B/F: The Drive Thru #45

• Can't Get a Test Drive in a Ford Maverick? Try Your Local U-Haul Lot

• An Electric Citroën DS Successor Could Be Coming

• Rumor: Toyota's Would-Be Mazda Miata–Rivaling Convertible Sports Car Reborn?

• TikToker Got Rid Of Her Chevy Tahoe After Paying Over $50,000 In Interest

• Woman Allegedly 'Stuck' in Tesla For 40 Minutes With 115 Degrees Temperature During Vehicle Update
• NBC’s The Good Place Sent the Tesla Cybertruck to the Bad Place
• This EV Converted VW Super Beetle Uses A Milk Jug In Such A Fun And Clever Way
• Study Links Preference For Loud Cars to Some Unsurprising Personality Traits
• Dial 9-1-1 - these exhaust pipes have to be illegal?

WhistlinDiesel's cameraman is facing 5 years for this!

• DRIVERS REACT TO “MAD” MANNEQUIN MOMENT AT BARBER INDYCAR RACE
• IMRRC Center Conversation: Oswego Supermodifieds - 200+ person turn out!

Seb drives Senna's McLaren MP4/4 at Imola

• Three top executives at Tesla have resigned in two weeks, with the latest departure at the end of its earnings call
• Neuralink’s first in-human brain implant has experienced a problem, company says
• Tesla must face vehicle owners' lawsuit over self-driving claims

Cyber what? $100k Cyber Fail!

• Volkswagen Delays ID.7 for North America Over Slowing EV Market

[00:00:00] The Drive Thru is our monthly news episode and is sponsored in part by organizations like HPTEjunkie. com, CollectorCarGuide. net, Project Motoring, Garage Style Magazine, The Exotic Car Marketplace, and many others. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of The Drive Thru, look no further than www.

motoringpodcast. net. Click about, and then advertising. Thank you again to everyone that supports The Motoring Podcast Network. Grand Touring Motorsports, our podcast, Brake Fix, and all the other services we provide.

All right, William, you’re up.

So welcome to drive thru episode number 45. 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 drive thru window number one for some automotive news.

Well, folks, you heard it. It’s our most returning this guest cohost on the drive through. It’s William Big Money Ross filling in for Brad tonight. Welcome back to the show, William.

Thank you. Is that a [00:01:00] returning returning?

What was that word? Is that a most

returning is

technical term.

We’re allowed to make things up on this episode. It’s the only time we get some freedom, you know, But speaking of freedom, tonight we’re going to talk about freedom of the open road because, you know what, all the obligatory hallmark and federal holidays are behind us for a while.

I think we’re in that long haul here of the summer, right? The blistering heat, those wonderful things that go along with summertime. But it also means it’s time for some road trips. So I feel like this is going to be our punch buggy, no punchbacks episode. Potentially.

I would just like to interject that it’s May.

Summer has not started yet.

We’re very close.

We are a month away.

I thought Memorial Day was your, you’re going by the actual official date. I’m going by the actual.

Not until June. We’re getting technical. The fact that it’s 90 degrees this week tells me it’s summertime. It’s hot. Before we jump into our showcase about road tripping, we got to talk about the Cybertruck [00:02:00] because it’s our HHR.

It’s our Dodge Dart. It’s all those things rolled up into one. If it could get any worse.

Big old pile of dump. You had to see this coming. I mean, come on, you know, knowing some about metal stamping and trying to stamp stainless and trying what they’re doing, they try to do it as simple as possible by having all the straight edges and not really any contour or nothing.

And people are cutting fingers off. And

if you own a stainless steel appliance in your kitchen, you know what it’s going to look like in about. Five seconds. .

If she said it once, she said it a hundred times at this point,

like I called that from the beginning and I saw one recently down the road. Like I legit actually was like, oh crap, I’m gonna like speed up a little bit and catch ’em at the next light because I wanted to see this thing in person.

And it was nasty looking the smudges all on the door, like where you would be handling it to enter. It just looked like vomit on the side of the door. And then your point about stamping the stainless steel, it had this ripple effect that I was like, is this straight?

No, [00:03:00]

no. But

we’ve covered all that before.

We actually have new news about the Cybertruck and Tanya, this one. Literally blows my mind. This takes the cake. Would you like to inform our audience on what this latest development in Cybertruck nonsense is?

Are you talking about the gas pedal? We covered that last

time. I’m

talking about the shifter.

Do you guys know where the shifter is?

Oh, I heard it’s like in the visor or something. Yes! Who designed this thing

designed by a crazy person who puts transmission shifter buttons in the sun visor.

Oh, it’s in the center. It’s like where your rear view mirror would be.

Right. A guy named Elon Musk. That’s got more money than he knows what to do with it and his

egos.

But the thing is, it’s like one of the most highly touched areas in the car, right? The sun visor, the rear view mirror. And the steering wheel.

No, this isn’t. If you look at the picture, this isn’t a highly touched area because this thing doesn’t have a rear view [00:04:00] mirror in it. Instead of a rear view mirror, you have this button panel.

So it’s really not a high touch area.

Why would you put it there?

I wouldn’t put it there. I’m not defending its location there. But given what they’ve removed to place it there, it actually is not a high touch area. Which just goes more to the shoddy craftsmanship if it falls out without you even needing to touch it.

Here’s a question and there could be a poll what’s worse looking or worse placement or how that design engineering is that or on the C. A. Corvette center council. Oh,

you know, and that Lincoln Mark Z had all the buttons up on the side of the dashboard to those were weird. But I think this takes the cake because what I’m talking about in the high touch area, you’re constantly moving that visor, you’re messing around with the visor and then your transmission shifter falls out.

And stops working. I mean, who in their right mind thought this was a good idea? And by the way, the hazard lights are there too.

Yeah. What about the rear quarter panel? It just falls off.

Oh man. I saw that too. I’m like, what? And it was [00:05:00] just

like interior frame is plastic.

It looks like when you take the door card off of an old Volkswagen and you see the internals of how the window works.

I was like, where’s the frame to the back of the truck?

I mean, so did this thing not have to go through an HTSA crash study? This

is why it’s Teslagate. If you pay enough, if you got enough, which bill is his face on now, like the thousand dollar bill. If you have enough Elon Musk dollars, you can pay this thing through the NTSA.

If this gets hit, it’s going to get obliterated by even a small vehicle.

Here’s what they’re doing. And I don’t know to where the line’s drawn, but there’s a lot. of these tests that are self certifying. Oh, no. That’s good. So it’s just basically the manufacturer does it and goes, Oh, yeah, we’re good. That could be one of the ones that fell under self certification, which is pretty scary when you start thinking about it, because who’s monitoring it?

Eric, like you said, have enough Musk dollars, stamp approval, make it rain. What would Brad say if he was here?

[00:06:00] Delusion! There’s Big Money Ross money, then there’s Elon Bucks. No, all kidding aside, so going into our road trip in here, would you go cross country in a Cybertruck?

No, you wouldn’t make it. No, you wouldn’t make it in any electric car.

You’d get somewhere in the Midwest with a big rainstorm, and then you’d be stranded because the car got wet.

Or because your shifter fell off.

So you’re done and then you would have hit some place with some sand and then it would have gotten stuck. And so you’re done.

I just have to laugh. I mean, I don’t know how much you watch this from when foundations got launched and then hitting the either I’d say private off market transactions and then the auctions because they all first want to go to auction.

Well, there’s quite a few that sold prior to that. Just kind of off market transaction to 25 to 50. Basically within four weeks. Almost paying sticker. And a lot of people were like, I don’t even know if I want to pay sticker for these basically in four to five weeks, man, those things lost 150, 000 in value.

They just

sold one at [00:07:00] Mecum and it came in at 105, which is just barely over sticker and I’m like, wow. Okay.

Yeah. They felt like a lead balloon. These people. Hopefully everybody will just buy them just to have that little gimmicky thing for it because you’re not going to resell make any money anymore on it.

That’s for sure.

What’s funny about this is especially the picture of the fender and everything that is now falling off the gas pedal, the shifter, the fenders. I mean, God knows what else is going to fall off the Cybertruck, but it’s literally. The epitome of the expression. I’m going to drive it until it falls apart around me.

It’s brand freaking new.

That ain’t going to be a far drive.

You know, talking about driving the Cybertruck cross country, one of our favorite places for most well seasoned road trippers is to make a stopover. At the closest Buc ee’s.

Gotta love Buc ee’s. This place is

awesome. Coming your way, William, there is rumor, they’ve been posting on social media and in the Detroit Free Press, that Buc ee’s is making its way north.

There’s billboards as far north as I [00:08:00] 96 in Michigan, basically alluding to Buc ee’s coming that far into the Midwest.

Well, my understanding is they’re supposed to be putting one down there by Dayton. Somewhere between Dayton and Cincinnati, I think on 75. Oh, wow. This was just a couple of months ago. Read it that supposedly they bought the land, everything like that.

They found a small ranch

in Ohio to purchase a couple

thousand acres. But yeah, somewhere down, but like by Dayton and since then, I want to say it was on 75 there, that corridor. Cause it would make sense. Cause if they get up into Michigan, it’s that’s that straight shot. It’s going up. And like, I know going down, which I’m going to be going that way in about A week and a half is going down, hitting 71, 75.

And then just right when you get into Kentucky, you hit that big one. Well, they’re all big.

Tonya, you were in Texas. Some of the biggest Buc ee’s in the country down there, because everything’s bigger in Texas. And for those that don’t know about Buc ee’s, what’s it all about? Why are we talking about a gas station?

Well, they also were founded out of Texas. So of course they’re going to be bigger and badder down there. [00:09:00] They have an advertisement that they have, I don’t know if it’s the world’s or whatever, cleanest bathrooms that you’ll ever find at a rest stop and damn if that’s not true.

Oh god, they smell great too.

The one in between going like Houston to Austin.

You made us stop there when we went to Formula One.

Yeah, we stopped and you went into the restroom and you could have had a party of like dozens of people. It was so huge. It was like a palace and it was sparkling clean. It was amazing. Whatever faux marble they were using, it was Glamorous.

But not only the bathrooms. I mean, they’ve got, I don’t know how many pumps outside.

I think a minimalist one was like 200 plus pumps. They’re packed. Almost every pump is being used.

How many Tesla chargers are the Bucky’s? Two. 200 gas pumps and two Tesla chargers. I love it. It’s brilliant.

Making no money on that electricity.

Of course you would think though, with that big ass store they have that they’d be like, no, what? Let’s give it These people are stuck here for a couple hours, especially, you know. Only half the chargers be [00:10:00] working anyways, and they’re gonna be stuck there for three, four hours.

It’s a

Tesla quality.

There’s like, the food services, then there’s the gift shop, and then I think there was like, the bait and tackle shop, and it was like, anything that you could possibly think you needed on your road trip, you can get at a Buc ee’s. Like, it’s more than just a gas station, it’s an experience.

First time I ever went was just recently back, last fall, whatever, when I went down to Tennessee.

I don’t know if they got the gimmick down, but I mean, they’re banging it. I mean, it’s just, it’s unbelievable.

Michiganders, there could be a Buc ee’s coming near you. So stay tuned to social media and the Detroit Free Press for updates on the newest Buc ee’s coming to the Midwest. So I’m excited for that too.

They’ll go game, but man, they have the legal pot. People can just sit there and they’re pumping their gas. Eat an edible, go inside and just stuff their face with the pulled pork. Jeez. Do you want to have to leave all day?

That’s a trip into itself. That’s a different kind of trip. It’s

a different road trip, but it’s all the road trip it is.

You don’t want to get yourself into too much trouble. You can [00:11:00] get into a little bit of trouble there at the Bucky stuff, but. Don’t get into trouble like Joey Jordan did on his big South American adventure. So go back into our catalog and search for Joey’s South American adventure. That’s an excellent road trip story.

