WSIB: Gray Market Cars!

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Our panel of break fix petrolheads are back for another rousing what should I buy debate. Using unique shopping criteria, they are challenged to find our first time collector the best vehicle that will make their friends go, where’d you get that, or what the hell is wrong with you, at the next Cars and Coffee.

Crew Chief Eric: We dive into the world of forbidden fruit. Cars that were never officially sold in the United States, but are now hitting our shores thanks to the 25 year import rule. From turbocharged rally monsters to high revving Asian exotics, these gray market gems have long been the stuff of dreams for American enthusiasts.

And now, many of them are finally within reach.

Crew Chief Brad: On this episode, we’ll explore the art of the possible. With some special guests, we’re welcoming back Chris Bright, formerly of Collector Part Exchange, along with John Summers, the motoring historian. And then we’ll round out our fabulous, what should I buy panel with veteran members, William, Big Money Ross, Mark of the Daydare Cruncher Shank, [00:01:00] and the one and only Don Wieberg from Garage Style Magazine.

Crew Chief Eric: Thanks, Brad. And on this episode, our panel of extraordinary petrol heads is challenged to find our collectors something that will make their friends go. Wait, how’d you import that beer? At the next Cars and Coffee. With that, gentlemen, welcome back. Welcome back, Chris Bright.

Chris Bright: Great to be here. Really excited.

This is a hot topic. I’m really excited to get into it.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Chris, I have to say, first of all, it’s been a minute. I think the last time you were officially here was the Italian exotics episode. So we went right off the rails from the start. Crack pipes. and stolen Alfa Romeos and stuff like that.

Chris Bright: Is that, is that where we’re going to go this time?

I got my car back. For those that don’t know it, my car had gotten stolen and I recovered it. I have a 1974 Alfa Romeo Giulia Super. That’s my daily driver. It got lifted one day and I got it back through a network called the PDX Stolen Car Network. I’m out in Portland. It’s a Facebook group and everybody just keeps an eye out for stolen cars.

Mine was pretty easy to spot, but I got a bonus crack pipe and, uh, [00:02:00] some other paraphernalia out of the whole deal. Nice. Still driving that car every day though, by the

Crew Chief Brad: way. Nothing like a bonus crack pipe. It’s a good return on that.

Chris Bright: I almost kept it, but then I decided no. It’s a green skull. It was kind of cool.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. So Brad, this particular, what should I buy episode comes courtesy of you. By way of drive through number 53. So do you want to set the stage for our panelists and kind of paint the picture of why we’re talking about gray market cars?

Crew Chief Brad: Because in the words of the great Conan O’Brien in the year

Crew Chief Eric: 2000,

Crew Chief Brad: apparently 2000, everybody’s been waiting for this moment because there are so many really, really cool and exciting cars that for whatever reason came out in 2000, the last couple of years have been really good too, with the Skyline R33s and stuff like that, but.

I think this is the first year the Skyline R34 is eligible to be imported and another slew of just amazing cars from around the globe. So it’s a really exciting time to be alive as a content.

Crew Chief Eric: That and one of [00:03:00] your favorite influencers was talking about this and his Barker lounger and his garage sort of mumbling and trying to eat the microphone.

Crew Chief Brad: You know, I don’t even know that guy’s name. Yeah. So James Humphrey, the dude who used to be on the donut, who’s not on the donut. He’s on.

Crew Chief Eric: Is that how he does it now? It’s not all like everything you did already got to get

Crew Chief Brad: him to speak. It’s it’s it’s it’s spelled with about four E’s.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh my goodness. But,

Crew Chief Brad: but anyway, yeah, he did an article in a YouTube video highlighting some of the cars that are eligible now, and I thought it would be a great kind of what should I buy to see if we could.

Come up with things that might not have been on his list. I

Crew Chief Eric: think we were sort of satisfied with what he put on the list, but it just didn’t really, there were only a few cars that got us excited.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. His list was very basic to use the basic girl kind of terminology. His list was basic. It was pumpkin spice latte.

That’s what it was. We need to be a little more exciting and a little more different or at mid break.

Crew Chief Eric: What is it that the Gen Alpha say now? It’s mid.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s it’s mid. His list was mid.

Mark Shank: This was mid. [00:04:00] My daughter said that to me right before this call.

Crew Chief Eric: Gentlemen, we are going to slay. This is not going to be skippity.

Crew Chief Brad: Please. Okay. Please tell me you’re going to edit all of that out.

Crew Chief Eric: So like all, what should I buy episodes? We are buying for a fictitious collector. In this case, we are sort of. Ignoring the one thing that Chris hated the most, which was the bracketing. The money is no object. We are at the point where we are buying cars for a collector who’s coming through the x gray market.

So really money doesn’t matter at this point. But what does matter is something that Brad Said which is skyline skyline skyline and much like our muscle and malaise episode. No kudas. No mustangs No camaros, so no skyline So if you have skyline on your list, just go ahead right now and put a line Right through it because we’re not going to talk about skylines.

We know we can import them. You’ve been able to import them For the last decade through companies in Florida and things like that. So we’re trying to find something a little different, something a little [00:05:00] obscure

Crew Chief Brad: and plus the skyline are 34. It’s almost unobtainium because everybody’s been waiting for these cars.

So anybody with enough money, I mean, they’ve pretty much just all taken care of at this point, I would say.

Jon Summers: Surely though it’s the Porsche nine 12 syndrome, the nine 11s. They’re like, so you look for the nine 12. I mean, I’m no JDM expert, but I’ve spoken to two people in the city here who are like, I was on bring a trailer and was looking at a Stygia.

Now, Eric, I don’t want to mess you up, but don’t Stygia’s GTS versions rather than the GTRs, they do a sedan version of most of what kind of looks like a Skyline. There’s a lot of Porsche 912. Yeah. If you were in the business of flipping to make money rather than being a collector and wanting the very best, you wouldn’t need a GTR.

You could do with a GTS or

Crew Chief Eric: a Staggier or something. For sure. Absolutely. That’s

Jon Summers: a great point.

Crew Chief Eric: John set us off down the path of JDM. So why don’t we continue with some Asian cars? Who’s got something on their list?

Mark Shank: I [00:06:00] saw one that was fun. I didn’t read this article on the list of 25, but The Toyota Chaser.

Ooh. It looks like a Camry, but it’s rear wheel drive. It has the Jay Z Supermotor 5 speed. It’s not actually separated and bring a trailer. There are four transactions listed. Now, I realize you just were telling everybody that, kind of money’s no object. These are certainly on the lower end. They’ve sold Between 000 on bring your chair out here.

So last year, one sold for 13 actually looked pretty clean and then one sold very recently for 23 just a few weeks ago, but it’s a really cool car and you’re certainly not going to see anything like that at cars and coffee. And I think with the cult following around the JZ motor, it would certainly have some fans.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, the only equivalent that was sold in the U. S. I guess is the Lexus G. S. Yeah, you get that three leader in that. Yeah, but it’s the styling. You’re right to an unsuspecting person. It’s a Camry sleeper. Yeah, but then you add the rear wheel drive and all that fun stuff. That’s a cool car. I like it.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay, so rear wheel drive [00:07:00] toyotas that are sort of Lexi that have to jay Z’s when you want to Step it up a notch and go full grand Turismo and do like a Toyota soarer at that point and import that, which is basically the LS 300.

Mark Shank: You’re getting the stick in the chaser. To me, the chaser just is a little bit more of a sleeper. Like it looks like a total dad car and it’s a bad ass. Yeah. I like it.

Crew Chief Brad: I will say I’ll, I’ll see your, your sleeper chaser. And raise you, of course, to the pinnacle of the Toyota Century.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I had that on my list.

Yeah, it was next on my list.

Crew Chief Brad: If anybody’s got an unlimited budget, pull one of those over because those cars are just immaculate.

Mark Shank: They’re beautiful.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes, they’re very unique.

Mark Shank: They’ve On the bringer trailer, just in the last 12 months, they went from having eight transactions in the last 2018 to 2024. In the last 12 months, you’ve gotten 30 transactions.

Crew Chief Brad: What’s the, the average price for those transactions?

Mark Shank: They’re all pretty cheap. They range from sold for 5, 000. Very recently [00:08:00] all the way up to the most expensive one. They have recorded is uh is 27 000 It’s not for a

Crew Chief Brad: century interesting. That’s not bad at all.

Mark Shank: They depreciate guy retires. He buys it new.

It’s it’s an accomplishment thing It’s it’s putting a capstone on his career And then they sit

Crew Chief Brad: and I think I saw a special on the centuries and like parts availability, especially for the older ones is very, very difficult to obtain replacement parts for them.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, they were super specialized.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, they’re, I think they’re like all hand built and everything. It’s yeah. They’re very special cars.

Crew Chief Eric: And when I was looking into this, I also thought I saw that there was a variant on the Sentry that actually came with a V12, which is like super rare coming from Toyota. Yeah. If you’re gonna go ridiculous and like, oh, everybody’s getting a Sentry, I’m gonna get this one with a V12, you know, just to be different.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh yeah, you got to.

Crew Chief Eric: Since we’re talking about JDMs or Japanese car not Japanese domestics, because we’re importing in post grey market now, is it worth even talking about some of the more desirable Subies and Lancer Evolutions [00:09:00] and stuff like that?

Jon Summers: Yeah. Yeah. All the Special Editions, because it’s always about the Special Editions.

That was actually my next bullet point, was with the Subarus. Maybe 10 years ago, I was approached by a friend of a friend, who was like, hedge fund, can we do a hedge fund around classic cars? And I narrowed it down to Subarus and things like that. There was some BMWs as well, but the point is that. I reached a point where I felt like I didn’t know enough about the Subaru Special Edition to be able to know what was going to be valuable and what wasn’t.

So to illustrate it, there was a version that was available in Britain only that was called the RB5 that was tuned for British roads. RB stood for Richard Burns. It was tuned by Richard Burns. It was a four door one rather than the two door one. Which is less collectible now, but was more practical in period it had.

I feel like there’s pretty rich niche you could explore, but I’m not your guy, because I don’t know all the different versions. [00:10:00] You had to be the geek in period to be able to understand what you were doing with that.

Crew Chief Eric: So in looking at that RB5, it’s the generation after the one everybody salivates over, which is the 22B STI.

We got the 2. 5 RS. Here in the United States, a sort of like massively detuned neutered version of that car. The RB5 looks to be like the next generation. It’s not a bad looking car. I see your point. It’s a four door. So that would be maybe more everyday friendly in that respect. That would be interesting.

I mean, if you can’t afford a 22B or you can’t find one, I wouldn’t mind this RB5 at all. Mark, are you seeing any on Bring a Trailer? Has anybody started to bring them into? the country.

Mark Shank: Not at all. I haven’t seen anything. And they’re legal. I mean, they’re from 1999 and around there, so they should be able to bring them in, but nothing’s coming up

Jon Summers: with the evos.

It was the Tommy Mackinnon one. And I looked at those and even thought of buying one myself personally, but those hideous Marlboro colors, I mean, now it’s collectible, but years ago it was like, it looked like you were an advertiser in a cigarette company. It was just, they weren’t [00:11:00] that appealing. But now

Mark Shank: that’s cool.

Crew Chief Eric: You want to be the Marlboro man now. And I agree with you, John, on the Evo, because you can import an Evo 2 and an Evo 3, the really old ones, if you want to, but you sort of lose all the technological whiz bang stuff that really started to happen in the Makinen editions, like 4, like those Evos. But since you brought up Mitsubishi, if I’m going to import one of those brands, I’m going to go after the Pajaro.

The little bird, the Evo, the truck. It’s basically like a homologated rally truck, typical of period flared fenders, big wheels, the whole nine, you know, turbos and snorkels and spoilers and all that. But if you have to get a Pajaro or Pajero, I guess this is like the halpa jalpa thing all over again. Right?

So if you were to import one of those and you’re more of a truck person than a car person, I would definitely look for one of those.

