B/F: The Drive Thru #11

• GMC Hummer EV’s Weight And Quickness Raise Safety Concerns
• Chevy Is Cutting the 2021 C8 Corvette Production Because of a Parts Shortage

• World's first supercapacitor-hybrid electric motorcycle will get a chance to prove itself

• Toyota GR Yaris Destroyed in Rollover Crash at a Track Day

• Nicolas Cage’s Car Collection Is A National Treasure
• Missing Legendary 1960 Corvette Race Car Sells For $785K
• Why an Ancient, Rusted, Tree-Indented Jaguar Just Sold for $127,552
• Breaker breaker Bandit! Hoard of vintage Trans Ams and Firebirds to be auctioned in Kansas
• 1986 Citroën 2CV Roadster by Burton
• ‘MythBusters’ Spinoff: ‘Motor MythBusters’ Stars Tory Belleci, Faye Hadley, Bisi Ezerioha
• Discovery+ Sets Classic Car Restoration Series With ‘The Grand Tour’ Star Richard Hammond

• Rolls-Royce Boat Tail is a custom stunner that's ready for a picnic

Super/Hypercar “Users Guide” – CLK GTR

• Nissan Has Intern Sit in Stop-and-Go Traffic Every Day for Months – for Research

Human Power!

• Harvick left fuming over NASCAR's decision to race in rain at COTA
• THE WOMEN OF PARETTA AUTOSPORT
• INSIGHT: What was going on with the brakes at Indy?
• Toyota turned a 2020 Prius into a rally car, and it rules
• BMW to make top-flight sportscar racing return in 2023
• Former FIA President Max Mosley passes at 81 years young
• Moto3 rider Jason Dupasquier dies after Mugello crash

• Alfa Romeo CEO Keen On Bringing Back GTV And Duetto Sports Cars
• Alfa Romeo plans electrified brand revival, starting with electric GTV

• Tesla To Deliver Model S Plaid On June 3; Musk Calls It 'Fastest Production Car Ever'
• Las Vegas Loop Launches with Tesla Cars, Minus Some Promised Features
• Unplugged Performance Reveals Insane Model S Plaid Pikes Peak Racer

• 2022 Audi RS e-tron GT first drive: this is a luxury rocket
• VW says Lamborghini is not for sale after reported $9.2 billion bid
• No Bull: Lamborghini is Going All Hybrid and Electric By 2025
• VW ID.3 GTX Electric Hot Hatchback Previewed, ID.X Concept Has Drift Mode
• VW Starts Turning Greek Island into an EV Oasis
• 2022 Audi RS3's Turbo Five-Cylinder Will Have 401 HP

Super/Hypercar “Users Guide” – Porsche GT-1

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 Break Fix and all the other services we provide.

Donovan Lara: Welcome to the drive through episode 11. This is our monthly recap. We put together a menu of automotive motorsport and random car adjacent news. Now let’s pull up to the window for some automotive goodness.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, and tonight our. special guest host filling in for Brad is none other than Donovan Lara, CEO of Garage Ride.

He’s a huge fan of our drive thru series and we’re delighted to have him on the show tonight as a co host for our [00:01:00] monthly news series. Let’s kick it off. Tanya in studio. I think we’re going to start off with Show

Executive Producer Tania: me the money. At least that’s what the government is saying. That’s not what Ford wants to do.

Apparently they’ve been hit with a 1. 3 billion dollar penalty for importing Transit Connect vans. Aren’t those the vans that they make? They were previously built in Turkey, imported into the United States at a very low import tax. Then apparently they were stripped of their interiors and then reconfigured to be the transportation vans that they’re known to be here.

The U. S. Customs Control, they stepped in and said, um, Actually, you guys were paying the wrong tariff that whole time. Ooh,

Crew Chief Eric: back taxes, interest, and penalties. So now it’s

Executive Producer Tania: time to pay us back at the 25 percent rate, not the 2. 5 percent rate. They [00:02:00] lost their first Supreme Court fight. The Supreme Court declined to hear their case, so they ended up having to pay.

Some losses, but they’re still trying to fight some additional penalties and things like that, arguing that at the time, the rules that were put in place, they were abiding by them, which I guess they’re playing the, well, y’all had it wrong. That’s not our fault. I

Crew Chief Eric: mean, I’ve done that before. I mean, who hasn’t done that?

That’s not, I’m not paying that bill. That’s your fault. That’s not my fault. I mean, I can’t

Executive Producer Tania: blame them if that’s how it went down.

Donovan Lara: This is the old chicken tax thing where it’s 25%. So first of all, why is that even still a tax? And second of all, is a light van, a transit van, really a light truck? That’s kind of the rule, right?

It’s pickup trucks or any kind of trucks that come into us. That’s really gray area to me. And I didn’t understand in the article too, where they talk about, they bring the transit connects over and take the windows out. What does that have to do with the

Executive Producer Tania: seats in the windows? Maybe that’s, was their angle that in that configuration of how they were built in Turkey, somehow it doesn’t qualify as a truck.

Well, they’re [00:03:00] not

Crew Chief Eric: fully assembled at that point. So if you think about it that way, it’s coming over as partially assembled.

Donovan Lara: They filled them with chickens and brought them over. They’d probably be okay.

Crew Chief Eric: Let’s face it, Transit Connect is built on what, a Ford Focus chassis or something? It’s not even a truck, it’s really a car at the end of the day.

I can see the bigger Transit, like the one we’re used to seeing in Britain, I think that’s equivalent to like a Ranger or an F 150 or something like that, but if we’re talking about the little guys, that’s just a car. But Ford won’t be outdone. We talk about Chrysler a lot on this show and how the, you know, this is the, the age of the big muscle engines, right?

The 800, 900, 000 horsepowers, all them HRSPRs. And it’s your time to get one before the EV revolution takes over and Skynet is in control of everything. But Ford said, you know what? We’re going to play too Chrysler. 7. 3 liter twin turbo EcoBoost V8. Mark, that’s right. But it’s not going to come in the Raptor and it’s not going to come in the [00:04:00] Mustang.

It’s going to come in the Super Duty pickups. So this is the EcoBoost V8 that everybody’s been waiting for. If you’re a landscaper,

Donovan Lara: so I’m wondering, so we know that Evie revolution is coming in 2030. I’m wondering if this is kind of their last dying attempt to keep good old boys on with the gas engines, because it’s not going to be a seamless transition.

I can’t imagine. Everybody’s going to go. Yep. I want to be an Evie. But it also seems like this was probably in the works before they announced where they’re going to move to Evie, you know, and I know we’re going to talk about Evie’s and things later. It’s really kind of that twist of let’s make a faster truck.

But now we have an Evie coming that weighs a lot more and is a lot faster too. At what point does it end? I mean, how much do you need a twin turbo 7. 3? Of course you do. Do you really, maybe this will end up in something else. Well, here’s

Crew Chief Eric: the disappointing part. If Chrysler had built this truck, 1500 horsepower and 9, 000, right.

Built on a Mesozoic era Mercedes. I’m sure, you know, AMG power [00:05:00] plant, but this, the thing that gets me about these big motors, and we had a debate about this not long ago about that 9. 9 liter Lingenfelter Suburban, and I won’t get into that drama, but, but what gets me about this motor 7. 3 liters twin turbo.

430 horsepower and 475 torques. I need double those numbers to justify this motor. And I think to your point, Donovan, when the EV comes out, the EV is going to feel faster in the same truck because the torque distribution, the way it just puts the power down immediately. You don’t have to build up to those 475.

It’s just boom right away. Maybe it’s a little bit of both. Keep the guys engaged, but also be like, look how much cooler the EV is. You can get all those Torquems right away.

Donovan Lara: Well, it’s interesting you say that because, you know, typically diesel, right? Is, well, I shouldn’t say always twice the horsepower, but it’s usually up there with these numbers, 430 and 475, that seems uncharacteristic.

It should be 430 and 700, 800 foot pounds. So I wonder what the long game is here. Maybe this is, they’re going to put this in something to make it faster. [00:06:00] It’s confusing to me. It seems like a weird time and it seems like a weird number. So maybe there’s something we don’t know that’s going on.

Crew Chief Eric: I wouldn’t mind it in the Mustang and then turn it up to 11.

I mean, 1100, I think it would be pretty cool to have that twin turbo V8 in there with a factory warranty to boot. But moving on, we got to talk about EVs a little bit.

Executive Producer Tania: The recent sales numbers for May in our, you know, friendly country of Norway, tell us that the Mustang Mach E, sorry, just Mach E, we shall not say Mustang, even though that’s what it is.

Crew Chief Eric: The Ford Escape.

Executive Producer Tania: Let’s not digress on the poor name choice, but the Mach E, apparently. Was the highest selling electric vehicle in Norway, selling out Tesla.

Crew Chief Eric: So what you’re telling me is the Will Ferrell commercials from the Superbowl didn’t really do it. Uh,

Donovan Lara: I think this is a clear indication that Norway and the rest of the world doesn’t understand how cool Elon Musk is.

That’s gotta be what it is, right? They’re still fanboys of everything American. So Ford’s got [00:07:00] one. It’s really cool, but maybe they just don’t get, you know, the whole Tesla.

Executive Producer Tania: So, so you say that, and then it says. That the model three ranked six on the sales list. So I’m thinking Norway must be fan boys of a lot more than just Ford, because Toyota and Skoda were higher on the list than the model three.

So,

Donovan Lara: although the RAV4 is up there better than the model three, I don’t know what that says about Norway. Is that really a RAV4 or is that the Hilux? It says RAV4 hybrid. And what is the Enyaq from Volkswagen?

Executive Producer Tania: The Skoda.

Donovan Lara: Is that how you say that?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. The

Donovan Lara: brand is Skoda. Can you imagine? Hey, sweetheart.

Tonight we’re taking the Enyaq. I don’t think that works. And we’re sleeping in a yurt.

Executive Producer Tania: So there’s also a headline about the Mach E outproduced the gas powered Mustang. You gotta take it with a little bit of a discerning eye because part of the, I think there were only a thousand cars more than the gas powered [00:08:00] Mustang because of the semiconductor shortage.

They prioritized building the electric. Cars versus the gas powered cars. So there could be a little bit of funniness in those numbers, a little bit of artificial inflation there that the Mach E actually had higher production. Yes, because they forced higher production in a way. I think we need a little more time.

We need the world to balance itself back out and not have all these production shortages and supply chain issues. And then see how these numbers. Line out. I mean, inevitably I would imagine that yes, the Mach E will probably eventually outpace its gasoline brother.

Donovan Lara: I don’t know the numbers on this car, but is the price of a Mach E compared to what?

The V6 Mustang? The GT Mustang?

Crew Chief Eric: The V6 that they don’t make anymore?

Donovan Lara: Right. It’s got to be faster, right? And it’s the new kind of cool kid on the block. I’ll admit when I first heard about the Mach E, I thought it was super lame. I saw one actually at Amelia Island. They had the race trim [00:09:00] version. They had this, and you know, we all saw the hype videos, right?

The drifting and the sliding videos. I think there’s just a cool factor in here that is present with this because it’s new, it’s shiny that, you know, the Mustang is kind of aged a little bit, even though they keep updating every couple of years, but I don’t know if I hate to say that, but I think it’s cool.

I mean, I’m looking at the picture now, the red one. Would I buy one? Probably not, but I kind of see the appeal a little bit. You know, I think it’d be cool. I’d love to get hold of one and burn the tires off it for sure.

Crew Chief Eric: When I saw it for the first time in the DC auto show in the, before four times, you know, pre COVID in the right color, the mock E is a stunner in the wrong color, like that baby vomit beige.

That they’re offering it in. It’s absolutely terrible. It just, it just looks awful. So I think color has a lot to do with it. The red is really nice that they chose kind of similar to the Mazda red that’s out there and what’s available in the Mustangs really gets your attention. At the end of the day, what I have trouble with, despite the kind of like shooting break design, it kind of reminiscent, I’ve said it before of like a Scirocco or, or Corrado, if you look at it with like a half [00:10:00] drunk, one eye open type of deal.

Is that it’s still a Ford Escape with electric power plant. And so for me, that’s a pill to swallow. It’s like, there’s such an upcharge and it’s like, is it worth it? But it’s cool. And compared to some of the other EVs, yes, but no. And it’s so there’s a lot of consternation there. And so I think I want to wait a little bit longer and maybe there’ll be a.

Mach e gt and, you know, big tires and flares and spoilers and stuff. Reminiscent of the 1400, right? Or something like that, that’s a little bit more appealing to the boy racer in me, you know? And, and we’ll see if that that ever happens.

Donovan Lara: It looks like they start at 42 8 is what I’m seeing, so, whew. Yeah, I don’t know.

I’d like to see the performance numbers between that and the

Crew Chief Eric: Mustang. Speaking of chip shortages, it’s probably no surprise, and we reported it more than once, that the chip shortages are across the board. Ford is not alone, Toyota’s not alone, Volkswagen, and of course Chevy. And we recently heard that, you know, the excuse is that because of chip shortages, they’re going to stop producing the Camaro.

We talked about that, I believe, on the last episode of the drive thru or the [00:11:00] one before, but now they have halted production of the Corvette. And I’m going to say maybe that’s not a bad idea because they can fix some of the outstanding recalls with the C8 Corvette. So if you’re in line to get a C8, you’re going to have to wait a little bit longer.

And if you were fortunate to get a 2020 C8, the value on those is now going up.

Donovan Lara: Can I say thank you for stopping production on the Camaro? I don’t know if last time you’re out, start counting V6 Camaros. No offense to anybody that’s got a Camaro out there, but they are. All over the place. Yeah, I think the C8s are really cool.

It’s amazing to me though. You know, even in 2021 with the premium they were getting, you know, from people in the aftermarket, you see them on the, you know, the used car lots right now. There’s a mini dealer not far from here. They have three. So if they’re that hot, you know what I mean? How are they ended up in, in some of these scenarios, but yeah, I’m with you.

