B/F: The Drive Thru #7

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• 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E's EPA-Rated Range Falls Just Shy of the Model Y's
• Ford Mustang Mach-E Range Is Better Than What EPA Says: Edmunds
• GM extends vehicle production cuts due to global chip shortage
• Texans Are Using Ford F-150 Hybrids to Power Their Frigid Homes

Chip Foose redesigns the C8!

Will Ferrell + GM vs Norway – Commercial

Edgar Scissorhands – Cadillac Lyriq “Hands Free” Driving

• Roborace Car Immediately Drives Into Wall

• Lewis Hamilton becomes 7 time F1 champion

• THE TOYOTA GR YARIS LAPS FASTER THAN A NISSAN R35 GT-R NISMO*
• IONIQ 5 Digital World Premiere

• This four-door Porsche 928 is the proto-Panamera that never was

• Rolls-Royce Silent Shadow Planned As Ultra High-End EV?

• Dodge Viper "Dually" Is a U.S. Army Truck in Japan, Looks Like a Miata Build
• There Are No Losers In A Fiat Panda 4×4 Vs Ferrari SF90 ‘Drag Race’

GEO Metro Convertible – Star of the Superbowl!

Most Insane Barbie Jeep Racing – EVER!

Hellcat on Horse & Buggy Wheels

Cardboard Classic 2020 – Preston & Steve’s Daily Rush

• LATVALA: HOW TO BEAT MODERN RALLY CARS IN A 1991 CELICA GT-FOUR
• Pastrana pulls plug on Circuit 199 rally park project on Eastern Shore
• Yeany becomes world’s youngest F4 champion

• Stellantis Disbands SRT Team; New SRT Models Still Planned, Though
• 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee L Gets Three-Row Seating and New Look

Watch the Fiat 500 Generational Drag Race

Jeep’s “Middle of America” SuperBowl commercial w/ Bruce Springsteen

• The Tesla Model Y was given a reliability rating of "much worse than average" - Consumer Reports
• Tesla's dirty little secret: Its net profit doesn't come from selling cars
• Tesla 3 explodes in Chinese underground Parking Lot

• Audi Unveils the E-Tron GT Electric Sedan—and It’s Coming This Summer

Executive Producer Tania: [00:00:00] The Drive Thru is GTM’s monthly news episode and is sponsored in part by organizations like HPTEjunkie. com, Hooked on Driving, AmericanMuscle. com, CollectorCarGuide. net, Project Motoring, Garage Style Magazine, and many others. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of the Drive Thru, look no further than www.

gtmotorsports. org. Click about and then advertising. Thank you again to everyone that supports Grand Touring Motorsports, our podcast, Brake Fix, and all the other services we provide.

Crew Chief Brad: Hello, and welcome to The Drive Thru. This is your host, Brad, speaking. With me, as always, is Eric and Tanya. Hello! This is the Winter Edition, and as you all know, The Drive Thru is our monthly recap, where we put together a menu of local, racing, and random car adjacent news. And now we’re going to pull up window number one for some industry news.

Crew Chief Eric: But before we do that, Brad, I just want to remind everybody that this is the last drive [00:01:00] through episode of season one. So season two of break fix kicks off here at the beginning of March. We’re excited to see what season two brings us. A lot of surprises, probably a lot of changes, lots of great guests and episodes that are.

Coming out here over the next year. I just want to remind people that, you know, it’s been a minute since we’ve done a proper drive thru episode. Hopefully you caught the last couple that came out. We had a really great remastered, would you like fries with that last month? And then some other things that we did in the previous months leading up until now.

So our goal for this. Last drive through episode of season one is to capture some things that happened over the winter. You know, the motorsports world is pretty quiet. The, even the car sales world is pretty quiet. There’s not a lot of debuts, but we found some, I think some good news out there. And we just, you know, want to talk about those things as we get prepped and we get excited for season two, the start of the next racing season, and we go from there and we see where things lead.

So on that note, let’s send it.

Crew Chief Brad: So the first thing I want to talk about. Is Volkswagen 2022 Golf R based on the Mark 8 chassis. [00:02:00] Yeah. I bet you all didn’t know it was coming because they announced on the same day as the election. I don’t know who the marketing guru was that decided we’ve got to announce on this day.

Maybe it’s because they’re over in Germany and like the election is a non factor over there. I don’t know. The 2022 Volkswagen Golf R, I think it looks terrible. Yeah, I’m just going to go ahead and throw that out there, but that’s not what we’re talking about today. We’re talking about the power output, which is 315 horsepower up from apparently 287, 290, something like that in the previous model.

Still the same two liter turbo. It’s still going to have all wheel drive, but it’s updated for motion system. It’s going to work in conjunction with the electronic differentials and the dampening systems. They call it vehicle dynamics manager, torque vectoring and you know, all that funny stuff. Basically in layman’s terms, press the go pedal, spin the wheels, magic happens, and the car just moves no matter what.

Crew Chief Eric: I thought you were going to say in layman’s terms, it’s an Audi A3 or an Audi S3 with different [00:03:00] skin on top of it. You

Crew Chief Brad: Well, it actually looks more like a Q3 than an A3 to me. If you look at it, it looks like a mini minivan. It looks like it’s lifted a little bit. It is.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s right up there with the BMW M8, right?

I mean, it’s gargantuan. I’m not a fan of the eighth series. I mean, I’ve always been a big proponent of the even number series. Volkswagen’s are where they get it, right? Well, I’m with you. I think this one was a bit of a misstep. I mean, a lot of people like it. It’s got a good aftermarket following already, just hasn’t grown on me.

And I haven’t seen too many in person yet. And I think that’s part of the problem. Maybe when I see one in person, it’ll change my mind. But I do have a hard time with that front end, where it shares the look and feel of like the new Tiguan and the Touareg, or I guess it’s not the Touareg anymore. It’s the Atlas.

I just, I don’t get it. But I will say this, hats off to Volkswagen for finally putting out a Golf from the factory with over 300 horsepower. Sadly, I want to know how much this thing weighs, because if it’s, [00:04:00] 3600 pounds. The power to weight ratio is actually probably worse than some of the older R spec cars at this point.

So what have we really gained at the end of the day?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, I can tell you what Volkswagen is doing that is right. And they’re releasing this car with a manual transmission option. Excuse

Crew Chief Eric: me. Excuse

Crew Chief Brad: me. What? Yes. And you’re gonna love this figure. The reason they’re releasing it with a manual in the U. S. Is because Ford 40 percent for 0 percent of all ours and GTI sold in the U.

S. are sold with three pedals. 60 percent of those cars are sold with DSG. That’s mind boggling. In a market where the manual transmission is dying, you know, and all across the board, no matter what, 40 percent of these cars. So V Dub Kids, Dub Kids are keeping the manual alive. Manual Preservation Society is strong in the VAG community.

Crew Chief Eric: I like that. The other side of that is the fact that they’ve gotten rid of the golf. The base level golf now is [00:05:00] gone. You can only get a GTI and then you can get the R package, obviously, on top of that. I think that’s interesting. And obviously, if you haven’t heard the news, there’s no longer a two door golf or GTI anymore, either.

That was a big move they made last year or the year before to do away the two doors. So I look at this as maybe an olive branch to the Volkswagen community to say, Hey, you’re giving us a manual transmission. Thank you for that. Still not a big fan of the four door move, but I get it. They’re trying to maximize the platform.

They’re trying to, you know, minimize the amount of retooling that they’re doing because the A3, the S3, the Golf, all those cars are all the same. It is sad though, to see the Beetle go away as we know that happened not too long ago. But on top of that, I think what pains me even more is there was always that glimmer of hope that we might get the Scirocco and now that along with the TT.

Is done. There is no more of any of those types of cars and it’s heartbreaking, but whatever, we’ve got to make progress or we’re going to make room for other models to come in.

Executive Producer Tania: They got rid of the beetle [00:06:00] and now they’re moving towards EVs. It’s like the beetle is the perfect home for an EV, put the batteries in the back, like the original beetles had the engine.

I mean, it’s a perfect candidate and there’s actually some, uh, you know, renderings of what a beetle could look like in Eevee and pretty much looks like a beetle, but it’s got that futuristic y look. It’s, they’re pretty cool. Reconsider their, their lineup in the future. It would be nice to see the beetle back, but

Crew Chief Eric: I agree with you there.

And honestly. keeping the beetle design. If you kept the previous one and put the motor in the back, as you’re suggesting, and even maybe did all wheel drive, the frunk would be larger by cubic volume than the current hatchback availability that the beetle has. So moving things around actually makes sense and you don’t lose any people space.

You probably gain some at the end of the day. So I’m with you. I mean, They’re doing the, the bus, the ID one or whatever they called that thing or the ID buzz. Right. I mean, that’s a cool idea. The beetle should be right there [00:07:00] with it. And even maybe a Carmen Gia wink, wink, nudge, nudge, but I guess we’ll see what the future holds, but

Crew Chief Brad: with a beetle, I mean, they could do a dual motor version with a motor in the back and a motor in the front called an RSI.

And have four, 500 equivalent horsepower would be ridiculous. All wheel drive beetle.

Crew Chief Eric: No, no, the new, the new mantra is that we all aspire to own rental cars. So, you know, Hey, it’s okay.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, and the other thing is the beetle aesthetically is like designed to be electric because it has no fricking front grill, basically.

Yeah, I agree with that

Crew Chief Eric: too.

Executive Producer Tania: In terms of all these new electrics that look kind of odd sometimes because you lose all that grill for the airflow that you don’t need to an engine. It’s like the beetle isn’t going to look It’s going to look right

Crew Chief Eric: and the Fiat 500 right behind it, right? That’s another one, another icon.

And then I could see the mini going in that direction as well. I mean, again, those were three cars that had been competing with each other for such a long time. It just makes sense. Speaking [00:08:00] of changing the automotive landscape, I don’t know if everybody was paying attention over the last couple of months, we talked about it on several drive thru episodes, the whole Stellantis merger, which is Fiat Chrysler.

Peugeot, Citroen, and all the other sub companies are now under one large conglomeration called Stellantis. It went official and they went IPO on the 19th of January, and they are now the fourth largest automaker in the world. There’s a lot of stuff packed into that. If you’re just kind of going to blow it off and be like, ah, it’s just Chrysler.

And we’re just going to get more challengers making 9, 000 horsepower. That’s not true either. I’ve heard rumors around the mill that. Because of the influence from the French, they’re talking about scuttling the SRT division of Dodge.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, technically, the division that is known as the SRT engineering team is disbanded.

However, the engineers were just moved into, uh, A new division of the global [00:09:00] engineering team. So they all still exist. It’s just they reorganized the structure and they’re still going to develop cars bad with SRT and all the performance models. It’s just that SRT is a standalone engineering group within the company.

It’s no longer that they’re just rolled up into a larger engineering division.

Crew Chief Eric: To your point. A lot of people don’t know if you look back over the history. SRT was actually started by Iacocca and Shelby as a skunk works to get the Viper off the ground. So it’s been in existence for quite a long time, even though cars didn’t start carrying the badge until way later, but the Viper was the Genesis for that.

So again, I guess there’s a lot of confusion, a lot of clickbait out there to your point. Again, thank you for clarifying that we get excited about this. I don’t think we want to see a thousand horsepower challengers go away because it gives us something to talk about.

Crew Chief Brad: Uh, well, if. SRT was to disappear. I mean, I would be devastated.

I mean, they’re the last like holdout of making all these muscle cars, essentially what they are. I mean, in [00:10:00] the traditional sense, like barbaric, you know, muscle cars, like Mercedes makes muscle cars and BMW. I mean, Mercedes definitely makes muscle cars with the big giant V8 up front and the rear wheel drive and everything, but they’re overly complicated, you know, as the Germans like to do.

Dodge, Chrysler, Stellantis. They still make. 700 horsepower cars for the everyman, which I would be very sad if it disappeared

Crew Chief Eric: and I was really excited about the SRT Pacifica. I mean, who doesn’t want an 800 horsepower minivan?

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, as Tanya was saying, if they’re, they’ve been dispersed throughout the whole company and they’re working in different divisions.

Now, we’re going to have the SRT Patriot. We’re going to have the SRT front wheel drive though. It’ll be perfect. Motor in the back in the, in the hatchback, it’s going to be an 800 horsepower hatchback, all wheel drive,

Crew Chief Eric: like a, like an R5 turbo for the modern age, and we’re going to talk about that car in a little bit.

