Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Best of the Bay (Part 1): New Cars Road Tested

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Best of the Bay (Part 1): New Cars Road Tested · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  Jon Summers is the motoring historian.
• 0:02
  He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into
• 0:06
  a fairly inept sports bike rider.
• 0:08
  Hailing from California, he collects cars and bikes built with plenty of
• 0:12
  cheap and fast, and not much reliable.
• 0:15
  On his show, he gets together with various co hosts to talk about new
• 0:18
  and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, and motoring travel.
• 0:37
  Good day, good morning, good afternoon.
• 0:40
  Welcome to the Motoring Historian with me, John Summers.
• 0:44
  So today, Best of the Bay 2024.
• 0:50
  What is that?
• 0:51
  I hear you cry.
• 0:52
  I mean, I don't because there's probably only about a dozen of
• 0:55
  you ever going to listen to this.
• 0:56
  But, you know, what is that?
• 0:58
  All three of you clamor.
• 1:01
  And the answer is that it is a sort of, you know, I guess.
• 1:06
  Badge of quality kind of a, you know, trademark, you know, market quality, which
• 1:13
  there's been knocking around the bay, at least for as long as, uh, for the 20 or
• 1:17
  so years that I've lived in the Bay Area.
• 1:19
  And the notion is that, you know, maybe you've moved to the
• 1:22
  area and you need a plumber.
• 1:25
  Who's the best plumber you look on best of the bay and it tells you, you know,
• 1:29
  so I guess there are other products that have come along that arguably of, uh, you
• 1:34
  know, eating their lunch somewhat, but that was the original value proposition.
• 1:38
  And, and, you know, I guess, uh, they still do one for cars and,
• 1:43
  uh, we get involved in that as.
• 1:46
  Being, uh, the Western Automotive Journalists.
• 1:49
  So look, right, I shouldn't talk too long, really, before I make a
• 1:52
  point of, of thanking the people who, who organized the event.
• 1:57
  So that is, of course, the Western Automotive Journalists
• 2:00
  and, uh, and Michael Coates.
• 2:01
  Let me, let me name you.
• 2:03
  Um, let me know you, Michael, because really, uh, I see how much work
• 2:07
  you did to pull the event together.
• 2:08
  And, and, uh, it was nice, uh, for you to be around to sort of, uh,
• 2:13
  chair and, and lead and, and sort of organize the, the event for us and,
• 2:19
  and be the, be the face of it somewhat.
• 2:21
  So thank you, Michael Coase.
• 2:23
  And also thank you.
• 2:24
  Um, to the people at Page One Automotive, who always supply the
• 2:30
  press cards for these hashtag WAJ, Western Automotive Journalist events
• 2:35
  that I've done every year, annually now, test driving events annually now
• 2:40
  for, for must be, must be closer to.
• 2:42
  10 years, then to five now.
• 2:44
  So, so that's, uh, Aaron and, and Melissa, thank you for, uh, for, uh,
• 2:49
  you know, working with the manufacturers and making sure that we have cars to
• 2:53
  drive and making sure that we have good roads to, uh, to, to drive them on.
• 2:58
  So, uh, thank you one and all, and thanks obviously also to the car makers, right?
• 3:04
  Because they show up and, and give us really nice.
• 3:08
  Cars to drive, you know, and, and, uh, at no point do you feel under pressure
• 3:13
  to say nice things, you know, if you want to, you know, say terrible things
• 3:19
  you could, you know, if I wanted to, to make this a really negative, like,
• 3:24
  you know, shocking review, like, uh, terrible, like, uh, I could, right?
• 3:30
  And, and nobody's positioned it again, because nobody's, you know, So, so
• 3:36
  I, I was worried as I got involved in, in journalism that there would be
• 3:41
  pressure at these kind of events to, to say nice things and, and, uh, I, I
• 3:47
  don't feel it and, and therefore I have almost exclusively nice things to say
• 3:52
  about what was a really enjoyable event and what was some really superb cars
• 3:56
  and, and, uh, you know, I, I say that.
• 3:59
  I mean, regular people who've listened to this before know that, you know,
• 4:03
  if I think something's crap, I'm going to tell you that I think it's crap.
• 4:06
  I mean, I'm not doing this to get paid, not in some manufacturer's pocket.
• 4:10
  I just like to communicate in an honest way about cars, vehicles, and motoring.
• 4:16
  And this.
