B/F: The Drive Thru #34

• Polestar’s new SUV has no back window
• Here’s What the Automaker Formerly Known As Saab Was Working on for a Decade
• DIESEL vs EV (SEMI) is it worth it?
• Rivian R1T Fender Bender Turns Into $42,000 Repair Bill

• Brad Pitt to Drive at British Grand Prix as Part of Production on Formula One Movie
• F1 GP Imola - Cancelled!
• First (digital) look at Las Vegas track

Azerbaijan Blooper?

• Manual-Equipped Toyota Performance Hybrids May Be Coming Soon
• Canadian Driver Accidentally Buys Hyundai Ioniq 5 With No Fast Charging
• Toyota Gets OK From California to Sell Hydrogen-Electric Semi-Truck Powertrains
• If it's good enough for John Cena - His DD is a 2020 Civic Type-R Manual!

• Mountain Man Dan considers a CTS-V wagon!

Car Prices are still Crazy!

• E Ink Launches E Ink Prism™ 3, A Multi-Color ePaper Film Enabling Product Personalization

• For Sale: Acura Plybertruck
• For Sale: Stubby 1976 Chevy Camaro Z28 Is Really a VW Beetle Underneath

Avis is pushing EV Rentals… would you? - 10% off!

Gran Tourismo Movie Trailer

• Did you miss Break/Fix episode 200? Tune in NOW!

WRC Metro 6R4 Short

• Alyssa Milano’s Volkswagen Goes Up In Flames In Soho: A Troubled Journey From Tesla To Volkswagen

• Stellantis recalls nearly 220,000 Jeep Cherokee SUVs worldwide due to fire risk

• Analysis-Tesla’s new car-making process stokes debate among industry experts
• Elon Musk says working from home is "morally wrong"

• Audi On Track For First F1 Engine Test Sooner Than You Might Think
• Porsche Is Reportedly Launching a New Car on June 8
• In a Crossover World, There Was No More Room for the Audi TT
• The Original Audi TT Was Almost a Porsche Instead

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

gtmotorsports. org. Click about, and then advertising. Thank you again to everyone that supports grand touring motor sports, our podcast, break, fix, and all the other services we provide.

Crew Chief Eric: Here we go. This is going to be special,

Crew Chief Brad: but before we get into all that, welcome to the drive through episode number 34. This is our monthly recap, where we put together a menu of automotive motor sport and random car adjacent news. Now let’s pull up to the window for some automotive news.

Crew Chief Eric: We have to retract one of our statements.

We thought we were going to have a special guest host. Instead, we have a special episode [00:01:00] of The Drive Thru for you, where we focus on finding things that were lost. We found Tanya this month. She’s here with us. Woo!

Crew Chief Brad: Not only did we find her, we found two of her.

Executive Producer Tania: Double Trouble. Isn’t there a song something Double Trouble?

Crew Chief Brad: Which Tanya do I address?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, there’s Double Vision. I’m seeing Double Vision.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m

Crew Chief Eric: definitely

Crew Chief Brad: seeing that

Crew Chief Eric: right now.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I think Double Vision isn’t that, that’s a foreigner song, right? Yeah, I think so. It’s called Double Vision.

Crew Chief Eric: And you can only see that. Yeah. But you know what else, Brad? This episode has a new sponsor.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, yeah?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah. This episode brought to you by Gray Chevrolet.

Crew Chief Brad: Where you can pick up a 1988 Cadillac DeVille base model for 17, 988. Get yourself down to Gray Chevrolet and tell them you heard it here on Brake Fix.

Crew Chief Eric: We’ve never started a drive thru episode with Lost and Found before. So this is kind of fun.

And what set it into motion is not Tanya saying that she was going to be here, but she came to the table with this really interesting article [00:02:00] about all things, the Titanic. How is this car, Jason?

Crew Chief Brad: Was there a car on the Titanic?

Crew Chief Eric: Don’t think so. There were piano players on the Titanic.

Crew Chief Brad: We may find out after this 3d scan that there were cars on Titanic,

Crew Chief Eric: but what’s brilliant about this is they have this new technology that is really, really super accurate and they can 3d scan the floor of the ocean and all this fun stuff.

And yet. All the pictures from space look like they were taken on a 1 megapixel camera from 30 years ago. We still continue to find cars in barns month after month after month. But hey, we can map the ocean floor in high res 3 dimensions, right? It is Car, Jason, Tanya, and here’s why. It actually ties into, spoiler alert, a future episode where we sit down with author Larry Jorgensen and we talk about a book he wrote called Shipwrecked and Rescued, which is all about [00:03:00] shipwrecks where it was carrying cars and Michigan and all this kind of stuff.

Don Weaver from Garage Style and I sat down and interviewed him and that was actually quite delightful conversation and it’s. Been pre released several times through other affiliates, but it’s going to be coming out here very, very soon. So you can tune into that. But I thought it was kind of funny that if we can map the ocean, we kind of need to map Lake Michigan and some of the other things that Larry talked about on that episode and see how many 1920s Chryslers are still sitting at the bottom of the lake, or, you know, maybe they’ll find Jimmy Hoffa.

I’m not sure which. Along with all things lost and found, we’re going to talk a little bit about history. It’s a little bit of what should I buy as well. So right at the top of that list, we’re going to hit you hard with the cheapest 300 horsepower cars you can buy.

Crew Chief Brad: You know, I’ve been looking through this list and the sad part is all of them, except for the Camaro 1LT, they’re all over 30, 000.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that’s the new base price these days. If you’re not paying 35 for a car, which is something I swore I’d [00:04:00] never do, you’re not getting anything. Where’s the Golf R on this list? That’s because it’s 45. Is it? Dude, it’s so expensive. And isn’t it 400 horsepower now?

Crew Chief Brad: More than 300, I guess. The GR Corolla’s on here, Todd.

Yeah, it is! For a meager price of 36, 995.

Crew Chief Eric: The four cylinder turbo Mustang’s a good deal in here, an entry price of 29, 100.

Crew Chief Brad: And having had experience with one, I mean, we know that they do perform really well.

Crew Chief Eric: I think it has better weight distribution than the V8. Granted, people argue it doesn’t have the power to get out of its own way, but John’s, he put that Ford performance package on there with the chip from the factory and he was making like 378 at the wheels.

I mean, that’s pretty substantial for a four banger.

Crew Chief Brad: Exactly. That’s really good.

Crew Chief Eric: I enjoy driving that. I mean, I’ve driven the Coyote powered Mustangs as well. I’ve been in plenty of Shelby 350s, the track, but you know, the four banger for 30 grand, if you want a two door coupe with a manual transmission and rear wheel drive, it’s sort

Crew Chief Brad: of hard to beat.

We’ll go around the horn real quick. Which [00:05:00] car on this list would you have? You only get one.

Crew Chief Eric: Do I get two?

Crew Chief Brad: You get two. There are two of you here.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s

Crew Chief Brad: true. Eric, go.

Crew Chief Eric: Man, I’d have to go with the Kia Stinger.

Crew Chief Brad: Really? That is such a surprise. After you just waxed poetic about the Mustang 4 cylinder turbo, the SVO.

Crew Chief Eric: Mustang’s the obvious choice. The Stinger, because it’s the precursor to the N74 Vision, which we can’t have yet and is going to cost 200, 000, I’ll go with the Stinger.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes, because they look exactly the same. Same car underneath. Tanya Wan. GR Corolla. Pizarro Tanya.

Executive Producer Tania: The Mustang.

Crew Chief Brad: I would go with the GR Corolla.

Moving on.

Crew Chief Eric: To the hottest family cars that are genuinely fun to drive in 2023.

Crew Chief Brad: What the F is this Aston Martin DBX 707?

Executive Producer Tania: Whose family car is this? For 235, 000. This list is a hot…

Crew Chief Brad: Mess.

Executive Producer Tania: This is rich people family [00:06:00] cars.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I feel like this is in the wrong section. This should be in rich people doing rich people things.

Executive Producer Tania: The first car is 235. The next car is 123. Then we got the bargain basement Taycan at 99.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, then you get the Jeep Gladiator, which is a terrible, terrible family car. What was this moron smoking? Did the person who wrote this ever actually drive a Jeep? Nope. Because they ride like a medieval ox cart. Ask me how I know.

Crew Chief Eric: The other things on this list, just, I don’t get it.

Crew Chief Brad: A Hyundai Kona?

Crew Chief Eric: The Hyundai Kona, there’s the WRX, Civic Type R, which is, yes, because the Civic is as big as an Accord, but not the Type R, that’s not a family car.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know, the Camry has 300 horsepower, so it’s… The same.

Crew Chief Brad: This list is stupid.

Crew Chief Eric: So here’s the problem with the word family car.

Unfortunately, there’s stereotypes around that. So you start thinking, quote unquote, mom mobile. And I know it’s not okay to say that. No, I’m

Executive Producer Tania: thinking you have children that you’re carrying this with your spouse or whoever. And it’s like, you’re [00:07:00] not going to go around unless you’re a rich person. 200, 000 Panamera Turbo SE Hybrid Sport Turismo.

I mean, what kind of family car is that?

Crew Chief Eric: But if you’re dad and you only have to haul the kids around every once in a while, it’s okay.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t know about you being a dad, Eric, but I can’t afford a 235, 000 car. Can you afford a 235, 000 car?

Crew Chief Eric: No, no. This is why I’m a cartoon avatar this month. I can’t even afford the zoom payment.

Executive Producer Tania: Mercedes AMG E63 S Wagon, 600 horsepower, V8, all wheel drive, 122, 000, really?

Crew Chief Brad: This list just doesn’t make any, there’s no continuity between the list. The Hellcat is

Executive Producer Tania: not a family car.

Crew Chief Brad: There’s no cohesiveness between the list. The WRX and the Civic, even like the Civic Si, I think would have been a better option for a family car.

Executive Producer Tania: What is a typical family car these days? None of these.

Crew Chief Brad: They’re all SUVs.

Executive Producer Tania: Exactly. There’s not a single SUV on this list.

Crew Chief Brad: That, that’s… Well, that’s not true. Not true. Well, there’s [00:08:00] the

Executive Producer Tania: Alpha. There’s the Alpha.

Crew Chief Brad: There’s the Aston Martin.

Executive Producer Tania: Is that thing an SUV?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. And then there’s the I Pace something or other.

Isn’t that an SUV?

Executive Producer Tania: That looked very squat.

Crew Chief Eric: If they had changed this list to Petrelhead Father’s Day Special or something.

Executive Producer Tania: When you win the lottery, this can be your family car.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, but this is like… What you buy the dad, who’s a petrol head that sold his sports car, you know, that kind of thing. Like if you put it in that context.

Then it all sort of makes sense. But to say, these are hot family cars. Yeah, this is trash. Now I will say we have to give a special hall pass to the Audi. The wagon of all wagons.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, there’s also an AMG 63

Crew Chief Eric: S. Yeah, but it’s not as cool. It’s not as cool as the Audi because the Audi has these flares. It has these hips.

If you’ve ever seen one in person, it is the coolest station wagon. In a long time for me as a long roof society member [00:09:00] myself, I really like this car. Now, 123, 000 is a bit much, but it is probably worth every penny of it. That’s all I’m saying.

Crew Chief Brad: Maybe it should just say family car alternatives. We’re just subjectively nitpicking.

We don’t like Brian Silvestro, I think is the thing.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we’re going to see a trend as we go through this drive through this month. I noticed that a lot of the articles were coming from the drive and I’m starting to wonder if they’re turning into Jalopnik. I’m not sure I can trust what I’ve been reading.

We’ll get into that as we go along. Also talking about what were they smoking?

Crew Chief Brad: The new segment, what were they smoking?

Crew Chief Eric: Best affordable sports cars of 2023 from money. com. And this was all broken down in different segments. Like you can best family car, best this car, best economy car. So I honed in on best sports car.

Cause I was really curious. Here’s how they broke it down. Best overall value and best overall went to the Toyota GR 86 best for safety, the burrs, which is the GR [00:10:00] 86. So the GR 86 took first and fourth place. Apparently the Nissan Z best for features. The Chevy Camaro best for technology, which I’m a little puzzled about.

And then finally, who won best handling

Crew Chief Brad: the USS Dodge challenger.

Crew Chief Eric: Good

Crew Chief Brad: night.

Executive Producer Tania: I

Crew Chief Brad: love how there’s only one kind of sports car ish. Category.

Executive Producer Tania: No, I like that under the Dodge Challenger, it says few standard safety features. Wow.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s got a seatbelt. I didn’t know what to think about this. We’ve gone from like one extreme to the other, right?

We went from 300 horsepower cars. Okay, great. So the family car, okay, whatever. And now this,

Executive Producer Tania: how does it handle better than like a, 86 or BRZ.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s no way. Maybe if I’m pushing Matchbox around my table it handles better? Like, who tested these cars? All three of these articles almost infuriate me as much as the [00:11:00] yearly Consumer Reports thing, where it’s so all over the map, where they’ll ditch one car like the BRZ and say how terrible it is, and then they’ll commend Toyota for how great the GR86 is.

And I’m like, do you people not realize it’s literally the same car? Stiffer badges on it. It’s notorious for stuff like that, and I just wonder who writes this stuff.

Crew Chief Brad: So the person that writes this stuff, her name is Jacqueline Trop. She joined money in April, 2023. So she’s new and every single one of her articles is best.

The Best Subcompact SUVs of 2023. The best electric SUVs of 2023. The best plugin hybrid SUVs of 2023. The best hybrid SUVs, 2023 Best three Row SUVs. Best minivans, best large SUVs.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s very specific categories.

Crew Chief Brad: Every single one of her articles for this, that’s her thing.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s okay. Cause we’re going to go over to MotorTrend where they know a thing or two about cars.

Crew Chief Brad: They know a thing or two cause they’ve seen a thing or two. Yeah. You think?

Crew Chief Eric: And I love the title of [00:12:00] this. Hell will freeze over before these cars become collectibles.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, they’re not wrong.

Crew Chief Eric: I have a problem with the first car.

Executive Producer Tania: The Chevy Lumina? Was that the first one? What is there not to

Crew Chief Eric: like about the Cadillac Catera, also known as an Opel?

Crew Chief Brad: No, that’s, that’s just the cover photo. Oh no, it’s the Jaguar. The first car. The Jaguar S Type R. You mean the Ford Mondeo S Type R.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. What’s wrong with the Mondeo again?

Crew Chief Brad: Absolutely nothing.

Crew Chief Eric: And maybe that’s just it because it’s built on a commodity platform that it will never be desirable. It doesn’t really have any sort of specialness or rarity to it.

I look at it and go, that’s awesome. It means there’s a ton of parts and maybe ability to modify it, do other things with it, make it bespoke in a certain way. And honestly, this Jag. It’s pretty handsome.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I think it was a nice looking saloon. To tell you a car that was god awful ugly is the Mercury Cougar on this list.

Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: that Cadillac wasn’t very nice either.

Crew Chief Brad: No, I refuse to even acknowledge it. I’m moving right to the Mercury.

Crew Chief Eric: And I remembered that little [00:13:00] baby shoe of the Aston Signet was created and then I immediately like deleted it from my brain because I was like, why did Aston make a smart car? Like I just don’t that that will never be collectible ever.

Executive Producer Tania: The only one on here that I could see being collectible, but it would be a niche collectors market, is the Subaru.

The Baja?

Executive Producer Tania: I could see that there’d be like some cult followers that would like have 10 of them or something.

Crew Chief Brad: Those are the same people that buy the Pontiac Aztec.