So there’s a lot of movement going on there. I see Jeep really taking off. I’m just really [00:11:00] not sure about Dodge. I would love to see some French cars over. Maybe we can finally buy a Peugeot, you know, get some hot hatchbacks, stuff like that. I’m being optimistic here, but I still think it’s very cool. Cool.

One other thing I will add from a historical perspective, this has really been in the works since the early 1980s. When Lee Iacocca took over Chrysler the first time, it was his goal and his ambition to build a global car company. And I think Stellantis is a move in realizing that dream that he had. And for those that don’t know, he originally tried to do this with Volkswagen and it didn’t work out.

So this is really cool to see all these. Companies coming together and now in the top five. So Brad, you’re a big Jeep guy. Why don’t you talk about the new Jeep that is coming? And

Crew Chief Brad: well, we were talking about the Volkswagen Golf R and I didn’t get to say the price, the price is about 40, 000 give or take, but for that same money, you can get the new Jeep grand [00:12:00] Cherokee L, which is coming out.

Which if anybody’s been paying attention to Jeep and Chrysler and Dodge, the sister relationship between the Grand Cherokee and the Durango, you will realize that this is really just a Durango because the Durango has always had since 2013, 14 or whatever, seven seats, you know, it’s a three row. Uh, so this is basically going to do the same thing.

It’s going to be a stretched Grand Cherokee. It’s about 6. 9 inches

Crew Chief Eric: longer. Is that 6. 9 liters as well? Or is it just a small motor?

Crew Chief Brad: Nope, nope, nope. It’s just a small motor. It’s just going to come with the 5. 7 liter V8 if you opt for the Overland or the Summit editions. If you go lower, it’s going to be the Pentastar and no diesel option for the Grand Cherokee L.

Yep, not going to happen in the Grand Cherokee L, at least to start. New interior. It’s going to have 10. 1 inch gauge cluster dash 8. 4 engine votainment system. It’s going to have, they’re all going to have the eight speed automatic transmission, new air ride suspension, you know, all this [00:13:00] fun stuff. Regular Grand Cherokee is going to be coming out a little later in the year.

And that’s going to have a hybrid option. So again, no talk of a diesel.

Crew Chief Eric: Interesting. A hybrid option. That’s really cool to know. So I wonder though, is the Grand Cherokee L just the entry level Wagoneer with slightly different sheet metal?

Crew Chief Brad: I would liken it to the same thing as the Range Rover Sport that came out a few years ago.

It was built on the, or the LR3 chassis, but it had the Range Rover bodywork. I think this is going to be kind of like a similar deal.

Crew Chief Eric: And I think it’s good because that helps us deal with that initial sticker shock, like we talked about in the previous drive through episodes about the grand Wagoneer and how expensive it was and who’s going to pay 110 grand or whatever it was for a Jeep, you know, so if they’re giving us an option that’s similar, giving us that third row seat and getting people in at a more affordable price, like you said, in maybe that 40 or 50, 000 range, although even that is a lot of money.

Yeah. That’s not affordable. It’s a better option than double that, you know, [00:14:00] for the Wagoneer. Agreed, agreed. So what else is going on, Tanya?

Executive Producer Tania: So we can recircle back to October, where we had reported on the new

Crew Chief Eric: You can’t pronounce it either.

Executive Producer Tania: No, I can pronounce it. It’s Tuatara. The high performance hyper car, whatever you want to call it, you know, back in October, it said it broke the speed record at over 300 miles an hour, 316.

11 miles to be quite exact for average speed. And then shortly after that was released, suddenly everyone, well, that can’t be right. Fact checking, something’s wrong. Lag on the play. And so since then, they have redone their high speed test runs and have now with verified by whatever sources were there and double checking and triple checking, blah, blah.

They have verified that they have indeed now taken the record for single run and average speed, fastest speed. Test [00:15:00] run. So they averaged 282. 9 miles per hour, which beats the previous record of 277. 87, which was the Konaseg, I believe in 2017. And their single speed run, cause they did a run up and down wherever they were, I think in Florida this time.

They did 286. 1 miles per hour in one drag, and that beat the previous record of 285 miles per hour. So they do indeed now retain the title of. Fastest car,

Crew Chief Eric: but it is a much narrower margin than originally stated,

Executive Producer Tania: much narrower

Crew Chief Eric: margin,

Executive Producer Tania: unclear whether, you know, they were also saying, well, you know, we were still down on power during these runs and this, that, and the other.

I don’t know what all that means. I didn’t research it much further. But for now they hold it and who knows, maybe there’s still more in the motor that they can get out. I guess we’ll see. Maybe it’ll be future test runs.

Crew Chief Brad: I think that it’s a little disappointing that they didn’t get over 300 miles per hour.

I mean, all the, the hype machine was strong with this one. [00:16:00] And when the video came out and all that other nonsense, amazing 300 miles an hour in a, in a street car on a road. Yeah, not, not true. Not the case. This is false news.

Crew Chief Eric: You know where I’m putting my money though? And they’ve been really, really quiet.

Salantas. I’m putting my money on Bugatti with that new car that they’re building. They keep showing us like pictures of it and videos and it looks like the Batmobile. It pays homage to nothing. And it’s really a step away for Volkswagen, the parent company from the, you know, R8 Avis, you know, going all the way back that they, they’ve been reusing that chassis forever that the Veyron and the Chiron, they were all built on basically the same car, this new Bugatti.

Is a step in a different direction, you know, obviously it looks more like a Ferrari Enzo or a Lambo or something like that. And I think this is going to be the car that’s going to go and try to break this record. I mean, the Veyron and the Chiron have always been up at the top, much like the [00:17:00] Koenigsegg and whatnot.

So I’m excited to see what comes next because again, they’ve been very hush hush about the specs and the numbers and that car. And there’s just been a lot of wind tunnel work. So bum, bum,

Crew Chief Brad: bum.

Crew Chief Eric: As we know, during the winter, not a lot of cars debut, it’s just kind of quiet time, you know, especially with, you know, the conditions that we’re still in, you know, with COVID and whatnot, there hasn’t been a lot of buzz in the car world in the spring when people can get out more and in the summer, you’re going to start to see a lot more things pop.

But the Super Bowl, which happened here in February, is one of those bastions of car ads. We’re always looking for the hot new, you know, commercial proposing the new car that nobody’s seen or, you know, the next Jason Statham movie that’s going to feature, you know, an Audi or a BMW or, you know, whatever it might be.

We won’t talk about the game too much, but I wanted to Really kind of hone in on who’s saying what and who’s showing off what’s new. And I was really surprised that right off the bat, GM came out swinging. I saw

Crew Chief Brad: Will Ferrell was [00:18:00] doing some weird stuff and a weird accent with looking all scraggly and stuff.

I don’t know. That was

Crew Chief Eric: the GM commercial.

Crew Chief Brad: That was, okay. Well, I didn’t pay attention then. I don’t know.

Crew Chief Eric: So that’s okay. But in that commercial, there were, it was a two parter and basically it’s Will Ferrell versus Norway, you know, GM for everyone, you know, also showcasing their new logo, which is very EV focused and whatnot.

But you got the first shots, real shots of the Hummer. And the Cadillac Lyric, which we talked about on a previous episode that Tanya went into detail of both of those cars, but you got to see them kind of running and driving and whatever, and they were both showcased, uh, in those videos. So I thought that was pretty cool.

Curious to see where that goes. As we’ve mentioned before, both of those are a hundred thousand dollar car. I thought it was a little off to kind of throw them out there and you go, Ooh, ah, and then if you start to do the research on them, people are gonna be like, Oh my God, you know, these are, These are upper echelon vehicles.

You know, how do we get into that market?

Crew Chief Brad: Why are automakers gearing all these electric, building all these [00:19:00] electric luxury cars, these a hundred thousand plus is I guess they’ve done their market research and there’s a demand in that segment, there’s more of a demand in that segment than in the 20 to 30, 000 mile range,

Crew Chief Eric: like anything else.

The early adopters are always more affluent people, and then they figure out a way to scale those down into the economy where then you end up with the econo boxes, right? So let’s just say the technology that comes out in the Ferraris, they’re gonna put it out there, it’s gonna be expensive, and then it’s gonna find its way into the base model.

You know, Fiat 1 26 or 500 or something, like over time,

Executive Producer Tania: I think it’s a lot more challenging for people that are less affluent to enter the EV market because. If you got a lot of money to burn, then you can be like, Oh, I’m going to trade in my car. I just bought two years ago that barely has any miles. And I’m going to upgrade to EV hotness that’s out right now.

Whereas if you don’t have a lot of money and you’ve still been running your Corolla for the last 10 years, chances are, you’re going to keep running your Corolla till forever for a good many [00:20:00] number of years before you, you upgrade to something else, definitely not going to be able to upgrade to some. 80, 000 Tesla, because not at just the cost of the car, but if you have to put the charging infrastructure in your dwelling, and if you don’t have a home, like what if you live in an apartment where you park on the street or you park in the garage or a lot somewhere?

I mean, it’s a long extension cable. I’m not really sure how, yeah, exactly. A long extension cable. I’m not sure how, how you do that. So it is. geared at the moment towards people that kind of have extra income that they can spend, they’re going to market towards them. I mean, I guess it makes sense as it becomes more commonplace as sales go up, then slowly things level out.

They bring in the entry level vehicles, lower tiers that are more affordable. For everybody,

Crew Chief Eric: the litmus test here is Tesla. So Tesla selling the model S at 90, 000 or a hundred thousand or whatever it is. And if you’re trying to enter that market and be competitive, you’re trying to be competitive with that car, right?

Cause that is the flagship. So I think everybody’s going to come out the [00:21:00] gate and a lot of people have adopted Tesla’s and bought them. If you’re willing to pay that kind of money, then the Cadillac is going to be priced like that. You know, the next thing that comes out is going to be priced the same way.

So I think that’s where they’re at. And then, you know, Obviously Tesla’s has made motions to try to make them more affordable with the model three and the model Y and stuff like that. But they’re at a technological advantage because they’ve already pioneered it and they’re scaling it down and everybody’s trying to catch up.

So we’re going to see it happen, but I don’t want it to be, you know, that there’s the lyric and then we’re back to the bolt again, right? Because that is just. Too much of a disparity between the upper and lower. Yeah, exactly. Something in the mid range. Exactly.

Executive Producer Tania: There’s already been news reported within the last week that, and it’s not a lot, but still Tesla feeling pressure from the other manufacturers coming out with competition and lower priced cars, even if they’re still, you know, way expensive.

They’re actually lowering the price on the model Y and the model three to, um, compete. So, I mean, it’s not like, Oh, it dropped [00:22:00] 10, 000 or anything. I mean, it’s a thousand here, a couple thousand there because they’re seeing that the other manufacturers coming out or have slightly more affordable.

Crew Chief Eric: Is that due to an increase in home Depot parts?

So it’s gotten cheaper to manufacture them.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t know. Have you been shopping in a home Depot lately? Ever since COVID everybody’s shopping parts. That’s true. Price applies because the demand is high.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. So let’s talk about some of the other ads that were during the Super Bowl. I actually thought for once that the car ads were very sparse.

The ones that were there were just kind of like, almost felt like the general ads you would see on, you know, watching like Rolex or something that we’ll talk about later. Like the typical weather tech ads. There was a Paralympics ad with Toyota, which had nothing to do with Toyota’s other than their sponsorship.

There was a car shield ad, which I’m, I’m still confused on how car shield works, but it, it involved, you know, um, It involved Ric Flair and iced tea, and it’s all this,

you know, is there like,

Crew Chief Brad: is that that [00:23:00] undercarriage protection that they sell you at the dealership?

Crew Chief Eric: No, no, that’s something else. CarShield is like this.

It’s like an insurance policy for repairs. Like you pay into this thing. things so that you don’t have to pay, like, if your transmission blows out, you’re paying a, a premium or whatever it might be, whatever the difference is. And then they take care of the rest. I mean, I don’t know, it doesn’t work for me, but it probably works for a lot of people.

But that commercial was interesting. Cause it was like a zoom call and, you know, you got all these celebrities on there and then at the end, you’re like, what did I just watch? But that’s typical of most Superbowl ads. The other ones that were in there were the, you know, Hyundai Tucson ad, which just felt like a regular little dealership ad.

It must’ve been like a local one or whatever. And I, I was not compelled in any way, but then there were three more that were actually interesting. Another Cadillac Lyric ad, but it was a riff on Edward Scissorhands, the movie with Johnny Depp from back in the late eighties, early nineties. And it was Edgar Scissorhands and it was all about like hands free driving and like how he finally gets to drive a car because the Cadillac will [00:24:00] drive itself.