Mark Shank: Ooh. All

Crew Chief Eric: right. That is cool. Right?

Mark Shank: So the Pajero.

William Ross: All right. They’re very

Mark Shank: popular

William Ross: in Africa, by the way. Yes. Well, a ton of those in the, uh, when they [00:12:00] do the Dakar classic too.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, they had an evolution Dakar homologation special.

Crew Chief Eric: I’ve always liked those. I think they’re just absolutely sick.

Crew Chief Brad: It reminds me of that is Zuzu. You

Crew Chief Eric: mean the trooper? Not the trooper. Whatever

Crew Chief Brad: it was that they sold here in the States for a short time. I can’t remember.

Crew Chief Eric: Don’t say the Via Cross. The V Cross?

Yes,

Crew Chief Brad: the V Cross.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh yeah, that thing.

Crew Chief Brad: 220 horsepower. Didn’t they have like an Iron Man edition or

Mark Shank: whatever? They were awful. The Evo version of this looks absurd. It’s rad. I mean, this is one of the most ridiculous, it looks like something from a nineties TV show for like the bad guy to, to drive in the future.

like retro futurism.

Crew Chief Eric: Now you know why I like it. You know, I really struggled with the JDM. I don’t know about you guys. And I tried to go backwards too, where it’s like, don’t give me the top 20 Japanese cars to import in 2025 because the list kept to Brad’s point earlier, Skyline this, Skyline that, Skyline Skyline Skyline.

And then it’s like Honda [00:13:00] S2000. I’m like, other than the fact that they were right hand drive, we can buy an AP1 and S2000 here. That’s not that big of a deal. MR2s, I was like, all right, let me subtract a year. I went all the way back to like 2018 and I was like I wasn’t seeing anything that was really sticking out to me other than the few that we’ve already mentioned where it’s like there was an American version of these cars and I was trying to stay away from Silvias and S14s and S180s and because we got a variant of those here too as well they weren’t nearly as good.

But they sort of already exist, you know, 86 is all that stuff. So really looking for some diamonds in the rough. I have a Honda

Jon Summers: for you, Eric. Oh boy, let’s go. It was a UK market only because Honda had a factory in Swindon, west of London. There was a UK market only developed for the British touring car championship.

Accord Type R. So it was the like, blobby Accord body style from 20 years ago. It had some super high revving VTEC motor. [00:14:00] Front drive, and then it had a Ferrari F40 style hoopie. Because it was the sedan body. They weren’t that loved in period, and they were like a cheap used beater 10 15 years ago when I was around in England, but they were a UK market only car, and I think they’ve become fairly collectible.

And if you had one of those, you’d be the only bloke with them, because they were only right hand drive.

Crew Chief Eric: You know what’s funny about this car as I look at it now? At first glance, I thought it was an IS300 from the late 90s. Honda tried really hard to copy that Lexus look. From the back, it looks very different.

And I see that whole F40’s high spoiler and everything you’re talking about. But the front, my goodness. Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: I thought it was a Mazda Speed 6.

Crew Chief Eric: I remember those.

Crew Chief Brad: Those with the turbo. I mean, those, I mean, here in the States, you get them, but this is, I like this, this is really unique. So it’s worth importing, you know, the right hand drive Accord would certainly throw somebody off.

And then the, I mean, everybody wants a good VTEC motor.

Mark Shank: Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to move on so quickly [00:15:00] from JDM and that they did have where Jonathan was going with the special editions. You’ve got the Type R NSX. Sorry if that makes me basic, but it was still pretty badass. Pumpkin spice, Mark.

Crew Chief Brad: Civic Type R.

Mark Shank: I mean, but like we haven’t talked about the Silvia. Yeah. Which I feel like at this point, I give more street credit to the Sylvia importers than the Skyline importers and they had some, uh, spec R and other kind of special editions. I don’t claim to know them all, but yeah, I mean, outside of the special editions and outside some of the obvious or more niche market ones, they had some crazy minivans from the nineties.

I’m just saying they’re out there.

Crew Chief Eric: He wants a Toyota Hiace. That’s what he wants. Right. Which actually now’s the time to import a Hilux as well. Right?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. I thought about that and I was looking at them and they’re that year. They’re pretty God awful. I would just buy a Tacoma here in the States. I mean, they were pretty terrible.

But trying to do a little bit of research and I was watching some YouTube videos and I found that apparently there is a Buick not sold in the U. S. Mark went down the [00:16:00] minivan thing. There’s a Buick minivan that was not sold in the U. S. It was built specifically for the Chinese market of all things that you can import now.

I can’t remember what it was called, but it was like a luxury minivan and they were trying to market it as This transporter limousine kind of minivan thing. And it was a Buick.

Jon Summers: Well, it was because the Buick was the first car that the emperor rode into the forbidden garden. Well, something like that. I would say there’s some like special relationship between the emperor and China, which is why Buick survived.

Mark Shank: Yeah. Buick crushed there for years. The Buick GL eight.

Jon Summers: Yeah. It’s because of this special thing with the emperor. It’s really weird to me because I have an old Pontiac. And if you think of it, Buick, old Pontiac, really Pontiac with the coolest mark, they were the one that should have survived, but they’re gone.

And Buick survived thanks to the emperor in China. Very peculiar.

Crew Chief Eric: Mark’s going, what? See this, we’re used to this with John. He’s an encyclopedia of automotive history. I’m just letting you know,

Chris Bright: since we’re in this kind of a mode of, you know, [00:17:00] subsidiaries, I have an off the wall one, which is. In that part of the world, but not exactly, it’s from Australia.

Oh boy. You may recall I’m a whore for racing additions. I would love that Tommy Mackinnon Marlboro. I’d ride around that in a white cowboy hat just like Arturo Marzario, if you know who that is. I do. But down there they have a brand called Holden, which is a subsidiary of GM. And we’re now starting to get a little more aware of the V8 series, but they’ve had the Australian supercar challenge and whatever variance it is.

So this Holden, they did like a Holden HSV club sport R8, it’s right hand drive, you know, and there’s all sorts of different variants that they did because they’ve been very successful in the supercar championship. So they’re just kind of cool, hot sedans. They look kind of American, you know, they’re Pontiacs or GM.

Variants and things like that, but I, I don’t know. They’re pretty cool. And if you want something a little different,

Crew Chief Eric: so the Hs VR eight’s a lot newer though, so we have to kind of go rewind the clock a little bit. Right. So we need to talk about like the Commodore vt Yeah,

Chris Bright: yeah. The and the vi. [00:18:00] Yeah, that’s right.

That’s right. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: And the ute, the Malu. Yeah,

Jon Summers: yeah, yeah. You gotta

Chris Bright: get the Ute. You’re gonna

William Ross: do it. Get the Ute.

Jon Summers: No, but there were special Peter Brock edition of the HSV weren’t,

Crew Chief Eric: no, there was a bunch of different

Jon Summers: edition. And I think that was when Peter Brock was going through that peculiar phase where he was doing.

Or the spiritual healing. So there was even an edition of the Holden you could get that had this magic spiritual box in it. If you Google up Peter Brock and that time that he spent, he got with this weird hippie woman and really went off the rails at the end there.

Chris Bright: I can’t use a weird hippie woman, but that’s another story.

Jon Summers: And you’re so Oregon.

Mark Shank: I love it.

Crew Chief Eric: Am I to believe that there were chakra stones on the dashboard that you needed to rub before you started the car? Like

Crew Chief Brad: he got some stones rubbed.

Jon Summers: Something of that sort. I disappeared down that rat hole some years ago when I was looking at.

Chris Bright: You don’t have a cigarette lighter.

It’s got an incense lighter in it.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s [00:19:00] really teeny. To add to Chris’s imagery of the big white cowboy hat. I think you’d look good in a ute. There’s gotta be a ton of utes from Australia that it’s time to import those things. Tons of them. I had that on my list too. I had the Holdens, I had the Commodore VT, I had the Maloo.

And then I, I dawned on me sort of a. Vauxhall, but of Australia, of Holden, partnered with Lotus. It’s one of Mark’s favorite cars that he’s brought up before. What about the Carlton?

Jon Summers: Yeah, I have that. The Lotus Carlton. I have that one down as well. I feel like there’s so few of them that you could control the market.

Without wanting to sound like an investor.

William Ross: There was only a couple of hundred of those built, wasn’t there?

Jon Summers: Especially, they were mostly black, but there were a few green ones. And I think there were a few blue ones as well. And if you look at the Sierra Cosworth market, the rare colors, they’re worth a ton more than the more common colors, even though.

You know, I don’t know. I mean, I sound like a crypto person. If you expect one to do the same as the previous, you know, if one’s a [00:20:00] cycle behind, if you assume that the Lotus Carlton is going to do the same as Sierra Cosworth’s have done, then I feel like that’s a really good investment and linked to that.

The police in Britain used to use a model called the Vauxhall Senator that had the same motor but without the twin turbos, basically. You’d have something nobody else would have if you had a Senator in America. They were German built. You can get

William Ross: those Lotus Carltons in left hand

Jon Summers: drive too, right? Mm hmm.

As Opel Omegas. Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: the Omega, yeah, that’s right. So

Jon Summers: you just have to rebadge it. Like the Holden’s and the Chevy SS’s, you know, it’s a bit like that.

Crew Chief Eric: And I’m glad you brought up Opel. They’re going to come up again in this conversation here probably pretty shortly, but that reminds me there’s the Omega, the Vectra and the Calibra.

The Calibra especially is a DTM dominator. That’s another car that it’s about time people started importing them into the United States.

Jon Summers: But guys, I need to place a disclaimer at this point, right? I was a sales rep in period. I thrashed the crap out of all of those [00:21:00] cars. Boards were good, the Renaults were okay, the Vauxhalls, ooh.

Ooh, I’ve had a lot of moments of massive understeer on greasy roundabouts. I don’t matter whether it was a Calibra or a Cavalier or what it was, they were understeery and you didn’t want the keys. Give me the Subaru instead, if I can’t have the Ford. That’s how I used to feel.

Crew Chief Eric: Fair

Chris Bright: enough. Fascinating tale from Jonathan.

I like it.

Crew Chief Eric: Mark is scouring Bring a Trailer right now. What are you seeing?

Mark Shank: Let’s go in a little bit different direction. I always had a soft spot for TVRs and maybe that’s because I never drove one or owned one.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, you’re speaking my language.

Mark Shank: I just coveted them from the other side of the pond. I feel like the Cerbera and some interesting options that are coming of age around that 2000 timeframe.

That was when TBR got an injection of, I think, Russian investment, uh, right around then, and they did some remodeling and of course they crashed and burned like they always do. But it was an interesting time period. The movie swordfish.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes. The TVR Tuscan speed six.

Jon Summers: That was [00:22:00] TVR coming of age.

Mark Shank: All I remember that movie is Haley Berry.

I thought there was a spiker in swordfish. That was a TVR. I thought that was the spiker. There’s a Tuscan in

Jon Summers: it.

Mark Shank: Yep.

Jon Summers: They look really cool. I

Chris Bright: don’t know. I think they hold

Jon Summers: up. I feel like they do as well with the Tuscan, particularly that that swoop over the hood, which sort of emphasize that. TBR at that time were doing their own inline six engine, which was commercial suicide.

But as a collector now, just such a cool thing. Yeah. And they, they had some power too. Yeah. I know traction control. They were like a cross between a Viper and a Corvette. They’re like a British Corvette. Yeah. It’s a good way to die. The town that they were from Blackpool, it’s the town that working class people used to go on vacation to.

So even if it rains, they’d be on the beach and. Then they’d go out and get plastered in the pubs and, you know, go build a car. Well, yeah, do the same thing the next day because TBR it’s the guys, the [00:23:00] founders initials, his name was Trevor. So he just sort of abbreviated it.

Crew Chief Brad: I would love to import a Trevor.

