B/F: The Drive Thru #38

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

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

William Ross: Hi guys, welcome to drive thru episode number 38. This is our monthly recap where we put together a menu of automotive, motorsport, and random car adjacent news. So now let’s pull up to the window number one for some automotive news.

Crew Chief Eric: William, you are doing a great job with this Halloween costume looking like Brad.

Look at you.

William Ross: Doing my best. Doing my best.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I gotta thank you right up front for filling in Brad’s size [00:01:00] 14 loafers for him this month as he’s away on paternity leave. So many of you might recognize William Ross from Exotic Car Marketplace, one of our veteran panelists on our What Should I Buy series here on break fixing.

He’s been on several other episodes as a co host. So I’m glad you’ve elevated your status and now you’ve come on to the drive thru. So I hope you’re prepared. Yeah.

William Ross: I’m working my way up the ladder, so to speak, right?

Crew Chief Eric: In honor of William Big Money Ross, we’re going to talk Ferraris as our showcase this month.

And I know that’s your specialty and I hate to paint you in the corner here. But what’s going on in the world of Ferrari?

William Ross: Well, the big thing that’s everyone’s all the scuttlebutt is this 250 GTO that Sotheby’s is going to be auctioning off in December. Obviously everyone knows these are rare bird as it is anyways.

And one coming up for auction, you know, is even rarer because usually they always trade hands privately off market. Then the last one was the 2018 that went for 48 million. Everyone’s kind of curious to see because this car’s got a bit more of a [00:02:00] pedigree than that other one did. People are paying around 60 million, 80 million, someone oh 100 million, which ain’t gonna happen.

So it’s gonna be interesting to see where that thing ends up at because like I said it was a factory race car. It was actually upgraded to 330 LMs. Back, back in period, but then after that, it went back to the two 50 GTO specs, so to speak, you know, obviously with engine size and whatnot, differentiating between those two aesthetic wise with the hood bulge and everything like that.

So the key thing is that was owned and raced by the factory. So that’s going to add some value to it. Going to closely watch that. Cause not only is that dictating where the market will be after those, but there’s always something out there looking for one, but right now, anyone that’s got one, they thought about selling their wait until after that thing sells because they’re going to think.

Oh, that one’s sold for this. So that means mine’s worth that, which as we all know, that is not the case because each one of those has a different story, different histories. We shall see. So it’s going to be great to watch, but my guess is the server will crash and no one’s going to be able to watch it.

Crew Chief Eric: So will this be a record setting car [00:03:00] or. Is it getting close to the record for this type of classic Ferrari?

William Ross: It’ll be a record for auction. It won’t be a record price because as we all know, Mr. McNeil there from WeatherTech paid his 80 million for his car back 2016, 2015, something like that. That car’s pedigree was off the chart.

Le Mans, the whole nine yards. That thing had it where it was worth it, but that thing was spectacular. And he paid up for it. That’s what he wanted. Private hand changing that 80 million mark is there, but that was leaked. That was let out. Who knows? Maybe one sold for more. No one just said anything. That’s that billionaires boy club mentality.

As far as anyone knows, 80 million is the max so far as paid for a GTO public knowledge wise.

Crew Chief Eric: So what’s really interesting. About this is a lot more Ferraris are coming to auction, whether it’s at Broad Arrow, whether it’s at Mecum, whether it’s at Sotheby’s, you’re just really starting to see them almost everywhere now.

And as we’ve talked to auction houses throughout this year on break fix, people are like, yeah, we’re listing a lot more of them. More of them are coming on market. And what I noticed is ever since car week. F [00:04:00] fifties have been climbing up into the auction scene more often than not, you know, they’re pretty rare to begin with, but you hear about the F forties that are selling an auction and what they’re bringing in.

So what’s going on with the F fifties?

William Ross: I would say, you know, I mean, that’s basically the last analog six speed manual V12 Ferrari. The Enzo that came after that was a very big technological leap in regards to the vehicle itself. You know, it’s that edge, you know, what you have on your wall as a kid.

Purchasers, that age range creeping into, now that’s the car they have. Wasn’t the F40, it’s the F50 that they all kind of lusted after. Especially being on the total build on those was 349, whereas your F40s, there was over 1300. If you go to buy an original U. S. market car, but you’re gonna be paying probably 5 million, plain and simple.

European one, you might be down to, you know, 4 million in that range. The demand’s there and it was, it’s a rare bird. Gorgeous car. It’s, it’s not crazy hard to drive. You know, it’s pretty easy. I would say easy. It’s not anything nuts to try and drive on the [00:05:00] street, drive on the road. You know, it’s a lot of fun.

Just going to keep going up in value. So it’s one of those deals where, Hey, they didn’t make that many and a lot of people want it. So supply and demand.

Crew Chief Eric: And this one that we’re talking about here is also at Sotheby’s and there’s a high probability it’s going to be eclipsed by the two 50 that we were just talking about.

But in terms of rarity, Out of the 349 that were built, this one is one of 30 in yellow, making it even more special, if you will, if you like the mustard over the ketchup shade of paint for the fifties.

William Ross: That’s that unique barrette yellow. You wasn’t all that hot of a color. He had the person that wants something different besides red.

Few high profile collectors out there. I won’t name one, but he deals a lot in watches and jewelry out there in the west coast. You can probably figure out what I’m talking about. Created his yellow collection. All of a sudden he did that. Everyone else wanted to have a yellow collection. They started going through the roof too, in regards to desirability, because you know, everyone’s just plays follow the leader, but I think it looks great in yellow, would I pay a premium?

Eh, not really. I mean, you can always get [00:06:00] a car painted, get it wrapped in that color. You know, it’s all personal preference.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, since we’re still talking about older classic and vintage Ferraris, you actually recently started a new segment on exotic car marketplace called provenance. And so I wanted to give you an opportunity to tell people what that series is about and what you’re trying to convey about Ferraris.

William Ross: Depending on what your level of knowledge is on the older Enzo era Ferraris. If you go back and look, they were making thousands and thousands. They made 50 of this, 80 of that, a hundred of this. They had a lot of different models, but not only the models, but they also had different manufacturers doing the bodies for them.

Pininfarina, Bowano. So you had all these little nuances to each car that made them just that much different depending on who built it. All of a sudden you have the main car, then you got a subset and a subset going through these. Trying to educate everyone in regards to, Hey, you have a two 50 GTE got the coupe, but Hey, they made so many variations of that car, body style, engine style, everything like that.

There’s all these [00:07:00] variations to it and all these little nuances. You really got to do a deep dive. If you really want to get into it. But it’s just trying to make people aware that, Hey, you know, they didn’t just make that one, Hey, it was a two 50 GT. That’s it. And there was subset ones, five, six different sub models and manufacturers of the body and just little things here and there.

Then you got your special versions of it that, Hey, people with deep pockets had built that they, they liked that. So they built a couple more. So it’s just trying to get people to realize that that’s a beautiful thing about Ferrari is it was artesian. He built those cars. To support his racing. He wasn’t like saying, Oh, I got to mass produce this thing and make 10, 000 of these.

So we got to make it so production and everything like that’s, Hey, we’re down to the final penny, all this stuff. No. Yeah, they made their money on it, but they were doing it more for just the beauty of the car and getting it out there. And to this day, it’s the same mindset. He chose who he wanted to buy his cars.

It wasn’t just, you went down and, Hey, I’ll buy it. It’s like, Hey, did you meet the qualifications? Especially in the earlier days, you know, he was basically on the [00:08:00] phone calling. Hey, I’m going to let you buy a car from me. It wasn’t someone come to you. Hey, I want to buy a car. You know, he’s all the way around.

I’ll let you buy a car for me. Imagine having that kind of power, owning a car company, saying I’ll pick and choose. You got some of them do it. I’ll let you have Koenigsegg, Pagani, those guys, you know, they can pretty much kind of pick and choose who they want to have own their cars. They hold on to them for two months and they resell them.

And then it’s just like, no holds barred, but you do a deep dive on it. I’m reading a book now. It should have grass. We show it to that really kind of goes through all the cars from the beginning to about mid seventies. I mean, it really, really gets into it pretty in depth in regards to all the models and different stuff.

And if you’re a nerd or a geek guy, like we are in regards to reading it. A layman would probably look at it and get bored after reading three pages. But you know, you get into it, man. It’s just all the nooks and crannies. And it’s just, it’s a fabulous book.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, what I like about what you’re doing with the provenance series, and I want to give a little nod and maybe some credit and a spoiler alert to an upcoming, [00:09:00] what should I buy episode that you were on where we sort of went far field and started geeking out about.

Replicas versus the real thing and Ferrari Californias, aka the Ferris Bueller Ferrari. And then you were talking about the big headlight, the little headlight, the caged headlight, the covered headlight. You’re like, there’s all these variations. Which California are you talking about? And so I kind of found it funny timing wise that provenance came out soon after that.

And I definitely understand where you’re going because there are those little nuances and it is kind of fun. To dig deeper into the Ferraris because, you know, some people say I saw one Ferrari, I’ve seen them all. And really that’s not true.

William Ross: No, not a hundred percent. Right. It’s when you really start digging into it, you start realizing each one’s different.

You’re like, I was just down in Tennessee the other weekend, similar. Hey, it was that model, but there was all those little differences. And it’s fun when you have other people stand around that realize they aren’t into Ferrari, but you know, they love the car because they love what it is. But then you start talking to them about the little things like, Oh, wow.

Oh, really? Oh, wow. Oh, so that’s the, you know, you really start teaching and you can just [00:10:00] see their eyes light up because it creates that interest level where, you know, they’re going to go back and start looking at it more and you really start diving deep into the brand itself, which is fantastic.

Crew Chief Eric: When we turn the page.

And start talking about modern Ferraris, like the 296 and the Puro Sangue, and some of the other concepts that have come out in the last couple of years. Are they as bespoke as they used to be? And what are your thoughts on some of the new cars?

William Ross: Bespoke to the point of, Hey, I’ll pick my colors.

Crew Chief Eric: Paint the sample like Porsche, right?

William Ross: Yeah, exactly. I mean, that’s about it. I mean, yeah, obviously you have that crazy ass options list to go nuts on where you could spend it on, you know, just as much on the cars as you can on options, but bespoke is kind of a broad term in regards to it. You know, you get some people that just do some stupid, stupid things with colors and whatnot, because they want to have one on one and green interior, pink exterior, doing something really crazy like that.

I mean, they’ll let you do it. Cause if you got the checkbook, they don’t care, but like getting like true bespoke, it’s just not there. I mean, all it is is just an options list. Is what it boils down to.

Crew Chief Eric: [00:11:00] There was a lot of talk about the Purosaga, which is the Ferrari SUV, and then it sort of got quiet. Is that thing going into production?

Has it gone into production? Or are we just supposed to forget about it?

William Ross: No, no, it’s into production. I think they’re starting to do the deliveries in Europe, not until end of 2024 for the United States. I think there’s a couple on the ground. You’re not going to see them because all those restrictions they put on it in regards to reselling and everything like that, because if you were on the list and you got picked and you were able to buy one and order one, they’re going to have all the restrictions in regards to what you can and can’t do with it in regards to reselling and all that, because if you get blacklisted, then forget it, you’re never going to be able to get another special car like that.

You know, everything you read about it. I mean, I’d love to drive it. I think it looks great. It’s kind of separates itself apart. Now you say SUV, but I mean, really it’s just a tall station wagon is all it really is, you know, they cleaned it up from say the FF, what that wasn’t the GT for Lusa, which is just butt ugly.

It’s a nice car, man. I like to drive it. Kudos to them for coming out with the [00:12:00] V12 right out of the gate and says, Hey, we’re going to stuff the 296 motor in there with the V6 twin turbo, which, which I mean, you’re still going to get obscene horsepower, but no, Hey, let’s go true V12, put that in there. That could be one thing that’s slowing things down a bit, but supposedly.

They’re limiting how many they’re going to build because that’s what everyone’s talking about. Oh, this is going to take him to over 15, 000 cars a year or 20, 000 cars. Yeah. They’ll sell as many as they can build. Like Porsche with the Cayenne got that blue with their sales numbers out of the water.

They’re like limiting how many they’re going to build. So it’ll be interesting to see because stakeholders and money talk more than say, tradition and say, limiting that. So, you know, they’re going to get on the board and say, wait a minute. I can get $8 million instead of $4 million if we just triple production.

Triple production money talks.

Crew Chief Eric: Now the 2 96, on the other hand, a lot of us were privy to it in race trim before seeing the actual street card. This year it’s showing at the Rolex 24 hours wasn’t as great as people expected. People were thinking that the 2, 9 6 was gonna come out of the box. [00:13:00] And be faster than the 488 GT3, which it really wasn’t.

Unlike the 499X, which just blew everybody away. The 296 was sort of like a want want, but they’ve been refining it throughout the year. I got the opportunity to see the street version at Car Week this year. And I tell you what, at first glance, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Because it shares some similar qualities to, let’s say, the NSX.

To the Ford GT, the one that just exited a couple of years ago, but then you look at it and you’re like, I can see the Dino. I can see the three Oh eight. I can see the heritage in it. It’s nice to not be that evolved three 60, four 30 look that’s been going on for quite a long time. I like how they kind of went backwards a little bit.

And I want to see more of those cars on the road. And I want to see it succeed in racing. And we’ll talk about that here in a second too. So I wanted to get your thoughts, your pulse on the market with respect to the two 96.

William Ross: I think it’s a gorgeous car. Of course, I mean, our entry level cars, 400, 000. I think it’s great.

You know, smaller, more nimble. That motor’s [00:14:00] phenomenal for what they’re getting out of it. No lag, no nut. And I, you know, I have yet to have the opportunity to drive one, but yeah, I think it’s an outstanding car. I mean, to hit it out of the park with it. They’re selling like crazy. And a lot of people thought, well, it’s the baby Ferrari or just, Hey, it’s like how the Dino was, was a real Ferrari, that kind of stuff.

But no, I think they did a phenomenal job with it, you know, because you race is on that rare occasion, they’re going to come out of the gate and that car is going to just nail it and be balls quick, but it takes a long time to develop a car and get it going where it needs to be.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, and not only that, the balance of performance, the way they figured that out, we were seeing just this huge discrepancy where it seemed almost unfair, like as an example, the iron dame’s Lamborghini Huracan couldn’t come out of the pocket or keep up with a 911.

I’m like, even in real life, the Lamborghini is quicker than the 911. What is going on? Like did they disconnect? Four of the cylinders didn’t make any sense. . So if they were carrying over BOP rules from last season onto a new car, or the BOP rules that [00:15:00] apply to the 4 88, to the 2 9 6, well, you went from AV eight to a twin turbo six, none of this stuff equates out.

So it’s been a rebuilding year for Ferrari. I just went to Petit Le Mans, I gotta say, I was happy to not see the 488 still out in the field because earlier this year, they were campaigning both cars at the same time. And you’re like, the 296 is losing to the 488. This is ridiculous. Overall, they actually did really well, surprisingly well in GTLM, whatever class you want to call it now, because they keep changing their mind.

