Drive Thru News #53 - It's Cheaper to Keep'er! - BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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(00:00):
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Let's send it.
Welcome to Drive Thru episode number 53.
This is our monthly recap where we puttogether a menu of automotive, motorsport,
and random car adjacent news that'smeant to be slightly entertaining.

(00:45):
Now let's pull up to window numberone for some automotive news.
We're back!
We gotta find a song for this.
We already did the, the Mac.
Can't do Welcome Back, Cotter.
So what's another comeback song, Brad?
Isn't there like Back in a NewYork Minute or something like that?
That's an oldie though.
There was another one.
Backstreet's Back Again.
We can't do that.
No, ACDC Back in Black.

(01:05):
Oh yeah.
Is that PC enough?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Tell me why we don't get any cool cars.
Tell me why.
We're back.
Episode 53.
A little older, a littlewiser, a little better looking.
Are you sure about that?
We've got faces for radio.
I mean, come on now.

(01:27):
where we get deep into the bowels ofour winter recap because we have been on
winter break for the last couple of monthsour last official drive thru episode
was october then we did the holidaythen we did the best of and did you get
everything on your christmas list you'vebeen turned to wrenches on your car is
your car happy i got some tools on thechristmas list i didn't get anything for
the kitchen this year they gave me thatstuff for father's day and but i did get

(01:51):
A new set of gear wrench sockets and somenew ratchets, the 120 tooth ratchets.
They're pretty sweet.
Three quarter inch, halfinch and three eighth inch.
Or the little guy.
Well, I hear congratulations are in order.
Your car is off jack stands.
Ah, so pump the brakes there.
Pun intended.
It is off jack stands, but thebrake pedal goes to the floor

(02:13):
and then it builds up pressure.
Before it would just go to the floor andit would continuously go to the floor.
Then, and obviously because Ichanged the brake lines at the
caliper, I needed to add fluid.
So I put fluid in andnow I pump the brakes.
It goes to the floor onceand then it comes back.
So I need to put it back on jackstands, get the wheels off of it.
And I just need to do a whole systemflush and make sure there's no leaks.

(02:34):
So that's my next step.
You got all the breathers and PCVs andall that intake stuff done too, right?
So the car's running again.
Oh, the car's running really well now.
Yeah, it runs great.
PCVs back in the intake manifold, theintake gasket, the intake manifold, new
gasket, new valve cover, gasket, uh, newplugs, new coils, all back together now.
And all the suspension stuff, it'sstill just needs a brake flush and.

(02:57):
Starting to sound like aBubba Gump commercial there.
Fried shrimp, boiled shrimp.
Control arms, upper controlarms, lower control arms, rear
control arms, front control arms.
Well, the reason I bring it up is noncar enthusiasts would be like, Brad,
bro, that decrepit old car into trash.
You need to buy.
Something new, if I could afford to,I would, but this old piece of shit

(03:21):
isn't worth anything to anybody else.
But me and the words of, you know,anybody that's been married for a really
long time, it's cheaper to keep her.
That leads us right into our showcase.
And that's why I brought it up becausea lot of us at GTM headquarters have
older cars that we cherish and we adore.
And we continue to turn wrenches on andyou look at the stickers on these new

(03:42):
cars and you're like, I don't get it.
As we've talked about manytimes over the newest car we
have is a 2019 six years ago.
Now that was expensivelooking at the prices today.
It's like everything's doubled.
And I know you love this.
When I bring it up that the 2025 carbuying season started in August of 2024,

(04:06):
we are halfway into the 2025 sales seasonand things are not looking good at all.
There's a lot of the sky is falling.
The end is nigh.
It's the end of the world.
There's going to be a car market collapse.
The industry is imploding.
I used to be on that train the first yearthey started talking about it, but now

(04:27):
we're in like year five or six of themtalking about the car bubble bursting.
I haven't seen it yet.
I will say I work in finance.
I work for a financial institution.
I do see Delinquency andcollection numbers and charge
off numbers and stuff like that.
It's actually a big part of my joband our auto loans, delinquencies

(04:49):
have gone up slightly, but nothinglike what has been predicted.
I will say the repo men that we havethat we contract with are Very, very
busy and the lead times on picking upthese vehicles has gone from like within
30 days to like within 90 to 120 days.
They are very busy collecting thesevehicles, but maybe it's just because we

(05:10):
didn't do any type of predatory lending.
We're not in that trouble.
Well, there's a whole lot of thatgoing on because these cars have
gotten to the point where you'remaking mortgage payments on them.
They're so expensive.
The video that we have in our showcasethat kind of set the whole tone for
this, this month done by a YouTuber.
And he's apparently done shorter versionsof this same thing throughout the year.
And I feel like this was acompilation video cause it was very

(05:32):
stitched together and he was kind ofrepetitive, but very thorough, very
informative, and very interesting.
He went to actual dealerships and hestarted walking up and down the lots
and looking at the markups, lookingat the prices, how many trucks and
cars were still left on the lot.
I felt like he was doing an auditionfor CBS Evening News because he's got
this very Tom Brokaw way of speaking andit was very clean and, and everything.

(05:57):
And so it got me thinking becausethere's other articles that have been
floating around during the winter breakabout the market and these companies
that are merging and CEOs that are juststepping out unannounced and whatnot.
So.
I want to take a deeper dive and seeif the sky is really falling on this.
So I recommend everybody watchthis first video by untamed motors.

(06:18):
So again, he's got awhole series of these.
You know, I saw another video.
Actually, it was quitepopular on Instagram.
Somebody at a cardealership was going around.
I think he was a salespersonat the dealership and asking
the other salespeople.
What they were paying on their cars andkeep in mind they work at the dealership.
They probably get prettydecent pricing and maybe even

(06:38):
pretty decent financial terms.
96 month loans.
Every single person's loanpayment was four digits.
Good.
Can you imagine?
No, like you were saying, that's, uh,some people's rent and that's some
people's, you know, mortgage payments.
But 000 for a cell phone.
I'm not totally surprised, butstill, it's just ridiculous how many

(07:02):
people pay with these cards, right?
And not to get into a political debateor a discussion about, you know,
world economics and inflation and allthis, all the bills are going up and
actually untamed talks about that.
He's like, insurance is going upand electricity is going up and
this is going up and that's whyeverything's getting more expensive.
And obviously the paychecksare all staying the same.
The markups, which we'vetalked about Bullshit that they

(07:25):
add to the price of the car.
And you look at an F one 50 best sellingvehicle in the world, as we've reported
before, when he goes up and down theline at the dealership, I don't know
the difference of the trim packages.
I'm just not that into it, nor doI really care, but the point is.
Entry level F 150.
I'm sure you can get the two seat, no cab,long bed, basic work truck for 35, 000.

(07:51):
And that's the argument peopleare going to make, but that's
not what people are buying.
People are buying these as family haulers.
And then there are the folksthat just use them for work.
And when you look at the pricespectrum, they're anywhere from
50 to over 100, 000 for an F 150.
Let's not even talk about the Ramsand the Chevys and the Dodges and all
the other trucks that are out there.
And it's like, these vehicles aredesigned for all of us, you know,

(08:15):
not like a special class, likeyou're buying a Ferrari or a Porsche,
you have a certain demographic.
That's going to buy that.
That's going to be interested in, havethe liquidity to be able to do that.
Or maybe it's aspirational.
Let's just leave that whereit is, but a truck's a truck.
You're going to use it for work andhaul stuff, maybe on the farm or just
because you want to go to the malland that's fine, but they've priced
everybody out of the market becauseeven somebody with a lot of money is

(08:39):
going to go 100, 000 for an F one 50,but see, you're missing the point.
Am I?
Or at least part of the point.
So these trucks, they're big, they weigha certain amount of weight, you know,
with government tax write offs and you,the way you depreciate them, a vehicle
that meets in a certain criteria, youcan take the full write off of its
depreciated value in one hit, which lowersyour taxable income, which then ends

(09:03):
up putting more money in your pocket.
So they buy it, has the companybankroll it and cashflow it.
Then they depreciate it, whichreduces their taxable income,
and then it reduces what they owethe IRS at the end of the year.
It must be nice.
I guess everybody and their brother inthe United States has an LLC now, so
they can do this kind of thing, right?
Like, I don't get it.
I think that's what a lotof these people are doing.

(09:24):
These tradesmen, people that buytrucks every year, every two years,
you know, replacing their F 150 that'sonly got like 50, 000 miles on it.
Granted 50, 000 miles in two yearsis a lot of miles, but you know,
they're replacing it with somethingbrand new because they're taking
the tax right off each year.
What the government is doing, andI have bear witness to this myself
in the greater DMV area, right?

(09:45):
The DC metro area.
You notice that they've changed theway they're issuing the registration
and the license plates now.
And so they've readjusted what you payfor your tags based on the weight of
the vehicle, which is a very European.
Way of doing things.
So they do that in England and otherplaces, the bigger the vehicle is, the
heavier it is, we're going to imposethis like road tax it now it's become

(10:08):
a luxury that you drive a 9, 000 poundHummer or cyber truck or whatever it is.
That just makes total sense.
And if you think about it, I don't knowif you remember back in the day, I don't
know if it's still a thing or not, but.
Back when in the early 2000s andbefore there used to be a luxury tax
on vehicles that were purchased over, Ithink it was like 35, 000 or something.

(10:28):
Yep.
There was an additional on top of thesales tack and additional luxury tax.
They can't have that now because that'sthe normal price of a vehicle now.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, you know,to register your minivan.
In the greater DC area, get ready to forkover 600 bucks when it used to be 150.
It's absolutely insane what they're doing.

(10:49):
And so every time we turnaround, it's getting worse.
Insurance is going up.
Cost of cars are going up.
And then the funny part about whatAntin was talking about, he goes, the
used market was crazy during COVID.
We know that, but actually that hassort of right sized itself, and he was
talking about, here's a XYZ Expeditionwith the Black Knight Mohawk package that

(11:11):
it comes with, and like, all these bellsand whistles, and he's like, I bought
the exact same truck used, two years old.
And it's like a third the price,the sticker price on the dealer lot.
He's like, just buy one used.
I would do that too, especially somethinglow mileage or whatever, but it's insane.
The people that are taking outthese six, seven, eight plus
year loans on 100, 000 truck.

(11:33):
And the stupid thingis only worth a third.
They're only thinking about the cash flow.
Can I afford the monthly payment?
It's absolutely insane.
Some of these other ones on here,and we're gonna go through some
of the major manufacturers thatare sort of in this mess and have
gotten themselves into a pickle.
One of them being Ford.
And the headline reads, Ford EVsstruggle to continue in this rapidly

(11:55):
deteriorating market conditions.
Oh, again, the sky is falling.
Let's be real.
Who wants an F 150 Lightning?
It costs more than a F 150 V8.
And are you really going to savemoney on the electricity long term?
I get it.
We're saving the world andall this kind of stuff.
But we've seen the tests.
They can only tow so far.

(12:15):
They can only go so far.
Yeah, you can recharge your house onthem or whatever, but Is it worth it?
Yeah.
If I wanted to pick up truck that waslike a car simply just because I like
the pickup truck design and I wanted topick up truck, okay, yeah, I'd consider
one over, you know, some of the otherelectrics out there, it's got space, it's
got cargo capacity, whatever, but to useit like a truck for truck things, no.

(12:37):
Exactly.
Well, and to your point,if you want a truck bodied.
Vehicle to have that truck feelbecause that's what you like to drive.
What's wrong with a Maverick?
And then maybe let's make it ahybrid because it already comes with
that anemic four cylinder anyway.
Well, the Maverick sizewise isn't big enough.
Flag on the play because the Maverickis the size of an old F 150 from a

(12:57):
couple generations back, which weall know back then, economy of scale.
It was huge, but now it's tiny.
It's like a S10 in comparison to thestuff that they're producing, that
they're all the size of freaking barges.
As someone who is a, you know, andI quote, as someone has told me many
times, I'm a very large human being.

(13:18):
I appreciate the extra spacein some of these vehicles.
And my reality is Idon't fit in a Maverick.
I don't fit in the older F 150s.
I don't fit in those vehicles.
Bigger vehicles accommodate me better.
So that's what I'm going tolook at, except for a GTI.
I will drive a Volkswagen hatchbackbecause they accommodate me too.

(13:40):
You got that bubble car.
So it's all good.
But Ford, they got the F one 50.
Okay, great.
But then they've decided to do theCapri and then these other ones,
which are rebadged Volkswagen's.
Why are you taking this gamble?
On somebody else's product,which isn't really selling that
great in their own portfolio.
And you want to take that on and tryto sell and compete against that.

(14:03):
To me, it doesn't make sense to me.
They're cheating and it'snot working out for them.
If you want to build a good electricvehicle, do it from scratch,
engineer it, build it yourself.
Come up with something innovative.
EVs are supposed to bethe next level technology.
You know, the future, make it looklike that, make it dramatic, make
it something that people are goingto want to buy, not just a rebadge.

(14:26):
Like you're saying a Volkswagen,the Capri looks like a Polestar.
Looks like a this looks like a that.
I mean, none of these vehicles areparticularly eye catching or good looking.
They're overly priced.
They're trying to cheat.
And then they're suffering because peoplerealize, oh, well, this is just the same
shit just with a different front emblem.
I'm glad you brought that upcars that look like other cars
that look like other cars.
That brings us to Chrysler.

(14:47):
Who announced that they'rehalting production of the airflow.
You remember the airflow?
We talked about that, youknow, midsize SUV thing.
We're like, Ooh, something newfrom Chrysler, other than just a
bread box on wheels, AKA minivan.
And they've decided now we'renot going to do that anymore.
Oh yeah.
It looks like a lifted Chrysler 200.
With a shooting break back end,it looks way better than the 200.

(15:09):
It's not bad looking.
No, it's not at all.
I was really interested in thiswhen they first announced it.
It has very Germanic styling to it.
I mean, like you said, like a polestar or an ID for the Capri, they all
kind of look the same, but I'm like,here's another one down the drain.
That could be a result of thefact that there's still no CEO.

