B/F: The Drive Thru #21

• Hertz to buy up to 65,000 electric cars from Polestar
• DeLorean, Reborn as the EVolve, Reveals Its Rear End
• Lightyear partners with MyWheels to supply over 5,000 SEV models to car sharing platform

• Audi and Porsche hold fire on final F1 decision

• 2023 Toyota GR Corolla, Explained by Its Chief Engineer: 'Americans Demand Power'

Why Hundreds of Mazdas Tuned to 94.9 Broke Simultaneously

• A Single New Dodge Dart Was Sold in Q1, Six Years After Being Discontinued
• Six Racing-Inspired ‘80s and ‘90s Cars at the New York Auto Show

• Mercedes-Benz Drove An Electric Car Over 620 Miles Without Stopping To Charge
• Mercedes-Benz officially unveils details of upcoming EQS SUV, arriving in US late 2022
• BMW unveils i7 electric car with over 300 miles of range and a less polarizing design

• What if??? Delorean Group-B
• GM Patents Autonomous Tech to Train New Drivers Sans Instructor
• Self-driving car pulled over in San Francisco, confounding police. 'Ain't nobody in it.'

• IndyCar, IMSA Detroit GP to again offer free entry on Friday

• Ferrari 296GTS Is an 819-HP Hybrid V-6 Droptop
• Stellantis Goes Six in a Row with a Twin-Turbo Inline-Six Engine

• Air Rider: Tesla-Powered 1950 Jaguar Mark V
• Instagram PSA: Tesla's look like Voldemort
• Elon Musk releases more details on Tesla’s upcoming robotaxi electric car: ‘will cost less per mile than bus ticket’

• Audi Urbansphere Is the Luxury Minivan We Didn’t Know We Needed

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motorsports podcast, break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something motorsports related. The drive-through is GTMs monthly news episode, and is sponsored in part by organizations like h hpde junkie.com, garage riot, american muscle.com, hooked on driving and many others.

If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor of the drive-through, look no further than www.gt motorsports.org. Under about and then advertising and sponsorship. Thank you again to everyone that supports Grantor Motorsports, our podcast Break Fix and all the other services we provide. Welcome to drive through episode number 21.

This is our monthly recap where we’ve put together a menu of PT Cruisers, HHR Dodge Darts, bags of mulch and autonomous driving level 12. Now let’s pull up the window number one for some April Fools. What up April? Fool? Can you believe it? April? [00:01:00] We’re, we’re already into April. We’re already almost out of April.

That’s true. This is airing on the last Tuesday of the month, like it always does, but you know what’s coming up next? It’s not an April Fool’s joke. It’s one of the things that Tanya despises most in the world, her favorite vehicles. We’re gonna kick off our showcase of the Drivethrough this month, talking about pickup trucks.

Pick.

I don’t despise them. It’s a very strong accusation. She just would never own one cuz she doesn’t understand the point. She might understand the point as we get through this conversation though, cause we’re gonna talk about some really cool stuff. I just don’t have a need to drive to work. Need gas guzzling pickup truck.

You don’t need to haul 1500 pounds of mulch everywhere you go. All right. Hold on a second. Not usually, no. I’m gonna say something. I was at our [00:02:00] local Lowe’s this weekend, and I kid you not, I did not go there for mulch, but the line to get in, you would’ve thought they were given away free hamburgers and frosties.

At Lowe’s, there was 45 pickup trucks waiting to have mulch bags forklifted into their beds. I was like, what in the heck is going on? Absolutely insane. But I get it. If you need to buy a pallet of mulch, What are you gonna move it with? Oh my God, those people need to talk to the people at my Lowe’s, because half of the parking lot is taken up by pallets of mulch, right?

It is a bit of a maze. Do not park over by the garden center at all that that is for sure. Now, I mean, I could probably get half a pallet in my Jeep. It would take me some time to move the bags around. Can’t just drop it in there. But I would also probably take my landscape trailer and drop a pallet on that.

So I don’t, I don’t know. How much property do these people have? Do they need a pallet? Mulch, couple bags and I’m [00:03:00] good. Why aren’t you just having someone come dump a load of mulch, which tends to usually be cheaper than buying overpriced bags? That’s the question of questions of all questions. And I think I’m gonna start a mulching business cuz obviously there’s revenue to be generated there.

But I will say this, they didn’t get my dollars buying mulch because I haven’t bought mulch in like 20 years because I replaced all my mulch with gravel. Because you know what? It doesn’t biodegrade. It lasts forever and it always looks the same. It’s freaking amazing. Top tip gravel. I feel like we need a mulch economist to come on the show and kind of tell us, you know, how the mulch business is going.

Which podcast crossover is that with? Is that like Better Homes and Gardens between Two Ferns? Where? Where’d the Lilly Flume or something? Yeah. Perfect. What was the one from Letter Kenny? It’s Crack an Egg. Yeah. Cracks Crack an egg there. There you go. Uh, so why don’t we crack Jimmy Crack corns? Nobody cared.

So why don’t we crack an [00:04:00] egg over the new Rattler? Is it new? I thought it looked like an F-150. Yeah. You mean the F-150? FX four? I’m looking at it. It looks like a bargain basement worker truck. I don’t get this thing. I think that’s the point. It’s supposed to be a more in entry level truck with some of the higher level features that a lot of people overspend for off-road equipment to the XL trim.

Yes, like 18 inch wheels aluminum, which are terrible for off-road. You don’t want anything aluminum. You’re gonna destroy them. There are eight versions of the Ford f150. This is a little bit of badge engineering is what you’re saying? It’s exactly what it is. Yes. Do you remember the original lightning where it had that kind of grill that looked, you could paint it any color you wanted because it really didn’t go with the rest of the body?

Like this reminds me of that. Like if you went two-tone on like that style of F-150 back then, it’s reminiscent of that era with this plastic grill and everything’s got going on. [00:05:00] I mean, looks wise, it looks like, as Tanya indicated, it looks like an F-150. It, I mean, it does come with some cool things. It comes with, uh, an electronic locking, rear differential hill descent control, shock absorbers and tuned for off-road, which, what does that mean?

Where the hell that mean? Maybe they’re a little bit softer than the standard. They’re also skid plates protecting the fuel tank transfer case and front differential and the Rattler is fitted with all terrain tires and you get a Rattler badge on the fenders and a Rattler graphic with a snake skinned look on the side of the bed.

I mean, so, so this reminds me of the Audi A four s sport line or the Mercedes a m g sport line or the Lexus I S F. Sport line. That’s not actually the ISF sport in anyway and G or, yeah, it’s, it’s exactly as Eric said, badge engineering. I love the one comment though at the bottom from this guy [00:06:00] whose handle is basically P farina and he says, I’m waiting for the side winder package, which gives you four wheel steering on a base truck and the constrictor, which has smaller cup holders props to you.

PanIN, Farina, I’m, I’m with you a hundred percent. This is awesome. But yeah, a bunch of badge engineering. And to be honest, it’s not that off roadie either. It’s just some plastic, it doesn’t have like those Subaru style rubber made fenders or anything like that. It’s got black wheels, a black grill and like rubber bumpers.

I’m like, okay, whatever. Well, it does have altering tires, so it’s more off-road capable because you can’t just run down the tire rack and buy yourself a set of altering tires probably for cheaper than they put on this truck fair or anything like that. But, but you can get it with the FX four option.

What? What’s the delivery charge on that? Well actually it says a thousand dollars. So why wouldn’t you? I mean base price is what, 39 grand I [00:07:00] think it says for this thing, which for a pickup truck, by today’s standards, we all like grasp at our hearts going, oh my God, that’s pretty cheap. It is pretty cheap.

Respective to today’s current prices, you know? Yeah. And usually with pickup trucks, they throw about, $5,000 on average and incentives at you. So yeah, you could probably get this truck out the door for 37, 38, something like that. Well, let’s talk about another pickup that is surrounded by body cladding and plastic.

That’ll probably be the bullseye for a heat seeking Tesla in the near future. Maybe a heat seeking cyber truck. Ooh, well, how about the new 2023 Chevy Silverado police truck with off-road pursuit mode. Wouldn’t these just be park rangers? I don’t know that right. My local, that’s exactly what I was thinking.

My, my local Frederick County sheriff is gonna be hightailing it down in the woods after some pot growers. I mean, didn’t we already do this on Walker, Texas [00:08:00] Ranger? Didn’t he drive a Silverado? I mean, what is this fall guy with his blazer? I mean, come on you to your point, painted that, you know, puke green, that the, you know, Maryland state preserve, guys drive around into the park Police, this isn’t anything new for gm.

They put some, you know, cherries and berries on top. Big deal. I think the park rangers, they’re all still driving square bodies. They’re the only people in the world, aren’t they, though, that are driving? Every time you see a, a square body, it’s green. A hundred percent. It’s a park ranger. Well, you know, this thing has the same motor as those square bodies.

It’s the same old 5.3 liter V8 they’ve been making for like a hundred years. They bumped it up to 355 horsepower. Ooh, strapped to a 10 speed automatic, I hate to say 3 55 horse out of 5.3 liters is pretty pathetic when you think about like what a 2.0 turbo can do. Granted, this truck weighs like, you know, 7,500 pounds.

Why would they put 20 inch wheels on a police vehicle? I, right. I [00:09:00] guarantee you, your local law enforcement agency isn’t gonna want to spend $2,500 for tires. Look, it’s got 16 inch front rotors, a rear locker, and a two inch lift kit. All right, come on now. That’s worth, it’s at least 25 grand. Destination charges.

It. This is the, the Chevrolet puff at her. I don’t know it, it’s cool. Okay, let’s look at it this way. If this is a police interceptor granted for off-road, they don’t need the speed package, I ju I don’t see this doing highway pursuit though. That’s for sure not. With Tesla’s doing zero to 60 in sub three seconds, Fords had the f150, one of the various.

F150 versions as a police, whatever you wanna call it, pursuit or responder or whatever, down south. I mean, in Texas, a lot of the constables, um, you’d see them in murdered out black pickup trucks, which you weren’t quite sure from the front if it was the SUV or the pickup truck till you kind of saw down the side.

But, [00:10:00] so wait, you had constables in Texas or did they have the big tall like Bobby hats and the Billy clubs like Keystone, GOPs? Like did you call them the constabulary? Call them the Poppo.

We need to call Constable Walker. Speaking of which, did Walker have a first name? Can somebody answer that for us? Like that was his first name and last name. And his last name. It’s like Wilson. Wilson from Home Improvement. Right? He’s just Walker Cordell. Oh, was it Cordell Damn Was Cor. His name was Cordell Walker.

All right then the Mystery Salt Constable Cordell Walker, the real question is, what did he drive? Probably a Ford. I thought it was a Chevy. No. Did he drive a ram? Yes, he drove a Dodge. He’s a Mopar man. Oh, apparently a 1995 Dodge Ram 1500. Oh yeah. But you know what? If Chuck Nora’s roundhouse kicked [00:11:00] that Dodge Ram, it probably turned into our next pickup truck.

Good one. Yes, indeed. He would roundhouse kick it into a cyber truck. Oh. Oh my God. This picture with Elon Musk and the cowboy hat, who the, what the hell is going on this? Was this the cyber rodeo? What to mean? So, because it’s Texas and rodeo’s a big deal every year he’s got the gigafactory that’s just opened.

And to commemorate the launch of the Gigafactory in Giga, Texas, he held cyber rodeo. And it was a whole spectacle of sight and sounds and this, that and the other. And they rolled out a allegedly hand-built prototype of this cyber truck, which, which prototype number is this? Because I thought we already saw like the prototype where he busted the glass that was unbreakable.

But [00:12:00] anyway, I guess some people that were there took some scrutinized photos and video and whatnot and some of it’s been released and people have just been like railing on them for the same old stuff. Fit and finish. There’s like zoomed in pictures you can find where the door panels are completely misaligned.

You can totally tell body panels are different colors of gray or whatever, paint. It is, it’s different colors of stainless steel, it’s different colors of stainless steel. Whatever the hell this thing is made of. I don’t even remember cause I don’t care, you know? Well, in defense it’s a prototype, so it’s not a finished product.

Let’s criticize it when it’s finished and people are like, they hand-built it, they couldn’t take two extra seconds for the, like, masking tape to align the doors correctly. Like people are going on about, like, it’s held on with like packing tape and stuff like that. Typical things. Tesla needs to hire that guy who built the Lamborghini in his basement.

Right. That guy had better fit and finish. Right. And he used Home Depot parts. He’s already in, he’s a master [00:13:00] right there. Again, it was a fanfare event. Uh, I don’t know how many thousands of people you could go buy tickets to see this. Yes, they unveiled, you know, this prototype. I thought one of the most interesting things was the side mirror that is now seen.

Wait, wait, what? What, what did you, did you just blaspheme? I just blasphemed. There is a side mirror. Liar on the car. No way. Clearly they’re not winning. Probably that national highway transportation battle to not have any mirrors. There’s also a photo of the most gigantic windshield wiper plate like ever.