It’s a journey man and machine coming of age 26, 000 miles in a Toyota high ACE that he bought sight unseen. Left from L. A. and drove all the way to Patagonia. Really, really cool story if you haven’t heard it before. So go back, and if you’ve heard it before, it’s time to revisit it. So check it out in our catalog.

Looking back into our catalog a little bit as we’re thinking about road tripping, we did an episode with Brian Kreider from Boulder Camper Vans. So that might be worth a re listen if you’re thinking about some longer road trips. You know, there was a huge craze during COVID. People doing the small house and going off grid and I’m going to have my camper van.

So there’s a lot of those in the market, but if you’re looking for something completely custom built to your specifications, Boulder camper vans is definitely a place to look. And Brian is an [00:12:00] expert in that field.

Speaking of the road trip, I came across that. I posted it up in a couple of spots on LinkedIn and that was, I think USA Today did it top 10, I would say glamping, but they’re actually, they take the retro old school travel trailers.

And it’s a hotel. They’re all set up. So you got like, it’s a travel park, but you’re obviously just renting it. You show up. It was all the old cool restaurants, but they had like the top 10 around the United States. That’s kind of the cool thing this day and age is you can find some really cool places to stay.

I know back in my day, the cool thing was staying at the Holidome. That was the shiznit.

You mean the Hojo? You’re staying at the Hojo? The Hojo.

So you find those like, yeah, I’m living large. So many cool places to stay. I mean, You have a lot of fun this day and age and really kind of get down a two to three week road trip out there and have some fun.

Well, you bring up a really good point because maybe a lot of our Petrelhead audience out there doesn’t know, but if you have kids or grandkids in fourth grade, it’s a nationwide Program that if you have a child in fourth grade right now You get [00:13:00] access to all the national parks for free You don’t have to pay the fees for camping any of that kind of stuff and it applies to your whole family As long as you have one kid in the fourth grade So if you have a second kid coming into fourth grade with older kids You can take everybody on these trips to yellowstone and sequoia And all these places completely for free.

It also just by national park pass for not that much money. That’s outstanding.

So lots of things to look forward to. I mean, look into your department of natural resources, parks, department, things like that. There’s a lot of really cool things you can do. It doesn’t have to be rustic camping with vaulted toilets and stuff like that, really going off grid, but there’s a lot of excellent places that you can go for not a lot of money and enjoy that kind of Griswold family vacation as you’re heading across country.

Just don’t get out of your car and try to walk up and pet a bison, or go after the bear and the cubs, alright, like that. You have some frickin common sense.

Well, to your point, you can’t go on a road trip if you don’t have a reliable set of wheels. It’s up for debate on whether or not we can take a Cybertruck cross [00:14:00] country.

Somebody’s gonna try it, somebody’s gonna do it. That’s unless, of course, you’re a cybertruck driver. You have a Nissan Altima, right Tanya? That’ll stand the test of time. Cockroaches and nuclear winter and Nissan Altimas. Those will be here till the end of time. So it’s all good. And as I like to remind Brad, now that we’re halfway through the 2024 car buying year, let’s talk about what’s officially dead going into September when the 2025 year kicks off, is there anything on this list?

That surprises you or anything you should pick up as maybe a cross country car.

Well, what annoys me about this list is things like the Chevy Bolt EV, but no, it’s not because you literally talked about how you’re actually bringing it back and there’s going to be a second generation. So there’s just not going to be one in the 2024 year.

But it’s not like they’re discontinuing it for eternity.

Right.

I hate confusing stuff like this.

Exactly. And some of these Chryslers, we already knew they were dead two years ago. They made that announcement. It’s not that big of a deal. The [00:15:00] TT died last year, the Audi R8. I was like, they still make that? I thought they stopped producing that a couple of years ago.

So some of these are like, why the hell are they on the list? And then there’s one for William on here.

Yeah. Your FA, I mean, I’m horrible at distinguishing between the models of like, you know, you got your four, eight, eight, your F eight, your piece to all this stuff, they look so similar when they came out with the two, nine, six, this became almost redundant.

What’s the point? I mean, that two, nine, six was supposed to be your energy level. It’s got more horsepower. It’s a better car. Yeah, that’s not surprising. And going by the wayside, my thought probably be next year is the SF 90. I don’t see why. They’ll keep that either. They’re not selling them. No one’s buying them, which is kind of strange.

I mean, it’s got all that horsepower and like that, but people don’t want them. I kind of get it. Everything kind of stopped at the four or five, eight. Once they started going turbo charging, it was like, what’s the point? That’s one of those ones. I was just saying this. Like, wait, that one’s going away? Oh, it’s still here?

Yeah, right, it’s still around.

Like with R8? Wait, I thought that thing was done.

The other one that I’m sort of surprised but [00:16:00] not is that Ford Focus based Ford Transit Connect, the smaller little carrier van, those were becoming really popular here, at least on the east coast, as they were replacing like the bigger Chevy Savannas and stuff.

Stuff for like electricians and some plumbers that only need smaller equipment to carry around. Like the Comcast guy. Why is he driving around in a suburban, right? The Ford Transit’s more than big enough for what they need to do. Those coax cables aren’t that big. So that’s kind of surprising that that’s going away.

Wondering what Ford’s going to replace that with. As you go down the list, there’s more Chrysler stuff. That’s not a shocker. The Kia Stinger. We already knew about that. Mazda is always kind of doing the hokey pokey. The McLaren 720. Again, another supercar that I thought they stopped building, right?

Yeah, that’s the thing with those.

Started with the MP412, whatever, C, blah, blah, blah. Then you go into the 570, then it went into 720, now it’s the 750. There wasn’t leaps and bounds in regards to what they think there are changes on these cars. I know when they went from the 675 to the [00:17:00] 720, I think they had, it was all new tub. Then again, after that, it’s just engineering and horsepower, that kind of stuff.

To your point. Yeah. It’s like, didn’t even know they were still making it. And like, why would you still be making it when you have the 750? Some of this stuff’s just baffling. You got to wonder if it’s just a complete order books or what? I don’t know. But I love the, I guess you would say the moniker or the label these things are getting, because I guess they’re just.

Absolute nightmares to own in regards to electronics, everything like that. I guess like the 720, 750 is so bad, but the 570, 685 and all, especially the MP12, 4Cs, whatever, they call them McCarrens now.

McCarrens. I love that. That’s awesome. Like what? There’s a laundry list of Benzes here, which I’m sure breaks.

Tanya’s heart, because she’s a big fan of Mercedes. And did you notice a common theme outside of the Metris, between all of these Benzes, Tanya?

No, apparently.

They’re all basically coupes.

I was gonna say that, and then I was like, well, there is the sedan four door.

The CLS has that low roof, Like a Passat CC and all that stuff that they were messing with for a while there.

I’m sort of [00:18:00] glad to see that go away. Cause I thought it was kind of awkwardly shaped.

I mean, are we surprised? I mean, in the market here, nobody wants a two door really.

They’re such good looking cars. I thought they got rid of CLS for a couple of years and brought it back. It’s the same question I have about the Maxima, which is on this list as well.

Tanya corrected me like a couple of months ago. Still around they still may well here it is on the death list rest in peace to the Maxima

I’m disappointed to see the renegade going away.

Yeah. Well the Fiat 500 X is going away and they’re the same car basically So that’s the end of that

obviously Production planning and how they go about doing this their plan was all right in 2024 This will be like so this plans out and then their mindset back.

That was to us. Oh, we’re going Is Now everyone’s second guessing it because no one wants to buy the electric cars. The infrastructure’s not there. I mean, it’s all just kind of hitting the fan. And again, these coming years are going to be interesting in regards to how this all plays out. These companies invested billions of dollars doing these [00:19:00] things.

You have some just completely stopping the factories they were building. And it’s going to be interesting to see what comes about here. I saved the best for last.

I think it needs some faux wood paneling down the side. This is the German version of the Griswold family truckster. The Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo.

I think it’s probably the only car on this list I would go cross country and I’m a huge fan of station wagons. But I understand why this didn’t sell who wants a Porsche station wagon. It doesn’t make any sense. I love

this thing though. I think it’s awesome.

I mean, if you’re a fan of the RS six Avant or any of the other station wagons from the VAG portfolio,

I’d buy the RS six first before I bought that, but I liked those things.

They’re great. It’s twice as much as the RS six. So why not just buy the RS six? Cause you’re basically got the same car.

It’s not. Who wants a Porsche wagon? It’s who wants a wagon? Because honestly, who wants a Porsche SUV? I’m sorry, they have no business being an SUV either, but people like SUVs. People don’t like wagons in this country.

How many times is Enzo spinning in [00:20:00] his grave with that Puro Sangue coming to the market?

That Mazda CX whatever?

Yeah, that Puro Sangue drives like, that thing’s phenomenal.

I mean, you’ve seen the memes where they put the SUV next to the Mazda SUV and they look identical. And it’s like, good thing Ferrari spent millions of dollars to make a Mazda.

Here’s the kind of question, like say with this, with the, you know, Sport Turismo is like, all right, there are built in limited numbers anyways, who out there bought it and is just sitting on it because they figured in 20 years, it’s going to be worth something. Yeah. Because they built God, maybe only 15, 20, 000 of them total production run, maybe.

If that,

do you remember when low volume was like less than 50, less than a hundred, less than 2000, it’s creeped up to, I have a low production car. There’s only 35, 000 of the main, like, wait, what got a couple extra zeros on there, buddy.

Yeah, exactly. It’s getting stretched just a little bit too much. I mean, yeah, it’s still a small number, but they talk about like with the F40, cause there’s about 1300 of them [00:21:00] built.

In my mind, that’s a lot for what it is, but, Oh, it’s rare. Low productions that make. Man, there’s 1300. There’s quite a few and never a problem finding one for sale. I’m in the boat with you and saying, look, if it’s 50 or less, okay, that’s low production.

This next one might be low production too, but what would a discussion about road tripping be if we didn’t talk about some open air motoring, right?

That’s the other side of taking a road trip. Throw the top Miata or your C class Mercedes or your Ford Mustang convertible, whatever you’ve got, right? Drop the top, jam it in fourth gear and let’s let it rip. Toyota’s coming to the table with something, and I don’t even know how to explain this. Is

that a Hot Wheel?

Tanya, what is this thing? Is this a cappuccino? Is this a K Car? I

can’t tell. It’s unfortunate. Wait, is that your description of it? It’s unfortunate? That’s perfect. That is perfect. That sums it up. It’s an unfortunate stylistic choice. [00:22:00]

So what are we talking about here?

It’s supposed to be a Miata fighter?

Competitor?

Toyota is bringing to market, supposedly. Allegedly. We’ll see if it happens. Hopefully it’ll come in a GR edition. The SFR, not to be confused with the FRS, it’s a weird combination of style choices, as you point out. But yes, they’re targeting the Mazda Miata directly with a tiny two door drop top.

Well, I mean, is that just a Targa? Because the way that looks, it looks like it’s just a Targa.

Well, it’s all renderings, right? So we don’t know. But it sort of reminds me of the ND Miata fixed roof.

Yeah. That RF or whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which that thing is cool by the way. I love that. Seems awesome.

You don’t see many of those. There you go. There’s a rarity. Well, we

know what it looks like.

It’s

not a render. No, this is a concept car from 2015. That they’re actually, I guess, considering now making. It

looks like it was getting the dryer too long. That’s just weird looking.

Here’s the [00:23:00] thing about this Ugly Duckling.

I’m actually okay with it because A, I’m hoping for a GR edition. B, I gotta go back to the time in the early 2000s when the Z3 The TT, the Honda S 2000, the MRS and the Lotus Elise all came to market. Basically at the same time, there was like this glut of convertibles and Targos for the first time in like decades, the MRS, the MR2 Spyder, basically the MRS, the Toyota.

Was the ugliest of the bunch if you compared it to the Audi or compared to the BMW, whatever But at the end of the day when you were behind the steering wheel It had the biggest smile factor because I got to drive all of them So it sort of didn’t matter what it looked like and knowing what toyota’s capable of let’s put that 300 horsepower Three cylinder turbo in there from the yaris or the corolla.