• 4:17
  Best of the Bay event with the Western Automotive Journalist and Page
• 4:21
  One and, you know, these, the OEMs that gave us cars and there were 18
• 4:26
  cars, 17 cars, something like that.
• 4:29
  Thanks to those guys.
• 4:30
  Um, from the OEMs, a lot of cars came from, um, I mean, I think only
• 4:36
  one from Hyundai, but a couple from Kia and three from Genesis, I think.
• 4:42
  So, um, you know, overall, thank you.
• 4:46
  Um, to, you know, Hyundai and, and your sort of spinoff brands.
• 4:51
  Thanks guys for coming and supporting the event.
• 4:54
  And thanks for giving us the, you know, the cool hot Roddy ones, rather than
• 4:58
  the boring grocery getters that, you know, might have been the way, you know,
• 5:03
  William Woolard's top gear, rather than Jeremy Clarkson's top gear, I'm pleased
• 5:07
  that this was Jeremy Clarkson's top gear.
• 5:09
  So thank you for that.
• 5:10
  So having dispensed with the, the, you know.
• 5:14
  Unusual level of structure for me, let me immediately begin with
• 5:19
  with the full, uh, sort of prattle as as my wife would call it.
• 5:24
  So firstly, right, the location was was in Santa Cruz.
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  Um, and it's right on the beach, like my room.
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  Overlooked the boardwalk at Santa Cruz, the beach, you know, there was
• 5:40
  the pool, then there was the beach, then there was the boardwalk, you
• 5:44
  know, the waves were crashing loudly, you know, if I'd have, you know, been
• 5:47
  at somebody who needed silence to sleep, it would not have been possible
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  because even when I had the windows and the door close, you could still
• 5:53
  hear the waves of the Pacific crashing.
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  So, you know, even though where I live in San Francisco, you know, we
• 6:00
  have a. We are lucky enough to have a bit of an ocean view off out of
• 6:05
  that house there, especially since the neighbors just cut the tree down,
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  um, giving us a much better view.
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  Thank you, neighbors.
• 6:12
  Yeah, but you know, this was better than that, you know,
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  so that was, was really cool.
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  Um, and whilst I'm mentioning, you know, being vaguely serious and
• 6:21
  actually influencery, which I'm not normally, but, but look, right, you
• 6:25
  know, in case anybody listens and is staying in Santa Cruz, the dream in.
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  Um, that was the name of the place and it was cool.
• 6:32
  It's three stars and you're probably looking on hotels.
• 6:35
  com being that much money for three stars.
• 6:38
  Yeah, just do it because it's right in the heart of Santa Cruz and they've
• 6:42
  got decent car parking and the rooms are clean and nice and not pretentious.
• 6:47
  It's just a decent place to stay and in keeping with the coolness of Santa
• 6:52
  Cruz, um, which I'd been to once before many years ago, but It was a date with
• 6:58
  my wife and it really didn't go well and that's a story for another time
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  because, uh, I guess I associate Santa Cruz with almost crashing the car on
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  a really important relationship on a relationship I perceived as important at
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  the time and luckily I was able to get the car out of the ditch, but I, uh, yeah.
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  Uh, that's maybe that's why I've never really been back to Santa Cruz.
• 7:19
  But anyway, I enjoyed this visit to Santa Cruz.
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  I guess the other thing that I should say is that you get that you can
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  get down there by driving on to 80 and then 17 17 is a winding highway.
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  17 Pretty cool if you're, um, you know, if you like Alpine roads, Alpine,
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  you know, it's a dual carriageway, but if you like Alpine twisty dual
• 7:41
  carriageway, it's pretty cool.
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  Unfortunately, it's usually clogged.
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  And even when it's not clogged, there's like California, like left
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  lane, like I'm doing the speed limit.
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  I won't move side people.
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  So there's also cops always over the crest.
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  So, you know, 17, not that much fun, but I realized PCH all the way down on
• 8:00
  highway one on the Pacific coast highway.
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  all the way down.
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  I, I realized that I could do that.
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  And I thought, you know, in the past, I think it's pretty
• 8:08
  good, that stretch of road.
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  Well, I'd forgotten how bloody good it is.
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  I mean, it's too traffic y between San Francisco and Half Moon Bay.
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  But once you get past Half Moon Bay, all the BS just goes away.
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  And it turns into a really good, like, British A Road, French N Road,
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  But with the most awesome scenery you have ever seen, because you've
• 8:36
  usually got views of, of the ocean.