So the lasers are still in, uh, in design development, I guess I will say, to fit the design of the cyber truck being from Starfox 64 or whatever the, exactly where it’s from. I noticed that the, the side mirrors are reminiscent of the old Volkswagen flag mirrors like you would [00:14:00] find on like a Jetta or a Rocco.

I was like, what the hell are these? So these mirrors supposedly are designed to be removable that way in the, in the future when he wins the battle that you do not need side mirrors because you have cameras that relay that information to your dashboard. The owner can thusly, remove, said obtrusive. He doesn’t understand the market.

It needs to be like all Dodge Ram owners that leave their mirrors permanently extended and don’t own a trailer and never will. That’s the feature that the cyber truck needs to have. Make those suckers even bigger. Or the people that go to the car wash and have their mirrors folded in for like three hours as they’re traveling down the road.

I’ve done that before on my Jeep, cuz I have the retractable mirrors and then I’ll back out of a parking spot. Cause you, you’re like tight in the city kind of deal. And I’m like, why the hell can’t I see anything? And I’m like, oh shit. I’m staring at myself like that’s enough to scare [00:15:00] anybody that, that’s a hundred percent true.

That’s why I don’t have any mirrors in my house. You know what I mean? Nobody wants to see this thing. Well the bigger news, Brad, is for your a hundred dollars deposit is it is allegedly coming. Cyber truck at some point at some time. Happy. Happy. Joy. Joy. And you know what you get for that, Brad? Oh, 11 foot.

Wouldn’t your wife ran some side mirrors? And I can haul all the mulch I want. Can you, do I take it to home?

No, no tire rotation. Just 12 bags of mulch in the truck. Dude, I can take my lawnmower and the truck to no depot for service. They’ll rotate the tires, change the oil for me. Oh, there’s no oil in the cyber truck. That’s right. So when you own one of those, do you get to put stickers? You know, like we put stickers on the race car, you know the ev, everyone’s worth five horsepower.

So on the cyber truck, do you put like Cub Cadet and John Deere sticker and Toro on the side? Craftsman. Yeah. So that said, there are some changes coming to the market. We hear it all the time. You know, there’s introductions of new [00:16:00] petrol engines coming out, which we’re gonna talk about here in a little bit.

But there’s also. Regulatory changes coming thanks to the evolution. And there is now talk about a new mandate by 2026 for 49 miles to the gallon. So I’m kind of wondering how that’s gonna affect a lot of these trucks, especially the light duty vehicles that we’re seeing pop up like the, the Rattler and the Maverick and some of these other trucks that are out there.

I mean, it’s inevitable, right? I mean, they’ve always been talking about increasing every couple years trying to creep up the mpg, which is interesting how you’re doing that by making the cars heavier with bigger motors. But we’re gonna also be more fuel efficient. I mean, I know there’s lots of things with, you know, computers, electronics around the fuel injection and all that.

And the newer automatic transmissions are, are more efficient. Or give you more efficiency and whatnot, but is that really enough to make up for our nine point 10 million liter V [00:17:00] thousand v6? But isn’t this all offset by for every 707 horsepower Dodge Demon? They offset it with a 2016 Dodge Dart that averages 50 miles per gallon.

Is that how they’re doing the math? It isn’t it the, the, it’s for the entire fleet. It’s an average of 49. So if you’ve got a car that does 10, you better have a car that does like 70 to offset it. And do electric cars play into this as well? I, I didn’t see, I don’t think it should because it, it shouldn’t, I mean, I hope it doesn’t.

Yeah, empg versus MPG is like apples and chainsaws. It doesn’t compute, it never will. It’s just range factor, right? How far can you go per, what is it? 33.6 kilowatts, which equals one gallon of fuel. So that’s the only comparison you can make. We talked about that in my boring math lecture a couple months ago.

So go back and visit that again. But to your point, if that’s the fuzzy math that they’re doing, they better have some three cylinder [00:18:00] diesels on the other end of this equation, getting 80 miles to the gallon. Cuz otherwise it’s not gonna work. Or Corolla. Gr Yaris is three cylinder turbos. You know that?

Yeah. So it’s, it’s for the entire vehicle fleet that it’s the average. So if, if, if Ford’s making a 500 horsepower Mustang, they’ve got a 95 horsepower Ford focus somewhere out there, that which. Offsets it, which to their point then they say, sticker on any individual vehicle would probably be more in the thirties range, but we’ve been targeting 30 miles to the gallon for 30 years.

Now. How can we not achieve this? Why is this such a big deal? Well, cause we keep making the cars heavier and the motor’s bigger. Yeah. And, and for the, the four years that Trump was in office, I believe he halted this too. He kind of scaled some of that back. It goes back to my point about efficiency, right?

Everybody loves to beat me back when I say this, but. 355 horsepower out of 5.3 liters is pathetic. I’m gonna say it again. It’s pathetic. [00:19:00] Out of 5.3 liters, if you gave it to the Germans, they’d be making 900 horsepower because that’s how they think. We have these lazy engines, they’re big and they’re gas guzzlers because they don’t make any power.

Everybody go, ah, 400 horsepowers, nothing. It’s a joke. But in their defense, they’re also not as tightly wound. They’re not as high strung, so they’re more reliable. You theoretically should be able to get more miles out of them. I mean, yes, W can get 500 horsepower out of, uh, A much smaller motor, but then that motor’s blowing up, you know, for various reasons, whatever.

So they, they’re a little stressed. I will give you that. I will give, but there’s gotta be a compromise out there. Is it a supercharger? Is it a turbocharger? Is it a smaller motor? You know, what is the right answer answer’s diesel. I just wanna remind people the answer’s diesel, but you know, whatever that means.

Well that’s what Ford, that’s what Ford’s been doing the last couple years when they brought out the turbo [00:20:00] sixes and everything. I mean, they took the diesel formula applied to, but that turbo six is pathetic. I mean, let’s be real, 365 horsepower or whatever, and 400 plus pound feet of torque and then you slap a tune on it and you’ve got a hundred more horsepower and 150 more torque.

It’s not pathetic, but it’s, it still sounds like a Pontiac from the eighties and it can’t get out of its own way. Do you want the sound or do you want the fuel efficiency and the power and the durability? I mean, put the car enthusiast to the side. Alright, I’m gonna take a page of the Italian playbook for a minute and we’re gonna talk Ferrari for just a second.

They’ve been making high strung, high horsepower, small V8 s forever strap, a turbo to a three liter v8. I’ve got the sound, I’ve got the power, I’ve got everything I need, and they can be built reliable. Part of the problem with reliability whoa, is that we’re building them out of garbage. I’m gonna stop you right there.

Build reliable. How many 150, 200,000 mile Ferraris are out there with those motors? [00:21:00] Show show point. Show me one. Just show me one. And how many million mile Toyota tundras are there out there with these 4.6 liter, 5.7 liter motors. So they, they last forever because they’re not doing anything. They’re lazy.

Yes, exactly. I get you. Which, you know, I, I’m okay with a lazy motor that doesn’t do anything that I can have. Basically the next generation drive after me. But again, going back to my point about the power numbers, 400 horse out of 5.7 liters like your tundra. What’s the torque number? If the torque isn’t double?

That torque, by the way, is what you feel, right? It’s how far you push the wall after you crash into it. That’s the more important number. The horsepower numbers are irrelevant. That’s why I look at it. I go, these torque numbers suck. You’re not gonna make the torque out of a gas motor that you would out of a diesel.

I’ve been saying for years now, we should be going diesel electric hybrid, run that diesel at a constant ILE to provide power to the EV and just go to town. [00:22:00] Where do we get that technology from? We get it from trains. I’ve been saying it forever, but we don’t wanna go there. But then you kill the baby seals.

With your noxious gases and dense stuff. Well, I, I, yeah, I guess you’re right. I don’t know what to say. Granted, I can’t go to Lowe’s and pick up mulch with my original Ford Ranger from, you know, 1978. You know, it’s just not possible right now because the Ford Ranger from 1978 doesn’t run anymore. Very true.

But you know what does run are these next three trucks that we’re gonna talk about and a special guest truck in that list. Did you all take a look at this video? Yes. Jason Camisa now with Haggerty due to shootout between the Dodge Tyrannosaurus racks are the TRX against the current Ford Raptor. Twin Turbo six cylinder Eco-Boost and the Rivian.

I’m disappointed that the T-Rex doesn’t have smaller front wheels, right? It should. It should. It should. [00:23:00] Small wheels, you put the wheels from the demon on the front that way, you know, has the little tiny, the skinnies. Yeah. I was not surprised by the turnout of this video, but that I was shocked by the end of the video.

So, Tanya, do you wanna fill us in on what happened here with your favorite pickup truck that you admittedly said on a previous drive to episode you could consider at least test driving?

I very much enjoy the styling of the Rivian. The Chev Rivian. Is that what we’re calling now, Ian? Why? Why do you say that? Isn’t it a GM product or is it not a GM product? What is that? I think G GM dumped a bunch of money into Rivian, but they’re still a separate entity. But they, they just stole their design for the Silverado.

GM was represented in their shootout by proxy on behalf of Rivian. So let’s continue with how this went down. Ford has a 12% stake in Rivian. I don’t think GM has any stake in [00:24:00] Rivian. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Before we get into this, can I just say why, who is spending 80 plus 90 plus thousand dollars for a pickup truck?

That was shocking to see the price tag of the Rivian. I didn’t really realize it was clocking in that high. I’m talking, I’m talking about all three. All three of ’em are 80 plus. Yeah, I mean, the Ford F-150 Electric’s gonna be like a hundred grand or whatever, right? Who? I mean, cyber truck’s gonna be ridiculously expensive.

They all are. How are, how can people afford this stuff? We’re only gonna be able to afford what we have today. That’s what it’s gonna boil down to. I, I can’t afford a hundred thousand dollars pickup truck. It’s not gonna happen. I mean, they’re already a hundred thousand dollars now after incentives and discounts and dealer surcharges and destination fees.

I mean, I, I don’t get it. Maybe that’s why there’s the 10 year loans. I mean, for me, the math doesn’t work out for others. If you can explain it to me, please, by all means, you know, let me know. But when you’re in the a hundred thousand dollars range, there’s a lot of cars to pick from and 80 grand [00:25:00] on a used nine 11 GT three and drive a $20,000 Nissan Sentra and probably still have money left over.

Not for any maintenance on the Porsche, but the point is at a hundred grand, that’s, that’s a lot. Like I said the other day regarding a different car, if I’m spending a hundred or over a hundred grand, it’s going to be red and rhyme with Ferrari or BA or or Babo Babo. I, I’m at the end of the video. Was that a stock GMC Cyclone?

It was a stock GMC Cyclone. You like that? My ma man. My man, yes. And that was the designer creator of the GMC Cyclone driving it, riding in it on the trailer. So spoiler alert, they do this shootout between the three trucks and at the end they rerun the shootout with the rivian towing the cyclone. And I thought that was freaking fantastic.

Which I would’ve wished they had done all three of them towing something. Yes. That would’ve been awesome too. I was very impressed with the Rivian [00:26:00] capabilities. I mean, the Rivian smoked the, uh, what? The T Rx. Oh yeah. And the other one, the, the Raptor was just like nowhere sound, it still beat the raptor while it was towing?

Yes. I mean, not by a ton, but it was by a hood length, which is a lot. No, which is why I would be interested to see like the ram towing. What is that comparison like? How much stress was it to the batteries to tow versus would the Rivian have won that or would the Ram still have come out ahead? Is anybody really surprised that an all electric beats a gas motor and drag race though?

No. This is just like the Tesla shootout. No, it’s not really that different. No. What I am surprised by is that a 30 year old GMC Cyclone, is my math correct, a 30 year old GMC Stock Cyclone waxed, a Ford F-150 Raptor by almost a second. Now granted there’s like a 4,000 pound weight difference between the two, but the power output of that old, you know, [00:27:00] GM Turbo six, it’s not super fantastic By today’s Sanders, the cyclone didn’t ask to be lighter.

It was made lighter. Yeah. You know, maybe a Ford made the F-150 Veloc giant, jumbo Raptor or whatever the hell lighter, you know, or all cars in general were made lighter. They’d be a little faster. Well, we can’t because they have to have 1900 airbags. The real race. Was them not towing another vehicle? It’s how many pallets of mulch could they pull in a quarter mile and see who was the fastest?

I mean, that’s, that’s what we’re doing here, right? We’re we’re hauling mulch. There would be a top gear special, three pickup trucks. Go into Home Depot loading up the max they can with mulch getting to wherever destination, who can get there the fastest, and how much gas did they burn doing it, you know, well obviously the Rivian Knot, how many stops did it make on the way?

But I will say, we talked about the T Rx on a previous episode about the laps that it [00:28:00] did at the Berg ring and, you know, cooking the brakes. And that was comical. And I, I very much enjoyed that. I would’ve liked to seen them complete the lap at Willow Springs and see what the handling was like between the trucks, not just the straight line speed, because maybe the Raptor has an advantage being a little lighter than the T Rx and a little bit more down low grunt coming out of the pocket instead of having to wait for the supercharger, stuff like that.