It took third overall in the championship with Reesey competizione and fifth with AF Corsa. That’s not bad in the production based GT car classes. And even at petite, which this year was exciting. There was a lot of drama, breakdowns, wrecks within the last 10 minutes of the race, things like that. They placed sixth and ninth and I’m like.

That’s not terrible for a brand new car.

William Ross: That’s very respectable. Very respectable. The one big thing is we all know is they won a Le Mans overall. [00:16:00] So everything else subsequently that’s coming after that is, Hey, yeah, they’ll figure it out. What now? Hey, we still, we won Le Mans. So, I mean, I say they’re getting a pass.

That was very respectable showing on their part. It takes time, development dollars. Luckily, they have multiple teams running the cars. You have all that input going and it’ll get there. So it’s interesting to see Tom. Daytona in January, how it all plays out. They have all winter to work on it.

Crew Chief Eric: For sure.

And the classing between WEC and IMSA is getting tighter as well. So there’s going to be room for the 499 to participate in more of the IMSA series throughout next season. So I’m hoping to see the 499 at Rolex, not just Sebring, right? Where they chose to come out. After the first race and crush everybody and then disappear for the rest of the season, but also see them go to petite, maybe go to the Glen, maybe go to VIR, some of the bigger tracks and stretch the legs of the 499 here.

Stateside.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: And I know Audi had a propensity to do the same thing in the early days with the R8. They come here, [00:17:00] use petite as like a test race or they do something else. So they were preparing for Lamont, but it would have been nice to see the 499 at the season finale and just come out and add even more drama to that race.

But yeah. There’s next year too. So switching gears a little bit, I want to talk about something you and Mark have mentioned several times on previous, what should I buy episodes? And that’s six speed swapping some of the four series, like the four, five, eight, four thirties and so on Ferraris. And that’s becoming more popular.

And there’s some conversion kits out there. Is that right?

William Ross: Your main one to get it done. If you want it done correctly, cause they spent, I don’t know how many years it was reverse engineering, engineering. It is EAG down in Texas. You know, they sell the kit, but I mean, if you really want it done yet, you send it to your car there, but you know, it’s about a year, year and a half wait list, obviously they’ve made a lot more manuals in three 60, but like in a four 30, it was a lot less.

But that transmission that was in there, they just hooked up the hydraulic stuff to be able to do it. So it’s not that big of an ask [00:18:00] to revert it back to a manual.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s similar to the SMG BMWs.

William Ross: Correct. Exactly. That was good. Yeah. If I can bring it up because you’re seeing that. A bit more too now because cost savings and whatnot, you know, trying to find a factory manual E46 M3 wise, depending on mileage.

I mean, you could be mid thirties up to mid 60s, 70s, you know, depending on mileage and whatnot on it. But no, you look at a factory manual for 30 right now with decent, say low miles. You’re 300, 000, 350, 000. I was looking at one the other day and it was oddly enough, yellow, 50, 000 miles. F430 factory manual asking 250, 000, 50, 000 miles on it.

So, I mean, that tells you where they’re going value wise. Now you look at a 360 factory manual, you’re about 150 to 175. I mean, those are creeping up, but you got such a performance jump. Between the 360 to 430 hundred horsepower torque, everything. I mean, it’s just, it’s a big leap in, especially in going from belts to chains and [00:19:00] everything in the motor.

So your service thing’s a lot different and everything like that. Say you find a 430 with F1 training, 50, 000 miles, you might be at a hundred, 110 grand. So what you can do EAG cost you 40, 000, bam, for 150 grand, you got yourself a manual 430 that a factory one was going to cost you 200, 000 more. If you’re going into it to buy it as an investment, yeah, you want to buy the factory one because it’s just going to go up in value, but I haven’t driven a swap one yet.

But they say it’s actually almost better than the factory. It’s tighter. It’s just engineered better and how they did it. Because again, no, you’re taking technology that was done 2006, 2009. It did the last factory manual for 30. I think they only did four or three or something like that that year. But you have all that time to better componentry, better materials, everything that to engineer and get it in there.

So they say it actually, the feel and that’s a lot tighter and better. I would say investment wise, Hey, yeah, you’re going to buy a factory one, but if you want to drive your car, why not? It shouldn’t matter. And if it’s going to be the same, if not [00:20:00] better performance wise, get a swap one and do it. Because even though a swap, when you get out there, buy one high mileage, you get it done, you go out and buy when it’s already done, you know, Hey, you’re still one 60 to 200, obviously depending on mileage, colors, that kind of stuff, so you’re still way, way cheaper than buying a factory manual car.

Makes sense to me. It’s a car you want to drive and enjoy it. I’d love to be in the position where I got so much money, where, okay, I’m going to buy that car and let it sit in the corner because it’s just going to appreciate in value. I’ll drive it once a year, drive it two miles. I get something like that, I’m driving the thing.

What’s interesting is you don’t see it hardly, is with Lamborghini.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s true. Their e

William Ross: gear transmission is horrendous. But, you know, I’m amazed that you don’t really hear more about someone swapping Lamborghini ones, because it shouldn’t be too difficult. I mean, cause shit, you could probably just go buy a wrecked R8 tranny and dump it in there.

It shouldn’t be that difficult to engineer that to redo it. Cause it’s the same thing as a Ferrari. It’s a single clutch. They rigged it up to be able to use it. It wasn’t a full [00:21:00] blown double clutch, everything like that. But I think it’s going to be a lot more prevalent, especially in the Ferraris. They did the 360, then they went to the 430 because obviously those are the most, I guess, say abundant, but you’re starting to see the 612s.

The other one is the 599. They only built 20 factory manual 599s. And right now you’re probably getting close to probably easing 800 to a million dollars. I think the last one was earlier this year, one sold for 700 something at auction. Obviously they’re not out there. And again, it’s going to be a situation.

You spend that kind of money, you buy it, they ain’t going to drive it. They’re parked it in a corner. But hey, you do that swap through EAG, you got yourself a manual. You see quite a few of them out there and become more prevalent. You know, and I don’t know, people watching Hoobie’s Garage, like he just bought his, you know, hey, that thing’s fantastic.

And you’ve seen a few other ones. That car itself is gorgeous. You know, driving it’s phenomenal. You got your 550s. More factory manuals, but 575s again not top of my head, but there were very few 575 factory manuals built So they’re doing swaps because again, that’s a phenomenal car to drive for [00:22:00] an engine v12 great tour.

It’s a great great car It’s just baffling thinking about it that they started reducing the manuals and everyone’s oh, I want this I want you to let me pedal box, but now it wants the manual and I’m waiting for Ferrari to do a limited production of, say, 25 cars of actually building a factory manual, whatever.

Build a new car, put a six speed, seven speed in it, or whatever. I’m waiting for that day because that demand’s there and someone just will have to give them a blank check and then Ferrari will fill out the amount. Because I would think that the demand there is so high, the opportunity to make gobs of money is just too enticing.

Crew Chief Eric: Not to take us down another… Bucatini hole. But I wonder how many of these swaps are really challengers that have been wrecked after cars and coffee, right? How many of those Tremec six speeds bolt up to Ferraris, right? It’s all Stellantis now. It’s all one big happy family since 2013. So really curious how much of that’s going on without being said and things like that.

But we’ll put a pin in that and maybe talk about it another time. [00:23:00] So another section on the show, and we’ll give a little teaser here, is to Lost and Found. I recently came across something I think you would appreciate, William. I was at Petit Le Mans, and I almost missed the opportunity, because I had it on my list of things to grab before I left, and I stopped by a vintage book stand that was there, and of all things sitting on the shelf, a bargain find!

The biography of Enzo Ferrari. As written by Brock Yates. Oh, I bought that. And it was a whopping 10 bucks. 10 bucks? That’s it? That’s it. It was awesome. The deal. That’s a

William Ross: steal. Yeah, for 10, that’s big. I think that mine was 20 something. I bought that one, Brock. The first one I read. It was more of a love letter to Enzo, the person that wrote it, kind of glossing over his other stuff.

But the one from Brock is supposed to be just like, hey, he doesn’t hold back and he really tells it was

Crew Chief Eric: his style. Yep.

William Ross: I’m finishing up that other book, then I’m gonna start on that thing, because I’m excited to read it. Because Brock really, hey, he tells it like it is, it’s supposed to be really, really good.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, talking of other things that were recently found, what about [00:24:00] the original Abandoned? Testarossa factory that still remains in place. Complete time capsule.

William Ross: Watching that video. I don’t know if it’s an Italian thing or what. It must be a European thing because it’s like, they stop production and just, hey, they lock the door and just walk away.

Because you look at what’s in there. I mean, shit. I mean, it looks like, hey. 20, 30 million, you get that thing operating back as a top notch factor again, you would think some of these companies out there, especially the history behind what was built there, gorgeous building, great location. I mean, it wouldn’t take all that much to get it back up and going, but it’s just baffling.

That’s like, they basically end of the shift. Everyone walked out, they locked the door and said, see ya, didn’t come back.

Crew Chief Eric: And we talked about that a little bit on the what should I buy Italian cars episode, where it’s sort of like, well we built three of them, we’re good, we achieved what we needed to, and then we’ll move on to the next thing, right?

William Ross: You know, back in the early 1900s and whatnot, you know, hey man, they refurbished it, they used it, they kept those things for a hundred years, but to your point, hey, we’re going to spend a hundred million dollars. Hey, [00:25:00] we’ve built five, 10 cars. We’re good. Close the doors. We’ll go build another one down the road.

And it’s just, I’ve seen the amount of money spent on us. Build it, then leave it. It’s just baffling. You think someone would repurpose it for something automotive related, especially because Of who it was owned by, by Pininfarina. I mean, come on. And you’re seeing it too, like, with car dealerships are going the same route in regards to just going to build a new one and leaving the old one there.

Crew Chief Eric: And we’re going to talk about that in a little bit too. So, it’s kind of funny, we look back over time to talk about Ferrari. If you were a fan of HBO’s Entourage, almost as a joke, They foreshadowed the coming of the Enzo movie, since we’re talking about Enzo and his biography, we all kind of laughed it off.

Oh, you know, he’s doing his, you know, Aquaman thing and this and that. It’s really not about this Ferrari movie, but they kept talking about it. And here we are. Geez, on the precipice of maybe 20 years later, right? That entourage has been on the air. And they’re actually going to do it. Michael Mann is putting together the Ferrari movie and the official trailer is out, right?

Adam [00:26:00] Driver is going to play Enzo. We joked about that in the past too, sort of like, is he now the token old Italian guy after doing House of Gucci and all the rest of these movies? But watching that trailer, I’m kind of excited. I haven’t been to the movie theater in a while to go out. At Christmas and check it out.

William Ross: If they do an IMAX, that’d be awesome, just to hear those cars. Following it while they’re doing the filming of it, because like Patrick Dempsey did some driving. You know, they got Justin Bell. I’m trying to remember who else they got, but they got some decent guys to drive, you know, and they got their hands on some legit machinery.

Michael Mann’s a phenomenal director, you know, and they did it right. And they didn’t try and do it where it was like over a 20, 30 year span. It’s basically over a course of 1957 of the summer of 57, when like a lot of shit happened, you know, regarding deaths that one summer where it’s kind of just that main focus.

So it’s got that storyline to it. So you’re not trying to stretch 20 years into two hours, which is great.

Crew Chief Eric: Like they did with the Lamborghini movie, which was. Terrible.

William Ross: Oh god. Yeah, that was horrible. I don’t think [00:27:00] people realize it either because when you first think because adam driver’s a tall guy But I don’t think people realize enzo ferrari was six two

Crew Chief Eric: and for an italian.

He was a giant

William Ross: Yes, he was you think back then most of them were like five eight five nine eight, man He’s a giant but he was six two. He’s a big dude watching the preview and everything like that You know adam driver does a great job I don’t think Penelope Cruz was the best thing because Enzo’s wife was, I hate to say it, sorry, but she was not a looker.

That’s for sure. She was a bit loony. I think they did right with his mistress. So it is pretty interesting to see how the whole thing plays out, but the racing thing looks phenomenal. That would definitely be the one, hey, you go to the theater to watch it, and you’re definitely gonna be watching a bunch of times at home.

You know, it’s like Ford versus Ferrari. You know what it was going in, it’s not gonna be authentic like that, but a great movie, especially if you’re a car lover, you’ll watch it, hey, it’s on, you’re gonna put it on. It’s just one of those things, so I’m excited for it. I think it’s gonna be pretty good.

Crew Chief Eric: Another piece of news coming out of New York City, Ferrari took on [00:28:00] Manhattan with a gala to show off the brand. And I wondered to myself, Is that really necessary?

William Ross: Yeah, exactly. I mean, that was just basically like, Hey, yeah, we’re Ferrari. We’re going to spend all this money. And just that was not cheap.

Look who they brought. I mean, they had the drivers because it coincided with the Austin, you know, F1 race, you know, Adam drivers there. But I mean, earlier they took over and all the cars. There really was no reason for it. Other than just to say, Hey, look at us. Hey, we’re Ferrari. It’s taking things to a different level in regards to doing that stuff.

Look at Porsches. Porsche does the rent sport. Hey, everything’s on the track. You know, Ferrari does it and we’re going to do it in New York City, right? Downtown. We’re going to take over a whole block and by the museum, which is everything and just over the top.

Crew Chief Eric: And that’s why we call it rich people. Fangs.

So Tanya has [00:29:00] been waiting patiently in the background and I want to turn the microphone over to her and let you guys talk about one of her favorite disciplines of motor sport, Ferrari. Yes, Formula One.

Executive Producer Tania: Old news, like three races ago, Singapore. Finally, Ferrari gets a win, thanks to their number two driver, who really should probably at this point be their number one driver.

I

William Ross: agree. Charles Leclerc ain’t gonna, he’ll never win a championship. He’s a brat. He doesn’t have the mental toughness to do it. When he gets under stress, he crashes.

Executive Producer Tania: There seemed to be such promise, but Carlos… Started out slow, but he’s developed far further, I think, and he’s not given enough credit. Oh, I agree.

Especially his strategy on track, because it was a brilliant move at the end.

William Ross: Oh, gotcha. If you watch it, you know, and especially listen to the radio conversation, Carlos is very level headed.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes.

William Ross: He’s very calm in his approach in that, and his strategy, everything like that, where, you know, LeClair gets very flustered, can stare at the radio and stuff like that, but.[00:30:00]

Carlos is like his dad, very calculated, thinks through it and just really kind of just dissects it. He goes, okay, this is what we need to do instead of just making these quick judgments and, you know, going at it. So, I mean, I’m a huge fan of Carlos.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s funny you bring up his dad. You ever seen the video of the two of them on the test track in the Ferrari?

William Ross: Oh, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like watching a HPDE video. Like it’s the instructor’s board. The driver’s just doing this thing. Like you know, 150 mile an hour. Like it’s no big deal.

William Ross: Yeah. Like, Oh, look at that. Oh yeah. Hey, did you find out what, yeah. Oh God. That was hilarious. Two peas in a pod. Definitely.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, we haven’t talked much about Ferrari and Formula One because it’s been overshadowed by Max Verstappen’s 48 second leads at every race.

It feels like the 1960s all over again when Jack Brabham would win the race by a minute and a half. You’re like, how?