I think, you know, it’s going to be one of those where hopefully they do have a chance to correct some of those things. It makes me think of the air conditioning and the, the radiators are in the front. You know, hit a [00:12:00] lot of pebbles and bruise, all those veins, you know, was that too soon to come to market?

Crew Chief Eric: The real problem is that your typical Corvette driver, not to offend any Corvette drivers. And I love the Corvette club and I work with them on many occasions is that that target demographic, I would say some of those guys are ready for the mid engine car, but I think having. Moved away from the traditional platform, you begin to realize that the cockpit is small.

It’s laid out very different. It’s not the most comfortable car in the world. If you’ve driven other mid engine Elise’s or Porsche’s and whatnot, they’re kind of awkward and they’re not easy to get in and out of because of the door shape and things like that. And so maybe there’s a turnoff there. For me, the big turnoff with the C8 is the back, like whoever designed the back of that thing.

Cut off the rear end of a Camaro and slapped it on an Acura NSX. And this is how we got the C8. Style isn’t everything, I get it. I think there’s some shortcomings with the Corvette that weren’t foreseen. I would still argue that we need to keep the classic front engine rear drive Vette along with this mid engine under a different name and offer [00:13:00] both.

Because the C7, it was like, man, finally got it right. But then we discontinued it.

Donovan Lara: Yeah. Race proven.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. Absolutely. We’re still talking about Fords. I know it sounds like we’re talking about bow ties, but in reality, we’re still talking about Ford. They are our showcase this month.

Executive Producer Tania: The other exciting EV that they’ve got going on, aside from, you know, the Mach E, however you feel about it, is the F 150.

Lightning, which I think we had talked about last month. They finally gave it a name instead of calling it the F 150E. They’re bringing back that Lightning name, which is very suiting to an electric. They debuted just over a month ago. And as of about two weeks ago, it would already hit a hundred thousand reservations.

Wow. Pretty good. So there is definitely a lot of interest. in this truck. But the real thing to talk about here is the weight of this vehicle. You know, I saw this, this article, I was like, let me click it. Cause you know, Oh, they’ve got a, you know, big weight problem or something. I’m like, [00:14:00] okay, what are they talking about?

I never thought about it before. Cause I’m not a really a truck person. I don’t have a truck. So I don’t think in terms of truck tonnage, but I was blown away for a moment when I read how much this sucker is going away. 6, 500 pounds. Which is 35 percent increase over its gas cousin, which is because of the huge battery.

The weight of the battery is 1, 800 pounds alone. The weight of the battery is practically the weight of my car.

Crew Chief Eric: I thought lithium ions were supposed to be light. 1, 800 pounds. What are they making it out of? Lead? I don’t

Executive Producer Tania: know. And then apparently the Model 3, because they wanted to give you a little perspective here.

The Tesla Model 3 actually weighs a thousand pounds more than a Honda Civic. I’m assuming the newer Honda Civic.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, you mean the Accord?

Executive Producer Tania: But, I mean, wow! These things are heavy. And so when I saw 6, 500 pounds, the immediate thing that came to my mind is Living down [00:15:00] here in the South, rolling around in a lowered hatchback.

So many trucks roll up next to me that their side mirrors are sometimes over the roofline of my car. They don’t weigh 6, 500 pounds, but if one of them ever T boned me through an intersection, y’all, it was a good run. I can’t even imagine one of these bad

Crew Chief Eric: boys. It’s like getting hit by a train with 35 percent more weight.

That’s insane. The E 150, I mean the lightning. Isn’t the only one to suffer concerns about weight.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s not the heaviest one out there. No, because we’ve all heard about the Hummer EV, right? And how the Hummer was already a mastodon. But you thought 6, 500 pounds was bad. Imagine this blowing through an intersection and you’re in your Miata.

9, 046 pounds. Guess what the U S license restriction before you have to get a different license, the vehicle must weigh under 10, [00:16:00] 000 pounds. That

Donovan Lara: is two Tesla model S’s by the way, they weigh between 4, 500 and 4, 900 pounds. That’s two of those.

Executive Producer Tania: That is too much.

Donovan Lara: That’s where this whole thing gets kind of crazy for me.

So, you know, years ago when Porsche came out with a turbo Cayenne, you know, we talked about how fast you need to go in an SUV, right? Sports cars. I get it. But, you know, do you need to go 200 miles an hour in an SUV? So now with all of this EV, pretty much all that we’re going to have to change the standard by the way that we measure performance, right?

They’re all going to be zero to 16, three point seconds or less. How fast do you need to go in an EV, especially one that weighs twice? Or maybe even in that case, sometimes three times the size of a regular car. I think it’s crazy. I, you know, there’s gotta be some kind of limitation there because that’s almost a weapon.

That’s 9, 000 pounds coming at you. And I would assume they probably taught that thing off at 150 miles an hour. Don’t know why it should go that fast, but there’s gotta be something there.

Executive Producer Tania: And [00:17:00] I’m assuming that’s 9,000 pounds minus the six friends you put in them each weighing, I don’t know, 150 to 200 pounds each

Crew Chief Eric: But you still need a CDL to drive the thing. But you know, Donovan, you brought up a really good point and it, and it begs a couple questions. If the cops are still running Crown Victoria’s in Chargers, does this fee that you can now outrun Motorola if you are that fast, because a 200 mile an hour take hand.

I mean, that’s pretty good.

Donovan Lara: Take a battery, runs out. And then

Executive Producer Tania: here’s the problem though, cop cars are reinforced and all that other stuff to also be able to ram you as a tactic for stopping chases or things like that. The crown Victoria against 9, 000 pounds.

Donovan Lara: That’s a good point. The cops

Executive Producer Tania: are going to need to upgrade to like tractor trailer.

Donovan Lara: It makes me think of, there was an article in garage ride about a month or two ago of the guy that keeps getting his, is it a model three impounded? Because he puts it on autopilot and jumps in the back seat because he wants to be chauffeured around and they just impound his car. And his whole [00:18:00] thing is, well, screw you.

I’ll just buy another one. So he’s on like his seventh or eighth model three, because he just wants to jump in the back seat and drive. I

Executive Producer Tania: thought that wasn’t. It’s supposed to be possible because that accident that happened in Texas where they found the occupants in the backseat, which it’s unclear whether the guy ended up in the backseat because he was trying to escape or not, or was really in the backseat.

But allegedly, you know, Musk said that’s impossible. You have to be sitting in the driver’s seat.

Donovan Lara: Now, but every time you talk to somebody that owns a Tesla. Edson on graduate. Paul is one of them. He’ll tell you, Oh, they didn’t do this part or they weren’t really autonomously driving. They were, you know, so there’s always that excuse, but my favorite.

And then I’ll stop talking about EVs is the guy that he went out to the salt flats and it wasn’t even, it was pre EV and he put his, I think, suburban on cruise control, jumped in the back seat and had a sandwich and tried to see, I think he was doing a hundred miles an hour. Maybe it was faster than that.

And that was his whole thing. So it’s not autonomous or not. Idiots everywhere. So

Executive Producer Tania: the other factor of this is kind of what [00:19:00] happened. I hope the same thing doesn’t happen, but it’s probably inevitable because it’s what happened to some extent when SUVs, the Ford Explorer, all those originally started coming to be is, well, I’m safer in my Ford Explorer if I’m in an accident.

Well, yeah, because you weigh. Twice the weight of, you know, a Miata. So when you, you drive in your Ford Explorer, run over top of a Miata, of course you fare better than the guy in the Miata. So now we’re at the same thing again, where you’re being surrounded by vehicles that weigh two to three times as much as you.

So now what? All the cars are just going to get even heavier.

Donovan Lara: Yeah, that is a selling point. I’m glad you brought that up. Now I’m going to trade in the Explorer for something big and heavy to protect everybody. I kid. No, I kid. Yeah, you’re, you’re totally right. There should be something in there that totally, uh, evens the playing

Crew Chief Eric: field.

And you know what totally evens that playing field is a teaser for Brad’s lost and found series. So let’s switch gears a little bit here because you never guess what we found. Still talking about Fords. A young man recently purchased [00:20:00] A Terminator Mustang. And for those of you that don’t know what that is, it’s an SN 95 Mustang, 2004 era as they came from the factory with a supercharger.

This was convertible and it has a whopping 534 miles. And as the story goes. This car was purchased in Alabama and sat in a garage for 15 years. It still has the factory stickers on it, the wrappings, the plastic over the seats, and the carpet. The car basically had never really been driven. It then was sold to another gentleman in New Hampshire who had it for four years.

And then this young gentleman bought the car, looked into all its history to make sure that it was legit and the odometer hadn’t been messed with and all that. And he bought it. He’s now the proud owner of this Terminator Mustang and has subsequently driven it, modded it, and the value has plummeted through the floor.

So congratulations on owning a new to you, a 15 plus year old Mustang Cobra.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, I was trying to, for a minute there, I was trying to remember. It’s like, there wasn’t. Mustang and the Terminator movies. [00:21:00]

Crew Chief Eric: No, the Terminator was a package for the Mustang. And that’s what gave you the supercharger and the body kit and some different wheels and some other stuff.

I knew a couple of guys that had them. I rode in one. They were wicked fast for the day. I mean, we’re talking 2004 era in those days, if you were making 400 plus horsepower, like, you know, the LS twos and this thing, that was something to write home about now. 400 horsepower. I mean, your regular old minivan has 400 horsepower.

I think there’s one last Ford story that we want to cover,

Executive Producer Tania: you know, again, or exciting things happening right now. And the Bronco has recently debuted. And honestly, I have seen a lot of these recently,

Crew Chief Eric: the full size one or the little guy, the sport, I’ve seen

Executive Producer Tania: both.

Crew Chief Eric: Really?

Executive Producer Tania: Apparently they’re a fan favorite down here.

I’ve seen them in all sorts of different colors, sizes. Yeah. I was surprised to see so many in such a short period of time. So they are out and about and I don’t, you know, they don’t look terrible. That’s saying a lot. I don’t. I don’t mind. I like seeing them [00:22:00] on the road, but this person, of course, the Bronco got to be off roading all that good stuff built for tough for a reason.

These folks, they were in Rio Ranch in Mexico, off roading on some trails and somehow managed to roll the Bronco down this steep Hill into this gully or ravine ish type, you know, area landed upside down, some things on its roof. Barrel roll down the hill

Crew Chief Eric: on turtle

Executive Producer Tania: spinning the tires. It can’t right side itself, the driver, passenger, whoever they were fine.

Kudos to the integrity of the passenger cabin can withstand a roll down. You know, the folks were out. You know, in the middle of nowhere, wherever this was, they started pinging, I think, local off road communities and whatnot. And of course, as you’ve heard, if you’ve listened to some of the other podcasts about that off roading community, they’re brothers and sisters in arms, and they will come to the aid of a fellow off roader.

A bunch of people mobilized [00:23:00] immediately, started working strategies and plans to get the Bronco right side up and back up this steep ditch that it was in. The incredible thing, they got it right side up after a lot of, you know, maneuvering and MacGyvering or whatever. It still ran and drove on

Crew Chief Eric: its own power.

I got two questions. Maybe Donovan can answer these first question. How many Jeeps did it take to fix this problem? And the second question is which of Brian Cranston’s nine goat modes allows you to roll the Bronco over down the hill?

Donovan Lara: You know, I’m really impressed with that community. How about that? I mean, the guy said, Hey, I left it in this gully.

Can somebody come help me? And they all came in swarms, but you know, it was a hold my beer moment, right? Let me see if I can get it out of there. I don’t quite know why somebody took it off roading. I mean, you know, it’s not really an off road car, right? I had an X, a BMW X5 for a while and tried to get into my neighborhood when it was snowing lightly and slid all the way down the hill and about landed in the lake.

So, you [00:24:00] know, I think you would know better unless you’re in big knobbies or something, but that community to me is amazing. And you see that sometimes where people say, Hey, you know, listen, I’m stranded on the side of the road. Can you come get me? And for the most part, it goes, you know, unchecked. But, uh, I think that’s definitely the coolest part of the story for sure.

Crew Chief Eric: But, but, but goat modes, it has goat modes.

Executive Producer Tania: And maybe that’s a problem where people think it’s more capable than maybe it actually is. Just like people get in their not fully autonomous self driving car.

Crew Chief Eric: Don’t believe what you see on

Donovan Lara: TV. I’ve been saying that forever. I think it was a rental. I think some guys got together and said, Hey, let’s take this thing out in the, in the woods.

Crew Chief Eric: Got a little happy, but good for Ford, right? I mean, kind of wrapping up that segment. There is our showcase of news articles on Ford this month. I have a lot of things going on. I see a lot of things on the up. The Maki is doing well. The lightning is pre sold out. The Broncos are now kind of everywhere.

They’re kicking ass and taking names now. Granted, they’re not building 1000 horsepower muscle cars like [00:25:00] Chrysler, and I put them in a close second. second place and Chevy, I don’t know. They’re still out to lunch, whatever. But there is some news coming from Stellantis this month.

Executive Producer Tania: So when I saw the headline, Alfa Romeo CEO, keen on bringing back GTV and Duetto sports cars, I obviously clicked it.

Crew Chief Eric: This is Pavlovian. I have started to salivate as you were reading that. Cause I’m like

Executive Producer Tania: GTV. Yes, please. Yeah, you had me at that. And to quote him, I’m very interested in the GTV. There is no statement or announcement at this stage, but I’m just giving you a personal feeling that I’m very interested in the GTV.