(15:29):
It's the way it is.
No, I don't know.
So one other thing toadd to the Stellantis.
Mess is a DeDoy moment to quote you.
Brad Jeep has come back and saidthat maybe they overshot with
their pricing on the Wagoneer.
Maybe nobody wants to spend150, 000 on a three row Jeep.
I was looking at this actually, notthis article, whatever I don't read.

(15:51):
So, but I was looking into theWagoneers because I see a lot of
them in my neighborhood and I'm like,they can't be all these people paying
six figures for a Jeep Wagoneer.
Right.
What I found, and someone cancorrect me if I'm wrong, the
regular Wagoneer is in the 60s.
So, similar price to a Suburban,Tahoe, Sequoia, vehicles of that ilk.

(16:13):
The Grand Wagoneer is where you getinto the Range Rover pricing and
stuff like that, which I have not.
seen a lot of grand Wagoneers.
So I actually do feel the standardWagoneer pricing is actually pretty
decent given what the competition is.
The grand Wagoneer, I think isprobably shooting for the stars
and not really landing on the moon.

(16:33):
That one I could, I could seeit should be cheaper, but the
regular Wagoneer, I think is fine.
If we're talking about EVs realquick, one that I have seen a lot of.
That I'm very impressed with inperson, and I really, really like it.
And if I was in the market for an EV,I would totally consider getting one.
Is the Cadillac, uh, what's it called?
The, the derelict, the

(16:56):
lyric.
I've seen several of them in personand I think they are awesome looking.
I love the weird quirky Citroenstyling that they do have like
a very classic French styling.
And I just think they're reallyawesome looking cars for the EV market.
Different.
That's for sure.
I mean, not everything has to looklike it came out of the Jetsons, you
know, all the stuff that Toyota isproducing, where you're just like,

(17:19):
you just make it look normal and thenput it in electric power plant in it.
I don't know why nobody'scaught on to that.
But speaking of Toyota, a company thatwe've talked about multiple times that
doesn't have, but whatever that BR4X RAV4electric thing that they came out with,
just to say they have an electric, an allelectric, they bet the farm on hybrids.

(17:41):
New CARB rules have gone into effectwhere by 2026, so we're talking
next year, well, actually thissummer, if we go by sales, right?
So by August, September of this year,when they're producing 2026 models
that have to comply with the new CARB2 rules, California and the 12 or 13
other states out of our great 50 stateshere in America that abide by the CARB

(18:05):
rules are saying, Not practically zeroemissions or, you know, all the PZEV and
PHEV and all those acronyms are out there.
They're talking ZEV, Zero EmissionsVehicles, earlier than expected.
And Toyota's like, dude, what?
This is impossible.
There's no way.
As a Toyota person, when I've got twoToyotas in my fleet, I love my Tundra.

(18:27):
It's been flawless for the lastseven years, uh, and I'm expecting
the van to be very similar.
Anybody that's got a new Tundra ora new Tacoma will tell you Toyota
is looking at a bunch of recalls andissues with major components like the
Tundra's twin turbo motor is blowingup and grenading themselves, the

(18:48):
Tacoma's transmissions are grenadingthemselves, Toyota uh, Can't really
afford to invest in the EV market rightnow because they've got to fix all the
issues that they have with these trucks.
No, they got to pay for kazooracing to go to Formula One.
Well, yeah, let's, let'stalk about that for a minute.
How much is that going to cost?

(19:08):
Come on.
I don't know.
I guess they're hoping that, youknow, if they get the constructors
championships or points from that.
More people are going to buy Tundras.
Come on.
I mean and even the price of tundrashas gone up a lot like they're 60 70
plus thousand dollars when they werethe more reasonable by but you had to
convince somebody not to buy a ford orchevy it's like dude look at the toyota

(19:31):
like seriously look at a toyota and now.
They're just as expensive as someone whoactually went through that exact scenario.
When I was looking for a truck, I waslooking at the Ford, the Chevy and
the Toyota, the Fords and the Chevysconsistently priced in the fifties.
And then even with the 10, 000 of thedealerships were throwing back at people

(19:52):
and rebates and stuff just for fun.
It seemed like you go in, younever pay sticker because he
comes back with a 10, 000 rebate.
I still got the Toyota for mid thirties.
And it does everythingthat I needed to do.
It did everything theFord and the Chevy did.
And I've had it for sevenyears with zero problems.
We've been talking about pickuptrucks a bit because they are some
of the best selling vehicles inthe U S and we've mentioned Ford.

(20:15):
We've mentioned Chevy.
We mentioned Dodge Rams or just Ramnow, and then the Toyota Tundra.
But we forgot one, right?
Another manufacturer of fullsize pickup trucks, Nissan.
We didn't forget Nissan.
Nissan forgot themselves.
I think Nissan forgot everything.
What is going on over there?
For those of you listening at home,if you haven't heard this yet, I don't

(20:36):
know where you've been, especially ifyou're a car enthusiast parent company.
Renault also involved in thisdebacle is looking to divest
Nissan and sell it to Toyota.
Again, kazoo racing, the Tundra recalls,and now they're going to buy Nissan.
What are they doing?
It sounds like they'vegone full Volkswagen.

(20:56):
Dude, this is unreal.
Nissan.
What are they losing?
70 percent year over year.
They've slashed production.
They laid off 9, 000 employees.
I don't know.
That doesn't seem like a big numberto me for an auto manufacturer.
I don't know why.
And then we can talk about infinity.
I mean, people still buy thoselike really inside of this mess.
Is the fact that Renault hascontrolling stock in Nissan.

(21:18):
They bought them back 20 plusyears ago when the 350z came out.
Right.
So it's, we're goingthat far back in time.
And so Renault has been involved andthen Nissan had acquired Mitsubishi.
And we all know how wellMitsubishi has done in the last.
Ever so the DSM days are long gone.
Oh my God.
And talking about Mitsubishi, theyhaven't made a cool car since the Evo.

(21:39):
When did that stop production?
Like 2012, 2015, 15 years ago.
Well, they make that Lancer acrosswhatever the hell that thing CV is.
It's awful.
I reiterate, they, they haven't madeany cool cars in a really long time.
But that being said.
Nissan's like this money pit and wetalked about it before how exciting
it was when the 400, which again,the Z, a lot of people just call it

(22:00):
the Z, but let's call it the 400.
The Zaltima.
So the Z was coming out andit's like bargain basement price
and still nobody bought them.
And we spotted one over the holidays.
My wife was like, what is that?
I said, that's the Z, that'sthe car I kept talking about.
That's the car I am still interestedin purchasing, but I don't think
you can get one if you tried.
And at this point, Nissan'sprobably fire sailing those cars.

(22:22):
If they do have any of them,are they fire sailing them?
Or can you not find them?
If you're interested in buying a400 Z, then I think you should.
I think we need a segmentwhere Eric talks about how he's
going to try and buy a 400 Z.
And then we want to hearthe answers of buying the Z.
That was like all of 2023.
What are you talking about?
We already covered all that.
No, but that was before it came out.
Then you saw it in personand you're like, meh.

(22:43):
That front end, it's we, yeah,whatever, we'll get into that.
Maybe I am speaking out of both sidesa little bit, but my point is this.
They struck gold with the fact it'sa twin turbo, six cylinder, proper
grand tour, because I can't call ita sports car because we saw the test
and how it all panned out againstthe Zupra and everything else.
It's a nice car and for 50 grand,compared to a lot of other things

(23:05):
you can buy for 50 grand, if you'rean enthusiast, it's like, don't
walk, run to the Nissan dealership.
And buy one.
But here's the deal.
They're losing money hand over fist.
As Tanya has always said,they just make one car.
It's the Ultima.
They stretch it and they crunchit and they elongate it and
all those kinds of things.
Toyota's like, yeah, bro,we're gonna bring you on board.
But there's a couple stipulations.

(23:26):
And this is where I started laughingbecause I'm digging into these articles.
And Toyota's like, All right, Nissan,we'll bring you in to the family if you
can make yourself profitable by 2026.
How?
They haven't been freakingprofitable forever.
What they need to do is change the namefrom Nissan to Ultima Motor Company.
Go back to Datsun.
And just, yeah, everything,everything's an Ultima.

(23:48):
And then, yeah, they justrebrand every car to Ultima.
The Ultima Sport, the UltimaTouring, the Ultima Econ.
And we know some people that had.
Titans, the big Nissan full size pickupthat competes with everything else.
And it just, it couldn'tcompete with everything else.
And they had transmission issues andlike you're talking about with Toyota.

(24:09):
I'm going to call BS, but I'm going toreserve the right to keep my opinions
to myself about that particular issue.
But that particular truck at thistime, I have a feeling I know
where you're going with that.
There's a lot of lead.
Yeah.
What did Jeremy Clarksonsay about fuel economy?
It's all about how youuse the right pedal.

(24:30):
Yeah.
Same kind of thing.
The sky continues to fall.
Prices are out of control.
We've got cars still sitting on dealershiplots because chips or whatever, you
know, cars are sitting on dealer lotsbecause they're too fricking expensive.
Nissan's in dire straits.
Toyota, they got their own issues anddoing Formula One and everything else.
And then Volkswagen.
Oh boy.

(24:50):
Volkswagen, our favorite,our absolute favorite.
And the CEO from the U.
S.
decided during winter break, he just quit.
We're done.
And I was reading into it and itwasn't like when they got rid of
the guy that designed the ID Buzz.
They're just like, yeah,we're done with you.
Nope.
They're just like, this guy just left.
That's it.
On his own recognizance, he just quit.
So then they took the guy who was thehead of HR for Volkswagen of America,

(25:13):
put him in charge until like December.
And now the new head of VW USA is theformer CEO of Porsche North America.
And he was in that role in 2020.
So the beginning of COVID, andthen he left and went to Rivian
and then he left Rivian in 2023.
So now the guy that was in chargeof Porsche North America is in
charge of Volkswagen North America.

(25:35):
I don't think it's going to makea damn bit of difference because
of the ID buzz is still 63, 000.
Can you imagine a Volkswagen minivan?
63.
I mean, it's on par with otherelectrics out there, isn't it?
Isn't the pricing on par withwhat electric cars are costing?
That thing should be 40grand and a hybrid, but I'll
leave that part where it is.

(25:56):
I agree.
I agree.
So right now, if the van Is63 grand, that is the most
expensive Volkswagen in the fleet?
I guess it is, I guess it would be.
So the ID Buzz is Volkswagen's flagship.
That's what they're hanging their haton right now, is that two tone breadbox.
Something tells me the VW bus inthe 60s was not the flagship of VW.

(26:17):
Oh, you don't say?
Where's the Beetle again?
It's still being produced in Mexico.
So the Passat's gone, they don'tmake a wagon anymore of any kind.
I don't even count the Alltrack, Ithink those are all left over anyway.
So then, Golf is sorta stillaround, the Golf R, we went into
that whole debate last year.

(26:37):
So if the Golf R is not the flagship,the hot hatch, the van is, so we've
talked about how the Golf was gonna beover 40, 000 and you guys were like,
nah, there's no way, there's no way.
And the Brits had already reported thatthe prices of the Golfs were going up.
When you look at thelineup, it's not very deep.
If Porsche guy, coming from the 9 11mentality, goes, golf should be flagship,

(27:01):
how much is the golf gonna cost?
Or are they gonna have to bringthe price of the van down?
Well, I don't necessarilythink flagship means the most
expensive vehicle in the fleet.
VAG world, though.
Look at the Phaeton.
Look at the A8.
I don't know if that necessarilyis the definition of what a
flagship vehicle should be, though.
What else would it be?

(27:21):
The most iconic, mostrecognizable vehicle.
The vehicle that everybody, like,you look at and you know, oh my
god, okay, that's a Volkswagen.
Okay, we'll apply that philosophy to VAG.
With the example of Porsche.
So if the most iconic car, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, in the
lineup, nine 11, nine 11 is the mostexpensive one they have hands down.
Well, yeah, that's one use case.

(27:43):
So the GTI is the nine 11 of VW.
So 80, 000 for the Golf R.
And what doesn't mean thatit has to cost 80, 000.
It just means that that's the.
car that they're hanging their hatson according to the interwebs, a
flagship vehicle doesn't have anythingto a cost, but it is the vehicle in
the lineup that embodies the bestthat the automated car stands for.

(28:06):
Thank you, Tanya.
I think that's exactly what Iwas trying to say, even though I
wasn't as eloquent as Tanya was.
They're usually high performancemodels, which can translate the cost.
Of course, you're paying for thetechnology and the engineering.
The design is.
Striking, usually, or expressive,usually have better technology in them.
And then in terms of volume,it's a higher volume line.

(28:30):
So by that definition, then the ID buzzis the flagship of Volkswagen right now.
It's got better technology.
It should be higher volume than thegolf R if that's the 9 11 of Volkswagen.
That is a finite niche market ofpeople that buy that compared to the
people that should be buying the vans.
Sorry.
It's size, not volume.
So I guess the physical size, it'sthe largest car in the automaker's

(28:52):
lineup, then it's ID buzz done.
But it's usually the car that representsthe best of an automaker's capabilities,
which I've seen the interior and the IDbuzz, and I've heard other people say it.
It's not that nice.
Well, then I would say the golf,the golf bar is the flagship
of the Volkswagen fleet.
We'll put a pin in this for now.
Mark my words, the Golf isgoing to get more expensive.
It'll get more expensive,but I don't think it'll be

(29:12):
80, 000 to beat the ID Buzz.
Unless they come outwith a GT3 RS equivalent.
They have it in Europe.
It's the GTI Club Sport.
Yeah, but that's a race car.
That's basically, it'sspecifically for racing.
Can you say Volkswagen has a flagship?
It used to be the Passat.
Yeah.
And I think that's another point.
Like not every automanufacturer has a flagship.