William Ross: That’s been changing. Here’s the argument though. I mean, everyone’s kind of bitching about it, but look. Lewis Hamilton was doing it for eight seasons, and yeah, there was some tight stuff with Nico, and hey, you know, Bodas, you know, [00:31:00] give him a little run for his money, but look, he was there.

He had Schumacher era. I mean, he was blowing people away for all those straight seasons. You know, so it’s just how it goes because, you know, the way the rules are, someone’s gonna nail it. But everyone else can be kind of close and you got your also right. You know, that’s what was cool about some of those series, you know, they used to do back in the day, like doing, you know, IRA.

You know, I had the M1s and doing those, putting everyone in the same type of car. Let’s see who’s the best driver because everyone’s got the same car. That proves it right there. It’s awesome to see McLaren getting back going like they are. I’m a big fan of Lando Norris. He’s a very personal person. If you ever watch his stuff off the track, you know, it just seems very real.

Doesn’t go to his head in regards to the stuff, but it’s great to see that, you know, and it just after you’re watching Austin couple more laps, Lewis would have caught for stopping him more. I don’t know if he would have passed them, but you know, he was getting pretty close to catch them eventually to see this weekend in Mexico.

Cause with the elevation and that stuff, things kind of have a tendency to level out a little bit. As I’m sure you guys are, and everyone here that’s an F1[00:32:00]

fan of the spectacle.

Executive Producer Tania: Eric’s not interested. It’s his least favorite form of motorsport.

Crew Chief Eric: WRC. Yeah, I know. WRC, okay. There’s no Ferraris! In world rally, although there have been some entered in the past, like off road three Oh eights and stuff. Don’t make any sense to me, but you know, Hey, whatever, not since the days of the launch of Stratos, but they weren’t all one big happy family back then either,

William Ross: but the question is, thoughts on the Vegas F1 race, the amount of money they’re pouring into it, whatnot, I mean, it’s.

The race isn’t till it wasn’t 1 a. m.

Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Super late because of the European audiences and everything else. And, you know, trying to get it televised correctly, but I think the track layout’s boring. It’s going to be like any other street race, whether it’s St. Petersburg or long beach or any of those where it’s like, go down, turn around, make a left, come back the other way, the way you came.

I mean, you can only do so much with. city square blocks. There are some good street races from back in the day that [00:33:00] just don’t exist anymore either. I would like to see Ferrari and Formula One return to places like Watkins Glen, which used to be the American Grand Prix for many, many years, or maybe back to most sport in Canada that remote Trump Blanc, you know, some of the other tracks that exist in North America that.

Have had F1 in the past, but Vegas, you know, it’s the first time since like Andretti was still running in formula one. So we’re talking like the early eighties that there was a race in Vegas. So it’s been dark for about 40 years. So it’s cool that it’s going back, but time will tell and it’s next month.

So let’s, let’s wait and see.

William Ross: Caesar’s palace parking lot.

Crew Chief Eric: I heard they turned the McCarran airport rental car area into the paddock. That’s where they’re doing all the like pit boxes and everything.

William Ross: Some of it’s permanent, but a lot of that is just temporary, just baffling. Cause F1 itself is putting it on as the promoter, not some outside entry with that, and I think they’re saying they poured like 500 million because of everything they had to do.

[00:34:00] And question B is, you know, they’re repaving all this part for the track. I mean, is that, how long is that going to hold up in that heat and all the traffic getting driven on a regular basis every year, they’re going to have to come in and spend. 40 million on fixing it.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, there’s been a plan to close the strip to traffic, to make it pedestrian only.

So maybe this is a way of using the formula one race as a catalyst to get to that end goal that they wanted anyway, which was to only have foot traffic on the famous Las Vegas strip.

William Ross: Gives those drunkards a little more space to kind of just stumble around.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, going back to talking about Ferrari and Formula One, I thought it was interesting that they made a change to their floor design at the Japanese Grand Prix.

Not

Executive Producer Tania: that interesting. All the teams have been making changes every race. But what

Crew Chief Eric: I’m asking is, did it help them? And I guess not, because they’ve only had one win so far, right?

William Ross: No, it didn’t do much. I mean, she was asked if Martin did it, and Alonzo reverted back to the old one. You know, because it didn’t do shit.

It actually seemed like it was worse. But, you know, everyone seems to be [00:35:00] making those changes. Haas made massive changes to everything on their car and didn’t do crap. They thought maybe they’re going to step up. And again, though, I mean, you’re talking tenths of a second. You’re not gaining a second, two seconds or anything.

You’re talking all this development to try to gain a tenth, two tenths. So minute. In regards to what you’re getting pace wise to someone from the outside, you try to explain that just doesn’t make sense, but man, it just, it’s unbelievable. The amount of development and time and money, especially now it’s cost cap and going in there, you have to be so methodical and so like who’s making that decision, where are we exactly going to try and make an improvement because we’re limited by what we can spend.

So say it’s a make or break situation, you know, back in the day when they’re spending four or 500 million, it didn’t matter. Hey, you do that. We’ll try it or whatever, just throw everything at the wall. It’s like, cross your fingers, hope it’ll work, and, you know, I know, hey, you have all these simulators, you have all the computer, all that kind of stuff, to kind of simulate what’s going on, but until you put it on the car, and go on that track, you don’t know.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, [00:36:00] what we do know was foretold to us by a guest of Break Fix, our 200th episode, so if you haven’t tuned in, you need to go back. William was my co host when we had the one and only, the legendary Mario Andretti on the show, and he said, very matter of factly, That the name Andretti would be returning to Formula One.

And so it has been written. And so it has come true. In the news!

Executive Producer Tania: It’s still not 100 percent confirmed. Just because they’ve gotten approval as an entry, it still doesn’t mean they actually can get on the grid.

Crew Chief Eric: But they’re that much closer.

William Ross: Yeah, they still got to go through the teams. But, you know, my thought, and I don’t think they want to go that route.

But if it comes down to it, he takes him to court, he’ll win. I mean, everything’s written in contracts. Everything’s agreed upon legally. They met the criteria, you know, and it kills me, it makes me laugh, it’s okay, their delusion fee, everything was, alright, the 200 million, he had it. Then they all said, no, I think we’ll make it 600.

Well, wait a minute, it’s written here amongst all your contracts, amongst all of you that you agreed [00:37:00] upon, that they did this, they paid that, they’re in. So now why can’t you change it? And I know there’s a big thing this past weekend in Austin in regards to Hey, it’s personal. The talk was F1 actually went to Cadillac and said, you sure you don’t want to go with someone else besides Andretti?

Basically saying, hey, if you went with someone else besides Andretti, we’ll let you in. No questions asked. And Michael trying to actually ambush Stefano Domenicali. Because to my colleagues, ghosting them, hunting them down in Austin to confront them. Hey, what’s going on? It’s just sad because you ask anyone, 99 percent of the people say, yes, we want him in there.

It would be fabulous to have that name back in. He’s already said he wants Colton Hurd as his driver, which would be phenomenal. You know, having an American here, awesome. If he got a second American driver, it’d be great, but you can’t do that. You’re going to have to have a European guy in there because someone’s going to have to bring some cash to the table.

Being so difficult. I just don’t get it. I mean, I know it basically boils down to money. There’s more to it. And I think that is not being [00:38:00] said in regards to trying to create such a road block for them to get on the grid. He already bought a facility to start building the car. He’s moving forward and spending the money.

Come hell or high water. We’re going to be on that grid. If it’s not 2025, it will be 2026. Ideally, you want them on in 2025 to work out all the bugs, get the team together, and everyone be able to sort things out and how everything works and logistics, all that crap. So that way, 2026, with the new regs, everything like that, you hit the ground running.

They’d have to decide on it by, it’s got to be by February or March

Executive Producer Tania: of next year, it’d have to be like either in or out, right? They’re trying to get on the grid by 25. It definitely has to happen at some point next year, early next year, I would assume. I haven’t seen a

William Ross: date. Yeah, I would think that it’s got to be done beginning of next year to be able to green light this so they can get everything put together and get stuff going.

It’ll be interesting to see, but yeah, they need to be just awesome. One. The Andretti name, but to see a Mario strutting [00:39:00] on the, you know, he’ll have a big role in it. Just having them back on there just would do wonders. Also for the American audience, it would bring back a lot of the ones that they seem to be losing just because of what’s going on for stopping.

I think that would just also not only bring those people back. But bring back more, just build that momentum back up and justify having these three races in the United States.

Crew Chief Eric: Like we mentioned before, you can’t really talk about Ferrari without talking about Formula One and vice versa. So we sort of doubled down on this showcase and we have one last bit of Formula One news to cover.

What’s up with this disqualification, which includes Ferrari’s number one man?

William Ross: These wood planks from 1952, whatever they have on these cars. You know, everyone says, Oh, it’s a good barometer or whatnot to kind of keep an eye and be sure everyone’s legit. But I’m like, come on, you got wood planks on these cars underneath it.

If they would have pulled all the cars, probably disqualified almost all of them, probably 18 out of the 20, just because the [00:40:00] strategy. You know, anyone that was, did a long first stint was going to be disqualified just because the weight of the car, full tanks, everything, it just happened to be those four and look, the two got yanked, but those two were out of strategy.

They did a long first stint. The other two people didn’t, there would have been a lot of people getting disqualified. And that’s it to me is just a little weird as they still have that on the cars as a technical aspect of it. To monitor the stuff. It’s kind of weird.

Crew Chief Eric: So Tanya, what is William talking about here?

These things pirate ships

Executive Producer Tania: They walk the plank underneath the cars

Crew Chief Eric: Well, there’s more home depot stuff, right? Well, since we combined our ferrari and motorsports news I want to remind everybody that our motorsports news is brought to us in partnership by the international motor racing research center I just want to let you know that you are still able to enter the sweepstakes for the 2024 corvette e ray that they’re giving away And you can sign up for that through April of 2024.

There’s only two more events left on [00:41:00] the IMRRC schedule. Both of them coincide with each other. On November the 2nd, they’re doing the International Real Wheel Fim Festival, celebrating historical racing at 5 p. m. at the Downtown Watkins Glen Movie Theater. They’re going to be showing four or five different films from 5 to 8 p.

m., which will ring in the beginning of the Seventh annual Argettsinger symposium of motor sports history and racing. And that’ll be held at Watkins Glen international on November the third, which is a Friday and then November the fourth, the Saturdays. I have the schedule in front of me. We’re looking at 18 different presenters over those two days, and you’ll be able to.

Catch all of that via our live stream on Twitch, and that’ll be available at twitch. tv forward slash grand touring motor sports, and we’ll be running that all day and there’ll be other great IMRC things going on throughout those three days. So if you can’t make it in person, you can catch it all on the live stream.

So tune in for that. It’s time we switch and talk about Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche news. I saw an e tron GT the other day on the road. Even my wife commented [00:42:00] and said, wow, that’s a really, really good looking car. And I said, yeah, you know, I’m not a huge fan yet of some of these EVs cause they look like spaceship and the Taycan.

Is it Taycan or Taycan? Depends on the day of the week, right? Porsche, Porsche. Exactly tomato, tomato, but I do respect the take in. And I understand that the e tron GT is similar underneath, you know, they share the A8 and some of the other cars in the VAG family and whatnot, but then only maybe because big brother is always listening to our conversations.

Do I get this article that slides across my desk and says prices of EVs are falling across the board, but. Audi has dropped a record setting 50, 000 off the price of which car? The e tron GT. And that made me give it not a second look, but a third.

William Ross: Oh God, it’s a gorgeous car. Even in the comparisons and whatnot, everyone’s like, if you have your Drellas, why would you spend the extra money on the Porsche?

Get the Audi. It’s just aesthetic. It’s nicer. It’s just everything about [00:43:00] it. The Porsche’s driving dynamics are a little bit above it. For what you’re going to do 99. the time in that car, The audience is better by and then doing that just makes it that much more attractive. The only problem is it’s still an electric car.

Crew Chief Eric: My only counter argument to the e tron GT is the RS6 Avant because I am a long roof guy. I love station wagons. Love

William Ross: that car.

Crew Chief Eric: The RS6 is aggressive. It’s beautiful. It is still gas. But there’s just something about that card, that it’s a hard decision between the two. Tanya, if you had to make the decision, what would it be?

Executive Producer Tania: How much is our six?

Crew Chief Eric: Let’s take the money off the table. We’re talking with big money Ross, come on. Money is no question now.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, but you’re talking to not big money Tanya.

Crew Chief Eric: Just aesthetically.

Executive Producer Tania: I guess the e tron maybe.

Crew Chief Eric: You like that low slung roof, almost two door look to it, right? Reminiscent of the old Audis. Yeah. I like that.

Executive Producer Tania: Got some haunches

William Ross: on it. RS6 all day long. That [00:44:00] thing is just gorgeous. If I could talk my wife into driving a wagon as a daily, I’d have one of those in the garage for her at Sliver Benz.

I just think that thing’s, it’s just absolutely stunning. Obviously I think that RS6 is going to hold his value a lot better than the e tron. You start going down that rabbit hole, regardless of the battery replacement, all that kind of crap. And the other thing that scares me about those, especially getting that is man, just the electronics, everything on that car, I mean.

Even on an RS6, but it’s not to that extent what those pure electric cars are, but man, it’s unknown territory what happens in 10 years with that car.

Crew Chief Eric: And not only that, looking at it from your perspective, the production numbers on the e tron GT are going to be higher than the station wagon and traditionally the Avant models in the Audi lineup, they are usually limited runs.

So there’s going to be more scarcity, especially in an RS6. Avant, then there will be in the e tron GT, which is going to raise its value over the longterm. So it’d be interesting to see how that plays out.

William Ross: You look, the ones that are a couple of years old that have, you know, 10, 000 miles on there’s still basically almost at sticker is what people are [00:45:00] getting them for.

It’s just holding its value all day long. I’m just. Yeah, I’m a big wagon fan myself, too. That’s why I’m curious to see what happens here. Supposedly, they haven’t announced that they are going to bring it, but they’re bringing, you know, the M5 wagon. Of course, it’s going to be, obviously, hybrid, gas, and electric combined.

But supposedly, they’re going to bring it to the states, but we shall see.

Crew Chief Eric: Uh huh, I’ve heard that fairy tale before.

William Ross: Exactly. 35.

Crew Chief Eric: Three drive thrus ago, which was our Le Mans showcase episode, where we talked about the big automotive manufacturers switching over their connection ports on their EVs to be compatible with Tesla. And there’s been an update in this and where are we at Tanya? Who has adopted the technology, and who hasn’t?

Executive Producer Tania: Apparently only two people have yet to join the NACs, which I think that’s what Tesla is considered North American charging standard, and that is Volkswagen and Stellantis. Stellantis.[00:46:00]

Crew Chief Eric: I wonder what’s going on there, right? I’ve always suspected, and I’ve heard rumors, that Tesla was never really interested in making cars, although They’ve been making cars for a while now. It’s always been about the battery technology and the charging network and the charging technology and this and that Apple versus Android.