This thing’s gonna be a rocket ship. I’m all about this I would love to try to drive this car I would say it’s going to be a great track day car, but probably not on [00:24:00] your list of luxury convertibles that you would go on a road trip with.

I think they should be doing this. Like, cool. Yes. Keep doing these cool cars, but my goodness, can we make it look a little better?

No, it’s got to have that Prius effect. It’s got to be ugly for a long time. And then suddenly overnight, it’s like, wait, it looks like a real car now. No offense to Prius owners. Just that we all agree. The Gen 5 Prius is really good looking compared to everything else. Yeah,

it’s a sharp looking car.

I got a chance to ride in one of the Green Grand Prix’s.

I won’t belabor that. But

I mean, they’re really like, they’re really strongly influenced by the Cappuccino and that’s not a good thing.

Have you ever seen one of those in person?

Not in person.

There was one parked in the same parking lot as me, the guy would bring it on Fridays and I would bring a Mark IV.

Granted, I mean, I bring my station wagon, which is slightly longer than a Golf of that period, but I thought I was in a 68 Lincoln in comparison to the Cappuccino. It’s tiny.

That’s fine. The size isn’t the problem. It’s not attractive. [00:25:00]

It’s a design choice. That kind of wraps out our road trip and showcase.

Although as our audience knows that we’ll be pulling on that thread throughout the rest of the episode, but it’s time we turn and talk a little bit about Porsche, Volkswagen, and Audi news. So what’s going on, Tanya?

So there’s actually a couple of tidbits. One of the latest things apparently is that the ID seven, the electric slot, um, apparently is, uh, Delayed without further notice.

Wow.

So I mean like

they’re not saying when I don’t know if it’s indefinitely, but there’s not a oh, we’re just delaying it a couple months But it’s too big money. Ross’s earlier point ev sales are down people aren’t buying

Well, people weren’t buying the facade either. So it’s sort of a lose lose situation in this case Sedans are on the decline.

I mean, wagons are like dinosaurs. Like we mentioned, I mean, if you’re not in the SUV, CUV market or EUV, I guess [00:26:00] it would be these days. People aren’t turning their attention to that. So Volkswagen coming to market with a full size sedan, EV, petrol, or otherwise, they already got burned by this. I think the ID seven is cool.

I know you got to see them in person at CES a couple of years ago, but it’s like, okay, daylight and a dollar short VW.

I think the other bit of interesting VW news, which is late breaking as of today, basically, is apparently they’re in some very strong negotiation, partnering discussions with India to, I guess, have a production facility there.

So Tata’s gonna make Volkswagens now?

It’s a very brief article. That just says they’re in discussions about a passenger car production in India.

Well, passenger car. I was thinking the big man trucks because Volkswagen owns M A N man. They own a lot of other stuff too. So I was like, okay, well maybe that could make sense, you know, because they do have a lot of lorries in India, stuff like that.

I mean, it could make sense if it’s the production facility [00:27:00] for that geographic area, right? If they’re trying to increase. Sales in India or even China

or reduce shipping too, right? That’s a whole right. Exactly.

Like you’re near to that market if you put it there

and they’ve already done this before. So this isn’t foreign to Volkswagen because they have a plant in China as well or multiple ones, I guess.

But the funny part about that is if you look at some of the photographs, sometimes you’re like, when was this photo taken? Because they’re still building the quantum like from the 80s in China today, they call it the Shanghai. I’m sort of wondering like what retro Volkswagen are they going to build in India for the next 30 years?

Maybe that’s how we’ll get new Chiracos or something, you know, they’ll just be built in India.

Hey, if they build a new Chiraco, hey, we’ll build India wherever.

Dude. Yeah. I would stand in line. Brand would, wait, how’s that song go? I would walk 5,000 Miles . Yeah, I would do that for a Rocco.

They’ve been teasing, you know, little things here and there.

Like every couple years they drop it or there’s a drawing or something. Oh, Rocco might be, you know, and everyone [00:28:00] gets

all in a tizzy. And then,

no,

I got to see street versions of the Rocco R when I was in Lama last year, and uh, everyone that went by it just. Soul crashing. I like, I could have this, but they won’t bring it.

Uh, no. Well, another thing that apparently is super disappointing, you know, we’re talking about new cars that are going away, but there’s also a shortage of new cars that people really want. Some clever gentleman out there decided that, well, you know what? He couldn’t get a test drive in a Ford Maverick.

So he just headed on down to his local U Haul. 1995, you can test drive a Maverick for an entire day. That’s pretty clever.

Yeah, well, you get an extended test drive. You can actually put it through some real world paces.

And you didn’t have to deal with the sales guy. It cost you 20 bucks.

Yeah, I was like, here’s 20 pounds salt, buddy.

And I’m out of here.

Go pick up some mulch at home depot.

Oh, heck yeah. And that always baffled me this day and age, minimum 40, 50 grand. All right, let’s go on this 10 minute test drive where you don’t go on the highway, you go on the highway for like one exit, which is maybe a quarter [00:29:00] of a mile. Go here.

Oh, don’t go over 25. You know, it’s like. Get back. So what do you think you’re ready to buy it? What?

No,

every now and then either you got a new salesperson or you find a decent there’s a dollar. You can take it for a couple hours. Just sign this. Give me an insurance card. And there you go. But yeah, I don’t think you’ll find that this date is because you know, inventories are just nothing

a little different in the exotic car market though, isn’t it?

You got the F 40, you push it about 14 feet. And then you ask the guy, so you want to buy it

for 14 feet, maybe 14 inches.

You know, talking about buying and selling cars, I’ve been saying for a while, I got to pull back on some previous episodes. Cause I am still very much enamored, smitten, if you will, not, not, not necessarily in love with, but I am still a huge fan of the Nissan 400 Z.

And I’ve asked Brad, I’ve asked Tanya, I’ve asked William before in conversation. Have you seen one on the road lately?

Yeah,

one, right? They’re just non existent. Here’s the irony in all this. So we got Altimas that [00:30:00] won’t die. They’ll be here at the turn of nuclear winter. We’ve got 400 Zs that we don’t know if they’re being built.

And Nissan is telling dealerships to sell all their cars at a loss. So basically liquidate the inventory again, a power move by the French. I don’t understand what the heck is going on at Nissan. Like they build some cool stuff. Why do people just not care?

It’s a really good question.

Really? Really? I mean, you’re right, actually.

Let’s go through some of them. We have the Altima. We have the Altima. We have the Gert Altima. . We have the Becky wants to go to the Altima. , you’re right, there are so many different Nissans to choose from that it’s shocking

that people aren’t getting the nude Z . And I don’t know if it’s, the fact is when you have such a limited.

Choice in regards to models. I mean, cause you only have the couple, you know, to pick from. It’s not like you got this breadth of like 20, 30 different models. You can, you know, [00:31:00] stay in there. It’s kind of like, well, Mr. Bishop, you really didn’t feel that good of a car anyways, but same premise. When they had the Lancer, the Evo was outstanding.

That’s the thing though. Is this, I think if you just, you don’t have that wide range of choices. Unless you have a very specific type of car, that’s the only reason you’re going to go there. You know, again, like Mitsubishi, the Lancer, but then, you know, Nissan, the 400Z.

And the other thing is, I think the most 400s I’ve seen in any one place is they’re actually running them in World Challenge right now.

There’s a handful of them there. I’m super excited about that. Like they’ve got them on track. The Nissans are doing well. It’s not following that old adage of race on Sunday, sell on Monday. Nobody’s run into a dealership. To buy a 400 Z. And it’s just like compared to the Corvette, to the Porsches, to the Mustangs, to the Supra, to everything that’s available right now, the Z is still a bargain and granted that drag race thing that Kamisa did against the Supra and the Mustang, it didn’t really help the Z in any way.

And, you know, they made all these excuses about, well, if it had better [00:32:00] tires and if it had this and that, okay, it’s big, it’s heavy, whatever. But if you want to buy, and I’ve said it before, a modern Japanese. Slash French 928 brand tourer. The Z is the car to have, and it looks good. It’s got good performance numbers.

It might not be as good as a Corvette or whatever, but it depends on what you want. And that’s the car as a sports car that I would take cross country. Like I’ve sat in one there. They’re really comfortable. They’re really nice. They’re very well appointed, you know, you fit well, even if you’re tall. Why not for 50 grand compared to other things you can buy?

You

know, you won’t have any mechanical issues. They’re, I don’t want to say bulletproof, but built like a brick shithouse. I mean, they’re just solid cars.

It goes back to the three spoke steering wheel of the R32, and it’s got the DNA of the Altima, right, Tonya?

Yeah.

I think I might have five. Found the problem.

Okay. With what’s going on in Nissan. First of all, they lost captain Marvel Brie Larson’s out. So there’s a whole new batch of 2024 [00:33:00] commercials. Even though, as I said earlier, we’re basically halfway through 2024 at this point, but I was listening to this commercial because you can’t watch streaming television anymore without commercials.

It’s just sort of a given it’s everywhere. And I hear this in the background and the punchline to this new commercial, cause it’s full of like nobodies and extras, right? Oh, that Sentra is what I need. And I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, what? So I was like, I gotta go find this commercial. And I couldn’t find it, but it led me down a rabbit hole, investigating the new Sentra.

And I’m like, this is a car that I would like never look at, right? Back in the day in the 90s, When the Sentra was cool, like with the SCR model, and it would compete with smaller hot hatches and kind of sporty sedans that were out there. It was like, Oh yeah, Sentra, that’s awesome. But they got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, right?

So outside of the marketing woes that Nissan has, I think I found the problem. And I’m going to pose it to you guys as one of our guess who type of questions. How much horsepower Do you think a Sentra makes and how much [00:34:00] do you think it weighs?

The new one?

Yes, the 2024 Sentra.

It’s the size of a Maxima, I think, or an Ultima, okay?

So it’s just an Ultima in disguise. So it probably weighs in the three thousands easily. Upper three thousands.

Okay. Willie, what do you think it weighs?

4, 200 pounds. It’s

got about 135 horsepower.

I’ll be a little more generous. Let’s say one 50. Well, what is it? Two 10

official numbers from Nissan. It weighs 3, 122 pounds.

Okay. Lighter than I thought

at 149 horsepower.

Oh,

We were small part, we were close. 90, I almost nailed it. Japanese engine though, pork numbers are down. Gotta rub

the piss out of it.

Is it a four cylinder or a

three?

Two liter, 16 valve, no turbo.

It doesn’t get out of its own way.

You know, with that awesome Nissan CVT transmission, so it’s like winding up the hamsters with bringers, bringers.[00:35:00]

I can only imagine what that’s like to drive because I’ve driven the Lancer cross SUV thing and that was a miserable experience. Another vehicle that weighed about 3, 200 pounds, made it 150 horsepower. And to Tanya’s point, it can’t get out of its own way. So that’s the thing. Give it 210, give it 225, 240, bump it up a little bit so that the driving experience aligns itself with the commercials.

Cause if you listen to these commercials, it’s like the sport tune handling and the precision shifting and the acceleration. 149 horsepower does 85 with a tailwind and a Silverado pushing it. Are you kidding me?

So did you guys hear about the money shift heard around the world?

Yeah.

Yeah. Can you believe this? So this guy apparently grabs like, I don’t know, third gear instead of fifth gear in a crazy, like upshift, basically rubs the motor to like almost nine grand and to go to tells them it’s going to cost [00:36:00] 42, 000 to replace the engine.

And I’m like, wait, doesn’t the GR Corolla only cost like. 40, 000.

Yeah. How can it cost that much?

I think that’s a big F you from Toyota.

Buy a new car.

Yeah. They’re not going to fix that under warranty. They’re like, you’re a putz go back to learning how to drive. Mistakes happen. Honest mistakes happen. But this is why I talk about, and I recently re released our time trial school.