See how far the Rivian would’ve gone, you know, do a nice 10 minute session. I mean, I’m not asking these cars to do a full half hour like we do on track, but that would’ve been a cool shootout as well. Not just straight line speed. I know we always focus on that quarter mile time. You know, the road isn’t always straight.

That test is irrelevant to me. Even, I mean, even the handling test, if they actually did a couple laps at whatever track they were at, I mean, all that stuff is irrelevant for a pickup truck. I wanna know how much it tows, how fuel efficient it is. While towing because my truck, I stopped for fuel every 225 miles towing a car.

Ask me. I know. [00:29:00] Yeah. Ask me how I know. So I will say this, the rivian definitely earned some brownie points with me. As I was watching that, I said to myself, you know, I could see replacing my diesel Jeep with that, but not at that price point. That’s a lot of coin to swallow, to basically have something that tows similarly to what I already have.

Now, to your point, I can get 400 plus miles out of my Jeep when I’m towing the race car. So I don’t have to stop as often. You know, what is that longevity of the ev tow truck look like? You know, when you’re pulling a race car or you know, happening to get a pallet of mulch at your local lows yet to be determined, right?

But those are the real tests. That’s the stuff that I think consumers are really waiting for that we’ll never get. Have you seen the newest from Audi, the newest s line badged thing that isn’t an s that Brad was talking about? No, they’re, um, possibly bringing to production something called the urban sphere.

The what, what, what? It is what looks to [00:30:00] be a minivan, which would be a first for Audi. It’s a 396 horsepower electric concept. Minivan. The good news is it’s not going to be in the United States. Wa wa I don’t know how I feel about it. On the one hand, I’m like, that’s good because these things are, it’s kind of weird looking, on the other hand, whatever.

I mean, I don’t know why Audi needs a minivan, which is also something I struggle with. Like, let Volkswagen have minivans. But that’s a personal Yes. The, the, the, the politics and the dynamics here make no sense. And then what happens is, so Volkswagen has the ID buzz and now Audi has whatever this Q seven is, cuz that’s the first glance.

That’s what I thought when I saw it. Then Porsche goes, well, we need a minivan. Gosh, no. It shall be turbo.

It’ll be cold. It’ll be the ring in seven and a half minutes. Oh my gosh. You know who’s buying minivans? Nobody. When I take my kid to school every single [00:31:00] morning, I see zero minivans. I see a crap ton of SUVs of various shapes and sizes I have not seen in the last three, four months. I have not seen one minivan in that parking lot.

Well, apparently there’s not minivan drivers in the United States, but this is going to be marketed for China. That makes perfect sense. Which on the one hand I’ll say this is smart for Audi to come up with a minivan because when I look at this also it reminds me of something else. A shoe. Hi robot. No, something.

The Chinese copied off another Volkswagen Audi product. Aren’t the Chinese just gonna copy? This is gonna be an udi. Exactly. They have the punk cat Aura or the Aura Punk cat or the Aura Ballet cat. Where they copy the The Bele. So I’m like, I feel like we’re cutting to the chase here. Like don’t try to like make our Q seven into a minivan.

We’ll just give you the minivan. Here it is. I don’t like it. I don’t get it. No. Thank you. [00:32:00] Yeah. And, and to your point, I think they should finally separate the portfolio and say, look, Porsche’s gonna build the sports cars. Let’s get rid of this Panamera. That’s an A eight. I hate to break it to you folks.

It’s an A eight L underneath, you know, all that garbage, cayenne, whatever. Volkswagen builds the vans and the trucks and whatever, and Audi builds the luxury sports sedans, and Porsche builds the sports cars. End of story. Like I, I get that they’re doing the reusable recyclable platform and everybody can have their cake and eat it too.

But we already saw this with STIs where they finally separated the lines and said, Ram is making trucks. There’s no Dodge pickups anymore. Dodge is doing this, and Chrysler’s doing that, and Fiat’s doing this other thing. And it just doesn’t make sense to have all this proliferation just because somebody wants to badge on the front of the hood.

Isn’t that what got GM in trouble with? Yes. The Buick. The Buick and the Oldsmobile and the Cadillac and the Chevrolet in the Metro. Yes, and all that. They were all the exact same [00:33:00] vehicles. They were competing against themselves. Right. But they didn’t want to talk. They didn’t talk to each other and Exactly.

They were competing with themselves and then they just, Ford was running away with it with the F-150, because who the hell wants a GMC or a Silverado or whatever? Who knows the differences between them? There aren’t any, by the way, I’m, I’m waiting for the Ford and Aconda. Right. So it’s all, or Python or whatever the next one is.

It’s all good. The Ford Cobra. Oh, there is a Ford. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, that does exist, but you know what doesn’t exist? And has been teased for many, many years. Is the coming, the shadowing, the grand pedigree of racing. Audi and Porsche are in talks and coming and debuting their Formula One team. I dunno if it’s so much a team or they wanna provide engines.

Well, Volkswagen was supposed to provide the motors, so who is it now? But it probably gives more prestige to come from Audi Porsche. It’s the same BS they did with the 180 Turbo. Oh, I know, I know. When they, when, when VW created the 180 T, then Audi suddenly said, well, we invented it. Like, get outta here.

It’s all the same motor, it’s all [00:34:00] the same stuff. That Block has been around for 40 years. Get outta here. You know, Porsche was in port one back in the day, you know, they were an indie car as well. I wanna see them come back because I’m tired of Mercedes and Ferrari. I wanna see some, some mixes in there. I wanna see them come back and do actually launch a factory team.

Correct. Agree. Agree with I want to sell their crap to somebody else. Correct. And you can see them actually use it, because then this ends up like Formula Atlantics or Formula Mazdas. It’s like, cool, all p you know, or like the Indy cars all powered by this motor and everybody’s got a different chassis. I don’t know.

I, I don’t like that. But yes, to your point, I’d love to see a factory, Porsche team back in Formula One, you know, kicking ass and taking names, but, you know, whatever. Who knows? Stop teasing me. It’s been 30 years of teasing me. I’m, I’m done with it. So our friends in the lower Saxony, oh, the rest of the lower Saxony, if you will.

We’ll start with Mercedes. Just a couple nuggets here to share. So some headline news. You know, Mercedes-Benz drives an electric car over [00:35:00] 620 miles without stopping to charge and still had 87 miles of range left. Boring. Didn’t Jeremy Clarkson, didn’t Jeremy Clarkson do this in like a diesel jack? Yeah.

But didn’t he drive around with it in neutral and the engine off most of the time? I mean, whatever, whatever you mean. He got hooked to a tow truck and it towed him. Mm-hmm. What part of the way? No, so they’ve got their eq, XX lineup, whatever. So they got this, it, it’s basically a concept car. Um, it’s called the Mission xx.

I think it’s the most a, like, it’s got the lowest drag coefficient of anything. So it beats out the Teslas and, and, and everyone else right now. So that’s attributing to its efficiency. Not to mention that apparently it’s probably something like the size of a Miata, cuz it’s like a two door Roadster size.

So it, it’s small, it’s lightweight, it’s super aerodynamic. Who knows what they’re doing with their battery technology, but they’re [00:36:00] alleging that they got over 600 miles, which is pretty huge. It looks like the McLaren speed tail. The long tail. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Obviously Mercedes has a lot of technical background and and technical expertise given all the things they do in Formula One and blah, blah, blah.

So, you know, if they’re stretching their legs here, I mean, I think that’s pretty cool from a mechanic scientific side of things. So I like it. And then I don’t like, there’s so many weird angles on this thing. There’s so many things that I appreciate. I see where they drew inspiration from. You know, even going back to the days of the silvers arrows and stuff like that.

To your point about it being small, being two door, you know, this and that. All of those things are huge negatives because, you know why? It’s not designed by somebody who drew three boxes and two big wheels like they were in kindergarten, because that’s all we buy nowadays, like we talked about in the first segment.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No one, like two people buy this. Yeah. Nobody’s gonna buy this. This is to unusable. It’s impractical. Granted, it’s a [00:37:00] study in science and engineering, but it’s not applicable. It’s not practical. So make me a Ford Raptor that can have a coefficient or drag of 0.17 called cyber truck. I’ve never seen a brick aerodynamic ever.

Even when you shave its corners. But you know who’s gonna buy this thing if it actually does come out and they do sell it or whatever. The same people that bought the, uh, the BMW I eight, those are who, who are gonna buy that I or the people that didn’t buy the I eight because they’re Mercedes fans and there was nothing available for them at the time.

Right? Ha. Hashtag brand loyalty. Make this more ammg. S lse. Yeah. Go windows. Keep it two cedar. I could see that from Give it to bra. My money can just get 500 miles. Of of M P G E if that’s what it takes, you know, from the front it is reminiscent of the old sl. Like that is true with that shape, with that roof.

I could see [00:38:00] gold wing doors being adapted to this pretty easily and it would be kind of sick. The wheels are ugly and it, it takes away from the car. And I’m not a fan of the backend to Brad’s point. It’s like the, the McLaren long tail or speed tail. But yes, this has potential, they could do something with this, you know, what would really make it sell a 600 horsepower giant V8 in the front that would smash.

I mean if, if they’ve gone, you know, extreme, like what can I do? And what they can do is, you know, almost 700 miles or whatever. That’s pretty cool cuz then if they’ve done something different with their battery technology or any other technology that’s inside it, they can translate that to something else.

Right. And maybe now it’s not 700 miles to the gallon, but it’s four 50 consistent or 500 and people can swallow that, right? Yeah, yeah. The range anxiety goes flat. 70, 70 degree ambient temperature, sunny days with a, you know, the earth is flat surface not in 40 degrees or hashtag [00:39:00] ultimate driving machine.

That’s something else. Um, hashtag no side mirrors. If you’re looking for a more traditional Mercedes, you don’t like that. Mission xx. Their e Q s lineup is expanding and they will be bringing. If you’ve been something even less attractive to market, I’d rather have that mission xx. But hey, this thing looks good from a three quarter roof angle only, that is underneath the crusher.

That is the actual picture I’m looking at. You know, what they’re doing is they’re, they’re beating Audi to the punch with the issue with the, uh, the main, yeah. This way is just like the Audi. Yeah. Yeah, this is their, their s u v in their e q s lineup, which they hinted at, but is actually finally happening and supposed to release, I believe, next year.

So, you know, sorry, it’s gonna be releasing later this year. So if you’re waiting for a Mercedes s u v, your weight’s not much longer. 207 inches. This takes a yacht, you might as well put a sail on it. Good [00:40:00] lord. It’s huge. Maybe I should consider it then. Oh yeah. But you can’t see out that back window. I think I got more glass in my TT than this thing does.

Good Lord. Moving on. True. Now, speaking of the ultimate driving machine, which you just mentioned, BMW’s unveiling its electric I seven with 300 miles of range. Who cares about any of that? What do you think about what it looks like? Uh, because we know what all the I BMWs have looked like in the past. All right.

All right. It’s a really weird looking stretched. So, nine, five.

You know, it’s funny you say that at first, I, I was thinking one of the, you know, kind of Korean off-market, you know, genesises that we are not gonna get here, or what are those? Like limousines. But then I thought about it more and because I’ve said many times, the new BMWs look like owls and I, I can make Star Trek references to like Kardashians and stuff.

This one in particular reminds me if you [00:41:00] remember that flashback episode of Picard on Star Trek where they tell the story of how, you know he got punctured in the heart by the kins and that guy comes over and says, human play Dom John. That’s what this thing looks like, dude. It’s straight up Nokin. It’s terrible.

I don’t remember that part from Star Wars. When was that? When did that happen? Star Wars. So Star Trek. This is the way, this is the way. Wait, wait. Battlestar Galactica. What? That sea pillar looks just like the, the SOB 95. The most recent. It’s terrible. Five’s terrible. This is terrible. The wheels are terrible.

It’s terrible. It’s ugly. This double like stacked headlights thing is weird. They did that reminds me of the Jeep Cherokee from like, what was it, 2014 ish where it had the triple, triple headlights because they did the light and they’re like, oh, this isn’t gonna pass tech. So they had to redo the lights, but we left 12 feet of grill in the front.

You know, I thought they were getting smaller. They were supposed to be, but apparently not. On all the models. Not on this in the back. Did [00:42:00] you look the back? Oh. Oh, that’s a Bengal. That’s a Bengal backend. That is just terrible. Riddle me. This Batman. It’s an ev, right? Yeah. Well, well rhetorically nod. Yes.

Yeah. Why is the hood 12 feet long? What engine are we putting there? Why is there a grill? Ray, I don’t understand any of this design. I mean, granted, I don’t want it to look like a porous, like every other EV prototype out there, but I, I just don’t get this. That’s exactly what actually it, it looks like a manatee.

Oh, oh God. B m w please. This is like the early two thousands all over again. Well, you know what’s not like the early two thousands is this rather striking new Ferrari that has debuted, they’re calling it the 2 96 g t s. It is supposed to be still in the three series family. The three series being the 3 0 8, 3 28, you know, and then obviously they became the four 80 eights and all that kind of stuff.

