We hired like some city whiz kid dude and he raced historic
• 1:15:33
  group C cars at the weekend.
• 1:15:34
  And one day we were in the pub and he said, Summers, I've got this Audi wagon.
• 1:15:38
  Do you want to buy it?
• 1:15:39
  And I was like, maybe.
• 1:15:41
  Cause I was not longing into the Laguna at that time.
• 1:15:43
  And I wasn't selling a lot of software.
• 1:15:44
  I was reaching the point where I was like, I'm done with this shit.
• 1:15:48
  10 grand he wanted for it.
• 1:15:49
  Oh, it was an M plater.
• 1:15:51
  So that would have meant it was 95, 96 and it had done 85, 000
• 1:15:56
  miles at the time, 10, 000 pounds.
• 1:15:59
  Away.
• 1:16:00
  If we're talking Germany and Mercedes Benz, there are quite a
• 1:16:03
  few that they did not bring over.
• 1:16:04
  Okay.
• 1:16:05
  But they're all trucks.
• 1:16:06
  Oh, we're doing some Unimogs?
• 1:16:09
  Even better are fire trucks or ambulances.
• 1:16:14
  In looking at this, there's a cattle truck that I saw that you
• 1:16:17
  could turn into a car hauler easy.
• 1:16:19
  I crave one of those.
• 1:16:20
  Wouldn't that be amazing?
• 1:16:22
  I think you're alone on that island.
• 1:16:23
  But I support you.
• 1:16:28
  I just don't know what.
• 1:16:29
  Well, everybody has all these idiot things that, you know, they go out
• 1:16:32
  and spend all these big renter vans.
• 1:16:34
  It's like, wouldn't it be cooler to have like an airport fire truck
• 1:16:37
  that you convert into a camper van?
• 1:16:38
  Wouldn't it be cool to have a Mercedes ice cream truck?
• 1:16:41
  It'd be way more badass rolling into the mountains, you know?
• 1:16:45
  It might be an Oregon thing.
• 1:16:46
  Did BMW have quite a few of the wagons?
• 1:16:48
  Was those the 3 series or the 5 series ones?
• 1:16:50
  They did them over there, they didn't bring them over here.
• 1:16:52
  And then they would flop where they'd bring them here and not over there.
• 1:16:55
  Then some alpena that we never saw and then like all sorts were some too.
• 1:16:59
  But like on previous, what should I buy is when we talk about that, you can sort
• 1:17:02
  of to the point of the Audi as well.
• 1:17:04
  Yeah, build it.
• 1:17:05
  You could build it.
• 1:17:06
  If you take an E 36, which there's like a B eight, E 36 alpena, something
• 1:17:11
  that we, I saw that pop up on the list and I'm like, great, so tell me
• 1:17:14
  what's different and I'll build one.
• 1:17:15
  Because overall the chassis and everything is the same.
• 1:17:19
  It's sort of like, you know, the the M versus the non M argument.
• 1:17:22
  I struggled with the Germans quite a bit.
• 1:17:24
  I did find something, but to William's point, the touring, you can't just
• 1:17:29
  go out and just take a regular E 36 and slap the wagon rear end on it.
• 1:17:33
  I mean, I feel like they've probably imported, I don't know if they've
• 1:17:38
  actually chopped up the car and.
• 1:17:40
  Welded on the wagon rear end to 'em.
• 1:17:42
  I mean, where are the receipts?
• 1:17:44
  Right.
• 1:17:46
  , . I mean, if I'm gonna do that, I want an E 30 wagon.
• 1:17:49
  Those are cool, especially the late ones, like 90, 91, 92 at
• 1:17:53
  the tail end of the e thirties.
• 1:17:55
  I think those are super cool as a station wagon.
• 1:17:58
  Yeah.
• 1:17:58
  Weren't those like three eighteens or three sixteens or something?
• 1:18:00
  Something like that?
• 1:18:01
  Yeah.
• 1:18:02
  Yeah.
• 1:18:02
  I think those are really neat.
• 1:18:03
  I've seen some of those stateside and I'm always like, ah, it's a good looking car.
• 1:18:07
  I think it does an all wheel drive too.
• 1:18:08
  I think it was too.