(29:35):
Flagship would be like an a eightL rolls up or an S class, but I
don't think it was Passat either.
Maybe it was the fate.
It was the Faden when they had it.
And then the, the twa, the twa wag,the twarg, the twa wag, stupid name.
Well, anyway, ID Buzz, 63, 000,my mind is still melting over

(29:57):
the price every time I see it.
I think you have to have twoflagships if you're talking electric
vehicles, because an ID Buzz is soradically different than a Golf,
you could almost have two flagships.
According to Eric, Volkswagen'sflagship EV then is the Ford
Capri because it's the same car.
What a mess.
Welcome to the global economy.
Since we're still speaking of Volkswagen,do we have to, I mean, they need to

(30:20):
get their heads out of their butts.
Talk about the entire automotiveindustry needs to get their
heads out of their butts.
Well, did you hear aboutthe data leak for VW?
This one's pretty bad.
I know all about VW leaking.
Well, yeah.
Tell us more about that.
Headline reads massive Volkswagendata leak exposed 800, 000 EV owners.

(30:41):
Movements from homes to brothelsand everything in between.
Big Brother is watching.
I feel like that title is clickbait.
Isn't it though?
But if you read on, it says sensitiveinformation about Volkswagen, Audi,
Seat, and Skoda EVs was left exposedand unprotected in a misconfigured
cloud storage system for months.
Why are they tracking the cars?

(31:02):
This is the kind of stuff that'sgoing to kill the automotive industry.
So Volkswagen is not the onlycompany that's doing this.
If you remember what Lizzie was saying, Idon't know if she said it on air, but when
we were talking to her about the LexusNexus network and how all cars, I did some
research and yes, my Toyota, all Toyotasfrom like a certain year on send driver

(31:25):
data and vehicle data back to Toyota.
As well.
Now what they're doing with thatdata, I'm not sure, but it does say
like movements, speed, breaking,you know, all kinds of information.
Volkswagen is not the only carmanufacturer that's doing this.
I think it's an industry wideissue, a privacy issue, that
nobody seems to be talking about.
So what's the endgame here?

(31:46):
Is it all to invalidate your warranty?
Because what else would they want tocollect your driving behavior data for?
That's why insurance costs are going up.
Insurance companies are looking and said,Brad, it looks like you went 90 miles an
hour on Sunday, January 22nd or whatever.
Because of that, we're raisingyour insurance rates to XYZ dollars

(32:08):
a month or something like that.
I feel like that data isbeing sold to somebody.
That's why the trickle downeffect, all this just going up.
There you go.
It's being sold to something becausedata is king right now, but doesn't
necessarily mean it's being sold.
Although it probably is alsogoing to insurance companies.
And there's a social engineering aspectaround all this too, because imagine

(32:29):
someone's tracking you go from your homeand you go to Starbucks and then you
go to McDonald's drive thru and thenyou go to the whatever grocery store.
Oh no, then you stopped hereand oh, you stopped there.
There's a whole slew of thingsthis data could be used for and
people that could be buying it.
So even outside of the insurancecompany thing, it's like the marketing
loys when you're scrolling throughFacebook or something like that.

(32:49):
And you're going to start doingtargeted campaigns and suddenly
your little infotainment screen inyour car or something is going to
start suggesting like, Oh, Starbuckshas a sale on caramel macchiatos.
Pumpkin spice latte seasons here.
You know?
Waze already does that.
It's been doing that for years whereyou're driving and because it knows where
you are, obviously it's a navigation app.
If you're driving by a Dunkin Donuts,sure enough pops up in your Waze app.

(33:13):
Dunkin Donuts is right here.
They've got a sale going on,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like, no, justtell me where the cops are.
And then it's just like anybody who'sseen, well, I can't remember if it was
iRobot or Minority Report, Black Mirror,that too, but there was a specific movie.
I can't remember if it was when Tom Cruisewas walking into the police station or
something, but you walk past the storesand everything and the screens pop up and

(33:35):
it say, Hey, you know, this is on sale.
You, we know you bought this last month.
You, you want this, you know, it goesinto exactly what Tanya is saying.
There's too much information on everybodyout there and it's being used nefariously.
It is.
And I don't even want to get into adiscussion about cybersecurity because
that's my day gig and nevermind.

(33:56):
I will just say, stop using Chrome.
That's all I'm going to say.
Really?
Yes.
I'll just leave it at that.
Anybody who knows me or follows meon the social media or whatever.
There's a reason I don't postanything about my kids at all.
I think there's maybe one or twopictures of my kids anywhere on
Facebook, maybe the metaverse andit's of the back of their heads.

(34:16):
That's it.
You will never see my untilthey're old enough to make
that decision for themselves.
They will never be on social media.
So on this whole bent of theend is nigh, the sky is falling.
It's all coming to acollapse, not to be outdone.
We would be remiss if we didn'tinclude Tesla in this mess.
For those of you that took a winter breaklike we did and you're tuning in right
now, we did do our best of this year andit was time to do Tesla again because

(34:40):
we always do Formula One and then wedo Florida Man and all that fun stuff.
So we did the Cybertruck thing and thatwas, I think that was a great episode.
But you know what?
The news of the Cybertruckjust never seems to stop.
Ever.
And I don't want tocontinue on that treadmill.
I want to like stop talkingabout Tesla going forward.
It's our New Year's resolution.

(35:01):
We're never going to talkabout Tesla ever again.
I don't want to give the air time anymore.
I thought this next onewas pretty damn hilarious.
Tesla is buffing foundationseries badges off of Cybertrucks
to sell them as regular trucks.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Come on.

(35:21):
So what does that tell us?
It tells us that the foundation seriestruck is literally just a badge.
Well, duh.
You paid for earlyadopter badge engineering.
Yep, a vinyl that they put onthere that says foundation.
That's terrible.
And at the same time, Tanya, you weretelling me about this diverting people

(35:42):
and personnel and resources and thingsto other parts of the Tesla line.
Cybertruck sales are down.
They can't sell them.
The markups that people were buying themand trying to sell them for over a hundred
thousand dollars, that's all fallingflat on people's Faces glad I didn't
buy one of those stupid things, right?
And then the sales are down and sothey're going okay Well, people are still

(36:03):
interested in the Model Y so we'll makemore Model Y's now I do see a lot more
Model Y's on the road than anything else.
I've gotten used to the way they lookto So I had a very similar thought and
I was even talking to my wife aboutit and I was like, you know If the
Model Y was made by anybody else, Iwould actually consider picking one up.
Well, I mean, it looks likeVolkswagen's Capri or an Airflow.

(36:26):
So they're all the same.
It looks, looks like, yeah,a Ford Chevrolet Volkswagen.
So at the end of the day, here we are,all these manufacturers are having issues.
A lot of manufacturershave bet the farm on EV.
EV sales are down.
Tesla is just one example of that,but you're seeing it across the board.
We said it once, wesaid it a hundred times.
They needed to go hybrid.

(36:46):
They needed to follow Toyota'slead, but Toyota was left
backed into a corner by itself.
And again, now it's suffering becauseof these carb rules and everything else.
Hybrid was the answer.
And I think it always has been, despitelack of manual transmissions and all those
other things that as enthusiasts that we'dlove, which they found ways around that.
Now too, with hybrids, which I thinkis actually really, really cool.

(37:08):
Are you talking about the scout at that?
Car's never coming.
Don't even get me started on that thing.
They're taking reservations.
I almost put one in.
I almost, here we go again.
Oh my God.
Did you not learn the first time?
The point is we're halfway throughthe sales year and it looks like a
downward slope all the way through thesummer because the cars are committed

(37:29):
for this year and we got these newcar rules like we mentioned that are
going to force the manufacturers tochange yet again and I think we're
going to see more cars disappearing.
Not because people are buying them up,but because those models cannot support
whatever this next generation is.
So I think there's going to be sortof a bloodletting across the industry.
And that's really the collapse.

(37:50):
That's such a good word, bloodletting.
I thought that was such a great wordto use to describe what's going on.
It's not necessarily that thesecompanies are going to fall apart.
There's always still mergers andacquisitions happening because there's a.
Graphic that I'm including with the shownotes, the shows sort of the larger family
hierarchy of companies, and there's reallyonly maybe 20 car companies total, then

(38:11):
people be like, well, what about this?
What about that?
But they're all part ofthe same conglomerate.
So you have to look at theheads of those families.
And so there aren't thatmany car companies anymore.
There is a collapse coming, but it'snot the way it's being portrayed
from a financial perspective.
It's a change in the way they'regoing to be building these cars
the next 10, 15 years, which I'mstill concerned for our kids.

(38:34):
What the hell are they going to bedriving five, eight years from now?
It's just, I don't know.
My kids are going to drive something thatwe're going to talk about later, rather
than put 50, 60, 000 into a new car.
Let's import a car from 25 years ago.
Ooh, that's.
Yeah, I like that idea.
Let's come back to that.
Let's close out this showcase.

(38:55):
It is not the end of the world,despite all the YouTube videos
and everything that's out there.
My only piece of advice isif you have something that
you like and you have it now.
Keep it.
Because it's cheaper to keep her.
Just like you were saying earlier, right?
I feel like that's going to bethe tagline for this episode.
Cheaper to keep her.
That's the episode title right there.

(39:15):
Yeah, that and cheaper tokeep her and bloodletting.
Mercury in retrograde.
So let's get back to our regularlyscheduled ranting and raving.
We got to go back to Volkswagenfor a minute because I want
to play the sad trombone.
I want to play taps herebecause 34 years of old.

(39:38):
Awesomeness have come to a conclusion.
The final VR six was assembledand rolled off out of the factory.
Was it an ID buzz?
No, it was in an Atlas.
I'm very sad about thisbecause the VR six.
Okay.
Well, Volkswagen fan boypropeller head mirror.
It is one of the coolest engines.
Ever engineered.

(39:59):
Go research it.
We wrote an article about this a coupleyears ago about the VR and the W and
it is an engineering masterpiece to puta six cylinder in the space of a four
and make the kind of power that theywere making and continue to expand the
displacement without losing any geometryin any space to the point where 3.

(40:19):
6 liters In something that's thesize of a four banger making 300 plus
horsepower naturally aspirated witha sound that is unlike anything else.
It's a sad day for enthusiaststhat the BR 6 is gone.
But the upside of that is there'splenty of spares out there
because they made millions.
Of VR6s over the last 34 years.

(40:41):
So if you're looking to swap itinto something, it's like a 2JZ.
It's like an LS.
It's like top five motorsthat you would do a swap with.
So the VR6 is just absolutely incredible.
But again, sad day.
I'd love to see it comeback, like the Beetle.
I don't want to see it come back.
What?!
Not because I don't love it, but because Ihave one, and I want it to remain special.

(41:01):
So I want it to not come back andjust stay in what we already have.
I have two myself, and I wantanother one, but we'll get into
that at another point too, you know?
I mean, I would have noproblem driving an Atlas.
That would be a pretty cool daily driver.
Speaking of other things ending inVolkswagen, and I thought we reported
about this back during COVID, therewas an article from the Audi Club.
About the TT was finally ending its runas well after 25 years of production.

(41:27):
And I'm like, the TT hasbeen dead for a while.
Production numbers were terrible.
They sold like 300 of them last year.
How many years in the future doyou think it's going to take for
them to sell the very last Audi TT?
Five years from now, it's 2030.
We're going to do a secondAudi sold one, 2025 TT.

(41:49):
In 2030, that could very well bethe case as a TT owner, I am sad
to see this TT out of production.
Now I wasn't always a fanof every version of it.
Some of the more blocky styles thatcame later, it's like take it or
leave it when they came out withthe RS with the five cylinder turbo,
absolutely incredible car in there.
That's Audi's GT three right there.

(42:10):
Would you say it's a flagship?
No, no, not an Audi's portfolio, butthe Carmen Ghia, I mean, the TT, it's
sad to see it go, but just like theBeetle, I'm amazed that it's stuck
around this long because two doorsare going the way of the dodo bird.
And again, their sales numberswere too low to keep it going.
And not only that forthe money, cause TT's.

(42:32):
When the RS came out, the gen two, thosewere already 70, 000 with all the fees
and everything else for 70, 000, you'regoing to go buy something else, something
with even better performance, you know,the 400 horse that it was allegedly
making, you can get 400 horse out of aMustang for half the amount of money.
It wasn't a contender.
It was a boutique carin a way it was stylish.
It was a statement.

(42:52):
Like you want it to look cool and showup and go, I got something different.
You show up in a TT.
Okay, it's not a 911.
It's not this.
It's not that.
It's not a tearjerkerlike the VR 6 going away.
I will say my neighbor, someone whorecently moved into the neighborhood
within the last year, all of asudden I was driving by this house
and I looked over and there's awhite TTRS sitting in the driveway.

(43:15):
They've got a three car garage.
I was curious as to whythe TTRS got the driveway.
And it's because they've got aGT3 RS in the garage parked next
to their Cayenne, but I haven'tseen the TT RS in a couple months.
And I recently I saw the guy drivingaround in one of the new Continentals.
So I'm wondering if he gotrid of the RS for that.
The small car too.
It's not for everybody.

(43:36):
No, no, it's not.
You know, they're really pretty cramped.
Yeah, we need to go backto the drive through notes.
And look up the last time we actuallyhad Mercedes Benz or BMW news, because
this section of the drive thru notes hasbeen TBD for as long as I can remember.
We talked about that stupidBMW car, the changes color.

(43:59):
The paint shifting, whatever.
And then that car that was like cameout, it was like an avatar and it
was talking to people or whatever.
But that was like a year ago.
I can't remember since then any Mercedesor BMW news that we found noteworthy.
Is there anything?
No, there's nothingexciting to talk about.
They don't make anything thatreally gets anybody's attention.
Well, that, that I don't, Idon't believe that's true.

(44:20):
I follow this account on Instagram.
It's good.
The guy's basically a generalmanager of a Mercedes dealer.
And they're constantly talkingabout G wagons that they can't.
I can't keep in stock and they make coolcars, AMG GTs, anything, AMG, you know,
the G 63 AMG BMWs has got the M cars.
We never as enthusiasts, forwhatever reason, we just never

(44:41):
find any of their news noteworthyenough to put into the show.
And I was just curious as to why the onlything I came across over the winter break
that was noteworthy for BMW was some guyis now 3d printing replacement front ends.
For the big grill cars.
And I was like, Oh, that's pretty cool.
But that's it.
That's all there is to talk about.
Well, I wanted to throw that out there.