Now they’re going back to the old 200 numbers where [00:43:00] it all started from with the Dino 2 46. I saw the pictures of the coop last month and I wasn’t a hundred percent sold, but when I saw the spider, I really, really like it. I think it looks much better as a convertible or as brother as a targa than it does as a coop.

I mean, it’s a Ferrari. It’s gorgeous. It’s blue too. Can you believe that? Yeah. I don’t know. I like it. The front end does remind me of an inata though. It does a little bit. It does a little bit. I will give you that. I will give you that. Is it smiling at me? Let me see. Does it smile? Maybe it’s the blue color that’s, that’s throwing me.

Well, the other ones, the coop was in like a burgundy, which is also a, not a weird color for a Ferrari, but not normal. Like we’re all used to the ketchup and mustard. But you know, they’re coming out with some new colors, so I gotta give ’em props for that. But I also gotta give ’em props for these power numbers, right?

So this is a v6. Turbo hybrid. It is 120 degree v6, and if you don’t know why that’s important, just go Google it and you’ll understand [00:44:00] the sound is gonna be freaking awesome. But the power numbers are staggering. They’re quoting 819 horsepower from this hybrid. I mean, that’s absolutely bonkers. The rear haunts actually look very similar to the Dino design.

They definitely took some of the Dino designs they did and put it into the rear of the car. It also looks a lot like the Bugatti Divo. I will say it took some, it looks like it has some inspiration from that, especially in Blue. That’s where my mind immediately went because Blue I usually associate with Bugatti almost right away.

So it kind of has that feel to it as well. So you asked about the power numbers. I mean, they’re obviously very impressive. This, I guess is what you get when they spend billions of dollars in testing in f1, you know, and you know, technology testing and all that research and development and then it trickles down into the road cars.

Yep. This is exactly what you get and we need more of this. Absolutely. And you know what else is fun? I don’t know if anybody paid attention or not to some of the packages that [00:45:00] the vehicle comes in, but just like the old days, like the early eighties, this is coming in A G T B package. It’s coming in A G T S package and then there’s actually an Aceto ano package as well, which is a commemorative edition.

Fiorano is also one of the factory guys, but also was the test track is named after him as well. And so the GTB historically has been the lighter version in a 3 0 8 s. It was the Carbureted version and the GTS has got fuel injection then so on down the line. But it is gonna weigh. 150 to 200 pounds less.

But that doesn’t really change the overall cost when this thing clocks in at nearly 325 grand. A little bit outta my price range, especially when the rivian is already outta my price range. But it’s gonna be something fun to look at at the next Amelia Island concourse when somebody brings one out. Can I move my a hundred dollars deposit from the cyber truck to one of these?

Think I can. I can do that. Exchange You, you might get this before you get the cyber truck, that’s for sure. Even if you’re saving your [00:46:00] pennies. I think so. See, which bank do I wanna rob? That said, Ferrari’s doing all this development. They’re bringing back the 120 degree v6, twin, turbo, hybrid, all that kind of stuff.

But on the other side of lanis, now they’re talking about. Inline six cylinders. Why not inline 126 cylinders? Why aren’t they going bigger? Why are they going smaller? Well, like the Packard with the inline eights, right? They were like a mile long. So quick question, are these actually STIs motors or did they contract with BMW as well?

I’m wondering that myself. Three. Three liter Line Six Twin Turbo. I mean that’s got B M W written all over it. It does, and if you read the article, the author basically mentions in there that a lot of these specs and dimensions are very similar to the BMW in line six. So I’m wondering what’s going on here.

The other thing that doesn’t make sense to me is to Tanya’s point, why would you wanna put a longer engine in a vehicle than the compact pen aar, which has been around forever. So why don’t we [00:47:00] work on the pen AAR and make it a more efficient engine? It’s a 90 degree v6. I mean, I don’t get it. Why not? I think we go the opposite route.

We add two cylinders to the Panesar and a supercharger, and we just go full bore. Just. I believe that’s called, you make 250 horsepower. Yes. The, the Dodge Dart. S r t, Damian. Damian. Well, this one’s, this one’s being called the hurricane. Uh, let’s just, hopefully this doesn’t turn out like the movie Twister.

That’s all I’m thinking. Well, good for STIs. They’re saying that they’re gonna put this in Jeeps, Dodges, and Rams and other brands. I mean, isn’t that all they have now anyway? I mean, what else? How do they, do they make the hurricane more efficient with the tornado?

The Velociraptor? No, the two of the old tornado like thing that you could install on your car for $75 mail-in order, 25% more fuel efficient. I think the guys at Mighty Car Mods have already [00:48:00] myth busted that one. It doesn’t work for a minute there. I thought you were gonna talk about the O Appeal todo, which is just a bad pronunciation of the word tornado.

So, you know, whatever. I’m sorry, we, we don’t talk about Oldsmobile on this channel. There’s a whole nother podcast for that. Yeah, there’s, there’s an Oldsmobile, the Owner’s club that you can talk to all three of them. Yes. So that being said, it’s probably time that we slip into the dms of domestic news brought to us by American muscle.com, our number one source for OEM and performance replacement parts for your Chevy, Mopar or Ford product.

So what do we got this month in domestic news? I hope you’re not looking to buy a Ford Mustang Mach e I’m sorry, I said that wrong. A Ford Mach E in the United States because they’re all sold out. Is that because chips? I think it might be partially both. There’s been such high demand from consumers, but at the same time, the shortages and this, that and the [00:49:00] other are making the, they can’t keep up with that demand.

So I think they’ve just said we’re done for 2022. Wait for 2023. There was like a hot second that I saw these everywhere and then I realized, I actually saw like the new key, the same one, the Kia or the Hyundai that has the same rear lights. So I don’t think I’ve actually seen a mach on the road. I’ve seen all these other Kia copies that from a distance.

You think it’s a Mach e cuz they’re very similar in the back. So, Are they really selling? Like is there somebody out there that has one? I’ve seen a couple. I’ve, I, yeah. I’ve seen in several machs, but not to go off on a tangent. You mentioned the Hyundai. The Hyundai. I’ve seen the IO Ionic five or whatever.

The Ionic five. Mm-hmm. I swear I, every other car I see on the road is an Ionic five. You’ve actually seen one in person now. What did you think? I’ve seen, I’ve seen several I’ve, they were all over the roads around here. Wow, there’s nothing else. All those m cu, all those Mach customers traded in their machs for, well, what were you driving when you encountered it?[00:50:00]

Truck. Your truck or various vehicles? The truck or my wife’s car. The car. What did you think of it? Because I drive what should be a comparably sized car, and I thought it was huge when I came up on it, on the, compared to on the highway or something. It is huge. Like I thought in photo it was gonna be much smaller.

Like, I mean, it’s not like, you know, an u v or anything like that, but it’s just like slightly bigger. It’s like a Corolla, like a Corolla hatchback is appropriately, its size and this thing is bigger or taller at least than like a Corolla hatchback. It, it reminded me of a many countrymen or a cheap renegade in size.

That’s actually not that big, bigger than it looked in pictures and my expectation of what I thought it was going to be based on photos was not that. So like I had that moment of like confusion. I will say they’re very cool looking in person though. I like them. I don’t hate them. I think they look pretty nice.

You, you can’t buy a [00:51:00] 2022 Machi. Sorry. That’s a shame. You know, I still want once you can by a 23 Brilliant. Pre-order one today. Brilliant. It’ll be released in 2024. Yes. It’ll still come out before this cyber truck. So you were talking about, let’s say STIs might be copying or borrowing or contracting with B M W to get engines.

We know that Toyota has partnered with B M W now in the past, also talked in the past about GM partnering with Honda and there’s some additional news on that as well. GM and Honda are teaming up to build a $30,000 electric car. Oh, an electric car for the masses, which was promised to us by a different.

Vie manufacturer, of course. Is this $30,000 after the tax credit or before? It’s $30,000 as early as 2027. So by that time it’ll be like $60,000 and there will be no tax credit at that point. Yeah. Present value of money, I mean, we’ve heard this [00:52:00] before. I, I mean, I feel like this is, this new $30,000 EV is in syndication.

You know, it’s, it’s a rerun, but like we talked about last month, these cars are clocking in on average in the middle to high forties. That’s what it is. That’s the entry price if you’re gonna buy an ev, not even just EVs like new cars in general. Yeah, I mean, I think we, we found out last month or one of the previous months that they were like averaging in the mid thirties.

That’s average for a brand new vehicle. We’d pick up on something I just happened to see in this article that mentions Honda launching an electric s u v called the Prologue. Ooh. Like not the prelude, the prologue, but why would we make it an s u v with that name? Like, that’s actually kind of a cool name.

They could have made like an electric prelude or something called it The prologue. Oh know, it’s, this is some of our club members Prelude. Some of our Prelude Club members are salivating the, the sound of this news. No, no. You salivate over [00:53:00] Integra. No, you salivate. Salivate over the prelude. Oh, wait, that’s one one.

Club member. Prelude. Prelude. I think one of our club members is the only person keeping preludes on the road. Yes. Has two of ’em. He is doing a great job. It’s amazing. It’s making one. He’s got three actually. Oh, he’s got damns. That’s a monopoly. Do not Peco. Do not Pesco do not collect $200. Well, Brad, since you are our resident subject matter expert when it comes to all things Corvette, what have you got for us this month?

I have a 2024 Corvette Nomad. S U v. That’s right folks. You asked for it. It’s coming. Wait, did you say Chevy Nomad? I mean, I know you love the Chevy Nomad. Yes. Chevrolet Corvette Nomad. Wait, say that one more time. Chevrolet. Corvette Nomad. So is this like the Raptor? Razorback Rattlesnake, velociraptor? What are we talking about here?

Is this a [00:54:00] special package I’m hearing in 0 6, 0 7? Maybe zero nine. You know something special? Sure. From the photo, from the spy photo. I thought it was a Chevy Cobalt is that HHR is back. I thought it was a Honda Civic hatchback. What the hell is this? Is this for real? It’s, it’s April Fools is what? It’s Oh, you, I got you.

I got you. I was gonna say, dude, I’m having a heart attack if Corvette’s making ans u v, I know Ferrari’s going that way, but Corvette really we’ll just wait for it. The real joke will be on all of us in a couple years when they do unveil the Chevrolet Cor Corvette. Cve u. Can we call that one the Corvet?

Didn’t they already make a Corvette? S u v They called it the Trailblazer Ss No, the s s R was the Corvette. Oh, no, wait. That was a pickup truck. It was a pickup truck. It was a Corvette pickup truck, which goes in line with our showcase pickup trucks. But it, but it wasn’t a Corvette pickup truck. I mean, it had, it had a smaller motor.

It wasn’t until [00:55:00] later that they brought it out with the larger motor. But you’re right, the, it had 5.3 liter. The SS Trailblazer was basically a vet vet truck body. Yeah, I mean, it had, it shared nothing with the vet, not even the motor, because the motor came from the GTO without any changes. So it’s an LS two.

I mean, granted, I owned one of those fantastic truck track truck a hundred percent developed by a lot of the Corvette guys and was designed to be run on the track. That thing was awesome, but I don’t see the SS trailblazer returning and this Chevy Corvette nomad thing. Better not happen. Meanwhile, as I throw up in the back of my throat a little bit, we switch over to some JDM news.

And you guys remember Mark Shank? He filled in for Brad a while ago. He’s also been on our nineties. What should I buy? Episode? And he is actually gonna be on some subsequent episodes here later this year. Spoiler alert, he sent us a little gem about a neat little life hack for anybody that owns a Mazda built between the years [00:56:00] 2014 and 2019.

It sounds like from the video, I think it’s not so much a life hack as anti theft device thousand percent. It does speak to cybersecurity a little bit in the sense that the more computers we add to cars, the more vulnerable they become. And when computers are vulnerable, they’re exploitable. And this particular exploit, without getting too nerdy, basically folks in the Seattle area tuned into their local radio station on the FM HD channel of 94.9, and it basically bricked their infotainment MFIs and just about.

Everything not related to the engine in those particular Mazdas on that wonderful Sunday afternoon as they were listening to N P R. But what also transpired is that because those cars are technically out of warranty, there are no claims that can be made other than maybe a class action lawsuit against Mazda, and you’re [00:57:00] out about 1500 bucks to replace that infotainment system in your Mazda.

So stay away from channel 94.9 as it will freak out the system and go from there. And by the way, this is not the first time that there have been, let’s say, subpar programming or bugs in the system where. These digital channels have caused the computers and the cars to go crazy things like percent signs, which are often used in c language to, you know, replace strings and numbers and things like that in the, in the variable sequences.

Uh, yeah, that’ll cause the computers to freak out and whatnot. So I thought this was, this was interesting. This definitely talked to the nerd side of me. So if you’re interested in diving into a little bit more on that, it is in our show notes. You can check it out. There is a radio tower or some sort of telecommunications tower that I encounter on a particular stretch of my commute, which freaks my car radio out on an [00:58:00] almost 20 year old car.