Executive Producer Tania: Exactly.

Crew Chief Eric: But if you’re gonna go down that route, I saw one even the other day, you get an old Subaru Brat.

And there was like older gentlemen driving one around that was completely restored. And I was like, look at that. There’s a Subaru from the eighties. There’s a survivor. And that’s cool. The new Baja, which tries to be the brat. You look at it and you go, that’s a messed up look at legacy.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, that’s all it is, but I will say there’s one car on, we’re going to get to that.

Come on. Am I, am I going to take your thunder? I’ll, I’ll, I’ll let [00:14:00] you do it.

Crew Chief Eric: No, no, no. I don’t want to offend any of our fans out there. Oh yes. Yes.

Crew Chief Brad: Please do.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh yeah. Now I know. Okay. Nevermind.

Crew Chief Eric: Before we get to that though, there are some other ones on here that I think are arguably Interesting. Like the 318 Ti, I think is a collector car.

People do a lot of swaps with those, the E36 based car.

Crew Chief Brad: So what makes it a collector car? Making it a different car. 100%! You take a car, you turn it into something else, and now it’s a collector car.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, that’s a collector car. You know, I know a lot of people, they like gut these and they take them to the track.

That’s not a collector car.

Crew Chief Brad: No, it’s a donor car. That’s a rolling chassis is what that is.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re right. It’s a collection though.

Crew Chief Brad: I feel the Ford. Contour. Contour SVT actually. I used to lust after those when I was back in high school. I thought they were pretty snazzy. And then the Ford Probe GT too.

Executive Producer Tania: No, that was so lame.

No,

Crew Chief Eric: I drove a 24 valve probe in Europe [00:15:00] and it was awesome. I actually really enjoyed that car. So which was the one we got? The one I drove was a us spec car. It was brought over. No,

it

Crew Chief Eric: was great. It’s a Mazda six to six. It’s got all the Mazda things you expect. It handles pretty well. It’s got good power.

They designed it. Sort of to compete with the Corrado, but the Corrado will clean its clock because it weighs so much less.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, this thing is so lame looking.

No, it’s cool. The probe is cool.

Crew Chief Brad: The 318 TI is not backed into a wall or like a hundred miles an hour. I did like the Mercedes Benz 320 compressor Coupa.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, how can you like that and not like the 318 TI? I think the compressor looks weird

Crew Chief Brad: because I’m not a BMW guy. I’m not a Beamer guy.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s

Crew Chief Brad: terrible. But there’s one car we have not mentioned on this list. And that’s for a very specific reason.

Crew Chief Eric: Are we going to go there? We can avoid it. We’re just going to skip it all together.

Crew Chief Brad: Should we just skip it?

Crew Chief Eric: No, I think our fans would be sad if we didn’t, they would be remiss.

Crew Chief Brad: If we did not mention this,

Crew Chief Eric: it is [00:16:00] not a Tesla. It’s a car you’ve searched for many times on cars. com and bring a trailer and other places.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s a car we’ve talked about several times. Craigslist

Crew Chief Eric: is where you should be looking for it.

Crew Chief Brad: Craigslist.

Crew Chief Eric: Facebook marketplace

Crew Chief Brad: marketplace. What’s a step below Craig’s list? A Facebook marketplace. Yes. You’ll find it in the garbage bin on Facebook marketplace. It is the Chevrolet HHR SS turbocharged.

You

Executive Producer Tania: know, what’s awesome about that?

Crew Chief Brad: Nothing. This car is trash.

Executive Producer Tania: But they handle so well and they’re very fast, I’ve heard. You can

Crew Chief Brad: get 500 horsepower out of them. I mean, which is true, you can get a lot of power out of them, but still, you’re still driving a piece of shit.

Crew Chief Eric: Tanya 1 and Tanya 2. Think about it this way, though.

This is why the HHR is awesome. It made this list of terrible, uncollectible cars. And you know, what’s missing from this list and can now say it’s second [00:17:00] place to this is the PT cruiser

Crew Chief Brad: and the Dodge Dart

Crew Chief Eric: and the Aztec. Like all these cars we know are terrible. Didn’t make it on this list.

Crew Chief Brad: Maybe it’s because whoever put this list together, didn’t realize that those cars were still on the road.

Crew Chief Eric: Cause I think those other cars are collectible and that’s just it. Right?

Crew Chief Brad: See the PT cruiser did it first and that’s why it’s collectible. No,

Crew Chief Eric: not at all.

Crew Chief Brad: No, nobody tried to outdo the Aztec at whatever the Aztec was trying to do.

Crew Chief Eric: You know what is super collectible and I hope that maybe one day I’ll get 55 for mine, you know, which is 5 more than I ever bid on a car.

Crew Chief Brad: I will give you 56 for yours right now.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, will you? All right. Car of the Week! According to Rob Report, ultra rare 1971 Porsche. 914 6 was expected to fetch a cool 550, 000 at auction. I have a model car of this exact vehicle on my desk. Again, [00:18:00] 55 bucks is where I’m at.

Executive Producer Tania: But it’s just a stock. It is a 914 6.

There’s nothing. There’s something else special about it.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. The objective of complying with SCCA rules regarding production, Porsche made approximately 400 of the M471 conversion kit, blah, blah, blah, without getting into all the very technical Porsche stuff about this.

Executive Producer Tania: I missed that part. Okay.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s some

Executive Producer Tania: homologation

Crew Chief Eric: competition option group package that they made for the 914 6.

Crew Chief Brad: So the price goes up with every single one of those words that you just said, the price goes up.

Crew Chief Eric: And what’s deceiving about this is you realize it’s basically the very, very first. 914 six GT, it has the big flares, it accommodates the bigger wheels from the nine 11. And so when you first look at it, you’re not really paying attention to it.

You’re like, Oh, it’s a blue nine 14 big deal. It’s that very, very early nine 14, six GT. And those [00:19:00] cars, you know, obviously went on to win many races, Nurburgring things like that later on in life. Kind of cool. This is akin to the nine 24 DP. That Al Holbert and his team were building for SCCA as well. Like they had these option groups for the Porsche cars to be able to compete probably in classes by themselves.

This is along those lines for the nine 14, but still half a million bucks for flares. That’s a lot. Yeah. Okay. That’s fun. Too rich for my blood. Other things, historical and fun and rich people doing rich people things. And it ties into formula one as well.

Executive Producer Tania: Sebastian Vettel. Getting back behind the wheel of a Formula One car at Goodwood.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Who’s he gonna be driving for? Haas? No, he’s driving for Team Vettel.

Crew Chief Brad: His own collection of F1 cars. Oh. This is really, really, really cool. And an autocross? Like,

Crew Chief Eric: where’s he gonna be? Goodwood. Ah, what? Festival of speed. Oh, that’s actually kind of awesome. But the big

Executive Producer Tania: thing that he’s pushing, so apparently [00:20:00] he’s got like an ex Nigel Mansell formula car.

He’s got a McLaren MP4 that Senna drove. I don’t know which of the ones he’s going to drive or maybe he’s driving several of them, but the thing about it, I guess it’s cooler or whatever. more important is he’s now on this sustainability kick and he was starting to go down that path while he was still driving in Formula One, recognizing the impact of fossil fuels and blah, blah, blah.

He is going to run them on e fuels.

Crew Chief Eric: Ooh,

Executive Producer Tania: that’s pretty neat.

Crew Chief Eric: Is he going to get a haircut?

Executive Producer Tania: I’d be nice, but you know,

Crew Chief Eric: F1 and he is looking homeless.

Executive Producer Tania: He had that hair in F1. So I think that’s COVID hair, they call it.

Crew Chief Brad: COVID hair.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, if you’re buying old Formula One cars, you run out of money quick, I think. I had heard that he had bought Nigel’s car.

I didn’t know about Senna. I think he also has like one of Mark Webber’s cars, something like that. And then there’s a bunch of other cars in his stable because he is a car collector. But I think that’s kind of cool. [00:21:00] And it’s not the first time he’s been to Goodwood. So something to look out for. Well, we might have a field trip in our future.

Did you guys hear that Chip Ganassi tests race cars in our backyard? Uh, yep.

Crew Chief Brad: I heard just now.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, in southwestern Pennsylvania, out towards the kind folks of the Pittsburgh area, there is a 4, 500 foot long tunnel. That runs underneath Laurel Ridge. It has had many uses over the years. It was originally for railroads and some other stuff.

And they were going to use it for diverting traffic. Things like that didn’t really work out. And eventually it was abandoned and it found its new purpose in 2004. as a race car test center for the chip ganassi racing team lord knows what they’re doing in the bat cave but i want to go check it out

Crew Chief Brad: they’re not building for gts

Crew Chief Eric: but can you imagine what it must sound like with your own personal tunnel doing dino poles and top speed runs and other things like that i mean that’s got to be pretty [00:22:00] Awesome.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes, it would be very awesome.

Crew Chief Eric: I love this one little quote from the article. Tunnels railroad routes make it well suited for testing cars at speeds up to and perhaps over 100 miles an hour.

Crew Chief Brad: Wow. 100 miles an hour.

Crew Chief Eric: Obviously you don’t know how fast race cars are. And if you do venture out to the Laurel Hill Tunnel, you can also enjoy yourself on the Laurel Hill Hiking Trail.

You

Executive Producer Tania: can’t actually go into it. At best, you can, like, see it from the outside.

Crew Chief Eric: You could call and find out if they’re doing tours and things. I think this would be fun.

Executive Producer Tania: Based on the way the article was written, no, they’re not.

Crew Chief Eric: What? To get a tour of this facility, but it is part of Atlas obscura’s collection of unique things in the United States and other parts of the world.

So if you haven’t checked out their website before you ever seen those books, like weird Maryland and weird Portland, oh wait, no, that’s just the Portland yellow pages. You know, all those books. That highlight all the strange things in your state. So this is right along the, up there with it, uh, over on atlasobscura.

[00:23:00] com. Oh, and I moved to a new state. So all kinds of fun stuff for me to find down here. Down under? Down under. Crikey! I see that the value of dodge darts have gone up.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I don’t actually think so.

Crew Chief Eric: Dude, I love this meme. This meme is hilarious.

Crew Chief Brad: In 2017, you could get a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat for $65,000.

In 2022, you could get a Dodge Challenger RT No Hellcat for $65,000. In 2030, you can get a brand new 2014 Dodge Dart. For 65, 000

Crew Chief Eric: with the prices, the way they’re going these days. That is not far off. It’s called an inflation. It’s called insanity over and bring a trailer, right?

Crew Chief Brad: There is something off the charts.

So I’ve been scouring bring a trailer and I found something very peculiar. Oh, it is a 2006. Chevrolet Tahoe [00:24:00] Z71 4×4 with 16, 000 miles. How much would you think this truck sold for?

Crew Chief Eric: I’m gonna go with our obvious guess here. 65, 000.

Crew Chief Brad: Close. What? This truck sold for 40, 000.

What?

Crew Chief Brad: Some moron. And yes. I’m calling you a moron.

Paid 40, 000 for this stupid thing. Oh my god.

Crew Chief Eric: 40, 000, I hate to say, you could pick up a couple year old pickup? Maybe a base model F 150 or a Tundra or 000, you

Crew Chief Brad: can pick up like a 2017 Tahoe. Right? You don’t need to buy a 2006, which has basically the same motor. They’re both 5. 3 liters. I’m telling you, you’ll want the newer motor.

Crew Chief Eric: Now that square bodies are so expensive, they have to move on to the round bodies. That’s why that 2006 is desirable.

Crew Chief Brad: It is not desirable. Whoever bought this is You dumb.

Crew Chief Eric: Speaking of things Mountain Man Dan would be interested in, [00:25:00] He texted us on Discord the other day, and he said he was considering, of all things, a station wagon.

Can you believe this guy?

Crew Chief Brad: So he said at one point, he considered it. I don’t know why he would buy something so new. They didn’t make a CTS V wagon in 1985.

What they did is the family

Crew Chief Eric: truckster. Buick Roadmasters.

Crew Chief Brad: I didn’t realize there was a square body CTS V wagon. Put

Crew Chief Eric: a 454 in that Buick Roadmaster.

You’re all right. That’s the CTS V. There you go. Yeah. And it’s

Crew Chief Brad: a square body, you see. Why was that not on the family haulers list?

Crew Chief Eric: So Dan tells us that he’s considered a CTSV wagon before, and he sends us a link to a new one. And you know what the price was on that? Our magic number of 65, 000 because it’s a car that was 40 when it was new and it’s 65 today.

So here we go again.

Crew Chief Brad: I should just do a search on bring a trailer for anything 65,

Crew Chief Eric: 000. That’s the new price point right there, man. That’s craziness.

Crew Chief Brad: I [00:26:00] scoured the internet and I found something you will find interesting. You can get either a brand new 2000 that’s two zero zero zero Volkswagen Jetta, GLS TDI, or.

A 2000 Volkswagen Jetta GLS VR6, both of them brand new, according to the site at Alexandria Volkswagen, just up the road from me, just down the road from you, MSRP, 23, 000.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh man. The price of my car just went up through the roof. My God.

Crew Chief Brad: So if anybody wants a brand new Mark four Volkswagen, either the gasser or the diesel, you can get one brand new.

My left

Crew Chief Eric: foot. 6, 500 becomes 65, 000 really quick at a zero. Located in the scenic suburbs of Joseph city, Arizona, destined to fetch a high value here, I present you with the 2001 [00:27:00] Acura.

Executive Producer Tania: You know what, I think this is a steal. The cost of wood prices? I mean, shit, you buy this for the wood.

Crew Chief Brad: Brad, how much Dogecoin would you give for this?

I am still selling my Cybertruck reservation. If anybody wants to buy my Cybertruck reservation for 3, 000, I will turn around and buy. The Acura Plymouth truck.

Crew Chief Eric: You should, because you’re guaranteed delivery on this Plymouth truck.

Crew Chief Brad: I wonder what the, uh, insurance is on this.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you have to take out, like, special insurance due to termite infestation?

Crew Chief Brad: Is there special fire insurance?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: exactly. But they’ll include a camper attachment with it. Did

you see those exhaust pipes?

Crew Chief Brad: I love the interior. It’s got the star interior from a Rolls Royce.

The things people will spend money on and build just blow my mind.

Executive Producer Tania: My question is, is there an actual car under there?

The body is under there and it’s just covered in geometrically [00:28:00] aligned Cybertruck esque plywood panels.

Crew Chief Brad: If you look at the interior picture and you look at the roof, that’s wood. There is no, like, Acura MDX underneath this.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, what? You know what? You’re right. It’s Acura

Crew Chief Brad: MDX chassis. There are no MDX body panels on this.

Executive Producer Tania: You’re right. The roof, from the inside shot, you can see the wood, so they cut the roof off.

Crew Chief Brad: This was a unibody car. How the fuck did they do this?

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t know that any of that matters, because there’s two important points here. First of all, it is a legitimate Tesla like product because the parts were sourced from the same place that Tesla sources its parts.

The other thing is, I have to commend them on the precision of the alignment of the body panels and all of the color matches.

Crew Chief Brad: Look at that panel gap. Yeah, I don’t know. Elon better watch his back. Acura is coming for you.

Crew Chief Eric: This is one of those moments when you’re up at [00:29:00] the mountain and Dan’s like, I can do it for cheaper.

Crew Chief Brad: The question is, is this going to be a collectible more than the HHR?

Crew Chief Eric: I think this will be in a museum. You’ll see this in like Ripley’s Believe It or Not. By museum, you mean bonfire. Junkyard, same difference.