• 1:18:09
  Yeah.
• 1:18:09
  Yeah.
• 1:18:10
  The three, two, five IX.
• 1:18:12
  IX.
• 1:18:12
  Yeah.
• 1:18:12
  Cause you couldn't get them in Britain.
• 1:18:13
  I remember years ago being in Europe and seeing them in Europe and thinking
• 1:18:18
  the IX ones always road higher.
• 1:18:21
  Whereas the three, two, five ones road that little bit lower.
• 1:18:24
  For me, that was the game changer.
• 1:18:26
  And like, I like a car to be low, not.
• 1:18:28
  Looking like an SUV.
• 1:18:30
  And that's the same in the Volkswagen camp.
• 1:18:31
  You know, once they ditched the whole Synchro moniker, they went to what they
• 1:18:35
  called with the Mark 4s and the Mark 3s.
• 1:18:37
  They had the Variant and the Variant was their 4x4s.
• 1:18:40
  So you could get like a Golf Estate 4x4, you know, all this kind of stuff.
• 1:18:44
  And like, okay, that's cool.
• 1:18:46
  There's guys that cut the floor pans here and then they, you
• 1:18:48
  know, bolt up Audi rear end.
• 1:18:49
  So again, that's in that weird restomod.
• 1:18:51
  Category, like if you want to spend the money, it's probably cheaper to build one
• 1:18:55
  than it is to import one in some ways.
• 1:18:57
  Unless you want like a right hand drive Mark 3 GTI, you know,
• 1:19:01
  something bizarre like that.
• 1:19:02
  Like then you're kind of going only to England to kind of bring that stuff in.
• 1:19:06
  The only thing I came up with, and it's German by proxy, and it's a lot older than
• 1:19:11
  the stuff that we've been talking about.
• 1:19:13
  And it made me scratch my head going, why haven't we imported more of the
• 1:19:17
  Mexican and South American variants?
• 1:19:20
  The Super Beetle?
• 1:19:21
  Well, not even the Super Beetle, but like the Brasilia.
• 1:19:23
  All the parts are interchangeable with the Carmen Ghia, and with
• 1:19:27
  the 911, and the Beetles, and everything that it's based on.
• 1:19:30
  And it's like, how cool would it be to have a Brasilia?
• 1:19:32
  Not that cool.
• 1:19:33
  Is your ice cream shop?
• 1:19:35
  This is Eric's ice cream truck.
• 1:19:38
  I went in the other direction.
• 1:19:39
  Like, there are some, what do you call them in the UK?
• 1:19:41
  Like, Hedro Automated, like two guys in a shed with some spanners or whatever.
• 1:19:46
  You know, you have Weissmann.
• 1:19:47
  I think from that time period, it was like the MF3 around 2000.
• 1:19:51
  Curatec, they would put like inline.
• 1:19:53
  You know, it almost looks like a German Morgan in that kind of retro styling.
• 1:19:58
  They're actually still around.
• 1:19:59
  They didn't die off somehow.
• 1:20:01
  They're still making stuff.
• 1:20:02
  Similar kind of old, uh, retro styles.
• 1:20:06
  And then there was Gumballa.
• 1:20:08
  Were they around or was that more like 2005, 2006?
• 1:20:11
  No, Gumballa was all the way back to the 80s.
• 1:20:13
  Yeah.
• 1:20:13
  Cocaine could only make those designs.
• 1:20:15
  Like DeLorean.
• 1:20:17
  Gumballa, man.
• 1:20:18
  Any time I think about those, oof.
• 1:20:20
  Let's make a slant nose, even more slanty.
• 1:20:23
  Let's put some lines on the sides.
• 1:20:25
  Yeah, big test to roast the straights down the side.
• 1:20:28
  I'm like, what is this?
• 1:20:30
  Did you ever see the Gimbala 928?
• 1:20:33
  That thing just will melt your brain.
• 1:20:35
  It's so bad.
• 1:20:37
  I love 928.
• 1:20:39
  Yes.
• 1:20:39
  Left alone.
• 1:20:40
  They're perfect.
• 1:20:41
  We were kinder to Japan.
• 1:20:42
  It feels like, right.
