Latest / In Wheel Time Podcast / Why California Pays A Weather Tax On Gas And Cars
Transcript
- 0:08Don Armstrong: Well, thank you very much for the applause and welcome to the In Real Time Car Talk Show.
- 0:14Don Armstrong: Auto personality and journalist Jack Nierad joins us from the left coast to talk about the price of gas out there.
- 0:22Don Armstrong: Yeah.
- 0:22Don Armstrong: Gotta go fund me for him.
- 0:24Don Armstrong: And um is I drove this jealousy segment along with California politics.
- 0:31Don Armstrong: We're gonna talk about all of it.
- 0:33Don Armstrong: He doesn't know any of this yet, but we're gonna talk to him about it.
- 0:37Don Armstrong: In Jeff's car culture, tires that glow.
- 0:40Don Armstrong: And Mars Mother's Day Texas weekend getaway to drop her off.
- 0:46Don Armstrong: Happy mother-in-law.
- 0:48Don Armstrong: Howdy, along with Mike out of this world Mars.
- 0:50Don Armstrong: We always need more Jeff Zeken, Chief Engineer David Ainsley.
- 0:53Don Armstrong: I'm Don Armstrong.
- 0:54Don Armstrong: Glad that you could join us on this Saturday morning for our live gift to America.
- 0:59Don Armstrong: We certainly appreciate it.
- 1:02Don Armstrong: I'm full of it this morning, aren't I?
- 1:04Don Armstrong: Yeah, your eyes are brown.
- 1:05Don Armstrong: Up to here, your eyes are brown.
- 1:06Don Armstrong: I got it all razzed up this morning.
- 1:08Don Armstrong: He is razzed up.
- 1:09Don Armstrong: He's been razzed since I've been here.
- 1:11Don Armstrong: So uh do we have Jack with us yet?
- 1:13SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir.
- 1:14SPEAKER_01: Okay.
- 1:14SPEAKER_01: Patiently standing in the green room.
- 1:16Don Armstrong: Let's let's just there he is.
- 1:19Don Armstrong: Ladies and gentlemen, the famous, the one, the only, Jack Knee Red.
- 1:24Don Armstrong: The man, the man, the myth, the legend, the guy that is going to get into the governor's race in California here away.
- 1:32SPEAKER_03: I don't want to foul that up.
- 1:33SPEAKER_03: I think we got a shot here.
- 1:34Don Armstrong: So and guess whose show he's on?
- 1:39Don Armstrong: Our show.
- 1:40Don Armstrong: Yeah.
- 1:40Don Armstrong: The next governor of the state of California, Jack Knee Red.
- 1:43Don Armstrong: Jack, how are you, buddy?
- 1:44SPEAKER_03: I am terrific.
- 1:45SPEAKER_03: I am terrific.
- 1:46SPEAKER_03: I'm so glad to talk to you guys.
- 1:47SPEAKER_03: It's always a pleasure.
- 1:48Don Armstrong: Well, it's it's a it's a it's a brief moment to get out of all of that mess that you guys have got going on out there.
- 1:55Don Armstrong: My God.
- 1:56SPEAKER_03: It is crazy.
- 1:58SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it is.
- 1:59Don Armstrong: And you can and you continue to live there.
- 2:02Don Armstrong: I'm thinking that if you stay there long enough, the price of your house is going to go down to nothing.
- 2:08SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, oddly, the uh housing prices keep going up and up and up, and you know, my house has been a pretty good investment, so that's good.
- 2:16SPEAKER_03: But you know, we pay a gigantic weather tax here.
- 2:19SPEAKER_03: That's the way I look at it.
- 2:20Don Armstrong: Uh a weather tax.
- 2:22SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 2:22SPEAKER_03: We have great weather and uh we pay for it with everything else.
- 2:25SPEAKER_03: All the crazy.
- 2:28Don Armstrong: I will tell you this uh uh there's something I don't know what it is that draws me to California.
- 2:33Don Armstrong: I've always loved California, haven't spent tons of time in LA, but uh San Diego has a special place in my heart, and so does San Francisco.
- 2:43Don Armstrong: Every time I've been there, it's been wonderful.
- 2:44Don Armstrong: Yeah, yeah.
- 2:45SPEAKER_03: So beautiful place, beautiful place.
- 2:47SPEAKER_03: We drove up the coast last weekend to visit my daughter, uh, who lives in San Luis Obispo.
- 2:52SPEAKER_03: So we got to see the uh southern coast, the central coast.
- 2:56SPEAKER_03: It's it's a gorgeous state.
- 2:58SPEAKER_03: There's no doubt about that.
- 2:59SPEAKER_03: It's a great place to visit.