And in that There is a lesson in there about shifting. There’s even a video that I have on our YouTube channel about this, about learning to change your hand position, especially when you’re dealing with gears four, five, and six, being able to push it away from your body. I’ve seen so many people even make the mistake at the track where they go to go grab food.

And they end up grabbing second. The next thing, you know, the motor’s doing 11, 000 RPM and the car is tumbling ass over tea kettle down the front straightaway. And it’s like, take your time. Those power shifts stuff you see on the drag racing cars, they’re built to do that. Plus they’re sequential gearboxes, you know, stuff like [00:37:00] that, or those other, you know, multiple lever shifters.

I forget what those things are called that they have, but a standard street car. You’ve already lost the race. If you think that power shifting from a stoplight is going to save you at the end of the day, either you got it or you don’t, come on, guys. Save the clutch, be mechanically sympathetic, take it easy.

Learn from this guy, 42 grand because he missed the shift. That’s also why I think they should put manuals back in race cars, but that’s a whole nother debate for another day.

Well, that’s what I’ve been saying for F1. Yes. Yeah. Right. Yes.

But before we switch gears here, I want to take a moment to let you guys in on a little bit of a promo that we have going on.

So our friend, professor John Summers, the motoring historian did some research on these oxido led headlights. And so I listened to episode 19 of the motoring historian and he was talking about this with GAMI and he’s going to put them in the Mustang and this and that, and he’s got a promo code and all this kind of thing.

And so I was like, you know what? I [00:38:00] too suffer from the same problems John did. So if you love driving your eighties, nineties, or two thousands classic with those terrible fogged over plastic headlights and all the woes that we have, some of us change them over to European glass lenses and whatnot, if you’re tired of having to run home early from the car show, because your headlights are terrible, or if your car is fast enough that you can actually out drive the shine of your headlights.

These headlights are something you should really consider. I bought a set, I put them in my car, and they made a huge difference. I posted the before and after on our old Instagram at GrandTouringMotorsports, so check out the pictures. But if you want better headlights, Without needing special ballast, without rewiring, without any hassle, these literally drop in, they’re designed to replace your brand name Sylvania’s and whatever that you have in your car today.

Grab a set of these Oxedo LED headlights, use the code motoringhistorian That’s all one word motoring historian to get [00:39:00] 15 percent off your order of auxedo led replacement headlights and see the difference for yourself.

Are you one of these people now that I hate on the road that has these blinding piercing headlights?

Maybe, but I can see and my test drive was at night in the rain and it was glorious. I thought I was driving my Jeep, which actually has HIDs. It was awesome. I was like, I haven’t been able to see that well out of a 20 plus year old Volkswagen in a very long time. And they weren’t expensive at all. I mean, 50, 60 bucks for a set of headlights, headlight bulbs.

Plus then you take the discount off that. It was awesome. Well, it’s time we switch to random new EVs and concept cars. What you got for me, Tanya?

I’ve got a French one for you. Okay. Okay. All right. I’m excited. You won’t be. It’s your favorite French car of all time. No, come on. It’s a Citroen.

Oh, god damn it.

Tell me it’s not the pill bug.

Yes, of course it is. Oh my god. There’s discussion that the DS brand No.

No.

Is going to

[00:40:00] La la la la la la

la la la la la la la. Come back. La la la, I’m not listening. Be reborn, if you will. La la la la la. This time Nope. With the electrical fairy’s assistance. Oh,

come on.

But they go on further to say that something to the effect that Basically, they could share the platform with the new Dodge Charger Daytona.

So what are you saying? It’s like some DS? Does that change your opinion?

The pill bug has turned into a caterpillar. Oh my god.

It is sprouting its wings. It shall soon fly like a butterfly.

I get it. It’s the car that saved De Gaulle and blah blah blah and all this. I hate these things. I hate them with a passion.

If I could obliterate them, I would. I would find such sport in doing antics like Top Gear did with Citroen DSs. I just, there’s something about that car that just gets under my skin. And to hear that it’s coming back now, now, now you’ve ruined it for me.

Would you drive cross country in that? Or the cyber truck.

Oh, okay. Damn it. Why you got to do that? [00:41:00]

I do the citron and then drive it into the ocean.

See Williams on my wavelength. Cause I was thinking the same thing. Am I allowed to just beat the heck out of it? Throughout this entire trip. Can I burn it at the end?

Find a pier somewhere, just right in the Pacific.

Nukes of hazard style. Just bow

and attach me. Let’s see if this thing can float. It

looks like an upside down boat.

Yup.

So much, so much with a passion. I love a lot of other French cars. DS. It’s all downhill, but I digress. We gotta switch to Brad’s favorite section of the drive through Lost and Found, but this time he’s not here to tell us about all the cars on the internet that are still sitting on dealership.

Lots considered air quotes new like, you know, the 20 16 4 GT for $850,000 and things like that. But instead we have William. So William, what’s hot in your part of the world? Any interesting cars for sale in the market right now?

You know what? It’s funny is our friend Don over at Garage [00:42:00] Style Magazine a few months back.

He had messaged me because he had come across, it was a 1970s, early, some four door family grocery, he’s looking for a car for one of his kids, low miles, reasonably priced, like 5, 500 bucks. And I was like, are you close to wherever this thing was at? And he goes, yeah, I’m only like, you know, hour and a half.

So I’ll go look at it. So that kind of opened up the floodgates and really kind of go into Facebook Marketplace every day and like see what’s out there. And I got to tell you, I mean, you hope they’re legit, but there’s some really cool old caddies, you know, the old Buicks, the old four doors big, just bark allowance, your front seats.

For road tripping. Yeah. It’s got 150 horsepower, but it’s got like, you know, 300 foot pound of torque.

How big is that motor again? Seven, eight or nine liters. I’d

say it’s probably 10 liters getting about maybe eight miles to the gallon.

You mean gallons per mile. Yeah.

Yeah. Talking about going across country, doing some road tripping.

There’s your rides right there. The thing will cruise all day [00:43:00] long, 89 miles an hour. Just revs will be at about 1200, 1400. I mean, it’s nice and low. It’s quiet, just smooth. The suspension on that thing, you could go over a parking curb and you wouldn’t feel it.

It’s fun you bring that up because that reminds me of the episode that we did with Bill Warner from Amelia Island.

He was in the original one lap. He’s done the cannonball, you know, those kinds of things. But he talked about the original one lap. And he did it in a Lincoln that they modified for that. And I thought that was really cool. And back then one lap of America was one lap of America. Yeah. Not like they do today where it’s like sort of these cloverleafs around South Bend, Indiana.

Yeah. I think you’re onto something. Those old American kind of sofas on wheels, especially old station wagons, like a grand marquee. They like the family truckster. Those are great cross country vehicles.

People might get a little leery because they’re saying, well, you know, it’s, in the winter, snort, that’s stuff like that.

But you have a lot of those where it was grandma’s car, you know, grandpa’s car. They didn’t drive in the winter. They maintain those things meticulously. They got all the records. I mean, you [00:44:00] come across some really cool stuff. Go out there between five and 10 grand. You can get something really cool.

That’s going to drive me and you can work on it yourself. It’s so simple. You don’t have all these electronics. You have all this crap in there. You can just lift up the hood and you can see everything. There’s the motor, there’s the battery, everything’s there. New car side, though. You go buy a dealer’s lot.

They don’t have any cars.

Rent them from U Haul, right?

Yeah. Go to U Haul and rent there.

This next one, I need somebody to explain to me. I don’t get this. I mean, we talked about TikTokers and YouTubers doing crazy stuff with like the Hummer and some of these supercars. They end up wrecking them about 10 seconds after they get them.

But is this new math?

These stupid people that don’t understand how interest rates work.

So the headline reads TikToker gets rid of her Chevy Tahoe after paying 50, 000 in interest. 10,

000 only came off the principal and kind of goes into. I guess you would say math skills. They were able to justify their 1, 400 a month payment for the tile, but they said the 1, 600 a [00:45:00] month for her husband’s Silverado, which was a better vehicle newer, they didn’t make sense.

So all that extra 200 a month, that puts you over the top.

Because TikTok wasn’t paying for the Silverado. It was only paying for the tile.

Yeah. But here’s the thing though, is cause she was paying what 10 percent or something interest on a love set. This was three years ago when rates were cheap or anything like that.

I hate to say what, but someone saw her coming and just stuck her. You shouldn’t get paid more than 4%, especially on a new vehicle.

Okay. And this is where Brad usually chimes in. Cause you know, he’s a finance guy and he’s looking at all this kind of stuff and he’s done loans before and all that. And I think, and this is just me sort of looking from the outside, If your line of income is tick tock, I’m not saying that was her primary line of income, but if I’m looking at your debt to income ratio and the stability of your income, tick tock is sort of fleeting in comparison to having, I don’t know, like a real job with a real paycheck and a w two where they can say, okay, well, you’re making this income.

much and you have collateral and you have this and you have that, but if you’re [00:46:00] basing it solely on crowdfunding and crowdsourcing and social media and stuff, that’s a high risk loan for a 900, 000 vehicle, right?

Oh yeah. You’re going to get cracked on that interest rate. There’s always, you know, all those different ways to skin a cat, go get a equity line, home equity loan, do something that’s, you’re not killing yourself, but having to keep up with the Joneses.

So she’s doing that through TikTok. Why did you need a 2022 loaded up Chevy Tahoe when your TikTok stuff is nothing to do with vehicle? I mean, why? For the gram. Yeah. And then the husband goes out and gets himself a brand new truck to boot too.

I never advocate for this because especially as a collector, I mean, you know this William, I’m like lease versus buy.

You can make those arguments. But these days the cars are so expensive. She’s only had this thing like a year and a half or two years. You paid 50, 000 in interest. I’m going to say the simple math says that actually leasing it for the 18 months that she had it or whatever would have been more sound and fiscally [00:47:00] responsible than the way this was carried out.

I’m going to have to just never buy a new car because you’re always going to lose right off the bat anyways. I mean, the last new car I ever bought off the floor with my C4 vet, that was the last one I got. And that was just like, Hey, I want to get a six speed, but you know, it’s just, I was 24. I didn’t give a shit.

So I was like, Hey, I’m getting this thing, but it doesn’t make sense. Financially economically, just the way the numbers work. Yeah. It’s like, to your point is lease it best is, you know, you look at what the residual is and everything like that. You look at all the angles of it, position yourself better at the end of a 36 month lease, what have you.

You can kind of being ahead on it. I’ve seen instances, I’m sure Brad can concur with this too, as well. If he was on his. The argument where, when a lease was up, the person was so in the positive in regards to equity wise that they had in the car, because they went up in value or whatever, that, that the dealer was basically forcing them to tell them, no, you got to turn the car in.

Nope, we’re taking it. They wouldn’t let them buy it. It’s like, yeah, they’re like, no, it’s right here in the contract. And seeing those types of scenarios as well. You know, you really got to go in and understand what you’re looking at, [00:48:00] especially when you’re talking what cars are valued at today, what you’re paying, having a four figure a month car payment, 1, 400.

I mean, that’s a mortgage payment for a majority of people.

You said something really important, William. And I need to pull on this thread. You said C4 Corvette. And spoiler alert for our audience out there. We’re going to talk about Corvettes more at a future episode together, but I want to remind our audience too, if you go back in our catalog and listen to some of the, what should I buy?

As the Williams has been on, he was also a Fiero owner. So we’ve gone from the Fiero to a C4 Corvette. So did the mullet get longer or shorter between those two

cars? It went from Mazda GLC to Fiero GT. To Mustang GT. Oh,

cruising in your 5.

0. Longer, longer, longer. Going on top, longer in the back. Oh, yeah.

Got worse and worse, you know. Then you get into the vet. That’s when you get the chrome jacket with the Corvette down the arm and all the attire go balls out.

Your first pair of new [00:49:00] balances. Did you get this?

Oh, yeah. Thank you. My jeans up to my nipples

Before we go too far afield, I think we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about tesla

Well, do we have to

again some more This is a staple Within the show now, it’s its own thing.