Executive Producer Tania: I have a question. I guess in fairness, there’s no rules around this. It’s street legal.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, because it’s an Acura MDX.

Yeah,

Crew Chief Brad: it’s titled as an MDX.

Executive Producer Tania: But if the body panels have been removed, disturbed, I mean, clearly the front bumper, the crash brace bar is still there. So I guess structurally and safety wise, what if you get Hit in this wood box.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, they put you straight in the ground. You’re already in your coffin.

Executive Producer Tania: Nobody light a match.

Like

Crew Chief Brad: you can’t smoke it. This is a no smokers car.

Executive Producer Tania: This thing

Crew Chief Brad: is genius. That’s all. Do you think

Executive Producer Tania: this is like treated? Like If it’s out [00:30:00] in the elements, because it has no

Crew Chief Eric: windows. It still has the barcode on the fender, like when he bought it from Home Depot. I mean, you can

Executive Producer Tania: tell it’s ridiculous. But did he splurge for the pressure treated outdoor grade?

It’s Arizona,

Crew Chief Eric: it’s there in the desert. It doesn’t really, you’re right.

Executive Producer Tania: It doesn’t rain, Sarazona.

Crew Chief Eric: I like the added touch of the tire shine on the tire treads. Did you guys notice that?

Crew Chief Brad: That’s fresh to def, yo.

Crew Chief Eric: This thing is awesome. But you know what? All jokes aside, it has something in common with a vehicle that we’re going to talk about later.

This thing is just amazing. Brad, I think you should give up your Cybertruck allotment for a Plybertruck.

Crew Chief Brad: Three brand new Tesla Roadsters have been found sitting in a container for over a decade and that is where they shall remain because nobody wants them.

Executive Producer Tania: How’d they get there? They found a shipping container in China with three brand new Tesla Roadsters.

Crew Chief Brad: They used the 3D scanning from the Titanic now.

Crew Chief Eric: X ray vision into the shipping containers, which I think we need actually. So many shipping [00:31:00] containers that still, God knows what’s in them. But we probably don’t want to know

Executive Producer Tania: cool. They’re brand new. They’re going to need new batteries. Guarantee. They don’t work.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m surprised. They haven’t caught fire. I thought Tesla said you couldn’t get the batteries for those anymore. So basically you had the 3000 pound paperweight, which is the scary part about some of these electric cars. What happens? When the battery technology changes, let’s say we do standardize who uses D batteries anymore, as an example, anybody know you make the same power out of four double A’s, you know, that kind of thing.

And so what happens when you can’t get the battery for your EV anymore? I think this is a classic case of brand new cars that are useless. I mean, maybe they’ll end up in a museum somewhere.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, it’s sad. Are we sure they’re really Teslas? Are they Turslers or Twizzlers or something like that? Are we sure they’re Teslas?

Crew Chief Eric: We’re never quite sure. They could be protons for all we know, Malaysia. So kind of wrapping out our showcase here, talking about all things lost, found, historical, and just weird. [00:32:00] Did you know that the Corvette finds its roots in, of all places, Watkins Glen? There’s a little known story from the creator of the Corvette, Harley J Earl, who talked to the Detroit Free Press, I think it was, several years after the Corvette was built and is quoted as saying, I went to the Grand Prix at the Glen and it inspired me to build a sports car.

Our friendly friends at the International Motor Racing Research Center have been digging. Into that story, going through the archives, fact checking, verifying, et cetera. And I actually got together with Kip. He did a presentation in preparation for the 70th anniversary of the Corvette this year and the 75th anniversary of Watkins Glen.

And it kind of ties the two stories together. They’re doing a big to do at the Glen celebrating the Corvette’s birthday. It’s all about Corvette this year, which is awesome. They’re giving away a Corvette. Or here as we go along how you can enter to win that Corvette. We have hosted the story in a couple of different places.

You can get it on Garage Style. You’ll be able to get it over on gtmotorsports. org, stuff like that. And it’s the little known story of how Watkins [00:33:00] Glen influenced Harley J Earl into designing the Corvette. And the car that actually kind of sort of spawned the Corvette’s beginnings is also quite interesting too.

Carries the name Le Sabre. If you want to know more about the early, early, early days of the Corvette, head on over to Garage Style and GT Motorsports to check out that article. And there’s one more little bit of history that we need to talk about. I think he’s looking pretty damn good for 84 years young.

What do y’all think?

Executive Producer Tania: Indeed.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. If you’re just tuning into the show today, all you have to do is go back. One episode to know what we’re talking about. In celebration of our three year anniversary of Break Fix, and 200 episodes later, and believe me, our foot is still heavy to the floor on the accelerator pedal around here, we had the legendary.

If there is anyone that is the man, the myth, and the legend rolled up into one, we had Mario Andretti. On the show and a big shout out to our friend, William Ross over at exotic car marketplace for making a lot of that happen and being part of that. And I [00:34:00] shout out to the IMRRC as well for helping us with some of the research, et cetera, but having Mario on the show was absolutely.

Amazing. He is very sharp. He is very technical and he is raring to get behind the wheel of a modern formula one car again. And he talks about that on the episode. He also talks about the future of Andretti autosport and formula one and the relationship with Wayne Taylor racing as well. It wasn’t just old stuff talking about dirt car or Indy or the Daytona 500.

We talked about all sorts of really interesting stuff, a lot to do with his time at Le Mans in formula one. And also. If you’re unaware, he ran Pike’s Peak three times with Bobby Unser. So lots of really cool stuff in that episode, especially if you want to know some little tidbits about Mario’s history that you might not already know.

Well, that wraps up Lost and Found. Now it’s time to talk about Porsche, Audi, and Volkswagen news. What do we have?

Executive Producer Tania: We’ve already heard Audi’s entering the Formula One fray. Gonna join with Sauber who is branded as Alfa Romeo right now, [00:35:00] not until 2026 when the new engine stuff changes. The announcement, the latest one was they’re planning later this year to do bench testing on their proposed engine for the future.

Crew Chief Brad: I would love to hear

Executive Producer Tania: that.

Crew Chief Eric: Rumor has it, after this episode airs, mark your calendars, June the 8th, on the anniversary of the iconic Porsche 356, Porsche is launching a new car.

Executive Producer Tania: Another 911.

Crew Chief Brad: Right? It’s a new special edition 911 that will cost… Five million dollars on bring a trailer.

Executive Producer Tania: Put some sort of, like, 356 badge on it then, like, I don’t know, make it special.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s some interesting stuff in here, like a quote from Seinfeld that says they might be putting the flat eight in this car. I’m like… It’s flat eight. What, what are we talking about here?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, plus remember the race cars are mid engine now.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I guess they keep moving the six cylinder forward. They got extra space in the engine compartment.

They can add two more cylinders now.

Crew Chief Brad: So that gives them a lot more room. They could do that. I think Seinfeld’s on crack, but yeah, [00:36:00] that would be cool if they did that.

Crew Chief Eric: Why does Porsche do the things they do? Why do they call it Ovaltine? He’s got a license plate that says

Plyberman. Do we need another 911? Do we need another livery package? Do we need another combination of letters? You know, whether it’s the 911 ST that has been rumored. So Tanya’s point, it’s just going to be another 911. Where is the new 928? Where is the new 944? Where, where? Where

Crew Chief Brad: the new 928 is the Cayenne and the new 944 is the McCann or whatever it’s called.

Crew Chief Eric: Portia do something different. I did find something interesting this month, a quick follow up as we kind of travel to Lower Saxony here. There’s new news about the e ink that BMW is alleging for, you know, some of their concept cars. And you remember we heard about the e ink prism. It’s that multicolor e paper film.

They did it on a couple of BMW prototypes and [00:37:00] it’s like, you could have like grayscale, white, black, whatever. Now they’re talking.

Executive Producer Tania: Color changing. Whaaaaaaaaat? I don’t know. Are we supposed to be surprised?

Crew Chief Eric: No, but we speculated about this. How cool would it be going down the road and you get one of those cheesy little remotes like when you buy any Chinese LED from Amazon, right?

With the little buttons that you hit in blue, green, red, yellow. Honestly, I think

Executive Producer Tania: it’s stupid and I hope it doesn’t happen.

Crew Chief Eric: Why?

Executive Producer Tania: You don’t want to automatically be able to repaint your car on the fly?

Crew Chief Brad: It’s not repainting though.

Executive Producer Tania: No, not really. And the first rock that hits it, I’m sure, is going to F the whole thing up.

Not to mention, there’s just too many bad people in the world.

Crew Chief Brad: I was about to say, what does law enforcement think about this?

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, my car was yellow. Hit a quick button. Oh, uh, that wasn’t me who just ran over an old lady on a sidewalk. That was that yellow car. My car is purple.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, you got to make the car red so it hides the…

It’s the blood.

Executive Producer Tania: My bad. You’re right.

Crew Chief Eric: That’ll all change in the future. I’m going to make a really old reference here,

but

Crew Chief Eric: it’s going to be like the [00:38:00] pilot episode of Sequest. It’s going to be RFIDs and barcodes, and it doesn’t matter what color your bike is or your car is or whatever, because you’re not going to be able to change that tag.

We’re not going to need license plates in the future. Everything’s going to be wireless and electronic. We’re not even going to need roads in the future. Where we’re going. We don’t need them. Yes. I

Executive Producer Tania: don’t want that to happen either.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s going to happen. I’m telling you, we just deducted 250 from your bank account.

Thank you for speeding. That’s how it’s going to work. I’m telling you it’s coming. Sequest,

Crew Chief Brad: but it’s not going to be dollars. It’s going to, we just took 250 credits from you

Crew Chief Eric: or what’s that new currency that they’re talking about? That’s supposed to rival the dollar muskets, muskets, the revolutionary wartime.

Executive Producer Tania: No, Musk, Elon Musk. Oh, that’s his new crew, Muskets! I like that!

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you know what’s not good, and I was a little scared the other day? A recall from Stellantis. And I’m like, luckily, thankfully, I read it very carefully.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m glad you did because, you [00:39:00] know, one of our members is very quick to point out whenever there’s anything wrong with something that might be owned by somebody else in the group.

Crew Chief Eric: So if you own one of these vehicles from 2014 to 2016, there is a recall for over 220, 000 Jeep Cherokees. Not Grand Cherokees where there is an issue with the power lift gate. There’s like a drainage issue. It causes a short, the power lift gates might catch on fire. The recall states that you should park your car outdoors away from your home.

But the recall is when the vehicle gets wet, it might short and catch on fire. So wouldn’t it be smart to keep it inside where it’s dry? I was a little confused on the resolution here.

Executive Producer Tania: If you are out driving it in the rain, and then you came home and parked it in your garage, you probably shouldn’t do that.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, just let it burn to the ground. I mean, it is a regular Cherokee.

Executive Producer Tania: Maybe you shouldn’t be driving it in the rain at all, because couldn’t it spark and catch on fire while you’re doing 70 down the road? That’d be cool.

Crew Chief Eric: This is [00:40:00] part of a long list of terrible recalls by Stellantis customer service right now.

Kid you not, I have a series of them for the Pacifica. And the very first one is like, there’s a problem with the transmission. Like that’s all it said. He’s just like, don’t call us, we’ll call you. I mean, that’s like literally just the email. I have it taped to the fridge in the garage. I kid you not. And I look at it and I laugh.

It’s right next to the recall. I continue to get. For a 2000 Audi TT for the airbags, which, you know, I want to take the race car to the dealership and see what they think. I love these recalls, right? And then there was another one that came after it and it said, okay, we’ve identified that the transmission may fail and the car will just stop operating without warning.

There will be no symptoms. I’m like, okay. And I’m looking for the resolution. Like, what are you supposed to do? And there’s no resolution for

Crew Chief Brad: them to call

Crew Chief Eric: again. It’s we will call you, right?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, our people will call your people,

Crew Chief Eric: but it doesn’t say don’t stop driving your car. It’s just like, you know, your transmission just might [00:41:00] stop working.

Like, Oh, okay. That’s cool. So we got the third one. And then it finally says nothing more than the previous two said, other than call us. To discuss your vehicle. So they’ve written us three times and my wife is like, isn’t this the problem we already had where they replaced it like a while ago, because we did have an issue where it just suddenly bricked itself and Chrysler swooped in and they changed the trans.

They actually put an upgraded transit and all this other kind of stuff. And it was all under warranty and it was great. So I’m wondering if we were on the front end of that particular recall, the absurdity to put that paranoia in any minute now, my car might just die. 70 miles an hour on the highway, right?

I mean, that’s just insane.

Crew Chief Brad: You know, I want to go back to your recall for the TT. I wholeheartedly think you should load it up on the trailer and take it down to the Audi dealer and say, yes, I’ve got a recall for airbags. I need new airbags. Can you please put them in my car?

Crew Chief Eric: The best would be to hand them the airbag controller and the steering wheel.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes. [00:42:00] They’re

Crew Chief Eric: not attached to the car at all.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, that’d be great. Now that we’ve dipped our toe into our domestic news, let’s continue on with the rest of Ford and GM brought to us by AmericanMuscle. com, your source for OEM and performance replacement parts for your Stellantis GM or Ford product.

Executive Producer Tania: First one is the Ford F 150 Lightning, their EV electric pickup truck, catching fire at Dearborn. So actually three of them, I guess, were in the lot. There was some issue with battery cells, and they, I guess, spontaneously combusted because there was nobody in them. They might have been on chargers. Maybe they were actively being charged, and obviously if there was a problem with a cell, created a reaction, set it on fire, etc, etc.

I found it funny, the responding officers, quote, were not putting this effort out. To look at it, they have to put like a whole effing lake on it to put [00:43:00] them out.

Crew Chief Eric: So it went full Chernobyl is what you’re saying.

Executive Producer Tania: All three of them pretty melted down from the photos. I mean, they’re not completely down to like just nothing as we’ve seen.

Some other EVs like some Teslas. There’s been photos of that before. Like, I think they caught them in time.

Crew Chief Brad: Did they confirm that all three of them spontaneously combusted or just one did and got the other two?

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, chain reaction.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m saying that. Because it looks like the one in the middle is significantly more damage.

I’m wondering if That’s the one, but then the left side of the one on the right is destroyed too.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s like the right most truck, the left side of it is more destroyed maybe than the side next to them. Yeah. So

Crew Chief Brad: who knows? Yeah, it does look like they were charging too. It does look like they were charging.

Executive Producer Tania: All it says is that they traced it back to a battery cell production issue.

Crew Chief Eric: You made an astute observation there, Bradley, since you have your Indiana Jones hat on as well. You’re looking for things here. You found a clue and this is something I’ve been [00:44:00] thinking about for a while. So imagine you’re at Sheetz or Target, Walmart, and they have Tesla chargers or they have whatever charges available and you’re in a row of cars and maybe you go about your business and something like this happens.

And the truck next to you melts to the ground in a pile of goo. Is it going to create a chain reaction with all the other EVs that are there charging?

Executive Producer Tania: Technically, if the flames or the heat alone, yeah, that’s a huge risk on any lithium battery, whether it’s your cell phone or your laptop or whatever it is.

You do not want to expose them to extreme heat or any sort of fire because you can fuck them up and then bad things happen.

Crew Chief Brad: What happens? You can compromise

Executive Producer Tania: them, right? And then they’ll go off on their own.

Crew Chief Brad: When a vehicle is charging and it explodes, it catches fire like this and you spontaneously combust.

Does it do anything to the system that it’s connected to? Does it send some sort of overload or something back through the system that could [00:45:00] affect other vehicles that might? Be on the system as well.