- 3:00Don Armstrong: Well, let's talk about cars.
- 3:02Don Armstrong: Uh anything uh new on the agenda?
- 3:04Don Armstrong: Well, I'm gonna back up.
- 3:06Don Armstrong: First of all, how much are you paying for a regular tank of gas out there?
- 3:10Don Armstrong: Let's go buy the gallon.
- 3:12SPEAKER_03: It's about$650, something like that.
- 3:15Jeff Dziekan: You know, it's so if you want to contribute to Jack's GoFundMe page, here's the address.
- 3:21Don Armstrong: Oh my god,$650.
- 3:23Don Armstrong: Well, I thought it was a good one.
- 3:27Don Armstrong: Yeah, I was gonna say, well, it's uh$350 here.
- 3:30Don Armstrong: Just uh not to make you jealous or anything, but you know, and the funny thing about it is is that you guys make gasoline out there.
- 3:38SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
- 3:38SPEAKER_03: Well, we haven't, but we and there is so much oil off the coast you just can't stand it, but nobody is willing to touch that.
- 3:47SPEAKER_03: Nobody even even talks about that anymore.
- 3:50Jeff Dziekan: Well, your your politicians are pretty oily and greasy out there.
- 3:53SPEAKER_03: So you know, there you go.
- 3:54Don Armstrong: That's it.
- 3:55Don Armstrong: All right, well, so what are you driving this week?
- 3:59SPEAKER_03: I am driving a Volvo V60 cross country, which is a terrific vehicle.
- 4:05SPEAKER_03: I mean, it is so fun to drive.
- 4:08SPEAKER_03: Uh, I got into this thing about four or five days ago.
- 4:11SPEAKER_03: I actually attended a Volvo event where they were showing the EX60, uh, which is gonna going to be their latest uh electric vehicle.
- 4:20SPEAKER_03: I think that was uh a little earlier or this past week.
- 4:24SPEAKER_03: Drove it up there to see that, and I just love this vehicle.
- 4:28SPEAKER_03: It's it's just terrific.
- 4:29SPEAKER_03: And I don't know, you guys probably have that journalistic disease of loving station wagons.
- 4:35Don Armstrong: Oh, yeah.
- 4:35Don Armstrong: I do Jeff especially in my life.
- 4:38SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I do, and uh one of my first cars was a station wagon, actually.
- 4:42SPEAKER_03: And and uh, you know, this is just a terrific, fun-to-drive little station wagon.
- 4:47Don Armstrong: So did that third row did it look out the back window?
- 4:50SPEAKER_03: Uh the station wagon I had was uh you guys might remember it, the uh AMC Hornet Sport About Wagon.
- 5:00Don Armstrong: I'm sorry.
- 5:01Don Armstrong: Close relationship.
- 5:04SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, you know, all of the bubble top.
- 5:06Don Armstrong: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 5:07Don Armstrong: Well, that's that's that's good to know, Jack.
- 5:10Don Armstrong: But something's fitting about that.
- 5:11Don Armstrong: I don't know.
- 5:12Don Armstrong: Are you an AMC and a station wagon?
- 5:14Don Armstrong: It works.
- 5:15Don Armstrong: No, I don't see it.
- 5:16Don Armstrong: No, okay.
- 5:17Don Armstrong: It's just me again.
- 5:18SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 22 years old and driving that thing.
- 5:20Don Armstrong: So nice.
- 5:21Don Armstrong: What you know, it's funny because uh I don't get any Volvos.
- 5:24Don Armstrong: I used to get Volvos, I don't know whether they're not in the press fleet or they don't like me or whatever, but I'll be both that it could be.
- 5:34Don Armstrong: Um, so what is it that you have gone on a junket, car junket somewhere, or that you've had in the press fleet that really impresses you besides the Volvo?
- 5:45SPEAKER_03: This is going to sound weird, maybe, but uh, you know, I was on a uh Toyota event recently driving the new all-electric Toyota CHR.
- 5:56SPEAKER_03: Yes.
- 5:57SPEAKER_03: And it is cool.
- 5:58SPEAKER_03: I mean, it is so cool.
- 6:00SPEAKER_03: I wondered why they called it CHR.
- 6:03SPEAKER_03: Uh, because I uh you guys probably had the same opinion about the previous CHR that we did on America on the Road.
- 6:10SPEAKER_03: It's kind of okay car, but certainly nothing special.
- 6:13SPEAKER_03: This is kind of special in its own way.
- 6:15SPEAKER_03: I don't know who buys performance electrics.
- 6:18SPEAKER_03: I I still think that's kind of a mythical unicorn kind of market, but uh this was a fun-to-drive vehicle.