Jon Summers: Have you seen this model? I was thinking about them before we came on air here. Have you seen this model? The 450 SEAC, this is what they were doing immediately before the sort of swordfish. Tuscan. Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: that’s the Tasman 280i on steroids. That

Mark Shank: is

Crew Chief Eric: an

Mark Shank: interesting car. Look at that.

Crew Chief Eric: I drove a Tasman 280i. It was Cortina engine, two frame car with half of it was Mercedes parts out of a bin, you know, all this kind of thing.

Interesting car, you know, it felt almost like a Triumph TR7 in that realm, but I always argued that it needed more power because I thought that a Cortina engine was just a little too anemic for the weight of a Tasman. And the Tasman’s not that heavy, right? Because it’s mostly glass and the whole nine yards, but the 450 is indicative of the four and a half liter V8 that’s in this thing.

So it’s like, yeah, okay. That’s a good plan.

Jon Summers: And that motors, the Rover V8 [00:24:00] Rover. The 8, which was the old Buick all aluminium 215 that Rover bought off Buick all those years ago. So it’s fundamentally an American motor. It’s, the car’s kind of transatlantic. The styling is so, the 420s and the 450s, they’ve so obviously got a Ford Capri door.

That’s what I sort of struggle with a little bit with them.

Crew Chief Brad: I was almost going to say, it’s a good thing Don’s not here because I feel like, and this is probably an unpopular opinion, it’s like a better looking DeLorean. Ooh.

Mark Shank: Ooh. That’s not hard to do in my opinion, so I have to agree with you. That’s true.

I

Chris Bright: think it’s like a shittier looking Halpa.

Crew Chief Brad: Well,

Mark Shank: everything’s

Crew Chief Brad: a shittier looking

Mark Shank: Halpa.

Crew Chief Eric: It screams Gembala 944. It has that body panel kind of like look to it. Like it’s very. 80s body kit, but the Tasman that it’s based on wasn’t completely terrible, but it’s a wedge. Classic Lotus, Triumph type of shape of that period.

What kills me is that wing in the back though. That is just, what [00:25:00] is that?

Jon Summers: After the wedge era, after the 450 SCAC, that’s when they went to the Chimera and the Griffith.

Crew Chief Eric: And the Sagittarius or whatever that other one’s called.

Jon Summers: Oh, no. The Cigaris.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that’s it.

Jon Summers: Cigaris. That’s one of the last ones. We should talk about the Chimera and the Griffith.

They’re the two like open top V8 ones that if you were going to make a business importing them into the U. S. and flipping, it would be, I think, Chimeras and Griffiths. And the thing with them is that they’re fiberglass. And then the under bits, they all rust out. So you need to have somebody basically roll around underneath them.

Somebody who knows what they’re doing. And then you could, I reckon, buy them remotely from auctions. And, you know, the Griffith 500s, those obviously they have the most growth potential, but a Chimera is like a 15, 000 or 20, 000 proposition. I mean, that seems super reasonable for something that was built in its hundreds, not in its thousands, you know, in terms of a future collectible.

The other thing I’d noted down here whilst we’re [00:26:00] talking about these is there are a number of cars that were built, especially for Peter Wheeler. All for special customers. And there are rumors of a 3000 M. So the model before the wedge one, most of those add Ford V sixes, those rumors of one that was built, especially for Peter Wheeler that had a Mustang three Oh two and it was breathed on.

So something like that, that would be a one of one. I mean, is it ever going to be worth what Ferdinand PX personal 911 is? No, absolutely not. But is that going to be sort of peak TVR? Yeah, probably. And those cars are out there.

Crew Chief Eric: So since we stumbled backwards into the UK, Please mind the gap between the train and the platform.

Is there anything else from the Asian domestic market or from Australia that we didn’t cover before we dive a little deeper into the Brits?

Crew Chief Brad: I think we’ve covered it. Yeah, I’m, I’m ready to go with Brits.

Mark Shank: I don’t think anybody said Ford Falcon. I think everybody knows it exists and it’s cool. Yeah. It’s called the Mustang in the United States.

They have the Street Six. [00:27:00] Turbo Street Six is a different setup. But them offies

William Ross: love their four doors. That was the thing though.

Chris Bright: I’m just trying to think about Jonathan has suggested like an import car business that we should set up and thinking if we want to make a little money importing these types of cars, we should start with a lot of money.

William Ross: Yeah, I end up with a little,

Crew Chief Eric: it’s the final effect. That sounds like a startup there, Chris. I thought

Jon Summers: about the TBR thing and I was discussing it with my wife and we would drive into a baseball game. My son, who’s 10, was in the back and I was doing quite well. And then my son went, Oh, you’ll fall in love with the car and want to keep it, dad.

You’ll never sell it. And my wife was like, we’re not discussing this anymore.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, John, let me throw a curveball at you. Let’s bring us closer to the late 90s, early noughties. What about the Puma? Especially the RS edition of the Puma. Oh,

Jon Summers: good one. Good one. So those Pumas, they were available in 1. 7s and 1.

4. You could thrash the Propolar out of them and they were really good. They actually were based on [00:28:00] the Fiesta, but as a blokey sales rep, you could still sort of get away with them. They all rusted away though, they had problems with rust, so they mostly disappeared. The RS ones, you never saw those on the road, so I feel like those have already entered Ford and Obtanium, because Fords are on a real pedestal, in Britain at least, I’m not sure about the rest of Europe.

But in Britain, you guys will remember the Mercury Capri that was sold here in the early 70s? I love it, everyone! It was a sort of junior Mustang. Those, I feel like you could make money taking them from California and selling them in Britain. Because any Beta V6 Capri With a stick is a 5, 000 pound car. I mean, cause there were no Mustangs or Camaros, right?

Crew Chief Eric: So now we’re exporting cars. Chris, you hear this? The business goes the other way. Now, I know. And

Crew Chief Brad: well, that’s you, you make money shipping them out and you lose money bringing them back.

Chris Bright: I’m sure we would hit it about the time they got tariffed, but that’s a whole other, we’re going to tear up [00:29:00] 1989 to.

2001. We’re going to leave that right where it is.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. So Ford Puma is an interesting one for me, but it also led me down the slippery slope of, well, if you didn’t like the Puma, did you know you could import the car now? Why not? You remember those commercials? The car commercials are awesome!

Crew Chief Brad: With the cat?

The evil car? The one with the cat that loses its head? Yes. The evil car? The sports car?

Jon Summers: They were, um, they were good. I had Easter 1999. Two friends and I drove a rental one from London to Amsterdam and slept in the car and then drove back again. We went to Brussels and then Brussels was boring. But, I mean, that illustrates how they’re actually pretty practical.

They’re actually a good site. You wouldn’t import it. It’s too boring and terrible. It’s too much like a Geo Metro and not enjoyable on American roads. I mean, I’ve got a Fiesta ST. My best friend in England’s got a Fiesta ST. He thinks his is the best thing in [00:30:00] the world. Mine’s eight years old. I’ve only put 20, 000 miles on it.

Because here, I’d rather drive something with automatic transmission, and high seats, and comfortable, and all of that. Whereas in Europe, you can make do with the lanes, and all the winding, and all of that. But the car? No, it can stay in Europe, if you ask me.

Crew Chief Eric: What about the original Focus RS? That’s old enough now to come over.

Jon Summers: It is. You’d have to fight the European enthusiasts for it. That one, it was Ford’s first attempt at doing one of those trick differential. Torque sensing, yeah. The motoring press at the time said that it didn’t work very well. Everyone was struggling at that time with more than 200 horsepower through the front wheels, and Ford didn’t do the job as well as Volkswagen or whoever were at the time.

Although the value on those Mark 1 Focus RSs have gone up. The sort of sleeper there is there’s a sort of Focus RS light called the ST170.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh yeah, I remember that.

Jon Summers: Sometimes if I’m in England for more than a couple of weeks, I always try and look at buying a car rather than renting one. And for a long [00:31:00] time, those Focus ST170s have been the sort of under a thousand dollars kind of might not break down kind of thing that I’ve just about almost persuaded my wife that it was a good idea to do instead of the rental car and then not.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s funny. All these gray market cars that we want to import are all Fords. It’s like, why didn’t Ford just give us the good cars in the first place?

Crew Chief Eric: Which is funny because when John was talking about the Sierra and the Lotus Carlton a little bit ago, I was thinking to myself, our audience doesn’t know what that is because we got the Mercure XR40, which is

Crew Chief Brad: a big piece of crap.

I personally, I think those cars are terrible.

Jon Summers: Brad, they’re another one that we should ship home to Britain. They were a hundred and seventy horse. I look on Facebook marketplace. They’re cropping up all the time. Even ones with stick shit. I feel like you could chuck a couple in crates, ship them home, take them to a Ford show in Essex.

You could triple your money. I really think you could. I really think you could, because they’re so similar to Sierra Cosworths and Brits are so mad for [00:32:00] any hot rod Ford, Cosworth.

Chris Bright: Yeah, I think that shows though, Brad, like the hot hatch market and all those sorts of things really come out of Europe where they have smaller requirements, you know, there’s Regulatory limits on engine sizes and things like that, that really drove those cool, small cars, you know, and that’s why out of my world, I being an Italophile, all those cool, old, small engine, Italian cars, Fiat’s and Alfa’s I’ll get to my list of Alfa’s that I’ve got.

Crew Chief Brad: Assuming the one 47 is on there.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re going to work our way into the

Chris Bright: Italians. But I agree with you. Like, I think in our market in the U S you know, we always had these big ideas of muscle cars and big motors and big white spaces and not having to handle well, but get off the line fast. Right. Yeah. These cars are so much more interesting and engineered.

And that’s why I like when NASCAR is trying to sell. crappy rear wheel drive cars back in the eighties and stuff. Actually, they raced the rear wheel drives and they [00:33:00] sold front wheel drive cars, which is just terrible. Right. Yes. So, but, but you look over in Europe and you go, you know, again, kind of getting on the racing theme.

You look at the rally cars and you look at the touring car championships all over. They are so cool. I mean, I would own any of those before a lot of the cars that we would get here.

Crew Chief Brad: And I think to your point, like here in the U S especially with the American brands, they had the muscle car, the Camaros, the Mustangs, the Firebirds, but then they had the rental cars, the Taurus.

It’s the Impala Malibu. There was no like fun in between things unless you went Volkswagen or something like that. I mean, there was nothing in between, but to stick with the British cars, the one that I would import is the Ford Mondeo, but they had a Ford Mondeo as state ST two 20.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh man. I was wondering.

You and your Mercury Sable wagons.

Crew Chief Brad: Hey, this is not a bad looking wagon. It actually reminds me of your Jetta.

Crew Chief Eric: So the Mondeo ST two twenties of that time. Those are cool. I always liked that front end sort of [00:34:00] angular, like the original mark one focuses were and all that. That’s a good looking car. I will give you that.

Jon Summers: It is an ST two hundred version of the mark two Mondeo that was super rare. And that Mk2 Mondeo, arguably is a better looking car than the Mk3. The Mk3 was quite square. The Mk2 is a much swoopier shape. If you google up the ST200. I have a particular love of these because 10 years ago, I was successful in buying a cheap Beta for a trip to England.

And it was a Mondeo ST24. That thing was awesome. That Yamaha motor, it would do 140 miles an hour. Really would. And it would do it all day long. And I paid. 300 pounds for it in a Sainsbury’s car park the day before Christmas. Awesome car.

Chris Bright: Isn’t that considered child abuse if you had your kid with you?

Jon Summers: No, I didn’t have my, that was pre child.

All right. One day I was, uh, was pre child. I was a little worried there for a second there.

Crew Chief Brad: I gotta say though, it’s very intriguing to me to want to show up at a Cars and [00:35:00] Coffee with a right hand drive Ford. I mean, that would blow people’s minds if you just showed up at a Cars and Coffee with a right hand drive forward here in the States, and people wouldn’t know what to do.

Crew Chief Eric: So here’s where I disagree with John in the respect that I like the very angular and clean look of the Mark III. It’s just something about it, it’s very much more German, and I’m okay with that. But when I look at the ST 200, I go, oh yeah, I remember this one. And then immediately my brain went, didn’t they sell this here as the Jaguar X Type?