Crew Chief Eric: I hadn’t even thought about that. And you’re right. There’s some sort of feedback. You know, maybe those systems have an emergency cut off.

Executive Producer Tania: I would assume they’ve designed them because you can do that right in the, if you want to call it circuitry for probably lack of proper technical terms.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. But when the circuitry is melting. They designed the cars to not spontaneous combust, too, but they still do that. You’ll have

Executive Producer Tania: blown some other capacitor in that circuit, right?

So when you’re charging anything, you can have a reverse signal where it faults and then will stop

Crew Chief Brad: the flow into whatever

Executive Producer Tania: it’s trying to charge.

Crew Chief Brad: It reaches a certain voltage and just shuts off or something like that, maybe. The

Executive Producer Tania: article makes it sound like the growing risk of… of EVs and fire, right? And what we don’t know is, and what other people will counter argue, is that plenty of ICE engines do catch on fire.

You’ll see them on the side of the road burnt down the same way as an EV. Of the vehicles on the road, what percentage of those are catching fire versus what percentage of EVs on the road are catching fire? I don’t know [00:46:00] what those numbers are. Are they higher in EVs? Are they less? Like if you normalize them together, which one has the higher risk?

The bigger problem isn’t any of them catching on fire. The bigger problem is it’s really easy to put out an ice engine fire. You put the fire hose on it and you’re done. The lithium battery fire is much more difficult to put out. Not all the fire people are trained and they don’t have the proper foam or whatever other chemicals that they need beyond water to put them out.

And my other concern with EVs would be what is all that doing to the environment if you’re dousing all that foam and stuff and then it’s leaching into your groundwater, into your drinking water and all that stuff. There’s other ramifications.

Crew Chief Brad: Is

Crew Chief Eric: it like

Crew Chief Brad: environmentally

Crew Chief Eric: friendly foam? No, it’s nasty stuff like halon and other things.

In response to your ice engine cars on the side of the road, burning down. And I say, yes, I’ve seen that too, but have you paid close attention to those cars that are burning on the shoulder? They sort of deserved it. We can take Daniel’s square body as case in point. We have video of that, by the way, [00:47:00] if anybody wants to see it available free on our YouTube.

Crew Chief Brad: Hit us up on discord.

Crew Chief Eric: Speaking of General Motors. They’re taking a step into 2015. They just hired an Apple executive to head up their new software division.

Executive Producer Tania: I’m not an IT person, so I could care less.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, same.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s sort of like when the Apple guy was waving the flag at that race and nobody knew who he was.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, is the point of this to show how General Motors is still constantly behind the times?

Crew Chief Eric: I think so. Right. It would have been funnier if they had said that they had hired somebody from like BlackBerry.

Crew Chief Brad: Like,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah, bulldoze their cotton.

Crew Chief Brad: Nokia executive hired by General Motors.

Crew Chief Eric: Like, all right, you got a vision of the future.

Again, lost and found all this stuff coming to the surface. Again, in the line of General Motors, over the last couple of years, we’ve talked about all the extensive issues. And recalls with the C8, some are funny, some not so much that, you know, need to be taken care of right away, especially if I’m an early C8, [00:48:00] stuff like that.

But now, as we’ve mentioned before, a lot of tracks are sort of bipolar on where they stand in terms of allowing EVs on track. Last month, I believe it was, we talked about how Summit Point has put out because of new insurance and things like that. No EVs. On the track of any kind, it doesn’t matter who they’re made by now.

That doesn’t mean you can’t go as a spectator and be in the paddock and things like that, but you’re not going to run your Tesla at some point on the track. You know, things like that. A lot more racetracks are taking that stance. And what’s the hottest car on the market right now with an electric hybrid that everybody probably wants to take to their next hooked on driving event.

Tracks are saying no way. To the E ray. Oh, well, it’s like the NSX in a lot of ways, as we’ve joked about in the past. It’s such a small hybrid. I sort of feel like the Corvette didn’t need this.

Crew Chief Brad: This article specifically touches on events sanctioned by the National Council of Corvette [00:49:00] Clubs. They’re the ones banning the E rate.

You know, I’m not that big of an EV fan to begin with, but I feel like this is more of a political move to show their dislike for the fact that Corvette has gone E more than they want to just ban it because it’s an EV.

Crew Chief Eric: Are you saying this is a OK Boomer moment?

Crew Chief Brad: Yes, in addition to the things you’ve already stated, like the cost of insurance and stuff like that, these people are running DEs and club racing and things like that.

Yes, those costs go up, but my spidey senses are tingling and I feel like this is a political move for some reason. I don’t know why. I’m just, my, my cynicism is getting the better of me.

Executive Producer Tania: But haven’t other Organizations also said no EVs on track.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t know that organizations specifically have, but some racetracks specifically have.

That’s correct. But when, but when I saw this was events sanctioned by the National Council of Corvette Clubs, it kind of Triggered. I’m triggered. I feel triggered. [00:50:00]

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I don’t know what to think about it. You know, I have said before that I think the C8 was a step away from the classic Corvette owner and no offense.

We have plenty of friends in the Corvette club. We love Corvettes. I love going to NCM and coaching Corvettes and things like that. I still have yet to coach in a C8 that’s coming. I think it’s a step away from. What people are used to, and I think people are still trying to adjust to that, like anything else, there’s early adopters, but if you look at the crowd of people that are buying Corvettes right now, the C8s, it’s going to be younger folks, right?

People that want that American NSX, or they want that, it’s, it’s like a Ferrari or like a Lambo, but it’s got an LS under the hood, you know, kind of thing. Mid engine is a step in the right direction for Corvette. They’ve tried several times over the years, if we look at it historically, you know, there’s been a lot of failed attempts at a mid engine Corvette and they finally did it.

It may be a day late and a dollar short in some respects. I mean, would we be having the same [00:51:00] discussion today if they had done it when they brought out the C5, kind of stepping away from the C4 instead of waiting until now? Who knows, right? We don’t know. But. People are sometimes hesitant to change, reluctant to change.

This is a microcosm of that versus let’s say the greater EV discussion where people are still grappling with range anxiety and other issues and things that we’re talking about. I mean, the fire is a real concern. This stinks a little bit. It’s a little petty unless the track says, no, who cares?

Crew Chief Brad: Or if your insurance company says no, right.

But if the insurance company says we will allow it for X amount of dollars, then you increase your registration costs to cover it. Or you charge the people that want to bring in EV a little bit more money.

Crew Chief Eric: If the E Ray is probably heavier than the stock C8 because of everything else it has to carry with it, yes, it’s making more power, but let’s say they left the brakes alone and it’s anything like Andrew’s C8 was, and it chews up the brakes and suddenly you’ve got nothing going into turn one at summit point at 150 miles an hour.

The ramifications of [00:52:00] that wreck, to Tanya’s point from earlier, are you equipped to handle the battery fire and everything else that’s going to come from that, right? So that’s a scary reality.

Executive Producer Tania: What about you as the driver? That lithium fire that they can’t put out quickly, that’s burning hotter, likely, than if your gas car had caught your fire suit.

Probably isn’t rated for lithium ion battery fire.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, it’s useless. So we’ll have to have a conversation with our resident safety clothing and apparel company to see if there’s any developments on changing the technology behind race suits to see if they’re going to make something.

Executive Producer Tania: And there might be, since don’t they have Formula E, so

Crew Chief Brad: those guys might have special million

Executive Producer Tania: dollar race suits, but is that trickling down to OG?

Crew Chief Brad: How many fires have there been at a Formula E event since the race series has started?

Crew Chief Eric: If they do happen, it’s not publicized very often. Although I don’t know how much of Formula E is publicized. [00:53:00]

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know. I never hear anything about it and I don’t follow it, so.

Crew Chief Brad: You know, we talk about EVs and that they spontaneously combust and everything like that.

Does it ever happen when they’re moving or is it only when they’re stationary and shut off?

Executive Producer Tania: A lot of the ones that I’ve reported seem to be like randomly parked in garages and stuff, but I don’t know. Which ones were moving, obviously, when they’ve suddenly stopped moving, there have been problems, fires.

They once were moving and abruptly stopped.

Crew Chief Eric: Isn’t that what Clarkson said would always get you? It’s that sudden stop.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. It’s not the speed that gets you. It’s that stopping. Speaking of the Chevrolet Corvette E Ray, the first electrified Chevrolet Corvette E Ray just sold for over one. 1, 000, 000. Did it come with lasers?

You mean for the windshield wipers? Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: A million bucks for a Corvette, really? I don’t know what to say.

Executive Producer Tania: Somebody with money that that was like 1, 000 to them.

Crew Chief Brad: Rick Hendrick, C8 Corvette [00:54:00] NASCAR team owner.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, Hendrick Motorsports. Yeah. Okay. Well. Oh,

Executive Producer Tania: okay. Yeah. So it was like 1, 000. Yeah. He

Crew Chief Eric: prints money. I mean, come on.

Good for him. He can say he had the first one, right? And it’s a Hendrick Corvette or whatever, blah, blah, blah, but a million bucks. I mean, it’s still an expensive car at 150 grand or whatever it is. If that ain’t enough, sounds like Audi’s not going to be the only one bringing power plants to Formula One.

Nope. General Motors.

Executive Producer Tania: Supposedly Chevy is going to join up with Andretti if they get their formula team.

So will this be the turbocharged HHR? Four cylinder or will this be a big ol

Crew Chief Brad: thumpin LS? It’ll probably be closer to the four cylinder turbo.

Crew Chief Eric: But will it be a Chevy power plant or a Cadillac power plant?

Cause Cadillac seems to be at the front end of racing for GM right now.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, it’ll be Cadillac. They’re so strong in the other racing. Course it’s going to be.

Crew Chief Brad: Cadillac is GM’s racing division. Apparently

Crew Chief Eric: it’d be one thing. If this was the old days of formula one, where you could [00:55:00] bring anything to the party, four cylinder turbo V8 V10 flat 12, like Ferrari used to have in the eighties, you know, stuff like that.

Yes. If they could pick up a Chevy V8 out of an IndyCar and say, yeah, we got a power plant for days because they can get those like a dime a dozen and drop it into a formula one chassis. Sure. They got to engineer this from scratch. Maybe the quad four is the answer, right? We know it can make in a billion horsepower and a cobalt and an HHR.

So maybe that’s the pedigree of the future General Motors Formula One. It’s not going to be a Northstar motor? No, definitely not. No cylinder deactivation. Trash. Moving on to JDM and Asian car news. Toyota, again, the hotness. Says hybrid and a man in the Supra. Can you believe it? Go for it. Damn, right. It’s about time Make that money, but is it about time or is this just old news?

Because Honda did this with the CR Z. It was the first [00:56:00] manual hybrid, if you check the history books there. I’m

Executive Producer Tania: sure there must be differences in how the clutch works too between them.

Crew Chief Eric: Toyota’s got a plan to bring a hybrid to the manuals. Or the manuals to the hybrids. This is interesting. I want to stay on top of this story.

I want to see where this goes. Would be really curious to drive one for sure. I can see this partnering probably with the small motor, the four cylinder turbo that they already had with the manual. So it’s kind of the next logical conclusion to do that. I like the fact that. If they go in that direction, it’s another step away from BMW for the Supra Toyota sort of making the SRA its own, even though it’s still gonna have the Z four chassis.

Next up, the Supra will be a station wagon, just like the Z four touring goop or whatever they’re calling it. But hey, you know, we’ll, we’ll leave that where it is. Good for Toyota, again, the hotness, they are pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

Executive Producer Tania: So in other Toyota news, apparently they’ve gotten the green light from the state of California to begin [00:57:00] selling hydrogen electric semi truck powertrains in an attempt to push those trucks away from diesel.

That’s scary stuff for Tesla there, isn’t it? I think it’s a great idea.

Crew Chief Eric: When is that electric semi coming again?

Executive Producer Tania: It already came and then it got like towed or something. I remember seeing something recently, like they got delivered. Who took the first orders? Was it like Pepsi or something? It like broke down immediately.

Crew Chief Brad: Wow. The first load they put on it. Did it get towed by a diesel? That’s the

Executive Producer Tania: best. I don’t remember like what the. Failure was, was unfortunately broken down on the side of the road pretty soon after receipt.

Crew Chief Brad: And they received a letter from Tesla that said, don’t call us. We’ll call you, but Hey, they got no issues.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, what’s great about this article is it’s actually a little bit of foreshadowing for one of our guests that we had on, we had Carrie Weishar on here who actually works for Pactar and some other places where they do. Testing for semis, she’s been in the business for a long time. She’s worked for Peterbilt and some other big [00:58:00] semi companies.

And she actually talked about what the future of semis looks like and some of the hybrids and things like that. And her episode is actually available right now for pre release on her website. And that’s trophy girl designs. So you can go check it out over there and listen to some really interesting information about the semi industry and also her adventure going to the top of Pike’s Peak in a racing semi.

Really cool episode to check out. Nod to Mountain Man Dan for co hosting that episode with me. You know, really excited to kind of keep the pulse on what’s going on in the big truck world as well. Just remember that. Tesla’s not the only one making changes out there.

Executive Producer Tania: If you’re a Canadian, beware, you could accidentally buy a Hyundai Ioniq 5 Essential, which actually, you can’t accidentally buy them anymore because only 30 units were Made and sold in 2022.

If you did accidentally buy one of these and you haven’t realized it yet, you cannot fast charge on them. [00:59:00] Apparently, essential means basic, basic, basic. So I don’t know if it takes like nine years to charge.

Crew Chief Brad: It was like five hours.

Executive Producer Tania: These essential units were actually just like compliance models. So I’m not sure why they were even sold.

Crew Chief Eric: Like, why would Hyundai do that? It doesn’t make sense. Like, we’re going to give you something that takes a week to charge.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s unfortunate to spend 40 plus grand on something and then get it home and then realize I don’t even think it’s retrofitable to the fast charging system for whatever reason.

Crew Chief Eric: Hyundai should just send all those people new cars and then flatbed the old ones out of there. That’s just sad. I have to say, you know, we talked earlier in our showcase about hot family cars. If it’s good enough for John Cena, it might be good enough for the rest of us. Would you like to guess what his daily driver is?

2014 Dodge Dart. Oh, you wish he did. No, I know it’s a

Crew Chief Brad: Honda Civic.

Crew Chief Eric: 2020 Civic Type R with a manual. And he’s on an interview. I [01:00:00] guess he’s on a podcast or something. And it’s a short little moment that they clipped out of it. And it’s actually a riot. He compares it to, I guess he owns a Countach as well.

And just why the Countach is just complete garbage and the Honda is reliable. It gets in it. It’ll do 140 miles. Blah, blah, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, all this kind of stuff. And I was just like, you know what? Respect props. Good for you, John Cena. promised earlier that we were going to find a tie to Brad’s new Plyber truck to a new concept and EV car that Tanya is going to tell us about.

And what’s the relationship between those two?

Crew Chief Brad: All star with no glass.

Crew Chief Eric: The Plyber truck you couldn’t see out the back of. It had no rear glass. So, does that mean it’s got a camera?

Executive Producer Tania: That’s the thing with the Polestar, their new SUV, that they’re claiming is gonna have no back window, is because it has 900 cameras on it.

I’m exaggerating, but I’m assuming. Like, a lot of cars have the backup camera, so when you’re in reverse and you go, Well, wait a second, I don’t back up down the road. I still need to look out the back glass, which nobody does. So, I mean, why do you need a rear glass? [01:01:00] They’ll have the integrated camera in the rearview mirror, so you’d still have a rearview mirror, and when you look in it, you’ll be seeing what’s behind you without seeing what’s behind you, which I guess is great till that stops working.