And I got to the end of that and I was like, well, I get it. I don’t know if everybody else did, but it was cute, but it really, I don’t know. I don’t know that it sold me on the Cadillac because that whole autonomous driving thing, as we’ve talked about a million times, it works. It doesn’t work. It’s

Crew Chief Brad: false advertising.

It’s totally autonomous.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. And you know, guys falling asleep on the Tesla in Canada doing 180 kilometers or whatever it was, you know, all that kind of thing.

Executive Producer Tania: I was left like, yeah, okay. But I didn’t get it because then there was all this big deal about like, oh, the big deal of this commercial with The actor and I’m like, I don’t understand at first.

I didn’t know who the actor was. I mean, Winona Ryder was in the passenger seat. I got that.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: I didn’t understand the specialty of Edgar and it’s like, okay, so

Crew Chief Brad: now, now I gotta go watch this. Now I gotta find it. I

Executive Producer Tania: get it. I mean, okay. Was this Edward Scissorhands song? I don’t understand. I

Crew Chief Eric: believe it was.

I don’t know. I mean, for me, I thought it would have been more entertained with [00:25:00] Johnny Depp, you know, surfing the roof of the lyric, like Pirates of the Caribbean and then crashing into a dock. I think that would have probably been more interesting, but whatever, you know.

Executive Producer Tania: Maybe they couldn’t get Johnny to, to, uh, reprise his role.

Crew Chief Eric: I think that was part of the problem.

Executive Producer Tania: Probably would have made more sense to just have the older Edward Scissorhands as it progresses with the time world, you know? Exactly.

Crew Chief Eric: The next one that had me confused, but was very like pulling at the heartstrings was the Middle of Nowhere commercial with Bruce Springsteen and the Jeep Wranglers.

It’s a very strange commercial because you’re not sure if it’s politically charged or if it’s or what the message is. It all surrounds the 80th anniversary of Jeep and they’re highlighting the Wrangler obviously because you know that style of Jeep is what really set it all off.

Crew Chief Brad: Did they have footage of a Jeep atop a mountain biking trail in northern California?

Did they have that footage?

Crew Chief Eric: Negative. But it was very slow. It was just very off, [00:26:00] but in the same token, you were very drawn into it and very engaged. And then when you got to the end, there was just this slow fade, kind of American flag, you know, Jeep logo thing. And you’re like, okay, well, well, that’s cool.

All right. I guess I’ll learn something new today.

Executive Producer Tania: And then three days later, the ad is completely scrapped because Bruce Springsteen. was charged with a DWI or they found out that he was charged with a DWI like a couple weeks before this ad came out. Yeah, that commercial is gone. Find it on YouTube. Well,

Crew Chief Brad: that’s a shame.

That’s not the first time that Chrysler has done something like this either. I don’t know if you remember back when the Chrysler 200 came out. It was imported from Detroit, I think was the whole thing. And they had Clint Eastwood and, and all that good stuff. I mean, that, that, I mean, they, they try to tug at the American heartstrings quite a bit in their advertising campaigns, especially with Jeep.

I mean, I figured the

Crew Chief Eric: next commercial will be set in Paris and it’ll have a, it’ll have subtitles because it’ll all be in French. So [00:27:00]

Crew Chief Brad: it’s going to be directed by Woody Allen.

Crew Chief Eric: There’ll be a Citroen DS. That’s like the beginning of the commercial and you’re like, what are we watching here? But anyway, speaking of cars and speaking of drinking the last one, the one that really got me, the one I thought was the best Superbowl commercial of all, I was wondering

Crew Chief Brad: if you were going to bring this up.

Oh

Crew Chief Eric: heck yeah, dude. Yeah. for two reasons. One, I think it’s going to be a disgusting flavor, which is the new watermelon Mountain Dew, right? That is just two things that don’t go together, and I have a hard time even getting it out. But that Geo Metro convertible driven by John Cena had me on the floor.

floor just cracking up. I literally, I saw it roll out and I was immediate like,

yeah,

the geo has achieved celebrity status. Finally. Now it’s a God awful paint job, you know, with it’s watermelon colored on the outside and on the inside, but I just thought that was epic.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, that was, I knew you’d like that commercial.

Crew Chief Brad: When that [00:28:00] car is sold at auction, how much are we willing to pay to get it? For the club,

Crew Chief Eric: 50 bucks. I’m in it for 50 bucks and has Matt, if you’re listening, that is the ultimate Geo Metro convertible. It’s got your name written all over it.

Crew Chief Brad: God, that is disgusting looking. And yeah. Oh my God. It looks like Pepto.

Crew Chief Eric: Pretty much.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s going to be pep Pepto Bismol do,

Crew Chief Eric: but with effervescence, right? With effervescence. So let’s get away from the super bowl commercials. I think we nailed that. There was another bit of news. That we need to follow up on. So Tanya,

Executive Producer Tania: well, it was, uh, I think originally a clickbait article, but what the article is, is the headline is a Toyota GR Yaris.

Yay. Laps faster than Nissan R35 GTR Nismo. Asterix only by four tenths of a second on a short flat track under wet conditions.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes, in the rain. I was waiting for the in the [00:29:00] rain. I knew it was coming.

Executive Producer Tania: It was backwards on this track at night in the rain. And

Crew Chief Brad: Michael Schumacher was driving the Yaris and an amateur was driving the Nismo.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Never, never.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know. Apparently that’s some track in South Wales.

That no one’s ever heard of.

Executive Producer Tania: Nothing’s ever heard of. If you’ve heard of Landau circuit. Oh, that’s in

Crew Chief Eric: project cars three. So I have heard of that. Yes.

Executive Producer Tania: So there you go. You can get on project cars and a test driver for yourself.

Maybe they have a Yaris in project cars. Eric,

Crew Chief Brad: I’m seeing a, a virtual rematch of this. Which one do you want? You want the GR Yaris or do you want the

Crew Chief Eric: Nismo? Can I detune the Nismo? So it actually makes sense. I think that’s part of the problem. You put that thing on a short track. It can’t get out of its own way.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, interestingly, the track map is an oval, basically. Like, I mean, it looked like it had two pretty long, well, quote, [00:30:00] long straights. I don’t know what the, how many miles.

Crew Chief Eric: The whole track is an eighth mile.

Executive Producer Tania: Maybe, but, uh, I mean, it had some like really low speed, um, corner kinks and things like that. But. You would’ve thought, I guess, that any straight would be enough for the 600 plus horsepower or whatever the, the GTR is to outperform the little 300 horse, somehow Odd horsepower.

Yaris. I mean, the Yaris does way less, but nimbler, I I, they’re both four wheel drive. I mean, you could

Crew Chief Eric: run that Yaris flat out on that track. I mean, that’s the advantage comes out the average. Speed, right? When you’re trying to do something like that.

Yeah.

I’m not going to say I’m impressed. Let’s redo this on a big track, you know, a VIR or a Watkins Glen or Laguna Seca or something.

And I, I unfortunately hate to say that I think the Yaris is going to get crushed.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, it will no doubt. I mean, a hundred percent and it can’t, the GTR has twice the horsepower and twice the torque or whatever. I mean, there’s, there’s no way it’s going to compete, but I mean, even there’s hot hatch [00:31:00] fights.

With the Yaris and, you know, the most recent John Cooper works mini and the mini beats it. There’s no way the GTR is ever gonna win.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, in the case of the new Golf R, the Yaris wouldn’t get around it because it’s so big. There’s no space to pass it on the

Crew Chief Brad: track. You could fit the Yaris in the back of it.

Maybe just bump draft it to make the Golf faster. But here’s the real question. Here’s the 87 question. Which would you rather have? The The Yaris or the Nismo GTR? Yaris. Exactly. There you go.

Crew Chief Eric: I would run the hell out of that thing. So let’s, let’s switch gears. Let’s talk about some retro cars like we always do.

Crew Chief Brad: So first of all, I don’t know why you’re calling this car retro. I guess the fact that it’s not made anymore, even though it was only a couple of years ago, makes it retro. But that’s like turning on the classic rock station and hearing Nirvana. It’s, it’s ridiculous. So, yes. 2020 sale [00:32:00] numbers have come out from Chrysler, and they sold a whopping four brand new 2017 Dodge Vipers in 2020.

So let that sink in a little bit. The car was discontinued in 2017. Last one rolled off the the factory line. These four cars, four of them have been sitting around dealer lots. For three years, I guess someone saw it come out in 2017. They were like, you know what? I’m going to save up for that. Three years later, they were able to buy it.

Crew Chief Eric: It begs the question. How many vipers are still sitting on dealership?

Crew Chief Brad: That is a fantastic question. I would love to find that out. But just so you know, year prior, they sold five. I know. Right. If you go around and see a brand new Dodge Viper at a dealership, buy it. Increase their numbers. Maybe they’ll bring it back.

What’s even better is it sold more, Chrysler did, or Stellantis now, sold more Vipers than the Ram van, the Ram cargo van or [00:33:00] whatever, which sold one. That’s hilarious. So if you think about how many cars are sold in the United States on a yearly basis, how many cars are produced, The Ram Van sold one. I want to know what I want to do for GTM for BrakeFix is I want to find that Ram Van owner and I want to interview him 100 percent out of all the choices.

Did you buy a

Executive Producer Tania: Ram

Crew Chief Brad: band?

Executive Producer Tania: Cause it toes.

Crew Chief Brad: Because it toes. Cause it may, it may toe. It was probably Brett. Brett bought it

Crew Chief Eric: because there weren’t any more Ford transits available at the dealership next door.

Crew Chief Brad: But also it gets even better. The Viper also outsold. The Jeep Patriot, which sold three. The

best part about that is the Jeep Patriot was discontinued a year before the Viper. So out there sitting on brand new Jeep Patriots.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s like the scrap metal guy sitting on the metal going, it’s going to go up in [00:34:00] value soon.

Crew Chief Brad: So what I want to know what I’m going to do some investigative journalism.

And for the next drive thru, I’m going to find out how many brand new HHRs

I’m going to find out how many brand new Chevrolet HHRs you can go out and buy on dealership lots right now. I’ll have that researched for you by the next drive thru.

I bet there are some out there. Oh my goodness. Meanwhile, speaking of

Crew Chief Eric: vipers, speaking of vipers, apparently, what do you do with that new viper that you buy?

Well, you got to mod it, right? And if you’re familiar with some of the more famous Japanese tuners and modders out there, I mean, we’ve all seen the RWB 911s and wide body cars that are out there and stuff like that. There’s a gentleman in Japan that took it to a whole new level. He took one of those remaining vipers and turned it into a wide body dually.

And then, to make things even more interesting, gave it a patriotic U. S. [00:35:00] Army Jeep livery. Needless to say, I mean, I love the Viper. This is a little bit sacrilegious, in my opinion. And it does kind of look like a funky Miata build, after it was all said and done, like it was done in somebody’s backyard. It is just, I don’t know what to think.

But, you know, hey, go Army, beat Navy.

Crew Chief Brad: I usually hate stuff like this, but I have to say, I think it actually looks kind of cool. I would never do it. I would never drive it, but the fact that it exists, I think it’s kind of cool. I think the guy thought he was buying a Jeep and, and the Viper just showed up in his driveway.

Crew Chief Eric: They just look so similar. I mean, just from the, you know, they’re built on the same platform.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s

Crew Chief Eric: all the same

Crew Chief Brad: stuff.

Crew Chief Eric: You heard the motors were the same.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, would you rather have this or an HHR?

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, that’s

a hard, that’s a hard choice. Can I go back to the Yaris? Cause I was okay with that.

Crew Chief Brad: The answer, the answer is no longer Miata.

The [00:36:00] answer is Gazoo Racing Yaris. 100%. Well, what is time to think?

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, of that hideous abomination?

Crew Chief Brad: Yes, of the Viper.

Executive Producer Tania: You know, I, In terms of, you know, engineering and just the fact that he pulled it off. I mean, it’s interesting, but I like how the article says you could have done this for half the price, just starting with the Miata,

we could have spared the Viper and killed the Miata.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t know how well engineered it is. Cause it looks like they used Pep boy parts. And in Home Depot, there’s probably some duct tape in there. There’s copper piping somewhere, I’m sure.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey, so the build quality is right there with Tesla though. So we’re good.

We’re good. Right?

Crew Chief Brad: Exactly. Exactly.