It’s bizarre. It does it. And yes, I have a cassette player. Yes. I use a car cassette adapter and it freaks out the car cassette adapter in this like half mile stretch static, and then another radio channel that wasn’t The radio channel that I’m tuned to starts playing through overlapping with whatever music I am playing from like my phone.

It’s bizarre. There’s like this dead zone space. Is there a voice that saying, help me, help me? No, no, no, no, no. It’s, it’s Georgio SLOs comes on and he’s like ancient astronaut theorists. It’s aliens. You can tell me what’s going on. I’d love to not know the nerdy details. Oh lord. But let’s nerd out about.

Tanya’s favorite car on the planet right now. The GR Corolla. Oh yeah. So we got new information on the Corolla. We have confirmed some things from [00:59:00] last month’s drive-through about this particular vehicle. What did we learn? It’s gonna be a three cylinder, basically the same motor from the Yaris. Power numbers are understated.

Yeah, lies. Lies. Toyota’s been lying to us, but in a good way. And for insurance purposes. Yeah, Eric likes to say it’s fake power. I don’t know how it’s fake. P someone who owns three turbo cars says it’s fake power, but you know it’s a hundred percent fake power, dude. I’m telling you it’s not. There’s no replacement for displacement.

But that being said, my hairdryers work really well. But Toyota has been fibbing a little bit to be on the safe side and probably coincide with insurance regulations. That three cylinder turbo that comes in the, both the G R R S and the Corolla is reported 30 to 40 horsepower less than what it actually makes in Dino testing.

How about that? So that means that little three cylinder turbo is putting out close to 300 horsepower. That’s. [01:00:00] Awesome. Woohoo. What do you say, Tanya? It’s time to upgrade. Oh man. It’ll be interesting when the article comes out that reveals the price point. Let’s make some guesses, I think. I think we should take a guess.

45. I’m gonna start at 45. That’s my new answer for everything. 45 0 0 1. Alex Bob, $1. Bob. $1. Need to check a stat first so you’re gonna look up how much the Yas costs. No. I wanted to know how much a Toyota Carroll hatchback costs cuz in terms of size. That is more accurate. Um, wait, are we talking interestingly, the curl hatchback is gonna weigh almost 200 pounds less than the GR version.

Wasn’t the GR coming with all wheel drive with theist stuff? Yes it is. Yes it does. It’s also coming with like carbon fiber roof and other stuff too. It’s also reinforced. It’s got more welds and Yeah, that’s true. To offset the 400 pounds they put in it. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s not too bad. So the Toyota [01:01:00] Coroll hatchback, the 2022 Ms.

MSRP is at 20,009 15. What about the XR edition? I think which is the top of the line Corolla right now. My guess is a new loaded Corolla is about 30. They don’t list that as a new, but, um, used, they’re 26, 28, so there’s a possibility this new GR Corolla could come in sub $40,000 probably, I’d say maybe 32 to 35.

Mm-hmm. Well, I, I’m guessing closer to 40, it’s gonna beat the Gulf R. I think that they’re gonna make a point to beat the golf R and the Civic type R and then you got the dealer markup, so it’s gonna be a $40,000 car that you pay $150,000 for.

Well, speaking of dealer markups, I also have some new exciting news on another car that, well, at least I know I’m salivating over. Do you wanna take a guess of which one that is? The uh, is it bringing the Dodge Dart back? Uh, no. [01:02:00] The Aztec definitely not. Nope. I’m talking about the Z, the proto or what I like to call the 400 Z.

So I got some new news. I’ve been calling around some dealerships trying to figure out what the heck is going on with this car. I have been salivating over it for quite a long time and the deciding factor, as Brad says, is I gotta put my ass in the seat and figure out if it’s really worth it at the end of the day.

So after calling around a bunch of places, I did get some new information from some high volume dealers and they’re saying that the 400 Z has been delayed and it should be available for us to go look at sometime in late July, early August at best, and that’s when we’re gonna start test driving. That said, I also asked some other questions and I wanted to know, you know, truth or lies is what the prices are coming in at.

And they’re saying, Nissan has told the dealerships the base price on the new 400 Z is $45,000. All optioned out, which I don’t know what kind of [01:03:00] options a, a pure sports car would have. They’re talking mid fifties and I’m like, damn, that’s really reasonable. It’s still a lot of money, but really reasonable for what you’re getting.

Is it when you could get a GR Corolla? Rear wheel drive. That’s all I’m gonna say. The purists are gonna go with that. Depends on what you’re looking for. Three cylinders, a fury, twin turbo. Six cylinder. 400 horsepower. Was that horrible commercial with the uh, oh gosh. That horrible, weird, mad Max commercial, wasn’t it for like a, some Nissan back in the day?

Yeah, it was the other, the Nissan 300 sec or 300 zx, what was it? Something The turbos? Yeah. The, the, the uh, Ridley Scott. Yeah. Yeah, that’d go. That was so turbos kick. Spin. Yes, and the turbos kick. Terrible. That said, I think this car is gonna be awesome. I’m hoping it’s smaller than a three 70 Z. It kind of sits, I’m [01:04:00] hoping it’s a little longer than the three 50 was sleek low, like a two 40, things like that.

I really do want to see it in person. I asked about colors. I was told it’s going to be introduced in the following colors. Black, silver, metallic red teal, and that canary yellow that you’ve seen. You know, in all the press releases, I’m hoping for the signed Eugene Levy edition and then followed by some, maybe some dots and colors.

I asked if some of those classic seventies dots and colors were coming and the one of the dealerships said there’s rumor that metallic gray, burgundy and orange, which was a two 40 Z color, will also be available, not day one, kind of second run of cars, but no mention of browns, Brad. So I, I am very sorry to tell you that you cannot get a metallic brown Z at the moment.

In addition to that, Nissan dealers are taking deposits on 400 Zs, but they are not taking pre-orders. There are no guarantees right now. You cannot lock in a 400 Z if you want to. So probably [01:05:00] because they’re still unsure when the proto or the 400 Z is gonna get here. But I am stoked to go drive one. And I was visiting with our resident Z-Man not long ago, and I literally said, Hey, and I got three words out.

He goes, when are we gonna go drive it? He didn’t care about any of the details. He’s like, when are we gonna go drive it? So I think there’s a bunch of us here at GTM that are excited about this car and can’t wait for it to hit the dealership lots. Where are the horsepower numbers on? 400. 400. That’s all right.

My GR Corolla is gonna have like three 50 when it’s all said and done.

Is that from Boltons from Advanced Auto or what? What? No, that’s just, you know, it’ll say it’s like two 70 on the sticker, but really it’ll be three 50. Well, I will say in direct competition to this, I did confirm what Brad said last month, which is that the Supra is coming with Emmanuel, but only with a four cylinder turbo.

And that’s enough [01:06:00] about that. That is enough about that. Because who wants a Supra with a four cylinder? It’s like, who cares? The same people that bought the super before the na, oh God. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, nobody aspires to own a rental car. Is that true anymore? I mean, the Passats gone.

Are they still, I don’t know. There’s a lot of people that bought in palaces and can you still freaking get those at the running? Alright, hold on a second. You know, it says you bring that turd up yet again. Have I noticed a trend? Cuz every time we mention Impalas, I see them for like the next week.

Everyone that I see has tinted windows all the way around, including the windshield. And I wondered to myself, What the hell is going on with these impalas with tinted windshields. And then I realized the owners are so embarrassed that they exactly own an Impala. They have to tint the front windows too.

Exactly. That makes perfect sense. Everyone I see has [01:07:00] blacked out steel wheels. All the hubcaps have fallen off. Even the brand new ones like the 2020s or whatever the, whatever the year the last one came out, that would’ve came from the factory with eighteens. Nope. They all opted for the 16 inch steelies times are changing.

So maybe we will start wishing to, if only I could own that rental car. If you’re into the electric scene, which actually this is a great way to maybe go test drive some electric cars if you’re electric curious. We’ve already heard that Hertz is, has a purchase agreement with them, but they are expanding their EV lineup and they are going to be taking orders of pole stars.

So if you’re curious about that little electric car, uh, they’re taking 65,000 over the next five years, I guess, you know, because a lot of the Tesla, Tesla ones are showing up at like the California hertz at, at the different airports. I don’t know how will widespread this will become across the United States, but [01:08:00] check out your local Hertz if you’re interested in test driving.

A an ev wait was, was I supposed to be excited about that? Hey, this, this is the best we have right now. When was the last time anybody rented a car? Well, before, I guess Eric’s renting a car next week. I mean, I’m Ubering. Oh, see who? Who rents cars these days? Other than like 70 year old grandparents? Well, me before we couldn’t go anywhere.

And what did she get? Impalas and Malibu. So you know, Hey, whatever. Uh, actually I have gotten a fricking Malibu before, God, I can’t remember what my last Roma car was. Did you have that Jeep Renegade? I had a Jeep Renegade once in Hawaii. That was really cool. Especially going up into some of the high mountains.

It was kind of helpful for some of the different terrains. The Volkswagen, whatever the heck it is. Tiguan, the newer one a couple years ago, I can’t remember cuz there was one right before Pandemic locked us all in. But see you, you also rent cars internationally? Yes, I did. Yes. So, so that’s, that’s that’s different.

Yeah. [01:09:00] Domestic and international. Yeah. Cause you rented that Poeo, what was it, a 4,002 or whatever it was? Yeah. Mm-hmm. You wrote an article about that? Yeah. It’s pretty cool. Mm-hmm. At any rate, what I would love and I would go run it tomorrow if it was awkward. It hurts. Oh my God. It’s a new DeLorean. Oh my God.

Oh my god. Oxygen, I’m dying. I see. I’ve seen those left rear quarter panel. I’m having a heart attack. Exactly. So we are going to just get. Little snips and tidbits of this thing until August when apparently it’s going to be more largely revealed at some Concord Elegance, um, in Long Pebble Beach. Excuse me.

But they’ve, they’ve leaked a shot of just the left rear quarter panel of the back. I mean, I am sweating. I am palpitating goodnight nurse. I am sweating. You don’t get to see much, but I wanna see more. God, God damn. I [01:10:00] mean, what you do see is incredible. It’s the sexiest rear end I’ve seen in a long time.

It does remind me of the Z though, and I’m, I’m hooked. So I’m telling you, this card is a close second. The problem is, like we said, it’s gonna be 175 grand, but I tell you what, if it wasn’t, if it was even 90 grand, let’s say like the Rivian, I might even half consider it and go, you know what? Screw it. I’m gonna sell everything.

And I’m gonna have an electric DeLorean because if it looks as good as this left rear quarter panel and taillight would propose the rest of the vehicle looks like, I mean, it is gonna be a stunner. What I don’t want it to be is that. I looked across the room and I saw the flowing hair and then they turned around and it’s fucking garel.

And you’re like, you know, I don’t, I just, I don’t wanna get, I don’t wanna get my hopes up too much that it’s horrendous. I mean, considering the design house that’s backing this, yes, I should [01:11:00] keep my expectations low, but I shouldn’t have to. I shouldn’t have to. Has Giro ever disappointed us? I don’t think so.

I don’t think so either. And you know what, it’s funny, we mentioned him quite a bit on this show and his laundry dis is really long. And I tend to spout out, you know, the Rocco and the Mark one golf and then lunch at Delta and things like that. But there’s other cars on that list. Things like the BMW M one, which looks awful lot like the DeLorean, the Maserati Spider, and there’s some other vehicles.

I mean, his list of cars are just epically iconic and I cannot see him putting out a turd. This car is going to be just the revelation of all time. Like I, I think we’re gonna look at the new DeLorean and go, it’s right up there with. The the third Gen RX seven and the Mark four Supra and the Audi R eight.

It’s gonna be one of these designs that 30 years from now are gonna go. Do you remember when the new DeLorean came out? It’s gonna be freaking ballistic. [01:12:00] I read this other article that along the lines of DeLorean the, that at first I thought was an April Fool’s joke, but it didn’t come out on April Fools.

And since this is the April Fools episode, I’ll go with it. What if DeLorean made a group B rally car? And I’m like, okay, well you’ve, you’ve got my attention. You start talking about rally. I’m into a group B era especially, and I’m also thinking to myself, okay, would that really work? So let me answer that question first.

For any of the people out there thinking, yeah, that would, that’s never gonna happen. Most of us forget that the DeLorean is a rear mountain engine, very similar to a nine 11. We would all think it’s a mid engine, like a Lotus Esprit, and it’s not. How does that work for Rally? It would work for Rally because if you look at the Alpine reno, like the uh, the A one 10 and things like that rear mounted engine, just like a nine 11.

So, okay, it’s a possibility, it’s probable, we’ll go from there. But as I started to read the article, I was just like, the bottom paragraph itself just didn’t float with me. This whole thing about [01:13:00] John DeLorean sourcing turbos from Legend Industries and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all this kind of stuff, and.

Spoiler alert. We have an episode coming soon where we actually spoke to a DeLorean aficionado, a DeLorean owner, and he clued us in on a lot of things and did some myth busting and whatnot. In the article, it says, you know, by 1984, the company collapsed in a year, and the DeLorean that were produced and sold in 1982 and 1983 were just leftovers that were never finished on the assembly line from the original 1981 run.