• 1:20:43
  We were willing to kind of cater to the special.
• 1:20:45
  It's like you have all these aftermarket, right?
• 1:20:47
  You know, AMG wasn't acquired until late nineties.
• 1:20:51
  You know, there are other big tuners in Germany, some for Mercedes, some
• 1:20:55
  for Porsche, like a Brabus, the you got Brabus, you got rough, but not all those
• 1:20:59
  things made emissions for the US, right?
• 1:21:01
  Like there's got to be some special editions worth farming out there
• 1:21:04
  to bring back, I would think.
• 1:21:06
  Well, there's a bunch of those, like a lot of the AMGs and stuff like that.
• 1:21:08
  I mean, I always thought was odd is they Japan only sale original whatever,
• 1:21:12
  but they were left hand drive.
• 1:21:14
  And then AMG had a, I was a dealer or it was themselves, but They actually
• 1:21:19
  ship them there, then the conversions were done there in Japan, to make
• 1:21:22
  them the AMG and stuff like that.
• 1:21:24
  But like, Curated does a crap load of stuff like that from Japan.
• 1:21:27
  Getting like a lot of those AMGs, like they're big on those, but
• 1:21:30
  get big money for those cars.
• 1:21:32
  Non Mercedes owned AMG cars.
• 1:21:35
  It's a weird thing with cars from Japan though, when I've written
• 1:21:37
  about a number of them for auction houses, and they're always in superb
• 1:21:43
  condition, but with zero history.
• 1:21:45
  So I wrote about an E30 AMG.
• 1:21:48
  Alpina, and from the photographs, the car looked like it was a brand new car,
• 1:21:53
  but there were no service records and no history with it whatsoever, because the
• 1:21:58
  Japanese are that obsessed with privacy.
• 1:22:01
  Like, you've really got to challenge with those AMG cars, like that version
• 1:22:04
  of Ed Boleyn, who you see on VinWiki, who's trying to do the same thing with
• 1:22:08
  AMG as Ed Boleyn's done with Lamborghini.
• 1:22:11
  I feel like he's got a hell of a challenge because the history just isn't there.
• 1:22:15
  Any car that comes from Japan, there is just zero history.
• 1:22:19
  There's no, like, if I'm writing about a Corvette and I can see that the
• 1:22:23
  Corvette's been worked on by a mechanic, I'll call that mechanic and ask him.
• 1:22:27
  Whereas with the Japanese, they won't supply any of that information, even if
• 1:22:31
  you were ready to pick up the phone and Break out your best Japanese to talk to.
• 1:22:35
  Well, the last one for the Germans.
• 1:22:37
  I'll give a nod back to James Humphrey because it was one of the few German
• 1:22:40
  cars he had on his list outside of some Audi station wagons like the RS four.
• 1:22:45
  Again, another car you can basically build with Boltons here in the
• 1:22:48
  United States was the Luo GTI.
• 1:22:50
  We actually battled back and forth about this car on the drive through
• 1:22:53
  episode and whether it was worth.
• 1:22:55
  doing that or finding yourself an original Mark 1.
• 1:22:58
  You'd be better off with a Saxo GTI.
• 1:23:01
  The best hot hatch of that period, small one, was the Citroën Saxo GTI.
• 1:23:07
  And the proof of it was, it's probably still true in Southern Italy, in Spain,
• 1:23:12
  France, those kind of places now.
• 1:23:14
  The youth tune the Saxo GTIs, they don't care about the Lupo GTIs.
• 1:23:18
  Less understeering, I get it.
• 1:23:20
  I see what it's all about.
• 1:23:21
  Alright, so as we wrap this thing out, like we always try to do
• 1:23:25
  before we do our lightning round is actually give some sane advice.
• 1:23:29
  To our collectors that are listening to this again, I will say, let's refer back
• 1:23:33
  to the Volvo 480i episode with Nate and Emily, where they talk about bringing
• 1:23:37
  in a car from Sweden, the process going through the docs, like the paperwork
• 1:23:41
  and registration and all those kinds of things, because they gave a lot of detail.
• 1:23:45
  And I don't think we need to cover all that again.