Executive Producer Tania: Hey, there’s no words. I mean,

Crew Chief Brad: why, why not

Crew Chief Eric: exactly because send it. So speaking of sending it,

Crew Chief Brad: Porsche, you all know, they make cars for the longest [00:37:00] time, tried replacing the nine 11 with a front engine rear wheel drive car called the nine 28. You all remember that car came out in 1977, you know, big VA, decent power, grand tour.

They were trying to replace the nine 11, nine 11 purists. Poo pooed that idea, said, no way, Jose. So they were going to try and turn the 928 into something else. In 1987, they created a prototype with the help of American Sunroof Company to create a four door 928, which, you know, as we all know, eventually came out as the Panamera like 20 years later, but.

Back in the eighties, they tried this idea. They gave it 330 horsepower, five liter V8. They handed it off to American center of company to stretch it and give it, you know, two little coach doors. That company had done work with Porsche before for the convertible nine four fours and things of that nature.

And they were going to try and make a nine 28 line. Well, they only made one. Because by the time it was done, Porsche had some change at the leadership. Uh, the [00:38:00] CEO at the time was ousted. They brought a new CEO in. Instead, they scrapped the car. They scrapped a whole bunch of other projects and everything to become leaner and meaner.

And eventually they, you know, started making Porsche profitable or whatever, but they created this one off 928 four door, which looks okay.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, for a four door Pacer, sure. It’s fantastic. Thanks. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Terrible .

Crew Chief Eric: Well, it’s rumored that the gentleman that designed the 9 28 back in the seventies took his inspiration from the Pacer.

So I make that joke with some actual truth behind it.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, you know, because they, they had that guy on top gear and he, he did. His little interview or whatever, they were looking at the lines on the 928. They had one in studio and he actually pointed that out. It was like, we looked at the face of for our inspiration.

Crew Chief Eric: That is dead is something to be inspired by, you know,

Crew Chief Brad: but so they made the one it was given to the CEO or the owner of American sunroof company. And it’s sold at [00:39:00] auction for a whopping, are you, are you sitting down? Are you ready for this? 44 Thousand dollars.

Crew Chief Eric: I You thoughts? Terrible. I was

Crew Chief Brad: gonna say million dollars. Nope. You would be incorrect. $44,000. You can buy a golf R or you can buy a four door. 9 28,

Executive Producer Tania: somebody paid $43,999. Too much ,

Crew Chief Brad: $43,950. Too much.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. I would’ve still given them 50 bucks for it. One, Bob, at the end of the day, one Bob, one

Crew Chief Brad: 50 bucks. But in the meantime, the, the project was scrapped.

They made the one, Porsche directed their attention. To working with Mercedes on the, what is now revered 500 E, which is a four door sedan based on the E class. It’s a, actually a really cool car. Very rare and power. It’s a Mercedes E class with a Porsche drivetrain, supposed to be really cool.

Crew Chief Eric: But even today, Porsche should just tip their [00:40:00] hat to Mercedes and say, you guys know how to build a sedan and we’re going to stop doing that because the Panamera.

Oh, nevermind.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, It looks definitely the grandchild or the son of son or daughter of the 928 prototype single production 928 wagon. I mean, it looks better. It still looks like hot trash and Porsche and Ferrari and all those kinds of people should never have a four door model car in their lineup personally, but that’s a different.

But clearly somebody at Porsche has had the picture probably of that wagon 928 on their office wall this whole time. And finally was like, now’s our moment, Panamera.

And they’re like, yes, we finally get to release it.

Crew Chief Eric: Boo. Boo. Boo. Let’s circle back to another retro car that you might be able to get your hands on.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, so if you are into Raleigh and into Ford or into one of them or neither of them, I don’t know.

Crew Chief Brad: What’s Raleigh?

Executive Producer Tania: What’s wrong?

Crew Chief Brad: Stop [00:41:00] it. Stop it.

Executive Producer Tania: A UK company called Motorsport tools is building new street legal version of the legendary Mark II Escort that won WRC. What’s WRC?

Crew Chief Eric: Don’t get me started. Don’t get me started.

The

Executive Producer Tania: WRC championship back in 1981 and I mean, I like squarish bodied small cars and square with round lights is also particularly attractive and this checks all those boxes. So how much fun would it be to tool around in this car?

Crew Chief Eric: This also goes back to the EU gets all the cool stuff followed by when is.

The Capri coming back. Sign me up.

Executive Producer Tania: And this can be yours for a mere 90, 000. Oh, dang. Would you rather spend 44, 000?

No, [00:42:00] no, I would not.

Executive Producer Tania: HHR or 90, 000 Mark II Ford Escort.

Crew Chief Eric: GR Yaris. I’m going back. Yet again, I’ll spend 40 grand on the Toyota before I do that. Well, I guess we’ve wrapped up our industry news and now it’s time to jump in to our, our cutting edge EV section known as Jolt Cola.

So Tanya, take us away.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, at long last, the Audi e tron GT has finally arrived.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m salivating. It’s like, it’s like a Pavlovian thing. You said Audi and GT. That was it.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, you had me at Audi GT since I have one.

Crew Chief Brad: The problem is there’s e tron in the middle there. That’s the part you didn’t hear.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, there’s that.

And [00:43:00] there’s the fact that the standard E tron starts at 99, 900, which is quite a bit far above my, uh, price range. I’m just cutting to the chase here. You can get the Prestige Edition for 107, 100, or the RS will set you back a mere 139, 900. All this could be yours and more stay tuned.

Crew Chief Eric: I take issue with this car, not because it’s ugly or anything like that.

It’s a, it’s a fantastic looking car. The proportions are right. It’s a cool Evie. I’m down with it. The price isn’t even the problem. The bigger issue I take with it is it doesn’t pay any sort of homage. To the cars that bore the GT badge. And that comes from the original Quattro lineage, right? The type 80 cars, the 4, 000 series, all those, they were, let’s face it, fat Chiracos, you know, in some respects, Giugiaro designed, you know, all that kind of stuff.

It doesn’t carry the badge. Well, I could see it as the new a seven. I could see it as the new [00:44:00] Audi 100 from back in the day, like the 100 four door and the 100 coupe and stuff like that. It’s a weird sticking point for me, I guess, as an Audi purist, I still want to see the real coupe GT or the UR quattro come back, they’ve been teasing that for a while, they called it the S one a couple of times, which is also kind of a weird misnomer because of the rally car and things like that.

I think it’s cool. I would just love to see something a little bit more affordable and, you know, whatever name, names are one thing, but it is, it is a gorgeous car. I can’t deny that.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know if I a hundred percent agree with you and I’d have to see it in person because photos are always misleading.

Unfortunately to pay homage to those cars and they’re never going to do it. They have to be far more square than this one is. And I don’t see them really doing that in these modern times. Only

Crew Chief Eric: Chrysler can do that. Only Chrysler can make square cars go fast.

Executive Producer Tania: But if it’s not, and I haven’t looked into how long the car is, if it’s not, Long like an A8 or an A7 [00:45:00] or something like that, then I’m feeling a little bit more comfortable because if it’s something that’s short, then to me, that is paying a little bit more tribute to the original Quattro and GT coupes and cars of that nature, because the back, that slope of the rear glass and the trunk looks very short.

It doesn’t have some wide rear end sticking out from the back tires. So that is a little more 90 coupe quattro GT coupe or, or the URQ styling. The pictures are deceiving. So this thing is like 157 feet long or something.

It’s an A6, right? It’s like a yacht.

Executive Producer Tania: Then it’s kind of like, all right, it’s just every other Audi in their line.

If this is kind of like a very compact short car, then it makes me feel good. And it is very stunning looking. I wish it was more affordable. So not to leave out the details, apparently, I think it’s the, I guess this is the standard version. Mated two speed transmission setup is capable of delivering [00:46:00] 469 horsepower, 464 foot pounds of torque.

Apparently there’s an overboost feature that you can engage, which jumps those numbers to 522 and 472. And that gives it the ability to zoom from zero to 60 in just 3. 9 seconds. And it tops out apparently at 152 miles an hour.

Crew Chief Eric: You know what that reminds me of? And it’s for the IT nerds out there of a certain age.

It reminds me of the, the PCs in the old days that had the turbo button, they would like, they would overclock, right? It’s like the equivalent, like you just hit that button and you’re super boost. You know?

Executive Producer Tania: Is that, is that like the, uh, what is it? The, uh, ludicrous? Mode button or something equivalent. So, so the RS package adds 121 horsepower.

So it’s outputting 612 foot pounds of torques before over boost, which brings it up to a 637 horsepower, but still 612 foot pounds of torque,

Crew Chief Brad: leaving out an important fact. It weighs like. [00:47:00] 5, 100 pounds, right? Whoa. The

Executive Producer Tania: RS, yes, weighs between 5, 060 to 5, 139 pounds. Good

Crew Chief Eric: God.

Executive Producer Tania: I

Crew Chief Eric: think that weighs more than your Jeep, Eric.

It does. As a matter of fact, my Jeep is sub 5, 000 pounds. So yes.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s two of my GT coupes.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Those cars weighed 2, 400 pounds when they were new.

Crew Chief Brad: So that’s why it costs so much because you’re getting a lot of car.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s some road hugging weight right there as Ford used to say, good night.

Crew Chief Brad: So you all know there was a new C8 that came out last year.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I don’t, we don’t talk about that car at all.

Crew Chief Brad: No, no. Apparently if you, if you missed it, you know, there was a new C8, mid engine, rear wheel drive V8, you know, all that good stuff. They’re releasing some new, some different versions, you know, to come in the coming years. There’s a Z06 in development.

Sadly, there is not a grand sport.

Crew Chief Eric: Really?

Crew Chief Brad: Good. There’s going to be a hybrid C8 called the E Ray. The

Executive Producer Tania: [00:48:00] E Ray. Oh, I like it. Like the E Ray. Okay. I get it. The electric

Crew Chief Brad: eel.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, I see. I see what they did there. I’m

Crew Chief Brad: not sure if

Executive Producer Tania: I like it, but I get it.

Crew Chief Brad: Don’t have a lot of specs on it, but it’s allegedly going to have all wheel drive.

The hybrid system is going to mate to the stock 6. 2 liter V8. So, you know, fun times to be had in the C8 hybrid. It’s probably going to be just like the Tahoe hybrid, just the big honking V8 with like a little itty bitty like tornado sized, you know, electric motor, just to say it’s a hybrid.

Crew Chief Eric: Can I rename it?

I want to call it the ESX. Is that okay? Because I mean, it looks exactly like the NSX. So why, why not? Right?

Crew Chief Brad: Because Acura already has. hybrid NSX. It’s called the NSX.

Crew Chief Eric: And speaking of that, if you guys haven’t seen, and we’re going to post the link to it, Chip Foose recently did a redesign of the C8 and love it or hate it in terms of his design style and whatnot, it’s [00:49:00] worth watching.

It’s sponsored by Hagerty and you’re It’s a time lapse recording of him redesigning the C8 right there in front of you in his studio. And I thought it was fascinating on multiple levels, but I would say go check it out. Leave your comments if you want on Instagram for us or on the show notes or whatever, because I’m really curious to see what people think about Chip’s interpretation of the C8 and trying to make it.

Pull some of the lineage of the previous Corvettes and get it to look a little less like an NSX or a Ferrari or some of the other cars he talks about, uh, in his monologue. So just want to throw that in there for something else to do after, you know, reviewing this episode.

Crew Chief Brad: So what you’re saying is Chevrolet did not reach out and consult with a world class automotive designer like Chip Foose to design their new Corvette?

Crew Chief Eric: Negative, Ghost Rider.

Crew Chief Brad: Not surprised.

Crew Chief Eric: I will say, I think we need to switch gears back to Tanya a little bit here and talk about one of the slowest drag races I’ve ever seen.

Crew Chief Brad: But there’s no gears to shift in an electric car. [00:50:00]

Executive Producer Tania: So there is a video out there and it’s in Italian, but there’s English subtitles for those that do not speak the Italian language.

It’s a, I think like a eight or 10 minute video, something like it takes that

Crew Chief Eric: long to do the quarter mile. But yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: so it’s a drag race of Fiat 500s through the various decades. So there’s four Fiat 500s that are pitted up against each other. There’s the original Fiat 500. There’s the 1995 500 Sporting.

There’s the 2015 Fiat 500, which, it’s the European version, so it’s the 1. 2 liter and not the 1. 4 liter that came to the U. S. And then there’s the new Fiat 500e. And so they put all four of these together in a couple of drag races and knowing that they were drag racing all these cars together, I already knew the outcome of the race, right?