Here we go. Now everybody’s switching over to Tesla network because why is it more prolific than electrify America? Is it more available? How is this going to work? Am I going to be able to sign up for the Tesla network without? Being a Tesla owner?

William Ross: From my understanding too, manufacturing cars was just a vehicle for them for the battery technology to take that down a different path and really sell the battery technology and do that and make money.

So they had to build the cars, but I don’t want to say they were forced to, but they basically had to do the cars to prove out the battery technologies to do it. Look at the value of something. Where would you rather be as when you have all these charges, you can make money off of every manufactured car as compared to just the built, do the [00:47:00] numbers.

Hey, there you go. How long has the Model S been out? 10 years now? 12 years? Barely has changed. They haven’t really done much. Yeah, now they’re going to come out with a Cybertruck like that. But yeah, it’s great to see that Ford wised up in regards to joining forces. Obviously, everyone saw Farley’s little journey he had with the F 150 Lightning.

How eye opening that was for him. And Secretary of Energy, well, she did it too. And blocking fast charging stuff with the gas cars because she could charge in the… People are calling the cops, saying, Hey, you can’t block this. And blah, blah, blah. It’s just really brought to the forefront in regards to how far behind all these be able to have a network to be able to charge a card and Tesla nailed it right out of the gate.

Normally in these situations, these companies come out and they copy the best. It doesn’t seem like they did because Electrify America and all that, they all suck. Their things always break. They’re fast chargers never work. I mean, you see it, you know, you go on YouTube, you read about it, you know, people do it as none of this stuff works.

It can’t get it. Or you’re sitting there because there’s six [00:48:00] chargers to work and there’s 10 cars waiting. It’s not like a gas pump where every five minutes someone else can pull up, you know, you’re talking. An hour, hour and a half, you know, these people sitting there and it’s so far off why Volkswagen and Stellantis wouldn’t want to jump on board.

I mean, if you look at it on paper, it makes sense to do it. Just make one unified charging adapter. Every single gas pump in the United States has it. Same nozzle, everything. We got the diesel, it’s a little bigger, so it doesn’t go in the gas one. Everyone’s got the same size gas pump. Why wouldn’t you have the same size charging port?

So to piggyback off that

Executive Producer Tania: announced earlier today, actually, is that Tesla and BP are kind of joining forces in a way Tesla selling their charging technology, whatever, to BP, they bought it for like over 100 million. So basically BP It’s going to have branded charging stations. They’ll have their name on the outside of it.

And underneath the plastic covering is going to be a Tesla charging station. So they’re going to be able to [00:49:00] distribute more across their network. Think of all like the BP stations or Amoco stations or whatever else that they have. So this is. Something new in a sense, meaning like even more of these Tesla chargers are going to get out there in the world.

Cause BP is going to have the ability to push them more than some of the other deals Tesla’s already made that they’ve, I think sold their technology to smaller people who just haven’t been able to really stretch that infrastructure out.

Crew Chief Eric: What’s interesting about that model though, is new to maybe the automotive world, but not new to the software and it world that’s known as white boxing or white labeling, where you sell them the ready to go turnkey same solution that your brand has, and they slap their logo on it and they call it their own.

So that’s been going on in the computer world for a long time. And we’ve said before, and Tesla has openly admitted sometimes that they’ve modeled themselves after it companies and software factories and things like that. So. They’re just employing principles that come from that industry, rather than the traditional ones of the automotive and petroleum industry, which is kind of interesting.

William Ross: You’ve [00:50:00] seen them over in Europe. I think they’ve done one or two shell or something that, you know, they’ve opened up a true 100 percent EV station. Looks like a traditional gas station. You got your charge, whatnot, and you got your store. Curious to see how they go about doing those. I don’t know if any of you ever been to a Bucky’s.

I was at my first one when it went down to Tennessee. 264 gas pumps and 90, 95 percent of them, they had a car at it, you know, they had a massive store and you went in there and the parking lot was full people just going in there to shop and whatnot. Cause that’s basically what you’re going to have to have to be able to service when you have this many electric vehicles, because they’re going to be sitting there so long.

You’re going to have to have charging station, whatever, in the hundreds. And then you’re going to have to have something for people to do while they’re sitting there for an hour, hour and a half. The restaurant, shopping, whatever, putt putt, I don’t know.

Executive Producer Tania: The American tradition. And just like Bucky’s, you need to be able to advertise [00:51:00] that you have the cleanest bathrooms at any gas stations.

Exactly. You

William Ross: got to have that. It’s the American way. It’ll be interesting to see how that comes about too. Do you keep it and make these things like a traditional gas station, or do you take it a completely different route in regards to how it’s presented and marketed and branded out there to the consumer?

Crew Chief Eric: We have to switch to Lower Saxony and talk about our friends at BMW and Mercedes. I have to tip my hat to one of our dearly departed. One of our writers that’s no longer with us. He wrote a piece a couple of years ago called The Demise of the M Badge. And everybody looked at him and said, What are you, an old man screaming at the clouds?

What are you talking about, the proliferation of the M Badge? And the watering down and the badge engineering. I mean, he would get on his soap box and talk about this. BMW is at it again, making all the right moves because they put an end badge on anything. And there’s probably an I3M out there if you paid for the extra sticker to be put on the car.

[00:52:00] But now what they’re saying is if you want a true. M package, you got to get the competition badge again. It’s just more watered down badge engineering. Yay. BMW. Everything’s going to be an M or a competition at the end of the day.

William Ross: Yeah. I was having this conversation with someone a few weeks back. About that.

They made the comment. Oh, it’s an M card. It’s that I said, I’m sorry to burst your bubble Yeah, no, it’s just a package you can buy and they’ll slap that M sticker on there for 2, 800 as part of this package

Crew Chief Eric: There’s a huge difference between the M 240i And the M2, so I’m just going to leave that in right there, but much to your point, William.

Another thing that came across my desk and I thought was really interesting. I’ve made the joke in the past that no one aspires to own a rental car. Well, guess what? There’s a few Mercedes dealerships out there saying that owners. Are not interested and do not aspire to own [00:53:00] the EQS that traditional Mercedes luxury car owner is not interested in the all electric Mercedes.

Executive Producer Tania: They are saying that nobody wants the EQS, but they’re not saying that nobody doesn’t want an electric Mercedes. The EQS is $130,000 electric sedan, but I think people are buying the half that price, $60,000 EQB, which is an SUV.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s a fair point because SUVs do sell better than sedans. Now, I rode in the eq.

E

Executive Producer Tania: is the crossover, right?

Crew Chief Eric: The EQE, basically the electric A class. And I wrote in that in Denmark and I’ve said it before, if you had blindfolded me and threw me in the trunk, because Mercedes are so smooth and so quiet, even the gas powered ones, if they’re not an AMG, I couldn’t tell you the difference. I would say some of the interior componentry was a little maybe cheaper, but I don’t know.

What it’s like in a standard a class to compare it to, to say maybe they’re just on par and the only difference is the drive train in terms of [00:54:00] looks, the car was really good looking, all those kinds of things. I’m not a fan of the styling of the EQS. So maybe that’s a drawback, especially in my demographic or in William’s demographic, kind of looking at thing going, it doesn’t look like the S class.

It doesn’t have that level of sophistication and you put it next to a Lexus or an Acura or one of the big BMWs. You’re sort of like, it doesn’t really do it for me. To your point, Tanya, the trend has moved to SUVs, so maybe Mercedes is wasting their time building the EQS and they should devote more time to making the EQB better.

William Ross: According to Mercedes though, I had bought an EQS. I did a test drive, God, it was in the summer or whatnot. Do they have that thing you show up? Four weeks ago, I get a phone call and I didn’t answer cause I didn’t recognize the number. It says, Oh, Mr. Ross. Hey, I just congratulate you on your new purchase of your EQS and, you know, want you to download the app, your concierge, you know, this So I just like, whatever.

And then they call back again, like, I did not buy an EQS and they’re like, Oh, well, they must’ve just marked it down wrong on the computer. I’m like, I sure as [00:55:00] hope that’s the issue. Cause I don’t want someone else out there to use my name. I went and bought 140, 000 car. Geez. Are you trying to skew your sales numbers this way?

Trying to say, Oh, wait, we sold him a car.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, now we’ve got to switch gears and talk about. Stellantis. A little bit more. The rest of the Stellantis family, not Ferrari. And there’s been some news in the Jeep camp, a little bit of rattling of coffee mugs and whatnot out there in the great outdoors.

They’re also following the Volkswagen trend and dropping the prices of their vehicles, but not necessarily the ones that everybody’s clamoring after. They made an announcement that they’re dropping the price of the Gladiator to the tune of 20, 000. But on the same hand, the Jeep Wrangler is coming in at 59, 995 as the base MSRP, which is pricing out the people that would generally go buy a new Wrangler.

So there’s this weird imbalance in the Jeep world right now. And it’s like, what are they doing?

William Ross: You know, that used to [00:56:00] be, you know, 20, 25 grand, you got a decent Jeep, but Hey, built like a brick, you know, what beat the heck out. But now it’s obscene, but I didn’t do anything gearing it and selling it to their consumer.

Like it’s like, how many people can afford a 70, 000 Jeep. It’s just crazy. And then. Is it really a Jeep then? These people aren’t going off road. These people aren’t doing what that car is supposed to be meant to do. And now it’s biting them in the ass. Cause now they got to start discounting stuff to move them off the lot.

It’ll interestingly see. Cause when they do that, the next step is in, Hey, 0 percent financing. Hey, all this stuff. And

Crew Chief Eric: I understand, you know, inflation has jumped things dramatically, especially from COVID and whatnot, but you rewind the clock 10 years and 70, 000. In the Jeep catalog, got you a grand Cherokee.

William Ross: Yep,

Crew Chief Eric: loaded. Yes, exactly. Now you can barely get into a Wrangler, let alone some of the Wrangler packages that they’re out there. And so I’m kind of looking at this going, is this Stellantis, Fiat, Chrysler trying to [00:57:00] upmarket the Jeep to say, we want to come off as big and badder and more luxurious than Ford because of the Bronco?

Because the way I look at it from a sales perspective is lower the price of the Wrangler. So you stop. People from buying Broncos. Yeah. The Wrangler is already good. It’s been proven it’s gotten better. Fiat did a great job of making those Wranglers a better place to be in, especially from an interior perspective.

I mean, across the board, they made stuff better. If you’re worried about Ford, raising the price is not the answer.

William Ross: No, no, it isn’t. They’re losing their focus in regards to who that vehicle’s built for. When you go after. They’re more focusing on, okay, we’re competing against Ford instead of, okay, we’re selling and building a car for this person.

They’re not doing it for the customer, they’re doing it to compete. And it’s like, you’re losing your focus in regards to what these things are for and who your target is.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we’re going to continue our conversation about domestic vehicles sponsored by AmericanMuscle. com, your source for OEM performance and replacement parts for your Mopar, Chevy, or Ford [00:58:00] vehicle.

SEMA is happening right now through November. There’s a lot of stuff going on. Brad, Tanya, and I joked about the possibility with respect to, you know, color changing cars and what if they did this and what if they did that? And then comes along, that’ll be the part of another Florida Man story here in the future.

Executive Producer Tania: A digitized license plate?

Crew Chief Eric: Okay, I’m going to ask you very matter of factly, why?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, why? That’s, I mean, why? And that’s asked, why would you want one? I’ve been trying to find the answer to that in the article, and I don’t see a good answer. The biggest reason is most likely aesthetics. Really? Why do I care?

But also, am I really willing to pay like 700 for this plate plus a yearly subscription fee to have it? My metal plate’s not costing me anything.

William Ross: What happens when that digital plate shorts out and a [00:59:00] couple of digits are missing and you get pulled over?

Crew Chief Eric: You get a waiver for that, right? And you got to take it to an electrical engineer.

Executive Producer Tania: Can someone hack into it? Like, how is that working? Is it like Bluetooth, Wi Fi? Although, the benefit of that would be like, your car gets stolen and you change it to say, Stolen! Until somebody rips the tag off, but you know. Help me!

Crew Chief Eric: Anybody remember the transporter movie? The first one, he goes into the locker and he’s got this revolving thing, metal license plates.

What did it take? Two screws. Change the license plate. Good to go.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, I know. I know. I know you can rip it off with your hand,

Crew Chief Eric: but here’s the thing from an aesthetics perspective, this falls right in line with the completely LED. Programmable dashboards, like we’ve seen in the Mustang, like we’ve seen in the Volkswagens and some of the other cars where they’re like, you want it to look like a 1938 Beetle?

You can have the stereo look like that, or you can have the dash look like that.

Executive Producer Tania: But if it’s e ink screen, isn’t it just going to look like a Kindle?

Crew Chief Eric: But for the pictures, [01:00:00] it looked like it was actually color.

Executive Producer Tania: It was black and white in the picture. It’s

Crew Chief Eric: a Texas mode. But think about this. You could use this digital plate to bring back retro plates that don’t exist anymore, like the old Maryland plate or the old Delaware plates or the old California plates or even some of the specialty plates.

Granted, if you’re going to be able to change it like a watch face, you know, from your Apple iPhone.

Executive Producer Tania: They’re not going to do that, or how can they do that, right? Is that still going to be subscription based? Because the whole point of those specialty tags was, allegedly, the funds that you’re paying a year.

Because if you get those tags today as a metal plate, you have to pay for them yearly. But that money is supposed to, I don’t know what proportion of it, is supposed to go to whatever the fund is. So like, save the bay plates. Your money is going to go. To save the bay, allegedly agriculture tags. Those are, I think, supposed to go to whatever agriculture industry is taking those funds.

I don’t know. So how do you do that? If you’re able [01:01:00] to switch your, it makes, it almost makes that obsolete.

Crew Chief Eric: It does, but also super easy for you to change the style of your plate.

Executive Producer Tania: Because this is what we need. We need some twit. In their basement to make a dick butt license plate and then have that.

Crew Chief Eric: But we know a few people that would actually put those on their car.

So there’s an ask for every seat. Daddy,

Executive Producer Tania: what’s that?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. It ends poorly for everybody. There’s another piece of American muscle here that we have to talk about. And I felt that this was so appropriate from a previous, what should I buy episode that William was on as a former Fiero owner. What do you think of this Tesla swapped Fiera that came up for sale?

William Ross: Awesome. I mean, I’d be more for the V8 one that was just on bring a trailer. I saw and whatnot. Why not? Of course, putting all that weight in that little car. I mean, hey, you can battery swap whatever, but I mean, just make it that much more fun to be. Anyone knows doesn’t research. [01:02:00] As they were refining that car when the last iteration that car, you know, obviously didn’t have all this horsepower, but they got the chassis down everything.

It was a great little car. They were ready to take that next step, but then they just axed it would have been awesome to see. Where that could have went in the second generation and what they could have done with it. They were onto something with that car.

Crew Chief Eric: The two Fieros that we have up for sale, the yellow V8 and then the red EV.

You know, you made mention of the weight that gets added with the EVs. And if I learned anything from watching Downey’s Dream Cars, the work that like Rich Benoit and those guys at Electrified Garage are doing, even EV West that’s been doing the Porsches and the Volkswagen’s forever is the upside to the electric conversion.