- 6:25SPEAKER_03: It was terrific.
- 6:26Don Armstrong: What what size is it?
- 6:28SPEAKER_03: Uh it's the same size as the previous CHR, which is uh, you know, they call it a small SUV.
- 6:33SPEAKER_03: I would call it more like a hot hatch kind of vehicle.
- 6:37SPEAKER_03: Subcompact is too small or it's probably compact, uh, you know, close to compact adjacent anyway.
- 6:43SPEAKER_03: It might be subcompact, uh, but uh pretty roomy because you know, electrics are roomy inside, and uh generally uh fun to drive, more fun to drive than you would guess.
- 6:54SPEAKER_03: Plenty of horsepower, tons of horsepower.
- 6:56Don Armstrong: Well, I I recently drove the uh the brand new Subaru.
- 7:02Don Armstrong: What was that thing?
- 7:03Don Armstrong: I don't remember.
- 7:05Don Armstrong: It's it's the new Subaru all electric.
- 7:08Don Armstrong: It's small, and I was thoroughly impressed with it.
- 7:12Don Armstrong: Uh and it it's funny because you know, we get we get kind of cantankerous and snooty about the cars that we drive.
- 7:21Don Armstrong: Ah, it's just another car.
- 7:22Don Armstrong: But every once in a while there is that one car that comes along and goes, that this is cool.
- 7:29Don Armstrong: And uh from Subaru of all places.
- 7:32Jeff Dziekan: That's the one we were I I sat in last was it last week or the week before the transmission tunnel, which is no transmission tunnel, but it was raised up.
- 7:40Jeff Dziekan: It re kind of when I sat in it, it fitted like a Hummer because it's got the high uh center console, is what it reminded me of, sitting deep into the car.
- 7:51SPEAKER_03: That's what that are we talking about the Soltera?
- 7:53SPEAKER_03: Is that what you were driving?
- 7:55Don Armstrong: No looking at it.
- 7:57Don Armstrong: You know, it it's uncharted.
- 8:00Don Armstrong: The uncharted the uncharted Subaru.
- 8:03SPEAKER_03: I like that.
- 8:03Don Armstrong: Yeah, have have you not you have not driven it yet?
- 8:06SPEAKER_03: I have not.
- 8:08Don Armstrong: I'm I'm truly surprised.
- 8:10Don Armstrong: It's not on his chart, yeah.
- 8:12Don Armstrong: Exactly.
- 8:14Don Armstrong: Subaru Uncharted.
- 8:16Don Armstrong: And uh this is a brand new thing from from Subaru.
- 8:20Don Armstrong: It's very small, uh, but um it is fun.
- 8:24Don Armstrong: You don't even think that you're driving an EV.
- 8:27Don Armstrong: And man, I'm telling you, you mash that accelerator pedal, it's gonna throw you back in the seat from a Subaru.
- 8:32SPEAKER_03: There you go.
- 8:33SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I it might be a close cousin of the CHR because Subaru and Toyota uh cooperate on their EVs.
- 8:40SPEAKER_03: So we might be talking about darn near the same vehicle, yeah.
- 8:43SPEAKER_03: Probably.
- 8:44Don Armstrong: And probably so.
- 8:45Don Armstrong: Well, um, so besides the politics, Jack, um, have you been any place that's fun?
- 8:53Don Armstrong: Uh car companies get to fly Jack all over the United States, and uh and you know, he he gets to visit the cool places most of the time.
- 9:03SPEAKER_03: Some of the cool places.
- 9:04SPEAKER_03: Uh, most of the uh the car trips I've been on recently have been local uh that I've driven to as opposed to flown to.
- 9:11SPEAKER_03: And to tell you the truth, I prefer that.
- 9:14SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, because I can zip in when I want to and zip out when I want to.
- 9:19SPEAKER_03: I'm not at the at the mercy of airplane schedules and stuff like that.
- 9:22SPEAKER_03: Uh on on Monday, however, I'm flying across the country to Savannah uh to uh spend some time with Hyundai looking at uh their giant EV factory, which will now build things beyond EVs.
- 9:35SPEAKER_03: I think it's probably doing that before, outside uh Savannah there, and uh, you know, generally have a good time driving electric vehicles, seeing how they work.
- 9:45Don Armstrong: Yeah, and and do you get thrown into a car with somebody that you don't know?
- 9:50Don Armstrong: And when you get out of the car after driving with them, you go, you know, I I could probably have done better on my own.
- 9:57SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I frequently like to do those on my own.
- 10:01SPEAKER_03: Typically, we have a driving partner.
- 10:03SPEAKER_03: A lot of times I will look at the guest list or you know, kind of survey the the And then you see a Don Armstrong on you going, Oh no.