But again, nobody uses their mirrors anyway, so it really doesn’t matter why. You don’t need the glass. You don’t need the mirror. I

Crew Chief Brad: was about to say, why is this news? Contractors and painters have been driving vans without rear glass for decades. Why is this news?

Executive Producer Tania: That’s great point.

Crew Chief Eric: Although you’re right.

A hundred percent. This is race car technology. If you follow sports and endurance racing, they don’t have rearview mirrors either. They use those onboard TVs with cameras facing out the back. You can’t see out the back of the Ferrari 296 or the Huracan or any of those cars, especially with the roll cages and all the other stuff they have to have and onboard cameras for TV and all that stuff.

So they’ve got cameras out the back and that’s how they see who’s coming up behind them. They’ve been doing that for years. I find this interesting in the sense that race car technology is finding its way to the [01:02:00] street.

Crew Chief Brad: Isn’t that how it always works though? Doesn’t it start in motorsport and then eventually, I mean for most, for some things it starts in motorsport and then trickles down to civilian life.

I’ve driven a car with this technology, Andrew’s C8. And I absolutely hated it. It was terrible. And I would never use it if I had the option. I would rather drive with not being able to see and just use my side mirrors than to use that crap.

Executive Producer Tania: Here’s a name that we haven’t heard in a while. Sob.

Sob? Ooh.

Born from jets.

Executive Producer Tania: Apparently, I guess, the company that they became or bought them, which there’s like 20 people left in it, has been working on a new sob. For quite some time now, and they’re alleging the, what they’re calling the Emily GT. Saab 90,

Crew Chief Eric: 000.

Executive Producer Tania: Nevs Emily GT, because Nevs is the name of whatever this company is that owns Saab now, or at least the name.

They’ve been working on their own EV that is [01:03:00] claiming 600 miles of range. 484 horsepower with honest to goodness torque vectoring, and even a performance variant that’ll get you 653 horsepower.

Crew Chief Eric: I really like the front. It looks like another car. The front looks like a Camaro. The back, whatever.

Executive Producer Tania: These little spy photos that are like…

taken in a dark alley closet with no lighting are really hard to

Crew Chief Eric: this is like when DeLorean reimagined did that whole thing and we counted it down and all you saw was one third of the quarter panel. Yeah, this is the same thing. This is annoying. It’s old now, but the interior Is where I’m stuck and I’m confused and

Executive Producer Tania: I’m not sure the hole in the back of the seat for like, if this was your family car, your child to be like kicking you in the back of the head through that hole,

Crew Chief Brad: throwing Cheerios at you.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Are those for a massage parlor? Are you supposed to put your face through that hole? Like, I don’t [01:04:00] understand. It looks like a dentist’s office inside of this car. You read the. Comments below and people are like, Oh

my God, that interior is so gorgeous, bleh! And I’m like, what are you talking about?

Crew Chief Brad: Sob people are weird anyway, so it fits the sob brand.

Crew Chief Eric: Anybody who likes putting their car key in the floor to start the car, I mean, shit. I like the color though, this weird, goes back to the C70 Volvo, burnt copper. That color is having a resurgence and I’m okay with it. The only thing I like about this car is the front, but it looks like another car. We talked about semis earlier.

I’m just kind of following along with that since we’re talking about EVs. Diesel vs. EV. There was actually a recorded part of a congressional hearing that you can find as part of a TikTok video that Mountain Man Dan sent us. What is disclosed, as Brad would say, a dodoy moment, but also a reality of what’s happening in that market space?

Executive Producer Tania: Don’t [01:05:00] look on this guy’s face.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, he gets shut down by this congressman. When he says the words, we’re going to pass the cost onto the consumer. I was immediately like, bruh, we’re done.

Executive Producer Tania: I was like, damn your face right now. I didn’t think they’d catch that part.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Right. Just this sheer audacity that some of these.

Corporations have where they’re like, pass it on to the consumer. We’ll make it a subscription plan. Pay to play. Blah, blah, blah. It’ll all come out in the wash. It’s unfortunate because these new semis that they’re proposing are three times what a standard semi costs. Not that a standard semi is cheap.

Executive Producer Tania: So what’s the cost of your Amazon Prime membership going to go up to?

Crew Chief Brad: Is it worth all that free shipping now?

Crew Chief Eric: The base model EV semis are starting at the high end of the petrol powered ones and they just go up from there. Who’s going to recoup the cost? It’s going to come on us. And this is where I get the environmental impact. [01:06:00] Of continuing to run the old trucks, but if the old trucks are still running, can’t we find ways to retrofit things like we’ve talked about synthetic fuels or whatever diesel the motor itself isn’t necessarily as dirty as the stuff we run through it.

There’s arguments to be made. We’ve made them before, but there’s got to be ways to maybe make some of those older trucks better. There’s got to be a market there for people to develop parts and it’s not. Yeah. Passing the cost onto all of us as consumers and making Pepsi or Amazon or whoever, like we’ve been talking about, buy all new trucks at three times their value.

I think it’s sad. And I think more people need to understand what’s going on. Not just those of us that are in the car community, talk to your fellow civilians. And explain to them in simple terms. Maybe show them this video, get them to understand what’s going on and what’s being discussed. Sometimes I wish we spent more time watching C SPAN than CBS, Paramount Prime, get in touch with what’s going on behind the scenes.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, I don’t [01:07:00] know if this guy just got ripped off, if it really costs that much.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s another article from The Drive, that’s what it is.

Executive Producer Tania: I think we do know that when an EV is involved in an accident, the repair costs seem to be generally higher than your traditional… Ice powered vehicle.

Crew Chief Eric: Which is why all our insurance rates went up, because they’re passing on the savings.

Executive Producer Tania: I love paying for other people’s stupidity, but anyway. So this Rivian owner got rear ended, damaged the rear bumper. From the picture, actually, it doesn’t even look like it’s that badly damaged, but apparently it was 42, 000 worth of repairs.

Crew Chief Brad: Where? Majority of its labor hours, because the shop literally took the entire rear of the vehicle apart and rebuilt the thing, basically.

Which…

Executive Producer Tania: Is part of the, did this guy get scammed or something because there was another person that said that they were involved in a similar accident and it cost them less than half of that. They paid [01:08:00] 14,

Crew Chief Eric: 000. For a pickup truck, for a rear bumper, they’d be like, I’m gonna go down to the junkyard and get one for 500.

Executive Producer Tania: But for 42, 000, he could have bought any of those cars off our top list. What was that first list of?

Crew Chief Eric: 300 horsepower cars, that’s right.

Executive Producer Tania: 300 horsepower cars?

Crew Chief Brad: So, Tanya, does this change your mind about the Rivian? Do you want one still?

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I don’t. I

Crew Chief Brad: mean, I know you don’t want one, but.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, yes.

Crew Chief Brad: You like. But I don’t think

Executive Producer Tania: it’s unique to Rivian necessarily because your Tesla go gets, gets rear ended.

It ain’t going to cost you 300 to fix. It’s not going to be Toyota Corolla. Or Honda repair charges and you’ll be out of a car for months,

Crew Chief Brad: but part of this could be volume to take to Eric’s point. You know, if one of us is in Iraq, we can go down to the junkyard and get a replacement part or something because there’s so many more of those vehicles around.

How many are on the road right now? I mean, I see them all the time, but that’s just

Crew Chief Eric: it. It’s the barrier to entry. Right? And so obviously, [01:09:00] we’re not privy to their profit margins and all that kind of stuff. But if you’re doing the math, 42, 000 for a repair bill, whether your insurance company is canceling you after that or not.

I’d rather buy an F 150, gas guzzling, EcoBoost, whatever, than deal with this nonsense. Because at least if something happens, I can go to Ford, or I can go to the junkyard, or I can get the part after market, because it is the best selling car on the planet, even though it’s a truck. But the point is, if Rivian reduced the cost, and it wasn’t a 100, 000 pickup, Maybe more people would buy them if it was a 30, 000 pickup, it’d be something different.

There’d be more volume. Right? So they’re playing this game and I have seen more Rivians on the road and I’m starting to actually dislike them in the beginning. I liked them because they were so niche and so different. But the more I see them, I’m just like, Oh, Oh, you have an R one T or you have the R one S I’ve seen the SUVs too.

And I’m just like, okay, whatever. And then the [01:10:00] fear that it’s going to spontaneously combust. And who’s paying for that? That’s not unique to Rivian. It’s not, but it’s very expensive. And is Rivian going to give you a new truck when it burns to the ground? That’s the thing that we haven’t heard about these things either.

And again, say in this case, this guy wasn’t rear ended, he was front ended, potentially deadlier accident, but then it burned.

Executive Producer Tania: Does it matter besides your hit anymore in EVs when you’re sitting on top of it?

Crew Chief Brad: In my truck, I sit on top of the fuel tank. That was any different.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t sit on my fuel tank.

Crew Chief Eric: No, my passengers sit on my fuel tank.

It’s in the back.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I mean, it’s down the center of the cabin though.

Executive Producer Tania: Because generally, when you’re rear ended, your gas tank doesn’t absorb the impact and crack open and then a match get lit. and explode under your ass.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, I would like to think that with the electric vehicles, they’re designed to where the battery does not take the impact of an accident.

Executive Producer Tania: They should be, [01:11:00] but you have to trust that something so temperamental like a lithium battery cell I wouldn’t want to be in an accident in one of them. Yeah,

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t trust anybody anyway, so

Crew Chief Eric: well no, but there’s a lot more variables There’s a lot more chemistry involved to tanya’s point you crack open the battery like an egg There’s other things that are happening You suddenly exposed all that stuff to oxygen or carbon dioxide or something else or some, you know moisture something happens It causes a react gasoline It pours on the ground.

Yeah, it’s bad, but it evaporates as long as you don’t expose it to flame

Crew Chief Brad: or spark on a

Crew Chief Eric: rock

Crew Chief Brad: or something.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. I mean, we’ve seen that too. I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, either has to be at a super high temperature that it auto ignites, which probably isn’t or there needs to be a flame, whether it’s coming from a literal flame or a spark, it’s still a flame that creates the combustion.

So. This is not unique to Rivian. I don’t know if that guy got scammed.

Crew Chief Brad: I think he kind of got scammed because it says there are only three certified shops in his [01:12:00] location to work on the Rivian. So I, I feel like there’s some collusion here.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, that doesn’t sound absurd because to your earlier point, they make like three of them.

So there’s not volumes. You’re not going to have a dealership on every street corner or service center that can fix these things.

Crew Chief Eric: And if it wasn’t a Rivian certified place, it might be Like in the contracting world, it might be one of those FU numbers. They threw it out there and they went, okay, well, we got to get it fixed.

So that’s what we’re going to pay. And those guys are laughing all the way to the bank because they look at the complexity of the job and they make the quote really high. You got no choice, right? It is what it is.

Crew Chief Brad: If it was me, I would have just left the bumper messed up and pocketed the 40 grand.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s how you do it with your Ford.

Executive Producer Tania: Think I’d want to know that nothing was compromised around the batteries. But

Crew Chief Eric: how do you do that without some sort of x ray vision?

Executive Producer Tania: But that’s why they took the car apart.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, they took the entire thing apart. Are they going to have it certified by Rivian that this will not spontaneously combust as a result of this accident and the work that was done?

Crew Chief Eric: It is under warranty.

Crew Chief Brad: Who’s taking the liability for this?

Crew Chief Eric: Pass on the [01:13:00] consumer, we already established that.

Crew Chief Brad: Cause this brings me to, I used to watch the TV show Gas Monkey Garage, and they took on the challenge of rebuilding a totaled Ferrari F40. They went through so much painstaking work, and they even had to have the chassis recertified by Ferrari.

Before they could sell it for the, you know, the amount of money they were trying to sell it for. I’m wondering if something similar has to happen with this, like if the shop is going to certify or Rivian is going to certify, yes, that the vehicle is sound now, because somebody is going to take on the liability for if this thing actually does blow up or still compromised, who’s signing off on this saying, yeah, it’s good to go.

Crew Chief Eric: I’ll just say this. Cause I saw a 2006 ish Tahoe Z71, like we were talking about earlier, going down the road the other day. And I, and by going down the road, I mean, almost sideways. Cause it was that severe crab walk. Cause the frame was bent. If you see a Rivian doing that, just pull [01:14:00] over, just stop driving and wait for the mushroom cloud, because that is not good.

And that’s just it. That’s the other thing that I worry about is when you buy a truck, I mean, we’re not talking square bodies here, although they are still on the road, but a lot of people do keep their trucks for a very, very long time. And trucks are used and abused. And these Rivians, where will they be 10 years from now, 20 years from now?

Will they even be? And that’s What goes back to my point of we’ve made them so expensive, so expensive to repair, and it’s not like it’s something collectible. It’s a pickup truck.

Crew Chief Brad: Are there going to have to be special junkyards for these electric vehicles? Hazmat facilities. Decommissioned? It

Crew Chief Eric: has

Crew Chief Brad: to be.

Are they going to go back to the manufacturer to recycle the parts?

Crew Chief Eric: That’s the talk from Volkswagen and other people that there’s a whole recycling process. But nobody’s actually gone through those steps yet. Everything’s still so new. There’s nothing to recycle. And I find it sort of like the same game they play with [01:15:00] recycling a cell phone and some of the other electronics.

Like you take it to those places and they end up just dumping it. Goes in a hole somewhere. It’s like, you didn’t really recycle anything. I don’t see it. We would be remiss not to talk about Tesla. Oh, what’s going on in Elon’s kingdom this month?

Executive Producer Tania: Tesla’s new car making process, it’s going to be revolutionary and all this stuff and honestly, I guess you’d have to go back and go to their investors day and find out the details of what was revealed because this article really doesn’t explain anything other than some sort of different modular Construction and like, you’ll have all finished parts done elsewhere that then get put together later, like, okay.

Crew Chief Eric: Since we’re talking about things historical, this actually harkens back to the 80s. It reminds me a lot of how the DMC 12 was built. All the body panels, everything were built off the car and then it was assembled later. But granted they weren’t dealing with paint booths and painting and color matching and that whole process, they were stamping out [01:16:00] stainless steel components and then assembling the car later.

I’ve heard rumor that Musk is a big fan of some of the earlier generation entrepreneurs like DeLorean and Iacocca and others, and he’s kind of stealing from their playbooks in some respects. We’ve built cars for a long time the same way because of the trial and error in the other processes that obviously failed, and we build cars a lot with robots, which are very fast and consistent.

Why deviate from that? If you’re not building a custom coachwork or some sort of hand built car, why go through this process of some guys on a Monday morning pumps out 1400 left front red fenders, and then next week when the temperature is different, he does the rear quarter panel.

Executive Producer Tania: Another question is whether Tesla can produce multiple vehicle models of different sizes and body styles on the same production line with the unboxed system.

What does that even mean? So you’re going to have like a three coming down with a Y behind it with [01:17:00] another three within an X within a roadster and somehow like you’re assembling them all in the end. It’s one thing if it was like all the same base platform and then like I’m sticking different body panels on it, but.

They’re not.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, more like the MQ chassis Volkswagen, where it’s like, well, a Golf’s coming down and then a Jetta and then a TT and then whatever else.

Executive Producer Tania: Maybe they are, and I don’t realize it. I don’t know. Maybe a Model Y chassis is exactly the same as a Model 3.