You can buy the same car, right?

Jon Summers: No, no. I watched a video just recently. So it’s YouTube, so it knows whether it’s true or not. But it was making the point that the X Type and the Mondeo were actually quite different cars. And people say they’re the same, but really they aren’t. The engineering, the suspension, the gearbox, all of that stuff is different, even if the platform is the same.

Crew Chief Eric: And again, I don’t know if it’s true or not either, that they shared a lot of similar DNA though, at the end of the day.

Crew Chief Brad: But the Mondeo shared a lot of parts and DNA with Aston [00:36:00] Martin too, but I wouldn’t say that Aston Martin’s a force.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you know, Hey, they’re all Tata’s now. So, you know, Hey,

Crew Chief Brad: do

Crew Chief Eric: we have anything else for the Brits?

Cause I have sort of a crescendo as we move into mainland Europe for the Brits.

Jon Summers: I have a couple of like PVR lights, you know, instead of the nine 11. of the TVRs. There are other stuff. If it was Italian makers, you’d call them the Ezzettarini. That’s what the Pebble Beachers call, like, the Morettis and the Direttis and Otto Bianchi and all of those.

So I’ve got Ginetta,

Crew Chief Eric: Elva,

Jon Summers: Ilburn, Marcos. Noble and Ultima.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, the Ultima GTR, yeah.

Jon Summers: Yeah, and they’re kits, but some of them were built professionally, and they’ve got Chevy small blocks, a lot of them, so does that really count? I’m not really sure. But the Noble, they’re really well built, boutique British.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re talking about the M600, the big one, right? Because that is within the time range now.

Jon Summers: Yeah, it would be an early one. Marcos, I [00:37:00] dislike TVR, but kind of uglier. Yes. But the Cos is the Costin of Cosworth. Ginetta and Elva, you know, they are kind of racing cars. So you’d be getting something that was very lightweight and flimsy and not as well built as a Morgan and not as flashy as a TBR.

Crew Chief Eric: So there’s another one, the Aero 8. If you like the aesthetic of it, that’s a car you can gray mark it in now.

Jon Summers: And that’s really something because they have a E39 M5 drivetrain.

Crew Chief Eric: Chris with the Roman boat, he downboats. Nope. They are

Crew Chief Brad: so ugly.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you guys remember the original Total Recall and the scene in the bar, the woman with the three breasts?

That’s what the front of the Arrow 8 looks like.

William Ross: Oh, cross eyed?

Chris Bright: Oh no. Why did you have to do that?

Mark Shank: Oh god.

Chris Bright: All right, you can’t unsee that, now you know. Can you cut his mic for a little while? Put him on timeout for a friend.

Jon Summers: I had a couple more as well. The two others I had were the Jaguar XJRS, which is like an [00:38:00] XJS but it was a British version.

It had a body kit on it, it had different wheels on it. I never felt it was that good looking in period, it was mildly breathed on. But again, if I’ve never seen one here, it was a TWR body kit. So Tom Walkinshaw, it was those. I was kind of thought about those, but you know what? I really think there is a market around and you could make a market around it.

If you had booleaned it, you know, if you really talked it up and were like Lamborghini, Lamborghini, Lamborghini, these are awesome. Lamborghini, Lamborghini. I do this. I do that. I’m cool. young’uns be like me with my cool beard and my cool shoes. Be like me. Buy my watch. Buy Lamborghinis. You know, if you really Trump shilled it up in the way that he did, I feel like you could really make a lot of money with Lister Volga hot rods, but they’re so rare.

That if you get enough modern idiots in them, the same will happen as to Lister prices. It’s happened to roof prices. That’s my theory. If you were being very cynical, I mean, so [00:39:00] Lister Jag.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you remember the Lister Storm? The one they used to race back in like IMSA? That was really cool.

Jon Summers: Yeah. That a seven liter V12, didn’t it?

Yep. Seven liter Jaguar V12.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s when IMSA was still great. Yeah. Unlimited classes, man. They were awesome. Oh man.

Chris Bright: I was going to Watkins Glen and watching the Jags and the Corvette and the. Porsches and Mazdas and the Nissan GTPs. Those are the days, my

Crew Chief Eric: friend.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m in on the Lister Jag. Those are pretty,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah, they are sweet.

That’s a good poll. I forgot about Lister altogether. It’s sort of like the Tresser cars on the German side, right? They had their whole thing with the Volkswagen’s and the Audi’s and the Mercedes and stuff. So yeah, Lister, that’s a good poll. So anything else on your British list?

Jon Summers: Only Shooting Brake versions of Jaguar.

Okay. They get Shooting Brake XJS’s and things like that.

Chris Bright: I think that’s a great call, because for me, Shooting Brakes or any wagon, they are so underrated. We race over here stupid trucks. Why don’t they have a series where they race? Station [00:40:00] wagons and shooting brakes. That’d be amazing. They would

Crew Chief Eric: do it in

Chris Bright: Australia.

Those are great cars and they’re super practical too, but they look amazing, I think.

Crew Chief Eric: As we wrap out the Brits here and move to mainland Europe, I’m going to throw out one car that is actually like six cars in one, all based on the same thing, Vauxhall VX220, Opel GT Speedster, Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky, it’s all sort of the same car at the end of the day, but specifically gray market.

The Vauxhall VX220 and the Opel GT Speedster. Love it. Yeah. How can you not like those cars? Brad doesn’t like those cars. I already know that.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t fit. So I don’t care. That’s

Crew Chief Eric: his answer to everything. Brad? Ozempic. That’s all I got to say. Nice.

Crew Chief Brad: I’d say it’s not my weight. It’s my height.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I know. Yeah.

It’s six foot four. He doesn’t fit in a lot of things. Comfortably.

Chris Bright: There’s like no room in those things. And I’m six feet. And like some of these cars are just. You got to break your knees to get the steering.

Jon Summers: I have a friend in the city who’s bought and built a Caterham Super 7 [00:41:00] recently. And when I said to him, you need to worry about the size of the, he’s a big guy.

I’d said to him, have you driven one before? He said, no. I said, you need to worry about the size of the pedal bar. Because I remember the first time I drove one, going for the brake and hitting the throttle as well at the same time.

Crew Chief Eric: Terrifying. It’s even worse when you’ve driven an original. Seven that we won’t even go there.

But that being said, let’s dive into mainland Europe now. And we’ll give the mic over to Chris and William to talk about Italian cars. And I’m sure the list is as long as your guy’s arm.

Chris Bright: And William, if you have some strong opinions, we probably share a common list. I bet, but I’m an Alfisti, so I’m just going to start there.

The Apex Predator, I think of that era, is the 147 GTA. That doesn’t even count as a hot hatchback. That’s a lot of power. And that Busso engine is just one of the all time greats. There’s just no two ways around that. To be in a car that small with the Busso engine ripping along, screaming, it’s hard to imagine something better than that.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, you know what’s better than that? The Alfa Romeo SZ. [00:42:00] That’s what’s better than that.

Chris Bright: Yeah, that’s cool. It’s a little earlier than this vintage. I looked that up. In fact, I pulled out all my Alfa books and it’s like, there’s the SZ right there. I love that car.

Crew Chief Brad: I saw one at a Cars and Coffee down here in Richmond not too long ago.

Crew Chief Eric: Little secret. We’ll see if I can post about it later this year. I’m going to get the opportunity to drive one here stateside, so. I saw those cars when they came out new, and I have been salivating since I was a kid. So let me tell ya.

Chris Bright: They’re so rare, they still look incredibly interesting. That’s the

Crew Chief Eric: right word for it.

Yeah.

Jon Summers: It’s Italian Brutalism, isn’t it? It’s Brutalism like when you go to EUR Ugly concrete and it’s all like is Mussolini still with us? Has the look of like Mussolini in the side and and so on yeah I was going to say the 147 gta and my understanding was the 156 gta was a sort of more complete car to drive True.

And older, I think. Yes.

Chris Bright: I think this whole era of Alpha is really, the good cars are [00:43:00] built around the Busso engine, you know, the 155s, all that. The 155ti, I mean, if you’re going to

Crew Chief Eric: import

Chris Bright: anything, right? There’s a sport wagon that they did, kind of on that platforms.

Crew Chief Eric: And then they also, at that time period, they had the new The re release GTV6 at that time, right?

The really angular one.

Chris Bright: Yeah. Just called the GTV and it’s like the ultimate wedge car. It’s amazing. They were pretty good with the twin spark. Correct.

Jon Summers: I mean, they were, they’re worth more with the Busso.

Chris Bright: Yeah. Twin spark’s great.

Jon Summers: Yeah. And they, and handles better, you know, I, I feel like, you know, in these ages we’re moving towards where, you know, whatever you’re driving is going to be slaughtered by the Tesla minivan next to you, that.

Handling and the theater the buso is great because the noise but those twin spark motors in the 75 at least, you know, Milano That was a better car without the buso.

Chris Bright: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more that they had some really good lumps at that point in time And the one that I’m waiting for it’s not eligible yet for the gray market, but it’s a few years out still is the Alfa Romeo Brera.

Yes. I’m [00:44:00] salivating until I can get one of those here. And the coupe, it’s kind of like, it looks like a shooting break, actually. I mean, I think a shooting break technically has four doors though, if I’m not mistaken, but, or five. We

Crew Chief Eric: had

Chris Bright: this argument on a whole nother episode. Those Breras, I think if they just sold those today in the same exact body styles, when they came out and they still look great.

Crew Chief Eric: I a thousand percent agree with you. And I always saw the Brera as. The modern version of the SZ especially from the front because it’s got the six little headlights and all that kind of thing.

Chris Bright: I see that. I wouldn’t

Crew Chief Eric: have thought about that. But there’s an alternate version, but unfortunately it’s in the same timeframe, which is the Brava, which is more like the 147.

So if they’re all like the next generation to your point, Chris, so you’re going to have to wait now another five years or so before you can get them in.

Chris Bright: I was so excited to talk about that. And then I looked and it’s like, yeah, we’re missing it by just a few. But you know, it’s like for a runabout car, like a family car, they are just so freaking sexy and they’re very capable.

They’re incredibly capable. Anyhow.

Crew Chief Brad: This car is [00:45:00] very much like the Italian version of the new Scirocco to me.

Crew Chief Eric: A hundred percent. It’s all in that same sort of design language for sure.

Jon Summers: I had one for a bachelor party years ago. Oh yeah. Bachelor party to the Nürburgring. So I rented it and did it and did that.

It’s a bit understeery and it was diesel one. It was a 2. 4 JTD. It was new and it was rung out 149 miles an hour. That was, I had no more to give.

Crew Chief Eric: 149 in a diesel? That’s.

William Ross: John, you seem to have the same problem with all your cars with understeering problem.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Are you trying to say it might not be the car?

It might be the driver. That’s a good call. That’s a

William Ross: bit understeering. It’s like, you said that before.

Crew Chief Eric: Could

William Ross: be the

Chris Bright: driver.

Crew Chief Eric: Could

William Ross: be. I’m just saying.

Crew Chief Eric: So let me, let me ask you, William, is it even worth talking about F40s at this point? No,

William Ross: I mean, yeah, all the difference you got, I mean, obviously the big thing is the tanks.

I mean, that was kind of personal preference, but a lot of people switch them over because the U S gas tanks were aluminum, whereas the [00:46:00] European ones were bags and he had to change it was every five years or something, no matter what you had to change the gas tank got out of any thousands of dollar proposition for it.

But I mean, there’s really no difference. The ones you’re looking at, it’s not available yet. will be the Enzo’s that these are going to try and change up the market here in the United States because there’s only the 120 some Enzo U. S. production ones and especially you start getting into colors and stuff so once you also you could open up into the European ones that people bring them in because it’s just having the car because I don’t think it really affects price so much because if you look at F50s European versus the 80, whatever, 55 U.