- 10:13SPEAKER_03: And I I'm always looking for the person who won't kill me, right?
- 10:16SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's that's kind of job one.
- 10:19Don Armstrong: And you know, it's funny, it's funny because journalists today, so many of them influencers, really have never experienced any of this.
- 10:26Don Armstrong: They don't have any kind of etiquette when it comes to a partner in the front car.
- 10:30Don Armstrong: Let's see how fast we can go around the corner or slam on the brakes or do crazy things, and we don't do that as journalists typically.
- 10:39Jeff Dziekan: Yeah.
- 10:39Don Armstrong: Do you experience it that way too?
- 10:41SPEAKER_03: I've seen that.
- 10:42SPEAKER_03: I, you know, luckily I have survived all of this.
- 10:45SPEAKER_03: There were there were some times uh back in my motor trend days, uh, really hair-raising kind of times when we were driving across Europe and I'd be with a driving partner who thought he was a Formula One driver and wanted to show it and you know, treated everything like the Nerber ring.
- 10:59SPEAKER_03: Um it uh happily I have not run into that so much lately.
- 11:04SPEAKER_03: Uh I probably young people who want to go really fast don't want to drive with an old guy like me.
- 11:10Don Armstrong: Well, you know that's that that's that's funny because uh I have been on some junkets that uh you know the actual professional driver that is uh given to me in the car, and I'm sure that you've been on those, um they're they're saying to me, uh punch it.
- 11:28Don Armstrong: You know, go into the corner faster than you're going.
- 11:31Don Armstrong: Hey, look, man, I've done that and gone right off the road.
- 11:34Don Armstrong: Well, why didn't you turn it?
- 11:36Don Armstrong: Why did you let you No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- 11:38Don Armstrong: You're the professional here.
- 11:40Jeff Dziekan: You're the passenger.
- 11:41Don Armstrong: Yeah, and I'm basically the passenger that's driving the car.
- 11:44Don Armstrong: Yeah, no, I it it can be harrowing to say the least, and you just don't know where to say, you know, I'm not going to go that fast in the corner.
- 11:56Don Armstrong: I'll leave it to somebody else.
- 11:57Jeff Dziekan: So what you do, you stop and you say, get out.
- 12:00Don Armstrong: Yeah.
- 12:01Don Armstrong: You hope to.
- 12:02Don Armstrong: So, you know, you brought up television.
- 12:04Don Armstrong: Jack, let me ask you something.
- 12:05Don Armstrong: And uh, you know, as car guys, we tend to go toward uh broadcast television or cable television or satellite television to find a car channel that has all sorts of different programs on it.
- 12:20Don Armstrong: And we don't have that anymore.
- 12:23Don Armstrong: Have I just missed out?
- 12:24Don Armstrong: What happened to all of our car channels?
- 12:27SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's really kind of strange, isn't it?
- 12:29SPEAKER_03: Because uh pretty much everything is a a channel.
- 12:33SPEAKER_03: You know, I can't believe the number of cooking shows there are out there.
- 12:37SPEAKER_03: I mean, I guess everybody cooks, but kind of everybody drives too.
- 12:41SPEAKER_03: So you would think that there would be more automotive programming.
- 12:45SPEAKER_03: I and I was the first host of Motor Trend TV uh back in the early 90s or something like that.
- 12:53SPEAKER_03: I and I think I've told you guys I was in the TV business before I was in the car business.
- 12:57SPEAKER_03: So uh I always thought that cars were perfect for television because they move and television loves stuff that moves, right?
- 13:04SPEAKER_03: I mean, uh the typical car show uh the typical drama show used to end with a car chase pretty much every week anyway.
- 13:10SPEAKER_03: So um I'm I'm surprised.
- 13:12SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm like you.
- 13:13SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm not sure why this is, but uh it is is.
- 13:16Jeff Dziekan: Well, you brought up cooking and there's a lot of remodeled the house shows, all of that.
- 13:20Jeff Dziekan: And uh you you bring that up, Don, but I've kind of been watching the stuff back in the old motor trend channels and things.
- 13:28Jeff Dziekan: They're they're all reruns, but you might every now and then catch an episode, well, you know, I didn't know that, or that's a cool thing about that car.
- 13:35Jeff Dziekan: Uh occasionally I'll see it, but I think it's all how they marketed it.
- 13:38Jeff Dziekan: I they they ruined it for themselves, I think.
- 13:41Don Armstrong: Well, I you know, the bottom line is that everything has a price.
- 13:45Don Armstrong: And uh these television shows for cars, they price themselves out of the market by high production costs.