• 1:23:47
  We will have a link in the show notes to an article that's very well written
• 1:23:51
  that I found that also goes through a more modernized version of all the
• 1:23:55
  rules and the regulations and like what it takes to bring these cars into the
• 1:23:59
  states because even though they're legal now doesn't necessarily mean that the
• 1:24:03
  process It's still a challenge to get these cars delivered, verify that they
• 1:24:08
  are what they are, that you're not getting scammed and all those kinds of things.
• 1:24:12
  And then there's some shops, reputable or otherwise, that
• 1:24:15
  they specialize in import export.
• 1:24:17
  And so, your mileage may vary on all that.
• 1:24:19
  I will also say that I found a loophole.
• 1:24:22
  You can bring cars through Canada.
• 1:24:24
  Now that might change this year, we don't know.
• 1:24:26
  Canada can bring in cars as new as 10 years old.
• 1:24:30
  But if you want to export from Canada into the United States, you only have
• 1:24:33
  to wait 21 years and not 25 years.
• 1:24:37
  So we have a four year gap that you can work with between us and Canada.
• 1:24:41
  But now you got to take that other step.
• 1:24:43
  You got to get somebody to bring it into Canada and hold it, and then
• 1:24:45
  bring it into the United States.
• 1:24:46
  State.
• 1:24:47
  So are you really buying any time?
• 1:24:48
  They're very interesting debate, but the reality is the
• 1:24:52
  hardest part in this process.
• 1:24:55
  And William, maybe you could talk to this is registering, insuring,
• 1:24:59
  and getting parts for these cars.
• 1:25:00
  It's almost like buying an exotic.
• 1:25:02
  Yeah.
• 1:25:02
  Bring it in.
• 1:25:03
  You're going to have all your hurdles and stuff.
• 1:25:04
  You got to jump through.
• 1:25:05
  I personally try not to get involved in that aspect of it.
• 1:25:09
  I'll try and steer them to something or not because I
• 1:25:12
  just don't want the liability.
• 1:25:14
  So it's not something, again, it's kind of same thing like with
• 1:25:16
  transport, everything like that.
• 1:25:17
  Here's some bunch you could call if you want.
• 1:25:20
  I'm not recommending them say yes or no to any of them, but here you go.
• 1:25:23
  I don't want to have that ball because something goes wrong and you know
• 1:25:25
  everyone's looking to blame someone else.
• 1:25:27
  You know, hey, it's your fault, your fault.
• 1:25:28
  I always recommend going to, especially as companies, not trying to do it yourself.
• 1:25:32
  I mean, unless you wanna start doing it multiple times and hey, learn to
• 1:25:35
  process, spend the money a few extra dollars and have it just brought in.
• 1:25:39
  Have them do it all there.
• 1:25:40
  There's actually cars International with the shipper.
• 1:25:43
  There's some in there that will actually do from door to door and
• 1:25:46
  all your pay, everything, doctorate, nine yards, shipping it, the whole
• 1:25:48
  nine yards, not just say once you get here, then they'll handle it.
• 1:25:51
  I mean, they do everything.
• 1:25:52
  So once it hits the port, then it's end, then they ship.
• 1:25:54
  They do it all.
• 1:25:55
  These companies are starting to get more one stop shop
• 1:25:57
  because that's what people want.
• 1:25:59
  They don't want to be calling five different entities to
• 1:26:01
  try and get a card here.
• 1:26:02
  So they actually want to make one phone call.
• 1:26:03
  But again, it's like reputation, whatnot.
• 1:26:06
  Any company, they're always going to have a hiccup here and there.
• 1:26:08
  Won't go smoothly a hundred percent of the time.
• 1:26:10
  Let them do it.
• 1:26:11
  Except they do on a regular basis.
• 1:26:12
  I don't say, Oh, use this or do this.
• 1:26:15
  I just don't want the liability.
• 1:26:16
  Parts wise, though, that's the big thing, though.
• 1:26:18
  Okay, now you have it here.
• 1:26:20
  Is there any here?
• 1:26:21
  Are you going to be shipping everything over?
• 1:26:22
  Should you just start buying parts just to stay ahead of the game?
• 1:26:25
  Wait till something, you know, it's kind of that thing.
• 1:26:27
  You start hoarding stuff.
