B/F: The Drive Thru #48

• 2025 Ford Maverick Lobo Street Truck Is Down to Clown
• GM lays off 1,000 salaried employees
• Lawyers Get $15 Million After GM Settles Duramax Fuel Pump Lawsuit

• New MG ZS to be unveiled next week with hybrid power

• Acura Confirms 'NSX-Type' EV Headed to Production

• At $7,500, Is This 1986 Chevy Cavalier Z24 A Dashing Deal?
• RTR Brings Mystichrome Paint Back To The Mustang Because Ford Won’t

• BMW M5 Touring: 717bhp super-estate to be unveiled on 15 August
• BMW Recalls 720,000 Cars Because an Electrical Short Could Start a Fire

• Citroen Leaving Australia After Being Outsold By Ferrari
• Fiat Panda off sale in UK after 12 years

• 1.8 Million Tesla Models Recalled over Hood-Latch Problem
• Tesla Semi electric truck caught on fire on highway
• Tesla issuing new recall for 9,100 Model X SUVs over trim issue

• Volkswagen Australia announces new model onslaught
• 2025 Audi A6 and S6 Sportback E-Trons revealed with aero, tech top of mind
• 907-hp Lamborghini Temerario revealed as Huracán successor
• VW ID. Buzz finally priced, starts at $61,545

Executive Producer Tania: [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 break fix, and all the other services we provide.

Crew Chief Eric: P minus three hours until outro. Are

Crew Chief Brad: we ready?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to the jungle.

Crew Chief Brad: Okay. Welcome to drive through episode number 48. This is our monthly recap, where we’ve put together a menu of automotive, motorsport and car adjacent news. No Shoei PBs in this episode. Now, let’s pull up to window number one for some automotive news. What do we got, Eric? Ah, [00:01:00] number 48. Are you ready for this?

I’m as ready as I always am. I opted to work on the car rather than prepare for the drive thru. I think it’s gonna turn out well.

Crew Chief Eric: Tanya subscribed to the same idea because she’s as prepared as you are.

Crew Chief Brad: Amen, Tanya. Amen to that. I praise you for your dedication to working on your car. I usually at least open it.

Crew Chief Eric: She didn’t even get that far. She literally goes, Where’s the link? I can’t find it. But here’s the thing, right? The saying holds true. You’re never more prepared than when you’re not.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s true.

Executive Producer Tania: It’ll be our best episode yet.

Crew Chief Brad: I like to fly by the seat of my pants. A hundred

Crew Chief Eric: percent.

Crew Chief Brad: At least I’m wearing pants this time.

You’ve

Crew Chief Eric: been known to do the Ron Burgundy thing.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. The Ron Burgundy or the Rambo Commando.

Crew Chief Eric: Didn’t Dan rather not wear pants when he was at his desk?

Crew Chief Brad: No, I think that was the Williams guy for NBC who was cheating on his wife and his daughter’s an actress. What was his name?

Crew Chief Eric: I want to say Ted, but that’s a

Crew Chief Brad: singer, isn’t it?

That’s Ted Bundy. Not Al Bundy.

Crew Chief Eric: Four touchdowns in a single [00:02:00] game for Polk High. Well, we’ve got some rich people thangs because it is car week month. Car Week continues to get longer. There’s this whole, I’m Spartacus. No, I’m Spartacus situation going on with Car Week. You know, who’s the first event? Even last year when I was there, it was like, we’re the first of the first.

And then you hear that. And then I know I’m the first event of Car Week. And Car Week’s like 15 days long now. It’s absolutely insane. We weren’t able to be there in person this year. Mad shout out to Ryan Barkey and Danny P, formerly of the steering committee and Danny P on cars now part of the roadshow podcast for sending us updates on things that were going on during car week.

Hopefully we’ll get there next year. But rather than recap every sort of detail, we put together a special edition of our magazine. So issue number 30 was released during car week. And what we did is we tied together everything related. Two car week from years past that we had covered all of last year and then guests that we [00:03:00] sat down with after the fact.

And so we’re going to continue to dogpile onto that. So check out issue 30 on our website, but really what everybody wants to talk about. It’s the cars that sold it. Did you guys take a look at the homework that Jalopnik did for us?

Crew Chief Brad: I love it when people do my work for me.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. They gave a cheat where you can click and look at all the slides without actually looking at the pictures of the cars, which is pretty cool.

Oh,

Crew Chief Brad: fantastic.

Crew Chief Eric: They have them in order by price. If we do this Letterman style, we can work backwards from. Lowest to highest.

Crew Chief Brad: I love it. Let’s do that. Yeah. They went in the reverse of what we’re going to do. Okay. So we’re going to do the Monterey car week, top 16 cars sold at auction.

Crew Chief Eric: You notice that there’s two numbers here.

It’s two and then 15 and then three and then 14. And they’ve numbered. One as

Executive Producer Tania: the heading of

Crew Chief Eric: the

Crew Chief Brad: thing, because it’s the first slide.

Executive Producer Tania: Exactly. This is the confusion here.

Crew Chief Brad: Whoever put together this PowerPoint presentation does not know what they’re doing.

Crew Chief Eric: Have you read anything on Jalopnik? I mean, come on,

Crew Chief Brad: between the typos, [00:04:00] some of them, Oxford comma, some of them, no Oxford comma, some of them, no punctuation at all.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s amazing. They can put a listicle together. This is brilliant. All right. Short circuiting this whole process.

Crew Chief Brad: Coming in at number 15, we’ve got the 2021 Bugatti Chiron Chiron. It’s the Chiron. She, she, she, she, she run sports. Noir. Somebody else say this. I can’t see this stupid name.

Crew Chief Eric: What it basically boils down to is a flat black Bugatti Chiron, and it looks like the Batmobile and it is awesome.

And it’s sold for a whopping 3. 36 million.

Crew Chief Brad: Is that cheaper than the car was when it was purchased from Bugatti? Because I thought those cars were more than four or five. I know the previous Bugatti Veyron was like two plus, and then they had all the special, special editions. I got to imagine this guy kind of the owner guy or girl, whoever was probably took a bath when this car sold.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s what I’m thinking too. That’s really cheap for a Bugatti. I mean, 3. 36 [00:05:00] million is not anything to sneeze at, but it’s also not a lot of money for that type of hyper car. But boy, does it look good. I mean, Bruce Wayne’s probably got. Six or seven of these. Yep. Coming in at number 14, some of these are not gonna be any shock as we get kind of further down the list here.

66 Ferrari 2 75 GTB 60 C alloy, $3.481 million.

Crew Chief Brad: So can somebody translate the name of this car for me?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. William Ross could do that. I don’t understand what any of it means. Either

Crew Chief Brad: spec with alloy, coach, work, whatever that means. . But the Ferrari 275s and the 250 GTO, I mean, those cars are sky high anyway.

So this is not a surprise.

Crew Chief Eric: But as a Ferrari, let’s say two series, 250, 275.

Crew Chief Brad: This is on the bottom end of that.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. Exactly. Cause there’s some of these that sell not just in the seven digits like this one did, but then for eight digits. So this is the cheap bargain basement. Ferrari, if [00:06:00] you’re looking for a two series or 200 series.

Car . Yep. Next up, another Bugatti Sheron SS or Super Sport 3.497 million. I can’t tell the difference between the other one other than

Crew Chief Brad: the paint.

Crew Chief Eric: It looks the same and it’s a different color. It’s gray.

Crew Chief Brad: The other one didn’t have the I, I’ll call it ground effects package, but the arrow,

Crew Chief Eric: is it just me or does it make it look like a Supra?

Crew Chief Brad: It does look like a very fat supra. I will, right. I will give it that, yes.

Crew Chief Eric: Especially with those wheels, they’re very JDM. It doesn’t look right.

Crew Chief Brad: And here’s our first poll question for Eric and Tanya. Would you rather have this or a Supra?

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t want anything. You know, I’ve been seeing a lot more Supras on the road lately.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t see very many at all. I

Crew Chief Eric: saw one in yellow. I don’t like it in yellow.

Crew Chief Brad: I see more Rivians than I do Supras.

Crew Chief Eric: I think the Bugatti would look good in yellow though.

Crew Chief Brad: I’ve seen one in yellow. If anybody who’s ever been up and down Rodeo drive, the owners of one of the fashion shops there owns a bright yellow and black Bugatti Veyron.

That’s pretty hot. Next on the list.

Executive Producer Tania: This is some pretty dry stuff. I hope [00:07:00] the listeners are enjoying. Well, we’re going to fast forward here.

Crew Chief Eric: 34 Duesenberg, 3. 7 million, 34 Alfa Romeo, 8C, 4 million. And then we start to get into some cool stuff, stuff that we’re interested in as racers. Coming in at number 10, 76 Porsche, 935.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s all you have to say in a martini and Rossi livery, 5 million bucks. Would you spend 5 million bucks on this?

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t know. It’s pretty tough. Cause the cyber truck could. Pull one of these and beat this at the same time going through the quarter mile. Allegedly

Crew Chief Eric: the next one at 5 million bucks.

If you’re going to put another race car in your collection, all the 333, 333 SP, this thing is awesome.

Crew Chief Brad: It is. Is this the car that Tanya used to whip everybody’s butt in Forza?

Crew Chief Eric: No, that was the Eagle talent.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, excuse me. That was her B class car, but wasn’t this her like P class car? Might’ve been. Yeah. I love these.

Crew Chief Eric: Before the current 499X, [00:08:00] these were the last Ferraris in LMP1 at Le Mans, that kind of stuff, right? So these are really iconic. They’re really, really cool.

Crew Chief Brad: Given that, I’m surprised it sold for so cheap.

Crew Chief Eric: And you got to watch the video of this car because the sound is unreal. And then what kills you is the guys that have these, and then they put like a Judd V10 in it, and it’s like Really?

I mean, yeah, the Judd V10 sounds great too, but it’s not a Ferrari 12. I mean, come on.

Crew Chief Brad: No, that’s just a waste of space. They couldn’t afford to put the Ferrari motor back in it. That’s why.

Crew Chief Eric: So the next like 10 cars, Ferrari, Ferrari, Ferrari, Ferrari, Ferrari, Alfa male, and then Ferrari. But we’ll talk about the top three in a second.

So everything up until the top three cars is like 5 million bucks and under, they kind of creep up 5. 1, 5. 2. 5. 3, 5. 3, and so on. There’s a Ferrari F50 on here. I was just about to say one of my favorite cars, the Ferrari F50, the car that Eric hates. So awful, but apparently not only is it on this list as a top seller during car week, it’s also the currently most expensive [00:09:00] F50 to ever sell at auction at 5.

5 million. Did it

Crew Chief Brad: used to belong to share?

Crew Chief Eric: No, that was a 240 60. No,

Crew Chief Brad: no, my bad.

Crew Chief Eric: So breaking some records there for F fifties, Love it or hate it. That’s good news for F50 owners. I would buy the Chiron instead. It’s a much better car, but that’s just me.

Crew Chief Brad: No contest. I would buy the F50.

Crew Chief Eric: Next up in fourth place, 59 Ferrari, 250 GTB, long wheelbase, California Spider, not to be confused with the Ferris Bueller car.

Because as soon as somebody hears California Spider, they think Ferris Bueller’s day off. This is the long wheelbase car. You know, it’s hard to tell the difference. William could probably do a whole episode on the difference between the short and the long wheels base cars, but if you look at it long enough, you can tell it is longer.

It seems proportionally wrong than what you’re used to seeing. No surprise, maybe not as sought after at 5. 6 million as some of the other Ferrari 250 Californias that are out there. But rounding out the top three drum roll[00:10:00]

number three, 1955 Ferrari, four 10 sports spider at 12. 985 million.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s a big jump in price.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. From 5 million to 12, I actually think this car is kind of ugly.

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, I don’t think it’s ugly, but I think it looks like any other race car from that era

Crew Chief Eric: compared to the two 50 Testa Rosa though.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, yes, of course.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like, ugh. I don’t know. I don’t like it. I think it’s kind of ugly. It feels like a precursor to that design. Although they were all, to your point, very similar during the mil milia period there. Yeah. When they developed these $13 million, though, not so much. So next, number 2, 19 38. Alpha male, eight C.

2,900 B. Luo Spider. That’s a very long name for a very sexy car. That looks like A BMW. Yeah. Stunning and black though. My God. That is. Gorgeous car. I mean, that’s pebble beach worthy right there.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m just not that big of a fan looks wise of [00:11:00] that

Crew Chief Eric: pre war period.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. Give me the next car. That’s my wheelhouse right there.

Crew Chief Eric: So this alpha sold at 14 million. That’s with an M. And then to your point, last but certainly not least, this is Ferris Bueller’s Ferrari California Spider. 17 million for a 1960 Ferrari 250 GT short wheelbase California Spider in the most gorgeous gray that I have ever seen.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: Delicious.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes, I concur.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, man. I mean, I could just stare at that all day.

Crew Chief Brad: Have you taken a snapshot of just looking at the list? Just the list? It’s 11 Italian cars. They sprinkle in a little, uh, french fry.

Crew Chief Eric: And that random Duesenberg.

Crew Chief Brad: Then some schnitzel.

Crew Chief Eric: At any rate. Car week, so exciting. It’s so chaotic. We were in touch with so many people, even though we weren’t able to be there.

There’s a lot more followup on garage style. There’s a lot more articles that are coming. Don did a good job putting together a car week guide, but one of the things I thought was interesting as he’s [00:12:00] rolling out coverage of car week, he’s looking for the stories that are a little bit more exclusive that people maybe weren’t able to get to.

And one of them in particular. Is these videos of the setup for a special invite only private my Bach event and how they like bring the cars in using a crane.

Crew Chief Brad: Wow. That my box pretty sweet looking.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. That SUV is killer too. At first I was like, is that like a Brabus? Like what is that? And then Nope.

That’s a, my Bach SUV.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, that red one with like the equivalent of the Louis Vuitton scheme. That’s pretty sweet.

Crew Chief Eric: Very, very cool. So he told me there’s more stuff like that coming in the next couple of weeks as he’s got people sending him stuff behind the scenes at car week and whatnot. So stay tuned for more stuff like that.

Crew Chief Brad: So just a way for rich people to outreach people, other rich people.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh,

Crew Chief Brad: so

Crew Chief Eric: you’ve been to car week. Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: By the way, a shout out to Mercedes and, uh, Tanya, I saw it wasn’t an AMG GT. It was [00:13:00] the precursor to that, I guess the SLS. There was a really pretty bright red one in my neighborhood a couple weeks ago.

Crew Chief Eric: Don’t go wrong with a Mercedes coupe.

Crew Chief Brad: No, no, you cannot.