I also love the duetto. Allow me to bring Alfa Romeo to a certain level of economic performance, and then we speak. Yes,

Crew Chief Eric: please. This is so Italian. And then we speak. I love it because you know what, as passionate and as interested as the CEO of alpha is, I’m right behind him in line because when his interest peaks, mine will too, because I will be in line to put a deposit [00:26:00] on this car because I need an alpha male in my life and it needs to be a GTV.

And let me tell you something about this car. Cause as I was looking at this article, you know, it gets me because You know, the parent company of Chrysler and Alfa Romeo and Fiat Ferrari and all these other brands that they now own, there is this Italian passion amongst all the lines and it is not to be just contained within the Hellcat and the Challenger.

Oh, no, because the GTV is going to boast 600 horsepower with eBoost all wheel drive. Including torque vectoring differentials, 50 to 50 perfect weight distribution. And you can carry four passengers, your dog and a load of groceries. Sell me this car, take my freaking money, make it so captain. And I have a feeling

Executive Producer Tania: it’s not 7.

3 liters.

Crew Chief Eric: No, it’s probably a two liter turbo. That’s the worst part.

Donovan Lara: But how about that duetto though? Right? That’s the car that everybody, I think, associates with [00:27:00] alpha. When you think about non car people, that’s the car they should bring and maybe should have brought first, and maybe they don’t launch it with JLo.

Like Fiat did the 500, but that is the money making cart. That’s their Boxster. They’ve got to do that.

Crew Chief Eric: And I don’t understand why they haven’t done it yet because of the Fiat one 24. Take that Miata platform and just reskin it again and put the duetto or what be, you know, the spider, which it became later, right?

It had a very long run in that platform in that body style. So it would only make sense, but maybe they’re not doing it because people just go, it’s just a rebadged 124. But I’m still okay with it.

Donovan Lara: I’m wondering what that’ll do to the collector market too. You know, you bring those cars back. You bring back some of these GTVs.

What’s that going to do to the GTV6 that are still reasonable? I’ve priced some of them recently in the teens and the 20s, and those are

Crew Chief Eric: beautiful

Donovan Lara: cars.

Crew Chief Eric: If you can get one that isn’t a out because most of them you were looking at him o are completely pristine l top gear or the grand tou ago where [00:28:00] he spent a fort some money into it.

But w I mean, all penned by Ju that penned the launch of and a lot of other famous right there with it. And bring it back. That’s the need. But there is a revi Amongst the Alfa Romeo community, you were talking about the older cars where we’ve seen on Instagram and even on garage ride and a lot of other places where people are posting retrofitting EV power trains into these older Alfa Romeos.

And I tell you what, it really lends itself well. The body shapes are still gorgeous. And you’re like, Hey, a reliable power plant that makes a ton of power in a really cool car. So I think it’s going to benefit the community on both ends. If they do start to bring some of these brands back,

Donovan Lara: that’s actually a great idea.

So I had actually looked at, um, you know, the, we’ve talked about it before that 73, nine 11 that I’m restoring, maybe doing an EV swap in it. But one of the things that scared me away from the GTV six is that very thing, that reliability, but an EV, and that might not be a bad idea. [00:29:00] You might’ve turned me onto something there.

There you go.

Executive Producer Tania: So hot off the presses, check this link because Alfa Romeo plans, electrified brand revival, starting with electric GTV retro. Yes, please. Yes, please. You can have my money. Robbed me blind on this one.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m slobbering right now. This thing is gorgeous.

Executive Producer Tania: Rob Mable. I don’t care if it only gets 75 MPGE.

Like, that’s

Crew Chief Eric: an old school. That’s an original. That’s a Giulietta GTV. That’s the precursor to even the GTV6s that we got here in the U. S. in the 80s. This is just iconic Alfa Romeo right here. Gorgeous car. Gorgeous. I mean, I tell you what guys, I am still holding out hope for the GTA, the hatchback, the rear wheel drive that they promised us.

You know, that they’ve been racing in TCR and I have yet to see it. So I, I don’t wanna get super excited even about the GTV. I mean, I love the Julia. Everything that Alpha’s brought so far has been awesome. The Stelvio is a gorgeous car. All of that, it’s [00:30:00] just. Just don’t tease me. Just don’t, just don’t tease me.

Just, you know, don’t break my heart. All right. So we got to switch to the ever functional and let’s call them clinical in some ways. Germans. We got to talk about the Volkswagen Audi group for a little bit. We reported. In previous episodes that the Audi GT has returned and it’s coming in the form of an e tron package.

Gorgeous car. It has that low slung roof, you know, everything that, you know, the A5 has become now as well, where it’s actually a four door, but it looks like a coupe, all that super high price tag. Awesome specs. There’s some, there’s an article that we came across. from electric. co where they’ve gotten a chance to finally drive one of these.

So they give their whole review on that. I highly recommend checking it out. I don’t know when exactly we’re going to get them here. Stateside, probably 22 from what I’m seeing, but there’s more interesting news going on at VAG right now. And it surrounds Lamborghini. Many of you may or may not. Have [00:31:00] heard.

And I saw this come across my desk first while I was surfing on garage riot, that Volkswagen was offered 9. 2 billion. That’s what the B to sell Lamborghini Volkswagen did the wizard of Oz and said, not no way, not know how there isn’t enough money yet for them to sell off their aging R8 platform to another conglomerate to pick up and run with.

And the reason is. that Volkswagen has plans for Lamborghini, and they’ve announced that they’re going all electric with the Lambo’s by 2025. This is coming in three stages. Lamborghini’s future in the next couple of years is actually going to follow suit with everything that’s going on, you know, with the E E tron and Porsche, they’re going to go in that direction where it’s going to be a combination of petrol and hybrid.

So they’re going to go that way, but you’re still going to be able to get your V12 and V10 Lamborghinis, you know, all that craziness. And then you’re going to have like the curves, you know, the boost button and go, go for it. They say that the cyan. Is going to be [00:32:00] the first Lamborghini to have hybridization, and that’s gonna come out in 20 23, 20 24, which is actually kind of cool just in time for lemons.

So maybe we’ll see something going on there as well. We’re gonna talk more about SSA and WEC later in the episode, but they’re gonna go full electric in stage three in 2025 through 2029, where all models will cease to have petrol engines at that point. So it sounds to me like. Volkswagen’s got a six to eight year plan for Lambo, and they’re not really ready to give up on it quite yet.

Donovan Lara: First of all, back to the offer. It feels like some drunk billionaires got together and said, Hey, I think I want to buy Lamborghini. I’m gonna offer some money. I would totally do the same thing. Yeah, you know, it’s, it’s kind of disappointing. I mean, that’s the way everything’s going. But you know, you think about Uh, particularly the Italian supercars and things.

You want to hear that you want to hear that engine rumble. And I mean, I know that Porsche said recently that the nine 11 would be the last car for them to convert to electric, but we know it’s going [00:33:00] to happen. I guess we’re going to be old school in 10 years or 15 years and want that rumble. But again, I go back to the collector market.

To me, this is good news for all current gas powered Lambos, right? Buy them now while you can. Guy rotors, whatever you can get. Cause I just think, you know, the difference is going to be important. Talked about early in the. Show at what point is fast, not the metric to measure anymore. I mean, we’ve already got the Tesla roadster that that’ll do zero to 60 and sub one second with the, with the rocket boosters hanging out the back.

Right. They’ve already exceeded the limits of traction and they’re overcoming that by these boosters. So at some point, you know, you’ve got a C8 that e tron Audi is zero to 60 in three seconds. Everything is zero to 16, three seconds. So why are you buying a Lamborghini at that point? Is it the styling?

It’s not the sound anymore, not the performance anymore. So I know they’re kind of in a, there’s not really much we can do about it, but I feel like they’re on borrowed time as far as what that means.

Crew Chief Eric: And I think you’re right. Even about the styling. I’m not a huge fan of these Lambo concepts I’m seeing for the next six years.

I [00:34:00] think they’re all going the way of the Veneno and the Senna, and they’re just. Too perfect because they’re designed in CAD to be perfect. But they’ve lost the flair of like a Kuntosh or Diablo or a Tesserosa. It’s not just the name that gets you excited. Because when I say those names, petroheads get excited.

Kuntosh, you’re

like,

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, you know, you immediately think David Hasselhoff. But what, what ends up happening though, is they were trendsetters. They were breaking the mold. They were bucking the system and saying, this is what we think is awesome. Either you love it or you hate it. The Kutosh is one of those cars, but most people do love it, but they’re outlandish.

They’re crazy. They’re not functional. They’re complete form over function. Unlike the Germans who are traditionally very clinical, you know, very, you know, pristine about things. Everything’s very, very functional. And then style kind of comes later. I don’t know the new Lambos. It’s a hard pill to swallow.

And I’m, and you’re right. I don’t want to see Lamborghinis go the way of the Condor and become completely extinct, but it’s just, [00:35:00] maybe there’s a time and a place for everything. You know, there’s a reason Packards aren’t still around. Let’s, let’s just say that.

Donovan Lara: Well, and it was cool, right? You know, you, you think about back in the eighties or the sixties or whenever the reason you bought those cars was for their performance.

You bought a Lamborghini because it was faster than anything else. And you guys remember when the 911 turbo hit. You know, sub three and a half seconds. It was, Oh my God, we can’t get any faster than that. And now the Ford lightning will probably do zero to 63. I know the new Tesla truck will, so you’re not buying Lamborghini for that anymore.

And who knows? It’s going to be one of those shifts where we’re not going to see it coming, but maybe styling is, you know, the way the future, maybe it’s coach building again, because you don’t really have to, and the engineering people listening to this will argue with me, but zero to 60, you don’t have to be super aerodynamic.

I mean, not anymore because you’ve got the power. Chrysler

Crew Chief Eric: says all every day. Okay. All I need is a thousand horsepower.

Donovan Lara: So we’ll have bricks that’ll do zero to 60 in three point seconds and they’ll be gorgeous.

Executive Producer Tania: So, you know, the ID Ford finally has made its debut over the last couple of weeks or months.

And I [00:36:00] have seen a couple of them, not as many as Broncos that I’ve seen, but one or two, I have seen out on the road. They also aren’t horrible to look at.

Crew Chief Eric: I like the way she put that. My

Executive Producer Tania: expectations for all these, these days are the bar is low. And I’m not a fan of trucks and SUVs and all these compact crossovers, which to me are just hatchbacks on stilts essentially.

And so why not just have a hatchback, uh, that’s lower to the ground, but whatever. So, you know, the ID four came out first and kind of as their dedicated ev right. They also, you know, at the time it was kind of like a back and forth, I think between the ID four or the ID three, which one’s it gonna be? And the ID three is the hatchback.

If you will, it is a golf, essentially a smaller, yeah. And you know, there was a little bit of hemming and hawing. Do we, do we bring the ID three, but give it more, you know, more GTI in this, but they ended up going with the ID four. And with regards to GTI in this, there are [00:37:00] plans for that for both the ID four and the ID three and the ID four.

Again, we’ll get the package first and it’s. going to carry over I think to all the electric brands and it’ll no longer be GTI, but it will be GTX. So there will be a GTX version of the ID. 4 and there will be a GTX version of the ID. 3 coming out, which makes it sportier and drift mode and all this stuff.

Donovan Lara: Can we just continue to have nice things? Why do they have to change everything? Exactly. Why does every new car need a drift mode? How many people do you know that can drift? I don’t know any. I’m sure there are people, but the BMWs and the Volkswagens and everything else with this drift mode is driving me crazy.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, it’s not really practical if you’re someone whose hobby is to go do drift competitions, you’re going to have an actual car that has been designed and set up

Crew Chief Eric: and has the proper steering articulation to drift. And it’s probably a Nissan

Donovan Lara: Silvia

Executive Producer Tania: when you’re going to the grocery store, three blocks away, you know, you don’t need drift mode, [00:38:00]

Crew Chief Eric: except if you’re Andrew bank.

And if you’re listening, yes.

Donovan Lara: That would make grocery shopping a lot more fun, though.

Crew Chief Eric: But going back to this ID3, the thing that kills me, like, and, you know, Hazmat will tell us all the time, badge engineering has been a thing for 40 years now, you know, let’s slap a badge on it, it suddenly makes it special.

The GTX thing, it kind of eats me a little bit because The old moniker, at least in the Volkswagen world was the GLX, right? They’ve always had that, you know, the Passat GLXs and the, the Jetta GLX and stuff like that. We could have easily brought that back. The GT scram touring. I get it just like us GTM.

Right. But I don’t know, GTE, I guess that’s an Opel thing. That would make sense. Right. And it would make more sense than GTX has always been reserved for four wheel drive in a lot of cases, like the X drive and the BMWs and GTX, my mind, when you said that immediately went to the Mazda three, two, three from the eighties, the GTX, right?

Because it was the all wheel drive Mazda three, two, three. So for me, I [00:39:00] guess, because I grew up in that era, it’s, it’s just word association, but, uh, I don’t know. It just becomes alphabet soup. ID3GTX. Blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s whatever. I looked at it. I, um, to your point, Tanya, it’s the evolution. I think it’s where the Polo and the GTI are going to intersect.

And that’s what we’re going to be left with after they decide that we’re done with the FARP cans and the two liter turbo and everything else that comes with the GTI and the Golf R.

Executive Producer Tania: So in another round of infinite wisdom, we’ll see how this plays out. They’re doing some sort of tests. in Greece trying to, I guess, foster green mobility and all this stuff.

They’re sending all these what look like IV4s to Greece. To do what? I don’t know. This one is, is livery as if it’s a police car, which is pretty cool. It does look neat. I will give you that. I have an ID for a police car, but I mean, you’re going to put your eggs in my back.

Donovan Lara: I actually like this idea a lot.

And the reason I say this is to me, you know, you imagine that you’re on a Greek island somewhere, you’ve got to get fuel to the island. You know, the more self supported you could be the [00:40:00] better. And I think, you know, if islands are able to convert to solar power and some other things, I don’t think this is a bad idea.