• 1:26:28
  Depending on the model and stuff, like, does the factory even make them anymore?
• 1:26:32
  Are you going to go complete aftermarket?
• 1:26:33
  I mean, are you going to need to hunt down NOS?
• 1:26:35
  I mean, there's so many different avenues to go on that stuff, you know?
• 1:26:38
  You bring up a really important point that I kept kind of mulling around in my head.
• 1:26:41
  If I had to buy a gray market car myself I would probably lean towards something that
• 1:26:47
  either had cross part number pollination with a vehicle that was in the United
• 1:26:52
  States that it was easier to get like you start buying French cars and it's sort
• 1:26:56
  of like going to the track and you look around the paddock and you're the only
• 1:26:58
  one with that car and something breaks well nobody can help you right it's the
• 1:27:02
  same thing you bring a French car and you're all by yourself unless you find a
• 1:27:05
  specialty shop versus you bring in a weird Volkswagen or Some of these BMWs that we
• 1:27:10
  talked about, or even some of the Asian cars where they share a lot of DNA with
• 1:27:14
  their U S cousins, you're like, ah, well, that's actually the same part they used on
• 1:27:18
  the Camry or the Lexus GS 400, you know, and you can like kind of cross match it.
• 1:27:22
  So you can build to your point, that sort of repository of parts without
• 1:27:27
  having to bend over backwards, but you bring in something really odd ball.
• 1:27:30
  You're in exotic territory where it's like.
• 1:27:32
  Go find a fabricator.
• 1:27:34
  Cause you're on your own.
• 1:27:35
  Yeah.
• 1:27:35
  And you're going to spend it 10 times as much too.
• 1:27:36
  That's the other problem.
• 1:27:37
  But again, you know, it's one day if you poured it and then something
• 1:27:40
  happens, then you've got a nice little savings account because then you could
• 1:27:43
  start selling stuff or a nice markup.
• 1:27:45
  Look at the price side of stuff, right?
• 1:27:47
  So our import export startup guys.
• 1:27:50
  John, Chris, and especially Mark, you've been looking at BAT and some
• 1:27:53
  of this, where do you think people should be putting their money?
• 1:27:56
  Should it be into Asian cars, something from mainland Europe, Australia?
• 1:27:59
  Where do you think the best investment is?
• 1:28:01
  Sure.
• 1:28:01
  From an investment perspective, you know, you just, you got
• 1:28:03
  to ride the demographics.
• 1:28:04
  And so as your millennials move into their peak income, you know,
• 1:28:09
  they haven't gotten there yet.
• 1:28:11
  I think there's still an upward trajectory on those 95 to 2005 cars.
• 1:28:18
  I think even in this show, we showed a little bias towards the JDM cars.
• 1:28:21
  I'm guilty of that as, as anyone else.
• 1:28:24
  And so I think, yeah, I would lean in that market, you know,
• 1:28:26
  but you got to be smart about it.
• 1:28:28
  The buying advice, you didn't ask me for buying advice, but I'm giving it anyway.
• 1:28:31
  It would be buy something that somebody else already imported.
• 1:28:35
  That that would be find somebody who was super passionate and super in
• 1:28:39
  love with that car and for whatever reason they have to get out of it now.
• 1:28:43
  It's really unfortunate that they have to get out of it.
• 1:28:45
  That's the best card.
• 1:28:46
  I takes a while to find those.
• 1:28:48
  You got to look for a long time, but that would be 100 percent my advice.
• 1:28:50
  Chris, what do you think?
• 1:28:51
  Where would you put your money?
• 1:28:52
  I think there's some edge cases and we talked about a few where there's.
• 1:28:57
  kind of a car that's relatively unknown, but when you bring it over,
• 1:29:00
  it would really catch attention like that Venturi or something like that.
• 1:29:04
  I mean, that's probably not a great example because they're super rare, but
• 1:29:07
  I'm more thinking about what's going to get the biggest crowd at Cars and Coffee
• 1:29:11
  and less about the money side of things.
• 1:29:13
  And again, this shows my own personal taste, but it's like, I'm all for
• 1:29:17
  like, you know, modded or upgraded race car style, especially the Tommy
• 1:29:22
  Mackinnon, especially that one.