(45:01):
I find it kind of interesting if any ofour listeners, any of our two listeners
want to go back and look and tell uswhat the last episode was, if we actually
talked about new Mercedes and BMW news, Iwould be very curious to hear about that.
I read something else.
that said that BMW is going to get rid ofthe competition thing and they're going to
go back to their original badging so thatan M is an M and not an M240 and to get a

(45:26):
real M you had to get the M competition sooh my god we're reverse badge engineering
now I love that probably because all thepeople that wouldn't want an actual M car.
They're so mad that this Joeblows, uh, Sally homemakers
driving around in a two 40.
I am X, Y, Z telling peoplethat she's got an M car.
And she's like, no, that's not an M car.

(45:46):
That's just a two series.
We all had leftovers duringThanksgiving, Christmas dinner.
You know, you probably made hamsandwiches for two weeks, but you know
who else is going to have leftovers.
It's always going to be Dodge.
We're going to find a brand new DodgeDart in 2030 along with that TT.
But I couldn't believethis article from Jalopnik.
I can't believe mostarticles from Jalopnik.
These numbers are astonishing.

(46:08):
It's, it's crazy.
So enlighten us, Brad.
The article reads, Stellantissold over 78, 000 cars.
Their production ended before 2024.
Zombie cars.
Dead cars.
Not to be confused with likethe zombie race teams, you know,
zombie cars and NASCAR or whatever.
This is completely different.
But yeah, the carsproduction ended before 2024.

(46:28):
And yet they still sold these cars in24 and it's 43 percent of their sales.
Ridiculous.
Our old Dodge darts.
Look, Oh my God.
Yes.
This is amazing.
One Dodge Dart was sold.
We reported on that Dodge Dart.
Two Dodge caravans andthen 5, 295 Chrysler 300s.
I don't know who thehell bought those cars.

(46:49):
They sold a bunch of chargers.
No one Viper.
And then they're throwingthe Jeeps in here.
What is the Ram ProMaster City?
Is that that van?
Yes.
The Ram Van.
That little like Mercedes Sprinter thing.
Ram Van.
If somebody has a Ram Van and theydon't have the license plate Ram Van,
you're doing yourself a disservice.
Ram a lam a ding dong.
Dodge again will continue to sell deadzombie cars for the next 100 years.

(47:14):
So I'm not really worried about that.
But I just think it's hilarious.
And it goes back to what we were talkingabout in the showcase with all those.
Cars still sitting on dealership lots.
I bet you can pick up a brand new2023 something that hasn't sold
yet because it's been sittingthere forever, but that's okay.
I feel like they should go back andalter the financials for these years.
For 2023, they sold 5, 295 more cars.

(47:38):
They should retroactively goback and fix the financials.
Look, our sales are great.
Now our business cycle is fiveyears still wouldn't help Nissan.
So it doesn't matter.
I got a Nissan.
Yeah.
So Chevy's in the newscontinuing on with domestics.
They're recalling the Equinox.
Because it's too quiet.

(47:59):
Isn't that what we allhave been pining for?
Isn't that what we all wanted?
Were these super quiet approved bythe Swiss government Hoover Matic
whisper EVs, like now we're recallingthem because they're too quiet.
Did it say in whatdirection it's too quiet?
It says a specific alert sound forthe driver is too quiet and the
drivers aren't able to hear it.

(48:19):
You know what really grinds me?
This really pisses me off.
Okay.
The sound for the pedestrianalert is too quiet.
You know what other thing alert, youknow what else alerts you to pedestrians?
Your fucking eyes or thepedestrian screaming.
This is an alert for the driverto know that there's a pedestrian,

(48:41):
not for the pedestrian to know thatthey're being stalked from behind,
like a mountain line in the woods.
I don't know.
I just read the beginning of it.
I think it's both because I readthat the vehicle was too quiet.
So it's like the silent killer.
Okay.
Yeah.
So there's the pedestrians can't hear him.
You know, I don't care.
Pedestrians.
Here's a public serviceannouncement for you.

(49:02):
Stop walking in the road.
Take some personal accountability.
If you see a car coming,don't step out into the road.
I.
Went to South American country, seeinghow drivers treat pedestrians in another
country is wild compared to what goeson here in the U S I mean, here we
cater to the pedestrians so much stopsigns everywhere, crosswalks everywhere.

(49:23):
When I went to Bolivia after that,you're lucky if you don't get hit,
you're standing on the sidewalk,the way those people drive.
So take some personal accountability,have some situational awareness.
Look around, head on a swivel anddon't get hit by a fricking car.
Why must you continue to curse in church?
Why

(49:43):
? We are just gonna go downa rabbit hole with this, so
let's go down a different one.
Let's keep going.
Let's keep, let's just,let's peel back this onion.
Let's see where it leads.
Is this could be good radio.
We have some two wheeled news.
Yes.
So in the motorcycle world, thegroundbreaking trailblazing.
First female road motorcycleracer, motocross racer, and
a bunch of other accolades.

(50:05):
Recently inducted into Hall of Fame,Mary McGee passed away at the age of 87.
It's a sad day.
I want a VR6 as mytombstone, I'm just saying.
You don't pay attention whenyou're walking down the road,
it might be your tombstone.
Might be right on top of you.
What is a VR six tombstone?
Is that like six tombstones?
Narrow angle tombstones.

(50:27):
And when you look at it from thefront, it looks like a tombstone,
but when you look at it from theside, it's six little tombstones.
Oh, that's terrible.
I need somebody with a 3d printer to mockthis up and create a VR six inspired.
Tombstone, it will be brillianttelling him speaking of brilliant.
Let's talk about EVs and concepts.

(50:48):
This breaks my heart becausethis is never coming.
We've talked about variations ofthis car before, and Renault is busy
dealing with the debacle that isNissan, as we've already mentioned.
And here they are talking about.
The Renault five turbo threeE 500 horsepower rear wheel
drive hot hatch homage.

(51:09):
Bless.
I want one of these, but they saidthey are putting it into production,
so they'll make it, but they'renever going to sell it in the U S.
25 years from now, they will.
They'll never make thisis just like the R.
18 and all those other cool cars thatthey've been like teasing us with.
They're not going to make this.
They're not just startsaving up your money now.

(51:30):
And in 25 years, you'll beable to buy and import it.
This is so cool.
Renault, you hurt me so much.
So did you guys see on discord?
I posted that thing about the Twingowith the semi automatic transmission.
I thought you were going to gosomewhere else with the semi automatic.
No, I did not see.
It's the wildest thing.
This reminded me of it because, you know,French cars are quirky and this, that,

(51:51):
and I have an affinity for French cars.
That's why this pains me so much,but the Twingo, I've never really
paid that much attention to.
I always thought they were super cute.
They're very iconic, you know,with the happy little eyes, like
it was a Dodge neon or whatever.
And the fake me out littleturbo induction grill on the
hood that doesn't do anything.
But apparently neither doesthe manual transmission
because it only has two pedals.

(52:12):
And it changes gears by basicallygranny shifting it for you.
Almost like an SMG where it'schanging gears and whatever.
It's absolutely wild.
It's over on our Discord andI'll post it in the show notes.
How did we not know about this?
This car is like 20 plus years oldand it's just bizarre that somebody
would create and take the time tobuild a semi automatic like this

(52:35):
versus something with like, let'ssay paddles or whatever have you.
So anyway, Brad, you'vementioned it a couple of times.
Talking about waiting for cars to getolder and importing those cars and
you were talking about how your kidsare going to drive something older.
I've been thinking about that myself.
One of our favorite internet influencers,I'm going to be nice about this,
straightening up my tie as I say it.

(52:55):
It was a real challenge listeningto him talk in the video.
I swear he's on something.
It was really hard.
It was bad because I'm so used to JamesHumphrey just screaming the entire time.
Right?
Up to speed!
Alright!
Alright!
Alright!
That's everything you need to know!
I think you need to know!
About the VR6.
Uuugh!
Like all his videos are the same!

(53:16):
And they drive me nuts!
Every once in a whilethere's a gem in the mix.
But apparently, he's not a donut anymore,he's over at Speedco or whatever it is.
And he's also lost a ton of weight,apparently he had a heart attack.
Like there's a whole bunch of turningpoints in his life, I guess, that's gotten
to him is sitting in what looks like aBarco lounger in his garage, lean back.

(53:36):
Eating the microphone, doing sweaty balls.
It was so awkward to watch himbecause I was waiting for him to
start screaming like he always does.
I agree with some of thestuff that's on here.
Tell us about this list, Brad.
Yeah.
So basically the United States hasa 25 year rule for vehicles that
were not sold in the United States.
After they've been in production for25 years, or their production date

(53:59):
was 25 years ago, you can import themwithout any sort of special testing
or requirements or anything like that.
They're basically allowed toimport in the United States.
2025 means that cars manufacturedin the year 2000 and earlier are now
eligible to be imported into the U.
S.
The year 2000.

(54:20):
I've been trying to do that.
Yeah, I love Conan O'Brien.
Okay.
Yeah for some of us There's a lot ofreally really cool stuff that has now
become available for import and thevideo basically just highlights What
he feels, you know are worth thinkingabout importing, but he is comparing
them to the skyline r34 That's sortof like the pinnacle and then there's

(54:42):
all these other cars That you couldconsider instead, and he makes a valid
point because the R34, if you've got250, 000 to spend on it, there's a lot
of cars plural that you can buy for thatkind of money in the same age range.
So he lists the top 15 or 16cars in that same demographic.
So I, like you, I honed in on some really,really cool stuff, which actually I hadn't

(55:05):
thought about as a gray market import.
I'll start off by sayingRenault Sport Clio V6.
That's a de doy.
Anybody that's ever played Forza knowsall about this car and how amazing it is.
And that's right at the top of my list.
But I'm going to kind of do a round robinand just pick three cars, maybe not even

(55:27):
on this list, but just three cars fromthe year 2000 that you would import.
So pick a car year 2000.
You're 2000 and go.
Did they make a Fiat Panda in 2000?
Of course they did.
Of course they did.
Are you sure?
I think Tanya needs toimport a Fiat Panda.
Well, why would I importa 2000 Fiat Panda?
I can import any of them.

(55:50):
That's true.
Get the OG for cheaper.
All right.
So who wants to go first?
I want to stick to the list.
Cause I, I really honed in on these.
Cars.
Cause then I have to really rackmy brain about non U S availability
cars from the year 2000.
And that's how even wider catalog.
And there's some stuff in there.
People are gonna be like, what I feellike we need a, what should I buy
episode just for this particular topic?
What should I buy?

(56:10):
Gray market is definitely coming.
Not red light district.
Great market.
Yeah.
So let's just stick to thislist right off the bat.
I mean, I think we allagree on the Clio Sport.
We'll just say, okay, that's a given.
But if I gotta pick three more off ofthis list Then you gotta pick two more.
Well, we all agreed on the Clio Sport.
Then that's everybody's one.
No, no, that's your Hall Pass.
We are all getting a Clio Sportand then three other cars.

(56:32):
So what are the other three?
I agree with these terms.
Okay.
All right.
Working backwards, I reallylike the Vauxhall VX220.
I think that's cool because that's areally cheap Elise and that's a good deal.
That's good value for money.
I would also go with the VR6 VW Caravelle,which is the successor to the Eurovan
with a stick shift because I likevans and I like VR6s and boom, done.

(56:54):
And then a three way tie forme between the gen one Audi S6.
Three, which is a mark 4G TI withQuattro, the OTT Cupra, which is a
Mark four golf with Quattro and the LuoGTI, which is basically a mark one GTI.
Awesome sauce.
So I have to pick from those three.
I would probably buy the OTT becauseit's so different, but I know what

(57:18):
I'm getting myself into with thatcar Sayat, the Caravel and the Voxel.
VX two 20.
Go.
I don't want any of these.
What?
The last femur.
You don't want a Lupo GTI?
I'm getting these for freeor am I paying for them?
Oh, you're getting them for free.
This is, this is no, because no,in seriousness, why would I get a
Lupo when I can get a regular golf?

(57:40):
I'm with Tanya on that.
I don't really understandthe appeal of the Lupo.
Why wouldn't I go get a nice Mark I then?
Because Mark Is are turds unlessthey've been taken care of.
Because that Lupo is not a turd?
You can't buy right now a Mark I GTI.
But these are free!
For 15 grand.
Well, what can I import for free fromEurope that falls in the 25 years?

(58:01):
You can import a Mark IGTI if you can find one.
If you can find one.
We don't know that we can findany of these in good condition.
That's true.
That is a whole other aspect ofthis that we're not talking about.
We're in fantasy land now.
So we're in fantasy land.
So in seriousness, could go geta Mint Mark I out of Europe.
And I would rather havethat, I think, than the Lupo.

(58:22):
Yeah.
I think the Lupo is a poor choice.
You chose poorly as the, as thecrusader said in the last crusade.
Chose the Cooper.
I didn't pick the Lupo.
Oh, you did choose the Cooper.
That's true.
But the reason I would pick the Lupo ismodern suspension, modern electronics.
It's the same size as a mark one.
And guess what?
It makes double the freakinghorsepower because when you drive a

(58:42):
mark one GTI, you realize it makes65 it's fun, but it's not fun.
And I'm exaggerating.
It makes like 85 horsepower,90 or something like that.
It's in that loophole makes a hundred.
Okay.
123, but still it's more modern,but anyway, leave it where it is.
Probably weighs more.
I don't know.
I've driven a Seat before.
I don't know that I wasoverly impressed by it.

(59:03):
Fine.
We're all getting a Clio, so that's fine.
I think I'll be different.
And I'll get this noble things.
Oh, that's a good choice.
That sounded fun.
Twin turbo V six or something like that.
Ford motor ish.
So the transmission brakes, whatever.
I think, I think, uh, Richard Hammonddrove one in one of the challenges.
He drove it or he wrecked it.

(59:23):
He drove it and itbroke a couple of times.
So they, they gave him a second one.
I don't Opals out and then Sylvia is out.
If it was a regular Sylvia, causethat thing's hideous as a convertible.
I want to try to be differentbecause I would naturally in a
split second looking at this list.
It would be the S3, the Clio and honestlyprobably the Lupo even though I just
went through that big whole thing.