And the last time I was on a Greek island, I was on an ATV and a lot of people were too, so, you know, transportation isn’t really. As much of a thing there. So I don’t know. I don’t mind this one too much. I think it’s kind of

Crew Chief Eric: a cool idea. I got two words for you. Jurassic park. They use quote unquote, self driving autonomous, electric Ford Explorers.

Remember how that turned out? This is, this is the sequel.

Donovan Lara: All right. So you’re saying now this Greek island is going to attract dinosaurs and it’s going to swallow up everything. I see. I see. Okay.

Executive Producer Tania: Not to be outdone. We have a theme to continue here. It’s twofold. There’s large horsepower number, a small displacement.

Crew Chief Eric: Or is it the last of the dinosaurs?

Executive Producer Tania: And take my money now, please. Because on principle, you can take my money on this. Yes, I’ve been perfectly fine with another five cylinder [00:41:00] Audi in my life. What? Yes. I was shocked because the five cylinder had gone the way of the dinosaurs already a number of years ago, unfortunately, or fortunately, some people might say, but the five cylinder motor, good motor from Audi, got one that’s 36 years strong, and it sounds nice.

Crew Chief Eric: Like a pterodactyl with its tail on fire. That’s what it sounds

Executive Producer Tania: like. I love the rasp of a five cylinder. So the 2022 Audi RS three is going to be a turbo five cylinder, making 401 horsepowers from 2.5 liters.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s good numbers. That’s better than that Ford 7. 3 liter that we talked about earlier. Think about that.

Can it tow? No, it can’t tow. Next. But I have to say the five cylinder did make a resurgence with the TTRS and with the Mark V Volkswagen’s right back in the late 2000s. And it’s been around off and on. The previous RS3 had a five cylinder [00:42:00] turbo borrowed from the TTRS, but it hasn’t been their mainstay.

Motor used to be the thing you bought an Audi. You got a five cylinder I’m with you. It is kind of the last of the dodo birds, but on the same token, it’s one of those weird motors that I’ve always compared to like a diesel, it makes more torque than it makes horsepower. It’s got the acceleration of a four with the kind of power output of a six.

It doesn’t, it’s got an identity crisis. It doesn’t know what it wants to be, but at the same time, it’s, it’s freaking awesome. And if you turn the boost up to 11. Not pounds, but like spinal tap up to 11, they’re wicked. I mean, incredible amounts of horsepower. And if you look at the legacy of the five cylinder, especially the rally cars, and I don’t want to nerd out because, you know, I’m a rally fan, but a single turbo 2.

1 liter in the S1 was making 750 horsepower back in the eighties. There is so much potential and power in that motor. It’s incredible. It puts a lot of other engines to shame.

Donovan Lara: It’s nice to me that somebody doubt he’s paying attention, right? You know, that, [00:43:00] that five cylinder is classic and, you know, it makes you look at other companies, you know, we talked about earlier, you know, Volkswagen kind of going off mark a little bit and, you know, of course, BMW with their crazy nomenclature, right?

Is it a four door three series? Is it a two doors, you know, all that kind of thing. And this to me is somebody, while most people won’t know or care that it’s a five cylinder. A lot of people will. And I think that’s really says something about protecting that heritage and really keeping that alive. I think it’s really cool, but I will say it’s also interesting.

This car is going to make 400 horsepower in is roughly 3. 4 seconds, zero to 60. That’s pretty stout, especially when you compare it with a lot of the EVs that we were talking about earlier, you know, you look at the current Corvette and you know, I haven’t raced them, but I would assume, you know, a Corvette and this car next to each other, you know, four tenths of a second off is probably not that big a deal.

And it’s pretty cool that they’re still making that kind of speed in it.

Crew Chief Eric: So as we transition away from automotive news, we want to touch on Brad’s favorite new section, which is lost and found. And, you know, it’s really awesome and actually quite special that we have Donovan on this particular episode to talk about lost [00:44:00] and found because some of his expertise is in the car show world, in the auction world, in the, you know, exotic car and high ends types of stuff.

So he’s got a lot of background in this. So we selected some articles to discuss with him back and forth. And the first one that came up, which I actually happened to snag off of garage ride, and I don’t remember. Who posted this, but it has to do with Nicholas Cage’s car collection and all jokes aside about his current career and method acting and all the divorces he has to pay for.

He’s actually got a pretty cool collection of cars. Now it’s not going to rival Tim Allen or Jay Leno, but I want to rattle off some of the cars in his collection and Donovan, maybe get your opinion about some of the stuff he’s got in his stable. He’s got a Diablo VT. He’s got a Miura SPJ. He’s got a Lamborghini 350 GT starting to see a theme here.

He’s got an Enzo, a 599 GTB, along with a bunch of other cars.

Donovan Lara: I think it’s incredible. I mean, you know, you look at he’s got a Jag D type, he’s got Bugatti type 57 C. To me, it’s [00:45:00] Primo. He doesn’t have the random, although this Eleanor and I get it right. Of all the people that should have an Eleanor Mustang, it should be him.

But I, I. Can’t stay in those cars just because of the cheesiness of it. But yeah, I mean, you know, if, if you were to have a Lambo collection, I mean, the Mura and the three 50 GT and the Diablos are the ones to have. So he seems to have the ones, you know, in each of the genres, he’s got an Enzo. I mean, he’s got a California spider.

So I actually, I’ve always liked Nicholas Cage, but, uh, I have a little bit more respect for him after seeing this list for sure.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. And like we talked about on the episode with Paula Wymoski, there’s a lot of folks in Hollywood that are petrol heads, and we can now add Nicolas Cage to the list right up there with Paul Walker and Jay Leno and a lot of other folks in Hollywood that have kind of hidden collections of cars.

So it was really cool to see this when it came across my desk.

Executive Producer Tania: I think it’s incredible also because I thought it was bankrupt. So the fact that he even has these cars. Pretty impressive.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, there’s that too. We got to pay for those divorces somehow. That’s all I’m saying. So what else do we have on Lost and Found this [00:46:00] month, Donovan?

Donovan Lara: So do I have to do my best Brad voice to, to give you this one? So a very, very special Corvette was found, you know, one of the legendary race cars, one of the originals. Strangely enough, it was found on an ad listed as a Zagato of some sort. So the, the owner finds this car that had raced at Lamar and Sebring and had, uh, even done top is a potential driver at Lamar.

And, uh, after the car was bought, they checked the VIN number and came to find out it was one of three very special race cars. So, you know, somebody won the lottery that day for sure. And pretty interesting. And as far as I know, the other two cars are around in a museum somewhere. And I think that’s what this one’s destined for after restoration.

Crew Chief Eric: So they ran a car fax. I mean, I gotta start checking. I gotta start checking more cars because, you know, I’d see something like that, especially when you see the pictures of it, it’s old, it’s beat up, it’s got the patina and everything. And you’re just like, I don’t even want to bother with that, you know, but some gracious soul out there was like, man, I’m going to hop on this Corvette because it is a C1.

So there’s that attraction. If you’re into those old fifties Corvettes and [00:47:00] whatnot, but man, to stumble upon, you know, that extra little bonus Easter egg there of being a historic car. I But what did it sell for?

Donovan Lara: 758, 000 at Amelia Island, actually a few weeks ago.

Crew Chief Eric: And everybody probably laughed when they pulled that thing.

Go look at that rat rod that they just brought into the show. Right.

Donovan Lara: It’s in terrible condition. Yeah. And you know, to me, it’s, you know, you look at people talk about, well, don’t restore it, keep it original. But, uh, you know, the, the guy that acquired the car after it did its racing, you know, kind of did a number on it and put his own.

Take on it. We’ll say, so it needs to call those mods. We call it, well, you know, the fact that it, uh, it was listed as a Pontiac Zagato when it was listed in the classified, but you know, I’m more curious about the guy that bought it. What would you think if somebody listed a Pontiac Zagato, that would be a no for me, but yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: right.

I would have mistaken it for an Aztec and just kept on scrolling, but you know, whatever. So speaking of piles of junk,

Donovan Lara: yeah, so recently, uh, Jaguar, uh, XK one 50 sold in a tree [00:48:00] mangled condition for 127, 000. I didn’t quite understand this when I read a little bit more about it. The article was a little misleading.

It’s actually a XK one 50 S and there were only a handful of those, I think 50 of them made. So even with the front end crushed in, it was still, I guess, a a steal. But it’s, it’s going to take a lot of work.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s for sure.

Donovan Lara: These cars in, in regular condition, I think are upwards of, you know, in the seven figures.

So maybe somebody got a deal. I don’t know, but you know, it’d be interesting to the next owner to see what the history of this car was. That would, would be hard to explain. It had some mechanical damage and some cosmetic work. It is mangled for sure.

Crew Chief Eric: So since you’re in this arena and you’re looking at cars all the time and buying and keep an eye on, you know, bring a trailer.

And I know we bat this out. Back and forth on the regular about how crazy bring a trailers become. And I’m sure you have your opinions about that, but if you are in the market and you’re looking for a collector card, like what’s on your top five list right now? Like what are you eyeballing? What do you think is a good deal right now?

If people were [00:49:00] interested in picking something up.

Donovan Lara: I’m always in the market. I actually trying to figure out what my next purchase is going to be to the point that I had to whiteboard it out and reorg some things. So, you know, for me, there’s different levels. There’s the collectability of it, there’s the fun factor, and then there’s the kind of combo.

So, you know, to me, I think there’s varying degrees. I’ve moved them into price points really. And, uh, you know, we talked about this on GarageRite sometimes, you know, I think in the 50, 000 market, probably a Skyline R32 GTR or R33. Now those are 50 to 75, depending. I think that’s good value. Closer to a hundred.

The launch of Delta Evo twos are great, and you know, I’ve watched those for about a year now. Last year you could find some in the high forties, fifties, now they’re a hundred. Depending on the special editions, they may go to a buck and a quarter. Oddly enough, and this would be no surprise to you, I’ve been watching the 2002 Turbos, the BMWs in the past two years.

I’ve seen ’em sell from one 15 to 1 72, I think was the most recent. They’re all over the place and, and that might be where I pull the trigger. The problem with them [00:50:00] is they’re hard to find. There’s one for sale in Belgium right now and actually looked into financing and you can’t, uh, finance cross country.

Unfortunately, I have a lead on one coming in from Japan, which is pretty crazy. I think that’s where it’s at. And then, uh, you know, as you move up into the, the two hundreds, the Ferrari five, 12 BB, I think is amazing. The F 12 was one of my favorites, but I think they’re on their way down, hopefully making their way up.

But, uh, they’re all over the place. And, and, you know, I’m a fan of the Gallardo still not collectible by any means, but a lot of fun. And, you know, if you find the right one, you can get them for, for

Crew Chief Eric: around a hundred. So are you considering them as an investment, you know, longer term, or you, is it more of like the collector and the boy racer, I want to have that car, like.

What’s the recommendation when you’re looking at these types of gray market cars and we’re used to like, Oh, I can just go get a nine 11 turbo and spend a hundred thousand dollars, right. Or, or, or Supra or something like that. What’s the appeal. Why go into that market? Exactly.

Donovan Lara: It’s almost this FOMO of, I want to buy it before it goes up.

And you can see a lot of them, you know, the [00:51:00] mark one GTI. Those cars were five grand for years. There’s one, I don’t know if it’s still for sale. I saw it a couple of weeks ago. It has, uh, I think 70, 000 miles and they want 35, 000 for it. It’s immaculate. It’s gorgeous. That sounds unreasonable now, but in a year, that’s probably going to be a deal.

You know, you look at the E30 M3 and it took me years to finally buy one. And when I did. I bought the first one the year before they went crazy. And then after they went crazy, I’d sold that one and bought another one. So really I think it’s watching the market. And to me, it’s buying a car that I know is going to make money that GTI.

If you can find one in the teams, you know, you know, maybe you’ll gain five grand on it. You know, you buy a GTR for 65 right now, your margin will be a little better, but that, and I just want to own every car in the world. If I had a bigger garage, I sure would. And I I’m down a few cars. Now I sold one, uh, one of my cars last week, but it’s really just a space issue.

But, you know, I think it’s the real life version of hot wheels, right? We all had all the hot wheels that we thought really cool. And if we could have each of those, we would too. So that’s really kind of what it is for me.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s a [00:52:00] bunch of cars for auction right now in Kansas that you could scoop up pretty quick, but I’m not sure that you’d be too interested in.

Did you hear about this? I did the trans ams, right? That’s a barn full of basically smoking the banded trans ams, you know, seventies era trans ams. Now, are they really that desirable compared to the stuff you, you know, you’re looking at maybe in a different genre or market?

Donovan Lara: Man, that’s a good question.

I’ve never been really into that. You know, I think trans ams are really cool. I actually liked the early fireworks, you know, the, the first, first ones I think are super cool, but, you know, it was amazing to me that. The high value version out of that group is the 74 super duty, the 455 V8. And a terrible name for that car.

It sounds like a truck, right? Super duty. Those are super cool. I mean, I think when you look at it, you got to say, okay, well, if there was one to have, that’s probably it. But, you know, I worry about the, you know, the market on muscle cars, you know, the, the bubble is burst. So it’s kind of a drop. Yeah, exactly.

Proceed with caution.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s all the euros in the Japanese cars that we never got, which are being brought in now that they’re 20 plus years old through the gray market. You’re seeing 959s and [00:53:00] F40s on U. S. roads, which were never D. O. T. approved because they’re so old now. And so the prices of them have gone through the roof.

And we talked about this before. Before, but to circle back on those trans amps, I think the only person that would get super excited about that and also happens to be in Kansas. And if you don’t watch a show on YouTube is who V of who V’s garage. I mean, he’s going to be all over these things. I’m sure he’ll do a lemons race with a couple of them, you know, tearing them apart, giving away to his friends.