Crew Chief Eric: Last year when we were at Car Week at Pebble Beach, just before the Concord kind of opens up and the judging starts and all that kind of stuff, there is a showcase. As you go down towards the beach and they have highlights for new cars. So in years past, you got to see things like the DeLorean re imagined, we got to see the ID buzz and some other things, the new Mustang, they were kind of revealed at car week at pebble beach.

Well, BMW decided to do a reveal this year. And it wasn’t what we expected. And I got super excited about yet another station wagon returning to the roster that had been shrinking for the last five years. Can you believe BMW is going to put out an M5 Touring in the United States?

Crew Chief Brad: That’s amazing. I don’t believe it.

I mean, I’m in shock.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you think it’s because Audi’s done so well with the RS6 Avant?

Crew Chief Brad: I guarantee you that’s exactly why. [00:14:00] So

Crew Chief Eric: get this staggering 717 horsepower. In a station wagon. First I say, is that necessary? And then I say, is that really enough?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, it depends on what you’re hauling. How many bags of mulch are in the back of your estate?

Crew Chief Eric: Have you seen this thing?

Crew Chief Brad: By the way, I’m not typically a fan of green cars, but I think this green is pretty slick.

Crew Chief Eric: It is cool looking. The wheels are interesting. Everything’s interesting about it. Now, granted the grills are still kind of wrong, but it is very cool. It’s very different, but I love station wagons.

There’s something about the long roof. It just brings it all together. Especially BMW station wagons have never looked bad going way, way back. They’ve always looked really. Sort of elegant in a way, but also aggressive at the same time without being overly, let’s say, AMG and you know, the way the RS6 Avant is where it’s like they forcibly made it look aggressive and wide like the BMWs have always had that sort of like mean but subtle at the same time sort of thing.

I don’t even know how to explain it. They’re just really

Crew Chief Brad: cool. I believe Eric, we need to put [00:15:00] this disclaimer out there. The estate cars, not the weird GT kind of hatchback liftback things that they came out with. I think it introduced with the five series, not those we’re talking about true, legitimate wagons and estate cars.

Crew Chief Eric: BMW and its own infinite wisdom. You know, we’ve talked about this before. They’re always making the right moves. We won’t even talk about what it’s going to cost because we already know it’s going to be a six digit car. It’s an M car. It’s a five series. It’s a station wagon. They’re going to purposefully make it competitive with the RS6, which we know is a hundred plus thousand dollar car.

But here’s the business logic that I don’t understand. BMW might bring an M3 touring to the US. If we buy enough M5 Tourings. Does that make sense?

Crew Chief Brad: I’m trying to do rich people math in my head to try and figure this out.

Crew Chief Eric: Let me put it in perspective for you. We didn’t talk about how much the M5 station wagon is going to cost.

Venture a guess as to how much the M3 station wagon will be? [00:16:00] 80, 85? 110. Oh, so close, but not quite. 120, 000 suggested MSRP on the M3 station wagon.

Crew Chief Brad: Wait, wait, wait, wait, what was that word you threw out there? Adjusted MSRP. What are we adjusting for?

Crew Chief Eric: Alleged? MSRP

Crew Chief Brad: alleged. Oh, I thought you said adjusted.

Alleged. MSRP. . So basically what they’re saying is they don’t really have any clue,

Crew Chief Eric: but if you look at the picture of this supposed M three touring, ooh, this looks even better. And I don’t mind the big owl beaver buck teeth grills on this thing because for whatever reason. It actually looks good in this configuration.

Crew Chief Brad: I will say that the more I see cars with these grills, the more I like them. And I actually try to tell myself all the time, I’m not going to buy a BMW. I’m not going to buy a BMW, but the M fours with these grills, I’m like, I could, I could rock with that. In the right color. And then it’s gotta be in the right color.

This in this blue, it’s kind of the right color.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, it looks really good. And again, Long roof M three and you [00:17:00] really go wrong with this equation.

Crew Chief Brad: What is the difference between the M

Crew Chief Eric: the, well, the difference between the M three and the M five back in the day was what? Three inches of leg room in the back.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. So, so that means the M five is going to be one 50, one 60 plus.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly.

Crew Chief Brad: So this is the turbo six though. The M five has a V8 performance hybrid.

Crew Chief Eric: So BMW making a splash during car week with their station wagon of all things. I think that’s a bold move, really curious to see where it goes in the future.

So it would be cool to go down the road and get totally blasted by one of these station wagons with 700 horsepower or whatever. So I think that’s, that’s really, really cool.

Crew Chief Brad: You know, as much as I see the RS6 all over the interwebs. I have yet to see one in person just rolling down the road. Like I’ve seen one at NGP and various places like that.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen one on the

Crew Chief Eric: road. Hardly ever. I think I took a picture of one and posted it on discord once. Cause it had some really cool aftermarket wheels. And that’s the last time I’ve seen one. And that was like, I [00:18:00] don’t know, like a year ago. Yeah, but yeah, every once in a while they pop up, but for the people fortunate enough to have those kinds of cars, I’m jealous, man.

You’ve got my attention. I love that kind of stuff. Hot rod station wagon. Hell yeah,

Crew Chief Brad: I’ll stick to my hatchbacks for now. Cause that’s what I can afford.

Crew Chief Eric: Like I said, even though we didn’t get to go to car week this year, we are looking forward to next year. We have some plans in the works and hopefully a couple of special surprises and some honors in there as well.

So we’re not going to give any spoilers yet, but you know, making plans and we’re looking forward to next year, even though it’s a year away, some of these big events, whether it’s this or the Florida man games or LeMans classic or whatever it is, you got to start planning early. Well, as a quick aside, there’s a couple other things that happened since the last time we got together for the drive through.

So you remember we were talking about rocks and revs and all that kind of stuff. So we went out to Cleveland and hooked up with William Big Money Ross, who a lot of our listeners are familiar with from the What Should I Buy series and the Ferrari Marketplace and the Motoring Podcast Network. I got a special surprise when I got out there.

So I’m going to get together with William, got to set up [00:19:00] for the event, this and that, and he goes, Hey, Pittsburgh vintage Grand Prix. You want to go? I mean, yeah. Okay. So what’s the plan? I’ll see you at six o’clock tomorrow morning. And so we headed down to good old pit race, took a bunch of videos, talk to people in the paddock, walk around, you know, meet some of the drivers and six different classes of cars ranging from sub 2000 CCs to the, what they call the ground pounders, the late models and trucks.

I mean, you name it. All sorts of really cool stuff. Super happy to see a bunch of nine fourteens. Cause you know, that’s a soft spot for me racing at the track. I took a bunch of videos. I put together like a compilation summary video for anybody who wants to see what the vintage Grand Prix was like. This was the beginning of sort of the Pittsburgh car week.

In a sense, that’s why it’s loosely related to our Car Week Showcase. They did this whole like seven plus day thing where it started at Pit Race and then it ended at Shenley Park for another Vintage Grand Prix through the streets of Pittsburgh. Similar cars, not all the same ones that were running at the VRG SCCA event that they had going on at Pit Race, but [00:20:00] you know, they have this whole festival and it sort of moves throughout the area of Pittsburgh.

And I thought that was really, really cool. I’ve been talking for a long time about getting into vintage racing and buying a vintage race car. And it’s sort of been not a bucket list thing, but it’s a tire I’ve been kicking for a while. But going to one of these events, talking with the drivers, getting a better understanding of how the classing works and the rules and the different series that they can run in with some of these older cars, it was a pretty eyeopening experience and not nearly as cost prohibitive as I thought it would be compared to, you know, some of the stuff that’s going on today, like in SCCA.

Right. I got to do a little bit more homework, but I’m really excited to get a little bit more involved in the vintage racing world. So it’s a cool place to go. If you’re into those types of cars,

Crew Chief Brad: how long until spec Miata becomes vintage Miata last year? Well, I’m late. It’s already happened.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. BRG started a campaign and we actually talked to some of the drivers about that, how they felt about early Miata showing up and they’re like, look, they’re [00:21:00] over 30 years old now.

So. You know, it makes you feel super old that the Miata is that old. But on the same token, they’re by definition of the rules of vintage racing. They’re vintage. You don’t see too many of them. There were a couple running around. They’re under 2000 CC. So they run them with those cars. They’ve got to do some balance or performance.

You know, they got to make the rules work, but they’re making. Space for especially 1. 6 liter Miatas. They’re giving them a home to go race at because they’re not competitive and SCCA anymore, not unless they’re cheating. I think it’s good, but I think you’re going to start to see a lot of other cars out there running and mixing it up.

I was shocked. There was a Mark one GTI that came through. Flying out of the pits. And I was like, Whoa, pump the brakes. What? And there was other stuff like that where you’re like, I guess that is vintage now. Okay. You know, it’s not just Austin Healy’s and MGs and stuff like that.

Crew Chief Brad: No, no. Yeah. Well, things that we think are vintage are things that our parents were like, Oh, those are still cool.

Those are things that people, so we’re, we’re all technically vintage racers. I think [00:22:00] we’re

Crew Chief Eric: vintage ourselves at this point. Yeah, that’s it.

Crew Chief Brad: We’re, we’re vintage. Comma racers

Crew Chief Eric: by the internet youth standard. We are vintage. We might be antique.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh my God. You know, we should be dead by now.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey, in the old days, you weren’t expected to live till 40.

You know what I mean?

Crew Chief Brad: Yep. I know. Thank God we made it past that. Okay. What’s next.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. So rocks and revs. It was the inaugural automotive festival there in Cleveland in partnership with summer fest there in Fairview park. Really interesting setup. The venue itself. I mean, it was like an ocean of asphalt.

You park 200 cars for an event and it doesn’t look full at all because you had space for double that. Williams got good plans for next year and for growth and to involve more people. A lot of folks were coming up and talking to me, Hey, I’m going to tell my club and have them come out. And we had good representation from a Shelby Cobra club show up, a bunch of other groups, so really dynamic group of cars, huge selection of imports.

Felt like a Honda VW meet a couple of guys with Mark fours. We went around and talked to a whole bunch of people. So [00:23:00] it was interesting for a first time, taking over a legacy event, rebranding it, merging it with another one, you know, all the logistics that he had to go through, not bad at all. I wish William continued success.

And if you’re in that tri state area or close to Cleveland, I would definitely put it on your calendar for next year. But most importantly, I didn’t think I would come across one of these and maybe you could chalk it up to rich people. Thanks. As we close out our segment here, but I picked up a little something for myself while I was in Ohio.

Check it out. We’ll show it till here. It’s the Hot Wheels Audi Quattro IMSA GTO mega blocks set with the matching die cast car.

Crew Chief Brad: I saw four of those at Target. The other day, you didn’t have to get it at rocks and revs, but I’m glad you got it. Pat yourself on the back. Good job, buddy. That’s what I appreciate about you

Crew Chief Eric: down where you’re at.

There’s cooler stuff than up in where I am, where there’s nothing. So, you know,

Crew Chief Brad: that’s true. But

Crew Chief Eric: I will say I did have a little table set up a thing for charity and all that to [00:24:00] donate money to aluminum cans for bird children and for the animal sanctuary and all that. But I sold off a bunch of my hot wheels that I have like a big bin of what I call the car show collection.

And so I was like, well, sell off the small ones to buy the bigger ones. Sounds like playing to me. That’s a one for one trade. Yep. Yes, sir. And that’s going on the Christmas shopping list. And you know, what’s funny is Hot Wheels owns mega blocks. That’s why obviously there’s no license with like Lego.

Crew Chief Brad: I was confused by that.

I was like, who is this Lego knockoff kind of thing?

Crew Chief Eric: So Mattel, the parent company owns all that, right? It’s pretty big. But they’re all in cahoots together. What’s funny is I don’t know why they chose this maybe because the car’s kind of blocky in shape. So it was easy for them to do, but there’s only one other one in this size, which it’s about a 10 inch car.

So think like one 18th scale model, but it’s a Corvette stingray, like a C2. Everything else they have is more like the speed. Champion size, like six, seven inches, but nothing this large. Maybe there’s more coming in the future. Maybe it’s a licensing thing. I figured they would have [00:25:00] all that because of hot wheels and matchbox and all the other brands that they own.

Really curious to see what they do with the mega blocks. I’ve never built anything mega blocks. before. So fit and finish will be mostly what I’m critiquing.

Crew Chief Brad: Maybe if they sell enough M5 Tourings, they’ll bring the M3. Yeah. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: There you go. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the moral of the story.

Crew Chief Brad: So I’ve got a question for you because I know you, I know how you operate.

Did you buy two so you can put one together and leave one in the box?

Crew Chief Eric: So they had four on the shelf.

Crew Chief Brad: And did you bring four home?

Crew Chief Eric: Three remained when I left. I

Crew Chief Brad: was tempted to buy two though. I really disappointed, disappointed because I know you, I know you’re sitting there and it’s like, well, I can get two of them and I can leave one as like a collector.

If I sell it in the future, then I make money on it. So it’s not really costing me anything. It wasn’t cheap. I know. I’ve seen them at target. I’ve seen the price. It’s

Crew Chief Eric: 80 bucks. I mean, I’m not going to lie. It’s rich people things, right? It’s like, you’re going to drop 80 bucks on a Lego set. It better be damn good.

We’ll see how it turns out for me. It’s an iconic car. It’s part of my childhood. One of those [00:26:00] things that I was like, I have to have it. You know what I mean? So we’ll see how it goes.

Crew Chief Brad: Good on you.

Crew Chief Eric: I am going to take it out of the box eventually. I don’t know. We’ll see.

Crew Chief Brad: Because you want to play with it because you’re two years old.

Of course.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, that said we’re back to our regularly scheduled ranting and raving. So we need to talk about Porsche, Audi and Volkswagen news. So what a great lead in there. Actually have news for them now. That’s cool. They’ve lost their way and they’re so lost that they’re going to expand their presence in Australia.

Yeah. With eight new models, while everyone else has moved out.

Crew Chief Brad: Are they going to start selling utes?

Crew Chief Eric: The list of cars is not that interesting, other than the pickup trucks that we never get, like the Amarok and all that stuff. But it’s the ID4 the Golf and Tiguan. It’s like, okay, great. Wonderful. It is a little confusing that there’s two vans.

So we’ve got the ID Buzz and then there’s the Multivan. Okay. And then the Transporter. Stuff that we don’t get here in the States. Great. You’re taking your regular lineup of cars to Australia.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. Where’s the mark for [00:27:00] ute pickup? No, the Jetta pickup or whatever. That Daniel wants to build. Where’s one of those that would sell like hotcakes.

Where’s the ID buzz. Ute. Everything should be a Ute.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. A hundred percent.

Crew Chief Brad: The two Utes.

Executive Producer Tania: Have you seen the. Old Jeep Cherokee Ute that’s down the road.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like sitting back in

Crew Chief Brad: the woods. You got to take your trailer out there and go dig it out. That’s a barn find my friend. No,

Executive Producer Tania: it runs. He moved it.

Now you can’t tell because he backed it into the woods.