(59:46):
Stand your ground Tanya,stand your ground.
But watch out RS4.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't drive wagons.
Yeah.
Too practical, too practical, right?
Yeah.
You could put extra bagsof mulch in a wagon.
We wouldn't want that.
You only need a finite amount of mulch.
Exactly.
All right, Brad.
Well, you're going to buy everyToyota on this thing, right?

(01:00:07):
Uh, no.
Oh, okay.
Parked next to my Renault Clio sport.
I'm going to have.
I'm going to have the RS4 Avant.
That's a good choice.
Solid.
I'm going to have the TVR Tuscan Speed 6.
I had a feeling.
I've loved those carsever since Gran Turismo.
Seeing one in the movie Swordfish.
They're so interesting looking.

(01:00:29):
And just, the fact that they're soInsane, you know, the engineering
and how they're put together.
And they're just stupid carsand I'm all for stupid cars.
And then I got to gowith the Holden Maloo.
You got to get your redneck on.
That's a crook.
Yeah.
And then, and then Tanya andI can have a competition about
who could haul more mulch.

(01:00:51):
You can definitely haul it.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
The Maloo is a good choice.
I'm glad he went to Australiatoo, because there is some cool
stuff in that direction as well.
Back in 2000, 2001, 2002, when alllike I was a bank teller, so all I
did was like look at cars online.
I was on the Holden website.

(01:01:11):
All the time trying to figure out howthe hell do I get this car into the U.
S.
Turns out I just had to wait 25 years,but that would definitely be on my list.
Well, you know, you mentioned Gran Turismoand we're talking stuff from 20 years ago.
How about this 80 year old grandmawho bought her RX 7 25 years ago
because she watched Initial D.
So 55.

(01:01:32):
Yeah.
You know, more power to her.
I mean.
That's awesome.
Apparently she's done with itand she donated the car now.
Yeah.
She gave up her license.
I guess she's 80 years old.
She's 80 years old, so shedoesn't need to drive it anymore.
But can you imagine?
I mean, that's pretty cool.
I want her to be my grandma.
Good for her.
My grandmother gave up her Honda Civic,which was not much to write home about.
This is definitely a much cooler car.

(01:01:53):
This is awesome.
This is a nice FD.
This is really, really nice.
I actually feel really bad thatshe had to give up her license.
This is foreshadowing.
It's going to happen toall of us at some point.
Thousand percent.
We're going to have to hand over thekeys to our prize, whatever it is
we're driving at the time, and it'sgoing to be a really, really sad day.
The next grandma we found,it's not a sad day for her yet.

(01:02:14):
Do you see this?
She won a burnout contest withher 57 big block Cadillac.
This thing was making therounds on social media.
It was hilarious.
Can you imagine your grandma rolls upto the car show and then just starts
doing wild burnouts in her Cadillac?
True story.
My grandmother used to street race,not really street race, but whenever

(01:02:35):
somebody pulled up next to her at alight, when she was in her Chrysler
Cordova with that big old V8, I mean,the car weighed more than my house
does, but the big old V8 and everything.
And she would rev it up and leave fromthe light peeling tires and stuff.
She got thumbs up all the timefrom people and she would do that.
So grandmas get crazy out there.
I love it.

(01:02:56):
I think we need a new segment.
We need to drop Florida man, andwe need to pick up crazy grandmas.
2025 new year, new us.
All right.
So we're in the middle of lost andfound, and, you know, we like to find
little nuggets of things that we didn'tknow before, because part of lost and
found is really about the history ofmotorsport and the automotive world.
And during the break, if yougo back to our catalog, the

(01:03:19):
Senna Netflix series came out.
We did a crossover with WilliamRoss from the Ferrari marketplace
podcast and professor JohnSummers from the motor news story.
And we got together and wereviewed the Senna film.
Because of that, people were trying tojump on the bandwagon, you know, putting
out articles and all this kind of stuff.
You know, we did our part to supplythe social media gods and the Googles
with something else different to read.

(01:03:40):
But, you know, it wasour take on the movie.
I got a thing in the Porsche Clubnewsletter that said, Did you
know that Senna raced a Porsche?
And I was like, What?
These are like lesser known talesof Ayrton Senna, I guess, because
I've never heard this before, ever.
You know, you always think Honda, McLaren,Senna, those three words, that's it.

(01:04:00):
But apparently, he raced a 956.
Well, there was an interestingbackstory to that, like The reason
why he didn't continue doing it.
I don't remember what it was nowbecause I read the article so long ago.
It was like Jost Racing, who is stillaround today, running at Le Mans,
Rolex and all those kinds of things.
He paid Senna to drive the956 at the Nürburgring.

(01:04:21):
It's like, OK, great.
And then, you know, I asked ProfessorSummers Senna is really his thing.
And so his only comment was it wouldbe interesting to compare his times
with Derek Bell's and Stefan Beloff's.
Since they were the Rothmans worksdrivers and just see how he did.
But from the very little write upthat was here from PCA, it seemed
like Senna was king of Formula One,but he wasn't crushing it in GTP.

(01:04:45):
They said he finished seventh andthat he crushed his teammates times
considering this is His first time hegets into a car and he beats the people
that drive it on a regular basis.
Yeah, that is saying something andthen practice he was seventh and
then qualified seventh and thenthe car broke down in the race.
So who knows what he actuallywould have accomplished.

(01:05:05):
I've always argued that more ofthe Formula One drivers should do
other disciplines of racing and soI mean, you see that where Senna
did the celebrity race with the DTMcars and so the Mercedes and stuff.
I mean, that's cool.
So basically he didn't continue becausehis aspirations were Formula One.
Right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
He didn't want to cross discipline.
Oh, well, that was fun.
What's next?

(01:05:26):
Yeah.
So what did you think?
First of all, what was that guy?
Nick?
Nick Smith.
Yeah.
I'm so glad they got rid of him.
I don't think his vision and what theywere trying to do with finding these
high end people that like spiderwebs.
Apparently I didn't thinkit was going to work out.
So I'm glad they kind of went backto their roots a little bit and

(01:05:49):
kind of dropped that whole arc.
Cause I thought that was really dumb.
All we heard about was them complaining.
I'm a creative and I want someoneto give me millions of dollars to
build a car, but I want to be ableto do it the way I want to do it.
And I want them to be hands off.
Who's going to do that?
Who in their right mindis going to do that?
Nobody.
Nobody.
But I'm glad they went back in time andstarted doing things the way they used to.

(01:06:13):
I actually thought a couple of thecars that they did were pretty cool.
I'm not usually a fan of theFords, but the casino car with
all the little touches, the casinocar was really, really cool.
I love the little thing between Markand Tony where they've got this like
steel, like this polished steeringwheel and Mark's like, you're
gonna have to put a cover on that.

(01:06:34):
It's a convertible.
Your hands are gonna be burningif you try to drive this thing.
Yeah.
The casino car was pretty much awesome.
The kid coming in trying to gethis McLaren worked on and daddy's
like, daddy Warbucks came in.
He was like, not going to happen.
They're going to make a wide body McLaren.
It would have been dumb.
It would have looked stupid.
I'm glad daddy Warbucks said no.
The DeLorean, I kind of liked it.

(01:06:56):
Cause I liked the ideaof modifying a DeLorean.
I didn't like the execution.
I thought they didn'treally do much to it.
Granted the owner probably waslike, you cannot destroy this car.
So I can understand they probablyhad limitations, but the things that
they did do, I thought were dumb.
I'm not even going to give thehot air balloon any airtime.
You know, I thought thedemolition derby car was stupid.

(01:07:20):
I liked the idea of the Hummer.
Although I would have liked tohave seen them forgo the whole
eco diesel thing or biodiesel.
I mean, go with like a full electric.
I feel like an electric Hummer wouldhave been a bigger statement, but
maybe they had budget restraintsand they couldn't really do that.
I thought that would have been areally cool idea versus the biodiesel.

(01:07:42):
Uh, I do love the factthat it almost caught fire.
That was pretty cool.
The Ferrari at the end.
The 308 William and I dida whole episode on that.
I don't like their touches.
I still want to get Tonycave man, Constance.
Any of them can come on the show.
I don't care who it is.
Even Mark, we're good with all of you.
Come on.
We want to interview you.
Have you reached out to him?
I'd love to talk to Tony.

(01:08:03):
I think Tony is awesome.
I've reached out to Tonyactually, but I got no response.
Yeah.
Tony's pretty awesome.
I mean, I like them all, but Ifeel like Tony would, he'd be the
most interesting and knowledgeable.
I actually really liked the 308.
There were things about it that Ididn't like, but for the most part,
I actually really liked that car.
Well, the one thing that Williampicked up on, which I thought I
was just being overly Critical?

(01:08:23):
Sensitive, was that the vinyl was crooked.
In some of the head on shots, you couldtell that the striping wasn't straight.
And so he pointed it out and I waslike, Okay, so it's not just me.
I thought I was being justridiculously hypersensitive.
And then I was like, Okay, you notice it,that means other people notice it too.
So that stuff like that just bugged me.
To no end, I think you and I havehad discussions about that in

(01:08:46):
their past seasons where like theirattention to detail it's lacking.
I don't think they've put out verygood products overall would make sense.
Why the high end car market doesn'twant to deal with them because.
It seems like a lot of thestuff they put out is junk.
I'm sorry.
It's hot wheels.
Yeah.
And hot wheels aren'tmade to be real cars.
I did really enjoy that carthat they made for the museum.

(01:09:08):
That read the Exner and thenthe Futura was fantastic.
That thing was gorgeous,but that's all season one.
Season two stuff where theywere really taking their time.
Yeah.
And then they kind of lost theirway and did some weird stuff.
That car that they quote unquote designthemselves of where I thought that
was an abomination to the automotiveindustry for the most part, I liked

(01:09:29):
most of what they did this season.
Well, good.
And I'm looking forwardto the next season.
I will continue watching itand I will continue reviewing
it because it is entertaining.
And unfortunately, my new favoriteRustoration show, Tex Mex Motors, because
Rabbit died unexpectedly, they had tochange the whole format of the show.
It's like a whole thing and theydidn't go after the Ferrari and half

(01:09:49):
of the people aren't there anymore.
And I got through maybe the first episode.
I was like, Nope, notwatching this anymore.
I'm done.
Did you ever watch fast and loud?
No, but everybody tells me I should.
It was good and fun, but I mean,it follows the same formula.
Oh no, we need to get a car done intwo weeks and we got to redo the entire
thing and fab the whole car, whatever.
It's the same formula over and overagain, but they did do a salvage

(01:10:11):
Ferrari F40 and they brought it backto life and had it recertified by
Ferrari to get a clean title for it.
So you might want togo back and watch that.
And the guy that was the fabricatoron that show, Aaron, he was
really, really good fabricator.
If you're looking for something else,go back and watch fast and loud to
watch what they did with the F40.
It actually looks straight up Batmobile.
Nice.

(01:10:31):
Well, just when you thought wecouldn't talk about them enough.
GM.
No, we're obviously talkingabout Mercedes and BMW.
So is Tesla a better company than GM?
Is that how it goes?
We would be remiss if we didn'tcircle back and talk about
he who shall not be named.

(01:10:52):
Voldemort.
They kind of look alike.
His new day.
He's the doge now.
See Brad doge coin.
He's the head doge.
Who let the doge out?
All right.
So what's going on inthe world of the doge?
Some unexciting stuff, likerecalls for TPMS sensors.
Who gives a shit?
And it's not even the sensor itself, it'sactually the warning light in the dash.
The mill is non persistent, andthat's what the recall is for.

(01:11:15):
So like, it'll flash on, and then youlike, you turn the car off, and turn
the car back on, and then magically yourair pressures back, which is a problem
because most there's going to be peopleare going to be like, Oh, it fixed itself.
And then keep going on a flat tire.
Anyway, it's an over the airsoftware update, bubbing fixed.
And next, it should be really easyfor Tesla to do this update because

(01:11:36):
none of these cars have been sold.
So they just go around where thelot is and just do the update.
If it's over the air, it's even easier.
And this next one has to dowith his new best friend, right?
Cause he's the doge.
So now that inauguration day is over.
The new administration reportedlywants to end NHTSA requirement for
car crashes involving automatedsystems that have to self report.

(01:11:58):
This is crap.
That's your new soapbox, Tanya.
I already calmed myselfdown because I already went
and got angry.
Like, this is crap.
Just.
Really?
Really?
Like, what's the justificationthat something that's autonomous
suddenly doesn't need any crash testsafeties test or has to pass them?

(01:12:21):
Like, where is the logic link here?
There is none.
The car still needs to be safe,whether it's driving itself
or a person's driving it.
Autonomy has nothing to dowith the safety of the vehicle.
The implication is, yeah.
Autonomous vehicle is inherentlysafer because it's not going to make
mistakes, but I think by virtue ofhow many get confused by flashing
lights and drive into parked vehicles.

(01:12:42):
We know this isn't the case.
And the other problem that this tangentsme on and gets me even angrier is the
freaking cyber truck that apparentlyeluded all crash test safety standards
of any kind in its design because therewas the other article that came out
With the convoy of Tesla Cybertrucksthat were going wherever the hell
they were going, 75 miles an hour downthe road, one of them hits a deer.

(01:13:04):
And it was unclear whether thecontrol was of the driver or if
it was in FSD, who gives a shit.
Nonetheless, there's a lot of hit deer Isee on the road for the roads I travel.
I have never seen a deerthat's sliced in half.
After being hit by a car, but that'swhat happens when a cybertruck at 75

(01:13:25):
miles an hour hits a deer in the road.
It slices it in halfbecause, oh, I wonder why.
Could it have anything to do with thepolygon sharp edges of this vehicle?
And then you go, there was notest because if you would have hit
a crash test on me, I'm sure itwould have told you this is bad.
So what happens when you hit a pedestrian?
God forbid if you hit a pedestrianat 75 miles an hour, I don't

(01:13:45):
care what you're in there.
Most likely dead, but even at a lowerspeed, yes, people can die getting hit by
regular rounded car, even at lower speed,but most people aren't getting decapitated
or body split in half when they're hit.
You're definitely not surviving that.
Wasn't that the whole point of thecab forward design and you had to

(01:14:06):
have the headlights at a certain pointso that if you did hit a pedestrian,
they would roll over the car.
Yeah, that's why they all look so swoopyand bubbly and all this shit is like most
of the design now is driven a lot becauseof pedestrian safety and exactly that.
So it's like you hit them and they'llscoop up over you or whatever.
And you don't just knockthem out on the knees.