But if you’ve watched his show, it’s, it’s pretty hilarious. He’s always buying and selling cars, kind of like you as well. He’s got a, you know, a huge collection of stuff. I just, one last thing before we move on. What do you think about bring a trailer? You know, for some of us, it was like, like racing junk where you went there and you kind of salivated and went, man, I could get a good deal on this car.

It’s kind of evolved over the last couple of years. Do you think it’s out of control or is it still a good high water, you know, litmus test for these collectible cars?

Donovan Lara: Yeah, I think it’s changed. You know, I’ve been on bring a trailer for years and actually bought a 67 dots and 1600 off it years ago from California and got a deal.

[00:54:00] And I think in the early days, you know, the guy that started it, he would go to all these random websites and then find all the cool cars and post them on bring a trailer, you know, to let people know, Hey, this one’s for sale. This is really cool. And then it evolved as it got more popular. And then when they sold it.

I think they sold it to road and track. Didn’t they last year? You know, now it’s flipped. It’s no longer the place to get a deal. It’s the place to go get top dollar for your car. So I think it serves its purpose that way. They do have a four week lead time. I found out recently. So if you want to sell something, it’s going to take you a while, but you know, good for them.

They just passed their 5, 000th auction or something crazy like that. So they’re, they’re really rocking there. I remember when it

Crew Chief Eric: was just classifieds, bring a trailer, let’s transition a little bit. I think we have a couple oddballs here as we wrap. up this entire segment on automotive and industry news.

And there’s a car I want to get your opinion on. And there’s a term that invokes a reaction. And the term is boat tail. For those of us that are in the classic car community, boat tail was usually associated with a Auburn’s but Rolls [00:55:00] Royce has recently debuted their boat tail for 2022 23 timeframe. What do you think about that car?

Donovan Lara: I think it’s pretty cool. You know, we talked earlier about what are, what are manufacturers going to do anymore? They have to kind of zigzag a little bit. I think this is, this is one of those, right? And, you know, they, they claim they’re building three of them. The first one they built here, I think it’s a little bit of a stretch to call it a boat tail, you know, particularly when you think about the way the Auburn boat tail kind of came to a point in the end, this looks more like they put some teak wood on the back and called it a day, but I think it’s cool.

And I think they’ve got to do something different. You know, if you ask somebody today, the difference on all the Rolls Royce models or all the BMW models, they all look the same. Hopefully we’re starting to see that kind of coach builder aspect of it. Come back and certainly for the well heeled, right.

You can go to rolls and if you had enough money, you could have them build you whatever you wanted to. But I think it’s exciting. It’s different. And it’s, it’s really cool to see some new things that we’re not seeing before. And maybe it’ll inspire the industry and we’ll start getting back to some of those older designs.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely.

Donovan Lara: Because

Crew Chief Eric: like you said, we [00:56:00] don’t really need. A design that cheats the wind on everything. So we could go back to big swooping fenders and round headlights and more like a Packard or early Cadillac design, or even the old Rolls Royces and Bentleys from the old days, because why not? Right. Zero to 63 seconds in those things.

And they probably weigh less than that number that we talked about earlier. Now, I will say when I saw the Rolls Royce, the color gets you right away. That blue is super cool. I’m with you in it, not being a boat tail. I kind of wanted to call it the picnic basket and maybe rename it the Yogi. The Rolls Royce Yogi bear, right?

Cause it’s, it’s more picnic basket with that, that kind of clamshell goldwing type opening that it’s got back there versus, you know, what the Auburn had, which was just that fixed rear end of basically a wooden boat and a kind of cool. But again, let’s, let’s push the boundary. Let’s do the Lamborghini thing and come up with something different, you know, and really push it out there.

And speaking of different,

Executive Producer Tania: we don’t talk about motorcycles very much, but there is a French company that is unveiling that they’re going to build a [00:57:00] prototype. For what is being called a super capacitor or ultra capacitor hybrid electric motorcycle. So not quite the same as the battery pack, like all the EVs right now, but instead of using basically capacitor technology, which is slightly different and there’s no chemical reactions taking place that everything is electrostatically contained.

So there’s very quick discharges and also recharges. So that’s kind of a benefit against batteries. You’d be able to recharge them faster. They’re also alleged to cycle better, meaning you can go through many cycles of discharge, recharge, et cetera, more so than conventional batteries, which get battery degradation after a while.

So, you know, there’s some pros to it. There’s some obvious cons to it as well. It’s not going to be something that. Can handle long trips, things of that nature. You’re not going to go cruising on the highway with big headwinds and things like that. This is really geared towards specifically [00:58:00] urban motorcycling.

Stop and go. You’re just running here to there.

Crew Chief Eric: And it’s very futuristic looking. The way you describe that in some ways, people may be skeptical of this particular motorcycle, but if you look at the history of Honda. This is how the Cub started. It was a go to here to there to the grocery store right around town.

It mobilized an entire workforce in Japan post war and all that kind of stuff. So maybe they’re onto something, right? We got to start small, just like Honda did and build up to something bigger. Now I’m really surprised Honda hasn’t gone in this direction with their history in motorcycles.

Executive Producer Tania: But again, if you’re off the beaten path and you live in smaller places, this makes more sense.

Just like electric cars might make sense in Greece. And

Crew Chief Eric: this looks like it might be competition for the Volcon Grunt that we talked about last year, right? There’s some other innovative ideas out there. Not all of them are good. And I want to share with the audience, remember to check in on our show notes and the follow on article [00:59:00] that goes with this particular episode on a human powered vehicle.

Vehicle, right? We don’t need batteries. We don’t need gasoline or diesel. We got human power right now. You might be thinking maybe the footmobile from the Flintstones. Oh, no, no. This is more akin to snidely whiplash on the railroad. So if you watch this video, I think it’s absolutely hilarious. This guy basically built a kit car, kind of looks like a weird late nineties Camaro, and he’s pumping away at it.

Basically he builds like the kinetic energy in the system and then he drives along the highway and he’s on open roads, which scares the crap out of me. No helmets, no nothing. I still don’t understand how the suspension or the steering works, but I just wanted to share this with you guys. Cause I think it’s an absolute riot.

Executive Producer Tania: A hundred percent. It’s a railroad hand car, hand trolley, pump trolley, whatever you want to call it. It’s the classic. Back in the day, two guys that were pumping [01:00:00] up and down on the, on the lever back and forth, and they were rolling down the train tracks. That’s what this is. Okay. It’s a bicycle that you don’t use your legs with.

You pump the pedals with your hands.

Donovan Lara: I think it’s super, super cool and you know, the guy is clearly smoking something by coming up with the invention, but the fact that it’s 38, 000 pounds to buy is incredible, right? But it is super, super cool. I mean, it, you know, it almost makes you wonder why we didn’t just go this route.

Right. It’d be a kindler, friendlier, friendlier, you know, way to mode of transportation. Cause leg day, bro. I

Crew Chief Eric: mean, who

Donovan Lara: wants arms like the rock to go to work? That is true. Well, you know, what cracks me up about this is somebody would eventually find a way to automate that rowing process. And then it would be just, you know, another gas, somebody hook up their gasoline powered lawnmower to it.

So it cranks that thing. And then we’re back at hybrid again.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, you mean a car?

Executive Producer Tania: We’d be remiss [01:01:00] if we didn’t move into our next section, which is the Tesla news.

Oh God. Here we go.

Executive Producer Tania: Outline on all things Tesla, not all things Tesla. We do cover some other, uh, interesting topics here, but we always start off with Tesla. So without further ado, the, uh, Plaid edition of the model S. Is finally slated to arrive.

It is happening, and it is going to be the quote, fastest production car ever, according to Mr. Musk,

Donovan Lara: until the Roadster hits the street,

Executive Producer Tania: until something else. Yeah, I don’t know. Until the lucid air, uh, the labor. I don’t say in,

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, come on,

Executive Producer Tania: this is, well, this is the one that. The thousand horsepower, blah, blah, blah, which I think the lucid air alleges 1100.

So the lucid air is supposed to debut, I think this year. So if it does come out, maybe. That will be the fastest production car ever. Now there was a plaid plus edition, [01:02:00] which was the one I think that got you that extra a hundred horsepower, but that has apparently been canceled because the regular plaid is just so awesome as it is, there is apparently no need for the plus edition, according to Musk, so they’ve canned that.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay. Maybe somebody can answer this. If you’re listening, you know, comment, write us, call us, text us, whatever. When I hear the word plaid. Two things come to mind, Braveheart and boring, right? And not because Braveheart is boring, but plaid is boring to look at. So what is the deal with this plaid name? Like, what is the significance of this?

Maybe, maybe Edson can tell

Donovan Lara: us. He has told me, and my understanding is, I think. I think it’s a space balls reference. Like they go beyond light speed and they go plaid. I think something along those lines. So it’s some kind of in the know, which is why

Crew Chief Eric: there’s ludicrous mode and all that other stuff.

Donovan Lara: I might be wrong.

It’s something like that though. But I can tell you the, so we do mountain runs, uh, Edson has a model three, and then we have another [01:03:00] friend that has a model S, uh, the performance and serve Perfer Monte or whatever they call it. And that car is no joke. I mean, that one is it’s a couple of years old now, but it’s zero to 60 and two, two, and it is just crazy.

But I feel like they probably discontinued the plaid plus because of what we were talking about earlier with the roadster. That’s going to do zero to 60 and sub 1. 1. Although I know they wouldn’t get a full second out of it. You know, at some point you start eating into your own market share there. I think there’s the roadster that does it sub 1.

1 with the cannons. And then otherwise it’s like 1. 8 or something. So.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, you know, Tesla is lovely. They’ve done a lot to disrupt the car culture and technology and all that. And that’s wonderful. And that’s great. But for 114, 000, I still want something else. I don’t care if it has a thousand horsepower and does 2.

2 seconds, zero to 60, like, I want to, you know, it has a thousand horsepower. It costs,

Crew Chief Eric: you know, it has a thousand horsepower. It costs half as much. Challenge your Hellcat. Just going to put it out there. [01:04:00]

Donovan Lara: Well, that’s a good argument though. I mean, and the argument both ways is, well, you know, and I’ll keep using the Roadster as an example.

The Roadster is going to be two 50 and it’s going to smoke any car. There is Bugatti. All of those buying these. Here’s my problem with it though. All of these cars are not particularly attractive. I think they’re pretty vanilla. So you pull up in a road, sort of LA and they park you in the back because they don’t know any better.

Right? So you pull up in your, your hurricane or your guy or your, even, you know, older stuff and they’re going to go, Oh, wow. That’s special. You know, even a three 60 Ferrari, which you can get for a quarter of this for half this price, you’re going to be up front. That plaid is going to be in the back somewhere collecting dust.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, honestly, they’re vanilla on the outside, the vanilla on the inside and they’re vanilla. On my butt in the seat, because I’ve driven a model three before, and I felt like I was driving a Nissan Ultima that I got out of the Hertz rental lot. I mean, other than the fact that if you stop on it, yeah, you get thrown back in the seat because there’s so much torque.

Yeah. The acceleration is ridiculous in [01:05:00] an EV, but I don’t know. Maybe I need to drive a different one, but I say, you’re just cruising around town. It was no different than anything else. It felt like a rental car. I wasn’t blown away. I didn’t feel like I was in this luxury for

Crew Chief Eric: spending tens of thousands of dollars.

And I’m with Tanya where the Tesla doesn’t give me anything back. It hasn’t convinced me yet that I can get rid of a GTI and have more fun. It’s the fun factor for, at least for me.

Donovan Lara: There’s that straight line performance, but there’s not that overall performance that I think, you know, like you said, it was visceral, you know, Tanya.

And it’s, to me, that’s what I keep going back to is, yeah, it’s fast in a straight line and yeah, it’s faster than my car, but, uh, you know, I want to hear it, I want to hear that. I think I’d rather be in a, that Trans Am we talked about earlier, right? You feel like, well, I’m supposed to be going fast. It sounds like I’m going fast.

I’m probably doing zero to 16, eight seconds, but man, it sounds good, you know, and it’s smoking and I can smell it when eight

Crew Chief Eric: seconds was fast. Like, wow, it does it in eight seconds. It’s incredible. We can take the plaid to the next level with the, uh, Pikes Peak [01:06:00] racer. Cause as we mentioned last year in the attempt at Pikes Peak, you know, we kind of joked about this.

There were several episodes where we captured this and reported on it. Randy Pope’s hooked up with unplugged performance, made several Pikes Peaks attempt. One time it went airborne. They did complete the run up to the sky and all that. They are returning. With a modified Tesla plaid edition and are going to attempt the race to the sky yet again, taking to the plaid to the entire next level, probably into the stratosphere because it’s going to completely launch into orbit.

Good on them.

Donovan Lara: That’s awesome. Curious to see how it turns out. I was gonna say, I’m pretty sure Randy is doing it again. I saw a video that he posted a day ago, so that’d be interesting to check out. And there’s a really great show on Motor Trend about, uh, last year about them running and wrecking and things.

So it’s pretty cool.

Executive Producer Tania: Boring company. I take that as you will. That’s a real thing, right? That’s, that’s called the boring company. She sounds

Donovan Lara: excited.

Executive Producer Tania: But it’s like boring through something. This is the boring company that’s making the underground hyperloop. If you remember [01:07:00] tunnels in Las Vegas, where the Teslas were going to ride on skates at high speed, fully autonomous and zip you through, you know, these underground tubes.

So you could move out Las Vegas without. Walking around in a hundred million degree heat and all the traffic and congestion and all that. So they finally, uh, completed a 1. 5 mile loop and it’s not quite as promised. So yes, as most things, yes, there are these tunnels underground. Yes, a Tesla vehicle drives through them, but no, they’re not on whatever these alleged skates were going to be.