Crew Chief Brad: The original one, right?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. While the 500E was [00:51:00] pushing it. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: It was opposite day. So who finished the drag race last? So you’re absolutely right. Actually, there were two knowns going into this. One, that the original 500 was going to lose, and that the electric 500 was going to win. Those two were quite obvious.

So, the video, you know, confirms all this. However, what I found far more fascinating, I mean, the whole thing was fascinating, but far more fascinating was the race going on between the 1995 Cinquecento Sporting, the 500 Sporting, and the 2015 Fiat 500. I mean, the Fiat 500, spoiler alert, it still won, but it was a close fricking race.

And the 1. 2 liter only has 68 horsepower and it weighs 1, 900 pounds. The 500 Sporting has 54 horsepower. It does weigh less. It weighs 1, 620, so it’s got about 300 pounds on it. But, I mean, it kept up.

Crew Chief Eric: So [00:52:00] the best part of that is if you’ve never seen those early nineties Chin Santos, it’s a shopping cart with a roof on it.

Okay. That’s exactly the design. There’s nothing to it. It is a box with four wheels. I have had the displeasure of driving my grandfather’s base version of that, which was an alto Bianchi y 10. It’s an, it’s an a thousand cc version of that car. Brad would take up the entirety of the interior, right? Versus two of us would be shoulder to shoulder and we’d be squeezed in this little shopping cart.

It’s a car that you can’t drive it not at 9, 000 RPM. And then you’re still rowing the gears to make it move because it’s like a lawnmower engine and that thing. So when I saw that race, I mean, I was cheering on that little car off the line. I mean, he, he jumped. I was like, Dang, this is going to be really cool.

And then it was like, by the time he hit fifth gear, it was over that, that time he was going slower.

Executive Producer Tania: It had to [00:53:00] launch on the 20, it

Crew Chief Eric: was close.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, all I’ve got to say is the lack of a barth in this article.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I would have liked to have seen the MultiAir in there just to mix it up and see what it would do.

I bet it’s a lot closer to the 500E in terms of performance, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It is more powerful. It’s making closer to like 200 horse or whatever that thing makes, so.

Crew Chief Brad: So, 500 Abarth or Gazoo Racing Yaris?

Crew Chief Eric: I

Crew Chief Brad: don’t know. Cause Tanya’s kind of would be an Italian purist, I would think. So I w I would have picked her to choose the Fiat.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, that’s, that’s tough. I think, I don’t know. I really want to do that. Yours.

Crew Chief Eric: I, if I have to, okay. If I have to make a compromise, I would take the Punto SS, which is slightly bigger, it’s a proper hatchback and everything, and it makes more power than the 500, So that would be more in line with the GR yards if I had to go Fiat, but that’s not a card that they sell here.

So,

Executive Producer Tania: well, [00:54:00] it’s also funny in the video was after they were done doing their, the couple of drag pulls that they did. And then he talked about how the, the finishing. Was like opposite to the sound.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: The sound, uh, performance was like the opposite order. And so then they played like the in car like pull sounds and it was like the worst sounding of course was the EV because it sounds like nothing.

Whistling nothing. They did. They didn’t pump

Crew Chief Brad: in any artificial exhaust.

Executive Producer Tania: No, they didn’t. But then, I mean, they ranked it as like the loudest was the original 500 decibels. I don’t think it was the best sounding. Actually. I think the sporting was the best sounding as it was railing through the gears. It’s

Crew Chief Eric: very throat, very throaty for a 1200, but that’s, but then again, it’s also doing like 8, 500 RPM to get it to move.

I mean, it’s not,

Crew Chief Brad: they didn’t do any emissions testing either. No.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s a fun little video. If you’re interested in [00:55:00] those, those type of cars, check it out.

Crew Chief Eric: Let’s talk Blue Oval.

Executive Producer Tania: So then, of course, there’s all the buzz lately, and there’s more news coming out, and they’re finally here, and some of them, you know, a small amount are in dealerships already, and I’m sure there’s people, you know, like, very excited to get the ones they pre ordered.

What are we talking about? The Mustang Mach E. So Ford,

Crew Chief Eric: strike that. We don’t call it the Mustang anymore. This is thee.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. Well that was for different reasons. That’s pretty smart. And but we won’t, we won’t get into that. But yes, it is still technically, I believe the Mustang Mach E but for all intents and purposes, people just refer to it as, as the Mki ’cause it is.

It’s aesthetically very different than what people are accustomed to with the historical, iconic pony card.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s very similar to what SRT4 owners are doing with their neons. Yeah, I will start T4 is not the neon SRT for two. [00:56:00] Neon SRT4 purists. It’s just the SRT4. They don’t want to be linked to the Neon.

Where this, people don’t want to link whatever this thing is to the Mustang.

Crew Chief Eric: So, and I will make a suggestion. So Ford, if you’re listening, brilliant campaign to try to go get that Jeep off the side of that cliff in California. Let’s use that person to rename this car, the Puma. Let’s carry that name over.

From Europe or maybe the Cougar or something else, differentiate it from the Mustang.

Crew Chief Brad: I think it should be the Eagle High, the Eagle Eye Hammer Thrust.

Crew Chief Eric: Uh, just let’s not call it the CA because that would not work in New Jersey, New York, or Massachusetts. I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, they can go, if they want to keep with horses, they can just go with stallions.

Crew Chief Eric: We can’t call it the Pinto because we know how that’s going to end. Well, it’s, it’s more like a Clydesdale.

Executive Producer Tania: So at any rate, as. This thing is actually real now, you know, um, and with all EVs, the whole range [00:57:00] saga is a big thing and people, you know, everything’s always compared against Tesla because they were basically the first, so they’re kind of the benchmark, how does it compare, da da da, and the range figures are out for now.

I don’t think they’re, not all the variants of the Mach E, I think, are out. Fully published because the California trim and there’s one other trim. I can’t remember what it is right now. They, I don’t think they finalize what the range numbers are. And I think the California should have the highest mileage range, but the standard range all wheel drive is clocking in right now at 211 miles.

The standard range are real will drive. 230, the extended range, all wheel drive 270, and the extended range rear wheel drive is 300 miles. So those are EPA ratings. If you take the extended range, our wheel drive, the 300 miles is short of what the Tesla model Y can do by, I think like 26 miles or something like that, but that’s not even fair because [00:58:00] the Tesla model Y is all wheel drive.

And now we’re comparing real world drive with all wheel drive. If you compare the all wheel drive model, it’s 270 versus a 326, so it’s falling short.

Crew Chief Brad: What I want to know is how does this, how do they change in the frozen tundra of Texas right now?

Executive Producer Tania: Some things you see when you’re reading about the battery life and all that is, it’s not necessarily The cold itself that is detrimental to the battery, which I don’t know that I fully agree with some of those arguments because I think there’s been proof that batteries are impacted by the cold weather, but I don’t know the significance of that impact.

A lot of what happens in the cold weather is because of people are cold. And so they turn the heat on. And unfortunately in an electric car, some of the battery power has to be diverted to heat the inside of the car in a gasoline or an ice. Vehicle, the heat’s a by product of the combustion of the engine.

And so it’s free, basically, in a way it’s kind of free energy, right? Like the, the fact that your car is running, it’s [00:59:00] creating heat. That heat is pushed into the cabin and whatnot, very simplistically, right? And that’s what gives you the warmth. But in an electric car, you have to use precious battery resources, if you will.

So in the meantime, you’re driving at night, it’s cold. You got the heat on, you got your headlights on, you got the radio blasting, the wipers. You probably got your seat warmers on, and the steering wheel warmer, and you got the infotainment system going, and you know, God knows what else, that all is battery, right?

Whereas at least in an ICE car, the heat component is separate, it’s not draining the battery like all the other things.

Crew Chief Brad: Batteries put off heat, they overheat. I mean, they can overheat and everything. Isn’t there a way, there’s no way to harness that somehow.

Crew Chief Eric: There is some facet of liquid cooling going on.

I just don’t know what those radiators and that heat exchange level is like. I think at best, even if you put a blower across it, like a standard heater core, it’s going to be tepid. It’s not going to be hot. Because the water in an ice engine, whether it [01:00:00] be gas or diesel, it’s close to boiling. So it’s very easy to produce heat at any level, right?

And do all that kind of stuff.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t think the batteries are probably generating enough heat at all to do anything.

Crew Chief Brad: They generate enough heat to catch fire.

Executive Producer Tania: Because if it did produce that much heat, I think bad things would be happening. You’d definitely be warm at that point. So back to the Mach E range numbers.

So, yes. They don’t look horrible. They’re not, you know, a hundred mile range or anything crazy like that. But the more interesting thing is there’s a separate article that’s recently come out that’s saying that these EPA rating numbers are understated. So the Mach E performs better than what the EPA is saying.

So apparently Edmunds did their own and they do their own independent. Studies and surveys and whatnot, and what they found when they tested the all wheel drive extended range version is that it didn’t get 270 miles. It got 304 miles on a single battery charge. So now the all wheel drive is knocking on the door of its true competitor, the [01:01:00] model Y.

But kind of with that logic, if the rear wheel drive extended range is also understated, then could it see closer to 330 miles? It could, at the very least, meet But then even possibly slightly beat what the model Y is doing. So that’s pretty exciting. And another note in the article to quote them directly is that interestingly Edmonds notes that every Tesla model it tested failed to deliver the numbers estimated by the EPA.

So there’s a big, a history there where. And I think I’ve seen this in different articles to where Tesla numbers are overstated, and they don’t actually perform to what the number is versus even the TACAN is another good example where everyone was in outrage over like the abysmal miles that it gave.

And then when it was actually tested in the real world by somebody else, not the EPA. Did like twice as good twice as well and twice as far or whatever, right? That’s a

Crew Chief Eric: long standing VAG card that they play. They did that a lot in the early 2000s with like the S4s where they understated the [01:02:00] horsepower.

And then when people actually tested them, they were making 30 more horsepower than what was on paper. I think from the VAG family, it’s one of these like cautious. Moves to say, well, we’re guaranteed. If we build it, we’re always going to be able to attain this number, but if you’re able to get 20 percent over good for you, but we’re guaranteeing this number.

Right. And they can hold to that. And then they’re not liable to say, well, you know, you said it was two 40 and it’s really two 20. They’d rather be like, it’s two 40. And in real life, it does two 80, you know, or whatever. And then they just use a

Crew Chief Brad: cheat device by Bosch. If they’re not getting the numbers.

Sick

Executive Producer Tania: burn. And that’s fine. I get there’s, there’s reasons for doing that or whatnot. I think the importance or significance of this is that people shouldn’t get too excited yet over the range numbers until these cars are out there and people are, they’re being tested more and whatnot. And then let, let’s see really how it chips fall.

Right. Because everything is always Well. The Tesla. The Tesla, the Tesla, the Tesla. Well give these guys a chance [01:03:00] here to breathe and get out on the road and show us what we can really do. And, and you know what? If they’re matching the Tesla numbers Ah

Crew Chief Eric: yeah. And the price point is right. And it’s price point

Executive Producer Tania: is right.

And quite honestly, I’m not the price point biggest Ford fan, but. The Mach E, I mean, hands down, is more attractive than the Teslas in my opinion, but that’s, you know, to each their own.

Crew Chief Eric: I saw it at the DC Auto Show last year. I think it’s a gorgeous car. I think Ford’s going in the right direction. I think they might struggle with the Blue Oval loyals, right, that are used to their Mustangs and all the trucks and everything, but I think there’s going to be a contingent of those that are going to sign up and say, Hey, I’m not interested in leaving Ford.

I want to stay with you. Now you have something that’s comparable to the Tesla. And then once you start seeing them on the road, that’s usually the cascade effect. You just see more and more and more of them. They made the right move with the Bronco. I’m now starting to see them on the road and that was very popular.

It was very well received. And I think the Mach E, if they position it correctly and they market it right, it’s going to take off. And I’m, I’m, I’m applauding Ford for that. [01:04:00]

Executive Producer Tania: Ford at the moment. The opportunity for more marketing gold is just like fire hose down their face. I think right now, because if you look at the recent events that have happened across the state of Texas with the winter storm that came through in February of 2021, if you’re listening to this later and you don’t know what, what month that happened, Ford called up a bunch of dealers, apparently down throughout Texas and said, Hey, your F 150 hybrids electrics that you’ve got sitting on the lot.

Send them out to people so they can use them as generators to power their home. Ford built tough Ford, America, Ford, helping for getting, yeah. And we, and

Crew Chief Eric: we talked about that. We’re like, who’s ever going to use that? Why would they ever use that? And now we have this application for it, which makes total sense.