- 13:54Don Armstrong: Well you gotta have three cameras and you don't have to have all of that.
- 13:58Don Armstrong: I don't believe that you have to have all of that.
- 14:00Don Armstrong: You have to have, you know, two producers on the scene, the both of them arguing about how they're going to shoot the next shot.
- 14:07Don Armstrong: How about just put an uh instacam in there and just record that?
- 14:12Don Armstrong: Because it seems to make no difference so that you've got, you know, a five-camera shoot with two producers or whatever.
- 14:18Don Armstrong: Uh I I don't understand it.
- 14:19Don Armstrong: I will tell you that uh I am hooked on a thing called Vice Grip Garage with Derek Berry.
- 14:25Don Armstrong: I don't know whether you've seen that.
- 14:27Don Armstrong: Yeah, you might want to look that up.
- 14:29Don Armstrong: It he does this thing on Facebook as well.
- 14:32Jeff Dziekan: Okay, it's not on it's not on the regular channel.
- 14:33Don Armstrong: It's a well it used to be, but it's not any longer because the channel went away.
- 14:38Don Armstrong: Gotcha.
- 14:38Don Armstrong: But uh he's he does very well and uh old carbureted cars that he pulls out of barns and fields and that sort of stuff.
- 14:45Don Armstrong: And the whole idea is to get it running.
- 14:47Don Armstrong: And he does.
- 14:48Don Armstrong: He always manages to get these things running.
- 14:50Don Armstrong: And uh those are the kind of things that interest me.
- 14:53Don Armstrong: Um I don't know what's happening with NASCAR, Jack, but apparently the ratings continue to tank and they can't get a handle on it.
- 15:02Don Armstrong: They don't understand why.
- 15:03Don Armstrong: There's nobody in the stands anymore.
- 15:05Don Armstrong: Well, do you think it may be perhaps this format thing that they're doing changing everything?
- 15:10Don Armstrong: That yeah, and you know what happened to the Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison fight in the infield, they don't let that happen anymore.
- 15:18Don Armstrong: Well, they do.
- 15:18Don Armstrong: I say let them go for it.
- 15:20SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
- 15:21SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean, I think there's a few things going on there.
- 15:23SPEAKER_03: One, uh, I think a lot of us don't understand the format or see what's going on there, you know, when they divide races into little bitty races, and then there's a you know, all that seems odd.
- 15:35SPEAKER_03: Also, stock car racing isn't stock car racing, right?
- 15:38SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's hard to recognize one of the brands from the other out there.
- 15:42SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I think most people with uh the least bit of sophistication know that the uh virtually all the cars are the same.
- 15:49Don Armstrong: Uh and I I don't know that that that's they all yeah, they all have the same chassis.
- 15:55Don Armstrong: Really, the only thing that's changed is the nose and the tail on the car, right?
- 15:59SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, which is practically decals, right?
- 16:03SPEAKER_03: I mean it's pretty much, yeah, yeah.
- 16:04Don Armstrong: Yeah, yeah.
- 16:05Don Armstrong: It's it's a shame that it's gone that way.
- 16:07Don Armstrong: Hopefully, one of these days a television business will iron itself out and we'll have a channel of all of the channels out there that you would think there would be a car channel, but whatever.
- 16:17Don Armstrong: Maybe that's an idea for our retirement years, Jack.
- 16:20Don Armstrong: Yeah, you and I could get back into television again.
- 16:23Don Armstrong: Yeah.
- 16:23Jeff Dziekan: And uh when we reach those retirement years, it would be super late, late, late, late night.
- 16:29Jeff Dziekan: Yeah, it would be, but that's okay.
- 16:31Don Armstrong: At least it'd be on after after hours.
- 16:33Don Armstrong: Yeah.
- 16:34Don Armstrong: Well, Jack, it's always great to talk to you.
- 16:36Don Armstrong: And we don't we don't we don't we don't talk to you often enough, but uh we'll put in a request for that from the going forward.
- 16:44SPEAKER_03: I love that.
- 16:44SPEAKER_03: I love that.
- 16:45SPEAKER_03: Always love to talk to all of you guys.
- 16:47Don Armstrong: America on the road.
- 16:48Don Armstrong: It's Jack Nierad from sunny Southern California.
- 16:51Don Armstrong: Jack, God bless, take care, say hello to the family for us, and we'll talk to you again soon.
- 16:55SPEAKER_03: I'll do that.
- 16:56SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having me on the show.
- 16:57SPEAKER_03: I appreciate it.
- 16:58SPEAKER_03: You bet.
- 16:58Don Armstrong: Thank you, sir.
- 16:59Don Armstrong: Hey, just ahead, Jeff's Car Culture, glowing tires.