(01:14:26):
They'll scoop up over youin the car behind you.
I think we put the responsibilityback on the pedestrian and if you
don't want to die, don't get hit.
There's that too.
But to me, getting hit by acyber truck is equivalent to
getting hit by a bullet train.
You're not bouncing off of it.

(01:14:47):
It's going to completely eviscerate you.
Like that's the end of the story.
Should we put cow catcherson the front of cyber trucks?
Oh my God.
Can you imagine?
The whole front end would break.
Speaking of whole.
Oh boy, Brad, you brought us a good one.
Our favorite internet idiotwhistling diesel back again with
another cyber truck durability test.

(01:15:09):
Oh, did you all watch it?
I did.
Yes, I was hard to watch.
So that video tone and everythingwas more what I was expecting.
Never watched him all the waythrough and that first one was
actually like fairly informative.
Yeah.
He was like sober.
Maybe I don't know.

(01:15:30):
He wasn't hopped up on those caffeine.
Whatever's that he's pushing.
God damn.
He was hopped up on those.
LFGO.
Those it's like basicallylike chewing tobacco, but it's
full of caffeine or some shit.
Chewing caffeine, I guess.
I don't know what it was.
It wasn't tobacco.
LFGO stands for let's fucking go.
It looked like a skull pouchthat you stuck in your lip.
You know, spitting.
Oh my God, that must taste nasty.

(01:15:51):
Ah, it's awful.
It started off good.
I was like, oh, this isgoing to be interesting.
We're doing the tug of war.
It's bullshit, but still we're doing it.
And then after that, it'slike went off the rails.
It was hilarious.
I was laughing the whole time.
I said, this is so good.
I felt bad for their building becausethey kept just destroying the building.
That was kind of funny when he's like,oh, the car will just come to me.

(01:16:14):
That was my favorite part.
He's standing there like, callingthe Batmobile and it drives in
by itself through the building.
Not through the opening.
Through the building.
Holy shit.
Like, wow.
That was awesome.
That was hilarious.
The stuff that they put thosetrucks through yet again, and he

(01:16:36):
was like, look, we're doing thisbecause, you know, real truck
people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
They broke the driveshaftin the Ford again.
Again.
Obviously that's the weak link on the F150, but what was interesting about that
is this time they broke the driveshaft.
And they just sent it.
They kept going.
So it was running offthe front two wheels.
They must have locked the diff andthen just said to hell with it and go.

(01:16:58):
I've witnessed somebodydo that out on the trails.
Actually, a former guest, Bobby Parks.
We were out off roading on thetrails and his Cherokee, he
broke the rear axles and he used.
Basically front wheel drive mode, thefour wheel drive to claw his way out.
So I've seen that done before.
It works.
I don't think the cyber truck can do that.
Front wheel drive mode on a cyber truck.

(01:17:18):
Don't work too good.
That was pathetic.
And then you heard this big old bang.
He destroyed the axle or whatever.
And I was like, Oh my God, what a mess.
When did they rip off the back tailgatecame off or whatever that truck was just.
Destroyed by the time it was done.
Yeah.
Something else structurally.
I was surprised when they startedthe video, this is part two.
So it was the same truckfrom the first video.

(01:17:39):
Yes.
They dropped off at the Tesla thing.
And then the bill was only like 15, 000.
I'm like BS.
Yeah.
But then he spent another20 on top of that.
But also it wasn't completelyfixed, even for 15 grand.
Like it was just patched.
Yeah.
He dropped it off and said, make it runagain, but they didn't fix anything else.
They just made it.
So it ran again without any lays and theyput a windshield in it and that was it.

(01:18:02):
But he did, the windows were stillbroken and still had holes in it.
But at the end of the day, the Ford.
Soldiers on in comparison to theCybertruck because he destroyed the
Cybertruck yet again I will say that otherthing where he was doing the doughnuts
and then the rear suspension broke andhe's going down and the wheels like
What a piece of junk god blessyou if you have one enjoy it

(01:18:26):
doesn't sound like they're gonnabe making them too much longer But
he really put it through its paces.
And I guess the only thing I thoughtwas interesting, he didn't get his diff
lockers because that was a softwarething that he had to pay extra for,
but he got that Baja mode and I thoughtthat was really cool where it basically
just let the thing run full tilt.

(01:18:48):
Without any nannies.
And then he was more capable at that pointthan the F 150 was in some respects, but
it was basically falling apart around him.
Anyway, it was good fun.
I enjoyed it.
I laughed.
Before we get off the cyber truck, therewas another video I saw not on YouTube.
It was on Instagram.
It was a cyber truck and a Hummer H2.

(01:19:09):
They're at a hill climb competitionand the cyber truck tries to go
up the hill climb, makes it abouttwo thirds of the way, maybe three
quarters of the way fails has to backdown, you know, just can't do it.
The Hummer pulls up,turns around and backs.
All the way up the hill to the verytop, right in front of the cyber truck.
And then just drives right back down.

(01:19:30):
This isn't an H one.
It's a regular H two with the six leader.
Basically it's just loaded Chevy Tahoe.
I just annihilated the cybertruck in this competition.
And I thought that was hilarious.
Yeah, that was a good one.
I saw that on social media.
I was like, damn, look atthat old Hummer doing it.
Thing, you know?
Yeah.
Really something could be saidabout mechanical All-wheel drive.
Yep.
Solid axles.
Well, it's unfortunate, lower, expect

(01:19:59):
worse than destroying a cyber truck.
'cause I don't think we reallyfeel bad about that because we
don't like 'em to begin with.
And I thought it was hilariousearlier when I was prepping for this.
My daughter walks in and she goes that.
Why is that on your screen?
And I said, what are you talking about?
She goes, that is theugliest car I've ever seen.
And so I started laughing.
Oh boy.
Kids already have an opinion.
They don't care about cars, butthey know the cyber truck is ugly.

(01:20:21):
I'm not feeding this to them.
This is out of the mouths of babes.
All right.
But what is unfortunate?
We've had not one, but two F40s succumbto carnage over the winter break.
One of the coolest hypercars ever.
Don't let interns drive the car.
Who's making these decisions?
Who says I don't know.

(01:20:41):
Let Johnny on the spot take outa five million dollar F40, Lando
Norris's Ferrari F40, and drive itfrom here to there on a rainy day.
Who thought that was a good idea?
The one that was like thehighest mileage F40 in existence.
Who was driving that?
What the circumstance was?
I have no idea.
A service technician was behind the wheel.

(01:21:01):
There you go.
Highest mileage F40 in existencemeans it has like 10, 000 miles on it.
Apparently it had 44, 000 miles.
That's still nothing.
I mean, come on.
Yeah, but the thing is freaking.
Totaled.
I mean, he took a pull down.
Yeah, that was bad.
And if you watch the video, and we posteda link to it in the show notes, where
it's from the dash cam of the car that'sfollowing him, the road is wet, and then

(01:21:24):
suddenly he just decides to punch it.
They're doing like 30 miles an hour,so he's like in first or second gear,
and the car just gets away from him.
That's all she wrote,folks, and you're done.
It's incredible the flipthat happened, though.
Well, the car doesn't weigh anything.
I mean, someone could turn it intoa meme where like, there's a cat.
standing next to the side of the roadand the cat just did that, the thing.
And then suddenly it wasalmost like the Mercedes that

(01:21:45):
would catch air and flip over.
It was almost like that happened.
It was wild to watch the wreck.
Cause when you see it sideways on the sideof the road, I was thinking, Oh, there
must've been like a ditch and it went downand it like flipped it sideways into the
pole and then like all this catapultingit did and it's like, no, it's flat from
the pavement to the grass other thanwhatever bump to go on the dirt grass.

(01:22:06):
Well, it doesn't look like there'sa curb, so it probably slid into the
curb and popped up over like that.
It knocked the telephone pole down.
I don't know, the picture whereit's on its side with no body
panels on it anymore, it doesn'tlook like there's any curb.
When I'm looking at the undercarriageright here, there's a curb right there,
it looks to be a couple inches tall.
There is a curb there, he's right.
Oh, this angle of thephoto looks different.
So then that's what did it.
It popped the car up.

(01:22:27):
It shot up the curve and flipped it up.
That's fixable.
I mean, look at that.
The chassis, it's all still there.
That'll buff.
But Lando's on the other hand, thatwreck was like, sort of similar.
Very similar.
Similar, but he had a littlebit more room before he hit.
So he came around and it basicallyclipped the rear quarter panel.

(01:22:47):
So that they're going to fix.
I mean, granted that wholecar is carbon Kevlar.
So it's not like, Oh, we're justgoing to run out and get an F 40
clamshell and put it on there.
There weren't that many of those cars tobegin with like 1500 of them or something.
I mean, William will correct me.
He knows the exact numbers,but it's not a lot.
1300 that.
So the point is.
Lando's will get fixed, but again,why is the intern from the service

(01:23:09):
shop driving Lando Norris F40?
That, to me, doesn't make sense.
Nobody knows who was driving LandoNorris F40 other than it wasn't Lando.
Maybe it was a friend or something.
Which, guess they're not friends anymore.
It was George Russell.
You know, all of this culminates intoRich People Things, because you have

(01:23:30):
friends with F40s and they let youdrive them, and blah, blah, blah, and
you're getting your F40 serviced, andyou're gonna get your F40 fixed, because
that's what you do when you're rich.
So, Rich People Things, sponsored byGarageStyle Magazine, because, after
all, what doesn't belong in your garage?
I found that now that Hamilton is overat Ferrari and we'll talk about that
more, especially the photos that cameout, him looking like Shumi and stuff,

(01:23:51):
that he gave some really profoundinvestment advice over the winter break.
He says, Hypercars are boring.
You should buy a classic car.
And art.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thanks, rich guy.
I mean What do you say to that?
The ocean has water in it and it's wet.
Moisture is the essence of water.
I mean, cool, right?
His version of it.

(01:24:12):
So we all can buy a classic car, right?
Dan's got a mountain of them.
Now, now hold on, right?
There's a difference between a classic carand whatever's going on at the mountain.
There's a.
Big difference.
Do you call the carsat a junkyard classics?
Well, it depends on the level of classicbecause of a certain age cars of a

(01:24:38):
certain age, you can start callingit a classic and even normal people.
Can buy a classic car.
You could have a sixties Mustang.
That would be considered a classic.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
A sixties Mustang.
Yes.
Ford Taurus.
Nobody wants two mercury sables.

(01:24:58):
Tanya, your point is like whathappens on classic rock radio
where Nirvana is classic rock now.
So everybody listens to classic rock.
Hamilton's comment is like, okay, cool.
You're going to go buy a classic car.
You're not going to gobuy a 20 grand 1960s.
Mustang or a Camaro or somethingfrom that age, you're going to go
buy some classic car that's goingto cost 750, 000 or 2 million.

(01:25:23):
Some Mercedes, one of a kind,gold wing, SL, blah, blah, blah.
Don't buy a LaFerrari, buy a 250 GTO.
Yeah.
He's talking about shitthat nobody can afford.
So cool for you.
Yeah, everybody shouldbuy a classic car, but.
That everybody that can buy a classic caris going to be buying not those things.
Buy a classic car, not a shit box.

(01:25:43):
Sound buying advice from LewisHamilton and art who can afford art.
Really?
I'm sure I can go buythe knockoff reprint.
Yes.
Hold on.
All posters.
com.
Yeah.
Everybody go to displayand get your art there.
Oh boy.
That's definitely not a, whatshould I buy episode in the making?

(01:26:04):
Rich people.
What should I buy?
What art goes with my car?
People would probably listen to that morethan some of the other what should I buys.
We've done like 25 what should Ibuys and that's the one people will
probably listen to is, What VanGogh or Renoir goes with my Bugatti?
Like, ugh, stop.
See?
And the Picasso.

(01:26:24):
We'd go with the Cybertruck.
I feel like you are grossly overestimatingthe buying capacity of our listeners.
All three Arbitron rated listeners.
We have, I don't think Mark Hewittis out there buying a Veyron or
Chiron or whatever, and then he'sgoing to steal and buy the Mona Lisa.
All right.

(01:26:45):
Lord, a man.
None.
I scoured the country.
I scoured the world, actually.
And could not find anything.
They're in hibernation for the winter.
I mean, the new administration'sonly like three days old.
They were all at the inauguration.
I thought I found one down under.

(01:27:07):
Oh!
Down under, man.
Down under, man.
Was something like Australianman getting a ticket or a fine,
arrested, whatever, for cookinga steak in his car while driving.
And I was like, oh damn, here we go.
Open it up.
It was all fake.
Oh, written by chat.
GPT.
He wasn't.
No, I mean, the article was real, butlike he actually wasn't doing that.
It was like a fake picture and he neverwas actually driving, but apparently

(01:27:30):
the fine is quite high if you arecooking and driving in Australia.
Wow.
So the fact that it was like explicitlysaid, here's the fine and even jail
time of like three years or something,if you're cooking and driving.
Must mean it's happened before and it'shappened enough that they need a law.
So I feel like that leads us into maybea new segment instead of Florida, man.