Crew Chief Brad: I have a feeling they’re very similar. If I’m reading this correctly, it looks like they’re getting rid of the assembly line process, and they’re probably literally going to just take Stuff out of a box and put it together.

Executive Producer Tania: What does that mean? Like I just opened my Lego box and now I’m going to sit here and put all my parts together and then I’m going to open my next Lego box. How is that more efficient? This is

Crew Chief Brad: Elon Musk. That’s exactly what it means.

Executive Producer Tania: How is that more efficient than an assembly line dedicated to a Model 3, to a I guess because you

Crew Chief Brad: don’t have to have separate assembly lines for each.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, what it’s going to require is less [01:18:00] vacation and more work. You’re definitely not going to be able to work from home. And Elon

has thoughts on that

Crew Chief Eric: as he tries to take over the world. He has lots of

Executive Producer Tania: thoughts.

Crew Chief Eric: He’s

Crew Chief Brad: the smartest moron I’ve ever seen. He’s

Executive Producer Tania: a tool.

Crew Chief Brad: He’s a 10 millimeter socket.

Executive Producer Tania: Don’t offend the 10 millimeter socket like that.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, most of them are lost as well. Why can’t we lose this one? Yeah, Elon

Crew Chief Brad: Musk is as lost as a 10 millimeter socket.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, what’s funny is I listened to something the other day and I know there’s the whole cancel culture thing, especially NPR and Twitter and. Elon and all that stuff. We talked about that already, but they played some clip of him talking.

I literally held my head in my hands and I’m like, who is this tool that is talking right now? They’re like, Oh, that was Elon Musk. I was like, Oh my God, seriously. Yes. He’s pushing boundaries. He’s challenging norms. He’s looking for solutions where there are no problems. The assembly line thing. I don’t understand.

It worked for Henry Ford 130 years ago. It still works today. They’ve only made the process better. I don’t see why [01:19:00] this boxing process or unboxing, whatever, it’ll turn into stupid TikTok unboxing videos. Yeah, I don’t want to put my car together. It’s not a Super 7. It’s not a Caterham, right? No, it’s not an erector set.

I want my car to be the same color. I want it to be gapped correctly. I want seals that seal. I want a quality piece of equipment.

Crew Chief Brad: Speaking of Elon Musk and saying stupid things. The vacation is morally wrong.

Executive Producer Tania: Not that vacation is morally wrong. It’s that working from home is morally working

Crew Chief Brad: from home is morally wrong.

I

Executive Producer Tania: don’t understand what morals have to do with that, but

Crew Chief Eric: when you’re king of the world, you can say whatever you want. Right. I mean, that’s, that’s where this is.

Executive Producer Tania: My favorite part was Musk said he himself works almost every day, taking just two to three days off per year. I work seven days a week, but I’m not expecting others to do that.

He said, cool, bro. You work 363 days out of the year. Wow. You want a fricking gold star?

Crew Chief Brad: If I had a billion dollars in the bank, I [01:20:00] would do that too. Give me a billion dollars a year and I will work seven days a week in an office

Crew Chief Eric: and work as a hobby. At that point, you’re not really going to work. They say, Oh, you You love what you do and you don’t do it for work.

Of course, when you’re filthy rich, when you’re rich people, thanks, everything is a vacation. Everything’s a hobby. What do you care? You like print money. I mean, this guy’s like one of the richest people on the planet. Why do we keep feeding this maniac more money? Every freaking rocket he puts up into space explodes or whatever.

I’m like, come on.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I wouldn’t even have talked about this and the sole purpose to not give this guy more airtime than he deserves. But

it’s Tesla.

Executive Producer Tania: The car is one thing, but the stupid stuff that comes out of his mouth.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s the disconnect. Do people not put those two things together?

Executive Producer Tania: No.

Crew Chief Eric: How can you ignore that?

People do it all the time. If the president of Ford came down and said something like this, people would just, like, their jaws would hit the floor.

Executive Producer Tania: No, they wouldn’t. They’d go out and they’d rev their F 150 in the driveway and they’d go to the grocery store.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, [01:21:00] my expectations are… Thoroughly lowered.

Lowered expectations. Ooh, he went deep. He reached down into his soul for that one. That was good. My deep soul. You channeling your Barry White right there. That was good.

Crew Chief Brad: Let’s get it on.

Crew Chief Eric: This is one of those moments where you’re just not sure what to say.

Crew Chief Brad: I can tell you what to say. It’s what the fuck.

Crew Chief Eric: This car. Instantly made our on cool wall.

Crew Chief Brad: Is this a Vern Troyer car? It looks like something that would go for him.

Ha ha It’s the Mini Mii

Crew Chief Eric: Treadsamp! Ha ha

Crew Chief Brad: Credit where credit is due, it’s really well done. No. Negative credits. Take credits away from this.

It’s exceptional. It’s a micro machine.

Crew Chief Brad: No, it is stupid.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay, folks. It’s a 76 Beetle. That looks like a Camaro Z 28. It’s really well done. It really is.

Crew Chief Brad: It is [01:22:00] Stew . It is morally wrong. This is what Elon Musk was talking about, .

I love one of the comments in the comment block. It says, okay, you get one car. This for Pontiac Aztec.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow. This is genius. Again, it’s up on our own cool wall. You could check it out. You could vote for it. That’s all I got to say about that.

Crew Chief Brad: It hurts. It’s so bad. It hurts to look at. It makes me uncomfortable. It’s so good. A Camaro makes me uncomfortable anyway, but this, whatever it is, makes me uncomfortable to look at it.

Crew Chief Eric: You remember the 3d viewfinders we had as a kid and you put in the little disc and you pull the arm, it’s what a Camaro would look like through a viewfinder because it’s always sort of distorted.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s a picture. On a Windows 95 computer, where it’s a regular Camaro, but you do stretch to fit. It’s [01:23:00] designed for an 800 by 600 screen.

It is trash.

Crew Chief Eric: What else is trash? Again, another trailer for the Gran Turismo movie. Have we not learned our lessons yet? All I have to say.

Executive Producer Tania: This isn’t a movie about the video game, this is a movie based on apparently a true story of somebody who entered those Gran Turismo driving experience challenge to find the next great driver or something.

And like, that’s what this movie is apparently chronicling. So it’s not like it’s some weird storyline of the video game itself. It’s that like, there is this real race car driver, that was a kid who was so good at playing Gran Turismo video game that he actually got a ride as a professional race car driver now out of this Gran Turismo Academy.

Crew Chief Eric: And now he’s home playing Fortnite, eating Cheetos and drinking Red Bull.

Executive Producer Tania: No, he’s not. He’s still a race car driver.

Crew Chief Eric: Where? Nobody’s heard of him. What series? [01:24:00] Brazil driving Chevy Cruzes. I mean, what he’s not in formula one or sports car or anything. No,

Executive Producer Tania: he’s in Toyota racing series, FIA F3, British GT championship, different endurances, GT four, 24 hours of this, that, and the other Dubai.

I think that was maybe like the first race after the Academy or something.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. He’s achieved more than probably most of us will have ever done, but do they race at Maple Valley?

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I’m not saying this is going to be a great movie. I’m also just saying that it’s not some weird video game movie. It’s a movie that happens to have video game in it.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s not like Doom or whatever other trash you compared it to. What was the other one? The Need for Speed movie? Oh, that was terrible.

Yeah, that was really bad. This is more like a docu.

Crew Chief Eric: The Gran Turismo sort of takes the center stage on that, and then you immediately go into this bias against it. And that’s what I’m trying to highlight here. It’s like, it could have been [01:25:00] truth in 24, but then maybe that’s not going to pull the people.

And so it’s this weird game of marketing. And then when people get there, like, Oh, this documentary is boring. But the minute it steps away from being a documentary.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t think we can make it a documentary.

Crew Chief Eric: No, it’s a

Crew Chief Brad: dramatization.

Executive Producer Tania: Even though he’s been a professional race car driver since 2011 and even to today, he’s still active.

He’s not a Max Verstappen. He’s not a Michael Schumacher. So it’s not going to be interesting to be a documentary, right? Like he’s had some good finishes in different series, but it’s also not earth shattering, right?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. So it’s a challenge. I guess we’ll have to stay on top of it, see what happens when it comes out.

I’m not saying I’m not going to watch it.

Executive Producer Tania: Not going

Crew Chief Eric: to

Executive Producer Tania: pay money for

Crew Chief Eric: it. Yeah. I’m definitely going to review it with Steve and Izzy. I mean, that’s all I’m saying about that. Right. So it’s sort of like, I’m trying to keep my expectations lowered in this case. Cause I don’t. want to get into the hype machine.

Who knows? Maybe it’ll be interesting. Maybe it’ll inspire other people [01:26:00] to get off the couch and get behind the wheel of a car. If that is the moral of the story, that’s excellent.

Executive Producer Tania: I only issue with the storyline and it’s based on a true story. So fine. I feel like it’s one of those one in however many thousands of these kids were like, yeah, this Academy that it’s like, the odds of someone who’s never driven a car before they play the video game and suddenly they get in a seat and they can win a race.

I don’t know. I just have a hard time believing there’s such a disconnect between, I don’t care how good your simulator is. I don’t know. Maybe if your simulator is like a hundred grand, it could be good enough, but I don’t know that Gran Turismo, the video game is good enough. Then

like,

Executive Producer Tania: You’re translating into real world driving now, and so he could just be raw talent of a person that had he came up through carding or something like that.

Like, he could have gotten to the same place. So it’s really less to do about the video game because clearly. Thousands of other people didn’t make it.

Crew Chief Eric: And even there in the races that he won in the academy, he’s [01:27:00] racing against other, let’s say non drivers. So you’re the best of the worst.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. I don’t know how all that worked, but and if you’ve

Crew Chief Eric: got a hundred grand to spend on a simulator, get out of your house and just go buy a Miata.

You’re going to have more fun. That’s the point of a lot of this stuff. Right. Geez Louise, 100, 000 rig.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, I’m making up another No, you’re

Crew Chief Eric: not wrong because there are, I’ve looked at them. Some of these sim rigs are 80, 000 plus dollars by the time you’re done. They got the gyroscoping, this and that, and the shock absorbers.

Buy a car. You can buy a Miata. You could buy a race prepped Miata for less than 30, 000, turn key with a logbook, and go to the track, and you’ll have money left over for YEARS because Miatas cost nothing to run. And you’re gonna realize on lap two, your video game has nothing to do with reality. As good as it is to your point, Tanya.

If you’re spending that kind of money, get off the couch and just go drive. We’ve talked about rental cars before. We [01:28:00] know that Hertz was going into a deal with Tesla in the past and there’s been other movement for EVs and why I bring this up because amongst my Camp Lejeune, AARP and other spam mail that I am constantly wading through every day.

Every once in a while, there’s a golden nugget in the pile of turds. And Avis sent me a promotion to entice me to come rent an electric vehicle next time I need

alternate transportation. And what do they show me? Cover of this ad saving me up to 10%.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s Chevy Bolt.

Yeah, I will take the base model Corolla.

Thank

Crew Chief Brad: you

very

Crew Chief Eric: much.

Crew Chief Brad: I watch a lot of Hulu and they have, there’s a lot of Hertz commercials on there. And recently it’s been Tom Brady trying to get a rental car, whatever, how easy it is to get a rental car at Hertz. The first ones were of him stepping into a Tesla, you know, at the end of the commercial, but the most recent ones are him getting into a Polestar.

I don’t know if anybody picked up on that.

Executive Producer Tania: I haven’t seen that one yet. Is it all the same leading up [01:29:00] to that moment?

Crew Chief Brad: No, no. So it’s, the first ones are him.

Executive Producer Tania: The Tesla ones are like, got annoying after a while. Cause he’s always like, come on.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. He’s doing menial tasks. It’s like, like he’s, he’s acting like an impatient jerk.

Yeah. And then he gets to the rental car place and was like, let’s go. Let’s go. And he gets to the car, it’s like, Let’s go. Let’s go, man.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. So, so the, the one with the Polestar, he’s actually doing an interview talking about how he always just wants to, let’s go, but he can’t. And then the interviewer is like, well, Tom, we’ve got something for you here.

You’re gonna get to go wherever you want, do whatever you wanna do. And they spin some stupid wheel and like, where are you going, Tom? You’re taking an EV and you’re going to X, y, Z place. And then they put ’em in a white polestar. That was like, Oh, I’m sure Elon likes this commercial.

Crew Chief Eric: Meanwhile, Gronkowski is doing commercials with horses.

Crew Chief Brad: Yo soy Fiesta. Exactly.

Executive Producer Tania: My choice in rental [01:30:00] car is solely based on price. So if you’re going to offer me an EV at the same price as a compact. Or maybe a subcompact, then I don’t care. Sure. As long as I’m somewhere where there’s a charging infrastructure and I’m not like driving into the mountains and the boons where I know there’s not going to be.

But if I was in a city somewhere that had the infrastructure and you’re giving it to me at the same price as an ICE, I don’t care. But I’m not going to pay extra.

Crew Chief Eric: And if you offer me a Chrysler 300 for the same price, I’m going to take that. That used to be my go to free upgrade. You want a Chrysler 300?

We got like six of them, sure.

Crew Chief Brad: Whatever. Let me, let me upgrade. Upgrade.

Executive Producer Tania: But then again, like, what is the insurance cost at the rental car on these?

What if it spontaneously combusts?

Crew Chief Brad: If you don’t own an electric vehicle, is your insurance company, are you going to be able to just say, Oh, I want to use my own insurance for this electric vehicle?

How does all

Executive Producer Tania: that work? It’s a good question.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you know what else is a good question? And it really is rich people thangs.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t understand this article. It was written really [01:31:00] poorly. No flow, disjointed thoughts, zero, like, reasoning, descriptions.

Crew Chief Eric: It goes right in line with, basically, photo needs no caption.

I mean, the summary here is Alyssa Milano, who’s the boss, and many other things. She apparently owned a Volkswagen, and she’s had quite the journey from her Volkswagen to her Tesla. From Tesla

Executive Producer Tania: to Volkswagen.

Crew Chief Brad: There was controversy when she made the switch, because Volkswagen was in fact founded by Hitler.

Executive Producer Tania: But that’s what I don’t understand. None of this flows, because it was like, there’s this controversy. Because Volkswagen was founded by Hitler, but then she criticized the car manufacturer, which now suddenly we’re not talking about Volkswagen, we’re talking about criticizing Tesla. And then Volkswagen threatened to sue her, and then Tesla’s gonna sue her.

And I’m like, what are we even talking about? First of all, is this the ID Volkswagen? Or is it like a fucking Atlas? Or is it a Mark IV? Like, I don’t even know what Volkswagen [01:32:00] she has that caught on fire. Now, if you keep reading, if it was an EV, it’s not some oh my god, another EV like spontaneously combusted, I guess what they found out, maybe, I don’t even know, are there facts that have been checked here, is there legitimate sources, I can’t tell, but apparently someone left a bucket of diesel and lit that shit underneath her car and arsoned, is why her Volkswagen is so messed

up,

Executive Producer Tania: and apparently they wrote, F you Elon hater, Did she piss somebody off with whatever her comments against Tesla were?

I don’t know. Is any of this true? Who cares?

Crew Chief Brad: Oh my god, this is all bullshit.

Executive Producer Tania: It has to be.

Crew Chief Brad: Three individuals wearing red hats were seen running away from the scene. Did you like them? Fleeing. In a pickup truck with fake nuts.

This must have been written by ChatGPT.