- 17:03Don Armstrong: And Mars has driving destinations for Mother's Day in Texas.
- 17:07Don Armstrong: That's after this break on the In Wheel Time Car Talk Show.
- 17:10Don Armstrong: Stay with us.
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- 18:25Don Armstrong: Apple or Android In Wheel Time Podcasts can be found everywhere, on the stream and through downloads.
- 18:30Don Armstrong: Whether you're on the road or at home and searching for a fun car talk show, give In Wheel Time a try.
- 18:35Don Armstrong: Honest new car reviews, fun informative interviews with real car people, weekly automotive news, features like Jeff's car culture, Mike's driving destinations, all on In Wheel Time.
- 18:45Don Armstrong: Check us out on Sirius XM Podcasts, iHeartRadio, or while you're shopping on Amazon through Amazon Music.
- 18:51Don Armstrong: Inwheel Time.com has a list, so check us out.
- 18:55Don Armstrong: Hey, Inwheel Time invite you to join us 10 to noon Central Time every Saturday for a live show about all things automotive.
- 19:01Don Armstrong: We hope you'll join us.
- 19:03Don Armstrong: And we thank you for being with us today.
- 19:06Don Armstrong: Um I had Jeff's Car Culture glowing tires.
- 19:11Don Armstrong: Are you good with that?
- 19:12Jeff Dziekan: Yeah, I'm good with that.
- 19:12Jeff Dziekan: I got it right here.
- 19:13Jeff Dziekan: I just had the uh the pages didn't match from yours to the uh other rundowns, so I just want to make sure.
- 19:20Don Armstrong: Okay.
- 19:20Don Armstrong: Yeah, we're good.
- 19:21Don Armstrong: Well, um maybe perhaps it's the fact that this is this and you've got the other one.
- 19:28Don Armstrong: Yeah.
- 19:28Don Armstrong: And you've got that one.
- 19:29Don Armstrong: Yeah.
- 19:30Don Armstrong: So we're on this hour.
- 19:31Jeff Dziekan: Okay.
- 19:32Jeff Dziekan: Well, I want to be on I I want to be on whatever.
- 19:34Don Armstrong: You're on every hour.
- 19:35Don Armstrong: I'm on every hour.
- 19:36Don Armstrong: But this is kind of a rundown of what we do on every hour.
- 19:39Jeff Dziekan: Oh, is that what that is?
- 19:43Don Armstrong: It's this, just in case you're wondering.
- 19:45Don Armstrong: It's what I get to go by.
- 19:47Don Armstrong: I have to have something to go by because I'm gonna go bye-bye.
- 19:52Don Armstrong: That's it.
- 19:53Don Armstrong: All right.
- 19:53Don Armstrong: Glowing tires.
- 19:55Jeff Dziekan: All right, let me fire this up and then you're gonna have to change these because uh uh uh yeah, here we go.
- 20:00Don Armstrong: All right.
- 20:00Don Armstrong: Let me let me get up top there.
- 20:03Jeff Dziekan: All right, thank you.
- 20:03Jeff Dziekan: All right.
- 20:04Jeff Dziekan: Uh so Goodyear tires, bright idea.
- 20:07Jeff Dziekan: Back in the late 50s and 60s, Goodyear engineers were feeling enlightened.
- 20:12Jeff Dziekan: Their tires actually were.
- 20:13Jeff Dziekan: The glow unfortunately didn't last.
- 20:16Jeff Dziekan: More than five decades ago, and what the Ohio tire manufacturer called one of the most dramatic tire developments in the history of the industry, Goodyear unveiled a custom car accessory unlike no other, illuminated tires.
- 20:28Don Armstrong: Can you imagine that today?
- 20:31Jeff Dziekan: You know what?
- 20:32Jeff Dziekan: That's Martha.
- 20:33Jeff Dziekan: You know, we always talk about Martha.
- 20:34Jeff Dziekan: That's Martha right there.
- 20:35Jeff Dziekan: So Goodyear's translucent tire can be produced in any color to match the car or hose the wife's new outfit.
- 20:43Jeff Dziekan: Some someday a wife may tell a husband, Charlie, can you go out and change the tires?
- 20:47Jeff Dziekan: I'm wearing my blue dress tonight.
- 20:49Jeff Dziekan: And that's what that's all about.
- 20:50Jeff Dziekan: Regardless of what you might think uh about the marketing strategy, Goodyear's illuminated tires offer offered custom car enthusiasts plenty of exciting possibilities.
- 21:00Jeff Dziekan: This was the creation of Goodyear chemist William Larson and the and co-worker Anthony Fennelli.