Is they can corner balance the car and hide the batteries in different places and weight shift. When you jam an LS2 in the back of a Fiero, you got a big honking piece of metal back there that you’re not able to distribute the weight. It’s [01:03:00] still in the same place. Granted, the Fiero is mid engine. It’s a lot in one spot versus the EV where.

Yes, it’s heavy, but you could disperse the weight and make that thing really a little go kart at the end of the day.

William Ross: Definitely. You know, that’s, I guess to say, a nice engineering beauty of battery is like motor wise, too. I mean, they’re small, whatnot. I mean, you can put it, it’s in the wheel, axle, whatnot, you know, and to your point, you know, you’re balancing out the weight to make everything, it’s your, like, little go kart.

You know, let’s face it, you have that car is electric, you know, you don’t need batteries where you want to think they have a 400 mile range that car, you can get a hundred miles. Hey, you’re happy now making road trips in that car. You’re just going out for some fun for a few hours here and there and come back home or go into a car show with it.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re going to the Fiero club meeting to get made fun of. Cause you have exactly, you know,

William Ross: we’re in all your Fiero gear. We’re in that Chrome jackets. Let’s be a row on the side of the arm. So you don’t have to worry about having range anxiety. So, I mean, you don’t have to load that thing down with a ton of battery.

But that LS in there though, yeah, there’s no way around it. You got 600 [01:04:00] pounds, whatever it is, big hunk of metal sitting right behind you. It’s mid engine, but still it’s a lot of extra weight that you’re putting in that car compared to what that four banger was in there, or even the six cylinder that was in there.

Crew Chief Eric: So this next one had me scratching my head going, okay, it’s still a thing. So apparently Chevy. Is still selling the tracks, which has to use your words, William, a provenance of the geo tracker and some other just, oh, amazing vehicles with it, which just awesome pedigree at all the geo

William Ross: tracker convertibles.

That’s the car for the Florida hairstylist.

Crew Chief Eric: A hundred percent right. To compete with the Suzuki Samurai and the Azusi Rodeo and the ViaCross and all those, but they’re still selling the tracks and I look at it. And. And maybe I don’t recognize them on the road because they’re hard to distinguish from some of the other CUVs that are out.

It looks a lot like the new Blazer, but I thought the article title was funny because you don’t have to dig too deep. And it’s like the Chevy tracks outsold every Cadillac [01:05:00] combined in Q3. And I’m like, what? I mean, this is automotive journalism at its finest. So that’s all you really need to know. The Chevy Trax is still for sale and it’s outselling Cadillacs.

Executive Producer Tania: Pretty sure I had one as a rental once several years ago. How

Crew Chief Eric: terrible was it?

Executive Producer Tania: You know, it got me to point A to point B.

William Ross: That’s it right there because it’s at a price point, the person that A, they’re not making a lot of money, but they own an SUV, four wheel drive, you know, America is all about the SUV and no one wants to feel left out.

So, hey, how can I be part of the party? Hey, I can go buy a Chevy Trax for 25 grand and I’m in the party. It was a ski

Executive Producer Tania: trip. It fit my skis in the back. So there you go.

Crew Chief Eric: Last month, Danny Pilling was on from Danny P on cars, and we featured British cars. And then we, you know, talked about a lot of different things.

And we landed upon this topic about Honda and Acura jailbreaking the new Integra and how they could unlock all this power and unleash the beast and how it was [01:06:00] going to be quicker than the type are and all these kinds of things. And I’m like, okay, great. But this, this next car, I saw this and I said, Tanya, this is all you

Executive Producer Tania: so that jail broke this 1.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Okay. I’m on board

Crew Chief Eric: our fans. They’re anxious to know because this car is right up your alley.

Executive Producer Tania: Apparently it’s a GR yaris that has been jail broke. It’s a 740 horsepower

Crew Chief Eric: three cylinder, three cylinder,

Executive Producer Tania: three cylinder. Wow,

Crew Chief Eric: exactly. Wow. That’s what I said when I read that I was like, that is unbelievable.

Three cylinder turbo and the stock bottom end,

Executive Producer Tania: bigger turbo cams and a sequential gearbox,

Crew Chief Eric: dude. That thing is a rocket ship. They’re quick to begin with.

William Ross: That’d be what? 10, 15 minutes fun until the thing blows up. But I mean, Hey, you had a good time for 10, 15 minutes.

Crew Chief Eric: Sometimes it’s all you need.

William Ross: I’m sticking with that’s what I always say. You don’t need any more than that.

Crew Chief Eric: 10 [01:07:00] 740 horsepower in a motor that small. That’s impressive.

William Ross: Yes, it is.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s super car power per volume. If you think about it, like that’s up there.

William Ross: To your point, even standard, how that thing is, that’s an awesome little car. It sucks they didn’t bring the two door and everything they have over in Europe over here.

It’s gotta be the four door, but hey, it’s still a lot of fun.

Crew Chief Eric: And like we’ve said before, Toyota is hot right now. Like if you’re gonna pick a Japanese brand, definitely look at Toyota and run her up to that as Hyundai with the N Series, because they’re doing all sorts of cool stuff with the N Line, even though the Veloster is gone.

I mean, you can get an N. Nero now and the, and the Elantra and they’re like bargains and they’re fast. And they’re a lot of fun. I’ve been in some on track and I’m like, these are great cars. They’ve picked up where the Germans left off, especially Volkswagen’s

William Ross: and 10 year, a hundred thousand mile powertrain.

I mean, all

Crew Chief Eric: day long,

William Ross: you can’t beat it. And, uh, what’s his name? Bankel, Hork, Burke, whatever his name is. You know, the stylist, you know, they got. What they’re coming up with [01:08:00] is phenomenal. It’s just great. As a fact is, is that it just keeps improving. You have a lot of instances where they hit a home run or they’re doing great.

Then all of a sudden they do something stupid. Like, cause they have all this momentum. So you think, Oh, we’re going to go this completely different route. No, why would you do that? So, I mean, they’re doing it right. They’re coming out with great stuff. I mean, look what they’re doing with the Genesis line to boot too.

That’s getting more and more accolades and just impressive in regards to what they’re building there. So it’s like, they’re just going. Going like Toyota, hey Toyota, Lexus, or like that. So I mean, they’re following that pattern, they’re just doing a great job.

Crew Chief Eric: And I think for the enthusiast market right now, if it has a GR, Gazoo Racing, or N Line badge on it, it is a license to print money.

Oh yeah. All those cars are hot. Unfortunately, Honda is still trying to catch up. They’re still hanging on this Type R, Type S. I don’t know if the Civic’s in a court or what, just, uh, whatever. I mean, I, I respect them all. I love being in them, especially coaching in these cars. Cause you get to learn a lot about them, but some of these [01:09:00] legacy and hero cars, like the GTI and the Civic and others, they just, they don’t do it for me anymore.

And some of these newer cars like a Veloster and like the Yaris and the GR Corolla and whatnot, they are really. Peak in my interest are really, really good cars.

William Ross: Uh, well, it’s unfortunate with the GTI stuff like this, again, it’s becomes where the accountants are driving the engineering, what they’re coming up because, Hey, we need to make this car more desirable across a broader range.

So we need to do this and water it down or something like that. Instead of how it used to be a, here’s our market. Here’s who’s we’re going after build a car to that. And we know we’re only going to sell X. Well, Count, no, we need to sell. Why? Because we need to make it justifiable, so we need to do this. It kills the car.

It loses its soul for what it was when it originally came out, and what it targets. It’s unfortunate.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s funny you mention the accountants running the ship, because over at Nissan… I’m really confused. It feels like a rudderless ship with no captain going around in circles. Their marketing has been a struggle for a while.

Coming up with cars. [01:10:00] Is the car out? Is it not? They’re teasing us, you know, and then they do these shootouts with the new 400Z against, and it’s not what everybody thought it was going to be. And then I just read that there’s a Nismo version of the 400. I’m like, Have people even taken delivery of the base model yet?

Now we’re talking about a Nismo version that you can’t get or you can’t find. I mean, this is unbelievable. If you’re going to come to the table with a proper sports car, something that’s going to compete with the Supra. Which is already a GR badge car from the get go. You’re going to come to the table to try and compete with, let’s say, Porsche on the bottom end against the Cayman.

You’re going to come in and try to go against the Camaro, some of the other offerings that are out there. And you’re going to build this dual tier system. I get that it works for Corvette. You can buy the Z51 and you can buy the Z06. Okay, great. They got two models. But Nissan, struggling the way it is.

Should have come out the gate with the Nismo version from day one and said, we’re here to crush the Supra. But instead they gave us a 928. [01:11:00] It’s like, yeah, what are we doing here, guys? I don’t have a lot of hope or a lot of faith that I’m going to see a Nismo 400z on the road, because I have seen one regular base model 400z on the road so far, and I’m just like, I don’t know guys.

William Ross: And it sucks

Crew Chief Eric: because

William Ross: what Nissan can do

Crew Chief Eric: is amazing.

William Ross: Yeah. You know what they’re capable of. Again, it goes back who’s steering the ship over there and who’s dictating what you can and can’t do because you’re such a small niche manufacturer It is so what you need to do is you really need to focus and narrow in that market that target not try and cover all bases Not only we want to get it for the 20 year old and three years But we also want to get it for the 50 year old guy.

It’s like come on stick to what you know

Crew Chief Eric: I mean if I were king for a day, I would tell the parent company reneau Pack it up And just bring Alpine over and sell the cool stuff that everybody wants and let’s just move on with it.

William Ross: Exactly. Uh, they would love to see that Alpine over here. God, that, uh…

Crew Chief Eric: If I could buy an A110 [01:12:00] right now, end of story.

Take my money. Just take it.

William Ross: Exactly. But yeah, it would be nice if they could just bring that over. Why aren’t you doing the Alpine with the 400? Come on, people! It’s like, we can figure this out. Why can’t you?

Crew Chief Eric: You know what we need to figure out? We need to figure out new EVs and concept cars. So Tanya, take us through what’s going on, what’s changing in this new world order of automobiles.

Executive Producer Tania: There is more news on solar SUVs. And there was a company that we reported on already a year or two ago. I think it was also a group of Dutch people that were creating the solar powered vehicle. Well, the Dutch are at it again. A group of students from the Eindhoven University of Technology, which is in the Netherlands, have developed a off road solar powered vehicle that they tested across the Moroccan desert on a 621 mile journey, at which point they never had to stop to recharge because it was charging itself on its solar panels.

[01:13:00] Estimated to get around 441 miles of range on a good sunny day and 50 less if it was cloudy.

Crew Chief Eric: How fast were they going?

Executive Producer Tania: So the car can only reach a top speed of 90 miles an hour.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s not bad.

Executive Producer Tania: And actually weighs only 2, 600 pounds.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s even better.

Executive Producer Tania: And they have this camper van kind of mindset with it.

So the solar panels can actually pull them out and unfurl them, if you will. And they could be used sort of as an awning, and then you get extra like, Solar square inch capacity to absorb and charge with. So when you’re taking a break, you can kind of unfold your panels, take some shade underneath them and charge up even more.

I

Crew Chief Eric: mean, that’s a new way of thinking about being off grid. So I wonder if you were using it to live off grid, what’s the residual charge? Like how long could you run off of the vehicle itself? Like if you were living out of it.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, if you were trying to like power small electronics or something like that?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. [01:14:00]

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know. They didn’t get into that. So I don’t have those details, but that’s an interesting question. Are we going to see this anytime soon? Probably not. Is it really cool that a group of students, you know, develop this vehicle that’s able to actually cross the desert reliably? Apparently, that’s pretty cool, and maybe this technology can trickle down somewhere, or maybe eventually we will see solar cars.

Crew Chief Eric: Tesla promised us the solar roof. Let’s not forget. Okay. So what else is going on in the world of EVs and concept cars?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know about this Jaguar. It’s not really an EV, but it’s the last combustion engine sports car allegedly from Jaguar. It kind of looks like, I don’t know, every other Jaguar at this point.

Crew Chief Eric: As we spoke about with Danny P, the JLR badge, because Jaguar is not going to be a thing anymore. It’s Jaguar Land Rover altogether, just going to be known as JLR. You’re right. It looks like every other F type. That’s come out before it. It’s nothing really to write home about, but I love [01:15:00] how in the writing, in this marketing spin that they give it, the exclusive edition set to release pays homage to its 1960s racing.

I was like, this doesn’t look like an E type. What are you talking about? I mean, I get it. It has those familiar lines. It has that Jaguar shape, that baby Aston look that they’ve been playing off of for the last 15 years. Okay. I mean, if it’s not. Coming to the table with a screaming V12, you know, like Aston did is their swan song where it’s like, you remember Jeremy Clarkson, this is the last of the vanquishes.

This is the end of the line and all this, you know, drama that they put around it. Want, want, want affordably priced, I guess, compared to some other cars of its stature at 165, 000. But for 165 grand, I hate to say, I’m going to go buy a convertible 911. Right. William.

William Ross: Exactly. If you’re going to come out with your last true gasoline powered car, make that thing a balls to the wall, just…

Crew Chief Eric: Monster.

William Ross: Yes. Take that thing to the nth [01:16:00] degree in regards to performance, everything like that. Build a limited amount of them. But make that thing just so different. Everyone’s clamoring to have one because they know, Hey, there’s nothing else like it gonna come after it, and there was nothing like it before it.

I’m a fan of the F Type. I like that car. They could do a lot with it. But yeah, that was just… What’s the point? It’s just another F Type, you know, with some badging on it and stuff. I just, I don’t get it. A missed opportunity for them. They could have done something special with that car. They had the opportunity, not only with the coupe, but they have a convertible.

Great thing with that. Hey, the all wheel drive, rear wheel drive. I mean, there’s so many things they could have went with and just huge missed opportunity.

Executive Producer Tania: The last bit of random EV news here, I guess, is that there’s some reporting saying that the cost of EVs might be coming down soon. And that is due to lithium ion battery prices.

declining over the last year and a half or so. Okay, I can believe that maybe the battery prices have come down and yes, in theory that should [01:17:00] translate to less cost, but in practice, the manufacturer is just going to be like, yay, we have lower cost of goods, but we’re going to charge the same amount and have higher margins.

And they might throw a bone and lower it a little bit. There is precedent, right? Like. solar panels, however many years ago, nobody’s ever going to afford solar panels on their house because the price are ridiculous. And it’s like, yes, the price is ridiculous because the supply is low and there’s adoption of the technology.

And now we’re seeing, you know, a decade later or whatever. Oh, suddenly they’re much more affordable and the prices keep coming down. Is the same thing going to translate into the automotive world? Probably not. Are we seeing it translated into anything else these days? No.

William Ross: I don’t know. I mean, look how expensive it is just to get the material it is now to make these batteries.

It’s a finite amount of stuff. I mean, it’s going to get more and more expensive.

Executive Producer Tania: There’s still the raw material cost versus the production cost. Maybe the production cost is coming down, but your raw material costs are probably only going to go up if your supply is [01:18:00] going down.