S. Prussia. I mean, you’re still in that 4. 5 to 5. 5 million range on them. I think the ends of one’s going to be interesting because they were so few in various colors. I mean, majority of them are red. So I think that’s going to be interesting. And then the other one would be, you know, now, especially with doing these swaps is the five, seven, five.

Mark Shank: Yeah,

William Ross: especially manual. I mean actual factory manual. So I mean, you can bring in a European one, you can start getting your hands on them instead of having to do that swap. But, you know, I guess it’s all personal preference.

Jon Summers: What’s the price difference on a [00:47:00] 575 with a manual and a 575 with the.

William Ross: Oh shit, you’re probably at least double on a factory manual.

I mean, that’s why I always tell them, look, I mean, let’s, if you want to do a 575, you’re just saying you want to drive it, why not buy the F1 tranny, maybe drive a little bit, then do the swap if you want. After even doing the swap, what’s going to cost you, everything like that, you’ll save a hundred grand.

But if you’re looking for it, cause you want to try and make an investment, find a factory manual, but then you’re afraid to drive it cause putting miles or anything like that. I mean, if I had my drugs, I’d just buy an F1 tranny one and do the swap and drive the piss out of it. I mean, I think we’re all in agreement.

I mean, anything we buy, we’re going to drive. We’re not just going to sit there and stare at it.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. Hell yeah. And the Enzos are definitely within the time window, 2002, 2003, 2004. We’re getting close, meaning in the next couple of years.

Chris Bright: Yeah. So let me actually see how that plays out. I didn’t think about the exotics because, you know, they were already so aimed here, you know, in terms of all the Lambos, all the Ferraris, uh, even the high end Maseratis, which came back online at that era.

That’s when they were the. Made in the Ferrari [00:48:00] factory like the 3200 and the coupes and those sorts of things, you know

William Ross: Well this thing with those is a lot of time I don’t think so much lamborghini either you find this with I guess a lesser valued cars usually saw a big difference between the u. s market car and a european market car in regards to Horsepower engine choice wise as you get into Ferraris Lamborghinis and stuff like that You’re pretty much spot on with the mechanicals and horsepower wise and stuff.

So it really wasn’t much of a difference It was just some of the things to meet us dot standards and shit. Yeah,

Mark Shank: I found an interesting italian one digging around It was interesting because it’s so expensive over here, if you can find one to buy, which was the Maserati Shamal. Oh,

William Ross: yeah.

Mark Shank: It’s not a bad looking car.

Yeah. It looks great from every angle except directly on the side. It looks really oddly proportioned if you’re perpendicular to the car.

Jon Summers: Not really weird rear wheel on

Mark Shank: every other angle. It looks great. It’s like a

Chris Bright: Lancia Delta or something, but I think the Lancia is better. But yeah, I think it’s a handsome car to be [00:49:00] honest with you, but I just

Mark Shank: thought it was interesting because the only transactions I can find for it are in the eighties of thousands of dollars.

And it’s based on a bi turbo, which I think comes free. If you buy a sweater at a Maserati gift shop or the factory or something. They’re still trying to get rid of old stuff.

Jon Summers: If you go on any search and do like Maserati lowest price, the first half dozen entries are always basket case i turbos, aren’t they?

And I mean, William, is that why the Shamal suffers in price? Because people look at it. But it’s so

William Ross: expensive. It’s not suffering. It’s crushing it. It’s a good car, but mechanically wise, it’s a little touch and go as with any Maserati.

Crew Chief Eric: See, this is the moment that Don would have gone off the rails and talking about the

Mark Shank: T.

C. Maserati. They keep

Crew Chief Eric: bringing Don

Mark Shank: in, he’s here in spirit.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that

Mark Shank: would have been

Crew Chief Eric: an hour. So, I agree with you there. I look at this and I just immediately think [00:50:00] Maserati Bi Turbo. And you know the joke about Bi Turbos. You buy the one with the highest mileage because you know it was a runner, right?

Otherwise, don’t walk, run away from a Bi Turbo. It does scream 90s bolt on JC Whitney body kit stuff. Like it is so un Italian in a way.

Jon Summers: It would pair well with the TVR 450 SDAC. Thousand

Crew Chief Eric: percent.

Jon Summers: Especially if they’re in similar colors.

Crew Chief Eric: You did an ugly car show. Yeah, you’d

Jon Summers: have a hell of a pair for Radwood.

And

Crew Chief Eric: the back, the back looks like there was a Peugeot. The later. 405 or 505 or whatever, like from the nineties had that same rear end as the Shamal. Like, ugh, it’s not for me, bro. I’ll pass.

Chris Bright: I like the front end. It’s got a very slopey. That rear wheel arch,

Mark Shank: trapezoidal rear wheel arch is amazing. That is amazing.

Crew Chief Eric: Kuntosh, the Kuntosh

William Ross: had weird stuff like that. I know everyone’s like doing Google search. Like, did you see that Restomod of that Shamal?

Crew Chief Brad: Yes. With the big

William Ross: flares. Oh, it looks awesome.

Crew Chief Brad: The [00:51:00] Restomod looks. Really good. Yeah.

William Ross: M8 01. Yeah, that doesn’t look bad at all. I mean, obviously it’s all new body work and everything on that thing.

That’s not bad looking.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. You know, you mentioned the launch of Delta Integrale. It’s

Mark Shank: the R34 of Italy.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. I took all those off. I just struck all those through, I mean, as much as I’d love to talk about, you know, the 93 different versions, the flared, the unflared, the eight valve, the 16 valve, the gen one, the gen two, the, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It’s like, they’re all the freaking same and they’ve been importing them now for a bunch of years. So we could just kind of scrap all those cars.

Jon Summers: And the HF Turbo, the little one, was just too poxy for American.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, and the fact that the Stig, Ben Collins, and then the other guy from counting cars in the UK, would have Chris Harris.

So Chris Harris and Ben Collins have been going back and forth in this sort of urinary Olympics about their launch of Deltas. And at that point, it sort of got turned off. Even though I love those cars. I’m like, yeah, I’m kind of done. I don’t really care anymore. Too mainstream for me.

Jon Summers: Before we move off the alphas, the one six, six, you got the one six four here in the [00:52:00] States, the one six, six.

I don’t know when that would be eligible. 2003. That’s the Busso motor. It’s a good size American car. The stylings I, it worked for me, but a lot of people don’t like that funny clamshell. Hood. I like it.

Chris Bright: I like it when people mod them and give them more like fender flares and things like some kits you can do.

I kind of like those versions a little bit more. They look more like the touring car, the racing. They have trans I mean, they are great cars. They really drive amazingly. But they’re ugly. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: It does have a very Cyclops from the Odyssey look to it with that. Oh, like that front end is. That’s a face only a momma could love.

Pindu, you’re a momma joke, but I decided to win.

All right, so, so Italian cars. I got to give a nod to my sister. She’s here in spirit. I’m just going to say pretty much any Fiat Panda, because you can, and they’re pretty awesome. And the 4×4 one. The Sisley, yeah.

Jon Summers: Now my car YouTubers in [00:53:00] Britain rave about the 4×4. Pandas. And the early ones were built by stare poo.

They weren’t even built by fear. James May swears by

William Ross: them. Yeah, 100%. Loves them.

Crew Chief Eric: So I wanted to just say the panda, I wanted to put it out into the universe and all that, but did you know you can now import the ugliest of uglies?

Jon Summers: Go ahead, Eric. I thought you were going to say the Fiat Coupe, Eric.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, okay.

The 20 valve coupe? Fiat Coupe, yeah. Yeah. You stole my Trump card. I was going with ugly and then uglier.

Jon Summers: I’m sorry, Eric.

Crew Chief Eric: No, to your point, both of those, right, are in period, they’re cheap. The Multipla, I’ve seen some crazy stuff with that now. There’s some guy that’s got this rear engine Nürburgring monstrosity that he’s running around sort of like a ring taxi and it suddenly is super cool.

It’s still way ugly. But the coupe, we saw that on the, was it the police interceptor episode of Top Gear? If anybody remembers that far back, he put the Bodecier spikes on the wheels and the whole nine yards. [00:54:00] I saw those cars again when they came out new and I happened to be in Italy that year and I thought they were just so quirky.

Jon Summers: I don’t feel they’ve aged well. No they haven’t. You know when you judge cars at car shows you try and judge elegance and those Fiat coupes they’re cool but are they elegant? No. Not in the way that like an Alfa 159.

Crew Chief Eric: But what does it is if you’ve ever heard that motor and if you’ve ever heard that 20 valve run.

It sounds really good. And that’s sort of what makes up for it. It’s like, well, it’s ugly, but they say they’re fun to drive. I’ve never driven one, but they sound really good. And so that’s sort of like what makes up the difference, right? I guess maybe it’s like that alpha one, six, six.

Jon Summers: So the, I think the early ones were four cylinders, weren’t they?

And then the later ones were five cylinders. Hence there was a 16 valve and 20 valve and a 20 valve turbo. You could get that 20 valve motor. In the sort of golf sized hatchback that Fiat were doing at the time called the Brava. And I actually tire kicked one on a [00:55:00] used car lot in Liverpool some years ago, a Brava HGT.

But anytime you put the key in the lock and try and start the car and it cranks and won’t start on their dealership lot, that’s probably a sign that you should thank the man and leave. So sadly, I didn’t buy a Brava HGT, but yeah, that was the other home for that five pot. Actually, I say that. There was also a, the Mireya, there was a sort of boring midsize called the Mireya and that five cylinder 20 valve motor was in the Mireya.

And those of you who like wagons, there was a weekend version of the Mireya that, I don’t know, I mean, I don’t know if you’d want to import it. There’s a guy in Britain who’s got one, one of the British YouTubers.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s like saying you want to import a Lancia Tema, really? I already have a Geo Metro, I don’t need

Jon Summers: one.

Those Temas, I thought, as in a bit boring. Bobby Basic, you know, the obvious one of those is they did one of those with a Ferrari motor, the 8. 32.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. Yeah, they

Jon Summers: also did one with the turbo one, which is [00:56:00] vaguely interesting. Uh,

Crew Chief Eric: they also rebadged the Chrysler 300 later as the Tama and tried to have us like, come on, this is a joke, right?

Anybody got anything else on the list coming from the Italians? It’s actually worth, I want to take it to a car show.

Jon Summers: The Fiat Strada 130 TC, the greatest hot hatchback of the 1980s. The advert in the 80s was a photo of the car. And underneath, just a table that had horsepower, top speed, and 0 to 60, comparing the Strada with the Golf GTI, whatever, Peugeot 205, 309, whatever you care to mention, Escort XR3i, the Strada was faster.

It was bigger. It had two Weber carbs instead of fuel injection. It was super unreliable. It rusted away. Hardly any of them are left. They’re unobtainium now. Really cool. That’s my vote.

Crew Chief Eric: They’re not because of the Fiat Ritmo lineage. And so suddenly I get the Agida. Just burned them all to the ground.[00:57:00]

Jon Summers: You’re a Ritmo hater, are you? Oh

William Ross: god, they’re awful. The big problem though with those Stratos was though.

Jon Summers: Understeer.

I was going to say William, I don’t know, I’ve never driven one.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, when you, especially the Mark IIs, it looks like a Saab 900 had a baby with a GTI. It’s like, I don’t know, they just make me cringe every time I look at it. Yeah, everyone,

Jon Summers: that was the thing in period. Nobody even knew what they were.

Right. So you just floated below the radar and looking back, I wish I’d had the courage of my convictions to say to my dad, I’m going to get one. Instead of when I put it to my dad, it was like twin carbs. Oh, I had a friend who had a tripe PI. He could never balance the carbs. You know, you can’t buy it. You need a special tool.

And I shouldn’t let me put me off. I might have said about having had three Cortinas. I might’ve had a fit strata one 30 instead.

William Ross: Well, I see that Fiat all of a sudden came back with it, reintroduced it, but it looks like it’s a pickup truck now. Oh, that’s awful.