So there’s no way in hell that they were talking turbos and all this other kind of stuff for the DeLorean when they couldn’t even get this car right to begin with. Right? It went through so many iterations within a single year. There’s, according to, you know, this expert, there were tons of changes in that, you know, 12 to 18 months that there’s no way, so, awesome Pike Dream.

I like the idea of a DeLorean rally car, but [01:14:00] at that time period, Would it have competed against the giants from Poeo and from Audi and Lancia? No way. The rear wheel drive rally cars were out, so it would’ve been a backmarker even if it made quadruple horsepower. Everybody else was making rant over. I enjoyed seeing it in, in a little bit of livery.

I did too much to whoever this, this person who took it upon themselves to, you know, graphically change, do some Photoshop artwork. But nonetheless, it was kind of cool to see it with the extra headlights, rally lights and everything. But the real question is, what does the new one look like as a rally car?

We’ll have to wait till later this year for those you wait on baited breath, the edge of your seat ease you. Now how about this To wrap up random new EVs and other concepts, we haven’t been giving any attention to this little Netherland startup. Wait, are these the guys that created the, the house that broke down, that they had the trailer, they had the [01:15:00] wings, like a bat and all that stuff that we talked about?

You know, that’s a really good question. I wanna say no, but who knows. At any rate, we have got our EVs battery powered, this, that and the other, and we talked about hydrogen and other forms of motive other than gasoline and diesel. We haven’t talked so much about solar.

Yeah, right. So you laughed. But this startup company designing what they call the Lightyear solar electric vehicle, so s e v, the, I guess the, the, it’s called the Lightyear one. The company is Lightyear. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So we got Volkswagen with the ID bus and then we got the Lightyear. We got the Lightyear with the one it’s called the one the buzz light year.

Get outta here. The company is Lightyear. They’re promising a range of 450 miles on a single charge from their ultra efficient year one. [01:16:00] It only takes 30 years to check. No. No. Apparently it doesn’t. I don’t know that it’s necessarily ultra fast, but apparently it does. I think, I thought I saw, if you go to their website, into their technology page, which is a lot of interesting things that they’re doing, but I believe it recharges.

70 kilometers a day just from its solar panels. Is it the size of a greyhound? I mean, it’s uh, it looks huge. I mean, to be effective with solar panels, like who is it? Fisker That was toying with the solar roof. Tesla’s tees. The solar roof. Yeah. Every single college engineering department plays around with solar technology.

With solar and it never seems to work out. There’s a festival around it. Yeah. Well, they’ve got the Dutch on it, so do not worry. They will solve this problem I have. It’ll be made of balsa wood and have fake names from Nordic Myth. I’m sure. I have no doubt. Oh wait, [01:17:00] that’s, that’s idea. Nevermind. They have 53 square feet of solar panel on the roof.

I mean, the whole back thing is like, I don’t know, the latest in solar technology, blah, blah, blah. All the double curved arrays and yada yada, yada. And they’ve got like independently controlled motors on each of the wheels. You know what looks just like this? That Mercedes we talked about about 10 minutes ago.

Yes, yes. Weren’t the Dutch the ones that were experimenting with solar roads and solar sidewalks and things like that as well? I don’t, they’re all about that. Solar. I don’t remember. They might have been because there’s also like, I think there’s some other countries that were doing the roads that recharge.

Yeah. When you drive on them and stuff. I don’t know. It’s cool. At any rate, at least from a technology, engineering, science, et cetera, et cetera, it’s pretty interesting. It’s kind of exciting to see that what you can do, so whether or not this actually takes flight are, are the solar, are the [01:18:00] solar panels from Solar City?

What to infinity? I’m very, and see engineering scientifically very fascinating. Would love to, you know, see one, understand more. Practically speaking, I’d be worried. How much does it cost? If somebody, like you’re at your kids’ baseball game and someone LOBs a home, run over the parking lot right onto the roof of your S U V.

There are two places this will never be sold. North Eastern Russia and Alaska, where it is like dark six months out of the year. So not gonna happen. There’s no places will not be sold. I’m sure the Netherlands target market right now is, is anywhere in Russia? Shouldn’t they be doing wind power? Isn’t that their thing?

Like windmills that like stick to that. We’re gonna see cars with propellers on the back of, well, I guess with that it’s time to move on to Brad’s favorite section, lost and Found. [01:19:00] What have you found that should stay lost? We talk about it and we joke about it all the time. The Dodge Dart. Well folks, someone actually bought a brand new Dodge Dart in first quarter of this year.

Are you serious? Yes. Come on. How many more of these are sitting around? I think it’s like a game these days. Dealers are just sitting on ’em waiting to like pop, so they get a little article out there. This car was discontinued in 2016, as we’ve said many times before, month after month after month. First of all, what is crazier that a dealer had one to sell or that someone actually walked into the dealership and said, I wanna buy a Dodge Dart?

Is it not? I know it hasn’t been made for six years. Is it that competitively priced? I don’t know. What was the deal markup on it? Let’s see. I mean, it had to have been well priced to make someone go, I’ll yes, I’ll [01:20:00] buy that car instead of this brand new one over here. It had a stick shift. That’s why it sat on the lot cuz nobody knows how to drive a manual anymore.

Let’s be real. That’s the real answer. Some brave soul is grinding second gear as we speak in their brand new leftover 2016 Dodge Dart. Why does it Hertz pick all these up? Because they don’t make an electric dart because nobody wants to be that miserable Impala or dart. So should these dealerships and manufacturers continue to sell 2016 Dodge Darts, or should they manufacture or buy them back from the dealer, repurpose the semiconductors and chips to newer vehicles that they could sell for more.

At this point, from an accounting perspective, they’ve had to write the loss down on that unsold inventory for six years. I mean, they might as well just give the damn thing away at this point because they’ve lost everything on it. I wonder how many of these cars are actually still [01:21:00] floating around on dealer lots.

I want, we need to start calling Dodge dealerships and finding out if they just call Brad, that’s your mission for next month. Call all the Dodge dealerships in the DMV and go, do you have a Dodge Dart for sale? And see how many of ’em say yes. I only need to call one dealership and say, can you do a nationwide search on brand new dodged arts?

No. You gotta write down the reactions. You gotta tell us how many people hang up on you, how many people laugh at you, ask you if you’re crazy, and then ask them. If they say yes, ask them if it, it comes in a manual. You know how I need to call? I need to call Chuck LeDuc. Oh, we’ll leave that where it is.

That was a fun trip to the dealership. But speaking of things that are sitting around, I really enjoyed this article from the New York Auto Show where six racing and inspired vehicles from the eighties and nineties were put on display. I love seeing stuff like this. I thought the mix was pretty cool, especially because some of the vehicles that were in this [01:22:00] lineup were definitely not sold in the United States.

I’m digging the Ciro and BX four tc. As French cars go, and I’m not the biggest Citron fan, as we all know. I really like the bx. I think it’s cool. It looks like the backend of a Audi sport Quattro and the front end of, what was it, the Chrysler Conquistador or whatever, where the hell that car was? The Con Conquest.

The Conquest tsi. Yeah. Yes, which was the Mitsubishi ion. Yes, you’re right. It’s a drunk Frenchman. Looked at it. You are cuatro and said, yes, but we are French. We can do better. This is what we got. But it’s not fantastic, but it is rather awesome in how weird it is. What do you think, Tanya? You love square cars like this.

It’s quirky. The headlights are what throw me. I do not like that. The headlights are not even with the corner lights. That’s a cient thing. You have to get over that. [01:23:00] Oh, it just, it throws me. Cause I’m like, and then the hood doesn’t line with the end of the fender and I’m like, those lines are killing me.

But if I look down the side of the car, I love the flared out fenders on the front in the back. It looks like something out of trauma. If this car wasn’t all white, let’s say the grills were like a smoked or a, like a satin black. A set of like mesh b b s wheels from like time appropriate with a nice thick lip on them.

Maybe all yellow french headlights in the front, you know, some other accents. This thing would be sick. We wouldn’t even be talking about like what it looks like. I think the problem is it’s, it’s very much refrigerator white and that draws you into the other aspects of it. The front end does look like it’s made of Legos, but that’s very, very citro.

The, the, the, the fender flares are made from recycled matrix printers. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Like this is built out of a fax machine. But you know what, if you gave me one of these, I would [01:24:00] drive the shit out of it. Like I. I, I like this car a lot. I think it’s cool. Yeah, I think it’s cool. The other car that I really liked on this list, I mean there’s other cars on this.

Oh, the Ford RS 200, I mean the Ford RS 200. I hate to say it’s commonplace. The other car that’s on this list for me is also French, and a lot of people probably don’t know about mvs and the Venturis. The Venturi are freaking awesome. They were the French answer to like the Pantera and the Lotus Esprit.

These things look like the Ferrari F 40 evolution. The GT P cars from the Fr, I mean, they’re just fantastic. I would love to drive one of these. I’d love to just touch one of these. I think they’re gorgeous. It’s a noble, before Noble was correct, in my opinion, outside of Bugattis, which are French, This is the sexiest French car, in my opinion.

Like hands down, like this is the sports car of sports cars and it goes like unrecognized a lot of [01:25:00] times in the history of automobiles. Like the venturis are really cool. They had different models and they had the 300, they had the Atlantic. This one is a bit r as the 400 trophy edition with the big, you know, center lug wheels and, and all that.

I, ah, it’s just freaking awesome. Now there is one car on this list. Did you guys notice I actually drove one of these. Yes. And I wrote an article about it. And that was the Ult R five Turbo. Turbo Dose two. That’s right. This thing is a little pocket rocket. Wasn’t that article also titled Don’t Drive Your Heroes?

Uh, that is very true. I enjoyed it and hated it all in the same three hour span that I spent with it. I love these cars. I love the idea of these cars. They’re quirky as all get out super awkward, but they’re just full of life and personality and they have period appropriate turbo lag as I’ve said many times.

But the thing that’s impressive about what was a shit box that they turned into a, a [01:26:00] hot hatch race car is from 1.4 liters. It’s like just this screaming little dragon and it just lights up the world and you feel like you can just attack every corner on every B road. It was a joy to drive and a misery at the same time because of just how awkward it is.

And I don’t know. I still love it, but I still hate it. I’m happy for the experience. Shout out to Alan for letting me drive his and giving me the keys for several hours to really spend some time with one of my heroes. Uh, as disappointing as that was. That said, we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about Tesla.

You have some Tesla things to talk about. I do. And if you remember our Patreon special, a couple drive-throughs back. I ranted about city traffic and whatnot and you know, I got the opportunity to revisit the city yet again, and I started to notice. A lot of Model Ys. [01:27:00] I don’t see them that often. And you know what?

I started to look at them and look at them cuz they were everywhere. Just, I was in Northern Virginia and I’m like, wow, I’m in the land of the Teslas, especially the Model Ys for a half second. I was like, you know, they’re not bad looking. They’re really not bad looking. That, that I could, I could learn to live with this amphibious, you know, duck bill, front end platypus thing.

Because from the back it looks better than the three, it’s not as aggressive as the S Right. I saw a couple S’s on the road in all black. They looked at the Batmobile until my wife sent me this link from Instagram that. I posted in our show notes and when you see it, you can’t unsee it. And that’s because why?

Because it looks like he who shall not be named are we talking about Lord Voldemort’s. And when you see that Instagrammer and when you see that wonderful service announcement, you can never unsee it again. And you realize, yes, all Teslas look like Lord Voldemort. And that pretty much sealed it for me.

[01:28:00] It’s never gonna happen if, if nothing else. That little Instagram quick, uh, video is worth her, her her fi her the final moments of that video are amazing. A reenactment. It’s fantastic. Yeah. So we talked about the cyber rodeo earlier, besides, you know, the cyber truck, this, that, and the other. There was another unveiling about another little project going on with Tesla and Elon Musk.

So we’ve, and at first I thought this was like, I was like, oh, it’s more hyperloop stuff. Did we decide not to put a, a model three through the loop, but more traditional looking little train car? No, no. Sort of similar, but no. This will go on the roads and it is being called the Robo taxi, and I think it is very much what that name implies.

It’s an autonomous. Taxi Johnny Cab. Yes. If you Google Johnny Cab and go to images for people who are not [01:29:00] familiar with Total Recall starring Schwarzenegger, this thing does look like a Johnny Cab. Oh my God. All my nightmares are coming to be realized. This is horrendous. No, I get it. It has a place in cities like New York and LA and Chicago, et cetera.

I can see it working. I mean, autonomous buses, you know, it makes sense. The Johnny Cab thing aside, which I didn’t go to initially, I don’t hate it. And it’s funny cuz the rendering shows, uh, lax terminal too on it. That that’s what it’s servicing, which, yeah, that makes total sense. Can we replace, if you’re from the Virginia area, can we replace those nasty, weird bus things at Dulles Airport with like this, those things are awesome.

They are leftover props from Empire Strikes Back. They’re the at a s from the Planet Auth. They’re amazing. They’re a staple at Dulles. They’ve been there forever. Gosh. Yes, they have. And apparently they still run. So kudos to that engineering marvel. I, I like to see stuff like this. Cause I think [01:30:00] bustling cities, it makes sense to go electric for vehicles that are just shooting back and forth all day long or sitting there idling.