Yep.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s an article that dovetails with the sentiment where they’re talking about The cost of vehicles and we’ve been sort of hinting at it throughout this episode, where, you know, Audi’s dropping the price, Jeep has to drop the price, but then the price, the Wrangler’s up, you know, all these kinds of, there’s all this crazy stuff.

And we know the used car market has been insane for a number of years now, but reports are coming out that 80 percent of Americans can’t afford new cars. And I read this. The other week in preparation for this episode. And I was on a recent drive in the DC metro area. And I started to notice like the age of the cars, I’m not seeing as many bright and shiny new things.

You know, you’d always like, Oh, it’s a new Tesla. It was kind of like in the old days, like in the eighties, you’re like, Oh my God, that guy’s got a Porsche, you know, it’s like so rare compared to everything else. But I’m looking at the age of cars on the road and there’s a lot of stuff. That’s still 10 and 12 years old, which is like the new average for a lot of people are keeping their cars that long.

I mean, I’m guilty of this myself. And I do look at the. Price of cars. And I go, I can’t afford to buy a new car. I was having this discussion with a friend and it’s [01:19:00] like, man, what if the motor in your Jeep blows up, I’m going to get another motor, I’m going to replace it because it’s cheaper than taking on a note for a 60, 000 Wrangler that I don’t like, you know,

William Ross: especially now at seven, 8 percent interest.

Exactly. That’s only two. Call me. You’re too good. I wasn’t, Hey, 0%, 1%, Hey, all right. At least you’re not getting killed on interest, but. I mean, you’re at 8 percent interest rate now on that stuff too. It’s like, it just will kill you.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, but those mental gymnastics only work for people like yourself. Okay, the motor in your car blows up and you’re just going to put a new motor in.

You’re going to put the new motor in. You’re not going to go to the dealer who, or somebody else Going to charge you 20 grand to put a motor in or something ridiculous. Right. And then suddenly your mental gymnastics are going well. My car is X years old and now I’m spending this much, all these other things are still going to break blah, blah, blah.

I don’t want to deal with this headache and nightmare, but I’m going to buy a new car.

William Ross: And the other thing too, is just unbelievable is 84 months financing. 92 months. [01:20:00] Let’s stress that sucker out. Eight, nine years. Like a

Crew Chief Eric: mortgage.

William Ross: Yeah. You’re upside down at five, six, seven years in the car. I mean, you’re stuck with it.

Or then you hear the average, Oh, we’ll pay off your old car. Well, no, we’re just rolling over all your negative equity into that thing. So not only are you paying for that, you’re still paying for the old car. It’s all, it’s like, how do people get suckered into this? I just don’t get it.

Crew Chief Eric: I’ll tell you a real life example.

My wife sat down one time at a Volkswagen dealership. This was pre diesel gate. She had actually been in a car accident with her previous one, which is why we were buying a new car. Not her fault, but she sat down and she was doing numbers. She’s scratching stuff out. And the guy’s looking at it and the sales guy’s looking at her.

What are you doing? She’s like, you know, your 0 percent financing thing is actually going to cost me more money over the long haul. Cause you’re Front ending the cost of the car to make up the fact that you’re not charging me interest and she’s sitting there running all these numbers. She goes, and I’ll take this plan right here.

And even the finance here was like, nobody sits and runs the numbers like this. And I’m like, I just sat there and smiled and like. [01:21:00] Yeah, you don’t mess with her, but that’s the kind of thing to Tanya’s point that people need to do is sit down and maybe do the arithmetic and say, what is the total cost of ownership?

What is this looking like? What is the negative equity? You know, some people are like, ah, whatever, you know, blah, blah, blah, you know, that kind of thing. But you got to nowadays because they’re so freaking expensive when you’re looking at Honda civic and you want to outfit it. More than just roll up windows and whatever.

And it’s 40, 000. It’s like Honda Civic, 40 grit. What time warp are we in? This is insane. Mid level cars that are now 50, 60, 70, 000, which 10 years ago they were 25. It makes no sense. That’s tough. And EVs have driven up the price and there’s not a parity when you’re buying an ICE car to an EV either. And I think the manufacturers have slowly just said, well, everything’s going to be this new price.

And to Tanya’s point, if they figure out how to make it. Bigger battered cheaper. They’re going to keep that margin and never goes down. It’s it’s just it’s nuts

William Ross: No, they’re living fat and happy. Yeah [01:22:00] We’ll never give that back and that’s like the argument that’s going on now like with you know, the strike going on with the Auto workers in that they’re making all this money, but they were sharing some of it Yeah, they were getting a some nice bonus checks, but that ain’t long term.

They don’t want to give that up They’re making that argument. Well, if we did their turns whatnot, we’d be bankrupt blah blah blah It’s like no, I don’t think so.

Crew Chief Eric: No, I don’t think so either We’re due for a market correction in a lot of different verticals, but I think in the car industry it’ll probably happen quicker than some others because as soon as units Sit even longer than they’ve been sitting because people just can’t and the market is saturated.

And like we talked about last time, the adoption rate on EVs is plateaued. The manufacturers are going to have to move all these cars and they can’t make excuses anymore because chips and all this kind of thing, because we’re sort of on the other side of that tunnel now. And I don’t know, something’s got to give, and it can’t be the consumer all the time, just giving over their hard earned money at the end of the day.

We’ll put a pin in that and probably talk about that at another point. [01:23:00] But you know, the carbon wheels keep going round and round. And so, you know, we introduced a couple months back our world of wheels section here in the drive thru and we’re looking for new articles, new technology, new things in the wheel industry.

And I want to highlight. And events that our friends and sponsors over at ESC Carbon went to recently where they had AJ Campo, who is well known in the Audi community. ESC Carbon was there sponsoring the Audi Nationals and she was running around the mountains with a set of E2s on her RS3 looking pretty cool.

Lots of really neat pictures and an article to go along with that on ESCCarbon. com. So if you want to check that out and follow AJ on her Instagram and check out the article on ESC. But more importantly than that, there is a group of automotive enthusiasts that have started 3D printing turbofan add ons for their wheels.

And I tell you what, this might be the hottest new accessory in the wheel market right now. Is Try to make your ugly wheel look like something else, [01:24:00] especially if you can bolt on something that looks like it came off of a race car. So I appreciate their enthusiasm, their ingenuity. I thought these were super cool.

They come in different colors, obviously because the 3d printed material. But I like this idea. I like the idea of a basic wheel and let’s dress it up a little bit. Let’s make it look like something else. Maybe that could be made out of carbon. Maybe that could be made out of some other materials. So. I think this is interesting.

I want to keep a finger on the pulse of where these types of accessories are going. Now, I’m not saying we need to bring back spinners, turbo fans. I’m okay with all

William Ross: that. I like to your point is cover up them ugly wheels, slap them on. And while the car stands, everything’s right, man. Those things are cool on a car.

Next step is you’ll put your sponsor stickers on there. You got that all that nice space, all that

Crew Chief Eric: real estate. Exactly. Yeah.

William Ross: You got all those things you can do with that. Or you can put a picture of your girlfriend on there and let it spin around.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, in honor of Brad, we need to switch to his favorite section, which is lost and found, where he scours the internet looking for the newest old car available on dealership lots.

I didn’t spend the time, Brad. I’m sorry if you’re listening to this, [01:25:00] looking at cars. com or, but I did find something that you might be interested in. It’s a wonderful cherry mint condition, 2008 Dodge Avenger. I see.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh

Crew Chief Eric: yeah. Right. Again, no one aspires to own a rental car except for whoever bid on this. It is super clean.

I mean, I can’t fault this car. I guess if you follow the letter of the law and bring a trailer, which the rules are, you have to take 957 pictures of the car and, you know, fill out all their forms and stuff. You can list just about anything on there. I didn’t find this as particularly weird considering we found things like Geo Metro convertibles and other things for sale on Bring a Trailer.

Good on whoever’s been preserving this low mileage 2008 Dodge Avenger.

William Ross: Yeah. Good for them, but it’s sad that cause they’re owned by a corporate entity. BAT has gotten away from what they used to be and they used to be a lot more picky about what cars they’d put on there and

Crew Chief Eric: gotta make that commission somehow.

Right? Well,

William Ross: yeah, exactly. Because yeah, I, I could see, you know, back in the day [01:26:00] them putting that car on there because Hey, cool. Hey, low mileage, whatnot, something unique. It’s something quirky that, Hey, you wouldn’t normally think it’s going to have low mileage, but necessarily put on her. But. You know, some of the other stuff that just shows up on that site now is just like, why I know why, because they need the money.

I don’t know if you ever go through and look at their Sales figures that they post and how many they got to and I mean you start calculating now Just do an average payout in regards to what they’re getting. They’re making a crap load of money You can see why what’s his name got a nice Fat check when he sold that to a cash cow because it’s very simplistic.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you mentioned earlier when we were talking about the abandoned Testarossa facility that Europeans just love to throw a padlock on a building and walk away. Well, how about a Ford dealership in Germany that’s been abandoned for 37 years?

William Ross: Yeah, I’ve got mentioned stuff because there’s one that’s in North Carolina that was a, um, it was an AMC.

Same thing. You know, they just locked the door one day and walked away, left the cars in there, everything like that, and antique archeology. But [01:27:00] the guys with the show, you know, they bought a couple, was it Thete Bank where it was sitting out back, you know, they dug it outta there. But there’s a few of those hidden gems around the world.

There’s nothing special what the cars were left in there. But it’s neat to see that time capsule and two, you know, we’ll have the access and film it and share it with the world. Of course, the problem is, is once the cat’s out of the bag. You got everybody under the sun going out there trying to check it out and see it.

So then how much longer does it actually stay that way? It sat like that for 30 some years, but then it take one year for it to basically, well, okay, now we got to really close it up and get rid of everything. Cause it’s just become a nuisance.

Crew Chief Eric: If you look at the cars in. The dealership window, like they’re nothing to write home about.

It was a period in Ford Germany’s history where everything was sort of blah. It’s all like these super boring Ford Sierras, you know, just awful stuff. Like nothing fun. It’s not like there’s an Escort RS in there or a Qazi or something like that. It’s just like, okay, whatever. But you kind of wonder after [01:28:00] 37 years and it’s been kept clean, is it still a dealership to your point, or is it now a museum where you can step back in time?

37 years from where they put the padlock on the door and say, here it is. I mean, I kind of feel like they should just do like retro parties there and be like, let’s travel back to the eighties. And here we are.

William Ross: I think there’s an opportunity because I think, you know, Reddit was, you know, the husband died rather young.

And so that’s when they closed it up. And then the wife. Just kept paying the taxes, paying to keep it clean, everything like that. But then she died recently. Like that’s when I went to, you know, start, let’s say go with the shit. Cause they started going, cause no one’s taking care of it. Yeah. I mean, that would be cool.

Retro party. Why not have that 80s bash? I mean, I think you’d do pretty well with it. You know, it got the cars there. You don’t need to have RSS queries like that. So they’re cool. You got this 40 year old car that’s got two miles on it. You know, it’s nice and clean and just do something fun with it.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I think this next one is borderline Florida Man story and it should probably read Georgia Man.[01:29:00]

Right, Tanya?

Executive Producer Tania: Carvana sells another stolen car.

Crew Chief Eric: Here we go again.

Executive Producer Tania: So somebody dials in their cell phone. I have a car to sell to you, Carvana.

Crew Chief Eric: Come pick it up.

Executive Producer Tania: Ram 1500. Never been in an accident. Gray color. Oh, we’ll offer you this much for it. Cool. We’ll stop by and pick it up. And in fact, that’s not even your car.

Brilliant.

Crew Chief Eric: And this is not the first time this has happened. I was wondering about this, like how many stolen cars are going to end up on something like Carvana where it is like touchless. We have an article on our website. One of our members wrote about buying a car off Carvana from the giant car vending machine and how easy it was.

And you know, they didn’t need to go see anything or do anything. And then they just showed up. But imagine that. They showed up and that Ram 1500 belonged to somebody else, and the police show up right behind it.

William Ross: Those guys that were stealing the cars up in Detroit, off of the manufacturer’s storage lots, and then they were taking ’em like to Arizona, way out west and selling ’em.[01:30:00]

Forging documents, what have you, the person thought they bought a legitimate car. And then a couple months later, knock at the door, we’re taking that car. Cause it’s still, then they’re out that money. It’s like, well, wait, how do I get my cap? Sorry. You’re shit out of luck. It’s like, well, wait a minute. I gave this dude 80 grand for this car.

And what are you telling me? I can’t, I mean, how’s that right? They titled it, everything through the state. Should the state be at fault here because they didn’t catch it. It’s like, how is it my fault? You know, everything looked legit. The state didn’t catch it. The government did not catch it where it’s set up to supposedly catch this kind of stuff.

Now I’m out that money.

Crew Chief Eric: That guy’s owed a car at the end of the day. That’s what he is.

William Ross: I’d be delivered. And here’s the other thing on a side notice. I don’t care where the car’s at and I’m buying something. I’m going to go look at the thing before I turn over my money. I’m gonna put my hands on a fucking thing.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s as sketchy as those. I hate to equate them to the Nigerian prince emails, you know, spam that we used to get. But you do get those like offers. And we had a guy sell a Porsche from someone that emailed him, I’m in Germany and I’m gonna arrange for [01:31:00] the pickup. And I’m like, oh my God, you fell for that scam like you did it.

And he goes, man, I went through the, I got paid, I got cash, the card disappeared. I’m like, wow. I mean, all I could say was just, wow, like you did it because those to me have always been super sketchy and super scammy. And I kind of view in a way that Carvana is the same thing because you’re so disconnected from the process.

Not that I enjoy going to a used car lot or going to a dealership and going through that rigmarole. So there’s got to be a happy medium between the two, but to be totally disconnected like this.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, but it’s fraud on the part of the thieves, because they actually circumvented the VIN number. They had fake VIN number that they replaced on the car.

So, you know, you have to supply the VIN number and the title that gets checked through the DMV system. If you provided fraudulent information that does match some Ram somewhere, who’s catching that, even if you rolled up to the dealer, they’re going to go, Oh, unless they’re astute enough to go, let me cross check.

Another place on the vehicle where the VIN is and then realize, oh, [01:32:00] these don’t match. There’s something wrong here, right?

Crew Chief Eric: That’s why BMW puts a VIN on everything. Every panel on the car has a VIN number on it.

William Ross: Well, again, it boils down to just doing due diligence in regards to checking everything and just cannot taking someone’s word for it.

Crew Chief Eric: We would be remiss. If we didn’t talk about

Executive Producer Tania: Teslagate. Poor Tesla. I guess we’ll start off with the long overdue drag racing video. Oh

Crew Chief Eric: my god, again.

Executive Producer Tania: Model S Plaid Edition, this time versus Bugatti Chiron.

Crew Chief Eric: I keep asking the same. Thing every time these why, why does it matter? How do we care? I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, it’s

Crew Chief Eric: apples and oranges

Executive Producer Tania: in a way

Crew Chief Eric: Apples and or it’s apples and chainsaws.

I mean, no

Executive Producer Tania: It’s like usain bolt race a horse. It’s like who won.

William Ross: I

Executive Producer Tania: don’t know

William Ross: When’s a tesla driver gonna come across a chiron to go drag race or vice versa? When’s the guy driving chiron is gonna? Come across. Oh, hey, there’s a Tesla, guys. Good job. I mean, who gives a shit?