Crew Chief Eric: Did you see how he had it parked though? He had the wheels position. Like he was taking Facebook marketplace pictures of it. I was like. What is happening? That’s a photo shoot parking job there with the wheels. Talked like that.

Crew Chief Brad: So it was a Jeep Wrangler.

You that kid’s pretty expensive. No,

Executive Producer Tania: it’s cheap. Cherokee.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, Cherokee. You’d Oh,

Executive Producer Tania: like an old square.

Crew Chief Brad: Really? Yeah, that is. So

Crew Chief Eric: instead of buying a Comanche, he just decided to make one.

Executive Producer Tania: He just chopped like the back section of glass out basically. Cause it’s so short. [00:28:00]

Crew Chief Brad: International

Crew Chief Eric: scout style. Yeah. It’s it’s weird,

Crew Chief Brad: but

Crew Chief Eric: it definitely catches your eye because you’re like, what is that?

Crew Chief Brad: So going back to Volkswagen and trying to sell cars in Australia, I have no need for one because we already bought a minivan, but I actually really, really liked the ID buzz.

Crew Chief Eric: So do I. Okay. Tanya got to see it in Vegas. My wife likes it. I think we all are kind of enamored with it. Until they just recently released the price tag.

Do you guys know how much this thing is gonna cost? Why don’t you guess? Let’s play the game.

Executive Producer Tania: I already know the price, so I can’t.

Crew Chief Brad: Before opening the page, I thought like 40, 45. Somewhere around the same as the ID4. Uh huh, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Our listeners will not be surprised if they go back and listen to last month’s 50, 000 millennial gray challenge.

This doesn’t even clock in at 50 grand. I wish even with the tax credit, it’s going to be high fifties with destination charges and everything else. Suggested MSRP of 62, 000.

Crew Chief Brad: Without the [00:29:00] cool colors. Yeah. They’re using the Tesla pricing model.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay, let’s be real. Minivans are not cool anymore. You and I both have them, but we bought them for practicality purposes and for, you know, a million reasons.

And we’re like, vans make sense. Vans are big station wagons, big hatchbacks, blah, blah, blah. And you can put a lot of shit in them. It depends on how you use it. SUVs can be more functional. You know, we can make those arguments all day long, but either way, you can buy a pretty well equipped SUV or minivan for less than 50, 000.

We already know this we’ve studied, but 62, 000 for a Volkswagen. That better be an Arteon or a Phaeton or something. I’m like,

Executive Producer Tania: what? There’s only 10 grand more than the next cheapest minivan.

Crew Chief Eric: Then what, an Odyssey? Because the Odyssey’s got all these whiz bang built in vacuum cleaners and all sorts of crazy stuff.

The Volkswagen doesn’t have any of that. But

Executive Producer Tania: the Honda Odyssey is more expensive than that. The Honda Odyssey is actually like 42, 000, but [00:30:00] The 2025 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid is 51. Since

Crew Chief Eric: when?

Executive Producer Tania: According to MSRP.

Crew Chief Brad: Does that include the cost of the additional transmissions? Hey,

Crew Chief Eric: I

Crew Chief Brad: got an update on that. You joke.

You joke. Do you have it back yet? We never got, uh, we never got any closure on it.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re, we’re on like transmission number four. It’s all good. So, but get this. They sent us a letter now, because I guess they’ve had so many problems with those hybrids. They have extended the warranty on the hybrid transmission system for life.

It will cost us 0 in a year and a half when we take it back in to get our fifth transmission. So it’ll be all good.

Crew Chief Brad: 0. But how much time? How much money is it going to cost you to buy a replacement car to use while that’s in the shop?

Crew Chief Eric: That is always the question. We were a little shaken in our boots the last time going like, is this it?

Are we done? How much is this going to cost? We’ve been very fortunate. You know, we bought the max care from Chrysler when we bought it new. And so we haven’t had to pay anything cause it’s always been under warranty. But in Stellantis’s [00:31:00] defense to avoid a class action lawsuit, whatever, they just flat out did the same thing they did with the Jeeps during diesel gate and said, we’re just going to extend the warranty.

Here you go. Done. We’ll take care of it. But at this rate, even though we have the superseded newer transmission and all this kind of stuff, it already failed once. So we’re like, all right, we’ll see how this goes.

Crew Chief Brad: I thought for sure you were going to say they sent you a letter stating that they were going to buy it back because that seems to happen to all the cars that you buy.

There’s a buyback.

Crew Chief Eric: That is 100 percent true. I’m waiting for that shoe to fall.

Executive Producer Tania: So if you had the report, would you buy another minivan?

Crew Chief Eric: You know, we’ve talked about that. It would either probably be an SUV or a minivan. I would maybe lean a little bit more into the Jeep camp. Talked about getting another diesel Jeep, something 4×4 because of where we live, and when it does snow, it snows pretty bad.

Whoa, bad. The 4XE is appealing because it’s hybrid and you get the all wheel drive, but the problem is the Jeep is really expensive, but in comparison [00:32:00] to what a new Pacifica would cost.

Executive Producer Tania: And there you go, new Pacifica for 10 grand more, would you get the ID Buzz? The

Crew Chief Eric: problem I think is the ID Buzz. Needs to be a hybrid and not full electric.

And then we would make the jump. I don’t think my wife is ready for full electric. She said that before she loves the fact that when she runs out of power, she can just rely on the petrol or, you know, it’s doing its regenerative thing or whatever, from a fuel economy standpoint, she’s doing way better than with any diesel we ever had, because she’s getting mixed driving 50 miles to the gallon.

I mean, we’ve talked about this before. So the Pacific is really hard to replace. From an economic standpoint, the problem is the transmission keeps failing. Knock on wood, the Jeep has been super reliable and it probably will be for a very, very long time. My money sort of goes in that direction. And as the kids get older, the sliding doors aren’t nearly as necessary, but they are super convenient.

Like the sliding doors is like game changing.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s kind of where we’re at. We bought the van because the kids are so [00:33:00] young, knowing. That and about five years or so, we’re going to upgrade to like a Tahoe or something else,

Crew Chief Eric: but you still cannot beat the cargo capacity of the van. I mean, the van has saved our butts so many times.

She’s like random trip to Ikea and you’re like, well, it’s going to fit.

Crew Chief Brad: It might not make it home, but it’s going to fit. It’s

Crew Chief Eric: going to fit. Yeah, exactly. So Volkswagen is out of their minds. 62, 000 for an electric van is just way, way too much. And you’re only getting 300 miles of range. 62, 000 and you can only go 300 miles.

That makes for a really, really long road trip and experience if that’s what you’re using it for. On the other side of the Volkswagen camp and the horsepower war portfolio that they have, right? Because Bugatti, Audi, Porsche, all the hypercars that they build. I’m sitting here thinking like, are we building ID buzzes to offset the new Lamborghinis?

Is that what this is all about? Because the new, I can’t even pronounce, I didn’t know there were this many different variants of bulls [00:34:00] because apparently every Lamborghini is named after a bull or a bullfighter or something like that. But the Temerario, 907 horsepower. Who’s going to drive that?

Executive Producer Tania: Who’s going to drive the 717 horsepower BMW wagon?

Crew Chief Eric: Me and Brad raised our hands. We’re going to do that.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes. Yes. Sign me up.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m good with 700. 900 is a bit much.

Crew Chief Brad: I think Eric’s wrong. I’m in the opposite camp. I think the more power, the better.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, well then you’re right in line for a Z06 then. Did you hear about that?

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, I have not heard about it yet.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, that’s just it.

Is this Lambo in response to the Z06? Because Hellcat’s at 700 and Mustang’s at 700.

Crew Chief Brad: The demons at eight

Crew Chief Eric: something. And yeah. Now we’re at 900. By the way, the Z06 makes a thousand horsepower. I was not prepared for that. Neither are the people with the new balance shoes that are going to buy them.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. How many you’re going to run into the wall coming out of the pits in a track day?

Crew Chief Eric: How many Hellcats were destroyed coming off the dealership lot?

Crew Chief Brad: Oh [00:35:00] my god, so many hulk heads. This Lamborghini looks amazing in this green. Another green car that I’m like all about. Green is back! But like good greens, not some like crappy greens that are

Crew Chief Eric: Is it better than the Countach?

Crew Chief Brad: Uh, no. To me, no.

I’m all in on the Coontosh. The Coontosh has replaced the Diablo as my favorite Lamborghini. Which, by the way, I saw a Diablo today on the road. It was a blast from the past, and I was very happy to see one. But the new Coontosh, for me, is peak Lamborghini.

Crew Chief Eric: This one just reminds me too much of every Huracan and whatever that came before it.

Yeah, it’s just

Crew Chief Brad: a continuation of that evolution. It’s pretty though.

Crew Chief Eric: So there lies the problem with the VAG family taking over Lamborghini. When Lamborghini was Lamborghini, they would be like, all right, scrap it. Let’s come up with something totally ridiculous. If you look at every Lamborghini up until VW group took over, they were just outlandish.

They were garish. They were bold, daring [00:36:00] stream colors, like insane cars. A lot of them are terrible to drive, but now Lamborghini has taken on this. 911 model where we just continue to make it bigger, wider, more horsepower, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we’re going through this evolutionary process. And so give it another name, it goes all the way back to like the Gallardo, right?

I mean, it’s like, have they really changed at all in the last 15 years plus?

Crew Chief Brad: What was the last Lamborghini not vague influenced? Was it the mercy logo?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, because Chrysler bought Lamborghini during the Diablo period. So, you know, Ferruccio sold off the company. I forget to who in between Chrysler and then Chrysler sold it off.

It’s changed hands a couple of times, but yeah, I think. I think the Murcielago might be, I know there was that prototype in there, the Kala that Italdesign did, that’s sort of a bridge between the Diablo and the Murcielago if you look at it. Yeah. But yeah, ever since VW took over, to me, they’re all the same except for [00:37:00] the Countach because that’s just a tribute car at the end of the day.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. And the Murcielago is a very, very pretty car too.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, the Aventador was a pretty car. No,

Crew Chief Brad: I didn’t like the angles. I like the Murcielagos, just kind of very Diablo esque. Yeah. Updated Diablo styling.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you know what has updated styling? And they say that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I must be apparently due for an eye exam because I don’t get it.

The new A6 and S6 sportback e trons. And they’re revealed, as it says here, with aerodynamics and tech as top of mind.

Crew Chief Brad: You know what it looks like to me? It looks like a clog, or like those really big chunky shoes that women wear sometimes. It looks like a big chunky shoe.

Crew Chief Eric: Tell me I’m wrong!

Crew Chief Brad: Tell me I’m wrong.

It’s a giant clunky shoe with like a three inch rubber sole.

Crew Chief Eric: From the back, it looks like an A3 that gained 2, 000 pounds.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes. [00:38:00] He really let himself go.

Crew Chief Eric: I’ve read this before. Rich people are to blame for all of these really muted, boring primer colors that we have now. There is no way to make this shade of beige look good.

Ever. On any car. Even a 911 would look terrible in this color.

Crew Chief Brad: I disagree. I actually kind of like it on this car.

Crew Chief Eric: Where

Executive Producer Tania: is it beige?

Crew Chief Brad: Beige? It’s like a cream. It’s like clamshell. It’s ugly. Oh my god. The whole thing is hideous. It’s portabella.

Crew Chief Eric: What are yeah, it’s portabella. This is the vegan Audi, okay? It’s

Crew Chief Brad: a portabella

Crew Chief Eric: chunky shoe.

Look at the mirrors. That’s what I want you to focus in

Executive Producer Tania: on. Whoa, are they cameras?

Crew Chief Eric: They’re just cameras. What is it that Tanya says? Hot garbage. I don’t like the interior either. There’s nothing about this that I like. That carpeted look on the seats. It reminds me of like office carpeting from the 90s.

Crew Chief Brad: There’s carpet on the [00:39:00] dash too.

Executive Producer Tania: The light up Audi rings on the back are kind of cool.

Crew Chief Brad: That is kind of cool. No,

Crew Chief Eric: they’re not. They look so cool. Oh God, this thing is awful. I’m glad they brought back sliding accordion style slider thing there in the center console that’s from like a 1984 quantum. That looks fantastic.

This interior is tweed.

Executive Producer Tania: I bet this interior is better in person than how it’s designed. being represented in this photo. And this is probably microfiber, but it’s being photographed horribly.

Crew Chief Brad: The only thing that would be worse is corduroy.

Executive Producer Tania: The rendering doesn’t look right.

Crew Chief Eric: And maybe it’s the optics of the fish eye that they use.

The door handles on the inside below the LCD screens that are the mirrors.

Executive Producer Tania: They finally moved the handle that when the window opened, the water doesn’t go right.

Crew Chief Eric: No, because the water goes on top of the screen that is your mirror that is now inside the car.

Executive Producer Tania: No, that looks like it’s up in the dash, like where your air vent would be.

Crew Chief Eric: This looks so Knight Rider.

Crew Chief Brad: So here’s our polling question number two [00:40:00] for Eric and Tanya, those listening at home. The

Crew Chief Eric: answer’s no.

Crew Chief Brad: This or the Tesla Model Y?

Crew Chief Eric: Can I walk instead?

Crew Chief Brad: You’re going to be walking anyway with your Pacifica.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay, I thought about this next one long and hard. The title just kills me.

I think this is Volkswagen’s only way back from the brink of extinction. So it reads, the Mark 8 GTI, that’s what they’re referring to, the Mark 8 might be around until 2035 with a gas engine.

Executive Producer Tania: How does that help them from extinction?

Crew Chief Eric: They’ve gone EV, EV, EV, EV, EV. Why would

Executive Producer Tania: they keep A mark for 16 years.

Crew Chief Eric: This is a play for them to be able to come back from their full EV model, because otherwise nobody’s going to buy Volkswagen’s anymore. So when they totally go off the edge and they decide to scrap the entire ID dot, whatever lineup, they can always. fall back on the GTI. It’s been around forever. And this one will literally have been around forever.

I’m

Executive Producer Tania: just going to like a dodge dart, leave like [00:41:00] three of them here and there at dealerships and be like, we’re still selling them.

Crew Chief Brad: Why would they not redesign it?

Executive Producer Tania: Why would they not just release the

Crew Chief Eric: Mark 9? Again, I’ve been putting a lot of useless thought behind this particular article, trying to even gain a clue as to what VW might be thinking.

Crew Chief Brad: Also, why in VW’s infinite. Styling wisdom. Did they put a GTI badge under the mirror?

Crew Chief Eric: It looks terrible.

Crew Chief Brad: That looks like somebody had a GTI badge in their parts bin and they walked up and just slapped it onto the side of somebody’s car for fun. It’s

Crew Chief Eric: like those letters you buy at advanced auto to put on the back of your Yeah, it’s

Crew Chief Brad: the letters you get at Home Depot.