- 21:06Jeff Dziekan: The tires were made of neothane, a synthetic polyurethane rubber that combined the hardness of plastic and the resilience uh resilience of rubber.
- 21:15Jeff Dziekan: To create the new Fangled tires, the neothane was poured into molds baked at 250 degrees, a temperature much lower much lower than required to make a standard tire.
- 21:28Jeff Dziekan: Goodyear uh then added dye to create a rainbow of different colors, and eighteen small lights were mounted in the rims inside of each tire to create a glow that was particularly brilliant at night.
- 21:38Jeff Dziekan: Now people still do that to this day, putting lights in their fender wells and things.
- 21:42Jeff Dziekan: The invention caused quite a stir when Goodyear put a set of red illuminated tires on a Dodge Polera and drove it around Miami.
- 21:49Jeff Dziekan: It did the same for a Chrysler Silver 300, just the same thing, driving around the New York City area.
- 21:56Jeff Dziekan: Although the tires went into production, one set made it into To the hands of a person by the name of Jim Sakanis who poured seventy-five thousand dollars or about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in today's money in creating the tripped out of Golden Sahara II in the early sixties.
- 22:14Jeff Dziekan: The second erratic uh the second version of this was a George Barris custom that started with a 1953 Lincoln Capri called the Golden Sahara II.
- 22:24Jeff Dziekan: It wore gold paint mixed with pulverized fish scales that was adorned with gold plate and ornamental work.
- 22:30Jeff Dziekan: Yeah, I like it.
- 22:31Jeff Dziekan: Uh those new Fang Dangle Goodyear tires were referred to as glass.
- 22:35Jeff Dziekan: They were a cherry on a Sunday.
- 22:37Jeff Dziekan: In 2018, this vehicle sold at auction unrestored for$385,000.
- 22:45Jeff Dziekan: Ugly.
- 22:46Jeff Dziekan: Yeah.
- 22:46Jeff Dziekan: And the tires were were not their the tires were solid.
- 22:48Jeff Dziekan: They weren't filled with air.
- 22:49Jeff Dziekan: Filled with air a little bit, but they were mainly solid.
- 22:51Jeff Dziekan: Now Goodyear held tight on the idea of a sineothane tires would one day become a common, as common as the black rubber counterparts, but didn't happen.
- 23:00Jeff Dziekan: After 10 years of work, engineers threw in the towel.
- 23:03Jeff Dziekan: Keith Buckley, senior engineer of Goodyear entire rubber company, said in a brief phone interview with the promise of a longer conversation that would ever materialize, the new Fang Dangle tires were doomed for several reasons.
- 23:16Jeff Dziekan: Low melting point for the tires uh in the manufacturing process uh made it susceptible to melting while they were actually on the road.
- 23:24Jeff Dziekan: So they would just deteriorate and disintegrate.
- 23:26Jeff Dziekan: And then the cost would be one thing.
- 23:28Jeff Dziekan: Uh made them more dangerous in rainy conditions, and it would take longer uh before they were even covered by road grime, which negated the illumination to begin with.
- 23:37Jeff Dziekan: So there you go.
- 23:39Jeff Dziekan: Uh illuminated tires.
- 23:42Jeff Dziekan: Yeah.
- 23:42Don Armstrong: Well, they've kind of got that today, uh, with like you said, the lights in the fender wells.
- 23:48Don Armstrong: Uh I you know, I I'm not of that age group anymore.
- 23:52Don Armstrong: But I think back in the day, uh, had I had a big jacked-up truck or something with a lot of room in there with the wheel wells and some fancy rims, I'd probably do that.
- 24:03Jeff Dziekan: And you can make their uh Hancook has red letter tires, blue letter tires.
- 24:08Jeff Dziekan: You can get the lettering different, but that's a different process.
- 24:10Don Armstrong: Well, I was gonna say that wait, I mean, you can get letters to anything that you want and they stick them on there.
- 24:15Jeff Dziekan: Yeah, you can.
- 24:16Jeff Dziekan: Yeah, well, that's that's a different process so far as the manufacturing of the color in the tire.
- 24:20Jeff Dziekan: Yeah, I got it.
- 24:21Jeff Dziekan: Yeah, yeah.
- 24:22Don Armstrong: And we had remember we went through the red stripe era.
- 24:25Don Armstrong: Yep, yep.
- 24:25Don Armstrong: Then we went to the raised white letters.
- 24:27Jeff Dziekan: Yep, yep, exactly.
- 24:28Jeff Dziekan: And uh growing up back in the mid-70s, you know, in high school, and everybody's running around Telegraph Road and all that.