• 1:29:25
  That's an awesome car.
• 1:29:26
  That's a cool car.
• 1:29:27
  I think they're very impressive and they're very authentic.
• 1:29:29
  I just think there's a real connection with the racing
• 1:29:32
  lineage from which they came.
• 1:29:34
  It's where those win on Sunday, sell on Monday kind of vibe.
• 1:29:37
  And I really relate to that.
• 1:29:39
  I really feel like you're not getting the car that's on the track necessarily,
• 1:29:43
  but you're getting something that's extremely evocative of that, unless
• 1:29:46
  you have those little fantasies.
• 1:29:48
  Whether it's rally cars or touring cars, anything in that vein, I
• 1:29:51
  think, is where I put my money.
• 1:29:53
  All right, so John, as our import export expert, how about some
• 1:29:56
  fatherly advice for our listeners?
• 1:29:58
  Where would you put your money?
• 1:29:59
  Are you siding with Mark and Chris about kind of sticking
• 1:30:02
  with the Asian domestic market?
• 1:30:04
  I definitely like the idea of reducing the hassle and buying something that somebody
• 1:30:09
  else has already had all the hassle doing.
• 1:30:11
  I mean, that's like The whole thing of instead of buying a project car, you buy
• 1:30:15
  the car that somebody else has already built, you buy it off them and then you
• 1:30:18
  can drive it straight away kind of thing.
• 1:30:20
  So I feel like there's a lot to be said for that.
• 1:30:22
  In terms of investability, it is about the demographics, but
• 1:30:26
  I think it's also about rarity.
• 1:30:28
  And it's also about that fundamental thing of whether or not it's cool.
• 1:30:32
  So that DiTomaso, Bangusta or Cavell or whatever you want to call it.
• 1:30:37
  Rare as hen's teeth.
• 1:30:39
  Maybe desirable for some people, but it's a small minority.
• 1:30:42
  Most people are just not, uh, You know, certainly if I was going to do
• 1:30:45
  it as a business, you know, I like TVR.
• 1:30:48
  Although they're super unreliable, I feel like if I greased Gammy's mate
• 1:30:53
  Stew's palms properly, Stew, and Gammy went with him, we could make sure that
• 1:30:58
  whatever was arriving at the docks in Southampton in England, was okay.
• 1:31:03
  And I feel like I could then with my buddy here to have something that I could
• 1:31:08
  drive round and then he could sort out and flip on and perhaps just maybe we might
• 1:31:13
  be able to make some money out of it.
• 1:31:15
  I feel like the French stuff's really interesting.
• 1:31:18
  You know, the hot hatches.
• 1:31:19
  All of that stuff.
• 1:31:20
  I feel like there's not necessarily money to be made there.
• 1:31:22
  The one four seven GTA.
• 1:31:24
  Now that's something different because I've seen alpha GTV that
• 1:31:28
  were not worth very much at home, make ridiculous prices here.
• 1:31:32
  And if you are at that cars and coffee and somebody's never seen
• 1:31:36
  an alpha one four seven GTA before, and they go out for a drive in it.
• 1:31:40
  And that torque steer snatches the steering wheel out of their hands.
• 1:31:44
  They're probably gonna wanna buy the car because it's thrilling and exciting.
• 1:31:48
  And so I feel like those, I mean I, I was watching a car auction just the other day,
• 1:31:53
  Anglia car auctions in Britain and they had now for GTA and it rolled through for
• 1:31:58
  like 12,000 pounds or something like that.
• 1:32:01
  Well, I feel like you could probably sell it for about double that here
• 1:32:05
  if, but there's a big risk associated with I importing it and fixing.
• 1:32:09
  And, and, and, and, and.
• 1:32:10
  So yeah, so I like the TVRs.
• 1:32:12
  I like that Alpha GTV.
• 1:32:14
  I'd try and do the Murcas and the Capris back to Europe, I think.
• 1:32:18
  I tell you what though, Professor Sommer's imports would be one of the
• 1:32:21
  funnest dealership showrooms to go visit.
• 1:32:23
  Did you like how he masked the understeer by talking about torque steer instead?
• 1:32:28
  He's like, pay no attention to the understeer.