Mark Shank: In this time frame, [00:58:00] the late 90s, Italy, we haven’t brought up this brand at all.

The DiTomaso, what do they call that? The Guara? The Cuvale. Oh, yeah. No, they have, it’s, it’s with a G. Guara? Guara? It’s a very cool looking car. It was very 2000.

Crew Chief Eric: The Guara? Yeah, I see what you’re saying. Yeah. It’s like the Jaguar XG.

Chris Bright: 220 kind of

Crew Chief Eric: kind of, but if you’re going to buy at that time period, you buy what they called the Q valet, which was the 1999, which was also sold as the new Mangusta, which it looks nothing like the original Mangusta.

If you’re familiar with those cars, it’s all very low to Ceylon MG F.

Chris Bright: It’s all, I disagree. I think it’s cool. That was a good call.

Mark Shank: No, it’s definitely cool. Eric’s just wrong. It’s okay.

Jon Summers: Yeah, is that its own chassis

William Ross: and everything?

Jon Summers: Mustang based, I thought. I thought so too. I

Crew Chief Eric: thought it was a Ford, yeah.

William Ross: Well, because like your point, Eric, with that Corvalli thing, whatever it was, wasn’t there a Ford version of that they had here you could get in the States?

Crew Chief Eric: I’d have to think [00:59:00] about what it was, unless it was based on like, the Mustang

Crew Chief Brad: Well, before the SN95, I think it was the Fox Body.

Crew Chief Eric: So, okay, then it would have been the first of the new stuff, then after the Fox Body. Or

William Ross: was it, what’s his name, um The Shelby?

Crew Chief Brad: No.

William Ross: Atlanta. Don Pano’s? Yeah. Did Pano’s do something with the Cavalli?

Crew Chief Brad: The Pano’s Esperante?

William Ross: Yeah. The Guara is ugly though. I know he dabbled in a few different things or his kid did whatever.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, the Esperante looks similar ish to it, but I think it’s a bigger car. Probably just the body.

Crew Chief Eric: I’ll pass. That’s not for me, Don. All right, so Italians. Anything else Italian before we move a little bit more?

Inland in Europe. Go for it. All right, how about the French? I

Crew Chief Brad: mean, we all know what

Mark Shank: car is coming with them.

Crew Chief Eric: Can you guys guess which one Brad and I have already selected?

Mark Shank: R5 Turbo is the R34 of France.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, the next generation, so not the Williams Clio. But the, the Renault Clio sport [01:00:00] V6, the mid engine one, those are right for the picking.

Jon Summers: Yeah. That was my top pick. That good. Didn’t they call it the Clio 24 valve?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. It came out alongside of the R32 Volkswagen, not the skyline to compete with that and other hot hatches of the period, but it is the ultimate B road bomber if there ever was one. And it’s still, if you don’t look at the mark one Clio sports, you look at the mark.

Two’s slightly newer, like 2003, 2004 timeframe. Still again, within our window, those are the ones to have, I’ve seen that there are some Mark ones running around in California and stuff like that. They’ve already been imported, but if you can get your hands on that 3. 2 liter mid engine. Second generation that is still a good looking car to this day and a performer.

I don’t think it’s very understeery. I believe it has some snap throttle oversteer.

Jon Summers: The last car I had in England was a Laguna. So that was like Renault’s Mondeo with that same V6 motor, which it was a revver. It was a 24 valve revver, but it was down on power next to the [01:01:00] other stuff. So when that Clio V6 came out.

It didn’t have the impact that I feel like it should have had. And when you listen to people who have them now, they have a hell of a reputation. They’re sufficiently rare. You compared them with the Golf R, but the Golf R still got the engine in the front. I feel like they’re not in the same category.

It’s something far more like the Puma RS in terms of something. Really special.

Crew Chief Eric: The advantage that the R 32 had the original golf R had over the Clio was that it was all-wheel drive so you could put all 250 horsepower to the ground versus the Clio was rear wheel drive, which makes it more fun and more agile and all the other things that come with it.

But the R 32 wasn’t a normal GTI. It was a TT with a GTI body on top of it. So it’s a whole different ball of wax at that point. ’cause you’ve got Quatro and a really smart Hal deck.

Mark Shank: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So the only other car I came up with. And it’s an oddball because it sort of leans into what we talked about with Toyota.

Mark, you brought up some of the big cruisers and the [01:02:00] sleepers, and I sort of found a Renault sleeper that’s in this time period, and it came as a twin turbo.

Jon Summers: The Saffron Bi Turbo. Right?

Crew Chief Eric: It’s an elegant car. It’s kind of handsome, you know, in that sort of subtle Cosworthy Vauxhall sort of way as well. And I think nobody’s looking at these.

And if you dress it up with a set of wheels, you’ve got something to write home about.

Jon Summers: Now that’s super rare. They were not sold in Britain. And because I had the Laguna at the time, the Saffron looked like a big version of the Laguna. And it was the time in Europe when. Big Renaults, big Vauxhalls, big Fords just weren’t selling.

So that’s the Franc. The high trim ones never came to England. We never got right hand drive ones. And the last time I had a vacation to France, I actually frustrated my family by stopping and turning around. Getting out at a garage at the side of the road and looking, because I thought I saw a saffron by turbo in the yard at the back.

It wasn’t. It was a Saffron Monaco, which had the same [01:03:00] wheels and trim, but it was not a by turbo

Mark Shank: rated at over 400 horsepower back in the late nineties. That’s crazy. Total sleeper.

Jon Summers: Yeah.

Mark Shank: It’s ugly as sin, though.

Jon Summers: Just blobby and ugly, right? Yeah. Very 90s. And inside, plasticky. The Laguna was, I had a top trim Laguna, and it was still plasticky.

My understanding is the Safrans weren’t much better. Maybe the Biturbo was. The other Renaults to think about in that period that are much more interesting than the Safran, Is the Valsatis and the Avanti.

Crew Chief Eric: The weirdly angular hatchback van

Jon Summers: thing. One was a coupe, like a minivan, a two door minivan. I think that was the Avanti.

Yeah. And then the, so one was like way out there. And then the other one was like, let’s try and be a bit practical here. And that was the Valsatis. I always felt that was pretty interesting. That would be best had probably with a diesel rather than with the V6 petrol.

Crew Chief Eric: If I’m going to go that way with it, I would then just buy a Renault Esprit.

Time period because that’s one of those minivans sort of like the euro [01:04:00] van and I hate to say the dustbuster the silhouette and some of those other quirky ones where people are like, that’s a really cool van because it’s so different. So if I’m going to spend the money on something very French, the Aventine, I’m going to kind of push to the side and go, I’m going to get into spas because.

I’m gonna show up at the Cars and Coffee and be like, Wait, where’d you get that?

Jon Summers: That’s cool. The Esplats is a boring shape. The Avantime and the Valsatis, if you want something unique. I wouldn’t do them. I’m not trying to buy a Valsatis. I’m getting out looking at the Saffron by Turbo, aren’t I?

Crew Chief Eric: In that same time period, you said something that triggered it in my head.

One of the best movies of the late 90s, which is right in this time period. And you can gaze at all the cars in the background while you’re watching it as the movie Ronin. And in Ronin, you had that Citroen XM. So what about something from that camp?

Jon Summers: All right. So Citroen for me, the AX GT, the AX was the little one.

The GT was the hot rod one. This thing weighs about the same as a Coke can. They were fun to drive. Super dangerous, but fun to drive. How

Crew Chief Eric: understeery was it? [01:05:00]

Jon Summers: Bigger model, the BX. There was a version of those that had, we’ll talk about Peugeots in a minute. The same as the Peugeot 205. Same motor as that 1. 9 16 valve head thing could do 140 miles an hour and it had Citroën’s weird hydropneumatic suspension.

So if you look up Citroën BXGTI 16 valve, there’s one that the British YouTubers have been sharing that’s called Tomato. I mean that car, it’s not super weird old Citroën like Citroën GSA was sufficiently mainstream to have real. appeal and actually cross over to Cortina man,

Crew Chief Eric: but if you’re going to spend that kind of money, you wouldn’t go back and buy a BX four TC, like the rally car that never was.

Jon Summers: No, because that’s like a full on rally car, right? This BX 19 GTR. That’s like a hot rod, that’s a five, ten, fifteen thousand dollar proposition rather than a The other one I’ve got that I think is really interesting, and if I was actually trying to help a [01:06:00] collector build something that was going to impress people out of cars and coffee.

How about the Citroen CX Turbo? You can get a three row wagon version of that as well.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh yeah!

Jon Summers: They’re rare! There’s even a version of that a newspaper firm in France used. If you look up, so there’s like a van version of it that was designed to deliver like Figaro all over Europe. It’s like a three axle trailer one that some guy in Paris used to build that I fell down a rat hole of reading about.

But look, a turbo Citroen CX, that has to be a wow moment.

Crew Chief Eric: The problem I’ve always had with is the same problem I have with the DS, right? The Diane. I just I can’t and then I look at it and I go was Citroen challenged to make an Audi 200 Avant because that’s what it looks like. I don’t know there’s something about these Citroens that makes my blood curdle.

Jon Summers: I mean Citroens you do either love them or hate them and I am not a Citroen [01:07:00] guy. To drive they’re really weird they have like hydropneumatic brakes so the brakes are like really really sensitive and they have this super like Bloaty ride, like a lot of French cars of that period have a good ride, Peugeot or whatever will handle well and be compliant.

But Citroens, they were in a different class for ride quality. The big ones in the BXs, you know, the AX is just like a little hot rod.

Chris Bright: I don’t think it got mentioned, but the Peugeot 206, they had a rally car version, hot hatch kind of deals. Any of those hot hatch special editions, I think just are automatically cool.

Jon Summers: I agree. Yeah. For Peugeot, I had the 6, which had the same wheel as. The 205 Turbo 16, the 205 GTI 1. 9 that had different wheels on it. That’s how you can tell them apart. If you’re watching Anglia car auctions and watching them roll through, there was also a model called the 309. Now that was interesting because that was designed by the team in Coventry before Peugeot took over [01:08:00] what was left of.

Chrysler and it was due to be the last Talbot or the last Sunbee and the 309 in GTI form is considered to handle better than the 205. I never had one. I came close, 500 quid was agreed in the pub car park and then the bloke no showed and I never did get the 309 GTI with the two week MOT on it. The other one to think about, and these are rare now, is the 405 MI 16.

So that’s the same motor as in the BX 16 valve, but a Peugeot 405. So arguably more boring.

William Ross: Well, aren’t those 205s hugely popular or even now and back then?

Crew Chief Eric: People are importing the rallies as well, which is like the base model version of them.

William Ross: Pricing are crazy from my understanding.

Jon Summers: But the rallies were rarer and were arguably an even more pure form of what Peugeot were doing.

There’s another model, they did a smaller model called the 106, and the 106 rallies are arguably even cooler. If we’re looking at that [01:09:00] small size, talked about the Clio 24 valve, that had the engine sort of in the back seat and like wide tires and a good stance. You could get like a Clio William, as in the Williams Formula One team.

So this was when Renault were in bed with Williams and had Williams building their British touring car team. There was a special Williams breathed on version of the Clio 16 valve. So this was like 1. 8 liters, 180, 190 horse, but tiny little car, lovely gold wheels handling by Williams. I feel like the challenge with those is that they’re so well loved at home.

that you wouldn’t buy for a cheap price. If you were trying to impress people at a Cars and Coffee, great, nobody else is going to have one. If you’re trying to make money, I feel like if you filled a shipping crate with Alpha GTVs that you’d paid 3, 000 for in England and you could sell here for 8, 000 or 9, 000, I feel like you might be able to make money with that.

Similarly with the TVRs. But I feel like with the hot hatches, They’re just [01:10:00] too poxy and slow for American enthusiasts to really get them. Perhaps with the exception of Chris there.

William Ross: Didn’t they make that Cleo Williams? Did they make a super special rare one that was named after one of their drivers? Like they make like one was like 25 cars or something.