It has morphed mutated

executives quitting. That’s Kind of old news already at this point. I mean, that already happened before they laid off a bunch of people by having them just show up and their badge not working. We covered that last time.

The other thing that I love, Mr. Musk, you know, I guess you’d say a brilliant move, charging, you know, someone 24, 000 for yourself driving and all these things, but pay me now for it.

We’ll get it to you eventually. Oh, but when we do, you’re gonna have to pay us more money. It’s unbelievable how brainwashed these people are in regards to these Teslas because they tolerate it I wouldn’t tolerate that if I was getting a card I paid for [00:50:00] that. Where is it?

And that’s just it I would love to know why they’re quitting this Elon on a tear Is he just firing people in a very apprentice sort of Trump Ian way or whatever?

Something else is going on or is the writing on the wall that Cybertruck Elon was quoted as saying was going to bury them. And it’s getting worse and the stock is tumbling and all this stuff is happening. And where is the cheap 30, 000 people’s EV, the model two and all this hokey pokey, and it’s like, what exactly is going on?

I wrote in a Tesla just a couple of weeks ago when I was in Tampa and I pointed to the person I was riding with. We were in an Uber and it’s a brand new Tesla model. Why, as a matter of fact, I never ridden in a model Y and I pointed. And he just nods his head and the whole seal of the door was like coming off.

And when I got out of the car, it actually caught me and I pulled it out and I had to put it back. And I’m like, car’s trying to strangle me. I was like, what this thing’s I’ve never experienced that in any other car where this stuff is like falling apart. On [00:51:00] me. And when I looked at it, it was like that door seal wasn’t even formed correctly.

It didn’t meet up with the interior components. And I’m like, you pay all that money. Is it a status thing? Like, I don’t understand. Think about

that.

What other

brand, if you bought a Ford or anything like that, and that was happening, just imagine recalls everything, just the backlash. Happens with Tesla.

It’s like, oh, that’s just a Tesla. I don’t get it. I mean, I would be furious But they just seem to well, that’s just the way a Tesla is, you know, it’s Built quality customer service sucks and it’s horrendous. I don’t know. I just don’t get it. I don’t know how people tolerate I just It’s unfortunate.

This next one’s pretty unfortunate too. Remember I talked about being in San Francisco and people were like, you know, we’d have to worry about self driving because soon we’ll be communicating with our Teslas through the neural link. I just want to say.

Topia

fail, fail, fail.

They haven’t given up yet. Yes, their first [00:52:00] human implant has had some difficulties.

So apparently they put this little chip in you that has all these little thin diameter wires that they poke into your brain and apparently Like 85 percent of the wires have like retracted out from.

They were rejected by the body.

They were pointed into the motor cortex and 85 percent of that have retracted from the motor cortex.

So they’re there to send electrical impulses and stimulate motor function. And it was put into a quadriplegic.

It made me have a flashback or think of the big bang episode when Wolowitz had that robotic arm and it got stuck. Duck on his, uh, you know, Willie, his member. Yes. So I’m thinking the neural link is going to have that.

William,

are you having a stroke or a software malfunction?

Did you try turning it off? I’m still shocked that they got [00:53:00] FDA approval for human trials.

Are we sure about this or is this more musk money?

Self certification there again.

Allegedly it has FDA approval. Now all disclosures around that been shared unclear.

So I don’t know. It’s surprising. Cause I mean, that’s a pretty serious. apparatus. I mean, it’s pretty serious. You’re manipulating the brain to have gotten approval with God knows what pre testing, right? Because it would have had to have proven itself in some other form that would have been part of criteria is they would have had to have some sort of trial non human that showed efficacy.

It was a rat. We all know it. Of

course it would have been. Yeah. Like a

microchip on its head. Yeah.

Well, we’re being Told or what is being disclosed is what half a percent? It’d probably be scary some of the stuff all the documentation and what’s been going on with that

If we want to get to star trek level borg nanomites, this is the [00:54:00] way we got to go there, right?

It’s got to start somewhere and then you know miniaturization and perfection and murphy’s law and all that. I mean That’s what

kind of this is

Tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists also believe we got nanomites through the COVID vaccine, but you know, hey, whatever.

No, no, no, Bill Gates. I’ve got Microsoft inside me.

Well, if it’s anything else, like older versions of windows, it’s destined to blue screen and not work. So it doesn’t matter.

Nothing’s gone wrong. Thank you.

Your face permanently goes into that. We scream, you know, smiley wink, and then you sit there and it makes that sound. What would a Tesla conversation be without some legal troubles?

They’re constantly in legal struggles.

Is it over their certifications?

Probably. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s out there too. We just don’t know it. Right. But I mean, they’re still under litigation, etc. around the false claims of [00:55:00] the self driving fully autonomous. Blah, blah, blah. BSBS, their line. BSBS, their line.

Come

on, this makes you happy. You were on this soapbox for like three years straight. Like, come on, people. Now we have a, what, class action lawsuit?

Well, I want to see it actually happen.

Somebody sent Tanya the 12 that they’re going to receive from this lawsuit, right? Have you guys ever done a class action lawsuit?

All this rigmarole and all this stuff. And then you end up with a check for like 4 and 37 cents. You’re like, really? That was so not worth it.

Yeah. It shows up five years later too. Yeah.

You totally forgot about it. You’re like, what’s this even about? Like, I don’t care.

I did one just for that purpose to find out.

I think it came back to like a dollar something. Oh, it’s ridiculous. Yeah, it’s like, what’s the point? You gotta figure that’s what those lawyers are hoping for, is no one bothers with it. So it’s just

more money for them. That was like Dieselgate. They were buying back all the Volkswagens, and then they were like, So, Bosch, what are you gonna do to make people whole?

Well, here’s a 500 check. You’re [00:56:00] like, wait, what? Excuse me? It’s better than zero, but still, I was like, Fine, whatever. Tesla news always sort of lowers my expectations.

There’s always a Tesla story that sort of crosses the boundary between Tesla gate and what we call low E here in the studio or lowered expectations. And this one. I have to give a huge shout out to the special guest on the drive through a ways back. He’s been a longtime fan of the show and supporter of break fix through Patreon.

Mr. Mark Hewitt brought us this gem of Tesla news. You could see Tanya’s face right now.

Come on.

It’s

unfortunate. You got to get some t shirts maybe with that on there. It’s unfortunate.

Unfortunate state of society. This poor individual. It was time to run a [00:57:00] firmware update on the car. I guess they were inside of it at the time. And okay. Update now. Except I believe when the Teslas are doing their updates and whatnot, basically disables, uh, Everything, essentially, all the electronics get paused, you’re not supposed to drive the car, you’re basically not supposed to do anything with it, I don’t think you’re supposed to engage anything.

So, I think they quite literally took that to be, I’m gonna sit in the car this whole time, it’s California, it’s hot outside, the windows are up, you know, the doors are closed, we all know what happens. in the middle of the day to the interior of a car. Okay. The three digit temperatures it reaches and she’s in there sweltering, dying.

It was a sauna.

Chick fil a

orders stayed nice and hot. Oh my God.

Except for that milkshake became

hot chocolate. Curdled a little bit. Well, here’s the thing though. She’s gotten what? 30 million views on it? Something like that?

Yeah. And you got to wonder like, How much of this is staged BS? You know what I mean?

You can’t trust half these [00:58:00] videos you see on TikTok anymore because it’s like get real. This is acting.

Yes.

And maybe you could be ignorant to the fact that Teslas have manual door releases. You don’t need the electronics to work. Like it’s the one safety feature I guess that they have. That in an event of an emergency you aren’t trapped inside of it.

Like there’s this thing called an old fashioned door handle. And you could release yourself? The driver could have done this that whole time. Maybe they didn’t know it was a feature. I wouldn’t have sat there going into, uh, heat stress, heat stroke, while my freaking car is updating. Here’s your license.

Tesla offers manual door releases for situations with depleted power. But Janelle opted to wait, fearing potential damage to her car.

How long

did she opt to wait? At least 24 minutes, because allegedly that was how long the update was going to take. If that’s 24 minutes in computer time, that was anywhere from 24 minutes to like three hours.

Yeah.

We’ve all done Windows updates before. That is 100 percent accurate.

[00:59:00] Then she makes the comma. She goes, inside my car, it’s 103 degrees. She goes, so I’m slightly freaking out. I hope I don’t run out of air. I’ll show you me. You can’t go and pull that handle that you’re aware of that. Oh, my

God.

And so she ended up being in there for 40 minutes.

Yeah.

At 115 degrees.

Probably she didn’t pass out again. Is this BS? She had like a cooler of water in there and she’s

Again, it’s a sauna.

Yeah, you start looking at this stuff and you’re really kind of like, come on, you look, okay, how many followers did you gain out of that? I mean, cause then, you know, in their mind they’re thinking, Oh wow, I got 30 million or even if it was half of that.

Okay. I got to do something else now. They’re going to do something else and try and get it.

Well, we’re going to talk about one of those fools in a minute too. So let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. This next one must make you smile, Tanya. How did you miss this?

I think it happened so fast that unless you were really acutely watching one of the episodes of The Good Place, you just would have missed it.

And what happened?

They were foreshadowing the dumpster fire that is the [01:00:00] Cybertruck by literally having a picture of the Cybertruck, a billboard picture above a lit on fire dumpster.

And they sent it to the bad place. I love it.

It’s hilarious. How prophetic is that? It’s perfect. I’m sad. I

need to go

back and

watch that episode.

This next one had me going,

so did you see this bug?

I didn’t. I never listened to it, but I saw it.

Okay. 74 Volkswagen Super Beetle that they converted to an EV. I mean, that’s been going on since the beginning of time. I don’t have a problem with that. EV West has been put in EV packs. And Porsche’s and VW’s for forever. Right. But you pop the hood at the car show and you look in there and you see a milk jug strapped to a cross beam.

And you say to yourself, what the hell is that? Like, I mean, the old days as a racer, you’re like, it wasn’t uncommon to see like a Foster’s can and somebody’s engine compartment using it for like overflow for antifreeze or the vapor [01:01:00] blowout from like the valve cover, you know, with the oil and all that kind of stuff.

So, okay, fine. Milk jug is an alternative too. What did this ingenious, clever automotive enthusiast do with this milk jug?

Little flappy handles on it and what it just goes like

It makes it sound like the bug is idling with a flat four.

So is he in the car like pulling a lever and just making it go stop, stop, stop, stop?

Got

a little electric motor that’s running off the batteries. It’s like a child’s toy. It sits there and it bangs on the milk jug and it makes it sound like it’s idling. But the best part is if you watch the video, the guy’s like at the very end, he’s like Rev it up. I’m like, Oh my God, this was definitely low e for sure.

I’m like, Oh, but you know, good on him. I mean, we’re talking about it, aren’t we?

Yeah.

Speaking of talking about things, I hate talking about this next one.

You don’t like talking about it because Whistlin Diesel’s involved. Cause he’s kind of moron.

This is the guy, Tanya, that puts the wagon wheels on the Hellcat and turn the Tesla upside down.

He’s the [01:02:00] one that cut the mirrors off of that Ferrari. Like, I wonder what this is going to be like. He did it with a sawzall. I’m like, come

on.

Put his F8 out in a cornfield,

drive around and burn to the ground. And it’s

like, it must be nice to have more money. Where does he get the money to destroy this stuff?

Got

millions. 12 year olds on YouTube watching his videos and Google pays him. Blah.

I’m trying to remember how many he’s got. Just crap. I think it’s like 20 million. So he’s

got, well, he’s got one less. So what’s

this latest one that’s saying his cameraman?

Yeah, and I can relate to this

because when I saw this, I kind of chuckled because since I have, you know, we have our event coming up here soon, uh, end of July, he was putting together the cars and coffee types of events.