• 1:32:30
  Jerking the wheel out of your hands.
• 1:32:33
  So that being said, it is time for our lightning round.
• 1:32:36
  In honor of John being the newest on our, what should I buy handle this time?
• 1:32:40
  We'll start with you, John, you get to pick a gray market car, and I'm going
• 1:32:44
  to give you a little bit of leeway here, and this goes for everybody.
• 1:32:47
  It might not be importable today, but maybe in the next two or three years, that
• 1:32:51
  way I give Chris some breathing space.
• 1:32:53
  You get to pick a gray market car of your choice.
• 1:32:57
  Maybe it's completely off this list.
• 1:32:58
  You've been hiding that ace up your sleeve.
• 1:33:00
  Money is no object and your favorite understeery car of all time.
• 1:33:04
  Do you get to get picked too?
• 1:33:05
  So John go.
• 1:33:06
  I do a Strada 130 TC.
• 1:33:09
  I never had one in period.
• 1:33:10
  I'd really love to have some teeny light.
• 1:33:14
  Hot hatch, but I would never recommend that to anybody else.
• 1:33:17
  Best understeering car of all time.
• 1:33:18
  Ford Mustang.
• 1:33:19
  You got a Mustang to understeer?
• 1:33:21
  Wow.
• 1:33:21
  Yeah, they push on entry, don't they?
• 1:33:24
  They push on entry and then you need to come in the gas.
• 1:33:27
  I think we're seeing the pattern here of a Ford Mustang understeer.
• 1:33:31
  You should go to a driving school.
• 1:33:36
  He's driving backwards.
• 1:33:37
  Don't talk about those 911 guys like that.
• 1:33:39
  Don't insult Mark.
• 1:33:40
  That said, Chris, you're up next.
• 1:33:42
  Yeah, obviously, the Alfa Romeo Brera, that's literally on my list, like,
• 1:33:46
  when I can do that, I'll probably do that, just because I've been waiting
• 1:33:50
  since I visited there, you know, oh, those many years and saw them on the
• 1:33:53
  road, so I would definitely take that.
• 1:33:55
  That's first in.
• 1:33:56
  Y'all gave me a lot to think about, to be honest with you.
• 1:33:59
  I really like that, I hadn't heard of it before Venturi looked really cool.
• 1:34:03
  I don't know, I thought that was sexy as hell.
• 1:34:05
  I'd probably check one of those out.
• 1:34:07
  Alright, let's pop over to your arch rival.
• 1:34:09
  I'm gonna go with the first car I talked about tonight.
• 1:34:11
  The Toyota Chaser.
• 1:34:12
  I just think it's very unique.
• 1:34:14
  You're not going to see one over here.
• 1:34:16
  It's a good practical car.
• 1:34:18
  It's, it's something you could build on top of and make really fast,
• 1:34:21
  inexpensive to get into, easy to get parts over here, even though they
• 1:34:25
  never sold one because it is a Toyota.
• 1:34:27
  I really thought you would pull a Mitsubishi FTO out of your hat.
• 1:34:30
  You know, my favorite understeering car was my 1998 Eclipse GST.
• 1:34:35
  That car was a lot of fun and very, very understeering.
• 1:34:39
  William.
• 1:34:40
  Money's no object.
• 1:34:41
  You're buying yourself a gray market car.
• 1:34:43
  What is it?
• 1:34:43
  Probably an E36 M3 GT.
• 1:34:46
  Ooh.
• 1:34:47
  One that won't be for another, what, two years?
• 1:34:50
  E46 M3 CSL.
• 1:34:52
  Yeah.
• 1:34:53
  Understeery, I don't know.
• 1:34:54
  Any front wheel drive car is pretty much all understeery.
• 1:34:56
  Anything older than 10 years old front wheel drive is going to be understeery.
• 1:34:59
  Writing them all off like John.
• 1:35:01
  Yeah, those are the ones I'd look at.
• 1:35:03
  Bradley, what you got for us?
• 1:35:05
  What are you buying?
• 1:35:05
  You know, I'm kind of digging that Lotus Carlton.
• 1:35:08
  Either that or any early 2000s Land Rover Defenders.