So

Executive Producer Tania: people, there’s a real world application and circumstance that happened where people might, people that were against Ford EVs. That are the diehard, I want my gas, diesel, guzzling, [01:05:00] whatever. They might go, oh wait, wait a second, maybe electric planning ain’t all that bad. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.

Maybe this will cause an uptick in sales for Ford.

Crew Chief Eric: On the other side of the pond, while Stellantis is being born out of, you know, like Lord of the Rings. Hahaha. Hahaha. The other large French contingent that owns several Japanese companies and many other, you know, corporations down the line known to many of us as Renault has put out a rendering of what a potential R5 EV would look like.

Now there’s really no specs on this car. It’s really an artist rendering of the classic R5 turbo two rally car. And I will say when you Yeah, it’s fantastic. So when you guys see the pictures on the follow on article to this episode, you can take a look at it for yourselves. If you haven’t already seen it, it’s done in the elf livery, right?

Which is the French petroleum company from way back in the eighties. It’s [01:06:00] a black, yellow, and white combination. I think the car looks fantastic. I like the squareness of it. I think the R5 really lends itself to an EV and I’m excited to see this come out. And I think good on Renault, right? We got the new Nissan 400 coming out.

We got all these other cars. I think this is right up their alley and they could make a move to kind of come against the mega muscle machine. That’s going to be Stellantis with, with SRT and all these other things. So I think this is really cool to take them on head on, but also take it from an EV perspective.

Meanwhile, Hyundai. Has decided to put out something known as the Ionic version five or Ionic five. It’s just another EV kind of hot hatch looking thing. I guess we’re expected to see this on the shores. The Ionic was here for a while in a previous version, but it, but it, it wasn’t very popular. You don’t see too many on the roads.

Every once in a while I see one and at afar, you’re like, is that a, like a Elantra or something? Yeah. Prius. You’re like, what is that? And then you, you see the badge and you’re like, [01:07:00] Huh? It’s kind of like the Scion IQ that came out, you know, all those cars, you’re like, what, what are we talking about here?

But they came out with a new version. Again, they’re trying to break into that smaller compact space with EVs, the hot hatch EV friendly, you know, things of that nature. So I’m curious to see where that goes and what it finally looks like outside of the, you know, the spy photos and things that they’ve put into the marketing photos that they’ve put out of the car.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, the renderings are very different than what I would expect from a Hyundai to look

Crew Chief Eric: correct. that have come out right Sonata and the Elantra an know about you guys. I’m those weird headlights th like reverse check marks and there’s a lot of led I thought this car you co In comparison to what they’re putting out right now.

But I think it’s more in line with the E Golf and the ID4 and the Renault and all these things that are being positioned right now. So I think it’s better looking than some of the stuff that they’re, they’re currently pushing.

Executive Producer Tania: If the [01:08:00] photo of its front is going to be anything true to how it actually looks, it, it kind of looks like a BMW because the way they have the headlights.

They’ve got essentially two on each side that are, they’re not full circles, but they’re, they’re half squares actually.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Reminiscent of like the old E30s and stuff. Yeah, exactly.

Executive Producer Tania: So interesting.

Crew Chief Eric: And then we won’t talk about BMW, but I will say this because it’s not EV related. Those new Star Trek looking front ends that the BMWs have, we could have an entire episode on those by themselves.

So I’m just going to leave them there. Love it or hate it. Okay. I have heard though that it is on purpose to get people’s knee jerk reaction to really pay attention to BMW, these new, just gaping open fish mouths that they’re putting on the front of the cars.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s not the first time they’ve done that either.

They did that back in, I guess, 2004 or five with the seven series. Yeah. The

Crew Chief Eric: bagel BMWs. Yeah. Yeah. So Brad, I see that another luxury brand is coming to the EV market.

Crew Chief Brad: [01:09:00] Yep. Rolls Royce, Rolls Royce has come to the EV market with the Vision Next 100 concept. And it looks to me like something out of the thirties, the old gangsta cars.

Fenders that aren’t part of the car, but are part of the car and luggage storage system right behind the, the wheel. And

Crew Chief Eric: it looks like something out of Batman, the animated series, like when they would exaggerate those old gangster cars. Then when I saw the video for it and stuff, I was just like, how does this thing even turn?

Like, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. It definitely gets your attention. There’s no metrics on it that I could find, but it’s definitely a stunner if you’re into that super high end luxury vehicle. So kind of cool to see, you know, a brand like Rolls Royce jumping in there and not doing what they did in the eighties and nineties.

Where they just pretty much cranked out the same stuff they had been making forever. So it’s good to see them taking a step into this world and kind of joining the ranks with everybody else. This was foretold, right? We saw this, we talked about this on several other episodes at this [01:10:00] part, this segment of the show, where it’s like, it’s only going to be a matter of time before the euros and everybody else kind of get into this scene and start to take on, you know, Tesla and everybody else in this Evie world.

So again, curious to see what happens.

Crew Chief Brad: It looks to me like it’s the next logical progression for this car would be the wheels mechanically fold in under the car and it takes flight

Crew Chief Eric: like the

Crew Chief Brad: DeLorean. It’s already got a Rolls Royce motor, you know, Rolls Royce is known for their aviation motors. Here we go.

This is the next logical step for flying vehicles.

Crew Chief Eric: So I guess we would be remiss as Tanya likes to say if we didn’t talk about the Tesla one more time.

Crew Chief Brad: Well,

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t think this is the last time, but it’s literally

Crew Chief Brad: not the last time.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I don’t want to belabor this point too much. I mean, it’s just, you know, a report out of essentially, you know, consumer reports, reliability survey to do the reliability surveys all the [01:11:00] time.

That’s a gold standard for. Reporting on that kind of information. And you know, not shockingly, the Teslas don’t do well in consumer reports for liability. So pretty much overall, they sit at second from the bottom of a 26 brand ranking. That’s not so great

Crew Chief Brad: is GM underneath them.

Executive Producer Tania: You know what? I can’t find the list.

I don’t remember who was at the bottom now, who’s at the very, very bottom, but nonetheless, I mean, we all have heard the stories, whether it be the, the home depot parts and all that, but, uh, the misaligned body panels and suspension issues and, you know, the in car electronic issues and all that. And then to a minor scale, which is considered, I think, in the reliability Ports is like things like the finish of the paint being pretty abhorrent and things like that.

I believe all these different categories are weighted. So I don’t think the paint category is, you know, putting too much on the liability, but still it’s measured in there. So,

Crew Chief Eric: [01:12:00] But we’ve seen over the last winter months here, Tesla stock continues to climb.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. And, you know, Oh, we’re making so much money and all this.

stuff and I was really confused back in when the years just melt together now

in the before times

Executive Producer Tania: in 2020 with all the COVID not that we’re out of COVID when we were deeper in the COVID last year in 2020 you know there were reports that the earnings were You know, the best ever, even though the factory in California was shut down and all this stuff, and they didn’t sell any cars.

And I’m like, how the hell are you making money if you’re not selling cars and the factory’s closed? I’m not the best with, you know, those kind of finance things, but, um, something didn’t add up for me. So I found it interesting when there was an article. Yeah, it’s a little bit of a grabber title, if you will, you know, Tesla’s dirty little secret.

It’s net profit doesn’t come from selling cars. But needless to say, I [01:13:00] mean, the grabbing this work because I wanted to read what they were talking about. I hadn’t put it together before that they are selling carbon credits. So they’re making all their money, not from selling their vehicles, but from the fact that they have an abundance of carbon credit and they’re selling that to other people.

So apparently they brought in 3. 3 billion over the last five years, which apparently 1. 6 of which Was just in 2020 alone. Whereas apparently the, I think their car sales was something like seven or 21 million. So without all that carbon credit selling that they’re doing, they would actually would add a income loss for people don’t know what that is.

Essentially, you know, the whole admissions and carbon and all that. There’s, there’s a whole cap and trade system. So basically different areas, different regions, different companies, businesses, whatever. You’re capped on how much you can, you know, invest. Emits and pollutes, and then you either obviously need to, if you’re going to exceed your [01:14:00] threshold, you either need to invest and get green, essentially lower your carbon emissions in whatever form that can be, or you can buy carbon credit because it’s this kind of whole market exchange that you can do.

And so you can buy credits from somebody else in lieu of, so, so essentially you can. You can over emit your threshold, but you bought the carbon credits to do a whole offset thing. It’s a whole thing that exists. And so apparently they’re making a ton of money being able to do that because they’re a fully trick based company and they’ve got a ton.

They’re sitting on a ton of carbon credits apparently. So there you go. Fun fact. It ain’t because they’re selling a million Teslas.

Crew Chief Eric: They might not be selling a million Tesla threes either because there’s a shortage On chips globally. So those are all the silicon microchips and everything to go into these new cars and computers and everything.

As we move further and further into the EV world, we’ve become more and more reliant on all these computers and boards and chips and all these stuff. [01:15:00] And apparently there is a global shortage. This has also extended the production lines and production timelines of a bunch of different auto manufacturers.

One of those specifically GM. So again, you know, they’re teasing us with the Super Bowl ads and the lyric and the Hummer and all this stuff. Stuff and they can’t even build the cars yet because there are just aren’t enough chips out there to make it all happen. So, you know, that is a major drawback. I mean, outside of places like Texas that weren’t prepared for the snow and you won’t be able to charge your EV, they can’t even build them right now.

So, you know, we’ll see how that changes. You know, obviously companies are going to have to tool up quickly to be able to, to produce more and more chips as we become more and more dependent on computerized systems in the future.

Executive Producer Tania: Here’s another issue that cropped up also. So there’s two main battery manufacturers for the lithium ion batteries that are in Korea.

There’s SK and there’s LG, basically. And, uh, SK apparently they’re having some sort of legal issue. So there’s some sort of misappropriation of trade secrets on battery [01:16:00] technology. So, so there’s some big thing between SK and LG. what’s happened now is that SK, they had contracts with Ford and Volkswagen for sending over lithium ion batteries.

They’re allowed to continue that for the next four years, but basically they can’t export out the lithium ion batteries to anybody else at the moment. So. There is another issue because now if somebody like LG can’t take up all that slack or another company doesn’t come along, where the battery is coming from then.

So if they can get their act together and resolve whatever their issues are and prove this, that, and the other, then you know, they can go back to doing business, but we’ll see how, how this impacts anything.

Crew Chief Brad: And much like Tesla is selling credits, who’s to say. That, uh, SK can’t sell them to Ford or Volkswagen and then Ford or Volkswagen turn around and resell them once they’re out of Korea.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, that’s a whole logistics supply chain thing that right. Well above our pay grades, but yeah, you’re right. I mean, there’s all sorts of things involved there from the business perspective, but even those batteries. For a lot of [01:17:00] people that don’t know, I’ve done some research myself on like the anti gravity batteries and stuff for the race cars, there’s boards and chips inside those batteries to do like automatic tending and jump starting and a lot of other stuff.

So even those battery manufacturers are kind of being held to what’s the supply chain like for those chips. I think it’s really cool that those, you know, batteries are becoming that sophisticated, super light. Obviously they weigh almost next to nothing. Uh, when you’re doing, you know, a replacement. Again, we’ll see what happens this year.

And maybe it’s going to be like the Viper. How many EVs are sold for, you know, we are a car enthusiast and motor sport podcast. I guess it’s time for us to talk about motor sports. And so let’s transition and go behind the wall. For some motor sports news. So right up front, you know, at the top of the segment here, most people in our community are interested in circuit racing, club racing, HPDEs and things of that nature.

At the end of the year, obviously month by month, we could tell you what was left on the calendar, which tracks [01:18:00] were, you know, popular, you know, looking at the big ones like, you know, the Glenn and VIR and stuff like that. Now that we’re at the top of the season, which pretty much kicks off in our area in the mid Atlantic, right around the March timeframe, obviously places that are Well, not Texas, but places like Florida have already started early in January, you know, returning to the track, I’m not going to list any events.

I just want to give a big shout out to Dave Peters and the crew over at HPDE Junkie, because they have what seems to be like well over a thousand events already in the system that you can go and search by each track, To figure out who’s there. And those events aren’t just for the next couple of months.

They’re for the entire track season. So if you’re looking for something to do, once the weather breaks, you know, check out HPD junkie. com for all the latest information on, you know, who’s where and when, and why one of the biggest things that happens in the winter every year, and it’s been a tradition for all of us here.

Here at GTM is to get together and watch Rolex like we do in the summertime with Le Mans. So this year was a little different, you know, we [01:19:00] didn’t have the typical viewing party, Brad’s house or somebody else’s house. We did it virtually this year. So we had a 24 hour session going where people could jump in and jump out, comment on the race, get together and all that.