(01:27:53):
It's stupid laws.
There's one in the DMV.
They can find you for cursing in your car.
I don't know how anybody knows, unlessit's like you roll the window down
and you're like out the window atsomebody and they record you Jersey.
That's like.
The way they greet each other.
What are you talking about?
I don't know.
But if like I'm sitting in my carand I see a dumbass doing something

(01:28:14):
dumbass, I'm like fucking dumbass.
Like who's going to say anything?
You're going to get arrestedfor that now, Tanya.
Be careful.
You know why?
Because the cars are listening to you.
I was about to say in the new cars.
With all that crap in it, it's beingtransmitted to your insurance company.
And then your rates are going to go up.
You've got a potty mouth.
See what's going to happen is they'regoing to go, Oh, in the drive between

(01:28:34):
the Starbucks and the McDonald's, theycursed as they got to work after they
left McDonald's, they calmed down.
So they were just hangry.
Oh my God.
Well, we opened the door,talked about Lando a little bit.
We talked about Lewis Hamilton a littlebit, and I already mentioned, you've
seen him now in the Ferrari driving suitpre practice and all that kind of stuff.

(01:28:56):
I still think it's weirdto see him at Ferrari.
People are, you know, alreadycreating memes about him.
They're at Ferrari headquartersand the big black double trench
coat and all that stuff lookingvery much like Schumacher did the
same thing, you know, 25 years ago.
Okay.
Sure.
I think it's awesome.
Hamilton's at Ferrari.
Let's talk motorsports news.
Let's go.

(01:29:27):
He's going to suck.
They've been actually fairlycompetitive the last two seasons.
I've, they've had a good carteam orders and like some.
Poor mistakes made by the drivers.
I actually feel like this is good.
And I think he's going to be betterthan people are giving him credit for.
I don't think so.
I think he's done.
I think he's too old.
And if he was still good, he'd be good.
And he's not good.
No, there's no way.

(01:29:48):
Like the Mercedes, it got better.
They improved it.
Definitely in the last season, theseason before even the two seasons before
the car was crap, like it was visible.
There's no amount of anythinghe could do when you saw the
straight lines, speed, and the.
Disparate difference in that speed,there's no way he or Russell could

(01:30:08):
have competed in that versionof the car in those seasons.
The car was crap.
It was so freaking slow.
Absolute garbage.
Verstappen could have been init and he wouldn't have won.
That's because I think they were cheating.
If you compare him to the rest ofthe cars, he wasn't doing that great.
They're either the car was not goodagainst it was better than like Haas
and like Williams and those cars Butit wasn't better than Ferrari even in

(01:30:29):
those seasons They struggled to even belike the top ten the car was so bad and
then in the last season at least theywere getting Podiums, how does Mercedes
struggle to build a car like that to medoesn't make sense They were struggling
to build a competitive race car.
I think that's BS.
I'm calling flag on the play.
You can't tell me the Mercedes thathas a racing pedigree that's longer

(01:30:50):
than anybody there can't build a car.
Well, they didn't because theywent through that whole porpoising
thing where the car was completelyunstable and jumping around.
So they did something.
But that was happening toeverybody though, wasn't it?
Yeah, but Mercedes took thelongest to figure it out.
And they, they had it more drastic.
You know what?
I feel like the catalyst was for Mercedesand it's probably doesn't make any sense

(01:31:10):
or whatever, but Nikki Lauda went whenLauda passed, he was doing a lot for
them still up until then he was teamconsultant, they lost his expertise and
years of experience and knowledge, and Ifeel like it seems to have had an effect.
On them.
Maybe he was the Mercedes whisperer.
, yeah.
But he was the Ferrariwhisperer before that.

(01:31:31):
Basic suspension.
Yeah, sure.
That's all the same.
But I think the technology far surpassedLA's expertise because he raced in
the seventies and the eighties we're40 years in the future, the cars
aren't even close to being the same.
Yeah.
But he was an engineer.
He didn't walk away from Formula One.
He stayed in it that whole time.
And as an engineer, heprobably learned exactly.

(01:31:52):
Just because he wasn't racing doesn'tmean he wasn't driving the cars.
He's not Adrian Newey.
He was doing better than AdrianNewey was when he was alive.
The team was winning.
The point is not one person designs thecar and you can't tell me that Mercedes
doesn't have talented people that coulddesign a car that could be competitive
as competitive as everybody else.
Apparently not, not as talented asRed Bull and Ferrari and McLaren.
It was wildly uncompetitiveagainst many other manufacturers

(01:32:15):
for at least two years.
So I know you want to sayRed Bull was cheating.
If you take Red Bull out of thepicture, their performance with
everybody else was hot garbage.
So was everybody else cheating as well?
And it was just Mercedes.
They were only fasterthan the back markers.
Basically, that's all that car could do.
It's a mid pack team.
I get it.
Point being though, I don't thinkyou're going to see a whole hell

(01:32:36):
of a lot out of Lewis at Ferrari.
That's my prediction isgoing to be more of the same.
I think he's going to bebetter than you're predicting.
And that's my prediction.
Okay.
I look forward to seeing it.
Well, this is funny.
Eric's very strong about his opinionand he hasn't watched a formula one
race in like 20 years, but he's veryconfident and strong about all of it.

(01:32:58):
I secretly keep up with it.
I don't have to watch the races to getthe race results and read and understand.
That's how I feel about Rally . Stop it.
Stop it.
Okay.
This is us making our picks like for theNFC championship game coming up, you know?
Exactly.
Versus the Eagles.
Who's gonna win the, theF1 championship this year?
It's not gonna be Ferrari.

(01:33:18):
Who, who's it gonna be?
Who's gonna win the driver's championshipand who's gonna win the constructors?
They do not have to be the same.
It's gonna be Affan again.
As long as he's still driving andwhatever other, blah, blah, blah.
Because everybody's cash.
That's not who won the Constructorschampionship this year?
See?
Yeah.
So McLaren won theConstructors championship.
I know that.
The whole Zach Brown thing.
It's like, okay, so it's McLaren's year.
Let's see what happens.

(01:33:39):
But I don't think Ferrari's gonna do it.
Ferrari doesn't feel like it'sbeen competitive for a while.
Ferrari was very competitive last season.
They were a lot more competitive than theyhave been in the last X number of years.
I feel like Ferrari madean upgrade in driver.
Yes.
So, as long as their car is still ascompetitive as it was in prior years,

(01:34:00):
and if they made an upgrade in driver,then that should tell you that they
should perform better, at least as goodas they did in prior years or better.
I think it'll be interesting to see.
I think you could tellwith the Mercedes being.
So uncompetitive Hamilton didn't give ashit and why should he what he's gonna
bust his ass out there to come in 10thOkay, he came in 10th, but it's like

(01:34:24):
how much more is he gonna bust his ass?
He was never gonna come in first So you'redriving your passion gets killed a little
bit when you're like I gotta drive thisfrickin turd and there's nothing I can
do And it's like I know I'm a betterdriver than these people But like I
haven't I can't compete like you put mein a Pinto and I'm racing against GT40s?
He wants to be Senna.
That was his role model.
That's the Senna and the Tolmanstory, where the Tolman was,

(01:34:46):
they were like Haas back then.
He ended up almost winning thatMonte Carlo race, even though they
cheated and took it away from him.
But there's all these regulationsand shit that was used against him.
But I don't know if it's apples to apples.
But the thing is, if you have thedetermination as a driver, you're
going to try regardless and not just belike, complacent and take a paycheck.
And that's the thing is, if Hamiltonhas been resting on his laurels,

(01:35:09):
For the last couple of years, itmeans he's lost his edge, which
means he's not going to be fast.
Here's the question that I have.
Maybe it won't matter, but Mr.
Verstappen, will he lose his edgenow that he's going to be a father?
I am surprised he didn't quit at the endof this season and just be like, I'm done.
That's it for that's all I need.
He has a contract.
He's not allowed out to like 2028.

(01:35:29):
I mean, I'm sure he can buyhimself out, but technically
he's got a contract till then.
Or until he underperforms enough thatthey really need to get rid of course.
They'll kick him out, butare they going to do that?
If he causes enoughnuisance, I'm sure he will.
You know what I mean?
He's just got a curse onair a couple of times.
Let's move on to anotherformer Mercedes driver.
That I think is doing great things.

(01:35:52):
Botas is my spirit animal.
He is my new favorite driver in F1.
He is just, he's awesome.
I love Botas.
Thought it was hilarious.
Cause Tanya goes, that manneeds to get a haircut.
And I said, I'm glad you mentioned thatbecause there's an Instagram video.
He needs to shave that mustache off.
It's so nasty.
That's the point.
I know it is.
Have you seen the whole thing now?

(01:36:13):
The gimmick with his stunt doublewho looks nothing like him?
I just saw a thing of him doing.
I think I actually coincidentallyalso in Australia because
he's very big into stunts.
Cycling as well.
Um, and he, and he competesin a lot of different races
and nude swimming in creeks.
And he was doing no, it was a nude bike.
It was quote nude.
Like he was just in his underwear and hewas like, everybody was just like in their

(01:36:36):
underwear, basically doing this bike ride.
I was like, Oh my God.
Also one that sucks.
Cause the underweardon't think was padded.
So that's rough bike ride.
Have fun with that.
Some guys like that.
Yes.
He was sporting his mustache andliving his best life naked on his bike.
Bicycle.
Bicycle.
Bicycle.

(01:36:57):
And I think his stunt double, her stuntdude must've been with him because there
was another guy like next to him ona bicycle that looked a lot like him.
Yes, that's the guy.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
Aw, but this is a goodfollow on social media.
He's good stuff.
He is entertaining, that's for sure.
See, I keep up with Formula.
I want to keep up with the rightstuff and the stuff that matters.

(01:37:19):
Bodice's haircut.
That's this is the podcastthat we should be having.
This is Bodice's fashion and haircut.
There you go.
Hey, there are podcasts out therethat built themselves around that
whole principle of not throwing it.
I know they've been former guests andthey are no longer producing shows.
So that's that.
Oh, they're not.
No, they are off the air.
Did you miss them?

(01:37:40):
They retired at the end of the season.
They're done.
So sad.
So Botas Perez is out.
He doesn't have a seat.
Nope.
Okay, he's out.
Bye.
Going into this season Verstappen'steammate is going to be Lawson?
Yep.
How's that going to work?
If the guy holds his ego incheck, should work out fine.
He's got to be a team player.
By team player, MaxVerstappen is number one.

(01:38:01):
Yeah.
And you do everything to protect himand he'll always be in front of you.
So it's Shumi andBarrichello all over again.
I get it.
We got Lawson moved to Red Bull.
We got Carlos Saenz went to Haas.
Yes.
No.
Williams.
He went to Williams.
Okay.
And then Hamilton went to Ferrariand Leclerc is still at Ferrari.
Yes.
Are any new driverscoming in for this season?
Yes.
A couple.

(01:38:22):
There's a lot of younginswith no experience.
Are they driving for Audi,Gazoo, or Andretti at any point?
In 2025, even though it's Audi,it's still Sauber for 2025.
They'll officially be Audi in 2026.
And so Audi has broughton Nico Hulkenberg.
They moved him from Haas andhe's going to be the Audi driver

(01:38:42):
in 2026, but he's already goingto sit in the Sauber next year.
And then they brought in a Braziliandriver, Gabriel Bortoletto,
who's the other number two chair.
So speaking of Audi, what is this thatthey were looking to sell out their
investment and get out of FormulaOne before they even got started?
Is that true?
Is that crap.
I think it's crap because if yougo on Audi's website, they have a

(01:39:02):
whole page dedicated to Formula Onetalking about their entrance in 2026
and that they also, I think they gotsome Qatar investment money as well.
And there is still rumor on the streetand I brought it up because I wish
them the best that Andretti and GM arecoming to Formula One at some point.
So, Cadillac's coming to Formula One.
Which is General Motors.

(01:39:23):
Right.
That was, I think, Greenlit.
If it isn't, it's about to be.
It might not be completely complete.
It seems like it's actually goingto happen versus the Andretti one,
which is just, it makes no sense.
That doesn't mean that Andrettican't come along with General Motors.
I mean, pretty much.
And then at some point GeneralMotors says Have you met Michael?

(01:39:45):
And then passes the baton andthen Andretti's in Formula One.
I mean, what is this backdoornonsense that we're doing?
I don't know.
Because there's also been talksabout like, Oh, maybe Perez will
come back and could race for likeCadillac, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Okay, we'll see.
What year is that going to happen?
I think they're trying to do it for 2026.
Okay.
Yeah.
Because that's when the rule, there'sa rule change that's happening in 2026.
So that's why then, takean engine for something.

(01:40:06):
So that's when Audican officially come in.
Apparently Andretti is scaling backhis role in the team and in the
organization, which I guess that is.
Making F1 more acceptingof having all this happen.
So you drop back and youpunt and then burst down.
It also says that Cadillac's motorsaren't going to be ready until 2028.

(01:40:27):
So it's going to be a GM branded carwith a different engine supplier.
How funny would be, it was a Ford.
Yeah, or it's a Honda with a GM badge,which was the Porsche thing, right?
Where it was going to be a Hondaengine with a Porsche badge.
It's like, whatever.
When do they reveal the new cars that lookjust like the cars from the year before?
That's in, I think February.

(01:40:50):
Yeah.
It starts like into January.
There's a whole schedule out thereof the team reveals and stuff.
Are we still doing Visa cash apps?
State Chipotle MoneyGram.
Like, is that all like a thing orhave all the teams changed again?
Wasn't that Audi now?
They're KickSauber or whatever.
MoneyGram was Haas.
Visa, CashApp, blah, blah,blah is now RacingBulls.

(01:41:10):
Toro Rosso.
But RacingBulls.
AlphaTari.
It was AlphaTari.
Then it was.
Something, I don't know, it wasAlpha Tauri Toro Rosso, Visa
Cash App, something, something,and now it's Racing Bulls.
Why do they need tokeep changing the name?
All right, all that aside,is Okan back or not?
He's us.
Terrible.
All right, that's all I needed to know.

(01:41:30):
I'm rooting for Okan.
Okan's going to take it this year.
He's going to take all of them.
Okan?
Yeah, right.
That's my prediction.
He's going to take them all out.
Yeah, exactly.
Take out his partner.
Well, let's switch gearshere in motor sports news.

(01:41:52):
We could talk about formula one all night.
I'm not going to talk about WRC, but I am.
So here's the deal.
2025 schedule has been released.
WRC kicks off the end ofJanuary with rally Monte Carlo.
That's just a traditional event.
They've been doing it forever,but here's the cool part.
Rally has a tendency to switch it up.
On us kind of unannounced,which is kind of cool.