No, they’re not self driving. And no, they cannot go at high speed. So they are driven and they cannot exceed 35 miles an hour. And it’s basically a car that drives through an

Crew Chief Eric: underground tunnel. So what you’re telling me is Tesla has an Uber service in Vegas right now, and it was replaced by the existing monorail.

That already does [01:08:00] everything you describe taking people from, you know, one place to the other doing a loop and they don’t have to walk or be in, you know, the sun, you know, the way I read it and the way I looked at it. It’s like the scariest small world ride. You could have ever presented to me being trapped in a Tesla with a Johnny cab going around in Las Vegas.

So I’m kind of glad it’s just an Uber.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, it’s not done yet. There’s plans for the next segments to be added on. I don’t know.

Crew Chief Eric: And all of that is super boring.

Executive Producer Tania: If you’re claustrophobic, I can’t imagine this is fun, but

Donovan Lara: here’s my issue with it, right? So it’s a mile and a half and it takes you from one side of traffic to the other.

To the other. So it’s not like it’s avoiding all of the traffic. So basically you’re just the asshole that cuts line and a mile and a half to get up in the front, just like the guys that ride down the emergency lane in traffic. I don’t understand the logic here, right? It’s great. You can speed through the tunnel, but you’re still going to stop at the end, which means you’re just going to back up model threes all the way back through that tunnel.

So,

Crew Chief Eric: because we [01:09:00] all know that Vegas is really Disney world for adults. I mean, so it’s just another attraction, ride, amusement to add to the amusement park, right? I mean, it’s just whatever. It’s, it’s, it’s a novelty. I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, why not, if you have the technology to allegedly make the tunnel boring way more cost effective than doing something above ground.

See, and this is where the frustrating thing of all this is. It’s like, if you have this technology, why don’t you just Frickin build a subway. Why don’t you build a train that can hold people on a rail that would be an autonomous because a lot of the Metro rail systems actually drive themselves. Yes.

There’s a conductor in there to monitor, but for the most part, it’s like a plane. They put them on autopilot and they go and use that technology to bring the cost down and actually move people. Not like this gimmick of throwing a roadster in space to be space junk. This gimmick to like, Oh, the Tesla drives in the tunnel.

Like who gives a crap? How many people do you fit in [01:10:00] a Tesla? You know what you just described?

Crew Chief Eric: You know what you just described?

The monorail. It’s

Crew Chief Eric: autonomous. And guess what? It’s an EV. It’s already there because we’re, we like recreating the wheel. Okay. That’s what it is. That’s where we’re at right now.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, and the thing is, if they’ve uncovered technology that makes it more cost effective to do it underground safely, and you don’t have to do it above ground and be in the way of putting cranes, blocking traffic, disrupting everything, it’s kind of out of sight. Okay, well, let’s do it in a way that makes sense, not in a way that’s a gimmick.

Donovan Lara: I’m getting the feeling through this entire episode that Tanya is not sold on Tesla. I could be wrong. Oh, I mean, the entire series of

Crew Chief Eric: the drive thru, I

Donovan Lara: think at this

Crew Chief Eric: point. I’m

Executive Producer Tania: making enemies. I’m making enemies. I mean,

Crew Chief Eric: since we’re talking about things that are incredibly boring. Donovan, what

Donovan Lara: did you discover?

Okay. So I came across these videos. There’s a repair shop somewhere in England and they’re probably very prestigious, but they walk you through [01:11:00] basically the owner’s manual of these very unobtainium cars, right? So they go through a 911 GT1, they go through a Mercedes CLK GTR. And while I did originally think they were boring, I can’t stop watching them.

It’s incredible, right? So you watch it.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, you turned me on to these and I was like, what, what, okay, what is this? And about 30 seconds in, I’m like, wait, what, what are they doing? And then he started showing me a little bit more. It was like a strip tease almost. And I’m like, I’m like, come on, baby. Just come on a little bit more.

Give me something else. And then he fires up that GTR and I’m like, Oh my God. It’s over.

Donovan Lara: It’s so great. Right. You know, like in the, in the nine 11 GT one, there’s a special tool that you have to use to unlatch the back hatch and things, things you would never think of that were designed, especially for that car, which is just incredible.

It’s, it’s, it’s really car porn. And, uh, you know, I love on the McLaren. F one where they’ve got the special luggage and he tells you, you have to put it in, in this order. It won’t fit. You know, I love all those kinds of things are the best one [01:12:00] is, Hey, just in case when you’re in here, you have to pull the door handle this way.

Like anybody watching that video is going to ever be in a McLaren F1 in that situation. But yeah, they are amazing, amazing videos. I highly recommend

Crew Chief Eric: they are pretty cool. And we’re going to link to them in the show notes. So if you haven’t seen them, definitely check them out. And Donovan, thank you for just.

Putting me in another time suck of the internet by introducing me to these videos, boring cars, it’s a thing, right? Then there’s certain cars, you know, we talked about auctions earlier. We talked about collectibles, but I think we found one that just is undesirable.

Donovan Lara: I don’t understand this one. There’s no way anybody can explain this one to me, Tanya.

You can try if you want to. So apparently there was a company that converted a two CV into a roadster. In recent time. So I don’t know why anybody would do that, first of all. So it’s a 1986 Citroen two CV that was basically coached built by this company called Burton overseas, a Dutch coach builder, they put what I can only [01:13:00] describe is, uh, somebody that saw maybe a cord and got drunk and spun around three times and tried to sketch it out on a piece of paper.

It’s hideous and not that a two CV is attractive, but I just don’t understand. Right. Start with a better platform. This car sold. At an auction in Palm beach for 9, 000, which that’s probably okay at it sold for 90, 000. I think I would just turn off the internet and call it a day, but I just, I don’t understand.

I don’t understand that

Crew Chief Eric: at the end of the day, this person, whoever it is, stayed nine grand for a dash of all. I mean, it didn’t get any better to your point. It got uglier and the color does not help. It is like cord cream. I know it’s going to sound weird. It’s like creamed corn because cords came in that beige color.

And it’s just, it’s terrible. It’s unattractive. And I’m just like, why? It probably cost more to build that car. The two of them that they made, then it’s worth today. I mean, it’s just, ugh. Well, what

Donovan Lara: I love about that is it’s body work by [01:14:00] Dutch customizer. Burton car company. So there’s an entire company that thought it was a good idea to make this car to me, it’s promising for the rest of us, right?

We just go to a junkyard and find a bunch of random parts and throw it on some civic or something and call it a day and maybe we can get nine grand for it. Who knows?

Crew Chief Eric: You know, we’re, we’re talking a lot about bored and boring and boring cars and ugly cars, but you know. This next one really takes the cake.

Executive Producer Tania: How about a boring job? You get a job as an intern with Nissan. That sounds pretty good. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Oh, I like cars and Nissan. Sure. Why not? You show up your first day at work, sit down to boss. I handed you your assignment. Well, there, you know, we’re going to have you go out and rush our traffic and sit there for months, every day for the next three months of your internship.

And we want you to record the activities of our adaptive cruise control system.

Donovan Lara: Oh my God. So I think this is just spin. I think what [01:15:00] happened is somebody at Nissan had an a hole intern and they said, you know what, you’re going to go sit in traffic and the news news got wind of it. You know, how can Nissan treat this guy this way?

And they say, no, no, no. It was for research. We had him sit in traffic in LA on purpose. Oh, and Detroit and the other cities had an on purpose because we’re doing some research here on traffic.

Executive Producer Tania: I like that. That sounds plausible.

Donovan Lara: I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, my question is, how much was this paying internship?

Crew Chief Eric: He had to be drinking, I’m sure.

I wouldn’t wish that job on my enemy. I mean, can you imagine the road rage? Or do you become desensitized to it after a while?

Executive Producer Tania: But see, it’s your job, so now you don’t care. So it’s like,

Crew Chief Eric: oh. How do you slack off at a job when you sit in traffic all day long? How

Donovan Lara: does that work? Hey, yo boss, I’m gonna be late.

Well, the scary part is he’s researching adaptive cruise control. So he’s already not really controlling the car. So, you know, he’s probably got Taco Bell in there. He’s probably playing candy crush. Maybe he had his girlfriend in the car. So it could just be a big party. You never know. There’s [01:16:00] some really bad

Crew Chief Eric: jobs and then there’s this, that’s all I’m going to say.

Wrapping up. We have one final story.

Executive Producer Tania: Strange things were afoot at the Circle K in North Carolina.

Crew Chief Eric: At least it’s not a Florida man story.

Executive Producer Tania: No, this is the Carolina man story. And the added maraschino cherry on top is that it involves an HHR. Did it

Crew Chief Eric: sell for 90, 000 to bring a trailer?

Executive Producer Tania: A fan favorite here. Now, you know, this is not terribly funny actually, unless this was all a stunt, which who knows could be, but apparently allegedly some sort of kerfuffle happened that a circle K that somehow resulted in a man.

Hanging off the hood of an HHR as the driver of the HHR goes onto a highway and speeds away with this man dangling for dear life.

Donovan Lara: I think that’s hilarious. And the reason I think it’s hilarious is To me, it’s just the spite of the whole thing, right? [01:17:00] It says the guy wouldn’t move out of the way. So I can only imagine the HHR kind of nudged him and nudged him.

And the guy jumped on the hood and he said, well, I’ll show you, I’ll get on the interstate and we’ll do 80 miles an hour and see how long you hang on. Now, lucky for the guy driving that this guy didn’t fall off and kill himself, which probably would have been vehicular manslaughter, but you know, it’s like, okay, well, maybe that guy will think twice next time about staying in front of a.

Crew Chief Eric: HHR, but you know what else it’s the only time somebody uttered the words I held onto the HHR for dear life,

Donovan Lara: but you got to love the fact that nobody called the police. That’s like the underlying theme in this article is nobody called that. They just put their video of it on Instagram, which is hilarious,

Executive Producer Tania: that whole psychological, uh, whatever it’s called, where you think somebody else’s.

It’s going to do it for you. A hundred percent took place during that event. Unfortunately,

Donovan Lara: no good Samaritan comes to the aid of an HHR. That’s all I’m going to say. So I will ask you though, is that a better way to spend your time in traffic than the Nissan guy, the intern? I mean, it’s definitely more exciting.

I’ll give you that. It’s a toss

Crew Chief Eric: up, right? [01:18:00]

Executive Producer Tania: Are you the driver or the guy hanging on?

Crew Chief Eric: The guy hanging on. Well, now folks, it is time for us to go behind the pit wall and bring you all of the latest Hunter Sports News. So first up. Let’s talk about Coda and NASCARs.

Executive Producer Tania: I forgot about that race and I would have been interested in like seeing a couple laps of it because it’s NASCARs on Coda.

What could possibly go right? I didn’t see any of it. I heard about it. Apparently there was a huge downpour and track visibility from some of the still shots I saw was pretty bad. pretty darn poor. And of course, you know, immediately all the people that aren’t NASCAR fans. NASCAR people don’t know how to drive.

They can’t drive in the rain. Every other sports body drives in the rain. They’re just crying. It’s too bad. Like when you look at the still shots, it’s like I can’t tell that there’s a car in front of them, but there is. I can’t imagine that that’s easy to be driving a NASCAR, which In a torrential downpour.

On a road course in a torrential downpour on a track you’ve never [01:19:00] been to before. It probably had like five practice laps on or something. I mean, let’s not be so harsh. Apparently the poor visibility caused a number of rear ending incidents and crashes for several drivers. So it was an exciting race.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. And I heard that Harvick was left pretty pissed off about the whole situation. Probably should have called the race earlier. I mean, when visibility, I mean, the flaggers should know better. If you can’t see the cars and they can’t see you, it might, you’re too late at that point, right? They should have called the race earlier, probably prevented the massive loss in the budget that they’re going to have to replace these cars.

I mean, I know they got like 16 backup cars, but still some of this stuff could be avoided. I don’t agree. You know, all racers racing the rain at some point, there just comes a time where you got to call it, right? If the visibility is that bad, it’s bad for everybody. So it’s not safe, right? Going back to if you ever watch rush, right?

That was the big thing with, with Niki Lauda and those guys, it’s unsafe. Conditions right now, just call it and be done. It’s not worth the risk.

Donovan Lara: So I got to admit, you know, I was initially, when I [01:20:00] saw this article, one of those guys of, Oh, too bad NASCAR, you don’t race the rain, you know, cry babies. But, you know, when you think about it, they’re not prepared, right?

F1 has special rules, even for, you know, the tire choice and things to rain. And I know NASCAR is not equipped with that, but it makes me wonder, you know, how desperate is NASCAR to get our attention these days, you know, was, was the call, Hey, this will make good TV. Right. You know, I have to kind of believe it is, you know, let’s do something different.

That’s exciting. You know, they’ve already gone to a dirt track this year, so they’re trying new things. Maybe it was, Hey, let’s let them out there and see what happens. It’s kind of unfortunate. I think

Crew Chief Eric: it could be part of it too. Exactly. I mean, I always err on the side of safety. That’s always my number one concern.

So for me, you know, the television ratings. Well, hopefully next time at Coda, it’ll be dry and we’ll get to see an actual race. I’m with Tanya. I’m kind of excited that if I remembered that it was on the schedule and I had free time to check it out, or even on a replay, it would have been cool to see that race because I think watching NASCAR’s at Coda would be pretty interesting, but moving on to the Indy 500.

The big one, there’s some exciting news

Executive Producer Tania: there as well with [01:21:00] women making history in racing and in the Indy 500 specifically for the first time ever, the Piretta Autosport Chevrolet team, the number 16 is whose driver is Simona Di Silvestro. Her crew is pretty much over 50 percent women. So she’s got four for seven over the wall, pit crew being women, two women, spotters, two women, engineers, um, data acquisition, et cetera.