Like when you’re trying to.

Crew Chief Eric: Turbo S with the big for sale sign S.

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, it could be worse. It could be a Nissan GTR badge. People put those on everything too.

Crew Chief Eric: After straining my mind grapes on this for a while, here’s the only thing I could come up with. Okay. There are bans in certain parts of the world against diesel and new petrol cars and things like [00:42:00] that.

If Volkswagen does the Microsoft thing or the Apple thing, I guess, and says, this is the last operating system you’ll ever need liars. The GTI, if they keep on the mark eight platform and to your point, Tanya, they keep restyling it just a little bit, but the chassis stays the same. And the power plant basically stays the same.

Is it really a new car when you haven’t changed? Let’s say the software version, it’s still GTI version eight. So it’s not a new car. It’s an old car that they just continue to sell forever. So in my mind, they can get around these bans that have been maybe prematurely activated, where we’ve heard things like 2025, 2027, 2029, 2035.

There’s all these numbers floating around. So this way, Volkswagen says, all right, Mark 8 is the last GTI you’ll ever need, and that we’ll ever build. It’s not a new car anymore. So I think this is a loophole that they’re looking to execute on.

Executive Producer Tania: I have no idea what they’re doing, nor do I care.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m starting to go down the rabbit hole like Eric [00:43:00] did.

It mentions in the article that the 74 Mark I was manufactured for 34 years with the South African City Golf production ending in 2009.

Crew Chief Eric: That is true.

Crew Chief Brad: Is this going to be like the original Beetle was manufactured for what, 50 years because they still made them in Mexico and stuff? They made them

Crew Chief Eric: in Mexico until 2003.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. So are they going to. Sell the Mark 8 alongside like a Mark 9 or a Mark 10 or whatever in the future.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, they’ll sell it alongside the e golf, whatever it’ll be called, right? Because they can’t make a new petrol powered golf if the rules are upheld the way they’re written.

Crew Chief Brad: Got it. Okay. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So that’s my conspiracy theory, tinfoil hat or otherwise.

I think they’re going to do a 9 11 strategy and go like the Lamborghini. And it’s certainly not a new car.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s going to be the Mark 8. 1, the Mark 8. 2, the Mark 8. 4.

Executive Producer Tania: Porsche already

Crew Chief Eric: started

Executive Producer Tania: doing

Crew Chief Eric: that.

Executive Producer Tania: How can you have a Mark 8 and a Mark 9? The Mark 8 [00:44:00] petrol. Alongside the Mark 9 electric vault.

Crew Chief Brad: How can you have a Mustang and a Mustang Mach E?

What Mustang Mach E? That’s not a Mustang.

Executive Producer Tania: Because up to this point, all Marks have been petrol or diesel. And so if the 9 is now electric, what if they do decide to make another petrol after the 8? They’re just going to skip and go 10?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, they’ve already said 8. 5.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s going to be like BMW. The odd numbers are the four doors and the even numbers are the two doors, but sometimes four doors don’t even start in Volkswagen terms.

The odd numbers are going to be the electrics. And then the even numbers are going to be the petrols.

Crew Chief Eric: But did you guys see this commercial that was filmed in our backyard of at all places, summit point raceway,

Crew Chief Brad: good old

Crew Chief Eric: Tanner, Tanner versus Tanner. Like I didn’t understand this commercial on multiple levels.

Executive Producer Tania: I think it was a really nice videography. It

Crew Chief Eric: was well edited.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, that was nice. They put a GTI quote head to head with an R. I don’t understand. I don’t know. You go through the lab. They’re kind of [00:45:00] like fighting each other. Okay, sure. Like one’s ahead. The other’s ahead. He literally comes out of nine. And he’s making the motions like he’s rowing a goddamn boat up the hill in the R like I got to row this mother effer to even get close to the GTI.

And then he finishes in the R have a car length ahead of the GTI. It’s like, what advertising is this? So you go spend how much more than R to have the same, the same performance of the GTI, go spend 20, 30 grand more to have barely a faster car.

Crew Chief Brad: This is like the opposite of what Porsche would have done.

Didn’t they purposefully make the Cayman worse so it wouldn’t compete with the 911 or something? Because they didn’t want to take away sales from the 911. If

Crew Chief Eric: Porsche had made this commercial. It would

Crew Chief Brad: have lapped itself.

Crew Chief Eric: They would have had the Paisley 917 and the 918 Carrera and the this and that, and then suddenly a take hand would have appeared by a UFO and gone into warp speed and destroyed everything in like a nuclear [00:46:00] inferno.

Volkswagen on the other hand is like. Hey, our shitbox that costs 20, 000 less than our flagship is just as fast as our flagship. Don’t you want to buy our flagship? And this is what I’ve been saying about the Golf, which is a problem with the Golf. Everybody goes, Ooh, ah, go far, errr. Dude, it weighs 600 pounds more than the front wheel drive, and you’re carrying around a bunch of ballast for nothing.

So yeah, they threw 50 more horsepower at it, but at the end of the day, the power to weight ratio is the same. So you’re still driving a shitbox. But you have more stuff that you’re lugging around and you have less trunk space and more problems and more maintenance and everything that goes along with that.

So it’s sort of like, like if I had to choose between the two, I’d probably just buy the regular GTI because it came with a manual. They showed that when I was like, all right, you’ve won me over there and I’m going to save 20 grand by the time it’s all said and done. So. If I look at it as not an enthusiast and not a critic, ooh, that’s an exciting commercial and isn’t that amazing that [00:47:00] they filmed it at Summit Point.

I’m proud of them for all of those things. But as an enthusiast, I look at it and go, as I talked about on Discord, it doesn’t make sense. This is a stupid commercial. It doesn’t sell me, not like if you go back and look at the original. R 32 commercials they did where they were at the VW test track and they’re up on the bank and they’re doing, you know, 150 plus mile an hour and like all this stuff and it was like, holy cow, VW, they can do that kind of speed.

This is just like, okay. And does anybody even remember Tanner Faust other than from the flop that was top gear America? I mean, global rally cross has been gone for like a decade now.

Crew Chief Brad: He’s probably still contractually obligated to do things for Volkswagen. I have

Crew Chief Eric: a feeling. Yes, it was absolutely good for some point.

They’re going to sell negative 10 GTIs because of that. Meanwhile, in Lower Saxony, BMW is back on the docket. This time with some recalls. So we talked in the past, what, 270, 000 Volkswagens recalled, you know, umpteen million [00:48:00] Teslas have been recalled, all this kind of stuff. Well, BMW is adding their name to the list.

720, 000 vehicles recalled because of a fire risk that starts. With a short circuit and a water pump.

Executive Producer Tania: Put itself out.

Crew Chief Eric: This is the kind of shit that drives me nuts about BMW. You know they’ve got water cooled alternators. And like other crazy concoctions that they’ve come up with on these cars over the years.

It is not necessary and it is not advised. To mix electronics and water. I’m just going to flat out say that as a public service announcement.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, where exactly is the fire? Where’s the water pump located on the BMW?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, if it’s anything like my E36, it was right in the front, like right behind this big ass pulley.

So I guess basically there’s a water pump failure and the water must go like everywhere and hit some sort of crucial system. Cause here it says the fix is very straightforward. BMW will inspect the water pump and the problematic plug and replace it. If there’s any damage found and a shield will be installed to protect [00:49:00] the plug from errant.

Fluids again, water and electricity don’t mix. It affects a wide range of cars from like 2012 through 2018. It looks like on this list, you’re talking X one Z fours, five series, three series, X five, two series, three series GTs that we know Brad doesn’t like X threes, X fours, four series. The list goes on and on and on.

And it’s just like, that’s a lot of cars. I mean, 720, 000 cars is nothing to sneeze at. So. If you own one of these BMWs and they’re willing to replace this for free, just go get it done before you end up with a smoldering pile of metal. And if you have had your car melt to the ground and didn’t know why, maybe it’s time for a class action lawsuit.

Moving on. Now it’s time for some Stellantis news. Going back to Australia, I guess this month it was pretty slow, so we’re going down under. Did you guys know that Citroën has been selling cars in Australia since 1923?

Crew Chief Brad: No, but it looks like Volkswagen is gonna slide in quite nicely right into Australia’s DMs once Citroën [00:50:00] pulls out.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, Citroën is leaving Australia after a hundred years of sales.

Crew Chief Brad: Did you say a hundred years of sales or fails?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you know, fails is true because they said reportedly Ferrari outsold them last year in Australia. And you know, that’s not a lot of cars. So the bigger question is if a Citroen leaves Australia and no one’s there to see it, does

Crew Chief Brad: it make a noise?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Does anybody care? But there’s some sad news for Tanya. Actually, more like sad panda news for

Executive Producer Tania: Tanya.

Crew Chief Brad: What’s happening to the Fiat Panda?

Executive Producer Tania: There’s a silver lining, because although the 4th gen Fiat Panda is going to go away after over a decade of sales in the UK, it’s making room for the Grand Panda.

The Grand Panda. I want this, but it’s never going to come here. Hybrid or electric powertrain. That

Crew Chief Brad: is awesome. Super cool. That is pretty sweet. Tanya, you just need to go buy a Jeep Renegade.

Executive Producer Tania: It basically looks like a Renegade. And it says Grand, but apparently it’s smaller, shorter wheelbase than the [00:51:00] 500X.

So it’s not a very big car.

Crew Chief Brad: Really? It’s a Granda.

Executive Producer Tania: 10 inches smaller.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s a

Crew Chief Eric: significant.

Executive Producer Tania: So maybe bigger than a Gen 4, but I

Crew Chief Eric: really like the way they did the grill and the headlights and everything. I think that looks really cool. The panda that’s embossed into the side skirt, I take it or leave it.

Crew Chief Brad: It makes it

Crew Chief Eric: rugged.

It also looks like a handle.

Crew Chief Brad: This is pretty cool though. I would use this as a runabout.

Executive Producer Tania: I would buy one and like just under 22 pounds, that’s Under 30 USD.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s not bad. And it’s a hatchback. It’s all the things. Again, pandas are known for being rugged.

Executive Producer Tania: Get it in a hybrid, so you’re not relying on only EV.

Crew Chief Eric: Those wheels, though. Those wheels are killing me. They’re so 80s. Beat Ritmo had wheels like this. Like, they’re bizarre, but you can’t stop looking at them.

Crew Chief Brad: They don’t show it parked. So you can’t really see what the wheels look like.

Crew Chief Eric: When’s the grand panda Abarth coming out? The grand Abarth.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, I don’t know.

This is supposed to come out next year and it [00:52:00] won’t come here. Of course. Why would they?

Crew Chief Eric: Maybe it will. And they’ll call it the Dodge Nitro. Cause it does look like that from the back.

Crew Chief Brad: A little bit. It’ll be, it won’t be the dart. What else did Dodge just come out with? Yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: but that flat back and the Fiat there, there’s like a lot of like original Panda, like it’s exuding it, but then it’s like, oh, I’m new and I’m modern.

But, oh, you can tell that I’m trying to recall the old days.

Crew Chief Brad: So our listeners want to know why hasn’t Tanya imported a Fiat Panda yet?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t have a good answer. They’re so cheap. Well, then

Crew Chief Brad: I think we found our next segment updates on Tanya importing a Fiat Panda.

Crew Chief Eric: You might get a cyber check first. This episode’s update,

Crew Chief Brad: no update.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t

Executive Producer Tania: know how to do it. So.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, but there are ways to do it. It’s not difficult. You just find one of those companies that does the importing. One of those guys.

Crew Chief Eric: You talked to

Crew Chief Brad: that guy who imported the Volvo from, uh, GTM. Yeah, that’s

Crew Chief Eric: right. Season one of our show, we had a guy import a Volvo from Sweden.

That’s right.

Executive Producer Tania: I’ll go see if the one in Texas is for sale. One of [00:53:00] those guys that imported one.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s gotta be a four by four Sisley though. You gotta have the Sisley like James May had on Top Gear. Well, I mean, if you’re gonna

Executive Producer Tania: import one, you gotta get top of the line.

Crew Chief Eric: Top speed, 45 miles an hour. Yeah. Well, anyway, moving on with a little bit more domestic news, shying away from Styliantis yet again.

I think Big Brother is listening, because as soon as we stopped talking about the Maverick and the Ranger, Super Duty, and all that stuff last month, I get another thing coming flying across my desk. Get this! The Maverick Lobo Edition. And I’m like, okay, what? Now, apparently this truck is down to clown, according to car and driver.

Like who writes these articles? Like seriously, what’s the point of it? It’s got wheels that look like they came off of kit. Other than that, it’s got stitched leather seats. I mean, it’s a Maverick. I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, it’s lowered, low boy, lowered.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, whatever. They dropped it half an inch in the front and 1. 1 inches in the rear.

Woo. Like that’s like a street kit on a GTI. Like. Come on, really?

Executive Producer Tania: Why in the picture does it [00:54:00] look like it’s lowered more in the front?

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t know. And they say it comes with brakes from the Focus ST, which I’m scratching my head going, Focus ST is a really small car in comparison to this truck. And it has the twin clutch from the Bronco Sport.

Okay, great. And the power is unchanged. You’re going to spend more. You’re gonna spend 37, 000 for the Lobo. For a 238 horsepower, two liter EcoBoost four cylinder. Okay, wait, wait, wait.

Crew Chief Brad: Where does it say EcoBoost? I’ve been trying to find that.

Crew Chief Eric: You know it’s the EcoBoost. They only make one four cylinder.

Crew Chief Brad: Do they?

I don’t know.

Crew Chief Eric: Can you imagine this truck with like the four cylinder from the Focus back in the day? You’d want to get out and light it on fire. It’d

Crew Chief Brad: be horrible. That’s the type of stuff I’ve come to expect from Ford. So that’s why I was looking.

Crew Chief Eric: Terrible. Because

Crew Chief Brad: nowhere in the article does it say EcoBoost, which I would have thought would have been everywhere.

Every time they mentioned the motor, it would have been EcoBoost.

Executive Producer Tania: There’s another article that says turbocharged four cylinder.

Crew Chief Brad: [00:55:00] See, there you

Crew Chief Eric: go.

Crew Chief Brad: Okay, so that is the EcoBoost then.

Crew Chief Eric: 238 is pretty weak even for the EcoBoost too, because the power pack on the Mustang was like 278 or something like that.

Apparently the setup has been de-tuned for 2025. It’s going down. They took away horsepower.

Crew Chief Brad: You know what this is? This is the Chevy S 10 Extreme from the nineties. Yes. With the same 4.3 liter, but a body kit and lowered. Yep. And just an, it is an appearance package. Basically, if you

Executive Producer Tania: already had a Mave, those

Crew Chief Brad: wheels are ugly.