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  And I know when my parents drove PCH up from, from LA, they said that they
• 8:44
  thought the best bit was the bit as you come up towards San Francisco.
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  Now I have to say, I do like it down by Santa Barbara.
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  But, you know, that has the same issue as the bit up by San
• 8:54
  Francisco, as is lots of traffic.
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  This bit down towards Santa Cruz, it was quiet ish even in the middle of
• 9:00
  the day and, and, uh, really nice.
• 9:03
  I drove down in the truck, uh, so, you know, I just had the
• 9:06
  cruise set and was just rolling.
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  It wasn't like I was doing anything crazy.
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  Um, and, you know, really enjoyed the drive down there and, and
• 9:14
  those roads are, are absolutely awesome, which is, of course, why.
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  It was picked for, uh, for, for the event.
• 9:22
  So look, before I talk about the, uh, the test route there, just let
• 9:26
  me have a look at my checklist here and make sure I haven't, you know,
• 9:30
  missed any of the bits and pieces that I should have covered, right?
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  Because it's the best of the Bay thing, all of us had to drive each car and
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  all of us had to commit to be there.
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  Therefore, throughout the time.
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  And stick to a precise timetable.
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  In other words, literally, it was like 930.
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  So I must be in the Lexus.
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  But by 10, you had to be back because then you're out in the ionic 5n.
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  And, you know, you had to be back.
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  Right.
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  And, and the reality is that although.
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  You know, if you think of it, you've got like lots of cars back to back, you're
• 10:22
  bound to be leaping out and taking a pee and you're bound to, whilst you're
• 10:25
  learning the route, maybe take 35 minutes instead of 30 or something like that.
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  And that, and that compounds, but, but, you know, there were,
• 10:34
  you know, to be honest, it.
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  Worked out really smoothly.
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  And anytime, you know, somebody else was out in a car that, you know, you were
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  meant to be driving that particular time.
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  You weren't like, damn it, where are you?
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  It didn't feel like that at all.
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  That was an opportunity to, you know, take a pee and eat an energy bar in and
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  feel like you could, uh, you know, it was quite a nice little, little respite.
• 10:56
  And then at the end, we voted, right?
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  And there were various different categories.
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  And, uh, you know, I'll post, uh, post links to, to, to those,
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  but let's, let's talk about this.
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  So how do you compare cards of all different price points?
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  And how do you.
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  Name the best of the bay when you've only driven, uh, you know, 18, 17, 18 cars.
• 11:21
  The answer to that is, well, of course, if you only driven 17 or
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  18 cars, you know, it is, it's not going to be the best of all the bay.
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  It's going to be the best of the people who showed up for the event.
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  Right.
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  But.
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  That doesn't mean to say that if we're going to recommend one car
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  over another, that doesn't mean that in the eyes of a punter, you know,
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  a customer that might be worthwhile looking at the one that we recommended
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  over the one that we didn't recommend.
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  So you must drive each.
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  You've got 30 minutes with each car and a designated route to drive.
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  I'm going to talk a bit about the designated routes.
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  There were two.
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  One took us out of the hotel, um, along like a 30 mile an hour, like bus
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  lane, like just obviously pit lane, speed limit section fundamentally.
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  And, and then.
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  Um, there was a stoplight and, and if you went straight over the stoplight,
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  it sort of wound you up a little hill.
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  And I guess when they were planning it, it's a dual, so it
• 12:20
  would have worked quite well.
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  But there was a rock slide and there were people work or mudslide
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  and there was trucks working in the road and 25 mile an hour limit that
• 12:30
  seemed to be very badly placed.
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  And I saw there was a college up at the top of the hill.
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  And there was a. Cop issuing tickets there.
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  So I, although I use that route sometimes just for a bit of variety, most of
• 12:44
  the time I use the coastal route that they'd laid out and that ran West
• 12:49
  from Santa Cruz, but like stop signs and like strip mall and all of that.
• 12:55
  And then that slackens off actually surprisingly quickly disappears.
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  And then you're like out in the sticks.
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  So in other words, if there's members as you can pass them easily, the traffic's
• 13:05
  thinned out any of the meaningful traffic that's actually trying to get anywhere.
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  It's going to be leaving on highway 17 and leaving that way out of Santa Cruz.
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  It's not leaving on highway one.
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  That's just like local traffic on, on highway one.
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  So hence the fact that the traffic clears quite quickly and, and.