So that’s pretty exciting to see a team of so many women supporting motor sports driver and racing team. Bravo. That’s pretty

Donovan Lara: awesome. Yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: for

Donovan Lara: sure.

Crew Chief Eric: Now, we know that the Indy 500 came and went, but there was a big kerfuffle at the Indy 500 about the brakes. There were a bunch of accidents in the pit, coming off the pit, pulling in, you know, crashes, speeding violations, all sorts of stuff.

People were left asking, what’s the deal? Why can’t these cars stop? What’s going on, right? These weren’t on track incidents. They were all happening in low speed environments where the cars We’re seemingly not [01:22:00] stopping in my research. What I discovered was because at a big race, like the 500, oftentimes they don’t use the brakes at all for long periods of time, unless they’re coming into the pit.

And so what they have is these brake pad retractors that keep the pads away from the rotor so that there’s no sort of drag. And when they’re on track, they just lift off the throttle or use aerodynamic drag to slow down the vehicles that they need to. So it takes an incredible amount of force. To get the cars to stop.

And oftentimes the brake pads are quite cold. And if you’ve ever used racing brake pads before, they don’t grip unless they’re hot. So in this case, there were tons of crashes due to folks not being able to basically depress the brakes quick enough or hard enough to get the vehicles to stop in these different situations.

So that’s what was up with the brakes and all these. Seemingly odd crashes at the Indy 500.

Donovan Lara: Shouldn’t they know by now though? You would think

Crew Chief Eric: you can’t account for all of it. There’s another [01:23:00] great video that I came across that I want to share with you guys on several drive through episodes. Brad and Tanya have brought to my attention, how much I really need to watch drive to survive on Netflix.

You know, it’s like the hot to do, you know, drama of formula one. I still haven’t watched yet, but I will say this. I did watch. The video that we posted along with the show notes about how drive to survive will portray Mick Schumacher hitting Vettel in the knee. And it is absolutely hilarious. And if it’s anything like the show, you’ve got my attention.

I just got to set aside the time to check it out.

Donovan Lara: I think it’s pretty awesome, but you know, realistically, he’s got to worry more about Mazipin than he does, uh, Vettel out there with his, you see, recently they were talking about how he doesn’t trust Mazipin as his own teammate, almost running him off the track.

But I think that’s cool. You know, honestly, for me and Drive to Survive is an amazing show. I miss Vettel being in the headlines. You know, I started watching, I tried to watch F1 for the longest time and just couldn’t get into it. [01:24:00] And, uh, you know, I think 2017, I started watching and, you know, Vettel was still, he was still spicy.

You know, that’s, he’s running into Hamilton and doing break checks and things, and, you know, now he just seems so kind of mellow and almost in retirement phase. can I say

Crew Chief Eric: that his career went the way of his hairline?

Donovan Lara: Hey, He’s talking about my hair too, you know, anything that brings him back. I mean, I don’t know.

I mean, I don’t know if he’s, maybe he’s just lost his fire, but you know, I think that’ll be interesting. And you know, it’d be cool to see those two as teammates too. I think Schumacher has a lot to learn from him. I mean, obviously, you know, his dad was amazing, but you know, maybe there’ll be teammates one day.

That’d be really

Crew Chief Eric: cool. And since we’re talking about formula one, my wife asked the other day, and I’m going to ask on her behalf, does anybody know, or has heard anything different about Michael Schumacher?

Donovan Lara: No,

Crew Chief Eric: no, I haven’t. I haven’t heard anything in a

Donovan Lara: long time.

Executive Producer Tania: I check periodically, and basically it’s always the same news.

The family is very closed mouthed about anything. I think the only person that really gets to go into the inner [01:25:00] circle and probably also knows what’s going on besides doctors or other immediate family members is Felipe Massa, because apparently they were pretty close friends. So there are reports that, you know, he gets to go visit and things like that.

But for the most part, the reports still basically say the same thing. He is alive, but it almost sounds like he’s dead. I mean, he is out of the coma, but I don’t know the scale of a wake.

Crew Chief Eric: What

Executive Producer Tania: that means just because your eyes are open, who knows? Maybe one day all of a sudden he’s going to come out walking out the front door because they’ve kept it quiet, but that would be awesome.

That would be

Crew Chief Eric: awesome. I mean, it, it hurts me to even think about it. I mean, Schumacher is definitely a hero right up there with Senna and others, but yeah, I, you know, I, like you guys, I want to touch back periodically, but it was funny because she brought it up the other day and I was like, you know, I really don’t know the answer and you know what, I’m going to find out.

So there we go. But you know, let’s move to some happier things. Let’s talk about my favorite discipline, WRC.

Executive Producer Tania: When you think of [01:26:00] WRC, does a Prius normally come to mind? Hell no! I’m thinking Yari Mati Lakpala and the Yaris. Uh. Well, maybe you need to start rethinking that and start thinking, what is a Toyota Rally Prius?

Look like

Crew Chief Eric: I can tell you what it sounds like.

Executive Producer Tania: Nothing that is, that is correct. It does not sound like anything. However, it does look pretty cool. I mean, it looks like a Prius, but with some nice livery on it, whatever. They didn’t just create some monster and put a badge on the front that says Toyota and yeah, there’s a battery in it.

Like. No, this is actually a Prius that they gutted. They stripped the interior down as much as possible. They put a roll cage in, they put racing seats, they got rid of the glass, put plexiglass in, apparently they even, it would be because the front of your suspension borrow parts off the TRD RAV4. SUV, which I’m assuming is all wheel drive.

So what they talk about in terms of like spec, [01:27:00] so they did change a bunch of parts. So apparently the front springs are from a Camry. The rear springs are from an Avalon TRD. I didn’t even know there was an Avalon TRD. That

Crew Chief Eric: just blown my mind right there.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, Toyota. And then, you know, they put rally tires on it, et cetera, et cetera.

Apparently the powertrain is the powertrain of a Prius. So they’re out there rallying a rally prep Prius.

Donovan Lara: Is it safe to say that’s probably the only cool Prius in the world? I mean, it is still Prius powered though, which kind of takes back from it, but

Crew Chief Eric: well, there was a Prius touring car. A couple years ago, which is pretty cool.

Yeah. I give it that. I had like big team dynamics on it. They actually had at the DC auto show. I have pictures of it. And, uh, so I don’t know that they did that well with it, but they’ve been like kind of supplanting the Prius in different disciplines to just get attention, but I also wonder if they’re using it.

As a test mule, right. In some respects, like maybe that’s the future of the Yaris, right. We’ll put it in the Prius and nobody will pay attention to it. And everybody kind of laughs. [01:28:00] Meanwhile, they’re testing out like whatever the next gen platform is for the GR Yaris or whatever it is they’re going to use in WRC.

So I don’t see this competing in WRC one against, you know, Tiri Nuville and Oitanic and those guys is probably down way in the. The bowels of WRC three, but good on Toyota. If it’s, especially if this is a factory car sponsored by them, knowing the history of Toyota, maybe not as strong as I do some of the other brands, I wouldn’t put it past them that this is an experiment, you know, that they’re trying something out.

Donovan Lara: I have two thoughts on that one is, well, if that is the case, they’re kind of cutting edge, right? Because that’s the way it’s going. And then the sad thought is, Oh my God, is that the way rally car is going? Can you imagine rally and 2025 and all you hear is rock noise? You know, you don’t hear those engines screaming.

That that’s sad.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you know, and that goes back to a point from earlier that I wanted to kind of get to, you know, you were talking about the Lambos and all these cars getting silent, maybe in the future. To take a page from BMW’s playbook, instead of [01:29:00] pumping the sound into the car of like a V8 when you really have a four cylinder turbo is we’ll just have like exhaust by Bose and exhaust by, you know, beats or whatever.

And it’ll just blast the sound of an old Lamborghini and you’re in your EV and it’ll be cool. What kind of sub you got as an exhaust, right? And I think about it that way.

Donovan Lara: So if I had a Tesla and I was playing with the buttons the other day in a model three, and I know you can make the radio play outside, I would have it do something like, Hey, as I’m driving.

So you’re

Crew Chief Eric: everybody would, it would be Jetsons and fart noises. It’d be ridiculous. But see, instead I would be like. Give me the Pikes Peak Audi, you know, screaming dragon five cylinder sound on every car. It doesn’t matter what it is. I’d be, I’d be happy with that, but you know, switching gears from rally into my second favorite discipline, IMSA WEC, Donovan, most people might not know that you’re a BMW guy unless they listened to our episode together from last year.

So there’s BMW [01:30:00] and LeMans.

Donovan Lara: Yeah, thank goodness. They’re coming back to prototypes in 2023. So to me, that’s what makes prototype racing interesting. And, you know, it’s, it’s one of those years it looks like where Porsche will be back Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Acura will be there and it’ll be fun to watch. Currently, you know, it’s not so fun to watch because there’s usually one manufacturer that takes the crown, but.

Yeah. But yeah, I’m really excited that BMW is coming back, you know, while unfortunately I didn’t get to see the V12 LMR race, you know, it’d be exciting to see these come back. So I know Eric, you can relate to this. I’m excited about the swag that will be available at these races that are BMW swag.

Crew Chief Eric: So it’s going to be amazing.

It’s right in line. With the announcements, everybody else has made. I’m waiting for Mercedes to come back. Like I need an LMDH version of the Sauber C11. I mean, something just earth shaking monstrosity from, from Mercedes, right. To come on board. And I’m sure that’ll be next. Cause if the rest of the big players are coming, they got to come to be cool to see [01:31:00] Bentley come back.

But 2023. That’s the hundredth anniversary of Le Mans. That’s a big deal. And with all these manufacturers returning Le Mans, I think that’s a good indication of where the future is for IMSA and WEC and, and prototype and grand touring racing and all that kind of stuff. And I’m really looking forward to that.

We’re making a. A large effort to go as a group to the 2023 Le Mans. So I’m with you. I’m bringing an extra suitcase so I can bring home a ton of swag. It’s going to

Donovan Lara: be awesome. Well, we’ll have to make that Daytona trip too. That’s their inaugural race. I didn’t go this year, but I pretty much, I go regularly.

So maybe that’s a, that’s a combo event.

Crew Chief Eric: So since I got a little historical on you, I got to add a couple more bullet points to this. For those that don’t know, there was a call. earlier last year for a spin off of Mythbusters to debut on Motor Trend and they’re going to call it Motor Mythbusters. It’s going to have the host from some other shows like All Girls Garage and some of the other programs that Motor Trend sponsors.

And the idea is to pick up where Mythbusters [01:32:00] left off, but it’s all related to cars and trucks and kind of dispelling all of those myths.

Donovan Lara: I’m excited to see that. I’m a little concerned that they’re either going to be very patronizing with. Car guys, or they’re going to get deep. So to me, you know, I’m, I’m con my concern, right?

Is it’s going to be, this is how an engine works. What I’d really like to see them do is let’s get into some of the myths about cars, right? The nine, nine, six rear main seal, the IMS issue. Is that really an issue? Things like on the FAD. BMW, you know, there’s the crank hub issue. That would be fantastic. I think if it’s just, uh, this is, you know, you know, this is how many miles you can really get out of an engine.

I think it’s really going to be

Crew Chief Eric: how much boost can you put through a motor before you blow a piston or whatever? Yeah.

Donovan Lara: Yeah. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So maybe a little bit of both. I mean, but I guess on August 4th, we’ll find out, right? So I’m kind of looking forward to that science fair project. I did enjoy Mythbusters. I thought it got a little long in the tooth though, but you know, putting a petrol head spin on it is pretty exciting, but talking about putting a petrol head spin on things, our favorite hamster, Richard [01:33:00] Hammond from Top Gear and the Grand Tour is also slated for his own Rustoration show.

On discovery plus and it’s supposed to come out sometime this year, maybe next year. There’s not a definitive date yet. I’ve kind of searched around on this and I’ve got some wishy washy answers, but it’s set you not far from his house and he’s going to be going through and basically restoring cars. So I’m really curious to see where that goes.

I really enjoy Hammond. I mean, I’ve enjoyed the whole cast, but I think it will be cool because I think he has an interesting car collection. And if these cars are his, and he’s not just taking a playbook out of, I’m going to buy a car and flip it like every other show that’s on motor trend and, and discovery plus that are like that.

I think it’ll be a cool spin and it should be a lot of fun.

Donovan Lara: I agree. And as far as the, uh, Richard Hammond show goes, have you watched Clarkson does the farming? Not yet. It’s so good. It’s typical Clarkson stuff, but it’s really good.

Crew Chief Eric: They did a special for charity years ago where all three of them, Clarkson, Hammond and [01:34:00] may we’re doing some landscaping, farming and tractor type stuff, and it just ended in chaos and calamity as always.

So, I mean, knowing that Clarkson’s doing a show, I mean, and it might be similar to that, I might actually tune in. So I got to check it out.

Donovan Lara: It’s really good. It’s believable too. I know some of it’s scripted, but for the most part, it’s pretty good.

Crew Chief Eric: On the other side of that, you know, and a little bit of sad news.

Some of you may or may not be intimate with the long history of FIA and Formula One and whatever, but Max Mosley, the former president of the FIA, passed away this year. At 81 years old, he was the president of the FIA from 1993 to 2009. He carved out a successful career before going to FIA as a, as a lawyer, a barrister.

He was an amateur racing driver and he was also the founder and co owner of March Engineering. So long, deep history in the motor sports world. We’re sad to see him go, but yeah, Max Mosley passed this year. In other sad news.

Executive Producer Tania: Not the saddest [01:35:00] news we have to report, but I am a fan of the GR Yaris. I don’t know why I’ve never driven one.

Donovan Lara: Is that the garage ride edition?

Executive Producer Tania: I would love to drive one. I mean, I like small cars. It’s a small car, so it had me at small in a track day event in Estonia, poor little Toyota GR Yaris succumbed, I think to its injuries and there’s one less in the world today. So the driver trying to push the car to its limit, I guess, you know, from the video footage of what seems to be like a still camera on the side of the track that was pointing at these two particular corners.