Wouldn’t you just

Crew Chief Eric: buy something aftermarket

Crew Chief Brad: that’s better? I don’t know. The wheels are kind of cool. They’re very mad Max to me.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but okay. They’re sort of like the bowling balls. From the 82 Trans Am, right? In my opinion,

Executive Producer Tania: math, math is a wonderful,

Crew Chief Eric: get off your ass and do some math, math. I know where you’re going with this, Tanya.

Executive Producer Tania: So for 28 grand, you can buy a regular Ford Mamret, or you can spend 8, 000 more starting at 36, six [00:56:00] for wheels and suspension. So you can’t buy a new suspension and four new wheels for less than eight grand.

Crew Chief Eric: You could put this sucker on bags and better wheels for less than eight grand.

Crew Chief Brad: But the interior, you’re not going to get the slightly upgraded interior.

Slightly upgraded. Oh, give me a

Crew Chief Eric: break. This is trash. Nobody’s gonna buy that thing.

Executive Producer Tania: Someone’s going to buy it

Crew Chief Brad: as someone who’s not a fan of the Maverick to begin with, I think all of this is dumb.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, it’s still only 36, 000 for a pickup truck. So somebody is going to buy it,

Crew Chief Brad: but it’s not, it’s a Honda Ridgeline.

Basically

Executive Producer Tania: people bought that

Crew Chief Brad: they

Crew Chief Eric: did. Oh

Crew Chief Brad: my God. I laugh at them every single time I see one.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. Well, we got a call back. Something we talked about a couple of drive thrus that go where GM had hired one of this C level folks from Apple and all this, they’re going to bring in the new technology and the systems are going to be similar.

You know, it’s not going to be GM with theirs and Cadillac with the other thing and this and that and the other whatever since then that guy packed it up left and they’ve [00:57:00] laid off 5, 000 people with retirement buyouts and all sorts of stuff. And guess what? I even got a notice from LinkedIn that was like, Hey, pump the brakes.

Have you heard the latest GMs laying off another thousand people, but quote Not downsizing due to cost cuts. Yeah. Okay,

Crew Chief Brad: sure. They’ve got to be able to afford those bonuses and golden parachutes for the C suites.

Crew Chief Eric: Unbelievable. Again, making all the right moves. I guess they got to pay for their C8R program somehow.

Right.

Crew Chief Brad: But there is no C8R program. Remember GM pulled out of sponsorship for that.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, nobody knows what GM’s building. They haven’t really dipped their toes back into the EV world. There’s no hybrids.

Crew Chief Brad: There’s no crews. GM doesn’t know what GM’s building.

Crew Chief Eric: We’ve gone to that well, several times and the bucket comes up dry.

So they’re monoliths. It’s like moving mountains to get anything to happen over there. So in 10 or 20 years, we’ll understand what GM was up to in 2024. It’s all good. But [00:58:00] maybe it’s because they got a quote unquote, allegedly not cutting costs due to downsizing or whatever, because they have to pay 15 million in a class action lawsuit to Duramax owners because of the fuel pump problem.

Crew Chief Brad: Surprise, surprise. Guess who’s involved with them? Bosch.

Crew Chief Eric: Here we go again. More diesel gate nonsense, but it could also be, and I’m surprised Tanya didn’t jump on me for this bad investments. Like, Oh, I don’t know. Nicola, maybe

Crew Chief Brad: bad investments like the development of the most recent Impala in Malibu. I can’t believe people buy those cars.

Enterprise buys those cars.

Executive Producer Tania: So you couldn’t see me the other day. I was trying to point to you when we were following each other.

Crew Chief Eric: Was that before or after we almost got pulled over by the cop?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Because I wasn’t stupidly. I’m like, Oh, Eric’s gonna set the pace correctly because he’s in front.

Meanwhile, I would have been the sucker that got caught. Anyway, no, no, no. We were already really close back home. But there was a Malibu [00:59:00] RS or something like that. I was like, what is this? Icarb right there next to us. I was like, what?

Crew Chief Eric: I got confused on the road. I saw a Colorado with a V badge. And I was like, they made a Colorado V?

Like a CTSB and then I got closer and it says V6. So obviously that’s my poor eyesight at this point. Because that

Crew Chief Brad: six is like a red color.

Crew Chief Eric: Right?

Crew Chief Brad: The V is silver and the six is red.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. So it’s hard to see the red from a distance, but it was like Colorado B? It’s weirder things out there.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s the Colorado V black lung.

The

Crew Chief Eric: black lung. That’s the diesel version. Speaking of the black lung GR Corolla owners, Tanya, this could have been you. Ah,

Executive Producer Tania: it

Crew Chief Eric: would have been me.

Luck is not on our side sometimes, but neither is it for these folks. Can you believe this stuff? More than one GR Corolla has burned to the ground. [01:00:00] And

Executive Producer Tania: by more than one, two.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s a true statement.

Executive Producer Tania: Ah, well. It’s not funny, especially since it was like middle finger because our warranty says that you shouldn’t exceed 85 miles an hour.

Crew Chief Eric: Like what?

Executive Producer Tania: I read

Crew Chief Eric: this several times and I agree with the author of this particular article because one of the things he pointed out Toyota is using this logic of Okay. We built a car that can do, let’s say 140 miles an hour, right? Cause the GR Corolla is peppy and it’s fast.

Executive Producer Tania: This is the circuit edition.

So this is the track prepped one, right? And

Crew Chief Eric: then there’s whatever that midnight murdered out Mitsu package. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s really the track one because it comes with no back seats and like a half gauge and all that stuff.

Crew Chief Eric: GR Corolla GT3 or whatever it is. Right. So let’s just say they built 140 mile an hour hatchback.

Okay, fine. That you can’t accelerate. Yeah. Drive it like you’re going to the grocery store. You shouldn’t exceed 85, which is higher than most U. S. speed limits, except if like you’re in the middle of [01:01:00] Montana or something like that, right? Where there is a speed limit. And that’s fine, but Dot, dot, dot. The author says and points out when you buy one of these cars, Toyota gifts you a track day.

Yeah, and you will exceed

Executive Producer Tania: 85 miles an hour.

Crew Chief Brad: So here’s the part that really scares me and makes it so I will never buy a Toyota performance car if this is the case. It is. Toyota told him at some point in the car’s life, it sent out a data packet that included the car’s speed. I mean, Skynet alert, what in the world is this?

Yeah, that’s the scary part. It’s sending back pings with data to Toyota that they can use to void my warranty because they deem fit. First of all, do they ever explain what that certain speed is? I don’t see anywhere where it says, but apparently he went 114 miles per hour once. And they don’t care that the car comes with a track day.

I guess you have to go to a track where you do not exceed that speed. That to me is very scary that my car is going to ping Toyota [01:02:00] with data about me.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And there’s been tons of cases about that. And it’s not just Tesla, you know, before people get on the bandwagon and start blaring those trumpets.

It’s other brands that are doing exactly what you’re saying. They’re snooping on you. This is what we’ve said about those insurance companies. They’re like, plug this thing into your OBD for the good driver discount. Yeah, you can keep all that crap. But in this case, how do we know that this alleged 114 mile an hour that this gentleman did with his GR Corolla?

Wasn’t at summit point as an example. Maybe it was Tanner Faust shooting a commercial with a regular Corolla showing how good the two are together. But the point is we don’t have any reason, season or justification for the 114 mile an hour. And I’m not trying to absolve anyone of their sins, but the point is you build a performance car that can’t do what it’s supposed to do on paper.

Say one of these things burned to the ground during a test, like car drivers testing the car. [01:03:00] How do you know that this wasn’t a demo car at some point? You don’t know. There’s so many variables. The problem here is Toyota’s been known for having really good warranties and being upstanding and all those kinds of things.

Not if you own a GR Corolla. Does this extend to all GR products? The 86, the Supra, the Yaris, and so on down the line? This is the first we’re hearing about it because the Corolla is the newest car. How does this apply to other vehicles? So Brad, you do a maneuver on the highway and you got to go around a semi truck and you hit the not recommended speed of 85, maybe you do 86 miles an hour to get around them.

Did you just void the warranty on your Sienna?

Crew Chief Brad: You know, that’s a great question because I’ve done triple digits and Sienna. So I don’t know what type of data, but I bought the vehicle used. So I’m not even relying on Toyota for the warranty anyway.

Crew Chief Eric: If it’s not calling home like ET. Well, true.

Executive Producer Tania: They’re being somewhat misleading.

Crew Chief Eric: The author or Toyota? Everyone.

Executive Producer Tania: Everything on this, [01:04:00] because 85 mile an hour thing, if this is a quote from the Toyota manual. It just says to not drive over 85 miles an hour unless your vehicle has high speed capability tires. So that statement alone goes, hey, it’s okay, go faster if you’ve got ultra high performance summers or slicks on.

Driving over 85 may result in tire failure, loss of control, and possible injuries.

Crew Chief Eric: Why would you sell this car with Maypops?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, that’s just legalese speak, although it’s very specific to say 85 miles an hour and not like, Average posted speed limit or something, right? Like you’re basically saying it’s okay to feed, but just don’t speed over this amount.

Crew Chief Eric: If we go to tire rack right now and look for replacement tires for a GR Corolla, you don’t think those are Z or V rated tires? That’s what that means. ZR, VR, whatever, those are speed ratings. And anything in that range is going to be above a hundred mile an hour.

Crew Chief Brad: Just go to Toyota’s website and see what tires.

Crew Chief Eric: Were they selling Grius tires on a GR Corolla?

Crew Chief Brad: From the factory, the car comes with [01:05:00] 235 40R18 Michelin Pilot Sport 4 high performance summer tires.

Crew Chief Eric: Those are 150 mile an hour tire, easily. Michelin Pilot Sport, are you kidding me? Can’t exceed 85 mile an hour, my butt.

Executive Producer Tania: Pilot Sports are 300.

Crew Chief Eric: 300 tread wears autocross tire, 200 tread wears a track tire.

And then once you go below that, you’re starting to dip into slicks and all that. The moral to the story is. Lots of horsepower with a small engine means lots of heat, and in a confined space, like a hatchback, transverse, there’s not a lot of room for airflow.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know that that’s the problem, because if you read the second guy’s experience, it almost sounds like it was an electrical error.

Crew Chief Eric: I thought I read somewhere else that somebody blew a hole in the side of one of those motors.

Executive Producer Tania: The other guy that was driving his, he got a phone notification from Toyota Connect that said there was a malfunctioning electronic control. Check the engine. And then he said he didn’t feel any loss of power.

Crew Chief Eric: Boom.

Executive Producer Tania: And then smoke started coming out, pulled over, and then it went up in flames. Zero

Crew Chief Eric: warning. Well, you got a warning. You got a [01:06:00] text message.

Executive Producer Tania: You know, don’t text and drive, but maybe it came up on a screen or something, but good thing you read that text message. I mean, the smoke would have been obvious and you would have pulled over anyway.

Crew Chief Brad: So this begs the question, what is going on with Toyota? Because Not too long ago, they had issues with the turbo sixes and the hundreds too. Something is afoot at the circle. Okay.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s unfortunate because their reputation has been built on their reliability. And

Crew Chief Eric: yeah, but that reputation was built on non turbo engines.

Think about that for a second. True. All of their long standing, hard working cars are non turbo cars. Like, they’ve dipped their toe in the German pond, and I think they’ve realized that the water’s a little too hot.

Crew Chief Brad: But, to counter that, the Turbo Supra from the 90s was one of the best built motors ever.

Crew Chief Eric: The 2JZ is an incredible engine. There is no doubt. But think about that. They haven’t had another turbo engine, really, since.

Crew Chief Brad: You’re right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the first one that came out since then was the one that they partnered with BMW on.

Crew Chief Eric: And if you think about it, the [01:07:00] BRZ or the 86, which continues to be non turbo, Toyota must have told Subaru, because we’re all sitting here going, it’s such a slug.

Why wouldn’t you put a turbo on it? I’m thinking Toyota’s like. No turbos, no turbos, no turbos. And then finally the bow broke. And with the Yaris, because basically the motor in the Corolla is the motor from the Yaris,

Executive Producer Tania: the Celicas came turbocharged too. So were they the same motor as the Supras?

Crew Chief Brad: But the Celicas were turbocharged back in the eighties and nineties.

Way back. Way back. Yeah. Cause you’re talking about the alt track or whatever it’s called. The Celicas after that weren’t turbo.

Executive Producer Tania: Are we just saying then they forgot how to build turbos?

Crew Chief Brad: Yes. The technology has changed.

Crew Chief Eric: They also forgot how to build inline sixes, which is why the Supra is a BMW engine.

Crew Chief Brad: What’s happening is they’re cutting corners. More likely. And the 2JZ engineering won out, not finance. And that’s why it was so overbuilt.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, not only that, packaging of the 2JZ, it was longitudinal. So again, it goes back to airflow. You’ve got a lot of stuff going on in a very [01:08:00] small space. Not to say that the Supra Was a Buick Riviera under the hood, but the point is with an inline, there was more ways to cool it than there is in those Yaris’s and those Corollas.

Yeah. And the thing is the Yaris has proven itself on the WRC stage, but that’s a race car and it’s different. If you looked at how many louvers and vents and cooling and ducks and wings and fenders and everything that those cars have, they’re nothing like the street car. Plus the. The chassis is all tube frame.

They’ve got a lot more room for the heat to be dissipated than in the street cars.

Crew Chief Brad: All I’m going to say is I would not want to own a turbo Toyota right

Crew Chief Eric: now.

Crew Chief Brad: I’ll stick to my big, slow laboring V8 that just kind of putt putts around at like 1200 RPM at 70 miles an hour.

Crew Chief Eric: And it’ll be big, slow and laboring for the next hundred years.

Crew Chief Brad: Exactly. It’s good. It’s going to last me forever. So I’ll stick to that.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, Brad, we talked about a whole bunch of cars over the years, lost and found, you know, things [01:09:00] you can still get on the dealership lot. And I think up until not too long ago, you could still get NSXs on the dealership lot. And we were like, man, did they stop making that car like in 2016 or 2018 or something like that?

Acura. Confirms a new NSX, we’re going to put air quotes around that, is headed to production with an EV power plant.

Crew Chief Brad: Did you see me on there? That’s how I feel about rich nerds doing rich nerd things.

Crew Chief Eric: And I’m going to be the great car knack for a moment and say, this is going to sell 1 percent of what the NSX sold.

Crew Chief Brad: Which was already 1 percent of what Honda sold.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. The NSX was already a hybrid, especially in racing. So that’s where the E Ray got its inspiration from, right? So I’m like, uh, Do we really need this? But I will say this, you know, kind of speaking to the E Ray and speaking to the Corvette and the Lamborghini that we were talking about earlier, it is sort of amazing that cars like this are still being produced, these like quote unquote supercars or hypercars.