(01:42:12):
So this year we have three newrallies on the docket, the Canary
islands, which are in Spain.
And those look really awesome.
You have rally Paraguay andthen rally Saudi Arabia.
So that's replacing things likerally Mexico and some of the others.
So they, they mix it upevery couple of years.
So the new official 2025 schedule is out.
They're running in 14 locationsthis year over the course of,

(01:42:33):
you know, January to December.
And so I'm excited to see thenew cars rallies, always a blast.
And that's all I'll talk aboutit for the next 12 months.
And the Canary islands aren't actually in.
Spain.
They're off the coast of Africa.
Considered Spanish.
They're Spanish.
It's a Spanish territory.
Yeah, they're off the coast of Africa.
Yeah, they're off the coast of Morocco.
I've been there.
Oh, there you go.

(01:42:54):
Boom.
Did you know I've been to Germany?
What is it that place forthe Olympics that was France?
But it was like halfway around the world.
It's the same.
Yeah.
It's a French territory.
Yeah.
It's still France.
Oh, French Polynesia was, that's wherethey had to do the surfing there.
Cause there's no surfingin the Mediterranean.
As far as they're concerned, it's France.
So Canary islands, that's Spain.
It's Spanish.

(01:43:14):
Speaking of rally, Tanya, you've beenkeeping up with the R4 division of Dakar.
Very lightly since there wasin the Dakar classics rally.
There were four vintage quattrosthat were entered in and they
actually all four finished.
The top finisher was 31st.
The other three cars I think werelike in the 50s and then I think

(01:43:35):
one of them was like the 60s range.
I think the last stage before the finalstage they were higher up as high as 28.
It was a couple more places, but the othercars were actually up in the 30s as well.
So something must have happened.
I guess in the last stage, or I guess whenthey average everything out across all the
stages, that's where they, they shook out.
So they had a couple of bad stages inthere, but that's still pretty good.
Glad to see that all four ofthem survived the whole thing.

(01:43:57):
What I really want to know is what'sthe next newest Audi that beat them?
Because that's the carthat they enter next year.
Oh yeah.
I don't think there wereany other ones in this one.
Like, they were it.
Well, by the time you listento this, Rolex will be over.
I hope you enjoyed theSuper Bowl of Racing.
Meanwhile, in the virtual world,new title is coming out that you
should put on your Steam wishlist.

(01:44:19):
Check out JDM Drift Masters.
I've been reading about this.
I've been looking at the videos.
I saw some stuff on social media.
I've never been into a drift, I'llcall it game, sim, whatever, before.
I think this actually looks really cool.
I'm really interested in it.
It's another one of these sort of openworld, like test drive, solar crown, like
a set of courses that Evo is turning into.

(01:44:41):
It's like, Hey, go drive, havefun, build cars, you know, need for
speed, underground type of mentality.
And so I'm looking into that.
I did purchase.
And I played it a little bit.
I think the weirdest part about thatSimcade is that you drive on the
same side of the road that you woulddrive in Hong Kong, which is opposite
of everywhere else in the world,except for a couple other countries.

(01:45:03):
So that's a little bityou have to get used to.
And then I did also pick up theearly access to Assetto Corsa
Evo, which it's coming along.
It's still full of bugs.
They've got a really aggressive releaseschedule to get it out there right now.
There is no ability to drive this.
Alleged, you know, 1300 squaremiles or whatever the heck it is in
the Nürburgring and all the stuff.

(01:45:24):
It's like, here's a handful of tracks andhere's a couple of cars and get used to
the physics engine, which really isn't toodifferent than ACC at the end of the day.
I also got to try AC Evo when I was atPRI and I got to try different sim rigs.
They had a whole Sim area at PRI and DavidMiddleton from MIE Racing and I even got
to test on Dallara's bespoke one off simthat they built, which was super cool.

(01:45:47):
And then we got invited to actually takea look at the car that it was modeled on.
I actually got to sit in thatRoadster, which is pretty slick.
So lots of really neat stuffcoming in the sim side of racing.
And then if you haven't been payingattention during the winter break, we
actually adopted another show on the NPN.
So you can listen to screen to.
by Inet Esports, and you can hearfrom sim racers who are also racers

(01:46:11):
in real life, and they go back andforth and talk about their different
experiences and the race they've beenin, the sim racing that they're doing.
And we just had some of the ladies fromInet Esports run at Daytona as well.
So there's an episode thatprecedes this one where you can
listen to their experiences.
A lot of really cool stuff coming in theSIM world and happening in the SIM world.

(01:46:31):
So it's something you should bepaying attention to because there's
a lot of up and coming drivers thatare coming through those types of
programs and finding themselvesF1 Academy and places like that.
So lots of really,really good stuff there.
So I've mentioned before ourmotorsports news brought to us in
partnership by the internationalmotor racing research center.
I just want to note that this yearthey're making some changes at the center.

(01:46:52):
They're going to start doing somevirtual center conversations.
Similar style to our evening witha legend that we do with the ACO
pay attention to their newsletter.
Get on their newsletter.
If you're not on it, their Facebookgroup, things like that, then you can
see what the guests are going to be.
We're doing a pilot in conjunction withthem in March with different panels of

(01:47:13):
women coming from different disciplinesof motor sport, and it's not the same old.
Oh, you know, we're going to do roundyround or we're going to do this.
It's like, we're going toget ladies from Trans Am.
We're going to get ladies from dragracing and some other disciplines
that we don't always shine a light on.
Like we do open wheel racingor sports car and endurance.
It's really shaping up to be a lot of fun.
And I got to tip my hat to ourfriends at WMNA for helping us out

(01:47:34):
to put all that stuff together.
So some really exciting contentfor season six of break fix.
And for the NPN, as wemove into the spring.
And when racing goes back full swing.
So pay attention to those virtualcenter conversations in 2025.
And I also wanted to just remind folks,the center raises its money as a 501 C

(01:47:54):
three, not for profit through sweepstakesand fundraising and things like that.
Their current sweepstakes for thatZO six C eight has been shortened.
So if you were looking to get in onthat, you're trying to wait till the
last minute, do that hair triggereBay, buy it at the last second
type of deal and hope you win.
They've moved up the sweepstakesending to February the 16th.

(01:48:14):
So that'll happen somewhere in betweenthis drive through and the next one.
So you're not going to hear aboutthis again in the next episode.
So if you want to get in there and tryto win that Corvette or take the cash
option, jump over to racing archives.
org and then click on sweepstakesin the top, right corner.
Well, Brad, that about wraps it up.

(01:48:36):
Let's take her home.
As a reminder, you can find tons ofupcoming local shows and events at the
Ultimate Reference for Car Enthusiasts.
CollectorCarGuide.
net This is our last HPDJunkie Trackside Report.
I don't know if you heard,we wrote an article about it.
HPDJunkie.
com is closed.
Dave Peters has retired fromracing and he has closed up shop.

(01:48:58):
He's selling his Miata.
He's getting out of the game.
And so our source for all things trackrelated, you know, to make it easy
to find stuff is no longer available.
So what we're doing is tothe best of our ability.
Over on the GTM clubhouse website,we're trying to absorb at least
track data and event schedulinginformation for stuff up and down the

(01:49:19):
east coast where we tend to frequent.
And we're going to put that onour calendar with all the details.
Now, unfortunately, none of ushave the bandwidth to do what Dave
was doing, but if you have events.
That you know of that youwant to get on our calendar.
We'll gladly put them outthere and help you promote it.
And, you know, we're going to focusin on the groups that, you know, we're
associated with, you know, HOD, SCCA,CHIN, PCA, and so on down the line.

(01:49:42):
We've already got 70 events listedon our motorsports calendar.
For HPD on this side of the country.
So look to club.
gt motorsports.
org and then click on eventsto look more into that.
We'll do the best we can.
All I can say for advice is you can goto motorsport reg, but you're going to be
limited to the groups that participate inmotorsport reg, and that's not going to

(01:50:03):
be the chins and the hooked on drivingsbecause they have their own systems.
So your best bet these daysis to go to the calendar.
Of your local racetrack or theracetracks are interested in visiting.
You know, maybe you want to make atrip to VIR or road Atlanta, go to
their calendar and see who's runningduring the year or during the month.
Now I will say tracks tend to bea little bit slow to come up to

(01:50:25):
speed on who's going to be there.
But.
They are contractually obligatedto put that information out once
they've confirmed the bookingswith those organizations.
Right now we're in a state of transition,a little bit of state of limbo.
So it's unfortunate, but if you'rean HPD junkie, we adapt and overcome.
I will also say.
For any of these clubs, if you knowof a club or an organization that you

(01:50:48):
have run with in the past or want torun with, most of them have mailing
lists, you can get on their mailinglist and they'll send things out.
I still get things for Chen all thetime and HOD Audi club, North America.
So get on the mailing list of theorganizations that, you know, run
where you like to run and they'llupdate you with when, when they
have track confirmations as well.

(01:51:08):
And don't forget, if you're lookingfor that extra special something to
make your garage, office, den, or mancave just a little bit extra, be sure
to check out GarageStyleMagazine.
com for a list of upcoming auctions andevents, along with a curated list of items
going up for sale all over the country.
Because after all, whatdoesn't belong in your garage?
And I have to add to that,Brad, just a quick note.

(01:51:30):
We were saddened to hear that JohnKramer, former guest on our show
BreakFix, and the voice of MechamAuctions, passed away during the
Kissimmee Mecham event here in January.
So if you want to hear his life story,how he got to become the voice of
Mecham and tune in to his encyclopedicknowledge of classic cars and all that,

(01:51:51):
and go behind the scenes with John,we seem to have a treasure trove for
people to, you know, celebrate hislife and learn all that kind of stuff.
Our episode originally aired onNovember the 8th of 2023, but
it is actually a three parterwith multiple behind the scenes.
So you can actually see John,see the videos he took us on tour
at Monterey, all sorts of stuff.
And then obviously there's thefinal edited version that you can

(01:52:12):
listen to over and over and overagain on your favorite podcast app.
So if you jump back into break fixpodcast, November the 8th of 2023, you can
hear John's life story in his own words.
Also be sure to checkout our digital magazine.
We reran the article fromNovember in issue 32.
So if you'd like to leave a comment.
A little bit of a timecapsule or memory of John.

(01:52:33):
There's been plenty of peoplethat have been writing in the
comments section of the article.
So feel free to do that as well.
Just hop over to gtmotorsports.
org and then click on thecover of the current magazine.
We just crested 470 episodes onthe motoring podcast network.
While you've been listening to thisepisode, we've expanded our catalog
to include programs like screento speed, the Ferrari marketplace,

(01:52:53):
the motoring historian evening witha legend, the log book break fix.
And of course the drive through.
If you're not listening to this viayour favorite podcast app, search
for Break Slash Fix everywhereyou download, stream, or listen.
And be sure to check out www.
motoringpodcast.
net for more details on all our shows,as well as the services we can provide.

(01:53:13):
We hope you enjoy our updatedPatreon, which now includes our
newsletter in the rear view.
We'd like to give a big shoutout to all the folks that joined
our free tier during the break.
And if you're wondering whereour Facebook group went, Well,
that's over on Patreon now too.
Lots of great extrasand bonuses to explore.
So if you'd like to learn more aboutour different tiers, join our Discord,

(01:53:33):
or become a GTM Clubhouse member,become a Brakefix VIP by clicking the
blue JOIN FREE button in the middleof the page when you visit patreon.
com slash gtmotorsports.
And remember for everything we talkedabout on this episode and more, be sure
to check out the follow on article andshow notes available at gtmotorsports.
org.
And a thank you to our co host andexecutive producer, Tanya, who even though

(01:53:58):
had technical issues tonight, she stillpowered through and made for a great show.
So thank you, Tanya, for all yoursupport and all the fans, friends,
and family who support Grand TouringMotorsports and the Motoring Podcast
Network without you, none of this.
Will it be possible?
That is the cover photo right there.
Look at that.
Don't do that to her.

(01:54:18):
I wouldn't do that.
We've done that to you before though.
Yeah, but uh, she seems to be havinga bit of a rough night anyway.
I wouldn't do that to her.
She's on her laptop and thatsometimes has issues too.
I wonder if it blue screened on her.
That's what happens when yourlaptop just randomly shuts down
and you're not even touching it.
I have a nice screenshot of you.
You're like.
Is this thing, is this thing on?

(01:54:39):
Because I don't thinkI ever I can hear you.
You sound about the same as before.
I was on mute apparently.
I was saying we would be remiss.
Why did she go silent?
I, I don't know.
What happened?
She censored herself.
Yeah, she censored herself.
Oh, I accidentally hit thepower button apparently.
So what you're saying is that 20 minutesat the beginning where she didn't talk, it
was because her microphone wasn't working?
I'm saying it made the show better.

(01:55:02):
Wow.
I'm kidding.
I kid, I kid, I kid, I kid,I kid, I kid, I kid, I kid.
I kid, I kid.
You guys ever watch that game show?
On Hulu, it's calledThe Floor with Rob Lowe.
No.
The floor is lava?
No, no, no, no, no.
It's this game show where basically twopeople come up to the stage and they show
them pictures in a category and they haveto very quickly say what it is, right?

(01:55:23):
It's like Pictionary, right?
And so there's these moments though thatapparently when they're standing there, if
the screen is not lit, it's not your turn.
But there's folks where thescreen is lit and they just.
Stare at it and I watch you guys.
And sometimes I'm like, guys,there's a picture on the
screen and nobody's talking.
Now, you know what it's likewhen I talk to my therapist,

(01:55:47):
that's the show, everybody.
We'll see you all later.
We will talk to you all next month.

(01:56:20):
We hope you enjoyed another awesomeepisode of break fix podcasts brought
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If you'd like to be a guest onthe show or get involved, be sure
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(01:56:40):
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We remain a commercial free and noannual fees organization through
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Drive Thru News #53 - It's Cheaper to Keep'er!

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Drive Thru News #53 - It's Cheaper to Keep'er!