Crew Chief Eric: Not only that, the Chiron’s got [01:33:00] like 16 turbos and like all this stuff, so it’s quick in its own right.

It was. Yes, but in these stupid drag races, why don’t we extend the drag race a little bit past, oh, I don’t know, 100 miles an hour? We’re something with a V10 or a V12 will just destroy no Tesla’s doing 200 miles an hour. And it’s funny. I literally had this almost what should I buy discussion the other night with a colleague at work.

And he was like, man, I really love the Tesla’s. I like that idea of like three seconds, zero to 60. And I asked him flat out, he’s a younger guy. And I said, why do you care? Why do you need to go zero to 60 to go to the grocery store to go to work? He couldn’t answer the question, but he’s like, dude, but it’s so cool.

And I’m like, No, but it’s

Executive Producer Tania: not. Yeah, so you can be a jackass and forget that the person in front of you in their Toyota Corolla can’t do 0 to 60 in three seconds than what you rear end them.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, I’ve seen some wild stuff on the roads with people in Teslas and I’m like, I’m fearful because of the way they handle.

And I’m not saying they handle poorly, but I’ve been in them on track. [01:34:00] And they begin to show their weight very quickly. And you start to do some dodgy stuff with them. It’s not a sports car. So that’s the fallacy. It’s so fast. It’s like a Porsche. It’s like a Corvette. And they do these drag races. And then people start to equate.

Tesla’s like a Corvette. And it’s like, I got news for you, bro. Your Tesla is like a Corolla. It’s not like a Corvette.

William Ross: Maybe a 1954 Corvette. Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: 100%, right? I mean. Whatever, there’s a reason and a season for all of it, but let’s not hang our hat on zero to sixty times. Like, these drag races are just dumb.

William Ross: And here’s the thing, though, these Tesla people, you know, they’re not our people. You know, it wasn’t like they were, you know, had a Corvette or had something along those lines prior to getting that Tesla. You know, these were someone that, nerdy or whatnot, all of a sudden… They thought they got the coolest car in the world.

Now, as I think they got the best car in the world just because it’s, oh, it’s a Tesla, you know? Oh, it’s fast. Yeah, it’s fast. But to your point, yeah, it’s not a Corvette. It doesn’t handle this thing. And they don’t have a reference for it because they’ve never [01:35:00] actually had or owned an actual sports car.

Crew Chief Eric: Funny you say that because I have met a lot of Tesla owners whose previous vehicle was some sort of mid level. Luxury car like an E class or something like that. But they would always say it was cheaper to buy the Tesla because the maintenance on the Benz was killing them, compromise the luxury for the speed.

And they were being green, big gas guzzling V8 and the Mercedes and stuff like that. And I’m like, okay. Makes sense. I get that. Like you justified that purchase and when you’re comparing it to that or like the big Lexus or something, you want to get out of something like that. But I think you begin to miss those creature comforts.

The more time you spend in those Ikea showrooms that they called like the Tesla interior, but there’s a compromise there, right? It goes back to that conversation about the EQS. Is that what you really want at the end of the day? But then there’s a price tag that comes with it. So how do you compromise again?

You can rationalize it six ways from Sunday, but these performance shootouts just don’t make sense.

William Ross: No, it’s not real [01:36:00] world as it boils down. It’s just not real world. That’s what sells the magazine or that what’s gets the clicks and whatever. People want to see it, but it just really doesn’t equate to the real world.

Executive Producer Tania: In more exciting news, Brad, if you’re listening, get ready your Cybertruck deposit. Is still years out from being transferred to, to anything. In fact, allegedly, apparently, the Cybertruck is finally coming at the end of November. However, it is unclear how much it will cost or how many vehicles will actually roll off the assembly line.

But at least one will. So someone out there is going to get a Cybertruck in just… A little over a month,

Crew Chief Eric: but then there’s an article about one of these pre launch candidate. What did they call them? They had a special term for these like dozen or so that they put out there, right?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: But there’s an article showing yet another cyber truck fail broken [01:37:00] down, spotted on the side of the road.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. And broken down. It wasn’t accepting charge at the charging stations.

Crew Chief Eric: Isn’t that an important fact of a electric vehicle?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. You know, like. If you can’t charge it,

Crew Chief Eric: I’ve never been able to not pour gasoline in my gas tank because even a Brad story, you know, one time his gas flapper door got stuck on his GTI. He just put a fist in there and it popped open magically. So I’m saying you can always get the gas in the car.

William Ross: And you can always bring gas to the car, too, if you happen to run out.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, how do you carry electrons? Like, is there a special container for that? Like, how does that work?

Executive Producer Tania: The fairies come with electron dust and sprinkle it over the car. No, it’s like that guy. What

Crew Chief Eric: was that guy that drove with an e golf and he had a gas generator in the back? So it was between stations. He would charge you with like this little Honda.

[01:38:00] Unbelievable.

William Ross: You’re kind of beating the purpose here of why you have a car. It’s like, Oh, what was it on Shark Tank? They had it. The guys they pitched for stranded electric vehicle owners is they would go around. They’re towing around an electric thing to charge it, but it’s all it’s gas generator, charging, electric, basically portable recharging station.

To take to people it’s like, wait a minute. You’re pulling us through the gas car with the gas generator It’s like

Crew Chief Eric: same thing on downy’s dream cars Like I wanted to run headfirst into a wall when they’re talking about the new electric stripped down gmc colorado thing They’re building and what are they towing behind it an industrial diesel generator?

William Ross: Guys, seriously,

Crew Chief Eric: it’s like,

Executive Producer Tania: don’t look back there. Just don’t look back there. Pay

Crew Chief Eric: no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Executive Producer Tania: No, but circling back in a recent, I think it was like maybe part of an earnings call or something like Elon Musk is literally quoted saying that. They dug a grave for themselves with this truck.[01:39:00]

And it’s like, okay, so it should have been here years ago already. Delay, delay, delay. Allegedly, November 30th. It’s coming, but they can’t tell you how much it’s going to cost, other than it will cost more than what they were saying it was going to cost. Ugh. And they can’t predict how many they can run off the production line because they have so many issues with like scale up and like building the thing that they don’t think they’re going to be cash positive on it for like another year and a half or two years or something like that.

You’re not even relevant anymore. When Lightning has come out, the Rivians have come out, whoever the heck is coming out next, Ram’s gonna have theirs, whatever. It’s like, does anyone even care anymore in another two years?

Crew Chief Eric: And it’s fugly. It’s fugly.

Executive Producer Tania: And yeah, it’s like some things… Dude, that was a great concept quote car.

It should have been left as one. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So is this one of those instances where you’ve told so many lies, you don’t remember the lie that you told, so you just keep [01:40:00] lying?

William Ross: Yeah, just keep building on

Crew Chief Eric: it.

Executive Producer Tania: He needed to fund everything, right? Because two million reservations at a hundred dollars each. So that was a nice 200 million dollar cash revenue that they could spend somewhere else.

Are any Tesla’s cash positive? You know, I mean, they tell you. Yes. I think that they have their best earning like every quarter. It’s the most sale.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s because they’re doing buy one, get one sales on the model three. Have you heard about this? This is insane. Like one minute, they keep changing the price.

2023 alone? And now they’re talking about buy one, get one free. On a Tesla three,

Executive Producer Tania: it’s a referral program that if you referred someone and they bought it within like a two week window in September, then you were put into like a raffle. They were giving away a Tesla.

Crew Chief Eric: See lies upon lies. And you know what?

It looks like that poop emoji when it’s all done

William Ross: and you curl up to the [01:41:00] Wizard of Oz.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, it gets better though, right? Because now we got to talk about Elon.

Executive Producer Tania: We already knew this was coming because this was brought up already months ago, both. The driving range claims that a lot of people were reporting that sticker ranges they aren’t actually getting and they were putting in basically claims with the service center and they’ve created like apparently a department or a little organization to handle all these claims and basically they just cancel them all out.

Don’t even service the vehicles like the ones that do come in. They’re like, Oh, no, the battery is fine. Go away. Like all is good. So it’s like, well, what’s the problem here then? Because if the battery is good and everything’s running correctly, but I’m not getting the mileage you reported, your mileage is a lie that you said I should be getting.

Right? So that’s like false advertising. So now they’re under scrutiny with just justice department to figure out if they have been, I guess, lying about or inflating their, um, Driving range claims, da da da, on top of the whole, Oh, I don’t need to live in a [01:42:00] house. I’m perfectly fine in a one bedroom shanty shack with an outhouse toilet.

And then, lo and behold, there’s money funneling into some like, glass mansion that he’s building himself. Even though he doesn’t need a house and he can just live off the land.

Crew Chief Eric: And you scoff every time I say Teslagate. This takes Watergate, Dieselgate, Deflategate, all of it to a whole. I

Executive Producer Tania: don’t know. I don’t even know why we’re giving him more airtime than he deserves.

Honestly, whatever.

Crew Chief Eric: You can’t not cover the Tesla news because it’s probably the most exciting thing in the car world sometimes. I know Brad’s not here to sink for us, but we do have a couple of things to talk about under lowered expectations.

Executive Producer Tania: Lowered

Crew Chief Eric: expectations.

We have done some, what should I buy? Specials We have debated for quite a long time. The ugliest cars on the road. In typical listicle [01:43:00] style, modern journalism, we gotta put another top 20 lists together. And this time it’s the ugliest cars you can buy. Right now.

Executive Producer Tania: And like half of them are BMWs. Thank

Crew Chief Eric: you.

Thank you. Thank you. That is not an exaggeration. Over 50 percent of the cars on this list are BMWs.

Executive Producer Tania: I didn’t count it, but it felt like it was. Oh yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: If you look at them, I mean, the cyber trucks on this list, that’s a given, but then they have things like the grand Wagoneer. And I mean, I’m not a huge fan of it, but I wouldn’t call it ugly.

And it’s like every other car is a BMW. So good for calling them to carpet bid for calling it a task. We’ve been saying for quite a long time that the new BMWs are not good looking. They are not pretty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I am really, really nostalgic for the Bengal period at this point because those were hideous and they’re starting to look really, really good.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, .

Crew Chief Eric: Well, this next one was [01:44:00] too good for lost and found. It went straight to the barrel of lowered expectations, and this is the. Chrysler PT Cruiser Turbo. Oh, but this one goes unbelievably hard. Like it is so stanced. It’s on Bentley wheels. It’s electric blue.

Executive Producer Tania: Nah, it’s only stance if the wheels are bent in and they’re not.

It’s got some stance. It’s just lowered and I will say lowered is better.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t think I,

Executive Producer Tania: I,

Crew Chief Eric: it’s hard to get it out. I never thought I would utter these words ever, ever. This is the best looking BT Cruiser I’ve ever seen. I might actually drive this. I might not be caught dead in it. It’s actually kind of cool.

Why didn’t they come this week to begin with like an SRT version with big wheels. And I even liked the roof rack. It’s cool. How is this possible?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know that I could [01:45:00] go that far, but with bigger wheels, lowered low profile tire, it does add a little something with a little bit of lipstick, if you will.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s got side skirts and I mean, it’s got all sorts. It’s got a Wang. They put a Wang on it. It’s cool. The exhaust. I don’t like the downturn tips. I’ve never liked that on any car, but

Executive Producer Tania: I didn’t.

Crew Chief Eric: For some reason I look at it and I’m not instantly ready to vomit like I am the rest of the PT cruisers. Like there’s, I’m drawn to it.

I’m like, this car is cool. It’s different.

Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: I’m not going to live that one down.

You know, we’re in preparation for our holiday episode. Like I said, Big Brother is always listening. We’re having discussions around the writer’s room. What should be in the holiday guide? What do you buy for your petrol head, your loved one in your life? Dire Gal, it’s got all their toys. Well, this one from five years ago resurrected itself.

What about the [01:46:00] Honda Type R lawnmower?

Executive Producer Tania: This could be a winner. This

Crew Chief Eric: is a contender right here.

Executive Producer Tania: Save yourself the heartburn and go to Honda, get some decal stickers and strap it onto your existing lawnmower.

Crew Chief Eric: It sort of looks like a Roomba.

Executive Producer Tania: I think it is. I think it’s one of those electric autonomous lawnmower things.

They have those, the robotic lawnmowers. I’ve seen them. They’re basically a Roomba with a blade underneath them.

Crew Chief Eric: So I’m glad we went there and this ties back into Tesla things that we’ve talked about in the past. I think I’m on to something. You know how the Teslas have an issue with the flashing lights and at night and you know, the autonomous self driving.

I’ve been watching my robot vacuum cleaner and how it operates. And I thought to myself, if it shares the same software with a Tesla in any way in terms of its autonomy and how it drives around, it makes sense why the Teslas are attracted to the flashing lights. Cause it does some crazy stuff.

William Ross: I’m picturing you sitting in your living room, just studying your robotic vacuum cleaner, but the [01:47:00] notepad.

Oh, you, you joke. No, that is for real. That’s how I can picture it. I can just see your head and your wife walking and go, what are you doing? I’m just watching the vacuum cleaner. That makes sense. It’s a

Crew Chief Eric: behavioral study, okay? But some of the things it does, I’m like, Huh, makes sense now. Yeah, I get it.

William Ross: I would buy that lawnmower.

That thing looks cool. I mean, you’d be the talk of the neighborhood.

Crew Chief Eric: I want the Porsche version of that. I want like the RS GT4. Only charcoal gray.

William Ross: No, you need

Crew Chief Eric: the

William Ross: Momo.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh yeah. Yeah. Bigger. Weighing. Fatter. You get the hippie nine 17 livery on that thing that look good going around your yard. Go. Yeah. Or the pink pig.

The pink pig would work. Oh, that looked

William Ross: cool. Oh yeah. ,

Crew Chief Eric: that’s what we buy for the holidays. Racing livery kits for our robotic vacuum. And autonomous lawnmowers, somebody make that, somebody start marketing that.

William Ross: Oh, that would be

Executive Producer Tania: awesome.

Crew Chief Eric: Meanwhile, I think [01:48:00] Ikea is getting in the car business, right, Tanya?

Executive Producer Tania: So there was an article that a Swedish company is making flat pack cars.

Crew Chief Eric: What does that mean?

Executive Producer Tania: However, it is not Ikea.

Crew Chief Eric: Lies.

Executive Producer Tania: Probably a subsidiary of Ikea. No. What I could gather is. The, yes, much like Ikea furniture that comes flat pack, the car is flat packed, I think maybe to reduce transportation costs or something to that effect, because it says that you still have to go to like an authorized service center to assemble the car.

So it’s not like, Oh, I got this flat pack car and I’m DIYing it in my basement or something like that. So I can only imagine it must be some effort to reduce transportation costs.

William Ross: In the 40s, I think it was Land Rover. Did that with the original, whatchamacallit, exported to different countries to get around taxation, regulation, whatever it is.

They were flat, I mean, cause those things were just square pieces anyways. It wasn’t anything crazy. They were basically almost [01:49:00] a flat pack car. They would ship it out. It was Spain. I think South American stuff were very prevalent in this. Then they got assembled there and somehow it got around the taxation regulations away, how it would work, whatever.