Executive Producer Tania: Nothing makes sense. I’m like, I tried to scroll up.

Is there a date on this? Like, was this April Fool’s?

Crew Chief Brad: I’m trying to see the name of the publication, but I can’t because of all the [01:33:00] fucking advertisements.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t even know if this is this?

Crew Chief Brad: What

Executive Producer Tania: is this? Like, I don’t even understand this was like added malware on my computer. Probably by opening this link,

Crew Chief Brad: whoever this in the person, Chaudhry, Bader, he’s a small business owner and blogger.

Crew Chief Eric: Just run your antivirus after you

Crew Chief Brad: open that book. Online tabloid is what it is.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s terrible. Well, if that wasn’t bad enough, we still have to go south and talk about alligators and beer.

Executive Producer Tania: Florida beer! So this Florida People article is just stupidity at its absolute finest [01:34:00] and could happen anywhere. And it’s worth watching this video because this was so… avoidable. And then the poor person whose Tesla was catching all of this with the cameras that were recording was innocent. And the video is taken from this poor Tesla’s vantage point.

So dumb on so many levels, inability to zipper merge, impatience, not paying attention, distracted driving, raging. to rear end two cars. And not like you rear end one that rear ends the other. No, you’ve like simultaneously managed to rear end two cars at once. And it’s almost like the second Tesla that’s doing the rear ending was like accelerating through it.

Like the person ever hit the brakes.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s Tesla on Tesla crime right there.

Executive Producer Tania: I feel bad for the white Tesla. It did nothing wrong, except be present.

Crew Chief Brad: What a mess.

Executive Producer Tania: But also, I liked the Lexus [01:35:00] or whatever it was. I was like, okay, first of all

Crew Chief Brad: Try to duck out of the way.

Executive Producer Tania: If you’re gonna swerve off the shoulder Just swerve.

Like, get the hell onto the shoulder, not like Stay like a quarter on in lane because you wouldn’t have gotten rear ended and she would have plowed straight into the other Tesla.

Crew Chief Brad: How much does this crash cost? That’s

Crew Chief Eric: a hundred thousand dollars of damage done right there.

Executive Producer Tania: Those are total probably

Crew Chief Brad: a hundred percent.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, the white one’s probably totaled

Crew Chief Eric: the front end collision. The airbags went off for sure.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. They’re both of them. The red one too, probably

Crew Chief Brad: the front popped open.

Executive Producer Tania: Whoever that was, a lot of clothes in that front.

Crew Chief Brad: Now I noticed she was living in her car. She couldn’t afford a house anymore. She’s living in her

Executive Producer Tania: car.

But anyway, not really funny. More public service announcement, but it did happen in Florida. Now this next one. Also, really isn’t that funny, but in Colorado,

the title of this is the goal of some

Executive Producer Tania: people. I don’t even know if that’s the right thing to say, but don’t drink and drive always at public service.

Now, please don’t [01:36:00] drive under the influence of any type of substance suspected DUI driver leaps from car. Implies the dog was driving Fido is the one responsible for the car accident

Crew Chief Eric: supposed to be here dog ate his homework and drove him to school. I mean,

Crew Chief Brad: yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: you know,

Crew Chief Brad: and he ran he fled. And guess how far he got?

Not very far. 20 yards.

He made it two first downs and then was caught. He sucks. This guy cannot run for shit. I wonder if it was a straight line he was running

Executive Producer Tania: in. In fairness, he didn’t have a collision, but he was driving enough. Under the influence, the dog was responsible. Sorry. The dog that he allowed to drive the car was not well equipped.

Just like cats. No opposable thumbs.

Crew Chief Brad: Did the dog have his learner’s permit?

Executive Producer Tania: You know, you should have your [01:37:00] dog taken away from you.

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, that’s protecting

Crew Chief Eric: the dog at that point.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I’m sure there’s somebody in PETA who’s like this man endangered the dog.

Crew Chief Eric: 100 percent dogs are not supposed to operate heavy machinery.

Wow. I’m gonna. Venture a guess that a dispensary was involved at some point. It’s time we go behind the pit wall.

Executive Producer Tania: This first one confuses me, guys. What the podium, there is a Netherlands flag under which Charles Leclerc is standing. And Max Verstappen is standing on the third place podium with the name Charles Leclerc under him. Underneath the Monaco flag, that is not correct. So somehow the two of them stood on each other’s podium.

So it’s just a little bit amusing, that’s all.

Crew Chief Eric: Did you also notice that it says Ferrari under all of them? Yes. They all drive Ferrari. It’s a complete win for [01:38:00] Ferrari. I mean, this whole thing is messed up. Wow. Good job. Good job. That’s what you paid that formula one subscription for, right?

Executive Producer Tania: The podiums and stuff like the words on them could just be sponsored through that because there’s like four podiums there.

Right. And they all say Ferrari. So it’s not like there was a fourth place person.

Crew Chief Eric: Brad Pitt. We’ve talked about him before. He’s doing that Formula One movie. He’s working with Lewis Hamilton to bring that to the table. I don’t know what’s going to be more realistic, that, or that Gran Turismo movie we were talking about earlier, but they say they’re going to put Brad Pitt behind the wheel of a Formula One car.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, he’s directing this movie or whatever. I think also like it’s this is his brain child Hamilton’s involved in at least a Consulting capacity for now TBD. I guess if he gets some sort of a role maybe driving another car or something it’s a little bit of clickbait because it’s like Brad Pitt to drive a Formula One car and it’s like Not really, because like, yeah, that’s right.

Brad Pitt driving an F1 car from Silverstone [01:39:00] onwards. He won’t be on the racing against any other people on track, and the race car he’s driving will really be a modified junior F2 or F3 car.

Crew Chief Brad: Mmm.

Executive Producer Tania: So I’m like, you’re not really driving a Formula 1 car then.

Crew Chief Brad: He’s driving a Formula car.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, but not a Formula 1 car.

Crew Chief Brad: This whole movie is just a Pet project for Brad Pitt to be able to drive a formula car.

Executive Producer Tania: Which I’m sure he could do without doing this movie.

Crew Chief Eric: Maybe. I mean, Richard Hammond did it and didn’t wreck, so, you know, hey, whatever. It’s true. Which is the moral and the point here. Don’t forget, he who does his own stunts does his own crashes too.

We’ll see how that plays out. Speaking of seeing how things play out, Northern Italy is in a bit of chaos, which forced the Imola, formerly known as the San Marino Grand Prix, to be cancelled and or postponed. That’s not what

Crew Chief Brad: it was

Crew Chief Eric: called. Isn’t it some like 15 word name? It is now. It was San Marino. We had this argument once.

They call

Executive Producer Tania: it by the region now. So it’s the La Emilia [01:40:00] Romagna Grand Prix.

Crew Chief Brad: There was something like the first state something or other, whatever, I don’t know, there was a whole bunch of names and there were a ton of memes about the name being exceptionally long.

Crew Chief Eric: Spaghetti Glinguini Fettuccine Ziti. It’s

Executive Producer Tania: TBD what happens, because on the Formula One site it’s…

Listed as postponed in the schedule and not canceled. So maybe they probably gonna

Crew Chief Brad: try and force it in somewhere.

Executive Producer Tania: I think somewhere down the line. There was still a canceled race, right? Like, they were supposed to be somewhere there. They’re not going anymore. So maybe on 1 of those kind of open weekends, they can re slot it in.

I guess tbd. It’d be nice to see them race there, but obviously if they can’t, they can’t. This weekend is Monaco, so that will be interesting because whoever basically is on pole there is going to win the race, so it won’t be that exciting.

Crew Chief Eric: Where you qualify is where you finish, that’s.

Executive Producer Tania: Pretty much, so it’ll be a train and maybe like one person will get to pass somebody, but that’ll be about it.

And Miami was two weekends ago and that was really a snooze [01:41:00] fest.

Not even that, it’s just the difference in the Red Bulls is just outrageous. He passed the Ferrari and the Haas, which is also a Ferrari. He was behind them. He came out from behind them when the DRS enabled and it was like, they were fucking parked.

Crew Chief Brad: How many places did he make up? He made up like 10 places, right?

Or something like that?

Executive Producer Tania: No, that was Azerbaijan, wasn’t it?

Crew Chief Brad: I thought it was Miami because he didn’t finish. Q two. They didn’t send him out in time. Yeah, yeah. So he didnt get that. He didn’t get a lap in Q two. So it was basically Sergio’s race to lose.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: And then he lost

Executive Producer Tania: again. The Red Bulls were out ahead, you saw like they were posting like the speeds, the Red Bull and then like the speeds of the far, and it was like 10, 15 miles an hour fat.

Like what the hell? What? You’re a good 10 miles an hour faster. There’s no way. There’s no way. How is anybody like, I mean, everybody else needs to get their act together.

Crew Chief Eric: Again, you [01:42:00] guys are not convincing me to watch Formula One. You are all psyched. You got to watch it. You got to do it. It just sounds like bull crap.

Executive Producer Tania: No, I think what Brad’s been saying is you should watch Drive to Survive. Not gonna happen. Not gonna happen.

Crew Chief Brad: I have a confession to make. Uh oh. You know, is this a safe space? Can I speak? I did not finish the last season of Drive to Survive. Oh,

the pot has blackened.

Crew Chief Brad: Soon

it will

Executive Producer Tania: be the kettle.

Crew Chief Brad: And I feel like I don’t need to see it because…

Executive Producer Tania: You just watched the season.

Crew Chief Brad: I watched the season. I

Executive Producer Tania: did watch the last season, but I didn’t watch the season before it. Cause I’m like, I don’t need to watch this. I literally just watched the season. Why do I care?

Crew Chief Brad: I used to be all hot and bothered about seeing the stuff going on behind the scenes. And I thought it was really cool.

And now I’m just like… I watched it unfold. I don’t like Red Bull. Red Bull’s okay. I don’t like Verstappen. No, you

Crew Chief Eric: like rich energy. We already know that.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t like Verstappen. I think he’s a toolbag. It was one [01:43:00] thing when Lewis Hamilton was winning, but I thought he was a decent enough human being. But I don’t like for it to happen at all.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, there’s also rumor now that Hamilton might be going to Ferrari. I’m like, what? I

Crew Chief Brad: did see that. I, I, I heard. We’ll have to see what happens.

Crew Chief Eric: I can’t see that happening. Is Ferrari that desperate? What? And I thought that was like a thing with Hamilton. He didn’t want to be associated with Ferrari because he didn’t want to be Schumacher’s replacement.

The optics on that look for him.

Crew Chief Brad: He’s already broken Schumacher’s records. He’s well ahead. He’s, he’s surpassed Schumacher. I think now is the time to do it. May, that may have been true before, but now he is his own legend. He’s not under anybody else’s shadow.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t know. Maybe I’ll feel differently in 10 or 20 years

Crew Chief Brad: when Formula One merges with Formula E.

Crew Chief Eric: It was different growing up with Formula One and characters and the people like right now, I, I have a hard time identifying with anybody or really. Getting engaged with any of the drivers and that’s kind of kept me away. And I guess that’s the same when we talk about rally, right. For you, [01:44:00] Brad, as you’re kind of learning the system over there.

So, you know, we’re on two ends of that spectrum, but as we wrap out formula one news, Tanya, you got a first kind of digital look at the track for Vegas, which is coming up in November, right? What do you think? It looks like Long Beach.

Executive Producer Tania: I fell asleep on the straightaways it was like, Oh, there’s Caesar’s Palace, what?

Um.

Crew Chief Brad: It literally looks like Long Beach.

Executive Producer Tania: The straight is so ridiculously long. Red Bull is just going to be lapping everybody, I think, because they’re so much faster straight line that it’s going to be… Boring.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. And Brad, you’re right. Kind of does lay out a little bit like Long Beach in a way. And having been to Vegas many times, Tanya, you’ve been there as well.

The strip is pretty long. There’s not a lot of places to kind of turn off. So if they’re going to build any sort of straightaway, they’re going to have to use more of the Vegas strip. And that’s your point. It’s a long straightaway. It’s boring. And they’re going to do that twice. Right? So you’re like, okay, it’s not the same configuration as the [01:45:00] old Yeah.

Vegas Grand Prix, which did use some of the city streets. We’re going to actually talk and cover that more throughout the year. There’s some episodes coming that talk about the history of Formula one in Las Vegas and stuff like that. So look forward to that. If you tune into the show every week, I’m glad there’s another race coming, but, you know, honestly, I’d like to see Formula one cars.

Back at the Glen or something like that, or, you know, somewhere else in the States.

Executive Producer Tania: Eric’s glad another race is coming, but he doesn’t watch and he’s not going to watch.

Crew Chief Eric: And he’s not going to go either. Can any of you afford to go? Nobody’s going to be able to go to that race. If you haven’t booked tickets three years ago, it ain’t happening.

Crew Chief Brad: Sure. Sure. Yeah. Same with Miami. Once those were put on the books, it’s impossible for us normal human beings to go.

Executive Producer Tania: Where are you going to go? Like, what’s the point of going to somewhere like Vegas? Where are you going to watch the race from?

Crew Chief Eric: The tallest building you can find.

Executive Producer Tania: Are you going to walk down the sidewalk of the Strip to get to another turn?

No.

Crew Chief Brad: You go to pay for that, what, million dollar VIP package? Yeah, you try to get some, [01:46:00] some

Executive Producer Tania: penthouse room in the MGM or whatever, the hotel, so you can just. See you over everything. Yeah, good luck. Brad Pitt will be in that room.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, when we do the Vegas recap, we’ll put that under rich people doing rich people things.

Crew Chief Eric: 100 percent on that one. Well, we’ll switch quickly to WRC News. Brad, did you watch anything since the last time we got together?

Crew Chief Brad: You know, I haven’t had a chance to. My family’s been sick for the last three weeks and I’ve just been trying to survive.

Crew Chief Eric: No worries. Well, I will pick up. Where we left off, if you don’t mind a quick recap of Croatia and Portugal, as we reported last month, unfortunately, Craig Breen was killed during an accident before the Croatia rally in testing for the Croatia rally, I will say Croatia watching it.

Was quite sad. It was very somber. It Red Bull did an okay job of sort of covering. I expected more of a tribute to Craig, some of his past exploits, some of the cars he used to drive teams he drove for. They didn’t really go into all that. It was really like, [01:47:00] what is everybody else doing to honor him? You know, maybe that was at the behest of the family and stuff like that.

I don’t know. I thought it was cool that Hyundai threw a livery on all the cars. It was an Irish flag in honor of Craig. I thought the cars look fantastic. I think they should kind of play into that maybe a little bit more. One of the drivers, the gentleman that replaced him, Danny Sordo is going to be running an Irish helmet all year.

And then he’s giving it to Craig’s family at the end of the year, which is pretty cool. It’s a spectacular looking helmet. It matches the car’s liveries and stuff like that. So as you move away from that, you could tell all the drivers were pretty bummed out. The whole just attitude of the race was just watching it.

I was just like, like, this is depressing. People were definitely not at their prime or at their peak. Croatia is generally really intense, really high pace, very narrow. It’s fast. It’s exciting. This one just was not there. On Friday, both of Toyota’s suffered punctures in the same [01:48:00] pothole, driving the exact same line.

In your guy’s notes, you should have noted not to put the car there. And that took them out on Friday. That was a, that was a pain in the butt. On Saturday, Terry Neuville wrecked his Hyundai. I mean, he slid out, hit the back of the car on a tree, and it snapped the car around and crushed the front end. And it was so fast, and it was so violent.