- 24:35Jeff Dziekan: Uh particular gentleman, young guy, had a white Camaro, Z, uh split bumpers, and he put white his car was white, so he put white light bulbs in his fenders as he raced and up and down the street.
- 24:48Jeff Dziekan: We used to call him Fenderwells.
- 24:49Jeff Dziekan: That was his nickname.
- 24:50Jeff Dziekan: Fenderwells.
- 24:51Don Armstrong: Really?
- 24:52Don Armstrong: Because he's in Detroit.
- 24:53Jeff Dziekan: Yeah, because he didn't get arrested?
- 24:55Jeff Dziekan: No, because he only did it at certain times when he was running racing.
- 24:57Jeff Dziekan: But anyways, make a crazy story.
- 25:00Jeff Dziekan: Anyways, welcome back, Mike.
- 25:04SPEAKER_01: Howdy, howdy had to change some channels.
- 25:07Don Armstrong: Okay.
- 25:07SPEAKER_01: All right.
- 25:08Don Armstrong: Change some channels.
- 25:09Don Armstrong: Well, he didn't have to change his underwear.
- 25:11Don Armstrong: He's doing another segment.
- 25:12SPEAKER_01: Well, I I thought I was gonna have to, uh I was beginning to panic a little bit.
- 25:17Don Armstrong: Were you?
- 25:17Don Armstrong: Well, uh, we've moved your driving destinations to another segment because uh we were padding the time waiting for you to come back, but it was gonna be Tuesday.
- 25:28Don Armstrong: Tuesday is before there is that.
- 25:32Don Armstrong: Um so before we get uh too far out of the way here, um I get to review today a uh new car that you may be interested in.
- 25:44Don Armstrong: And that is going to be one moment, please.
- 25:49Don Armstrong: TikTok, TikTok.
- 25:51Jeff Dziekan: I know.
- 25:53Jeff Dziekan: We're on B2, you know, not one A.
- 25:56Jeff Dziekan: We're on this one, not this one.
- 25:58Don Armstrong: B one or B two, depending on where you are.
- 26:03Don Armstrong: Uh bingo.
- 26:04Don Armstrong: Um we've got coming up uh recalls.
- 26:06Don Armstrong: Uh we're gonna get to Mars driving destinations, and we um also are going to have our fun little thing that we play, and that is with um our sold car roundup and uh what's sold on hemmings.com.
- 26:20Don Armstrong: So that that is coming up as well.
- 26:22Don Armstrong: That's in the next hour.
- 26:24Don Armstrong: So we hope that you'll stay with us.
- 26:26Don Armstrong: Mr.
- 26:26Don Armstrong: Mars, are you ready to take a break here?
- 26:29SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir.
- 26:30SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm a good.
- 26:32SPEAKER_01: I need a break.
- 26:33SPEAKER_01: Have you got anything else to do in there?
- 26:34Jeff Dziekan: We're on around 2-4, Mike.
- 26:36Jeff Dziekan: We're on two four.
- 26:38Don Armstrong: We're on two four.
- 26:39Don Armstrong: This commercial break.
- 26:40Don Armstrong: Okay.
- 26:41Don Armstrong: Well, whatever the case may be, um, we invite you to stay with us because we don't know what we're gonna do, but it's all gonna come up right after this break here on the In Wheel Time Car Talk Show.
- 26:51Don Armstrong: Your car is a direct reflection of you, so don't be satisfied with color fade or a dingy dull appearance.
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- 27:38Don Armstrong: Gulf Coast Auto Shield is easy to get to, located just south of the Southwest Freeway on the Sam Houston Parkway.
- 27:43Don Armstrong: Gulf Coast Auto Shield, full service luxury car care today and online at gcautoshield.com.
- 27:51Don Armstrong: Gift giving should be meaningful, and we have an idea: a hand-painted custom illustration of your car from one of the nation's leading artists.
- 27:58Don Armstrong: Now you can get one or a car show poster customized for you, a friend or a loved one.
- 28:03Don Armstrong: Bill Sites will be happy to guide you through the process.
- 28:06Don Armstrong: No matter what the day, birthday, anniversary, or any day, an autographics custom illustration adds an extra touch of class to any home.
- 28:13Don Armstrong: Call Bill today, 832-922-0963.
- 28:17Don Armstrong: That's 832-922-0963.
- 28:22Don Armstrong: That's it for this podcast episode of the In Wheel Time Car Show.
- 28:26Don Armstrong: I'm Don Armstrong, inviting you to join us for our live show every Saturday morning on Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and our InWheelTime.com website.
- 28:36Don Armstrong: Podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartPodcast, Podcast Addict, TuneIn, Pandora, and Amazon Music.
- 28:45Don Armstrong: Keep listening, and we'll see you soon.