And I think they did it with many. I’m going to

Crew Chief Eric: have a Brad moment with you. None of that matters. Okay. Let’s boil this back for a second for everybody here and everybody listening at home. All of us at some point in our lives have put something together from Ikea. We all know how infuriating the instructions can be.

And you imagine putting together a car. You aren’t the

Executive Producer Tania: one who has to follow those instructions because the certified Auto center is the one that has to follow those instructions.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re kidding me, right?

Executive Producer Tania: I told you that. We’re not listening when I spoke. It’s not that you receive this flatback car on your doorstep like an Amazon delivery.

It’s that these arrive wherever and the mechanic shop are the ones that put them together. I want [01:50:00] to put

William Ross: it together.

Executive Producer Tania: That’d

Crew Chief Eric: be the whole point. And it’s not that I wasn’t listening. I wanted you to say it again because I thought you were lying to me. Now you’re telling me Joe Blow at Pep Boys making whatever an hour is putting together my Ikea car?

Like, come on, man. Like, let’s get real here.

William Ross: Guys making 50 an hour and just had an edible, I’ll put it together. Does it make you

Executive Producer Tania: feel better that they’re not crash testing you?

Crew Chief Eric: Okay, I’m out. That’s even better. Oh geez, you can keep it. Oh, well, so since we’re still thinking about the holidays, you know, maybe we’ll flat pack ship some cars to people as a gift this year.

We also have some rich people things to talk about. And William, I specifically pulled this one out for you, knowing the kind of cars you deal with, the people you deal with. And I want to know about these Bugatti. Sunglasses.

William Ross: I buy my sunglasses at Speedway.

Crew Chief Eric: Ha ha ha ha ha! There you go. That’s the American way.

Bought my [01:51:00] sunglasses at Buc ee’s.

William Ross: Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: exactly. What you’re telling me is, these Bugatti sunglasses are not on your Christmas list.

William Ross: God, no. Some of these things are tacky as hell. I mean, you gotta have just stupid money. Cause I mean, the cost, everything. I mean, I don’t know.

Executive Producer Tania: These have mother of pearl inlays.

18 karat gold, black palladium accents, grade 5 titanium, carbon fiber, macassar ebony wood. Why wouldn’t you want this for 2, 000? Yes. For you to accidentally sit on and break. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: But when I’m in a foot race against the Tesla owner, do I beat them? Are they more aerodynamic?

Executive Producer Tania: Are they wearing Tesla sunglasses?

Crew Chief Eric: It doesn’t matter.

William Ross: These things look like glasses that, you know, you’re sitting down at a deli getting yourself a bowl of matzo soup.

Crew Chief Eric: That or you’re in like a lecture hall and your professor flips up as he came in from outside. I mean, they’re just bizarre.

Oh my [01:52:00] God.

William Ross: People are buying and whatnot. And just imagine what the knockoffs will look like. Cause you know, those are coming right behind it. Someone’s can change them just a little bit. So they don’t get in trouble. God, those things look like

Crew Chief Eric: the rounded corners on the Samsung, right?

William Ross: Oh, geez.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, it’s that time we go down south and talk about alligators and beer.

Executive Producer Tania: You know, it’s a light month this month. It was hard to find anything that was car adjacent or even mildly appropriate out of Florida. So it really wasn’t a light month for Florida, but it’s a light month for us on Florida news, but they never completely fail to deliver. As one gentleman recently delivered his car.

Not only delivered, launched his Dodge [01:53:00] Challenger into a canal.

William Ross: Yeah, he got some good air.

Executive Producer Tania: The initial little graphic that’s circling, little video clip at the beginning doesn’t do it justice because there’s the balcony that we’re seeing this off of is some lady’s security camera, bless her heart, captured the whole thing.

And there’s like three minutes of recording and you actually see what instigated this. Because in the background you see that Mercedes slowly creeping by. These two MFers were actually racing through the neighborhood. The Challenger didn’t make the turn, the Mercedes did, and then really slowed down to watch the ensuing calamity.

But dude didn’t make the turn, went up on the curb, got airborne, basically shot off and down into the canal, and he’s sitting there like floating. I don’t know, he wouldn’t get out of the car, I don’t know why, and eventually he turned the windshield wipers on. And all these people are like coming out of the woodworks to like help.

And then eventually one dude just finally jumps in to like drag him out of the car. Don’t know why he wouldn’t get [01:54:00] out. And then like literally right as he does that, like the whole thing, like starts like going down.

William Ross: That was impressive how long it floated for.

Executive Producer Tania: Surprising. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: And what’s hilarious about the race part, he didn’t make the turn, but he’s on the same Paleozoic era Mercedes chassis that the Mercedes is on.

So you would think. They would be equally matched in that respect. But it does look like something straight out of Dukes of Hazzard. I mean, wow.

William Ross: Gotta love Florida. It’s always good for something.

Executive Producer Tania: I’ll make a nice alligator home now in the canal.

William Ross: And how do you explain that one to your insurance company?

Executive Producer Tania: I swerved to avoid an alligator and I ended up going from the curb and into the canal.

Crew Chief Eric: Well at first I thought maybe he listened to last month about the guy in the Corolla that launched his car into the second floor of a Pennsylvania home. Maybe he was trying to re enact that. More than you can afford, pal. Geez, Louise.

Executive Producer Tania: And now for some upcoming local news and events brought to us by CollectorCarGuide.

net, the ultimate reference for car enthusiasts. The Simeone Foundation Museum in Philadelphia is celebrating their [01:55:00] Spirit of Competition Award, honoring pro driver Scott Pruitt. Simeone will also be celebrating 40 years of ATCO Racing. It promises to be a drag on December 2nd through the 17th. There are still a few more runs of Tale of the Dragon going on this fall, sponsored by ESE Carbon Wheels.

And the East Coast Indoor National returns to the Maryland State Fairgrounds on December 2nd and December 3rd. If you’re interested in tons more events like these and all their details, go on over to collectorcardguide. net.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, and it’s time for the HBDEJunkie. com Trackside Report. So what’s coming up in the fall?

Not a whole heck of a lot on the east coast, unless you live in the southeast, places like Rhode, Atlanta, or down in Texas, like Coda and other racetracks, or even California. There’s still plenty of track events that you can attend, but as things are starting to shut down and get colder, and those of us that have completed our seasons are going into hibernation and repair mode, that’s okay.

But there are still some other events you can catch up on. Even out here, but an important notice for folks headed to summit point, [01:56:00] especially for the annual turkey bowl. There’s a reminder that route 340 heading through Harper’s Ferry from points east of that in Maryland, Virginia, the road is closed and it closed down starting on September the 12th and will be continued to be closed through December the 11th due to some rock slide repair projects going on.

You can learn more about that. And if they open the road early. at us340harpersferry. com. So if you are headed to summit point for the turkey bowl or some of the remaining SCCA events, remember to plan an alternate route before you head out there. In addition to that, HOD got a new feature on their website, something that you might be familiar with on other platforms like motorsport reg, they have this new thing called the show drivers feature.

Many of the drivers asked and HOD responded. This new feature allows you to see who else is registered for the event that you’re attending. So that way you can make sure that your buddy registered or you can guilt trip them into going with you to the next NJMP Watkins Glen VIR event on the HOD [01:57:00] schedule.

That is an opt in optional feature. You have to enable it during checkout, but if you do, other people can see if you’re going to that event. So it’s kind of a nice feature to know who’s going to be there. In the meantime, we got news from the SCDA, the Sports Car Driving Association, based out of New England.

They have released their fall schedule, which starts now and includes events all the way through December. It’s a mix of high performance driver’s clinics and half day HBDEs at Lime Rock with a season ender at NJMP Lightning. NJMP Thunderbolt is undergoing renovations and has been officially closed down for the season.

We have updates on its progress through their media team on our Clubhouse website, so be sure to visit club. gtmotorsports. org for more information on all the upcoming changes to NJMP. By the way, you’re still in time for the annual fall finale at Virginia International Raceway with the Audi Club.

That’s going to happen on November 4 or 5 weekend, same time as the International Motor Racing Research Center Symposium. So if you want to go to the [01:58:00] track, sign up today on Motorsport Reg. Also, For ACO members or folks thinking about signing up for the Automobile Club of the West, there is an early access to the 2024 Le Mans 101st event starting on November the 7th at 10 AM and discounts will apply accordingly.

So check out the website for more details or check out our website for how you can learn more about the ACO and its new features for members in the United States.

Executive Producer Tania: In case you missed out, check out the other podcast episodes that aired this month. We kicked off September with the former editor in chief of Motor Trend and Motor Trend Classic, the one and only Matt Stone.

More than just a journalist, learn about all the cars he’s test driven during his career. We did a two part episode chronicling famed entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin’s journey from Labretta Scooters to founding Subaru of America, to the Yugo, to the Bricklin SV1, and now his latest endeavor, Visionary Vehicles.

We return to Brock Packard’s episode with part two titled, Is [01:59:00] iRacing Still the King? with an in depth look at the world of esports. Want to get away from it all? How about a custom tailored experience from Boulder Campervans? We sit down with founder Brian Kreider and learn about all your options on and off grid.

We take and unpack the definition of sports cars with Skip McGowan from the Society of Automotive Historians. And in a special Halloween crossover with returning guest Caroline Ford and her co host Tracy Bannon from Tech Transforms Podcast, we open the coffin and exhume the scary intersection between cybersecurity and your daily driver.

Thanks again to everyone that came on the show. Reminder, this is the last official drive thru for the season, and be sure to tune in to our upcoming holiday special and best of the drive thru, and we’ll be back after the winter break.

Crew Chief Eric: New Patreons for October, we want to give a shout out and welcome back to Chris Waite from the DMV region of GTM.

He rejoins the team and he has also become a Patreon VIP. The current Society of [02:00:00] Automotive Historians President Bob Barr renewed his GTM membership and also became a Patreon VIP. So we want to thank both of you and salute you for your ongoing support and contribution to keeping BrakeFix and all of the services GTM provides going.

In addition to that, we have a couple of anniversaries to celebrate. Doug Turner and Ben Scherf are celebrating eight years with GTM and Mike Ruber and Nate Burton clock in at three along with Greg Bell celebrating two years with Gran Torre Motorsports. If you’d like to become a member of the GTM Clubhouse, be sure to check out the website club.

gtmotorsports. org and sign up today for free. With that, I’d like to thank our special guest host, William Ross, for filling in for Brad this month and sharing a ton of Ferrari news along with commentary along the way throughout our busy fall schedule here. But William, like any good Brake Fix episode, I want to give you the opportunity to shout out, promote, or mention anything that we haven’t covered thus far.

William Ross: We covered a lot of bases, you know, going into this winter [02:01:00] break here. We had a lot of fun with this, you know, just want to keep everyone in mind to pay attention to not only the Ferrari marketplace. com, the Porsche marketplace. com, but our umbrella site, exotic car marketplace. com. We have a lot of good stuff coming, a lot of collaborations and partnerships that are going to be coming up here in the near future that we’re going to be putting a lot of things together.

It’s going to be a lot of exciting stuff and. We’re going to have a lot more stuff going on on the site itself in regards to not only cars available, but events pay attention to some vehicles we have, or I should say I have coming up that are going to be available. So it’s going to be a lot of exciting stuff because we’re going to really try and push it out in regards to not just written word, but also our YouTube channel, getting those things going as well.

But we got a lot of exciting things coming your way, I should say. So just keep a track, just keep on checking the site and checking back. And a lot of the new things we got coming out, cause it’s going to be a lot of fun. We’re going to see a lot of cool stuff.

Crew Chief Eric: Not only that, it’s not going to be the last time we see William in the halls of break, fix podcast.

That’s for sure. We’re going to have you back on subsequent. What should I buy as [02:02:00] an other episode. So it’s always a pleasure to work with you, William. And thank you again for stepping up and filling in for Brad.

William Ross: Yeah, no, it’s been a blast. And Hey, I’m Brad. If you’re listening, I hope that baby’s not keeping me up too much.

And congrats.

Crew Chief Eric: Folks, remember for everything we talked about on this episode and more, be sure to check out the follow along articles and show notes available at gtmotorsports. org. And you know what, folks, we met our goal. We have surpassed the number of followers on Twitter. We now have more than that on threads.

But you know what I’m kind of thinking, since we did that so quickly, we should try to double and triple that number. Before we get rid of our Twitter. So if you haven’t followed us on threads yet, do so we’re on Instagram or on Facebook, we’re on everywhere, except for Twitter at grand touring motor sports.

Remember there’s no D in that G R a N touring motor sports. So remember to follow us, smash that like button, subscribe, support, whatever you can do to keep this going. And we really appreciate it. And of course, Tanya, thank you for everything you do with the drive through putting in all the hours, the late time, you know, putting [02:03:00] all this together.

Really do appreciate it. So thank you. And to all the members who support GTM, families and friends and fans, without you, none of this would be possible.

William Ross: Outstanding.

Crew Chief Eric: And we’re out.

We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of BreakFix Podcast, brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports. If you’d like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure to follow us on all social media platforms at GrandTouringMotorsports. And if you’d like to learn more about the content of this episode, be sure to check out the follow on article at [02:04:00] GTMotorsports.

org. We remain a commercial free and no annual fees organization through our sponsors, but also through the generous support of our fans, families, and friends through Patreon. For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can get access to more behind the scenes action, additional Pit Stop minisodes, and other VIP goodies, as well as keeping our team of creators Fed on their strict diet of fig Newtons, gumby bears, and monster.

So consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com forward slash GT motorsports, and remember without 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
• 00:34 Welcome to Episode 38
• 01:24 Ferrari Market Insights
• 03:38 Ferrari F50 and Auction Trends
• 06:03 Ferrari Provenance Series
• 10:10 Modern Ferraris: 296 and Purosangue
• 12:44 Ferrari in Racing: 296 GT3 and IMSA
• 17:12 Manual Transmission Swaps in Ferraris
• 22:59 Lost and Found: Ferrari Discoveries
• 25:27 Ferrari Movie and NYC Gala
• 29:09 Formula One: Ferrari’s Performance
• 35:59 Andretti’s Return to Formula One
• 41:51 Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche News
• 42:19 Audi e-tron GT vs. RS6 Avant: A Tough Choice
• 45:22 Tesla’s Charging Network Dominance
• 55:15 Jeep’s Pricing Dilemma
• 01:12:14 The Future of EVs and Concept Cars
• 01:23:00 3D Printed Turbofan Wheel Accessories
• 01:24:14 Exploring Car Accessories
• 01:24:47 Lost and Found: Hidden Car Gems
• 01:28:53 Carvana’s Stolen Car Scandal
• 01:32:17 Tesla’s Drag Race Dilemma
• 01:36:09 Cybertruck Delays and Issues
• 01:42:38 Ugliest Cars on the Market
• 01:45:41 Holiday Gift Ideas for Car Enthusiasts
• 01:47:58 Flat Pack Cars: The Future?
• 01:54:49 Upcoming Events and Announcements
• 02:02:11 Thank You and Farewell