We don’t need to be polluting the environment for that. And you’re never going too far away with cabs necessarily. If you’re inner city, you’re at airports or things like that where it makes sense. You can go back and charge you. You, you shouldn’t have range anxiety. You know what else makes a lot of sense, especially if you’re in the city.

Uh, trains, light rail, subway, monorail, which is fine if you have new cities, but if you have an established city that doesn’t have the space, the real estate for that, that’s the problem. That becomes really expensive. Or you’re demolishing in infrastructure that’s already there. Well, what’s more, what’s more expensive?

A dollar per mile on the Johnny Cab or getting on the light rail, which you could go less than a dollar per mile, which that’s still pretty expensive. If you, which, if you consider the price of fair on the DC Metro, like that’s a loaded statement. Like less than a dollar per [01:31:00] whatever the hell he said will cost less per mile than a bus ticket.

Okay, bus ticket. I don’t honestly know how much a bus ticket costs. Not to offend anybody that rides a bus, you know, just, no, I just, I have not, other than like Megabus those big buses and I can’t remember how much that ticket cost. I haven’t had the o opportunity in the United States to really ride buses, have done it in other countries, and they’re not that expensive.

They’re like pennies. I don’t know what this, less than a cost per dollar is cuz he pushes this in other countries. He’s gonna be, need to be far less than a dollar per mile to compete. My expectations are thoroughly lowered, lowered expectations. Well, since we’re still talking about Tesla, this next one was pretty cool, but it goes into that atrocity category.

If you will, you take a 1950 Jag bar mark five and you power it by a Tesla. And I’m like, okay, well we’ve done EV swaps before, not a big deal. But the more I [01:32:00] look at this, did they graft the body onto a Tesla? Not just swap out the drive, train and retrofit into this JAG because it’s got the Tesla wheels, it’s low to the ground, it’s different suspension, all this kinda stuff.

So I’m proud of the tenacity that it takes to do a project like this. You know, the, the fortitude and the then the money. But I don’t know if I would’ve ruined a classic Jag like that. I think he made the Jag better. You’re probably right. He made run. He right. You right. Made it Jags that run Tesla powered.

No, but so sticking with our EVs here. So obviously there’s a lot of different companies out there that are piloting autonomous vehicles and doing a lot of beta testing, blah, blah, blah, blah. So there’s one particular company out in California, in the San Francisco area whose self-driving car was pulled over by the Poppo.

It, it didn’t hit him first. It didn’t hit him first. No. Did not hit anything much to the police officer. Surprised when [01:33:00] he got out of his vehicle and went to go to the driver’s side door. He realized that there was nobody inside the car. And there’s somebody like standing on the street corner, he’s like videotaping this whole thing.

So then you know, you kind of see him looking in or whatever, and then he like goes to walk back to his cruiser. As he walks back to his cruiser, the autonomous vehicle takes off, takes off, crosses the intersection and then actually pulls over, puts its hazard lights on and pulls over and stops and then does not take off again.

And the police, like you see like speed up behind and pull over again. Him and the accompanying officer get out and they’re all like circling the vehicle. There might have been a number on the car. So they called the company that was running this autonomous vehicle. The autonomous vehicle did not get a citation.

I think that’s pretty funny to see a like what did the autonom, what did the programming say? Cuz the light was red and there was a car in front of it. The light turned green, the car in front took off, the [01:34:00] autonomous car waited. The police officer approached. I’m wondering like if it realized there was a pedestrian there and wouldn’t take off, cuz it looked like the brake lights were like flashing a little bit like it was pumping brakes.

And then when it registered the police car or the police officer backed away. It was like, oh, I can go now. Cause the lights crashed. So then I don’t know long it would’ve pulled over again. You know, this occurred to me, you know, we were talking earlier about the, the hack for the Mazdas and the software and things like that.

If you guys remember in the middle of the night, one of the road conditions is you can have the traffic lights flashing where they’ll flash yellow or red and things like that. And you’re supposed to treat that either as a yield or as like a stop sign and then keep going cause it’s the middle of the night and there’s barely any traffic there.

I’m wondering if in the rules of the programming of these autonomous vehicles, that particular red flashing is in the sub-routine and it thinks it might be in the middle of the night and it’s does like a stop sign thing. And then when all is clear, it takes off. And this might be what’s tripping. [01:35:00] The police cars might be tripping this sub-routine in the logic system.

Right? And they need to differentiate to look for different colors. Well, this did happen at night, but there we go. I don’t know why it happened. There wasn’t really much explanation, but that’s kind of pretty funny. Does anybody have control of the vehicle from afar, like a drone to where they can take control of the vehicle if they need to at a certain point?

Isn’t that what the OnStar button’s for? I would assume. Assume somebody in the vehicle to push it. I would probably assume that they must have an over the airway of taking control. Control vehicle. Yeah. Stopping it. Opening the doors. Cause the doors are locked. Cause the key tried to like open the door and it wouldn’t, we’ve got those type of autonomous vehicles that are, you know, obviously it’s, it’s tech for when we all get level 537 autonomous full self-driving capability in our Teslas and we can read books and play games and roll the seat back and sleep.

And then there’s a lot of companies that are also doing it to, like Domino’s wants to deliver your pizza with its little mini autonomous [01:36:00] pod thing. Right. Didn’t Amazon try that with the drone? Sure. Delivering your packages. But how do you feel about GM is patenting autonomous tech to train new drivers?

Without a human instructor, it couldn’t be any worse than what’s on the road today.

Let’s answer this with another question. How successful have you ever been doing computer-based training on your own? Right? So if you can’t figure out how to use Microsoft Word by yourself, you ain’t gonna figure out how to drive. Just cuz you play Microsoft Flight Simulator doesn’t mean you can go fly a plane just cuz you played.

Mario Card doesn’t qualify you to drive a car. This I, this scares me. Like, I’m sorry. This is just like all the things we’ve talked about in high performance driving where they want to take the coaches out of [01:37:00] the car and do high performance education remotely. It’s impossible. Why? Why, why though? Like, and I don’t think it makes sense, but I could get almost the rationale in that scenario where it’s like, okay, you’re minimizing when the oh shit moment happens in something very catastrophic.

Bodily injury, you’re minimizing it by having one less person in the seat. But what is the data around how many people are getting into huge accidents or dying from their in-car student driving instruction? I, I wanna know how the risk reward system works in this autonomous driving instructor. Do you earn Mario coins, like as you go along?

Like how do you know if you’re doing a good job? Like how do you get feedback from this? I mean, we talk about those systems for high performance driving, like the Garmin where it’s supposed to coach you without a coach. Like I was, like, I was just alluding to, I, I don’t see this working with a 15 and a half year old, you know, with their learner’s permit.

What happens when that 15 and a half year old is like some [01:38:00] super hacker and like, brings his laptop in there, hooks into like, oh geez, your system disables it and then it goes for a joyride for 10 hours. Uh, you know, I don’t know. Uh, well, they, they don’t wanna drive, so it doesn’t matter anyway. Right. But, but that’s a, that’s a subject.

We won’t go there. It would probably be easier to teach people via TikTok versus autonomous. You’re right. That’s true. Don’t even get me started on that. More effective. Well, they’re definitely not learning how to drive from movies like the Fast and the Furious. Really. I thought that was a really good source of accurate driving information.

You know, I told you guys I was eventually gonna watch drives to Survive. Guess what? You didn’t April Fools. Yeah, I didn’t. What I did watch is fast nine. I finally got around to watching it and you know, we had debated for a while doing an, an entire episode surrounding this movie, but I’m gonna save you all 45 minutes of your life.

You’re never gonna get back because it’s not even worth showcasing the [01:39:00] movie as an episode. I don’t know if you that bad. I don’t know if you two have seen it, but I’m gonna put it this way. I haven’t seen a Fast and Furious movie this bad since the fourth one where it was all CGI i’d and they’re flying out of that mountain in Mexico and all the cars are like airborne.

It was ridiculous. Even my wife was like, this is the stupidest movie I have seen in probably 10 years. And that encapsulates a lot of the older Fast and the Furious movies at this point. It’s just so ridiculous. It doesn’t even try to take itself seriously. It, it completely jumped the shark, cool cars, all that kind of stuff.

The story is exactly like you see all the memes, family, family, family. Every two seconds it’s family, my family. And you’re like, oh my God, stop. The soul crushing part is they explain away Tokyo Drift using Kurt Russell, who is quote unquote Mr. Nobody, and saying that he somehow faked Han’s death. It was all like this thing, it’s, it’s such bs.

And then they bring back [01:40:00] Caleb Temple Buck from American Gothic, you know the The star. Ooh, the star of Tokyo. Ooh, really? And he’s like the redneck rocket scientist in this movie. Like Brad love this because he builds this rocket powered Fiero, which then they launch in into space where Tyrese and Ludacris are like in this Firo and they’re using it as a missile to take out a satellite.

And I mean, the whole thing is just absolutely. It is beyond belief, like how ridiculous it is. Did they have to pay Elon Musk royalties for the idea of launching a car in the space? Question they must have. It was the same color as the Tesla that they launched into space. Did the fear come in that color?

Yeah. Oh yeah. It’s like a reddish burgundy color. Yeah, absolutely it did. I feel like I only ever saw him white from the blood of brown people it hit. So I’ll say this. It’s so bad you have to watch it. It’s just horrendous. Ous at atrocious. [01:41:00] I saw it opening that we, whatever weekend it was first released, uh, for home.

I will say I am anxiously waiting for fast 10 reality sets in and people will argue with me about this, but the best in the franchise. Was five and six. They are one movie split into two pieces. They tell a complete story. It was very much Oceans 11, you know, fast nine. They’re super spies and it’s like, next up, you know, GI Joe and Cobra are gonna show up.

I, I I, this was, it’s like 18. I thought this was it. I thought the franchise is done. Oh. Oh, you’re funny. Oh yeah. Really funny. Get at is this, is this like how uh, everybody retires and he comes back two, two days later. Yeah. This, this is like the role Tom Brady retired two days later. He is back channel. You heard one’s 34th retirement tour.

You heard there’s an animated series, like Fast and Furious Super Spy thing on one. Yeah. That’s been on Netflix channel. Sorry, Netflix for like years. Oh my God. Yes. Yeah, it’s called Initial D. Right. Which that kind of stuff makes sense as a cartoon. Yeah. [01:42:00] You can suspend all of my realities when they’re cartoon characters.

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. Like everything makes sense. Well, when they do all this live action, which isn’t how the Fast and the Furious franchise. Started, it’s just gradually became more and more ridiculous with each passing movie. But a lot of these movies where as we digress here, they’re taking things that were never human.

And then, yeah, making ’em live action. Just make no sense when you put actual human beings, leave ’em as cartoons. The best part of that movie was Helen Muren. Yes. She was awesome. I agree with that. She was amazing. We really liked that part. Jess, uh, absolutely enjoyed that part. Going back to what I said before, five and six when they were doing that whole Italian job thing, you know, trying to go in that direction.

I thought that was awesome. So it’s five was the one in Brazil, right? Yeah, that was by far my favorite. That I actually really like Tokyo Drift too. This new one. It’s just the love child of Fast and Furious four and Hobbs and Shaw, where Hobbs and Shaw was over the top [01:43:00] too. It’s just weird. And I will say they needed to stop with the whole Brian and, and pay and homage.

And then at the, as you know, spoiler alert, at the end of Fast nine, he shows up in the gtr, but you never see him get out of the car. I was like, guys, just stop. Just stop. It’s done. We know. Okay. Fa. Family, family, family. Oh my God, it’s so terrible. What are they all like 197 now? Uh, it’s, it’s pretty pathetic.

That said, I’ll watch the new Kingsman movie. Like they’ll all merge, it’ll become one universe. That’ll be Fast. 10. It’ll be Marvel, mass Universe. Oh, the, the, the Fast and Furious multiverse. It’ll be like the Matrix movie where you’re not sure if it’s John Wick or The Matrix, like what the hell’s going on with Keanu.

Same thing with Vin Diesel. It’d just be Riddick. I mentioned earlier, you know, we had that Patreon special double episode from the other drive through where I ranted about city traffic. And you know, we talked about some of the unbelievable things that you see on the road this time. [01:44:00] As I was spotting Model Y going down 66 in Virginia, I noticed something else that absolutely left me gobsmacked and I must have done 10 double takes because I could not believe what I was seeing.

I don’t know if this vehicle had autonomous driving level 12 or otherwise, but what I witnessed is incredible. You might think might be an April Fool’s joke, but it is not. I kid you not, I bullshit. You not. I looked over and I saw a man. With Barba SA all over his face. Barbasol, by the way, is a brand of shaving cream and he was straight razor at 65 miles an hour going down 66.

And I was like, you got to be shitting me. Like I have so many questions. I’m sure you guys do too, and I am unable to answer any of them. Can you imagine straight razing going down the highway, the neck area. It’s a little bit of a delicate, [01:45:00] delicate area that I would be a little cautious. Yeah, that’s a, that’s a future Darwin Award winner.