And you’re just like, wow, okay, that was cute. It was on a very narrow section of track where he really had no choice. It was like, hit the tree or go off the cliff. And that was that. There was an interesting battle between Robin Pera and Ogier, the two leading Toyotas. They did lead going into Sunday, but Elvin Evans was pretty much at the top of the race.

It was his rally to lose. He’s been in that position many times before, but then something. Catastrophically goes wrong. And then there goes his win for the overall of the rally. I will say congratulations to Takamoto. He didn’t wreck. So another Toyota came home in one piece. That was pretty cool. The end result was Elvin [01:49:00] Evans, Oittanik, and Esa Pekka Lappi, one, two, three.

Terry Neuville, they were able to get his car back together enough that he scored an extra five bonus points in the power stage, which is the last stage of the event. Good for him that at least keeps him in contention gives him some points since he didn’t do that. Well, overall, I will say Citroen came to the table to play in Croatia.

They beat out the leading SCOTA in the WRC2 class. It wasn’t a ton of coverage on that, but it was actually quite exciting. Those guys were going full send. In those Citroens and those Skodas. And if you watch some of the action, I mean, they were just destroying those cars coming off of jumps and stuff because they were just pushing really, really hard.

And like I said, overall, the whole of Croatia was meh. It led into Portugal, not even two weeks later. And the big draw in Portugal is what they call the FAF stage, the F A F E. It’s stage 16. It’s the one with the jump. The one everybody recognizes, they show it in all the rally videos. You get massive [01:50:00] airtime, couple stories off the ground, flying at full speed.

One of the most famous stages in all of rally. Unfortunately, Evans wasn’t able to capitalize on his win from Croatia. He wrecked the car so bad in Portugal. It also caught on fire. So he was out starting on Friday and that was the end of his weekend. Terry Neuville could not catch a break. I chuckled so many times something wrong with the gearbox.

The car was stuck in third gear and then they took him out for a while to try to fix the car. They got that fixed and he had zero power. His turbo failed. The hybrid failed. And I’m sitting here going, why? father, he was going out and literally doing stages at like 30 miles an hour, just so he could get points for the championship.

Crew Chief Brad: Didn’t he have turbo issues in Mexico?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, he had issues. He’s had issues with the car constantly keeps complaining about it. And I, and at first I was like, stop whining. You know, you’re getting old, you’re getting beat by the young guys, but he’s legitimately [01:51:00] having problems. The car’s falling apart around him, but it was just pathetic.

And during the The super stage at the end, they put him out first and you’re just watching everybody else. And they’re like, this is going to take forever. Cause it’s like 40 kilometers. You can only do like 30 miles an hour. It’s going to take him an hour to get to the end. And it’s like, they sent him out first thing in the morning and said, all right, Terry, just make it to the end.

He brought the car home, but it was just laughable. It was comical and absolutely ridiculous. Oittanic suffered. Problems with the Puma. He had hybrid issues where he was also down on power, not in the same way that Terry Neuville was. The end result of the race was Ruv and Para, Danny Sordo, So Esa Pekka Lappi taking home two third place podiums in a row, Croatia and Portugal.

Skoda was back on top in WRC2. Then I found a parallel between Rally and Formula One. There’s this kid, Pierre Louie Lube. I don’t know if you paid attention to him or not, Brad. He is the DeVry of Rally. [01:52:00] He shows up when he wants, his dad pays for him to drive. He wrecks a car. He does care. He goes home, and they focused a lot on him for some reason in Portugal because apparently, I guess maybe that’s his favorite or, or whatever.

It was just laughable. Right now, Robin Pera, who is Ogier’s teammate at Toyota, he leads the overall championship going into the Italian rally at Sardegna. And even though Ogier kind of plays when he wants to, he’s still in the top three right now in terms of points and everything. So really interesting to see if Seb takes it to the end and ends up winning, despite not putting in all the races.

Kind of goes to show how the points work in rally. Moving right along into sports car and endurance racing. I don’t have anything to report right now, but I will be reporting some in the coming weeks. So pay attention to social media, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, et cetera, because I will be at the hundredth.

Anniversary of Le Mans. So I will be reporting for France, which also means we won’t be having a drive through next [01:53:00] month because going on vacation, we’re all taking a break. We need one after three years and 200 and some odd episodes. So look forward to the next drive through in July, but there will be updates from Le Mans.

We will be talking all about remote Le Mans, and I’m hoping Brad and Tanya catch the race from home or wherever they’re going to be. And we’re going to talk about it a lot more, but it’s going to be exciting. 16 cars in LMP1 or GTP, Porsche, Peugeot, Ferrari, Cadillac. And so on down the lines, seeing if they can take on the mighty Toyota.

So I’m looking forward to being there in person to see that it’s a kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity in some respects, I just want to remind everybody that our motor sports news is brought to us in partnership with the international motor racing research center and Watkins Glen, just so you guys know, there are more episodes that we’ve done in partnership with the IMRRC and the society of automotive historians coming your way.

Each month on break fix. So stay tuned. And as a reminder, you could enter to win a 2024 Corvette E Ray through the IMRRC’s [01:54:00] sweepstakes, there is a promo code E Ray launch that you can use, and you can find more details on racingarchives. org on how you can enter to win. This 2024 Corvette E Ray 3LZ convertible.

All the proceeds go to the research center and keeping it going. If you don’t want the Corvette, there is a cash option and they run promotions throughout the year. Buy more, get more of those kinds of things. Two for one. Ticket opportunities, et cetera, et cetera. And really quick, they have a couple of events.

As we mentioned, they are focusing this year on the Corvette celebrating its 70th anniversary alongside of the 75th anniversary of Watkins Glen, the hundredth anniversary of Le Mans and the 25th anniversary of the center itself. There’s an upcoming center conversation called the American sports car and inside.

Look at. Corvette racing, and that’s going to be on June 24th from 5 to 7 p. m. It’s a fascinating behind the scenes. Look at Corvette racing by Richard Prince, the official photographer for Corvette race team over [01:55:00] the last 27 years and author of the book Corvette 70 years. The one and only if you’re in town for the sale in six hours at the Glen, don’t miss the opportunity to listen to this presentation while you’re there in town.

On September 30th. The IMRRC is going to have their 25th anniversary party and more details on that to come so stay tuned to their website. GTN along with many others will be live streaming and in attendance at the annual Michael R. Artsinger Symposium on International Motor Racing History. That’s on November the 3rd and 4th.

At Watkins Glen international, the symposium provides an opportunity for scholars, researchers, and motor racing writers of all descriptions to present their work related to the history of automotive competition and the cultural impact of motor racing to their peers and the motor racing community in general.

We were there last year. We live streamed the whole event. There’s other episodes coming as a result of that. And it was a fantastic and fascinating event to be a part of. And we’re really looking forward to being [01:56:00] there. So if you’re interested in meeting any of us from GTM, feel free to come on down. And if you can’t make it, be sure to tune into our Twitch feed and we’ll be telling you more about that as we get closer to the event,

Crew Chief Brad: upcoming local news and events brought to us by collector car guide.

net the ultimate reference for car enthusiasts for June and July, mostly June. We’ve got a couple of events that we want to highlight June 3rd. The Mopar show is going on at the Volo museum in Volo, Illinois. June 10th, Radwood is coming to Philly at Subaru Park in Chester, PA. June 10th and 11th, the 7th annual Chesapeake Bay Motoring Festival at Kent Island Yacht Club in Kent Narrows, Maryland.

June 17th, Thunder on the River in downtown Columbia, PA. This one really got me. June 17th, the McSherrystown Fishing Game, Pig Rose Car Truck Show. Unfortunately, it didn’t give any details about where it is.

Crew Chief Eric: Is that before or after the nudist car show that you’re going to?

Crew Chief Brad: I [01:57:00] think this is before the nudist car show.

But if you want to go to this on collectorcarguy. net, there is a phone number to call. I believe the guy’s name is Gary and tickets are 30. On June 23rd through 25th, M Vading the Dragon at Tale of the Dragon, where BMW enthusiasts are taking their M cars to Tale of the Dragon in Maryville, Tennessee.

Crew Chief Eric: And it’s great you brought that up because that’s being brought to us by one of our other sponsors, which is ESE carbon wheels.

So I want a big shout out to Mike Pippitone for letting us know about the invading the dragon event, along with other tale of the dragon events listed over at collector car guide

Crew Chief Brad: on June 24th, the rocking chair Nats car and truck show at Mason Dixon, Dragway in Boonesboro, and tons more events like these and all their details are available over at collector car guide.

net.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, Brad. And now it’s time for our hbdjunkie. com trackside report. So what’s coming out here as we’re going on vacation? Well, the Northeast [01:58:00] Quattro Club is going to be at Palmer Motorsports Park on June the 15th and 16th. They’re also making their annual run to Mont Tremblant in Quebec, Canada for a couple of days of road tripping and some HBDE fun on July 15th and 16th.

The Audi club is also holding an HPD event at Watkins Glen on July 31st through August 1st. I’m actually looking forward to potentially going to that event, so more details on that to follow. Our friends at the Washington DC region of SCCA will be holding their sixth combined HPDE and time trial on June the 24th and 25th at Dominion Raceway.

By the way, that’s the same weekend as the sale in six hours for anybody that was trying to make a decision on what they wanted to do that weekend. Meanwhile, if you can’t make that WDCR will return to Summit Point for the Shenandoah Circuit Time trial in HPDE on July the 15th and 16th. That’s the seventh event of the season so far with a, I believe, a total of 10 or 11 for this [01:59:00] year.

WDCR will also be holding their Level two Autocross school on June the 25th at Summit Point Motorsports Park, Amira, the Eastern Motor Racing Association, will be holding their third event of the season at Pocono. on June the 25th and 26th weekend. National Corvette Museum has their fourth HPD on July the 21st at National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park.

And there are details out there on how you can drive at Spa, yes that’s Spa in Belgium, over the 4th of July weekend with our friends at Hooked on Driving. And since we mentioned Hooked on Driving, that reminds me as a thank you to everyone for being loyal listeners and supporters of Grand Touring Motorsports and fans of Brake Fix Podcast, Mike and Mona from Hooked on Driving are offering a discount all season on HPD events on their schedule.

You use code BrakeFix23, all one word, BrakeFix23, to receive a discount on your event registration at checkout. So thank you for being loyal supporters of all our efforts and tune in throughout the year for [02:00:00] more promotions.

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

Practice makes perfect, which is why you need to maximize your track time with Charlie Stryker over at Max Track Time, the perfect blend of testing and track weekend. Jim Cruz from Classic Auto Insurance takes us through why we should look past regular vehicle insurance for our beloved classic collector and race cars.

Colleen Sheehan recounts 52 years of Ferraris Online, now known as the Prancing Skunk, as she takes the helm and sets sail for another 50 years in the collector car world. We celebrated Indy 500 month with two IMRRC and SAH episodes, Second to One by Joe Freeman and Harry Miller and His Machines by Gordon Elliott White, both pertaining to the early days and developments of racing at Indianapolis.

And finally, we celebrated our 200th episode with the legendary Mario Andretti. Tune in to episode 200 for awesome insight into his amazing career and [02:01:00] find some great behind the scenes and outtakes available on our new YouTube channel at GrandTouringMotorsportsMedia, as well as more extras over on our Patreon.

And since we’ll be on break in June, fixing to get back into more drive thru antics in July, here’s a sneak peek into next month we chat with Rob Morgan from MPG Racing, home of the GT Celebration Series. Bob Gerritsen stops by to tell us about the genesis of the famous Apple Porsche 935. Kat DeLorean returns with Tony Vallelunga to talk about what it’s like to bend stainless steel into pieces that resemble a vehicle.

Jeff Willis tells us about his new book, Human in the machine and hear from John Summers about how social and modern media have changed racing. And finally, Kevin McDonald from Positive Talk Radio chats with Crew Chief Eric about some of the lesser known parts of the GTM origin story. Thanks again to everyone that came on the show.

We’ll see you in July.

Crew Chief Eric: Thanks, Tanya. We do have some new Patreons for May. Big [02:02:00] shout out to our new Patreon supporter and GTM er, as well as Northeast Region Co Chief Marissa Cannon. She signed up to support us on Patreon.

Crew Chief Brad: Celebrating some anniversaries, we have Northeast Co Region Chief Shane Cease celebrating nine years, along with Ethan Pinkert, who’s out in Colorado now, but originally from our DMV region.

We get together with him at Rolex. We’ve done that a couple of times and we hope to see him next year at Pike’s Peak and Matt Small celebrating four years with GTM. And if you’d like to become a member of GTM, be sure to check out the new clubhouse website at club. gtmotorsports. org. We didn’t have any special guests.

I’m sorry, Mark Hewitt. We ran out of time. And of course our co host and executive producer, Tanya.

Crew Chief Eric: And remember for everything we talked about on this episode and more, be sure to check out the follow on article and show notes available over at gtmotorsports. org. I’d also like to add that all of our episodes starting for a while now have transcription and closed captioning [02:03:00] available as well.

Crew Chief Brad: And to all the members who support GTM, without you, none of this would be possible.

Crew Chief Eric: I guess it’s not outro this month, it’s au revoir. Honey,

Crew Chief Brad: did you know Eric was going to France?

Crew Chief Eric: Off to France. Bon voyage!

Crew Chief Brad: Are you ready for me to start? Yeah! I didn’t read the article, of course, because why would I do that?

This is, this is excellent. See, I was thinking of the U2 song, um, and I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

Well, that is the theme this month, isn’t it?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. Yeah.

You were lost and now you’re found, doo dah, doo dah. You were lost and now you’re found, oh, doo dah dee. That was creepy.

Crew Chief Brad: 1988 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe G50, 65, 000.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like that old TV show. What’s the 64, 000 question? What’s for sale in Bringer Trailer?

Crew Chief Brad: I didn’t read the article. I’m sorry. You know, surprise, surprise. I thought you were going to talk about Ron Burgundy.

Keep it classy. Cause I’ve lost [02:04:00] my mind.

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

org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to [02:05:00] remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization. And our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag.

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

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

• 00:00 Introduction and Sponsors
• 00:36 Welcome to Episode 34
• 00:57 Lost and Found Special
• 03:39 Cheapest 300 Horsepower Cars
• 05:40 Hottest Family Cars of 2023
• 09:34 Best Affordable Sports Cars
• 12:00 Uncollectible Cars
• 21:06 Chip Ganassi’s Secret Tunnel
• 32:00 Lost and Found Wrap-Up
• 34:48 Porsche, Audi, and Volkswagen News
• 37:40 A Quick Button Mishap
• 37:51 Future of Transportation
• 38:51 Stellantis Recall Issues
• 42:21 Ford F-150 Lightning Fire Incident
• 44:00 EV Charging Risks
• 47:05 General Motors’ New Software Division
• 48:00 EVs on Racetracks
• 55:34 Toyota’s Hybrid Manual Supra
• 01:15:14 Tesla’s New Manufacturing Process
• 01:21:50 Unveiling the 76 Beetle Camaro Hybrid
• 01:23:05 Gran Turismo Movie: Fact or Fiction?
• 01:27:57 Electric Vehicles in the Rental Market
• 01:31:12 Alyssa Milano’s Car Controversy
• 01:33:30 Florida’s Tesla Crash and DUI Dog Incident
• 01:37:17 Formula One Updates and Brad Pitt’s F1 Movie
• 01:46:14 WRC News: Croatia and Portugal Recap
• 01:52:37 Upcoming Motorsports Events and Announcements
• 02:01:56 Closing Remarks and Special Mentions