It’s coming around, make this left hand corner and it kind of comes through drifting and you see him coming through. He obviously tries to correct the cargo sideways, but then it snaps back and he shoots off the track to the right. Fortunately, or unfortunately in this case, unfortunately there was a sand trap.

So when it went off track, hit into [01:36:00] the sand trap, it barrel rolled, hit the roof four times, I counted, finally coming to a rest. Turtle side down. So on its four wheels, boom, there it rested. There were some not still shots, but just 360 video footage of it sitting out in that sand trap. And surprisingly, and I don’t know how fast it was going, coming into this turn, but for a car that barrel rolled hitting its roof four times.

It doesn’t look that damaged.

Donovan Lara: It was so collectible too. Just in that turn. He just

Executive Producer Tania: overcompensated. Basically, he snapped it back the other way and shot off the track. But I’m impressed by the engineering. But I guess that’s also cars these days are much

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, just think, if he holds onto it for like 50 years, he can sell it for 122, 000 like that Jaguar that we talked about earlier.

I mean,

Executive Producer Tania: we’re not having a roll cage inside and the roof didn’t collapse in the passenger. That’s

Crew Chief Eric: really, really good. Actually. I mean, it looks like the

Executive Producer Tania: headline, it looked like the headliner fell out, but it didn’t look [01:37:00] like the roof had caved in. So the passenger was probably fine. And even the body panels weren’t all that banged up, not all the way around the car.

So I’m really impressed actually with the structural rigidity of the overall

Crew Chief Eric: still better looking than that Burton Docheveaux that we talked about a little as well. So it’s winning. It’s winning in a lot of categories. I’d give him 50 bucks for it.

Executive Producer Tania: Now, the other cautionary tale here is if you find yourself in Estonia on a track day, please be wary because apparently there aren’t flaggers out here because everyone just keeps going around the track.

I mean,

Crew Chief Eric: if it’s anything like the crazy track days in Germany, the bigger question is Was he wearing a helmet? Was he wearing a helmet? Exactly.

Executive Producer Tania: That was my first thought when I saw where this was located, because the cars just keep going around, I would have thought immediately red flag, everybody should be stopped, let the ambulance get out there to make sure this dude is alive.

One guy did pull over and like drove off the track and started to get out of the car and then the video shuts off. I was like, dang,

Crew Chief Eric: do yourself exactly. All right. And one final one, Tanya, I [01:38:00] know that you follow the MotoGP discipline. What’s going on?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. So that is truly the saddest news out of all these reportings is a Swiss rider in Moto3, Jason DuPasquier.

He had an accident at the Grand Prix in Mugello and unfortunately lost his life in that incident.

Crew Chief Eric: At 19 years old, that’s absolutely crazy. And, uh, it said he crashed at the turn that’s called Arabiata. It’s a, that’s the double right hander at turn nine at the end of qualifying. And it was on his flying lap.

Executive Producer Tania: And that translation means angry.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, it does. Yes, it does. So it’s very sad to see that, uh, an aspiring motorcycle rider. Would have been really cool to see what he could have done, but, you know, unfortunately, sometimes the risk we take, even with the best safety gear that’s out there and, and motorcycles and all sorts of racing are dangerous.

So always use your better judgment, whether you’re in a GR yards, a motorcycle or anything else. So always be on the side of safety, but now we’ll switch into [01:39:00] some quick local news. As we wrap up, I want to remind everybody about some upcoming events. Unfortunately, our tale of the dragon event. Has been canceled because as you know, Brad is not on this episode.

He’s not feeling too great. So we had to bag that, but we are on for our double header with auto interest at Nelson ledges and pit race over the next two weekends. So unfortunately we can’t tell you all the awesome things about Nelson ledges until next month, it’s going to be a first for a lot of us, although I have heard it is no longer like racing on the surface of the moon, it’s a newly reopened in the last couple of years.

Unfortunately, Kind of, you know, redebuted in the middle of COVID, but it’s been freshly paved. I’ve been watching a lot of videos of it. It has touted to always have had the fastest average lap speed of any track East of the Mississippi. So I’m really excited to try out Nelson ledges and I’m always happy to go to pit race.

We are at pit race celebrating the 4th of July this year, and we are also hosting a carding showdown. So if there’s anybody out there from AI or even from [01:40:00] GTM that has nothing to do over the 4th of July, we can. Please come join us for the pit race carding showdown on July 3rd. You can register for that on our store site, schwag S C H W A G dot GT motorsports.

org. So we still have open spots available for that. In addition, summer bash. is returning to summit point this year. It’s bigger, badder and better than ever. Four days at summit point over three tracks. We are also hosting our 2021 fundraising campaign in conjunction with the American Cancer Society.

Details for that are on our website. We are looking to raise 7, 000 for ACS. We are about 2, 500 in right now, if you’re listening to this and we’re looking for your support. You know, no obligation, but we do thank everyone that can help contribute. All proceeds go to the ACS. It’s going to be a track walk and run, which is a first for summit point.

So if you can join us on July 31st at summit point, [01:41:00] that’s going to be awesome. All the details are on our website. We also have our cannonball run where we expect to see Donovan on track with us from garage riot, along with Some other folks at Carolina Motorsports Park in conjunction with our friends at Just Track It.

That’s going to be over the August 7, 8, 9 weekend. So if you want more details about that particular event, visit JustTrackIt. net. I will say it’s a really great affordable weekend and an awesome facility there. We got a bunch of folks that live down in that area that are familiar with that track where I also heard rumor that Dave Peters from HPDE Junkie is going to come out and join us for that.

So if you want to meet some of the crew from GTM. HPD junkie. Come on out to Carolina Motorsport Park in August. So I’ll save you the report from HPD junkie this month, because you should come out and meet Dave and talk to him. And I’ll tell you all about it while we’re there at CMP. There are still tons of events on the calendar.

I mean, Hundreds day in and day out weekdays, there’s events coming up. You know, I just heard [01:42:00] from hooked on driving. They’re doing event in August for advanced drivers and coaches at Watkins gun. I believe that’s August like 11th and 12th, a bunch of other stuff just going on here in the motor sports world, especially in circuit racing.

But that’s to include drag racing, dirt track. I mean, the tracks are open again. So get out there. There’s monster trucks coming to the DMV soon. And then JMP and places like that. And we’re really looking forward to getting out there and being part of those events.

Executive Producer Tania: And in case you missed out, check out the other podcast episodes that aired earlier this month.

We had an action packed June where we went trackside with Zachary Schnitta and the team from Ginger Man Raceway to celebrate their 25th anniversary. We took a trip down Mulholland Drive and caught up with Paul Wilamowski and learned all about West Coast car culture and his shift from New York City life.

We also had a special Patreon re release of Donovan’s Pit Stop episode where he discusses his barn find C2 Corvette. And we created a sequel that’s not a sequel by revisiting our 50th episode with our friends from take two podcast [01:43:00] in our first ever crossover episode. And finally, we can’t wait to get back on track with Nabil and the team at Just Track It for our cannonball to Carolina motor sports park later this summer.

So learn all about their program in the Just Track It episode. Thank you to everyone that came on the show and please look forward to more great episodes in season two.

Crew Chief Eric: Now I got a wot wot moment here. All right. We’ve been tracking hard over the last year of this show, collecting, you know, Patreon supporters along the way.

And I can’t say thank you enough to all those folks, our devoted listeners, our supporters, our families, all of them. We got no Patreon signups this month. So what’s going on June? We’re going to look forward to July. You can check it all out at patreon. com forward slash GT motor sports, tons of behind the scenes content, just like the recording of this episode with Donovan and other special exclusive content on their early access to episodes, other types of swag, all available on Patrion, think about porting GTM and everything we do, you know, all the money goes to.

[01:44:00] Keeping the lights on around here, you know, feeding our writers, our developers, our casters, all of that. So every little bit helps. And we appreciate all the contributions on Patreon. So Donovan, do you want to do a little shout out?

Donovan Lara: Yeah, I’ll shout out to myself. No, no. I want to shout out to Brad. Thanks for letting me sit in.

I hope you feel better. Uh, I left your dressing room intact. Blow up dolls are still where they were. Thanks to you guys for having me on. And, uh, you know, if, if you guys, uh, want to venture over to garage, right. com and check us out, we’d love to have you.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. And do you have any upcoming events that you want to share or any ones that you’ve covered in this season that people might not know about?

Donovan Lara: We were at Amelia Island. We talked about earlier, there’s some photos of that event. They’re trying to get around to some of the local events. We had a Y2K event recently with 80s, 90s and 2K cars, which was pretty cool. And then throughout the summer, we’re, uh, participants, uh, or sponsors of various, uh, events throughout the Southeast.

So come say hello if you’re out there and see us and, uh, otherwise we’ll see

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. And just as a reminder for folks [01:45:00] That may be hearing about garage riot for the first time and haven’t listened to the episode that we did with you last year. Is there a cost? How do they sign up? You know, those quick things that they may want to know.

Donovan Lara: Yeah, totally free. Uh, you know, we, we put together an environment for, you know, car people to get together and talk without. Politics and the grumpy old man, uh, telling you, you know, this, that, and the other, you know, car, just car, just car people. That’s all we are. So you cut through the BS and, uh, you know, no matter what, uh, walk of life you are or whether you’re interested in European or domestic or JDM or something else, Ladas, maybe, yeah.

Get online and talk to us. We’ll have you on there.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. And, you know, now being on the platform with you guys over a year and interacting with the Garage Riot crew and getting to meet some of the people and having them come over to our VRL and things like that. It’s been an awesome experience. I love it.

It’s very inviting. You know, it’s very petrol head focus, which is awesome. And to your point cuts out the BS and it’s continuing to evolve, right? You guys are awesome and taking, you know, criticism and fixing the platform and adding new features. And there’s been some great feedback. Good things that have [01:46:00] come out over the year.

And I’m looking forward to seeing what next year looks like right on the top of that. So thank you again for supporting us and working with us and being a partner. And it’s been fantastic having you on the show.

Donovan Lara: Yeah, vice versa. It’s great to have you guys involved. And we look forward to seeing you guys here at CMP soon.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. And you know, We would be remiss if we didn’t thank our executive producer, Tanya, our co host, who’s that? That’s you. That’s who it

is. You

Crew Chief Eric: know, she puts in a lot of time, a lot of effort, hours into organizing this stuff, going through, you know, fact checks and some things, keeping the rest of us honest.

Honest and putting together, you know, the drive through it. She really owns this part of our larger podcast series. And for those that may be listening to this episode for the first time, next month is actually quite special. It is the first anniversary of our first drive through. So look for some special stuff next month as we put that together.

And I hope all of you enjoyed the episode and we’ll look to Catch up with [01:47:00] you

soon. If you like what

Crew Chief Brad: 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 Instagram at grandtouringmotorsports. 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 [01:48:00] 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 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, and Monster. 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 Sponsors
• 01:09 Ford’s $1.3 Billion Penalty
• 03:29 Ford’s New EcoBoost V8
• 06:15 EV Revolution and the Mach-E
• 10:41 Chip Shortages Impacting Production
• 21:29 Ford Bronco’s Off-Road Adventure
• 25:05 Alfa Romeo’s Exciting Future
• 30:55 Lamborghini’s Electric Plans
• 35:47 The Rise of the ID.4 and ID.3
• 37:06 GTX: The New GTI?
• 37:30 Drift Mode: Necessary or Nuisance?
• 39:29 Green Mobility Experiments in Greece
• 40:56 The Return of the Five-Cylinder Audi
• 44:16 Nicolas Cage’s Impressive Car Collection
• 46:04 Lost and Found: Rare Car Discoveries
• 48:38 Collector Car Market Trends
• 01:01:14 The Controversial Tesla Plaid Edition
• 01:06:54 The Boring Company’s Vegas Tunnel
• 01:11:19 Unexpected Car Videos
• 01:12:18 The Bizarre Citroen 2CV Roadster
• 01:14:23 The Worst Internship Ever
• 01:16:04 Strange Incident at Circle K
• 01:18:04 NASCAR at COTA: A Rainy Disaster
• 01:20:55 Women Making History at Indy 500
• 01:24:36 The Mystery of Michael Schumacher
• 01:25:55 Toyota’s Rally Prius Experiment
• 01:29:57 BMW’s Return to Le Mans
• 01:31:40 Motor Mythbusters and Richard Hammond’s New Show
• 01:34:21 Sad News in Motorsport
• 01:38:56 Upcoming Events and Final Thoughts

• Upcoming/Recap GTM Events: Tail of the Dragon (6/25-27 – CANCELLED), Summer Bash 7 (7/31-8/2), Cannonball Run to CMP (8/6-8), Nelson Ledges (6/25-27), Paddock Party at PITTRace (7/2-4) – Check the Club Schedule for all the details. 
  
• HPDEJunkie.com report – What’s coming in July/August in the DMV?
• In case you missed out- check out the other Podcast episodes that aired this month along with the Drive Thru… We had an action packed June where we went trackside with Zachary Schnitta and the team from Gingerman Raceway to celebrate their 25th anniversary; We took a trip down Mulholland Drive and caught up with Paul Wilamoski and learned all about west coast car-culture and his shift from NYC life. We also had a special Patreon re-release of Donovan’s PITSTOP episode where he discusses his “barn find” C2 Corvette; and we created a sequel that’s not a sequel by revisiting our 50th episode with our friends from Take Too Podcast in our first ever crossover, and finally we can’t wait to get on track with Nabil and the team at “Just Track It” for our cannonball to Carolina Motorsports Park later this summer so learn all about their program in the Just Track it episode. Thank you to everyone that came on the show, and please look forward to more great episodes in Season 2!