• 13:23
  Um, you would think half an hour wasn't enough to explore the performance
• 13:28
  of cars with 400, 500 horsepower.
• 13:34
  It was, I'm not saying like, you know, I tested every vehicle's
• 13:38
  top speed and naught to 60 and you know, I G meter on that.
• 13:43
  No, right.
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  No, of course not.
• 13:45
  But what I mean is.
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  There was enough road for you to really get a seat of the pants feel for the cars.
• 13:55
  So at the end, when you were asked to compare them together and say which the
• 14:01
  best was, you know, you felt like you had enough information to be able to do that.
• 14:07
  Just to talk about that process a little bit, so yeah, so we drove the cars and
• 14:11
  then at the end of the day, we did an, we did an online ballot, um, which most
• 14:16
  of us did, you know, that day before we left, we were able to post comments,
• 14:21
  qualifying comments as well, but I think a really important thing to note
• 14:25
  is something that Michael Coates said a couple of times, which is that we're all
• 14:31
  capable of judging these cars as being the best at what they set out to do.
• 14:38
  That's what we're judging them as being.
• 14:40
  Is this, is this the best, uh, what it set out to, to do?
• 14:45
  Very bluntly, a lot of the cars we drove were really expensive
• 14:48
  and that weighed heavily on my, you know, on my decision making.
• 14:53
  I mean, I mean, I can, why don't I cut straight to the chase?
• 14:57
  There doesn't need to be any like, you know, tension, uh,
• 15:00
  uh, around the, the, the.
• 15:02
  You know, my opinion around the awards, I felt all around the best car was the Camry
• 15:08
  that we drove, Toyota Camry, 2025 Camry.
• 15:12
  I know, right?
• 15:13
  Shocking.
• 15:13
  First he buys a Toyota, then he thinks one's the best car.
• 15:17
  But really, it's just most of the people, most of the time.
• 15:22
  And it does such a, you know, it doesn't do a three star job.
• 15:27
  It really does a four or a four and a half star job.
• 15:32
  All of the things, so I'll talk more about it in a little bit, but, you
• 15:36
  know, that was a bloody good car.
• 15:38
  And therefore, and because of the price point, I liked it, right?
• 15:42
  An awful lot.
• 15:44
  Now, if you took that out and you said, you know, uh, they
• 15:48
  also had to do best SUV and best technology and that kind of stuff.
• 15:52
  And that gave you a chance to talk about other things.
• 15:56
  But the best all around Vehicle there was, uh, the, there's an, we had an entry level
• 16:05
  Lucid to look at, you know, a couple of years ago I drove the 1100 horsepower one.
• 16:11
  Um, it's my first pod.
• 16:13
  Fittingly, right, because I said it was an awesome.
• 16:16
  groundbreaking car and and since then they've steadily decontented and they
• 16:22
  brought us a pretty decontented car and I was really keen to try it and what I
• 16:28
  found was something that did not feel that decontented it didn't feel like Knock
• 16:37
  your socks off like the 1100 horsepower one had not in a luxury way, right?
• 16:43
  The materials in that car was so nice.
• 16:45
  It had a moonroof.
• 16:46
  This car didn't have that, but it also had a 70 grand price point, which, you
• 16:51
  know, well, 80 grand with the trim, the one that we had, but, you know, that
• 16:55
  kind of price point, like a semi normal price point, you know, a lot less than
• 17:01
  the Hellcat Durango that we drove.
• 17:03
  That was bloody a hundred and.
• 17:04
  13 like 115 I think anyway, like way, you know, so, so for given, you know,
• 17:15
  those, those parameters, um, the lucid was clearly the most superior, the thing
• 17:24
  that fitted the definition of best car best for me, at least, um, I think for,
• 17:31
  for a lot of the others, uh, as, as well Questions they asked was, you know, if
• 17:37
  it was your money, what would you do?
• 17:38
  And, you know, this is a Genesis sedan, a G80 sedan.
• 17:42
  It's a 3.
• 17:44
  5 all wheel drive turbo.
• 17:46
  It was everything I love about my E55.
• 17:49
  More, and new, and not going to break, and golf club presence, and just more, you
• 17:57
  know, more performance than my Mercedes.
• 18:00
  Let's be, let's be real.
• 18:01
  And, uh, um, no, I'm gonna.
• 18:04
  put a number on it, but at the kind of speeds where you can measure a
• 18:09
  difference between a 20 year old sedan and a brand new one, this was a mighty.