I think it’s interesting though, and I heard somebody say this [01:10:00] recently, that companies like Corvette producing cars like the C8 allow the other manufacturers to continue to build stuff like this. And it’s not even in a competitive way. It’s like, well, if GM is still doing it, then we can still do it too.

There must be interest. There must be people that want to buy it. It’s a really interesting way of kind of framing why supercars still exist. Because if you think about it, they’re impractical. They’re expensive. They’re not economical in any way, shape, or form. And it’s like, why do we still have these other than for the posters on our wall?

In reality, with AI being what it is these days, Acura could make an NSX that we can put on our wall that they’ll never produce. And I’ll still look at it and go, man, that’s. It’s really sexy. It’s really nice, but it’s fake. But I have to applaud them for their tenacity to continue to pursue these ideas that supercars need to be built because they are awe inspiring.

They’re a testament to the technology and to the advancement of the companies. But I don’t think this is going to sell well. I took the slow boat to justify that there. Sorry guys.

Executive Producer Tania: [01:11:00] I’m sorry. Were you saying something? I blacked out for a minute.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s the second time she’s done that to us this episode.

Executive Producer Tania: What was the other time?

Crew Chief Brad: When we were doing the Letterman Top 15.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh my god.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, this there’s oh my god.

Executive Producer Tania: That was some dry stuff, but I hope you enjoyed it.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re just not tickling Tanya’s fancies this time. She’s not into it. You know what I mean? The doldrums of summer.

Executive Producer Tania: Really awkward.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, Tanya, let’s talk about what do you want to talk about?

Executive Producer Tania: I want to talk about the next MG.

Crew Chief Brad: Ooh.

Executive Producer Tania: You

Crew Chief Eric: don’t

Executive Producer Tania: want to talk

Crew Chief Eric: about

Executive Producer Tania: three wheeled things? Oh, I skipped that. I’m sorry. Apparently what I really want to talk about is something I know nothing about.

Crew Chief Eric: I added this because we don’t get to talk about motorcycles very often and I’m not plugged into motorcycle news as much as I should be, but I just don’t see things like Ducati is coming out.

It always feels like, yeah, okay. They have a new. Monster 9, 000, 003 or whatever it is. And that’s great. And then they make that for like 15 years, you know, and then they come out with the [01:12:00] next one. This one came across my desk and I was like, am I missing something? Three wheeled vehicles. Is it a trike when the wheel is in the front or in the back?

Crew Chief Brad: The front.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay. So three wheeled where there’s two in the front and one in the back. What’s that called? The triangle. It’s

Crew Chief Brad: called crap. That’s called, it’s called poser.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay. So we’re on the same page. They’re dumb.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, let’s be nice. They’re not dumb. They’re just for a certain demographic.

Crew Chief Brad: People that want to be motorcycle riders and they want to be part of the community, but they don’t want to learn how to ride a motorcycle.

Executive Producer Tania: There you go. Or they’re older.

Crew Chief Brad: But then they get like a traditional tri carly. They don’t get whatever this abomination is.

Crew Chief Eric: This thing is so big. It has a 10 and a quarter inch Apple CarPlay compatible touchscreen. It’s a three wheeler.

Crew Chief Brad: I want to know when Ewan McGregor is going to take one of these around the world.

He did with the BMW motorcycles. You know when that’s going to happen? Never, because he’s not a poser.

Crew Chief Eric: And the reason I say this is rich people things, do you guys want to [01:13:00] guess how much this costs?

Crew Chief Brad: I’m guessing 45, 000.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re a little high.

Crew Chief Brad: 42, 500.

Crew Chief Eric: For the listeners, it’s a 2025 Can Am Anion. Three wheel triangular thing, it’s, it’s not a trike.

’cause the wheel is in the back. So it’s like a motorcycle. It’s a mullet business in the front with two wheels and you steer and it’s motorcycle in the back.

Crew Chief Brad: Even the person riding it in the picture does not look like they’re having anything. No,

Crew Chief Eric: not at all. They don’t look like they’re enjoying this.

Okay, so back to the price. Suggested MSRP $27,000 for this upwards of $33,000.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know. How much does a regular K& M cost? Probably mid twenties. You

Crew Chief Eric: can’t ride this on the street. You literally have to buy a trailer to take this somewhere to go ride it, not on the road.

Crew Chief Brad: Why can’t you ride it on the street?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, isn’t that the same thing with the

Executive Producer Tania: K&

Crew Chief Eric: M? That’s street legal?

Crew Chief Brad: K& Ms are street legal? I mean, the three wheel motorcycles like this are street legal?

Executive Producer Tania: Yes.

Crew Chief Brad: They’re registered as motorcycles. It’s

Crew Chief Eric: for the mullet thing,

Crew Chief Brad: right?

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, it is what it is. It must fit in with this crowd of ATV [01:14:00] ish. Look at all the crap

Crew Chief Eric: that they bolted to it.

Executive Producer Tania: You’re going on your off road adventure and you can go camp. I don’t know. You’re going to go do dirt through the woods. I mean, the wheelbase of the new Fiat Panda is as big as this thing. You can go off road with that too. I mean, you could go off road with a Sisley.

Crew Chief Brad: You can’t get the Fiat Panda in the U.

S.

Executive Producer Tania: Exactly. Exactly. We can’t get the Fiat Panda in the U. S. You’re going to get this crap for twice as much.

Crew Chief Eric: Speaking of other things that we can’t get US, Tanya, you already hit the nail on the head. Let’s go to the Brits. What are they going to offer us? I

Executive Producer Tania: think you’re over there. You can get an MG. And?

Crew Chief Eric: They’re still making cars? Scares. The MG Zs. The Zs. Why do they keep taking weird pictures of it? Like it has no windshield. Did you look at these pictures?

Crew Chief Brad: They’re Poorly framed pictures too. Like the, the one where it’s like 50 percent of it is like the pavement that the car is sitting on.

Crew Chief Eric: My kids would take better pictures than this.

Crew Chief Brad: But the car is not officially unveiled yet. It’s coming out next week. The pictures should be slightly better.

Crew Chief Eric: It looks like every other Peugeot [01:15:00] Hyundai, they all look the same. Again, I thought MG went out of business. So

Crew Chief Brad: it should have

Crew Chief Eric: owned by

Executive Producer Tania: Chinese

Crew Chief Eric: companies. Sometimes we talk about concepts in this section of EVs and concepts.

Every once in a while, there’s an interesting concept that comes up. And we talked about the students that created the solar powered bus, and they did that multiple times and tried to go on that trip across Europe and, you know, success or failure, whatever. I brought this up before because of the Fisker solar roof, which didn’t work.

And then Tesla has their solar roof, allegedly maybe laser beams in 10 years type of thing. These college kids created solar powered EV chargers. This could be, like, a winner. I think this is cool.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, that’s the whole meme about people who own electric vehicles, right? It’s like, oh, cool, you’re running electric and, like, you’re still getting the power from fossil fuels or something, right?

Like, big oil. And it’s like, well, if you really want to be all environmental and purely sustainable, you need exactly [01:16:00] this. You need to be charging your car from the sun. Good on these college kids for having Class Project build solar panels that are now being used on their campus. I find an article funny where it’s like, and the students can use free parking passes to use the charger.

I’m like, what college kid is rolling up with EVs? I mean, maybe that’s the new thing these days. I don’t know.

Crew Chief Eric: Dad’s old Model S is now the car to go to college with, right?

Executive Producer Tania: Got it.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, as we switch to Brad’s favorite section, Lost and Found, where we don’t scour the internet anymore looking for the newest old car on used dealership lots, we are gonna go back to the 90s to something that Brad and I remember quite well.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes, yes, the Mystic Cobras. It wasn’t just the Fox Body either, it was the SN95 after that. Yeah, all the way through 2004, they sold cars in that color. Cobras, only Cobras. The Mystic Cobras.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, RTR, the Mustang tuner is bringing us back to the nineties. They are bringing Mr. Chrome paint back [01:17:00] because Ford won’t do it.

Crew Chief Brad: I was just about to say, because the piggyback on that Ford has told people that the new GT are the new race Mustang. You can not get in this car. You can get any other color you want in the world, but you can’t get this because it’s too hard. Obviously RTR figured it out. It’s not that hard.

Crew Chief Eric: And you know what?

I didn’t like it back then, but I’ve really come to appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. It’s still a little bit color changing, hot wheels. Remember when you would buy those and you could pour water on them and the color would change and you’d watch it change back and the whole thing. That’s sort of what it reminds me of, but it’s cool.

Like it goes through the whole rainbow basically. Right.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Tanya, what about you? Would you paint your car this color?

Crew Chief Brad: Would you buy a Mr. Chrome Fiat Panda?

Crew Chief Eric: Ooh,

Crew Chief Brad: that

Crew Chief Eric: would look pretty good, actually.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I could repaint it, so

Crew Chief Eric: Mystichrome wrap would be really cool. Think about that. When you get tired of it, you just peel it off.

Yep. But then would that lay right? Like, how would that work? Like, it would change color within the cuts. That would look really bad. That would be horrible.

Crew Chief Brad: Way to talk yourself into it and then out of it.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, and then I realized [01:18:00] BMW is going to do this with that Kindle paint that they have. So they can just do the Mr.

Chrome right there from the dashboard.

Crew Chief Brad: What if you’re doing like a software update to make that do that? And like the update doesn’t complete. So like half the car is one color. It is like, it’s going to look literally like the loading.

Executive Producer Tania: Good point here. So you have this computer controlled color changing car.

And what if the car bricks itself? Does it go full blue? Microsoft with a brownie face. It’s gone wrong.

Crew Chief Brad: Your car’s paint software has shut down unexpectedly. Please restart your car.

Crew Chief Eric: Speaking of bad paint jobs, we saw a Cybertruck today, and my eldest points out, she’s like, Dad,

Executive Producer Tania: why does it

Crew Chief Eric: look so dirty? And I just smiled. Dirty. So dirty.

Executive Producer Tania: Because, honey, that’s what happens to stainless steel when you do anything with it.

Crew Chief Eric: I literally told her, because we bought one of these countertop ice makers, and it had, you know, that like light blue [01:19:00] plastic. That’s how

Crew Chief Brad: Cybertruck should be delivered!

Crew Chief Eric: I was thinking that, right? I told her, I said, you remember when I kind of got like just in my own head about your mom taking the plastic off of the ice maker?

She’s like, yeah, you looked at it lately and I got to keep cleaning it. Cause it just looks gross. gross, like all the time. She’s like, yeah, I have noticed. And I said, this is why I didn’t want you to take the plastic wrap off the ice maker. So to your point, Brad, the Cybertruck should have that plastic wrap on there.

Crew Chief Brad: You’re such a curmudgeon. Do you have plastic wrap on your couches now? Did you go that far back into the eighties?

Crew Chief Eric: No, but Tanya keeps it on her TVs though.

Crew Chief Brad: You’ve turned into your parents.

Executive Producer Tania: No, you know what? I took my plastic off my TV. What happens? My TV dies.

Crew Chief Brad: Those things are totally unrelated. Is it a Tesla TV?

Cause that sounds like something that would do. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So keep your plastic shipping tape, like the challengers with that yellow stuff on the spoiler, keep it on your cyber truck. That’s all I’m saying about that.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, that’s what you need to do. You need to go buy some carbon fiber wrap for your ice maker.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, that’s a really good idea. [01:20:00] It drives me nuts. I

Crew Chief Brad: know Al can do that for you. That’s true.

Crew Chief Eric: We got to come up with a cool name for my ice maker. It’s got to have like a cyber truck name to it.

Crew Chief Brad: Cyber ice. Cyber

Crew Chief Eric: ice. That just sounds dumb.

Crew Chief Brad: Ice ice baby.

Crew Chief Eric: While switching gears and talking a little bit more about Lost and Found, if you’re just tuning into the show now, or you’re catching up into our catalog of break fix episodes, we recently did our first ever two part, what should I buy?

That was Mark specific. And that’s. Marcus and type of car specific, it’s a series about the battle between Porsche and Corvette over the last 70 years. And I know you can get on your soapbox on either side and stats and figures and racing records and all those kinds of things. But we’re really talking about in those 2 episodes.

Is what we call the every person’s sports car, which both the nine 11, the Corvette were always marketed to people as right. This is the every person’s sports car. So we talk through the 70 plus years and the eight generations of both cars and try to [01:21:00] determine what was the best bang for your buck and where to invest your collector dollars or, you know, those kinds of things, depending on if you’re new to Corvette or if you’re new to Porsche, or if you already have a bunch of Corvettes, you know, should you buy another one?

Why, you know, all those kinds of things. It was a really, really cool. It was very, very well received. Those episodes are trending really well. If you haven’t listened to them, go back and listen to them. Corvette first, Porsche second, that’s part one and part two. They do feed into each other. Lots of great information in there.

And I do want to give a huge thank you and a shout out to our panel of petrol heads. Different people, other than the core panel on both episodes, they did a stellar job with this idea, which by the way, has been baking since last car week when Don and I were kind of strategizing on some different, what should I buy?

So we’re happy to finally be able to release this two parter after a year in the making. And again, they’re available everywhere podcast. But we got one more lost and found for you guys. And it sort of borderlines into the uncool wall. Do [01:22:00] you think that this POS is worth 7, 500 bucks?

Executive Producer Tania: If that is worth 7, 500 bucks, then my coupe is worth 10 grand.

10! Your car is worth 30. Damn, there you go. I was being a little baller.

Crew Chief Eric: Would you spend 7, 500 bucks on an 86 Chevy Cavalier Z24?

Crew Chief Brad: No. What’s important is this person has a very interesting car lineup. Did you see the cars in the background? That’s a Mark one rabbit, GTI and N a Miata. What looks to be the sensible car, the Lincoln.

I think that looks like either a Lincoln or a Cadillac and then a Fox body. This person is a very interesting tasting cars. That’s the only thing worth mentioning for this whole thing.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s nothing to say about this humble product from GM.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s clean. I am shocked though, about the features that this thing has a moon roof, sunroof.

In 1986. I’ll get in that.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, and it’s a stick shift! And it’s got a digital dash and all the things that are wrong about the 80s at GM.

Executive Producer Tania: Even the interior [01:23:00] looks like it’s in good condition. Do

Crew Chief Eric: you want to sit in that though? Come on. You know what that feels like.

Crew Chief Brad: What interior is better? This or the interior at that Audi?

Crew Chief Eric: Ooh, they’re really similar actually. Those seats.

Executive Producer Tania: This only has 71, 000 miles on it. That’s why it’s so clear.

Crew Chief Eric: 71, 000 too many that somebody spent in that thing.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, it should have been 7, 100 miles. Then maybe it’s worth 400.

Executive Producer Tania: Those are some track gauges. Wow. Though for 1986, I mean, they had that digital dash like the 87 and a half GTs.

Crew Chief Eric: So the importance behind this car, the reason I bring it up is because back in the day, I don’t know if you remember Tanya, but when dad was going on his whole pro solo tour and campaigning the Honda, he had a choice. Ben offered him one of these in white or the CRX.