Well, yeah, there’s a, don’t understand all this, uh, blood everywhere, you know, and where do you wash the blade? Where’s your basin of hot water and your after shave and you’re rolled up hot towel. You know all these things and things that you might need as you’re shaving. Like where, where are you flicking the shaving cream?

Cuz once you’ve done a, a pass, you’re, you’re shaving, you’re flicking it onto the.

The after the after shave and the towel and all that’s built into the, uh, the airbag. So when he, it comes out and it cleans him up, oh crap, you know, just skip the straight razor and use theta airbag a hundred percent. In all seriousness, after a while I felt really awkward cuz I kept looking at this guy and I kept trying to match his [01:46:00] speed and I’m like, this is unreal.

At one point I did drop back to make sure that his license plate wasn’t from Florida, because if it was. I think I could have believed it a little bit more. Oh my gosh. Only in Virginia. There’s all kinds everywhere, unfortunately, or fortunately. But speaking of Florida, man, we’re actually gonna start with Michigan, man.

Oh no, this one’s all right. The Michigan man’s arrested after stolen school bus Chase, and, and immediately you’re going like, really? There was a chase involving a school bus. Were there kids in the bus? No, this happened at 8:20 PM at night. Bus was in, you know, a lot behind a locked fence, which he busted through with the bus.

How did he get to the bus first? Those are details, you know, he probably climbed the fence. I don’t know. He took a bus to the bus. He took a bus to the bus. He was just walking down the [01:47:00] road, having to see a school bus, you know, Hey, I think I might wanna go first. Spin. The best part of this is wheels on the bus go.

I was waiting for somebody to do it. The best part is to quote, police said they tried to stop the bus, but it quickly took off. What kind of bus was this? It was that drag bus. Have you seen that thing where it stands up on its ass and shoots flames? It’s the drag bus. It’s a Tesla bus. It must have been because how, how you had trouble keeping up with this.

I don’t even, okay. Yeah. Unfortunately, he did like crash into somebody. Um, luckily they only had some minor injuries from that, but only, only in Michigan. The one in the laws he broke was a malicious destruction of property greater than $999, but less than 20. That was for that fence. At today’s prices, [01:48:00] that’s, uh, their, their prices.

I they, what, what the hell did they pull him over for? They couldn’t have gotten him for speeding because I’ve never been, they pulled him over for stealing a bus. Well, how did they know it was stolen? I mean, I’ve never seen a bus. Cause it’s nine o’clock at night and the bus was jacked because there was a chain lick fence dragging underneath the bus.

But let’s go south to our Floridian friends. So don’t do this kind of stuff. People, oh my gosh, what dumb people? Florida man drove 112 miles an hour on shoulder. To impress girlfriend. Isn’t that legal Now? I thought they changed the laws on that. The real question is, what was he driving? 112 miles an hour.

Not a bus. Sad. Florida. It’s Florida. Brevard County. My guess is a Pontiac Sunfire can Can a Pontiac Sunfire hit 112 miles an hour downhill with the [01:49:00] wind. Not even with a Tesla, Florida flat. There’s no Florida flat, and the cop had to accelerate to 125 miles an hour to catch him. Actually, it was probably a Chevy Lumina.

Ooh, ooh, Aluma. That’s that’s a pull that haven’t seen one of those forever. This was on Interstate 95 also. This is a big highway road. Please don’t do this. People looking at the driver, it was definitely a Crown Vic. Now that could get 212 miles an hour. It’s gotta be like a 2005 Dodge Charger. You know, something like that that nobody the other, the other great thing is he told the cops that he was showing off to his girlfriend, who apparently was allegedly following in a separate vehicle.

So was she also doing 112 miles an hour down the shoulder to follow him? So allegedly in a separate vehicle. And she’s allegedly a real person. That’s true. The alleged girlfriend, it’s a sweater on the back of a chair. [01:50:00] He was talking about Siri and his cell phone there. It is a light month for Florida.

They’re just coming out of winter in Florida. That’s true. That true. Yeah. They’re hibernation. That’s true. And I think that’s the case for Dill Pickle here. What?

Yes, he is affectionately known by the cops. The deputies nicknamed him Dill Pickle. It’s like Chuck Duck. So if you haven’t watched, duck is a real person. He sold me that. So if you haven’t seen the short little video from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office dash cam of this, you should probably check it out because Dill Pickle led these

dill pickle led these guys on a chase through some really narrow forest wood area. It’s called rally. Do [01:51:00] you notice what I noticed, what he’s driving, because he’s quote, rallying these narrow roads. You can’t see the pickup truck. He’s driving, but the pickup truck has a full tow bed on the back. Like he’s towing.

No, he’s, he’s towing a trailer. He’s towing a trailer, evading the police, chasing through the woods. My guess is it’s an F two 50 diesel from like the nineties, and it’s definitely a landscape trailer. I mean, he wins, he wins the day on that. I mean, props to try and to do a, a chase through the woods with a truck and trailer.

Oh man. He saw the, he saw the video with the Rivian Drag Race and he said, hold my beer

Dill Pickle. Unfortunately, dill Pickle crashed into a tree and was apprehended by those deputies. I think we have the tagline for this episode now. Pickle Rick. Well, folks, [01:52:00] I guess it’s time we go behind the pit wall for Motor Sports News. What’s hot this month in the world of Motorsport there? Brad F1 started not too long ago, and Mercedes is middle of the pack.

Ferrari is leading. Woo. It’s about time. Yep. Yep. Red Bull had yet another car failure. Yep. Yep. Red Bull is proving to be as reliable. What radio station? What radio station were they tuned to? 94 9. NPR Sweaty Balls. I believe there’s a race this weekend, but I think there’s a race every weekend. It’s, uh, Emilio.

Yeah, they’re in, uh, they’re in Italy. Are they in Molo? No. Otdr, Enzo, Dino Rio SpaghettiO is the Emilio Oman. They’re, they’re in mlo whatever, former home of the San Marino Grand. Anyway, there’s Dope Pickle Weekend. Uh, there’s a F F1 race. This weekend we got Bill pickled, Dick Trickle and Coltran. Think[01:53:00]

so other than that, it’s been pretty light in Motor Sports News. There was an announcement this year that at the upcoming joint IndyCar IMSA weekend at Detroit, because you know, when they close down the streets, they wanna run as many races as they possibly can. So they’re offering free entry on Friday, June of the third for the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix.

So if you’re interested in getting in on that, check the show notes for this episode and it’ll take you to where you can learn more about how you can get those free tickets for Friday, June the third at the IndyCar and IMSA Detroit Grand Prix. For the upcoming local news and events, brought to us by collector car guide.net, the ultimate reference for car enthusiasts.

We have the 34th annual Apple Blossom Festival and car Show coming up on May 1st at the Frederick County Fairgrounds in Maryland. The 13th annual Vaga Bonds car and truck show in East Petersburg Park in Pennsylvania. On May 7th, May [01:54:00] 14th, the Audi Club Potomac Chesapeake chapter is holding their annual spring fun run starting in Mitchellville, Maryland.

Lots of back road driving, uh, ending up with a nice scenic lunch. Spring Mills ffa. Car, truck and Tractor Show will be held on May 21st in Martinsville, West Virginia. There will be a Street Survivors Memorial Day show on May 29th at the Glen Burnie, Maryland Elks Lodge, and tons more events like this and all their details are available over@collectorcarguide.net.

It’s time for the hbd junkie.com Trackside report. So what’s coming up in May in our general area. Well, I got some news the other day from New Jersey Motorsports Park that they are starting up again. Their outdoor carting league at the Tempest, which is their carting track on campus alongside of Lightning and Thunderbolts.

Those did kick off in March and they run about every five weeks on Wednesday evenings with a couple week break in between. And they’re running those leagues throughout the season. And you can learn [01:55:00] more at njp.com/rental-cart-league if you want to get in on that. And so we are looking forward to actually running the Tempest later this year at our Summer Bash.

Annual celebration along with the folks over at Emra. So if you’re interested in learning more about that, our details for our Summer Bash eight is gonna be up on our website soon, so look forward to that. I also got a recent press release from the Audi Club, especially the Northeast region. They were a little late to the game, releasing their schedule for this year, and they finally published it.

And they have a bunch of events coming up starting in May. They’re gonna be at Limerock a whole bunch of this year. They’re also gonna be at Palmer in July. They’re gonna be at the I S A series event, which is where they run the G T L M and gt uh, ECAR. None. The prototypes usually show up at Limerock because it’s so short.

They’ll be there onsite, you know, Audi corrals and all that kind of stuff. On Friday, July the 16th, they’ve got some [01:56:00] other summer drives. They’ll be at Watkins Glen in August. They’re doing another event at Thunderbolt in New Jersey, also in October. And they also added. Pit race to their schedule in June, and then last but not least a sudden add-on adding an advanced only solo day, Saturday, August the 27th at Limerock Park.

So lots of stuff going on in the Northeast region, especially with the Audi Club. I mean, this is probably the biggest track schedule they’ve had in quite a long time. So if you’re looking to hook up with a new group, try something new and go to some of these iconic tracks like Limerock, like Palmer Pit Race, Watkins Glen, et cetera, check out the Audi Club.

So you go to audi club.org and then jump from there into all the different schedules in all the different regions around the country. On top of that, there’s been yet another addition to the hooked on driving Northeast Calendar for 2022. They’ve added yet another Watkins Glen date. They will be at Watkins Glen from April 29th through May [01:57:00] one.

Yes, that’s right. Another three days at Watkins Glen here in late April, early May. And as we mentioned last month, as a reminder, they have added another V I R full course date for July the 22nd through 24th, and that is also another three day weekend to the H O D calendar. So good to see that more track dates are opening up.

So keep an eye out for that. And if you wanna learn more about all of the available track days around the country, be sure to check out h hpd junkie.com. In case you missed out. Check out the other podcast episodes that aired in April. We are excited to announce our working relationship with s Rro Motorsports GT America series, powered by a w s and CrowdStrike.

We got to interview president of SRO America, Greg Gill, and talk about the future of GT three, GT four and touring car racing, along with some healthy debate over balance of performance and much more. We talked with veteran S E C A, autocrossers, Tom Hill and Todd Lilly about their [01:58:00] experiences racing two very different cars, a turbo Miata, and a modified 66 G T O.

And we tried to figure out who makes the hotdog and who tells the lies in a full length pit stop, Minnesota available on our Patreon. We got the history and details on the amusement park of Motorsports, better known to many of us as Hyper Fest when we chatted with Hyper Fest founder Chris Coto from the National Autosport Association.

Thank you to everyone that came on the show this month and we look forward to more SRO sponsored Break Fixx episodes later this season. And don’t forget if you’re tuning in for the first time, you’ve got only 112 episodes to catch up on. So we have some new Patreons for the month of April. Big shout outs to our new Patreon supporters, Bob and Jen wreath from the great state of Texas for becoming G T M supporters through Patreon.

We salute you. And by the way, your medium size schwag is on its way. And remember, for everything that we talked about on this episode and more, be sure to check out the follow-on [01:59:00] article and the show notes available@gtmotorsport.org. And a couple other shout outs, we have some anniversaries. Todd Lilly, as we referenced earlier from the autocross episode, uh, that he was this year’s GTM or award recipient and celebrating one year with gtm, along with Graham Clemson and his low cost Super seven.

We look forward to seeing them both Trackside this year. That’s great and a special thanks to guest hosts. No one. That’s right, Brad. But if you are interested in subbing in for Brad or Tanya on a subsequent drive-through episode, you’re more than welcome to throw your name in the hat. Let us know. We’d love to have you on the panel to come and debate the month’s news and give us your comic input or comic relief or whatever it might be.

And they’re always a good time. They’re always a lot of fun. And we appreciate past guest hosts that we’ve had on the drive-through, and we look forward to seeing them again later this year. So if you’re interested in that, be sure to reach out to us at crew chief@gtmotorsports.org. Any other shout outs we got there, Brad?

[02:00:00] Um, that you know Tanya. Thanks. Oh, geez. Not her again. And to all the members who support G T m, without you, none of this would be possible. Now we’re gonna gear up for the second half of the episode, right? What the F are you talking about? Hashtag April Fools. I so hate April Fools. The older I get, the more I despise it because I look online and I see, oh my god, that’s kind of weird, but it could be kind of cool.

Yeah, yeah. Look at this. And why the hell is that person doing that? And it’s like, check the date, check the date, check the date. Loser. Like, I mean, next thing you know you’re sending a thousand bucks to a Nigerian prince. You know that’s how it all starts. Or a hundred dollars to Elon Musk. That’s your bad decision.

You gotta look at that. And that’s a wrap.

Well, here we are in the drive through line. Me and her cars in front of us, cars in back of us all. Just waiting to order. [02:01:00] There’s some idiot in a Volvo with this bright son behind me. Ilene out the window and scream, Hey, watch. A trying to do blind me the wife.

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We’d love to hear from you. Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that G T M 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 [02:02:00] Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.

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