And it worked out really, really well. It was a lot of fun. In the end, it was probably more fun than the race itself. Wouldn’t you say Brad?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, the race was pretty boring. It was like the year when we went to the actual race. I don’t know. I don’t have much to say about the race. It

Crew Chief Eric: just, there just wasn’t much luster to it at all.

And it was weird because there were people there and we had some guys on the ground who jumped in on our session and were telling us, you know, we could hear the PA system in the background and the cars going by, which made it super exciting, but it just seemed a little bit. Meh, like that’s the best way I can describe it.

I think it’s also on the precipice of a lot of changes that are coming to IMSA, that are coming to WEC, that are coming to the Daytona prototype, you know, series and things like that. They’re changing the rules. They’re changing the classing for the next [01:20:00] couple of years. You know, by the time we hit 2023, Le Mans, you’re going to see a lot of crossover and blending of these classes.

And it started to surface a lot of articles about the future of GT racing. At Lamont’s and at IMSA.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I don’t know. I personally love GT racing. There’s nothing more exciting to me than seeing cars that you see on the street. Slap a bunch of stickers on them. Now, I know they’re not the exact same cars, but you get the point they’re out there on track.

It gives the every man the sense that, hey, I can go do that with my car, which leads into HBD and autocross all that other fun stuff. I’m not a fan of open wheel too much. I mean, I watch it, but I would much prefer GT racing to see it go away would be a huge disappointment for. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: And I think that the restructuring is going to make things interesting, right?

They’re talking about bringing TCR and GT4 up into a new kind of homologated GT3 class, but then that also means they’re [01:21:00] going to do away with GTAM. So all those gentlemen drivers we talked about early on in season one, in that episode, that might not be a thing anymore, but then you’re also seeing the manufacturers pulling out of GTLM.

I mean, I thought GTLM this year was. I hate to say kind of pathetic. It was Corvettes race to lose. They really didn’t have any competition. Even the privateer Porsches and stuff. It was like, eh, I really would like to see that bolstered back up. I’d like to see more production sports cars in there. I, you know, Rolex was the sunset of the 488 Ferrari.

So what’s Ferrari going to come to the table with, if at all, you know, there was, yeah, there was a couple of Lambos in there, so, you know, Volkswagen’s doing their thing or Audi or whatever. What I don’t want to see though, is. And we know that DPI is a weird in between of LMP1 and P2. I didn’t like the whole LMP3 thing.

I didn’t understand why they even needed to do that. But what I don’t want to see is Rolex and some of the other races and Sebring, etc. Or this entire series just become LMP2 cars [01:22:00] because it’s just NASCAR. With prototypes at that point, because they’re all the same, you know, basically the same chassis, same engine.

Does anybody really watch the LMP2 race? Like I couldn’t tell you who to root for the end of the day. So that’s not exciting. And LMP1 is kind of a bust right now. To your point, the excitement is in the GT class because that’s where I can get excited as an enthusiast about cars that I might see at an auto show, or I might see Or I might, you know, or something like that.

It’s closer to reality for me than a lot of the other stuff. And don’t get me wrong. I love my LMP one cars, but there’s just nobody there right now. So let’s talk about other things that happened during the winter, outside of Rolex. In our world, we did some virtual racing. So as this airs, it’s actually airing on the last day on the championship round of our virtual racing league for lupus.

So if you haven’t been catching up on that, we’ve been doing that for the last eight weeks. It was a DTM inspired series. We went back and kind of looked at the classic DTM days. We allowed cars from Audi, [01:23:00] Benz, Alfa Romeo, BMW, Ford, and Opel, because those were the brands that ran in that series. Mixed class racing, just like IMSA.

And we raised almost 1, 500 for lupus in the name of one of our members. If you guys haven’t caught up on that, you can go back and watch the replays of the live streams on Patreon. You can go back and see the scoreboard on our website. Good showing on the part of both teams from Garage Ride and GTM. It was a well thought series.

It was a lot of fun. And I’m really curious to see how the championship race turns out at Road Atlanta, which is a petite, petite Le Mans. 30 laps, two mandatory stops, mixed GTLM and LMP cars. So that should be an exciting finale. If you haven’t tuned in yet, you should tune in for that race. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

So we look forward to that. And, uh, again, thanks for everybody that has contributed. If you haven’t. So far, and you’re still in time to donate to the cause. You can go to our website and search VRL for charity. That’s VRL virtual racing [01:24:00] league for charity, uh, on the website. And there’s links to bring you to those spots where you can donate and do all that kind of stuff.

Outside of that, there were some other things that happened during the winter. We saw a robo race car immediately crash into a wall. Uh, they tried to simulate, you know, what Audi did and a few others with, you know, quote unquote, autonomous driving on track. But this time they did it with an LMP car and it made it straight out of the pits, hooked a Louie and went right into the wall.

Crew Chief Brad: Auto drive technology.

Crew Chief Eric: Somebody has to touch the steering wheel to make it work. So that didn’t end very well, but outside of that, there were a couple other cool things that happened. You guys know, I’m a WRC fan, so this might only hit close to home for two other people in the world that are listening to this, but Yari Mati Latvala, the madman of WRC, one of the remaining kind of veterans of the sport, unlike a lot of the new guys that are in there, decided to throw down and kind of park his GR Yaris.

WRC car to the side [01:25:00] and jump into Carlos Sanz, 1991 Celica GT winning WRC Toyota.

Executive Producer Tania: They took the car out of a museum.

Crew Chief Eric: They take this 1991 Celica out of the museum and Yari throws down the gauntlet and says, I can guarantee you this car is as competitive as the new cars are. And everybody’s like, ah, what are you talking about?

And I’ve said this myself. I wonder if the old group B cars or even the later cars could compete with the new WRC cars. And I tell you what, I don’t want to give it away, but you got to watch the video. You got to check it out. I mean, he throws down in this thing and it is an awesome run. And I mean, he earned the title madman.

WRC for multiple reasons, but he does a hell of a showing. And I will say some of those old rally cars can still really send it at the end of the day. So that was a lot of fun. So check that out. Meanwhile, as we know, Ken Block has kind of pulled out of the gym, kind of world he’s kind of pulled back from the things he’s doing.

Obviously he’s big and still into [01:26:00] Hoonigan stuff and building crazy cars and all that, but Travis Pastrana has picked up the torch from Ken. And has now decided to get into that Jim Connor world and try to create some of those videos and him being from DMV area, specifically from Maryland and whatnot.

As some of you might recall, we talked about him trying to start up a track on the Eastern shore, specifically for rally and things like that. He decided as a publicity stunt, as now he’s engaging in this and involved with Subaru and things like that to jump. His Subaru WRC car across gasoline alley it basically there in the harbor in Annapolis.

And there’s a tons of videos of that. That was really cool to see. There’s some guys that I work with that happened to be there in person. And, you know, they were sending the videos around. Obviously it’s all very practiced and staged and timed, but it’s still kind of cool to see a rally car flying through the air.

In the middle of, you know, Annapolis

Crew Chief Brad: F1 driver, Lewis Hamilton, you know, you may have heard of him. He drives for the Petronas [01:27:00] F1 team from Mercedes, but he won his seventh lucky number seven F1 championship. And that’s all I have to say about that because it’s old hat now. Nobody gives a crap. The

Crew Chief Eric: question is, is he going to go for eight?

Right? I think that’s the question on everybody’s mind. He does

Crew Chief Brad: sign the contract with Mercedes for more time. So yes, he is going for eight.

Crew Chief Eric: So what we’re, what you’re telling me is it’s yet another boring season of F1 to come for 2021.

Crew Chief Brad: My prediction is Daniel Ricciardo is going to destroy in the McLaren and win his first championship.

That’s my prediction. That’s my hot take right now.

Crew Chief Eric: And we know from listening to the International Man of Mystery episode, folks like Judd are getting super excited because Alonzo is coming back this year as well. So true, true. It’d be interesting to dice up, you know, can Alonzo come back and be as competitive as he once was?

You know, I mean, obviously his hopes and dreams of getting that triple crown being the next, you know, Jim Clark, Mario Andretti to win Le [01:28:00] Mans Indy and F1 have Let’s say been shattered a little bit. So I’m excited to see him come back to F1 and dice it up. What I’m worried though, is as Tanya mentioned on the last official drive thru episode we did, you know, maybe he’s more of a Valentino Rossi.

He’s going to give those guys a run for their money, but is he going to push to take that championship away from Hamilton in this 2021 season? That’s what I’m thinking. Personally,

Crew Chief Brad: cause he, he’s going to Renault.

Crew Chief Eric: Correct.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t think the Renault is. Competitive. So I don’t think he’s going to do well, but one person I’m anxious to see or excited to see is Sebastian hair loss.

Vettel in the Aston Martin. So he lost it. He lost more hair. So he’s lighter now, but in that Aston Martin, you’ll, if you recall, that is the, uh, the former of the racing point car, which was actually very competitive and won a couple of races last year. It’s got a Mercedes drive train. So it’s. It’s actually a really good car.

And I think with [01:29:00] Vettel driving, you know, I I’m excited to see the kind of year he has after such a disappointing year with Ferrari last year. So what I heard was it’s not an Aston Martin. It’s an Aston Martin chassis. I believe.

Crew Chief Eric: But it’s like a Tata power plant and

Crew Chief Brad: a Mercedes drivetrain. So the only thing that can beat a Mercedes apparently is another Mercedes.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. We’ll take that with a grain of salt and I guess we’ll see what happens. It wouldn’t be a drive through episode if we didn’t finally get to our fan favorite section, known as. Would you like some fries with that?

So take it away, Tanya.

Executive Producer Tania: Of course you have to click when the title says, Florida Man Builds Very Florida Jeep. You can’t not click and see what that says. Apparently this guy, I don’t know why, he, he does have a 2020 Jeep Gladiator that he cut in half. That seems like a good use. Of, uh, of a Jeep Gladiator.

Anyway, cutting, cut it in half to create this [01:30:00] custom Jeep that looks like it could have been part of Mad Max films. I don’t know. And it’s got two extra wheels in the back. Um, so it’s a six wheel Jeep Gladiator now. Um, I assume for the intents of the photo, the doors are off just to be off. I assume you can put them back on, but maybe you can’t, maybe you just ride open to the wind all the time.

I mean, it’s just. Looks like something preparing for end of days, maybe. And you got like six of the other Florida buddies on the back with guns. I don’t know.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, is this an attempt to build a cheap six by six G wagon like Mercedes had because

Executive Producer Tania: apparently he put an LS three, 500 horsepower engine in it also.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, okay. Hold on. Why would you buy a new car? Could you just go buy an old like YJ and do the same thing?

Crew Chief Brad: That question is as old as time. That’s what Jeep people do. When I was on the Jeep forums, because I used to be a Jeep person, you would find people [01:31:00] spending 45, 000 for a brand new JK Unlimited Rubicon, taking all the Rubicon out of it and putting another 50 grand into upgraded axles and wheels and tires and suspension and all kinds of the crap.

You’re right. Why not just start with an ax or a sport. you know, something base model or something older and just do that. It, this just baffles my mind. I’m going to spend 60 grand on a Jeep gladiator truck and then spend 250 grand to make it whatever the hell this thing is.

Crew Chief Eric: But it wouldn’t be a Florida man story if it didn’t involve catching on fire, a scented candle, dumpster water, uh, Gators.

I mean, there’s gotta be something, you know, did he print a check? and bought it from Walmart. I mean, there’s got to be more to this, right?

Executive Producer Tania: Apparently, I mean, it’s for sale. So there’s an ad other than the fact that they have poor spellings and grammar and apparently it tows 12, 000 foot pounds.

Crew Chief Brad: What does that mean?

Executive Producer Tania: According to the ad,

Crew Chief Brad: 12, 000 pounds of food. [01:32:00] Feet, it

Executive Producer Tania: that has 12,000 foot pounds of towing capacity. So the hat that for whatever that possibly means,

Oh my God.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I don’t know. And, and according to the ad, the listing, it, it can take on and off road challenges and double quote the article in, in that listing effortlessly hits 90 miles an hour on the highway and not be all over three lanes.

Crew Chief Brad: Not me. That is marketing gold right there. I’ll be all over it. So wait, can it mountain bike trail? That’s what I want to know. No, it cannot.