You know, you just kind of, hey, here’s a place to meet everything that Bob was, is, you know, he was getting, you know, people leaving burnouts, everything like that. The police were trying to find some way to get him. He’s the blame. He’s the one organizing [01:03:00] everything like that. They went after him for organizing these events, some about inciting riots.

So they went hardcore, like way to the top. And it’s like, are you kidding me? I mean, it’s like, DA in this situation doing this because it’s like, okay, you’re just a real prick and either you got a lot of time on your hands or something like that, but all this kid did, or guy, whatever you want to call it, just organized some cars and coffee type events.

They got pissed off because you know, business around the place, people even doing burnouts or that. So. They went after him and it’s sad. You know, at first it was, you kind of chuckled about it, but then all of a sudden it got pretty damn real when the charges got filed and he’s looking at five years in prison and I’m trying to remember what the fine was.

Six digit figure.

The whistling diesel guy or

the camera man,

camera guy. Oh, so the camera guy of whistling. So it’s not technically associated with the whistling diesel guy.

You would think, all right, I’m whistling diesel and this is my camera guy, whatnot. Hey, I got your back, man. Don’t worry about it.

Whenever we’ll pay it by what? Not once have I seen anywhere [01:04:00] has Winston Diesel stepped up and says, Hey man, I got this, you know, I want you to take care of that. Not once. It’s just like, you’re on your own.

Fucking rude. Speaking of rude, this next one got under my skin pretty hard and it should upset pretty much every petrol head on the face of the planet.

Once you read this article study links preference for loud cars to some unsurprising personality traits. And I’m going to sum this up by saying that some professor somewhere doing a study of some things and this and that they surveyed X amount of small portion of people and said that basically if you like the sound of the exhaust on your Porsche, Mustang, AMG, Mercedes, VR6, it doesn’t matter what it is.

You’re either a sadist or a psychopath. I was like, excuse me. What? First I was like, is this a freaking April fool’s article? Cause I was like, there’s no way this is real science. And there’s words thrown in here, Machiavellian and like all this. I’m like, uh, what bookworm wrote this? [01:05:00] Like, have you ever been.

To attract a, have you experienced what motorsports is about? Why people might like loud cars. And I’m not saying they need to be loud to the point that they’re obnoxious because there is a modicum of just overbearing. Some engines can be really annoying when they’re uncorked, but some of them are just absolutely delightful.

And there’s an Instagram response to this that I thought was absolutely amazing. And the Senator is quoted in this Instagram reel as saying. Modified exhaust systems serve no purpose other than to create fear, chaos, and intimidation. And there’s like a news report, actual car fans. And then it’s a 911 GT3 RS.

Do it just a flat out burnout from the start line. And it just sounds glorious. I was like, amen, [01:06:00] brother. That is the response to this. Like throw all your exhaust sounds at these people because to us and correct me if I’m wrong, it’s music. Is there anything like a multi Weber B12 Ferrari?

Oh, yeah. To your point, like it’s almost like it’s a musical note.

It’s a symphony. How is that a dark trait? You know, your likeness to, you know, a symphony or to music and you’re trying to say dark trait. It’s just, those are people starting these things. They already have ill, bad intent going in to try and prove their opinion. It’s unfortunate. Where did you pick these 500?

It’s like the results were preordained in regards to this. They just went through the hoops or did what they had to do to make it look

legit. Somebody’s grant money paid for that. That’s all I’m saying.

Exactly. They got a 50 or 60, 000 grant. Here you go. Research this for a year.

I got so many things I could say to this, but just that

9

11 amen.

That’s, that’s it, man. I mean, there’s plenty of other great sounding cars out there, but yeah, if you don’t get it, [01:07:00] you don’t get it. Right. I mean, it is what it is. This next reel on Instagram.

See, that’s an example of a psychopath. I cannot believe

this.

Like, what the is that? How long are those pipes? Can it actually get under the stoplight?

I was wondering that

too. Because those things look like they’re 20 feet tall.

I mean, it could be the camera angle with all due respect to perspective, but.

So, okay, I know the JDM guys are into doing all sorts of crazy stuff, but here we have a new Zupra, the new Supra BMW combination. And he’s put these exhaust pipes on it that go straight up like a cartoon and they are at least 20 feet tall.

The car doesn’t Sound any different? It just sounds like a Supra, but I’m also asking myself, how the hell does he support these? How does it not break the exhaust? How are they braced? And to your point, Tanya, how does he clear the traffic light

where that bends at coming out from underneath the car? Such a stress point just from that weight [01:08:00] going up.

If one thing was going straight up at 90 degrees, but that’s at an angle, so you have that stress point right there at that bend. whatever degrees it may be, then the pressure underneath, you know, your point that’s farther up underneath the car is getting pushed.

And it’s constantly under load. It’s constantly, yeah, you know, bouncing because every little imperfection in the road, it’s just swinging.

There’s no brace

going between it. So they’re independent of each other.

This is so stupid.

It’s almost like that, you know, inflatable dude. Yes. Yes, the burning man. Yeah, the person driving behind them, man. They’re brave because that thing falls down. That’s going to do some damage to somebody’s home.

I was just about to say that.

What are those movies? Final Destination.

Yeah. I mean, it’s going to be like that. That thing’s going to come through the windshield like a bazooka. That

shit’s hot.

Well, all that pipe, all that money, it’s better stainless steel than the Cybertruck. But the point is, it doesn’t sound any different. So it sort of proves the point that as ridiculous as those, let’s call them [01:09:00] stacks are, because that’s sort of what he’s trying to do, like a tractor trailer, except three times taller.

It makes no difference in the sound of the car. I mean, you would have been better off doing a side exit cutoff, like they do in the race cars. If you want it to sound different.

You know he’s gotten pulled over a bunch of times. He has to.

You know, there’s people getting pulled over for the weirdest stuff, and this guy’s out on the road?

Must be in Florida.

There’s no way that’s, like, legal. Yeah, it can’t be. There’s just no way. It’s just not safe. But yeah, it looks like it’s Florida.

This next one. We have normally reserved four lowered expectations. I have given Tanya and Brad a homework assignment month after month, but I figured, William, since you’re here from the exotic car marketplace as our resident Ferrari expert, I’m bumping this to rich people fangs.

I’m going to ask Tanya one last time. Did you watch the Ferrari movie?

Yes, I did because I said I would last time. All right!

What is this movie about? And who is it about exactly?

Obviously, it’s called Ferrari. [01:10:00] It’s about him. But see, that’s the thing. I didn’t know what it was actually about because it could be about so many different things going into it, right?

As the movie progressed, okay, are we going down this avenue? Well, we’re not. So we’re going to go down this avenue. We’re really not. And then you get towards the end and it’s like, We’re going down this avenue. Is that what this, the whole thing has

been about? So you understand my point now when I say who is this movie about?

And I’m being cryptic because I don’t know if you want to give spoilers.

That’s up to you guys.

I’m sure it was either you watch it now or, I mean, I’ve watched it six times already.

Immediately you realize, okay, this is not like some sort of documentary of biography of his life, right? Because you enter it, he’s already of a certain age.

The company already exists. It’s not about him and where he grew up from and how it even came to be Ferrari, that’s not what the movie is about. I thought maybe it was. For a while I thought it was the equivalent of Ford vs. [01:11:00] Ferrari. Ferrari vs. Maserati.

Right.

Yeah. I was like, okay, so there’s gonna be some like, sort of unknown battle between the early days of Maserati and Ferrari.

Okay, this could be interesting. And then it really wasn’t. And then, you know, you’re wondering, well, we’ve already into the man’s life. Is it about his wife? Exactly. And his illegitimate child and all this stuff. No, it really wasn’t. And then it’s like, okay, we’re going racing. Cool. It’s like, okay, well, we know the outcome of what happens.

Yeah, the 57 millimeter. Yeah.

Yeah. With the tone of the movie up to that point, it was very shocking. And then I read a little bit afterward and it intentionally made the scene of the crash that basically ended that race ever happening again.

That’s a hardcore, even for the CGI doing that, man, that was brutal.

I mean, I read that they tried to make it pretty much like this is basically what would have happened like they tried to be like realistic with it and it’s just like the tone of the movie then it was like whoa we just went [01:12:00] there and it’s like the carnage and the chaos and it was just like that is emotional.

Well Michael Mann actually had met when he went to the site whatever there was actually an old guy now but he was one of the kids. Per se that were sitting at the table and went out.

Yeah,

it was actually there and he got that viewpoint from someone that was there. Right. If it was the aftermath or he was standing close to everybody, he really wanted to make a statement with that scene and it leaves an impression on you.

That’s like a holy, oh, Jesus Christ.

It definitely did. And it’s interesting kind of reading more on the history of that accident. It was like the people that were like super up close on the road actually fared better, even survived than some of the people that were a little bit further away from the road, apparently, which is just like, it’s all just mind blowing.

Uh, maybe it’s similar to the wreck at Le Mans where the guy went into the stands too. Right. I mean, he obliterated even dozens more people. I think that that accident, not to make it any less tragic than it was. So that happened. And [01:13:00] then. And you’re like, okay, how deep are we going to get into the litigation and all that stuff?

Because basically it was like, they’re blaming Ferrari. And I don’t know, they, they went through it really fast. They were exonerated basically that it wasn’t defect of the car or their negligence of sending the car out with improper tires and this, that, and the other. They, you know, they went back and the safety people that did the investigation and all that.

had gone back and concluded that it was the reflector basically in the road that punctured the tire and sent the Ferrari catapulting through the air and ricocheting off poles and stuff. So I don’t know what the movie was about in the end because there were just so many things. Didn’t you say that?

There were so many things going on and it’s not that it was super even disjointed. I don’t want to say it. load. I mean, I guess it did. It, it had a weird string that it followed and it wasn’t what I was expecting. I didn’t necessarily go in with an expectation either. So I wasn’t left super disappointed.

I wasn’t like, this is the best movie ever.

Like, I mean, in [01:14:00] terms of like seeing a movie, like the Ford versus Ferrari, right? Like that was just. I don’t know, that was very different versus this. I did, I guess, maybe have an expectation that maybe it was going to be kind of on a level like that. Like you were going to get that history, that story, how he rose to the success and all that.

And it wasn’t necessarily. It

was very dark.

Maybe that movie’s still out there to come.

And oddly enough, it’s based on the book that’s on William’s shelf. And it’s behind me on my shelf. If you’re watching the video version of this, Brock Yates Enzo biography, which is a tome if there ever was one. It is a big book.

There’s a ton of content out there to make a very compelling and captivating movie, but it wasn’t a bad movie. I mean, I don’t, I don’t know what to think about it.

Gotta go into it. I’ll say a disclaimer, but like when I watched it the first time, that’s one thing I went and saw it for the first showing that day when they had it out.

But kind of putting out to say, look, people got to remember, this is not a documentary.

Right, exactly.

That’s the thing. You know, it’s just a movie. It’s entertainment. You know, there’s a lot of things [01:15:00] that aren’t lining up time for a line. Right. Look, this is just for entertainment. Don’t take it so serious.

But so many people, Oh my God, it was over on his desk. Like that’s not what it was for. No. And then watching it’s like, but if he had like another 45 minutes or an hour length wise, it was in there. He might’ve been like. We’re going to complete some of the things and kind of run it off. It’d be interesting to see if he comes out at some point in time with the director’s cut.

You know, they filmed a lot of the stuff. Well,

as long as that doesn’t end up like the Justice League director’s cut, which is a completely different movie. I was like, what is this?

Yeah. I will say that it was neat seeing how they blended some of the old footage in with the new, like they did that pretty well.

They clearly brought out some real cars or at least some replicas in certain scenes. The sounds were pretty nice. I mean, if you’re a psychopathic, narcissistic, Machiavellian sadist.

Exactly. They did have a couple of real ones, but the majority of them were all replicas that were made [01:16:00] by, uh, I’m trying to remember the place, but they did a phenomenal job with those.

Put them together because obviously those vehicles today from then, especially the winning car worth so many millions of dollars.