Executive Producer Tania: Ben raced one before.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Executive Producer Tania: He was already racing one.

Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: One of these Cavalier Z24s. And he’s like, [01:24:00] but I have the CRX over here. And it’s like, gee, that was a hard choice. Can you imagine pro soloing a Cavalier? Like, come on. What a turd. No way. Well, like always, we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about There’s no You notice we didn’t start with the Cybertruck this time?

Crew Chief Brad: True, we started with Monoride.

Executive Producer Tania: Is there even any Cybertruck news?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, there’s no Cybertruck news, but remember last time we talked, there was 11, 000 Cybertrucks being recalled? Well, if that wasn’t enough Tesla said, GM, hold my bear. You remember when the Corvette C8, we would make fun that it had the hood latch problem and it might come up and smack the windshield and all that 1.

8 million Teslas are being recalled for a very similar issue with their hood release or front release.

Executive Producer Tania: Not that they don’t latch, they latch. So that’s not the problem. The problem is. The sensor, if you didn’t put it all the way down, doesn’t alert you that the hood is a [01:25:00] jar.

Crew Chief Eric: The hood is a hood. It’s never a jar.

Executive Producer Tania: He’s here all night, ladies and gentlemen. So apparently it’s a software update that’s already available. Oh, come on. Which then I’m like, do other cars have? Hood sensors

Crew Chief Eric: going back to cars, like let’s just use our favorite generation of Volkswagen. The Mark fours had hood sensors, the

Crew Chief Brad: cable,

Crew Chief Eric: they never worked though.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, my 2003 has a hood sensor and I only know though if you try to lock the car, it will not lock.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s all it does.

Executive Producer Tania: But there’s nothing to alert me if I were to turn the car on and start driving.

Crew Chief Eric: Correct. It’s a useless sensor that you can fuse the two wires together and delete it. That’s how good it is.

I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, this is kind of like a lame recall. I mean, yeah, they should recall it, I guess. I don’t know. But whatever. The more interesting recall is the 9100 model Xs that have apparently trim pieces that, I guess, fall off.

Crew Chief Eric: But isn’t [01:26:00] that just normal now for Teslas? Like, just, stuff falls off of them? Because it’s not attached correctly to begin with?

Executive Producer Tania: Apparently the trim pieces on the roof, the Model X’s have the doors that come up.

Crew Chief Eric: The gull wings, yeah. Is it

Executive Producer Tania: the roof or is it the door trim pieces? I don’t know. Maybe it’s the center piece of the roof.

Crew Chief Eric: I guess what astonishes me, and this is where fact Gets confirmed because of the recalls. So they have to disclose how many cars need to be recalled, which confirms the number of cars that they sold.

When you kind of separate the lies from the more lies of all the cars that were sold, 9, 100 model Xs are being recalled. So that’s how many model Xs are out there in the wild. That’s not that many. That’s not a lot of cars. For as many years as that car’s been on the road.

Crew Chief Brad: They can’t fix this with a software update?

No. With

Crew Chief Eric: some Elmer’s glue though.

Executive Producer Tania: Apparently they sold 24, 000 of these during the pandemic.

Crew Chief Eric: 2022

Executive Producer Tania: sales units was 24, 000.

Crew Chief Eric: But we sell

Executive Producer Tania: millions! [01:27:00] Yeah, okay. But apparently only 9, 100 of them have a problem with the trim pieces falling off.

Crew Chief Brad: The other, what, 12, 000 or whatever haven’t driven long enough. Or

Crew Chief Eric: they don’t exist.

They’re just license keys.

Crew Chief Brad: They’re sitting on abandoned lots in Texas.

Crew Chief Eric: If that wasn’t bad enough, we switch over to what we like to call now, That’s Unfortunate.

And what happened over with some other Teslas, Tanya?

Executive Producer Tania: This is your Tesla semi truck that caught on fire on a highway.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re just gonna leave

Crew Chief Brad: it there.

Executive Producer Tania: They say that EVs don’t catch on fire at any greater rate than ice engines.

Crew Chief Brad: The article is very quick to point that out.

Executive Producer Tania: Right. My real question is whose semi was this?

Frito Lay? Pepsi?

Crew Chief Eric: That would have been an interesting fire.

Executive Producer Tania: Or smelled interesting. Not many people have taken stock of these.

Crew Chief Eric: So I love how the crime scene report or whatever you want to call it that they fill out. So, there was no crash, and it’s not clear if the truck caught on fire first, or if the cargo caught on fire first.

So, [01:28:00] this might not have been a semi problem. What was your cargo? Fireworks? I don’t know. According to this, the firefighter mentioned a lithium ion battery fire.

Executive Producer Tania: The cargo could have caught on fire if the batteries are underneath the cargo.

Crew Chief Eric: Right. But according to this, because of the path that it was taking and where it was going from Nevada to California, apparently this might have been a Tesla carrying Tesla batteries.

Crew Chief Brad: Here’s our Florida man.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: Jesus Christ.

Executive Producer Tania: Argo could catch on fire.

Crew Chief Eric: Correct. Because it’s being jostled around.

Executive Producer Tania: How did they put it out? If that really was a cargo of lithium batteries and they went off, you’d have to drop the MFR in the ocean. It’s unreal. Given how long, allegedly, it takes them to put out just a regular old Tesla fire, and then they gotta like leave it in the pond because 20 minutes later it could reignite.

Oh my god. It couldn’t have been then. It couldn’t have been. This would have been [01:29:00] like such hot news. Literally.

Crew Chief Eric: Literally. You know what else is hot news? And also unfortunate, there was an article that came out that says RECARO is bankrupt. I was going to go there. Yes. RECARO’s bankrupt. BBS is an insolvency and making a complete hat trick.

Fanatec is also gone in that same direction where they’re, they’re losing their butt.

Crew Chief Brad: They lost a big contract with the manufacturer, didn’t they? Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: RECARO, I don’t understand their business model because there’s so many different Lines of seats that they produce, whether it’s for aerospace, whether it’s for busing for Marine, for cars, I think this is specifically for cars and it doesn’t affect the other ones.

And some people have said it’s because of rules in the different industries. So they have different sub companies. So it’s not all of our car that’s going bankrupt. It’s just the automotive division. And if you kind of think about it, it makes sense. Like I see the Recaro booths at petite Lamont and you go to some of the other races and stuff, and you’re like, okay, cool.

And you look at the price and you’re [01:30:00] like, my factory seats are pretty good now. It’s not like the eighties where it’s like, yeah, okay. You buy the GTI because it comes with the Recaro seats. Ooh. You know, a lot of those seats are still made by Recaro. And to your point, they, maybe they lost a contract or two, but who’s buying replacement seats, that whole business line just doesn’t make sense.

And if you’re building a race car, you’re not going to buy a Recaro. You’re going to buy a Sparco or an O and P or one of the other brands. Because they have the certifications and the halo. And I mean, I’m sure RECARO has those too, but I don’t walk around the paddock and see RECARO racing seats and race cars.

No, only if

Crew Chief Brad: the car

Crew Chief Eric: came with them. Now, BBS, they could have lowered the price of their wheels eons ago. And more people would have bought them. BBSs have always been notoriously expensive and extremely light, which made them very delicate. And if you bent a BBS and it’s like, well, you might as well take a mortgage out on the house.

That doesn’t surprise me that they’re insolvency because. That market is also saturated. There’s so many low cost wheel manufacturers. [01:31:00] BVS isn’t going to be your first choice because there’s folks now that can make basket weaves.

Executive Producer Tania: You have all the knockoffs instead of Prada. You can get Prado for Yeah, exactly.

Crew Chief Eric: So, you know, talking about Fanatec, Fanatec made their nut during COVID. And everybody that bought a sim rig has already bought a sim rig. And that’s one of those finite industries that it’s like, have you literally reinvented the wheel and the pedal box? I mean, the less They do something in the vein of Apple or Microsoft where they push a patch and somehow make your pedal box unusable again.

Who are you going to upgrade for? And replacement bushings and springs, there’s no market in that. And so many people got into that game and there’s so many other manufacturers now too that it’s like Fanatec’s really expensive and I’ve gotten the opportunity through folks like David Middleton and MIE to sample other rigs that are out there and the Fanatec stuff, it’s not that nice, especially for the price.

There’s far nicer stuff for a lot less money. I mean, if you just want to buy the name Fanatec, okay, fine. So I kind of feel like that’s systemic of all [01:32:00] three of these companies. If you want to buy Recaro for the name to say you have a Recaro, if you want to buy BBS because you want to say you have BBSs or you want to buy a Fanatec, it’s sort of the same thing, but they’re not so good that they’re lifestyle brands that everybody is into now.

Maybe it’s the end of an era for some of these companies that we’re used to seeing for so many years. Think about it. I’ll draw you parallel. When was the last time you bought something from Momo?

Crew Chief Brad: When I put that steering wheel in my ovary.

Executive Producer Tania: That was almost 10 years ago now.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but you bought it once.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, yeah, because thankfully I’ve only, I’ve never needed to replace it.

Crew Chief Brad: Right? That’s the problem with making a quality product that you don’t need to replace.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, well, well, I guess we’ll see what happens. I mean, bankruptcy doesn’t mean that Recaro is shutting its doors. Insolvency doesn’t mean that BBS is going away.

It just means that they’re restructuring. They’re in financial trouble. Maybe somebody will swoop in and buy them. They’ll get absorbed by another, whatever. I’ve always thought Recaro and Sparco and Momo and all them might one day eventually just merge because the products are all so very [01:33:00] similar in some respects.

Hey, who knows? But we don’t know what the future holds for any of these folks, but I don’t want to see the brands go away either. Now, since we’re still talking about lowered expectations, I saw a good one the other day. I was driving down the highway, I was coming home. Traffic was down to a crawl. I mean, a drive that would have normally taken me 20 minutes took me an hour and 20 minutes.

As I got closer to the crash scene, you guys will appreciate this. What did I see? A Nissan flipped over the Jerseyberry and immediately I said, Jump the Waltima! Even though it’s a

Executive Producer Tania: Nissan.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, it

Executive Producer Tania: was an

Crew Chief Eric: Altima!

Executive Producer Tania: It was an Altima? Well, it was an Altima! It jumped

Crew Chief Eric: the Waltima!

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, so it actually was an Altima.

Yes! Nice.

Crew Chief Eric: I found a new one. Jump the Waltima. On top of that, because I was sitting in traffic, I also began to realize that the Murano is just the SUV version of the Ultima.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s the Taltima. Yeah, it’s

Crew Chief Eric: the Taltima.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s what it was called. It was the Taltima. Cause everything they sell is just an Ultima.

So, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: They have no other [01:34:00] cars. But the Murano does suffer the same fate as the Ultima, though. I haven’t seen one yet that doesn’t have, like, a bastion back bumper or the front fenders flapping. I mean, it’s just Those are the best. Oh, it’s unreal. They’re still

Executive Producer Tania: going down the road, so there you go.

Crew Chief Eric: They’re not catching fire. Come a nuclear holocaust. There will be cockroaches and Ultimas left on the planet. Like, I truly believe

Crew Chief Brad: that there

Executive Producer Tania: you go.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s a testament to their build quality. They get put through some pretty rigorous testing

Executive Producer Tania: in the event of zombie apocalypse, you know, what car to go find to make your way

Crew Chief Eric: on Ultima.

You be good to go. The ultimate. You know, Brad, every month you mentioned, and it’s even in our outro on every episode of break fix. It’s like, you know, if you have ideas for a show, contact us, dial this number on your rotary phone, hit us up on my space. We actually had somebody write to us this month. Yeah, we did.

Was it Mark Hewitt? It was not Mark Hewitt, but you’ll [01:35:00] enjoy this. So I’m going to read this verbatim. I’m going to keep the innocent innocent. And it says, after looking at your series on Netflix, I was inspired to restore my 2012 Acura TSX. I was wondering if your team worked on imports. I currently live in New York city and it’s very hard to find the right shot to get the job done.

Executive Producer Tania: He doesn’t realize who we are.

Crew Chief Eric: I appreciate all of our listeners and our readers. Even if they don’t listen, pay attention, or have the best comprehension.

Executive Producer Tania: Cool. Did

Crew Chief Eric: this actually happen? For real, I’ll forward it to you, dude. It’s a legit email.

Executive Producer Tania: But also, though, which Netflix series are you talking about?

Crew Chief Eric: BreakFix. Eric didn’t tell you? We’re on

Executive Producer Tania: Netflix now.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we are on IMDb up to episode 200. I I went through the painstaking process. What?! I’ve got an IMDb? Yeah. No sh Yeah, but that was 175 episodes ago. So it’s been a minute. Well, you got to get out there and update that. Do you know how long it takes to update IMDB?

Dude, I don’t care. Do it. It’s a chore.

Crew Chief Brad: It

Crew Chief Eric: is a chore.

Crew Chief Brad: You know, it’s a chore [01:36:00] creating a Wikipedia page. That’s a chore.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I guess it’s time we go south and talk about alligators and bears.

Executive Producer Tania: There ain’t nothing to talk about. What? I looked for Florida men, and there are

Crew Chief Brad: none. There are no Florida men?

Executive Producer Tania: I couldn’t find anything. They are, I don’t know where they all went.

Crew Chief Brad: They went to Car Week.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, or maybe it’s They hibernate in August. It’s like

Crew Chief Eric: Europe. They go on vacation during August. They take

Crew Chief Brad: August off.

Have we finalized our team yet for the Florida man games? Tonya’s captain.

Executive Producer Tania: Get a fancy team name.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. Well, we might not have any Florida man this month. That is on. I tried. I tried.

Executive Producer Tania: I looked for other men in other States and the dry August.

Crew Chief Eric: You look for men in other States here. Which way are you swiping?

Crew Chief Brad: If there are any men listening to this episode, Tanya is looking for you.

Executive Producer Tania: I looked in Texas. I looked in Michigan. I looked at our home state.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s a gentleman that wants his [01:37:00] accurate TSX restored. I mean, maybe that’s your guy.

Executive Producer Tania: I didn’t look in New York. I didn’t look there.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I found three of them. In Europe.

Yeah. Eric, you’re looking for men too? No, no, no. Not that kind. But this is it folks. It’s sort of like the Rolling Stones. Their final, final, final tour. Well, guess what? Top Gear slash the Grand Tour, depending on when you subscribe to their nonsense, Hammond Clarkson and May are airing their final episode on September the 13th on Amazon Prime.

They’re calling it one for the road. There’s a preview of it on Instagram. All I can say is I don’t know what the hell it’s about, but it includes a Ford Capri, a Lancia Beta Scorpion, and what seems to be a Triumph Stag, and some sand, and I’m here for all of it.