Executive Producer Tania: It can take off road challenges. So I

Crew Chief Eric: mean, if a soccer field is an off road challenge for this thing, I mean, I. Okay, hands down. I get it, but

Crew Chief Brad: I will tell you this thing looks killer parked outside the local Starbucks

Crew Chief Eric: Does it fit in the parking spot?

Crew Chief Brad: It fits in three of them

It does long ones like a cracker barrel [01:33:00] fits it,

Crew Chief Brad: but it’s not all up all over four lanes

Tesla gonna Tesla

Executive Producer Tania: I feel like there’s been more than just this time that it’s happened, or maybe this is the same article I’m just misremembering, or it happened again. Another Tesla model exploding in a garage in China.

Are they being used as bombs? Like, I mean, I’m not trying to make a joke of it, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Crew Chief Brad: This, this is a covert ops mission on the US to destroy China by blowing them up with Tesla batteries.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, there’s never really too much information about these articles. It’s just kind of like, Oh, this happened. And I’m like, I know, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of it happening before. It’s unclear. I mean, could it be someone deliberately doing this?

Crew Chief Eric: You have a serial Tesla exploder. I don’t know.

Executive Producer Tania: Not trying to start a new rumor. No,

his perfume line, his perfume line is [01:34:00] called Musk by Elon. Well, you know this. That’s the scented

Crew Chief Brad: candle, Musk by Elon. This solves the problem of not being able to heat your Tesla with, you know, so you just start a fire.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh god.

All right, so I’m going to set the stage for you. Okay. Somewhere in This

Executive Producer Tania: is fantastic, and I’ve only watched like two

seconds. Somewhere in Appalachia, there is a race that none

Crew Chief Eric: of us have ever seen before, and it is considered the most insane Barbie racing ever. We posted this on the show notes, so you definitely need to check it out.

Executive Producer Tania: This is, this is 15 minutes, so I’m just going to All

you need is the first 10 seconds.

Crew Chief Eric: It is like a 15 minute video, but to Tanya’s point, you only need about 10 seconds to get the gist of where this is going.

Executive Producer Tania: This is [01:35:00] adults riding power wheels down rough dirt hill. It is

the funniest thing I have seen a long

Executive Producer Tania: time.

Oh, MG the, the, the crazy dangerous things people do and they’re like crashing. They’re like flipping off these things.

Crew Chief Eric: One guy makes it, one guy makes and the crowd goes. And it’s kind of funny because it’s like a J shaped ski slope almost, but it’s super rough to your point. And there’s people lining. I mean, I’m surprised they’re not out there with air horns and like cowbells and stuff like you’d see, but the wrecks are spectacular.

Executive Producer Tania: Is the guy who won, cause I’ve just been randomly fast forwarding through this thing is the guy who won the dude in the, in the United States flag onesie.

Crew Chief Eric: I think he’s the only one that makes it all the way down without the thing, blowing up, flipping over or crashing into the people. But it’s fantastic.

Crew Chief Brad: The guy I just saw, he made it all the way. He had to pick it up and carry it the rest of the way. Oh yeah,

it happens too because like it’s half busted, but it still [01:36:00] counts if they carry it across the line. It is outrageous. I’ve never

Executive Producer Tania: seen anything like this. He did make it down. He did make it down on like a, what looked like maybe a hummer.

Yes, yes, that’s the one.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: And then he, and then he stands there in his United States flag, onesie, chugging a beer.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, again, motor sports fans, all sorts of different disciplines. And this one I’d never seen before. So apparently downhill power wheel, Super G is where it’s at right now.

Crew Chief Brad: I will tell you that this is not, I mean, there’s something very similar to this in the motorcycle world where they do it with big wheels on roads like tail of the dragon.

Crew Chief Eric: All I know is the rule book for this is non existent. It’s a paperback. And there are no safety regulations whatsoever.

Executive Producer Tania: This guy like went down. I think it was. Get a little G power. He like flipped over and like barrel rolled and all in three of the wheels like blew off its power wheels. That’s the man that takes

Crew Chief Brad: it [01:37:00] up and then carries it across the line.

Crew Chief Eric: It is amazing. This is definitely hashtag hold my beer. Well, I will say this, it’s right up there with some videos that we saw, and we may attach this to the show notes, which is the guys that are building the cardboard sleds and running them down the tube slides. This is right there with it, but this is more of the Shiner approach to that style of racing.

So, both worth watching, both absolutely hilarious. So, if you guys recall from a previous drive thru episode. I clued you in on one piece of would you like fries with that, where a gentleman wanted to figure out how good and show the world how good square bodies really are. So if you remember this clown, you know, it’s 20 minutes of your life you’ll never get back.

Well he created another video where he decided that he needed to put a Hellcat, brand new, on a set of horse and buggy wheels and see how far he could get. So I’m like, all right. Same idiot as before. [01:38:00] Let me clue in on this. Let me watch it. And I’m just baffled. He’s, you know, talking about a sponsor built these hubs for him so he could put these, you know, Conestoga wagon wheels on this thing and he makes it work.

I see the car in the garage. And my next question is, how does this thing turn? Are these hubs big enough? How does this change the geometry of the car? All this kind of stuff. So he pulls it out the garage and, you know, normal stupidity ensues and he’s doing burnouts and like all this kind of stuff and whatnot.

But he drives it into town, drives it through a McDonald’s drive through, like all these kinds of people are looking at him. He gets screwed up. spooked by the cops a little bit because he’s, you know, he’s driving, basically he’s driving around illegally on these horse and buggy wheels. They let him go by.

Then he, you know, tries to do some burnouts and whatnot. And by the end of this thing, you’re just appalled because you feel bad for the car because you notice the amount of damage he’s doing to it. The hubs aren’t big enough. The wagon wheels bashing into the fenders, they’re pinching the body panels and whatnot.

I mean, this brand new Hellcat is basically ruined. And then when he does this kind of final [01:39:00] burnout, the wagon wheel, the tire just like is obliterated. And then because of the way those tires are built, it ends up whipping the side of the car. And it just, it just beats the fenders in and it ruins the pain.

And, you know, they’re having, they’re laughing and having a good time. And I’m just like, this is just more internet brain rot. If you want to see what these guys are up to, check it out. We posted the video, but I just beside myself.

Crew Chief Brad: I’ve only got one question

Executive Producer Tania: for all the Quakers. Oh yeah. Yeah. The Amish rather.

Cause why does he have to dress up like that?

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t know. He didn’t do that in the square body video. So

Crew Chief Brad: I want to know when, at what point in the video does he die of dysentery? We’re gonna call that car the Oregon Trail.

Executive Producer Tania: But you never actually see, there’s never actually video of him turning. All the video is always ever of the steering wheel straight.

Trying to like skip through to see because I don’t understand. The turning radius would be a bit.

Crew Chief Eric: Horrendous, horrendous. I

Executive Producer Tania: mean a Volkswagen would [01:40:00] have a better turning radius. Than this thing.

Absolutely.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, cause you’re right. The, the little bicycle tire would just hit the fender after a minimal amount of steering wheel input.

That’s just, wow. Somebody who’s got too much money.

Crew Chief Brad: I just feel sad for that. Okay.

Crew Chief Eric: I guess that pretty much wraps up. Would you like fries with that? So let’s just touch on a couple quick pieces of news and some thank yous and whatnot. As we wrap up this final episode of the drive through for season one.

Something to note on our end. You know, we’re really planning to have a really cool year this year. You know, obviously last year was a bit of a bust. Um, we were able to launch the podcast and still do some, some events throughout 2020. We’re hoping 2021 will be a lot better for the GTN members and our fans and everybody else.

So we’ve got some exciting things planned. Obviously we have still not now nailed down. We’re still When and where summer bash is going to be. That’s always the big question. That’s our big anniversary party. So as soon as we know that we’ll let you guys know, we are still projecting on going to some big name events, uh, some [01:41:00] races and whatnot.

We’re going to, we’re going to maybe do some drag racing this year, some off roading this year. We’re going to go to tail the dragon. There’s a lot of really cool stuff 2021 schedule. So it’s not all. Just about going to the track and making some left and right turns and sometimes going straight, you know, look out for that.

Watch the club schedule on the, on our website and just stay tuned for more. I also want to do a quick shout out, you know, to all our sponsors. You know, we picked up some new relationships over the winter. You know, obviously a big thank you to Garage Riot for helping us out with the VRL. Big thank you again to Dave Peters and the guys at HPD Junkie for always supplying us with up to date information there.

You know, the boys at Chazz’s, you know, and so on down the line and all of our sponsors, we did pick up a new one Harper home services of Michigan. So if you’re in our new middle and west region, and you’re looking for somebody to help you out there with home remodeling and things like that, reach out to HHS.

Their website is Harper homes of michigan. com and you can see what’s going on there. But we do have a bunch of [01:42:00] new patrons to thank throughout these winter months. So we’re going to go through that list and make sure we do a quick shout out to all those folks that have been supporting us, you know, and funding us and things of that nature.

Crew Chief Brad: Big shout out to Christine and Amr, Jim and Sue Miller, Rebecca Griffith,

Crew Chief Eric: Harry Brill,

Crew Chief Brad: Michael Sonderby, John and Carolyn Wade.

Crew Chief Eric: And BJ, the better Harrington.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, I would, I would argue that Bruiser is the better Harrington. Well,

Crew Chief Eric: that’s true.

Crew Chief Brad: But we, we, we would be remiss if we did not give a shout out to the, the show’s, you know, creator and, uh, organizer and manager and all around great person.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that’s true. Thank you for a great season one. We look forward to what’s coming in season two. And again, to everybody that’s out there, everything that we’re doing, the podcast, the Instagram, the website, the live streaming, the VRLs, the charity events, everything that we’ve done. We’ve got going on. We are super busy here at HQ.

[01:43:00] None of this stuff would be possible without your guys support as fans, as members, as contributors, as authors, you know, et cetera. And we want to thank all of our guests that have come on the show in season one. I mean, we could sit here and rattle off all their names and go back over the episodes, but you know what?

You can do that by visiting our podcast. You’re already listening to it, so go back and look at all those guests that we’ve had. We’ve put out almost 50 episodes in less than a year. So we are geared up to do about the same next year with all new content, all new guests, really big names, really awesome stuff.

So look forward to great and new content coming into this new year. 2021 season. So again, thank you all. You know, none of this would be possible without you. So we tip our hats and we say, here’s the next season. Goodbye. Bus

cars in back of us all just waiting to order. There’s some [01:44:00] idiot and a Volvo lights on behind me. Highly not going to scream. Hey, what you’re trying to do? Blind me. My wife says maybe we should

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out on www. gtmotorsports. org. You can also find us on Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, You can call or text us at 202 630 1770, or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.

org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization. And our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for [01:45:00] bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag.

For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of Fig Newtons, Gummy Bears, Consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com forward slash GT Motorsports. And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

• 00:00 Introduction and Sponsorships
• 00:54 Season One Finale and Upcoming Season Two
• 01:52 Volkswagen 2022 Golf R Review
• 04:12 Volkswagen’s Manual Transmission and Model Changes
• 07:59 Stellantis Merger and SRT Division Changes
• 11:48 New Jeep Grand Cherokee L
• 14:03 SSC Tuatara Speed Record Controversy
• 17:27 Super Bowl Car Commercials
• 28:35 Toyota GR Yaris vs. Nissan GTR Nismo
• 31:39 Retro Car Sales: Dodge Viper
• 33:29 Viper vs. Jeep Patriot: A Surprising Sales Comparison
• 34:26 Modding the Viper: A Japanese Tuner’s Unique Take
• 36:56 Porsche’s Attempt to Replace the 911: The 928 Prototype
• 40:46 Reviving the Mark II Escort: A UK Company’s Ambitious Project
• 42:16 Audi e-tron GT: A New Era of Electric Performance
• 47:30 The C8 Corvette: New Versions and a Hybrid Twist
• 49:57 Fiat 500 Drag Race: A Battle Across Decades
• 55:02 Ford Mustang Mach-E: A Controversial EV
• 01:05:19 Renault R5 EV: A Retro Revival
• 01:06:31 Hyundai Ioniq 5: Entering the EV Hot Hatch Market
• 01:08:17 BMW’s Bold Design Choices
• 01:08:55 Rolls Royce Enters the EV Market
• 01:10:36 Tesla’s Reliability and Financial Secrets
• 01:14:39 Global Chip Shortage Impact on EVs
• 01:17:38 Motor Sports News and Updates
• 01:22:38 Virtual Racing League for Charity
• 01:24:06 Winter Highlights and Fun Stories
• 01:40:15 Wrapping Up Season One

• GTM’s VRL for Charity – Virtual Racing for LUPUS