Yeah, of course. I felt like there were a few scenes where like, okay, we pulled them out. Probably there. They might be the real ones. And then of course the theme where it’s like, but Maserati and stuff is like careening down the field.

I’m like, yeah, that’s not a real one.

It’s an Ultima.

Yeah, so watch it and you see that they actually use some actual footage. I thought that was really cool. Gave me that feel for it. Because you got some of these other ones where it’s all CGI, they make shit up or whatever. Like in Ford versus Ferrari, you know, they’re out to whatever track, they’re going, you know, 30 miles an hour, but then they speed it.

That kind of shit is like, no, they use actual footage. Which I thought was really good and as we know is Michael Mann’s a director So it

doesn’t hold a candle to let’s say ford versus ferrari or rush and some of the other films that have come out It’s in a different league than let’s say lemans some of the classics it does Step above films like the Ferruccio Lamborghini movie that came out.

[01:17:00] That was terrible.

So

there’s some garbage out there for sure. So it’s at the top end of the middle, if we look at it that way. But I also want to bring up, Brad said he did watch it. So by proxy, I just want to say that, you know, he said he got emotional watching the film and I’m allowed to make fun of him because he’s not here.

And I don’t think he got emotional over the Deportago wreck. I think he got emotional over seeing Patrick Dempsey as an old man In this film.

Now I was, I was going to bring that up. Not the emotional thing. I think it was the car crash based on the timestamp, but the Dempsey thing, I didn’t realize he was in the movie.

And then you don’t see him to like a good, I feel like 45 minutes in and they’re like at the dinner table or something. You’re like, wait a second. Cause he didn’t say anything. He was just sitting at the table. I think he said like one word and he’s got like white, white, white hair. And I was like, is that Patrick Dempsey?

And I’m like, you’re only, and then I’m like. And I had to look it up and I was like, it is Patrick Dempsey. And then you don’t see him again for like another 30 [01:18:00] minutes. I think you’re only in this movie because you probably got to drive like one of the real Ferraris for like five seconds.

Or he owns one of them.

You never know. I

don’t know. It’s interesting. If you look up who they used as a lot of the drivers and stuff like that, that they snagged to do it. There’s some really interesting people that they utilize to drive the cars.

Former formula one guys, like all sorts of stuff. But overall, I think. If you put that all together, that’s what brings it to the top of the middle, right?

The bottom of those upper echelon films like Rush and the other ones we mentioned. I think if you want more in depth, if you want to learn more, and Tanya, I don’t know if you’ve already listened to the two part episode that William, Professor Summers and I did together about the history of the Mila Mila, but we do cover the crash.

We do cover 57, the turning point, what happened to the Mila Mila after that. So it is all based on true events and true stories, but There’s a lot more to all of those characters at the table to include the character that Dempsey is portraying. And so it’s like, when you really dive into the history, especially 54 to 57, [01:19:00] it is action packed.

The cars are amazing. Ferrari really is starting to come into his own. And to your point, that’s what’s missing from the film. But that would be an eight hour documentary at that point. Hell, it was a three hour podcast split in two pieces.

Yeah. Yeah, it was a two hour movie and we didn’t even scratch the surface.

So it’s all good stuff. I’m glad you finally watched it. And I’m glad you now understand what I’ve been asking every month. What is this movie about? Who is this movie about? So now you get it. Now you understand. And William, we’re going to dive in more into the Ferrari movie later this year too. Cause John wants to revisit that and compare it to all the research we did about the Mille Miglia.

So that’s going to be interesting as well.

That’s going to be good. But it’ll be fun sitting there listening to John talk.

We kid because we care, and he’s not here, so we can poke fun.

We love you, John. We love you, baby.

Well, with that, it’s time we go down south and talk about alligators and beer.[01:20:00]

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Where in the world are we this time?

Well, we’re going to start in the mid Atlantic.

Oh, that’s close to home.

We’re gonna pull our Tesla thread. Oh

no!

So apparently, Delaware, New Jersey area, it’s all confusing. Let’s

call it Wilmington.

Sure. Somebody stole a Cybertruck.

That was their first mistake.

It ensued high speed chase. Well, not a high speed chase. A police chase. There was no high speed here. And I thought it funny reading through because I’m like, where is this gonna end? Because he took it out on a dirt road. I was like, I mean, arguably mistake number one was stealing the Cybertruck, depending how you look at that.

But mistake number two, definitely like you took it on, on an unpaved road. But it didn’t get stuck as I assumed it probably was going to do.

How many body panels fell

off? Well, we’ll get there. No, just kidding. But I like the way the person wrote this and I will just read from their [01:21:00] article. And so a chase ensued.

The police said the driver ignored all signals to pull over. One imagines the otherworldly looking stainless steel coffin, which weighs close to 7, 000 pounds, piggishly bumbling its way across unpaid roads with powerful jerks of acceleration, gracing those backwoods like a meandering UFO. AI written all over it.

The imagery here, the imagery. Chat GPT. Yeah, I was

wondering, did chat GPT, you know?

But needless to say, the hot pursuit ended. The guy ended up just pulling over and they arrested him. Blah, blah, blah. But, wow, our first Tesla Cybertruck robbery.

Which went to 4, 002 bond. That’s it? 4, 002. What’s with the 2?

That’s the processing fee. Yeah, but he uses debit card.

It’s been a minute since we’ve had actual Florida man stories. So we have a

legit [01:22:00] Florida man one here. Are

you sure?

Well, he’s a Florida person. So, it’s not correlated, it’s adjacent. Because he stole a boat. And a UTV? Whatever. Anyway, some sort of. How do you

steal a boat and a UTV?

I don’t know, but he did, or he tried to.

And then he dressed as a woman. Rather unconvincing one. Yeah. I mean, the picture’s pretty good.

That’s unfortunate.

I mean. Like that wig it’s like a broom mop on his head and then the five o’clock shadow it’s quite evident Wow, I mean lovely dress I like the pairing with the little white sweater, you know, it’s a

very unfortunate

Ensemble there my friend Points for your ensemble, but, uh, let’s give it to the Okachico Bee County police that they spotted him.

They did not get [01:23:00] the wool pulled over their eyes on this one. I

think he could have used a better pair of sunglasses to really sell it.

Those macho man, Randy Savage things are in style again. The vipers, they call them, right? I don’t get

it. Oh my God. I’ve been staring at them going, what are those from?

Absolutely. Yes.

Florida never disappoints. You know, it’s been a minute. Like I said, it’s summertime. The eggs are hatching. The crazy is coming out. There’s going to be more Florida mad stories for sure. So now it’s time we go behind the pit wall and talk about motor sports news. So Tanya and William, you guys are big fans of open wheel racing.

What’s going on in the world of.

There’s been a colleague making that statement that powers me for 2030. Next set of new regs would come out. Oh my

god.

You bring back the noise and I guess really make a big change. Honestly, that’s ways away, but that would be a dream. Plus you have to watch it in Seb and listen to Seb drive Senna’s McLaren MP4 or whatever that was.

God, that thing sounded just so glorious. Oh, that thing was beautiful. We’ve seen some mix [01:24:00] up, which is great. Lando comes out of Miami and wins, which was awesome to see. Wait, wait,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Verstappen, the king of being 50 seconds ahead of everybody, didn’t win a race. What happened? Did he catch on fire again?

What was the argument everyone’s trying to say, which was, well, you know, with the safety car timing wise, blah, blah, blah. But in simulation and whatnot, they basically put out that Lando probably wouldn’t have caught him and passed him. Ooh.

Wasn’t it also like he hit that bollard and then it was like,

yeah,

attraction.

I meant car,

all this nonsense. So excuses, of course. Yeah. Cause then he went to the next race and Imola and Lando, what was it? 0. 7 seconds at the finish line. You know, he was catching them one more lap. He would have had them, you know, and when it had two in a row, now we know we got Monaco coming up and that’s just a procession going on the track.

Unless someone stuffs in a wall. You always pray for rain at that race because that’s the one you’re gonna watch start to finish, but when it’s that you watch the start you peek in about an hour in and then you come at the end and watch the finish [01:25:00] because it’s just it’s a procession going through. And Tony maybe you agree is the big news is Mr.

Adrian Newey gathering on off into the sunset. And maybe that’s why the Red Bull’s not doing so well. He took the magic with him. Him taking his gardening leave, but the power he had, if he wanted to go somewhere ASAP, he could, but He’s going to go to Haas.

Well, that whole story is unclear because he’s still technically with Red Bull because he’s developing like their LMP car or whatever, their prototype or whatever it is.

So he’s still working on that project. So he’s technically not going to another F1 team.

Guess he’s going to WEC instead.

His big thing, he really stayed in F1 is when these direct, you know, ground effects and everything like that. It was such a big change. Intrigued him, you know, got his juices flowing like that.

Cause it wasn’t just the same OBS coming through and designing it. Now it’s just the engine change here coming in 2026. You know, everyone’s saying he’s going to come back with somebody. He’s only, what, 65?

He’s as old as Alonzo. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, exactly. [01:26:00] If we were back when there was no budget caps or nothing, I would say that this one had a really big effect for the rest of the season.

Obviously, because you got So many races. So a lot of people could catch up and start throwing money. But now with the budget cap, it’s not like people are just going, Oh, he’s gone. We got it. A lot of stuff’s already set in place. You know, they have the program set where, okay, we had upgrades coming for this and at this point, and that’s it.

You know, you can’t fill stuff in. So it’ll be interesting how the rest of the season plays out. You know, McClaren’s made their strides. Aston Martin came out with a couple and it didn’t do squat. It’s getting interesting. It’s not the same old BS.

Honestly, I didn’t renew my subscription. So I’ve been only going back and watching highlights because.

Honestly, I was waiting to see because it was like another season of, Oh, Verstappen’s 50 seconds ahead of the next guy. It’s like a snoozefest! Because like every race was a train race and it was like two minutes of action. However, maybe season’s actually turning a corner and there’s a little bit more competition going on.

And as [01:27:00] was just said, it’s like McLaren’s. door. He’s not 50 seconds ahead. He’s ending only at less than a second ahead. Wow. Maybe there’s some interesting fights that can happen now. He’s no longer hot lapping by himself under zero pressure. Let’s see how you do when you’re no longer out there by yourself and you’ve got someone breathing down your neck.

And he’s being the, they call him a war bot, whatever, because this past weekend, you know, he was racing in a virtual Nürburgring 24 hour race. They won it too. He actually did six hours in the seat for that thing. Wow. The guy’s that’s the excuse. He was tired. Yeah. He didn’t pull ahead. He’s not far ahead points wise.

What? That’s what I said. So it could get really interesting in the next six, seven races. I think that will dictate in regards to how things play out. If people have caught up. But why not? Because obviously Red Bull’s going to come out with some upgrades too. It remains to be seen what happens now that the big brain’s gone.

Well, you mentioned Seb [01:28:00] driving Senna’s McLaren at Imola, which is another great tribute to probably one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time. We can argue about that till the cows come home. And we did on a special tribute episode of our own with Professor Summers. And we went back and looked at the life of Senna and then the 30 years since his passing, because Senna would have been in his sixties this year, kind of like Alonzo, but all jokes aside.

It was really funny because guest of the show, friend of the show, Elizabeth Blackstock, got on the opposite end of this discussion. She’s got a new show that’s come out as well, since she’s sort of separated from Donut and everything. Deadly Passions and Terrible Joys. And on there, she’s like, I’m so tired of hearing about Senna and Senna tributes and all this kind of thing.

And I’m like, That is an interesting dynamic. It is very polarizing compared to everybody else paying homage and reverence to Senna and his life and things like that. And I think we kind of took a middle of the road approach to that, right, William? Where we sort of looked at it and said, Is he still as good as?

Does he still qualify? If we put him in today’s lens, or if we go [01:29:00] backwards in time. And John was very good about Framing that whole conversation. And where did we end up with all that?

Let’s see the go. You can’t make that argument because of just difference in regards to the machinery. Do you do an actual breakdown?