• 1:35:13
  Yeah, we didn't talk about those too much.
• 1:35:15
  I love those.
• 1:35:15
  No, I'm looking at one right now.
• 1:35:17
  It's a really cool, it's a Defender 130 double cab pickup truck.
• 1:35:21
  I mean, that's super unique here.
• 1:35:22
  I mean, never seen one here.
• 1:35:24
  It just looks really, really bad ass.
• 1:35:26
  It's really well done.
• 1:35:27
  Uh, and then understeery car.
• 1:35:28
  I mean, any stock Mark four Volkswagen is pretty damn understeery before
• 1:35:33
  Eric dials in the suspension.
• 1:35:35
  And then it's very oversteery.
• 1:35:37
  100 percent oversteery.
• 1:35:40
  Go completely the other way.
• 1:35:42
  All right.
• 1:35:42
  So for me, I've been hiding one right here, right in my sleeve.
• 1:35:46
  It is my extra ace.
• 1:35:48
  I only have to wait one more year.
• 1:35:50
  I'm going to give a nod to my sister.
• 1:35:52
  A couple other people because I think they would buy one of these too.
• 1:35:54
  I would have in my garage, it only came in silver.
• 1:35:57
  It only came with a roll cage for interior.
• 1:36:00
  And that's the 2001 Beetle RSI with a 3.
• 1:36:04
  2 liter VR6 and all wheel drive.
• 1:36:06
  That's the precursor to the original Golf R. Those things are awesome.
• 1:36:10
  And that's what I would have as my gray market car.
• 1:36:13
  And in terms of understeery front wheel drives, you know, the worst
• 1:36:17
  front wheel drive car I ever drove was my grandfather's Alto
• 1:36:20
  Bianchi Y10, which is the Y10.
• 1:36:24
  It had the skinniest tires on the planet, the worst suspension, and
• 1:36:28
  the most wheel deflection I have ever seen, that I literally curb rashed
• 1:36:33
  the wheels from its understeer.
• 1:36:34
  That's how bad it was.
• 1:36:35
  Complete rollover.
• 1:36:37
  Absolutely horrible, horrible handling car.
• 1:36:39
  There you have it folks, yet another what should I buy in the bag.
• 1:36:43
  So Brad, take us home.
• 1:36:45
  From JDM icons to forbidden European speed machines, we've explored the thrills
• 1:36:50
  and potential pitfalls of bringing these once unattainable cars to US roads.
• 1:36:55
  Whether you're dreaming of owning one in the middle of an import process, or just
• 1:36:59
  love the idea of these automotive uniforms finally getting their moment stateside,
• 1:37:03
  the adventure is just beginning.
• 1:37:05
  And if you'd like to continue the conversation or expand on some
• 1:37:08
  of the topics here, don't be shy.
• 1:37:10
  Check out our break, fix discord, where you can get in contact with
• 1:37:13
  the panelists you heard here tonight.
• 1:37:15
  And I want to thank all of our panelists for another great,
• 1:37:17
  what should I buy debate?
• 1:37:19
  Sorry, Don Weaver, we ran out of time.
• 1:37:21
  We'll have to have you on next time, you know, and uh, good night.
• 1:37:24
  And with that gentleman, I can't thank you enough for returning yet
• 1:37:26
  again for an evening of frivolity and.
• 1:37:29
  Seriously, thank you for coming back on, sharing your thoughts, and I look
• 1:37:32
  forward to seeing all of you back for yet another What Should I Buy?
• 1:37:36
  We got some others lined up for the season, so thank you again for sharing
• 1:37:39
  your wisdom and your comic relief.
• 1:37:41
  Careful with that understeer.
• 1:37:42
  Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
• 1:37:45
  Next time I come through, head south, I'm gonna drop in on you, Jonathan.
• 1:37:49
  I'd like to meet you properly, Chris.
• 1:37:51
  Thank you.
• 1:37:51
  Great, thanks.
• 1:37:52
  And thanks for the invite, fellas.
• 1:37:54
  Appreciate it.
• 1:37:55
  Thanks, man.
• 1:37:56
  It was a lot of fun.
• 1:37:56
  Ciao.
• 1:38:12
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• 1:38:16
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