Jon Summers: And that’s like your JDM special edition ones that if you. of a guy that remembers that, because one of the reasons why I like TVR is that my best mate in England lent a car to a TVR guy to go to Le Mans one year because his TVR was broken and that favour has never been repaid. And I’ve always said to my buddy, you know, if we ever want to buy TVRs, you know, get Stu, come car shopping with us because Stu still has TVRs, still knows people in the community and knows which mechanics are the good ones and which are the expensive ones and And I feel like you need that unfair advantage if you’re going to make a business out of it.

If you’re just going to impress people at the cars and coffee, totally different matter.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, that’s what we’re all about here, John. Well, I’ve got one for you from the French [01:11:00] camp that you all have probably forgotten about. Three letters, sort of like TBR. Instead, this is MBS. They created the Venturi, they had the Atlantique, they had the 300, the 300 GT, but more specifically the MVS Venturi 400 GT.

That is the car to get.

Mark Shank: Yeah, that was on my list. I was about to bring that one up as well. I was going to be a little more brave. The whole, all Venturis are cool in my opinion. Thousand percent.

William Ross: That was the one that they erased it actually didn’t do too bad at Le Mans, didn’t it, in a couple of years?

Crew Chief Eric: Correct. They erased it in their version of IMSA over there before it was WECC. But yeah, they did pretty well. And they were just an independent French brand kind of shooting after the likes of Lotus. I mean, the cars have similar design and things like that. And in borrowed parts, like always, they still look good today, especially if you buy the right one.

But the 400 is a little bit more ostentatious. Because it’s sort of the last of the line, it’s got the most horsepower. It’s got the big wine, it’s got the big wheels and the flares. And it just, it looks like a homologated GT three car, right? [01:12:00] So that to me is a huge draw and you show up with something like that.

And immediately people are going to ask you what body kit is that on your Lotus Esprit. But the reality is it’s French and it’s cool and I wouldn’t kick it out, that’s for sure.

Mark Shank: I think it’s a little bigger than that though. Like if you want your Lotus Esprit body kit and a low volume French maker, how do you, is this Hamel?

Hamel? I only knew it from Gran Turismo 20 some odd years ago. And then doing some research for this caused me to kind of dig it back up. But the Pommel Berlinette, it’s a short wheelbase wide. It was made by a former race car driver. He started the company and they made one model 1990, 2003. Like I said, I only knew of it cause I, 25 years ago, I played it in Gran Turismo.

But it is very much in that kind of 200 horsepower, lightweight four cylinder kind of style. I think probably going head to head to the, with the Elise in the mid nineties, when the Elise first started coming around.

Crew Chief Eric: So the Hamel or Hummel, depending on how you put it. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Shank: It

Crew Chief Eric: has that [01:13:00] sort of Celica STS look to the front of it, like the gen three, you know, X rally car with the four headlights in the front.

And it has some design keys from some other cars. It’s peculiar, especially that GT 40 reverse scoop in the hood and all that kind of stuff. I mean, it’s different. I would drive one, I just wonder how understeery it is.

Mark Shank: LAUGHING You’re joking the

Jon Summers: show. No, but we’ve been talking about those hot hatchbacks, this is what, as Americans, get enthusiastic about.

They are understeery.

Crew Chief Eric: Since we’re talking French and we’re talking quirky, and I think, unless we find something totally obscure outside of that, I want to give a nod to Sort of a French cousin coming from the Swedes. And we actually have an episode in our catalog that you can go back and listen to about importing a gray market Volvo.

And that’s the Volvo 480i turbo, which shares a lot of Renault parts. It’s an interesting design. It gave way to cars like the C30 and, uh, things like that. So it’s another hot hatch coming from Sweden. That’s another one that there aren’t many. I mean, I [01:14:00] know there is one a couple of miles from me. I can go see it whenever I want.

And they’re super nice people. And, you know, they told the whole story of how they got it here and all that, but you’re not going to see too many of those in the States. I know when Nate and Emily take theirs to a show, people are like, what is that? I didn’t even know Volvo made a hatchback. So that’s another kind of cool one to consider.

And that sort of brings us to the last country. I think we need to talk about, which is the Germans. Do the Germans really have anything that they didn’t send to the States?

Mark Shank: RS2?

Crew Chief Eric: You can build an RS2, that’s the problem.

Jon Summers: Fair enough. That’s that Audi wagon that Porsche built, is that right?

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t even want to get into a debate on that one.

Yes, so Porsche supposedly, allegedly, massaged the engine. And as like they did for Mercedes and some other things. But the reality is that car Once you take the 911 wheels off and the big brakes and you know, whatever they did to the tuning of the motor, it’s still a boxy Audi 90 Avant with a big turbo.

Right. That’s why [01:15:00] I say you can build those cars. My dad had a replica S2, which is the coupe version of that Avant. And that was built in Florida by BAT. So it was a North American S2. It had all the bits and pieces from Europe and all that stuff. Brad remembers that car later got a V8 because he wanted more power.

That being said, I mean, yes. Sure, but doesn’t, what’s his face from Cars and Bids have one of those? Doug DeMuro? Yeah, Doug DeMuro has one, right?

Crew Chief Brad: He’s got the S2 wagon, yeah.

Jon Summers: I was offered one, my last job in the city in London. We hired like some city whiz kid dude and he raced historic group C cars at the weekend.

And one day we were in the pub and he said, Summers, I’ve got this Audi wagon. Do you want to buy it? And I was like, maybe. Cause I was not longing into the Laguna at that time. And I wasn’t selling a lot of software. I was reaching the point where I was like, I’m done with this shit. 10 grand he wanted for it.

Oh, it was an M plater. So that would have meant it was 95, 96 and it had done 85, 000 miles at the time, 10, 000 pounds.

Chris Bright: Away. [01:16:00] If we’re talking Germany and Mercedes Benz, there are quite a few that they did not bring over. Okay. But they’re all trucks.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, we’re doing some Unimogs?

Chris Bright: Even better are fire trucks or ambulances.

In looking at this, there’s a cattle truck that I saw that you could turn into a car hauler easy. I crave one of those. Wouldn’t that be amazing? I think you’re alone on that island. But

Mark Shank: I support you. I just don’t know what.

Chris Bright: Well, everybody has all these idiot things that, you know, they go out and spend all these big renter vans.

It’s like, wouldn’t it be cooler to have like an airport fire truck that you convert into a camper van? Wouldn’t it be cool to have a Mercedes ice cream truck? It’d be way more badass rolling into the mountains, you know? It might be an Oregon thing. Did

William Ross: BMW have quite a few of the wagons? Was those the 3 series or the 5 series ones?

They did them over there, they didn’t bring them over here. And then they would flop where they’d bring them here and not over there.

Crew Chief Eric: Then some alpena that we never saw and then like all sorts were some too. But like [01:17:00] on previous, what should I buy is when we talk about that, you can sort of to the point of the Audi as well.

Yeah, build it. You could build it. If you take an E 36, which there’s like a B eight, E 36 alpena, something that we, I saw that pop up on the list and I’m like, great, so tell me what’s different and I’ll build one. Because overall the chassis and everything is the same. It’s sort of like, you know, the the M versus the non M argument.

I struggled with the Germans quite a bit. I did find something,

Crew Chief Brad: but to William’s point, the touring, you can’t just go out and just take a regular E 36 and slap the wagon rear end on it. I mean, I feel like they’ve probably imported, I don’t know if they’ve actually chopped up the car and. Welded on the wagon rear end to ’em.

I mean, where are the receipts?

Crew Chief Eric: Right. , . I mean, if I’m gonna do that, I want an E 30 wagon. Those are cool, especially the late ones, like 90, 91, 92 at the tail end of the e thirties. I think those are super cool as a station wagon.

William Ross: Yeah. Weren’t those like three eighteens or [01:18:00] three sixteens or something?

Something like that? Yeah. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: I think those are really neat. I’ve seen some of those stateside and I’m always like, ah, it’s a good looking car.

William Ross: I think it does an all wheel drive too. I think it was too. Yeah.

Jon Summers: Yeah. The three, two, five IX.

William Ross: IX. Yeah.

Jon Summers: Cause you couldn’t get them in Britain. I remember years ago being in Europe and seeing them in Europe and thinking the IX ones always road higher.

Whereas the three, two, five ones road that little bit lower. For me, that was the game changer. And like, I like a car to be low, not. Looking like an SUV.

Crew Chief Eric: And that’s the same in the Volkswagen camp. You know, once they ditched the whole Synchro moniker, they went to what they called with the Mark 4s and the Mark 3s.

They had the Variant and the Variant was their 4x4s. So you could get like a Golf Estate 4×4, you know, all this kind of stuff. And like, okay, that’s cool. There’s guys that cut the floor pans here and then they, you know, bolt up Audi rear end. So again, that’s in that weird restomod. Category, like if you want to spend the money, it’s probably cheaper to build one than it is to import one in some ways.

Unless you want like a right hand drive Mark 3 [01:19:00] GTI, you know, something bizarre like that. Like then you’re kind of going only to England to kind of bring that stuff in. The only thing I came up with, and it’s German by proxy, and it’s a lot older than the stuff that we’ve been talking about. And it made me scratch my head going, why haven’t we imported more of the Mexican and South American variants?

Mark Shank: The Super Beetle?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, not even the Super Beetle, but like the Brasilia. All the parts are interchangeable with the Carmen Ghia, and with the 911, and the Beetles, and everything that it’s based on. And it’s like, how cool would it be to have a Brasilia?

Mark Shank: Not that cool. Is your ice cream shop? This is Eric’s ice cream truck.

I went in the other direction. Like, there are some, what do you call them in the UK? Like, Hedro Automated, like two guys in a shed with some spanners or whatever. You know, you have Weissmann. I think from that time period, it was like the MF3 around 2000. Curatec, they would put like inline. You know, it almost looks like a German Morgan in that kind of retro styling.

They’re actually still around. [01:20:00] They didn’t die off somehow. They’re still making stuff. Similar kind of old, uh, retro styles. And then there was Gumballa. Were they around or was that more like 2005, 2006?

Crew Chief Eric: No, Gumballa was all the way back to the 80s.

William Ross: Yeah. Cocaine could only make those designs. Like DeLorean.

Crew Chief Eric: Gumballa, man. Any time I think about those, oof. Let’s make a slant nose, even more slanty. Let’s put some lines on the sides. Yeah, big test to roast the straights down the side. I’m like, what is this? Did you ever see the Gimbala 928? That thing just will melt your brain. It’s so bad. I love 928. Yes. Left alone.

They’re perfect.

Mark Shank: We were kinder to Japan. It feels like, right. We were willing to kind of cater to the special. It’s like you have all these aftermarket, right? You know, AMG wasn’t acquired until late nineties. You know, there are other big tuners in Germany, some for Mercedes, some for Porsche, like a Brabus, the you got Brabus, you got rough, but not all those things made [01:21:00] emissions for the US, right?

Like there’s got to be some special editions worth farming out there to bring back, I would think.

William Ross: Well, there’s a bunch of those, like a lot of the AMGs and stuff like that. I mean, I always thought was odd is they Japan only sale original whatever, but they were left hand drive. And then AMG had a, I was a dealer or it was themselves, but They actually ship them there, then the conversions were done there in Japan, to make them the AMG and stuff like that.

But like, Curated does a crap load of stuff like that from Japan. Getting like a lot of those AMGs, like they’re big on those, but get big money for those cars. Non Mercedes owned

Jon Summers: AMG cars. It’s a weird thing with cars from Japan though, when I’ve written about a number of them for auction houses, and they’re always in superb condition, but with zero history.

So I wrote about an E30 AMG. Alpina, and from the photographs, the car looked like it was a brand new car, but there were no service records and no history with it whatsoever, because the Japanese are that obsessed [01:22:00] with privacy. Like, you’ve really got to challenge with those AMG cars, like that version of Ed Boleyn, who you see on VinWiki, who’s trying to do the same thing with AMG as Ed Boleyn’s done with Lamborghini.