I, someone did an awesome graphic. They did it from the start of F1 back, you know, in the fifties and they started from the first race all the way and they had it going as the points and everything like that. Shit. When they first started, they only had six races in a year, you know? So you start looking at the wind ratios and everything like that.

Neil Fongio’s record. I don’t think you can make that argument. Was he the hell of a driver? Yeah. Could he drive the ass off a cart? Yeah. I mean, there’s no doubt about that. You’re just talking difference machinery, everything like that. And it’s just hard to say. I personally look at, if I had Joe in my mind is, you know, he’s up there, but it’s either Jim Clark or Andretti because of their ability to drive.

And win in any.

Yeah, they’re all arounders.

Yes. I mean, you’re not talking just Oakville. I mean, racing in, you know, Le Mans. Winning at Indy, I [01:30:00] mean, that’s the Oakville, but totally different discipline. The ability to get into a tintop, get into a single seater, unbelievable talent there. In my mind, I think that makes you more of an all arounder.

Well,

I’m glad you brought up Indy because, you know, there are different disciplines of open wheel racing out there and America won’t be outdone. We don’t have the same problems that they have overseas, you know, some Dutch guy running away 50 seconds ahead of everybody doing a time trial by himself. No, we have items like a mannequin falling from the track and landing near the track and drivers are freaking out, you know, because We have to adorn our racetracks with all sorts of paraphernalia.

But if you’ve ever been to Barber Motorsports Park, it’s really par for the course. It’s probably one of the most manicured and most accessoried tracks in the United States. It’s gorgeous. But when I read about this mannequin basically falling on the track, I was like, well, there we go. And we wonder why people laugh at us.

Yeah, that was funny. That was hilarious.

Well, switching gears a little bit to [01:31:00] WRCI promised I wasn’t gonna talk about WRC News, but since we’re heading into the summer, I have been getting caught up in WRC. Obviously, their events are much more spaced out. They happen basically once a month, starting in January or thereabout, sometimes twice a month.

Portugal happened this month, which has some of the biggest. Air of any event on the WRC schedule. So if you want to see cars flying, Portugal is the one to tune into the Italian rally comes up later in June. But if anybody was curious from our discussions last year, TK also known as Takamoto Katsuda is still crashing.

He’s crashing less than last season, but I still watch every stage saying to myself, it’s really not if it’s when TK crashes. So more to come on the WRC scene when we get together with John Summers, the motoring historian, who is also a avid rally fan, along with some. Other guests, you might recall from break fix that you don’t know our rally fan.

So we’ll be coming to the table to do a special WRC episode, not only talking about the new stuff, but looking [01:32:00] back into the past all the way back into group B and beyond. So look forward to that later in the season. It’s going to be a lot of fun. And in the WEC camp, we are only weeks away folks from not only father’s day.

But the Super Bowl of Super Bowls, the world championship of racing the Le Mans 24 hours. So this will be the 101st anniversary of Le Mans, the 92nd running of the event on June 15th and 16th. But for some of us, we’re not going to be going to France. We got other things planned. And we’re going to be headed to Detroit for a special ACO USA viewing party, which is also going to have an exclusive activation where we’re going to be unveiling Le Mans Ultimate.

They’re at M1 concourse in Detroit, one of the newest racetracks. So it’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s going to be a weekend full of Le Mans and racing and petrol heads. Hoping William’s going to be there, but also we were very fortunate to be able to put together another evening with a legend. So you can go back and catch that on our Patreon right now.

We had one of the [01:33:00] most famous ladies in racing, Lynn St. James. She’s still with us. Stop by and got behind the microphone to talk about in more detail than in break, fix episode number one, 42, her two attempts at Lamont’s. A lot of people don’t know that she ran at Lamont’s once in 1989. And the other one that she quote, doesn’t like to talk about in 1991.

So you get the uncut behind the scenes access to that on our Patrion right now, you can see all the bloopers, all the comments, Lynn telling her story, getting an emotional about things and whatnot. That’s at patrion. com forward slash GT motor sports. Look for that episode to be digitally remastered later in the season for the general public to consume.

But if you want to become a member of the ACO and get exclusive access to the WEC feed of the 24 hours of Le Mans straight from France, if you want to be part of upcoming events like the M1 concourse event in Detroit and others, we have links to how you can become an ACO member In our show notes, it’s actually a really, really cheap.

You get a lot of benefits, discounts at the store, Lamont swag, all sorts of really cool stuff, and if you’re [01:34:00] planning ahead, maybe a little road trip all the way to San Diego, the ACO is going to be holding an event called blown away to. It’s the last event that they’re going to be holding on the America’s cup yacht before it set sail around the world.

Again, it’s an evening with legends live in person. It’s a cruise out of the San Diego Marina, and you’ll be able to sit down and talk with legends of Lamont’s in person, great meal, great atmosphere, music. I’ll be there because I’m the host of evening with a legend. And what’s an evening with a legend event without its host.

So I’m looking forward to seeing other fans of WEC hours and lawns out there at blown away to in August. And I mentioned Le Mans Ultimate, the newest sim racing game to hit the streets. It’s available now on Steam. It’s no longer a prototype, generally available to everybody that has access to a PC. We put together in conjunction with MIE Racing, a time trials in preparation for this upcoming activation to figure out which is the fastest [01:35:00] LMP1 hybrid, GTP, whatever class you want to use.

And so we broke it down by the car, all the hot laps, all the data. It’s all there for you. It’s available in our show notes, but also on our YouTube page. So check that out. Some really interesting results. And there’s an article that goes along with that on MIE racing, giving you pointers and some suggestions about which car you should think about choosing.

If you want to attempt the four. Full 24 hours, which you can do in Lamont’s ultimate. It’s the only game since a game called total immersion racing, where you can run the 24 hours of Lamont. So it’s pretty cool. And with that, our motor sports news is brought to us in partnership by the international motor racing research center.

Just want to point out. We mentioned last month. month, May 11th was the first center conversation for the season. It featured the Purdy Deuce and other super modifieds and personalities from circle track and sprint car racing, along with a conversation around the history of Oswego Speedway. It was the highest attended center conversation to date for the IMRC with over 200 people in attendance.

So [01:36:00] we’re going to be hosting and remastering that footage as soon as we get it. And we’ll bring that to you as part of the motoring podcast network. They also have another center conversation coming up called the greatest Corvette story ever told. It’s about the Camaradi Corvette, which participated at Le Mans back in the sixties and it will be on display at the IMRRC to see in June.

And then in September. There’s the Cameron R. Argettsinger award for outstanding contributions to motor sports. And guess what? They revealed the honoree this year and that’s Zach Brown. Yes, Zach Brown, CEO of McLaren formula one. You can still buy tickets to attend the event. So hop over to racingarchives.

org and click on store to purchase your seat at the table and see Zach Brown in person. And don’t forget November 1st through the 2nd at Watkins Glen International is the Michael R. Argettsinger Symposium on Motorsports History, which will be live streaming for folks that can’t make it out to the Glen.

But if you’re in the area, take a road trip. If you’ve never been to the Glen, one of the prettiest places [01:37:00] in New England and one of the best racetracks in my opinion. So come on down to the Glen and check out the symposium while you’re there. So William, we got to take it home. It’s time to wrap it up and talk about different events and special things that are going on.

So you’ve got something in the works for this summer. People should be making a road trip to where?

West side of Cleveland. Just, you’ll get here July 28th. We have our inaugural rock and revs event. To support our charities, we’re working with aluminum cans for burned children. We work with all the local fire departments, collecting aluminum cans, drop off bins at every fire station in the area, fundraising events and donations.

Children that have been injured in fires, we send to a summer and winter camp. Then whatever else we could help them out with in their home for mobility, what have you, but then also with Island Safe Harbor Animal Sanctuary. They are located up in Marblehead. Dancy and her team up there do great things with animals that are close to being euthanized or just people just they’re old and whatnot just don’t want to deal with them.

She’ll take them in and she loves them and puts them back to health and gets them out there. So it’s two great entities that we’re doing some fundraising for [01:38:00] but The event itself is going to be a lot of fun. We’re going to have a very wide range and eclectic things of vehicles there. We got Wixie 1260 radio station.

They play 60s, 70s, 80s rock. They’re going to be coming. We’re going to have some other, uh, supporting businesses and stuff like that there. But the fun thing is. Right next door is the fair’s going to be going on for Fairview Park where we have all the fair rides, all the fair food, and everything like that going on.

So if you bring your kids and check out all the cool cars, you can walk right over, literally take you a minute, if that, to walk over and go on all the fair rides. So it’s going to be a lot of fun putting everything together. Eric’s coming up for it. Don’s coming up from Texas to help out. So we’re going to have a thing set up for MPN as well.

So it’s going to be a lot of fun. But the other cool thing you can do is if you go on to Exotic Car Marketplace. And you also go into the collector car guide site. You can get listing of majority events throughout the country and kind of get things narrowed down and check out what’s going on in your region.

Summertime in the United States, it’s time to hit the shows, car shows, events, racing events, everything like that. There’s [01:39:00] always something going on every weekend. So you got good resources to go and find out. Any event you want to go check out, definitely recommend getting yourself on there and seeing what’s going on in your neck of the woods.

Well, you’re right about that, William, because not only is it car show season, it’s track day season. In our constant reminder that you need to get off the couch. And go to the track hbdjunkie. com is your source for planning your track season. Look no further than hbdjunkie. com for an up to date list of events from all across North America on their website.

You can filter by location and find the perfect high performance driver’s education event for you. And be sure to keep an eye out on our motor sports calendar on gtmotorsports. org forward slash events. To learn about other special events happening in various different disciplines of motorsport that you shouldn’t miss.

And we just uploaded things like circle track racing at Bridgeport and Honeygrove. And we’ve got other things like four, 10 races listed. I mean, all sorts of events are coming our way and we’re listing those out on our motorsports calendar. So [01:40:00] lots of things to check out in the track side report.

We just crested 346 episodes of Brake Fix while you’ve been listening to this episode, but more importantly, we’ve expanded our catalog as part of our new motoring podcast network, where you can enjoy programs like The Ferrari Marketplace, The Motoring Historian, Evening with a Legend, The History of Motorsport Series, and more.

brake fix and others. Search for brake slash fix or grand no d touring everywhere you download stream or listen and be sure to check out www. motoringpodcast. net for reviews of the shows new episodes bios of our on air personalities and descriptions of the services we offer.

All right guys we are on patreon but did you know you can sign up for patreon for free there’s lots of great extras and bonuses even on the free tier but if you’d like to become a brake fix vip jump on over to Patreon.

com forward slash GT motor sports and learn about our different tiers. Join our discord or become a member of the GTM clubhouse by signing up at club. gtmotorsports. [01:41:00] org drop us a line on social media or visit us on the Facebook group page, leave us a comment. Tell us what you like, what you don’t like.

Give us some ideas for the future shows. We’re open ears.

And remember for everything we talked about on this episode and more, be sure to check out the follow on article and show notes available at gtmotorsports. org.

So a big thank you to our co host and executive producer, Tanya, and all the fans, friends, and family who support GTM and the Motoring Podcast Network.

Without you, none of this would be possible.

And a big shout out to our most returningest guest co host of the drive thru. William, Big Money Ross, thank you again for stepping into Brad’s Size 14 loafers and filling in for him this month, and we look forward to seeing you on one of our many road trips this month.

Oh, plenty of coming. We’re going to have a good summer this year. It’s going to be a great summer.

Outro.

Outro. All right. All

in one take. Can you believe that?

We’re turning in for some big words, these new words coming out. [01:42:00] That’s impressive.

Barely, that last sentence was throwing me. Like, this isn’t, this isn’t reading correctly.

Just keep going.

Thanks guys. There’s

some idiots on behind me. I lean out the window and scream. Hey, whatcha trying to do,

blind me? My wife says maybe we should

We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Brake Fix 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 GTMotorsports.

org. We remain a [01:43:00] 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, gummy 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.