• 18:17
  Really, that's really a mighty product was very, very impressed with the Genesis G80.
• 18:24
  So that's what I'd bought with with my money.
• 18:26
  But look, right, whilst we're talking about whilst we're doing a
• 18:29
  like, you know, highlight, we drove this Fiat 500, right, which was
• 18:34
  easily the cheapest like EV there.
• 18:37
  It was in no way inadequate.
• 18:40
  It did the job just fine.
• 18:43
  Right.
• 18:43
  I mean, I personally don't like the driving position on Fiat 500s.
• 18:48
  I always feel like you're sitting on the car.
• 18:50
  I always want to make the seat lower, didn't buy one of the Abarth
• 18:54
  ones for exactly that reason.
• 18:56
  And this had that feeling, even though it's like one of the new shape ones
• 18:59
  and all, but you know, big trunk and nice inside, you know, basic, but you
• 19:06
  know, you're bloody three of them.
• 19:09
  In comparison to a lot of the other cars there, so, like, what's not to like?
• 19:13
  That was really my thought, what is not to like?
• 19:16
  And that really is, is the takeaway.
• 19:18
  The, the, there were a lot of really good cars here, some absolutely
• 19:23
  brilliant ones, some many with absolutely breathtaking features, and really nothing
• 19:31
  that I was like, this is terrible.
• 19:33
  There was stuff that I wouldn't have wanted or Didn't care for particularly
• 19:38
  and, you know, just the sheer eye watering price of new cars at the moment.
• 19:42
  I mean,
• 19:57
  I'm sat in the garage here as I always do when I record these, these
• 20:01
  pods, and I'm looking at 91 GSXR 1000 that I rode earlier today.
• 20:09
  And, and, uh, We, we just went around the block, you know, didn't
• 20:14
  get into third gear, certainly didn't get, you know, anywhere
• 20:19
  above 50 or 60 miles an hour, maybe.
• 20:36
  It broke down, you know, stalls on me when you have the throttle open
• 20:40
  for a little bit, when you close it again, doesn't want to run.
• 20:42
  Can't bump start it at the side of the road trying to start it, won't go.
• 20:46
  That experience.
• 20:48
  Both the heavy clutch and your hand hurt in trying to hold the throttle
• 20:54
  open slightly because it's got these Mikuni flat slide carbs on it.
• 20:58
  So the throttle really takes some twisting.
• 21:01
  So like balancing the clutch when you're like at idle speed,
• 21:04
  oh my word, it's painful.
• 21:06
  It's like an instrument of torture until all of a sudden it's the
• 21:11
  most amazing piece of poetry ever.
• 21:13
  It's like when you get whiskey.
• 21:15
  You know, or I've found in the cupboard some tequila that my wife bought
• 21:19
  for me ages ago, like ages and ages ago, and I was like, I'll try this.
• 21:24
  Why not?
• 21:25
  It's amazing.
• 21:26
  Like I don't know what I was missing out on.
• 21:27
  I was like, I don't know what I've been doing with it for the past decade.
• 21:32
  I just forgot it was there.
• 21:33
  It's incredible.
• 21:34
  So what am I trying to say here?
• 21:36
  Let me bring this first part to a conclusion by saying that whilst
• 21:40
  many of these cars were good, great, fast, they ticked every single box
• 21:46
  you could want them to tick if you were a spreadsheet box ticking kind
• 21:50
  of person, none of them fulfilled my soul in the same way as the Gixxer did.
• 21:57
  None of them.
• 21:58
  And that's the tequila parallel, right?
• 22:00
  That you can't rationalize why tequilas Awesome bro, really good tequila.
• 22:06
  This one's awesome.
• 22:08
  I mean, you can try, but you just sound a bit silly.
• 22:10
  The point is that these are things that you feel in your gut, and great as a
• 22:15
  Camry is, you don't feel it in your gut the same way as you do a Gixxer.
• 22:21
  Great as a Lucid Air is, you don't feel it in your gut the same way as
• 22:27
  you do a Ducati or a Harley Davidson.
• 22:30
  It's just how it is as the machines get more efficient.
• 22:36
  They just get less interesting.
• 22:38
  An AGA is much more interesting than a brand new Hyundai microwave,
• 22:44
  but we all know which is going to heat your cup of coffee.
• 22:48
  More efficiently and quickly.
• 22:49
  Thank you, Drive Thru.
• 23:19
  This episode has been brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports as part
• 23:22
  of our Motoring Podcast Network.
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