Crew Chief Brad: I didn’t even watch the last, like, two or three specials that they came out with.

Crew Chief Eric: The Scandi flick is the one to watch.

Spoilers.

Crew Chief Brad: The last one I watched was the one with the Evo where May went into the wall.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. That’s the Scandi flick.

Crew Chief Brad: I never finished it though. I only got. Dude, it gets so

Crew Chief Eric: much better from that point. And that [01:38:00] point makes you literally jump out of your seat, but it gets better from there, like better in a bad way too.

One more for the road for Clarkson Hammond and May, September the 13th. I’m looking forward to it. They have been together for preview says 22 years, probably longer than that. They’re all going in their own directions. You know, May’s doing is our man and Japan and our man here and all that. And I think Hammond’s back on the radio and.

Clarkson’s got Clarkson’s Farm, but it’s good to have one last hoorah, because that last grand tour didn’t really give anybody closure. So, I’m thinking hopefully this one will wrap it up, and I’m excited to see these three cars that they picked. I have a feeling Hammond’s probably driving the Scorpion, because nobody fits in those things, they’re so small.

So it would make sense that he chose that. And I think those are super cool. Meanwhile, it’s time we go quickly behind the pit wall and So are the Drama Llamas all rested up and back? Are we ready to go racing again?

Executive Producer Tania: It’s weekend.

Crew Chief Eric: Where are they this time?

Executive Producer Tania: Dutch Grand Prix. [01:39:00] Zandvoort! We’re going to Zandvoort!

Crew Chief Eric: So that means Verstappen has to win or he will be excommunicated from his own country? I read a whole bunch of different stuff about has Red Bull hit the ceiling, you know, again, going back to the whole Adrian Newey thing that the car can’t get any better. Everybody else is finally exceeding all this BS and stuff.

And then there was something about Perez. His engineer is going on paternity leave. So there’s a shakeup there and a bunch of other stuff that to me just seemed like drama llama as usual.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m so out of touch when it comes to F1 this year, I’ve watched maybe 20 minutes of a race the entire season. Was it

Crew Chief Eric: Monte Carlo?

Crew Chief Brad: Because that’s all you needed. No, I think it was 20 minutes cumulatively between several different race beacons.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s nothing to draw me in. You know what I mean? It’s just, I,

Crew Chief Brad: ugh. I don’t have this resource called time. I don’t have much of that anymore. [01:40:00] Yeah, I hear ya.

Executive Producer Tania: Uh, I mean, it’s been more interesting.

because he hasn’t been winning every race there’s been a different winner i think the last six races at least

Crew Chief Brad: i did see that hamilton won didn’t he win at spa

Executive Producer Tania: yeah

Crew Chief Eric: mclaren’s been stepping up their game like lando has been more at the front recently and so you’re seeing a little bit more orange on the podium stuff like that

Executive Producer Tania: what will be interesting in the next A couple weeks or months or whatever, however long it takes them.

There’s still people that haven’t secured their seats for the next year. So there’s still some seat jostling that’s going to happen.

Crew Chief Brad: And did I see signs as going to Williams?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: There were some funny memes about that, actually. What

Crew Chief Brad: in the world is going on?

Executive Producer Tania: You don’t understand that he had to have had offers from like everybody.

And you choose.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, next he’ll go to Haas. You know how they show the progression of the caveman over time, like human beings? Science is going the other way in Formula 1.

Crew Chief Brad: No, but I feel like Williams is like the bottom of the bottom.

Crew Chief Eric: Haas has got to be worse, come on. [01:41:00]

Crew Chief Brad: No, I don’t think so.

Executive Producer Tania: Haas has maybe been doing better this year.

So no, I don’t think TAS is the bottom this year. So maybe, well, I, you know, who I think is the bottom this year? Sauber. So

Crew Chief Eric: that’s because they’ve checked out. They know Audi’s taken over. What do they care? Right? So why blow the budget?

Executive Producer Tania: Pick Sauber, jumpstart, stake, A1, Visa, cash cow. No, that’s the other people.

Crew Chief Eric: Isn’t that the one with Botas?

Executive Producer Tania: Botas and the Chinese driver.

Crew Chief Eric: Switching to another discipline of racing. I won’t bore you guys to tears about rally. Rally is exciting. They got new cars. The cars are cool, especially the Toyotas. They’re black. They look super awesome. Lots of really exciting stuff going on there.

Seb was just knighted. Well, the French equivalent of being knighted that was back around the time of the Portuguese rally. So that was pretty cool, but he’s still out there. I mean, 11 time champion or whatever he is and all this kind of stuff. So he’s still out there battling out. With the young guys, there’s lots of mix ups in WRC.

I will say that Takamoto is doing better. Although I still wait for a crash every [01:42:00] time. So, you know, it’s just whatever, but I will say I kind of took on a new dimension with rally. And what I’ve been doing is following the rally schedule. I’m getting a little bit caught up because I started late and what I’m trying to do is run the rally when the rally is happening, and I’m going to do it on my SIM and then I’m streaming it on Twitch, I’m doing it kind of in a compressed way because the way the software does it.

So I chose the Hyundai that’s Esa Pekka Lappi’s car, and I’ve been doing that, I’ve been kind of following along with the series. So I’m caught up to Sardegna and I need to kind of blast through the rest of them to get caught up to the schedule where it is now. But as a bonus, which is why it’s taking me longer, is after I complete each of the rallies, I actually go back and do the full So that’s all the stages connected.

So some of these rallies, it’s like 13 stages, 15 stages, whatever. So there’s a way to do them all in one shot. It’s usually like a 20 mile run. It takes literally like a half an hour of nonstop action. And I do it in a group B car. So I actually chose the Peugeot 205 T16 kind of sampled all the cars actually [01:43:00] prefer the group a cars in the SIM.

I think they’re a lot more fun, but the cool part is. It’s forcing me to do things differently, adapt, get better, whatever you want to call it, but I’m doing it full manual with the clutch, no assist, no traction control, stability, any of that kind of stuff. I do the WRC cars that way too, but they’re a lot easier to drive.

So all that stuff up on Twitch. So twitch. tv grand touring motorsports. I’m going to continue to do that kind of following along with the WRC schedule. Like I said, it just adds a whole nother dimension to the racing and it makes it more fun because then I get to watch it. What the drivers are doing and either try to replicate what they’re doing or, Oh, I remember that turn.

I know how difficult that is, you know, those kinds of things. So again, I think it’s pretty cool. And if you enjoy it, it’s available for you up on Twitch. In WEC IMSA SRO news, the Glenn just happened for IMSA. One of our favorite events to go to. That’s where Brad’s bachelor party was many, many years ago at this point.

And SRO was just there for their World Challenge event. And NASCAR will be back at the Glen in [01:44:00] September. Don’t forget that Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta is coming up in October. So that’s the end of the IMSA season. So looking forward to that. And in other WEC ACO type of news. We just completed our ninth Evening with a Legend, and that was with Andy Pilgrim.

That’s available right now on our Patreon or if you become a member of the ACO USA in our private Facebook group. And then it’ll be recast later this fall, winter time. So you can listen to it as part of the Motoring Podcast Network as part of the Evening with a Legend series. And then we got a couple more slated.

So we’re trying to do one a month of these evening with a legend. So there’s other ones coming and they’re really, really cool. Some really interesting stories specifically about Lamar and Americans going to Lamar and things like that. And then if you’re an ally of women in motor sports, North America, they are currently running a sweepstakes for two tickets to next year’s Rolex 24 with, I would call it VIP plus status because of all the extras and the goodies that come with the package.

[01:45:00] They’re giving you $2,500 towards expenses to like help you get there and all those kinds of things. It’s a sweepstake, so you’re like buying chances to win and the money benefits wna. So Women in Motorsports, north America, you can check it out on their website For all the details, how to enter, how it all works.

Women in motorsports na.com for more details on that. Really, really cool sweepstakes package for the 2025, Rolex 24, so maybe we’ll see you there. And then some virtual stuff, Lamont ultimate got an update months past kind of leading up to the 24 hours of Lamont. We were doing a bunch of shakedowns and time trials and all this kind of stuff in preparation for the launch event that we did in Detroit for Lamont ultimate with the ACO.

The latest update includes things like the Lamborghini Hybrid Hypercar, bunch of other changes. They’re actually adding more of the courses that are in the WEC schedule. So look forward to things like Coda coming to the sim. More updates are coming more frequently now as the game’s officially launched, gaining more traction, those kinds [01:46:00] of things.

I still enjoy playing it. I’ve just been more focused on my WRC stuff for now, but I’m gonna jump back into LAMA here later in the year. And then allegedly Aceto Corsa two is coming. Then again, they’ve been saying that for like five years. So I don’t put a lot of weight into that right now, but as soon as that does come out, I’m pretty excited to add that to my library of sim racing.

And if you’re interested in talking about sim racing with other sim racers and people in the industry, don’t forget to check out our discord DMS, hit us up on Facebook, email us, whatever, we’ll send you the link it’s on our website and you can jump in on there and share your virtual racing experience with us.

I do want to remind everybody that our Motorsports News is brought to us in partnership with the International Motor Racing Research Center. A couple events coming up on the schedule. September 12th is the Cameron R. Argettsinger Award for Outstanding Contributions in Motorsport. This year’s honoree is Zach Brown.

That’s the CEO of McLaren Formula One. You can still buy tickets to attend the event. So jump over to racingarchives. org and click on store to purchase your seat at the table. And by the [01:47:00] way, the IMRRC added an auction to this event. There are new items being added every week leading up to the awards dinner.

So check the website for those details as well. On September the 25th, we have another Evening with a Legend that’ll be episode number 10, sponsored by the IMRRC. It’ll be all about the Camaradi Corvette, which its importance and significance in the history of Le Mans is that it placed 10th overall with a ragtag team from the United States, and it was one of only four Four Corvettes to finish Lamar in 1960.

So really, really interesting backstory there. Look forward to an episode on break fix about the history of the Camarotti Corvette as well, but check out motoring podcast. net and then click on shows and then evening with a legend. To learn how you can sign up for that live recording of that episode.

We’re going to have Richard Prince on there, Dominic Testa, Charles Schroedel, a couple other guys that are associated with that car. Talking about the history of it. It’s important, you know, some Q and A with the audience. So really, [01:48:00] really interesting session there and be sure to catch all the behind the scenes for Evening with the Legend on our Patreon.

If you haven’t heard already, the Michael R. Argettsinger Symposium on Motor Racing History will be November 1st through the 2nd at Watkins Glen. By the way, the IMRRC has started up their Corvette sweepstakes. It’s back. It’s running through next year, and you can enter for your chance to win a 2024 Corvette Z06 with a Z07 package.

All of a thousand horsepower, right? Details are on racingarchives. org, and if you don’t want the Corvette, that’s fine. There’s always a cash option. Proceeds go to benefit the Continued Operation of the Center, which is a 501c3 non for profit organization.

Crew Chief Brad: As a reminder, you can find tons of upcoming local shows and events at the ultimate reference for car enthusiasts, collectorcarguide.

net.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, Brad. And if you’re looking to find motorsports events, check our calendar at club. gtmotorsports. org forward slash events. And if you’re looking for a big name, national [01:49:00] motorsports events, you can find them on gtmotorsports. org. And if you need an up to date list of HPD events from now until basically next year, because HPD events are running all over the country, look no further than hbdejunkie.

com for an up to date list of events all across North America.

Executive Producer Tania: We just crusted 375 episodes of Brake Fix while you’ve been listening to this episode. But more importantly, we’ve expanded our catalog as part of the Motoring Podcast Network, where you can enjoy programs like The Ferrari Marketplace, The Motoring Historian, Evening with a Legend, The History of Motorsports, and more.

Break fix and others. Search for break 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 show’s new episodes, bios of our on-air personalities and descriptions of the services we offer.

Crew Chief Brad: Did you know you can sign up for our Patreon for free?

Lots of great extras and bonuses even on the free tier. But if you’d like to become a brake fix [01:50:00] VIP, jump over to www. patreon. com slash GT motorsports and learn about our different tiers. Join our discord or become a member of the GTM clubhouse by signing up at club. gtmotorsports. org drop us a line on social media or visit our Facebook group and leave us a comment.

Tell us what you like and send us ideas for future episodes of our Netflix series, Break Fix.

Executive Producer Tania: 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.

Crew Chief Brad: And a thank you to our co host and executive producer, Tanya, for putting this wonderful show together month after month.

Executive Producer Tania: Not this time.

Crew Chief Brad: And to all the fans, friends, and family who support GTM and the Motoring Podcast Network. Without you, none of this would be possible. Would be possible.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right. Praise goes to you guys. Complaints come to me. If you don’t like this episode, it’s not their fault that we were going to be done.

We’re so close. So

Executive Producer Tania: closer. So like 45 minutes. No, there’s not.

Crew Chief Brad: [01:51:00] I didn’t catch the joke. What happened?

Crew Chief Eric: You know how it always takes forever to put these episodes together.

Crew Chief Brad: Buckle

Crew Chief Eric: up.

Crew Chief Brad: Me, me, me, me, me,

Crew Chief Eric: me. Turn them into L E

Crew Chief Brad: again. Have you all seen the mean for Shua peepies? So this kid, he’s a, like a Gen Z or something.

He’s trying to present the news and he’s talking about a news article and it’s about like a recall from Schweppes, like no sugar, like diet. And because he’s never said Schweppes before, he calls it the Shua pee pees ginger ale.

That has become my new safe word. Shoe a pee pees. It was Hufflepuff, but now it’s shoe a pee pees.

Crew Chief Eric: Poor guy. I feel for the people, but maybe they really enjoy the behind the scenes, the outtakes. Like, I am amazed by the folks that watch this on Patreon. I commend you. I salute you.

Crew Chief Brad: Can you see who those people are?

Crew Chief Eric: I cannot.

Executive Producer Tania: I should care more about my [01:52:00] appearance.

Crew Chief Brad: I think I should care more about how my office looks behind me. If it wasn’t for the drive thru, I wouldn’t be a podcaster at all. So, uh, do you have all that stuff? Because first of all, a lot of it is from your past guests.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, otherwise my office would be super boring and ugly.

I mean, come on now.

Crew Chief Brad: We’ll have to cut that part out.

Crew Chief Eric: And

Crew Chief Brad: we’re out Otro bus

in back of us all. There’s some idiot and a on behind me. I lean out the window and scream, Hey, what ya trying to do blind me? My wife says, maybe we.

Crew Chief Eric: 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 [01:53:00] 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 commercial free and no annual fees organization through our sponsors, but also through the generous support of our fans, families, and friends through Patreon. For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can get access to more behind the scenes action, additional Pit Stop minisodes, and other VIP goodies, as well as keeping our team of creators Fed on their strict diet of fig Newtons, gumby bears, and monster.

So consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com forward slash GT motorsports, and remember without you, none of this would be possible.

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