I feel like he’s got a hell of a challenge because the history just isn’t there. Any car that comes from Japan, there is just zero history. There’s no, like, if I’m writing about a Corvette and I can see that the Corvette’s been worked on by a mechanic, I’ll call that mechanic and ask him. Whereas with the Japanese, they won’t supply any of that information, even if you were ready to pick up the phone and Break out your best Japanese to talk to.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, the last one for the Germans. I’ll give a nod back to James Humphrey because it was one of the few German cars he had on his list outside of some Audi station wagons like the RS four. Again, another car you can basically build with Boltons here in the United States was the Luo GTI. We actually battled back and forth about this car on the drive through episode and whether it was worth.

doing that or finding yourself an original Mark 1. You’d be better

Jon Summers: off [01:23:00] with a Saxo GTI. The best hot hatch of that period, small one, was the Citroën Saxo GTI. And the proof of it was, it’s probably still true in Southern Italy, in Spain, France, those kind of places now. The youth tune the Saxo GTIs, they don’t care about the Lupo GTIs.

Less understeering, I get it. I see what it’s all about.

Crew Chief Eric: Alright, so as we wrap this thing out, like we always try to do before we do our lightning round is actually give some sane advice. To our collectors that are listening to this again, I will say, let’s refer back to the Volvo 480i episode with Nate and Emily, where they talk about bringing in a car from Sweden, the process going through the docs, like the paperwork and registration and all those kinds of things, because they gave a lot of detail.

And I don’t think we need to cover all that again. We will have a link in the show notes to an article that’s very well written that I found that also goes through a more modernized version of all the rules and the regulations and like what it takes to bring these cars into the states because [01:24:00] even though they’re legal now doesn’t necessarily mean that the process It’s still a challenge to get these cars delivered, verify that they are what they are, that you’re not getting scammed and all those kinds of things.

And then there’s some shops, reputable or otherwise, that they specialize in import export. And so, your mileage may vary on all that. I will also say that I found a loophole. You can bring cars through Canada. Now that might change this year, we don’t know. Canada can bring in cars as new as 10 years old.

But if you want to export from Canada into the United States, you only have to wait 21 years and not 25 years. So we have a four year gap that you can work with between us and Canada. But now you got to take that other step. You got to get somebody to bring it into Canada and hold it, and then bring it into the United States.

State. So are you really buying any time? They’re very interesting debate, but the reality is the hardest part in this process. And William, maybe you could talk to this is registering, insuring, and getting [01:25:00] parts for these cars. It’s almost like buying an exotic.

William Ross: Yeah. Bring it in. You’re going to have all your hurdles and stuff.

You got to jump through. I personally try not to get involved in that aspect of it. I’ll try and steer them to something or not because I just don’t want the liability. So it’s not something, again, it’s kind of same thing like with transport, everything like that. Here’s some bunch you could call if you want.

I’m not recommending them say yes or no to any of them, but here you go. I don’t want to have that ball because something goes wrong and you know everyone’s looking to blame someone else. You know, hey, it’s your fault, your fault. I always recommend going to, especially as companies, not trying to do it yourself.

I mean, unless you wanna start doing it multiple times and hey, learn to process, spend the money a few extra dollars and have it just brought in. Have them do it all there. There’s actually cars International with the shipper. There’s some in there that will actually do from door to door and all your pay, everything, doctorate, nine yards, shipping it, the whole nine yards, not just say once you get here, then they’ll handle it.

I mean, they do everything. So once it hits the port, then it’s end, then they ship. They do it all. These companies are starting to get more one stop shop because that’s what people want. They don’t want to be calling [01:26:00] five different entities to try and get a card here. So they actually want to make one phone call.

But again, it’s like reputation, whatnot. Any company, they’re always going to have a hiccup here and there. Won’t go smoothly a hundred percent of the time. Let them do it. Except they do on a regular basis. I don’t say, Oh, use this or do this. I just don’t want the liability. Parts wise, though, that’s the big thing, though.

Okay, now you have it here. Is there any here? Are you going to be shipping everything over? Should you just start buying parts just to stay ahead of the game? Wait till something, you know, it’s kind of that thing. You start hoarding stuff. Depending on the model and stuff, like, does the factory even make them anymore?

Are you going to go complete aftermarket? I mean, are you going to need to hunt down NOS? I mean, there’s so many different avenues to go on that stuff, you know?

Crew Chief Eric: You bring up a really important point that I kept kind of mulling around in my head. If I had to buy a gray market car myself I would probably lean towards something that either had cross part number pollination with a vehicle that was in the United States that it was easier to get like you start buying French cars and it’s sort of like going to the track and you look around the paddock and you’re the only one with that car [01:27:00] and something breaks well nobody can help you right it’s the same thing you bring a French car and you’re all by yourself unless you find a specialty shop versus you bring in a weird Volkswagen or Some of these BMWs that we talked about, or even some of the Asian cars where they share a lot of DNA with their U S cousins, you’re like, ah, well, that’s actually the same part they used on the Camry or the Lexus GS 400, you know, and you can like kind of cross match it.

So you can build to your point, that sort of repository of parts without having to bend over backwards, but you bring in something really odd ball. You’re in exotic territory where it’s like. Go find a fabricator. Cause you’re on your own.

William Ross: Yeah. And you’re going to spend it 10 times as much too. That’s the other problem.

But again, you know, it’s one day if you poured it and then something happens, then you’ve got a nice little savings account because then you could start selling stuff or a nice markup. Look at the price side of stuff, right?

Crew Chief Eric: So our import export startup guys. John, Chris, and especially Mark, you’ve been looking at BAT and some of this, where do you think people should be putting their money?

Should it be into Asian cars, something from mainland Europe, Australia? Where do you think [01:28:00] the best investment is?

Mark Shank: Sure. From an investment perspective, you know, you just, you got to ride the demographics. And so as your millennials move into their peak income, you know, they haven’t gotten there yet. I think there’s still an upward trajectory on those 95 to 2005 cars.

I think even in this show, we showed a little bias towards the JDM cars. I’m guilty of that as, as anyone else. And so I think, yeah, I would lean in that market, you know, but you got to be smart about it. The buying advice, you didn’t ask me for buying advice, but I’m giving it anyway. It would be buy something that somebody else already imported.

That that would be find somebody who was super passionate and super in love with that car and for whatever reason they have to get out of it now. It’s really unfortunate that they have to get out of it. That’s the best card. I takes a while to find those. You got to look for a long time, but that would be 100 percent my advice.

Crew Chief Eric: Chris, what do you think? Where would you put your money?

Chris Bright: I think there’s some edge cases and we talked about a few where there’s. kind of a car that’s relatively unknown, but when you bring it [01:29:00] over, it would really catch attention like that Venturi or something like that. I mean, that’s probably not a great example because they’re super rare, but I’m more thinking about what’s going to get the biggest crowd at Cars and Coffee and less about the money side of things.

And again, this shows my own personal taste, but it’s like, I’m all for like, you know, modded or upgraded race car style, especially the Tommy Mackinnon, especially that one.

William Ross: That’s an awesome car. That’s a cool car.

Chris Bright: I think they’re very impressive and they’re very authentic. I just think there’s a real connection with the racing lineage from which they came.

It’s where those win on Sunday, sell on Monday kind of vibe. And I really relate to that. I really feel like you’re not getting the car that’s on the track necessarily, but you’re getting something that’s extremely evocative of that, unless you have those little fantasies. Whether it’s rally cars or touring cars, anything in that vein, I think, is where I put my money.

Crew Chief Eric: All right, so John, as our import export expert, how about some fatherly advice for our listeners? Where would you put your money? [01:30:00] Are you siding with Mark and Chris about kind of sticking with the Asian domestic market?

Jon Summers: I definitely like the idea of reducing the hassle and buying something that somebody else has already had all the hassle doing.

I mean, that’s like The whole thing of instead of buying a project car, you buy the car that somebody else has already built, you buy it off them and then you can drive it straight away kind of thing. So I feel like there’s a lot to be said for that. In terms of investability, it is about the demographics, but I think it’s also about rarity.

And it’s also about that fundamental thing of whether or not it’s cool. So that DiTomaso, Bangusta or Cavell or whatever you want to call it. Rare as hen’s teeth. Maybe desirable for some people, but it’s a small minority. Most people are just not, uh, You know, certainly if I was going to do it as a business, you know, I like TVR.

Although they’re super unreliable, I feel like if I greased Gammy’s mate Stew’s palms properly, Stew, and Gammy went with him, we could make sure that whatever was [01:31:00] arriving at the docks in Southampton in England, was okay. And I feel like I could then with my buddy here to have something that I could drive round and then he could sort out and flip on and perhaps just maybe we might be able to make some money out of it.

I feel like the French stuff’s really interesting. You know, the hot hatches. All of that stuff. I feel like there’s not necessarily money to be made there. The one four seven GTA. Now that’s something different because I’ve seen alpha GTV that were not worth very much at home, make ridiculous prices here.

And if you are at that cars and coffee and somebody’s never seen an alpha one four seven GTA before, and they go out for a drive in it. And that torque steer snatches the steering wheel out of their hands. They’re probably gonna wanna buy the car because it’s thrilling and exciting. And so I feel like those, I mean I, I was watching a car auction just the other day, Anglia car auctions in Britain and they had now for GTA and it rolled through for like 12,000 [01:32:00] pounds or something like that.

Well, I feel like you could probably sell it for about double that here if, but there’s a big risk associated with I importing it and fixing. And, and, and, and, and. So yeah, so I like the TVRs. I like that Alpha GTV. I’d try and do the Murcas and the Capris back to Europe, I think.

William Ross: I tell you what though, Professor Sommer’s imports would be one of the funnest dealership showrooms to go visit.

Crew Chief Eric: Did you like how he masked the understeer by talking about torque steer instead? He’s like, pay no attention to the understeer. Jerking the wheel out

Mark Shank: of your hands.

Crew Chief Eric: So that being said, it is time for our lightning round. In honor of John being the newest on our, what should I buy handle this time? We’ll start with you, John, you get to pick a gray market car, and I’m going to give you a little bit of leeway here, and this goes for everybody.

It might not be importable today, but maybe in the next two or three years, that way I give Chris some breathing space. You get to pick a gray market car of your choice. Maybe it’s completely off this list. You’ve been hiding that ace up your [01:33:00] sleeve. Money is no object and your favorite understeery car of all time.

Do you get to get picked too? So John go.

Jon Summers: I do a Strada 130 TC. I never had one in period. I’d really love to have some teeny light. Hot hatch, but I would never recommend that to anybody else.

Crew Chief Eric: Best understeering car of all time. Ford

Jon Summers: Mustang.

Crew Chief Eric: You got a Mustang to understeer?

Jon Summers: Wow. Yeah, they push on entry, don’t they?

They push on entry and then you need to come in the gas.

Chris Bright: I think we’re seeing the pattern here of a Ford Mustang understeer. You should go to a driving school.

Crew Chief Eric: He’s driving backwards. Don’t talk about those 911 guys like that. Don’t insult Mark. That said, Chris, you’re up next.

Chris Bright: Yeah, obviously, the Alfa Romeo Brera, that’s literally on my list, like, when I can do that, I’ll probably do that, just because I’ve been waiting since I visited there, you know, oh, those many years and saw them on the road, so I would definitely take that.

That’s first in. Y’all gave me a lot to think about, to be honest with you. I really like [01:34:00] that, I hadn’t heard of it before Venturi looked really cool. I don’t know, I thought that was sexy as hell. I’d probably check one of those out.

Crew Chief Eric: Alright, let’s pop over to your arch rival.

Mark Shank: I’m gonna go with the first car I talked about tonight.

The Toyota Chaser. I just think it’s very unique. You’re not going to see one over here. It’s a good practical car. It’s, it’s something you could build on top of and make really fast, inexpensive to get into, easy to get parts over here, even though they never sold one because it is a Toyota.

Crew Chief Eric: I really thought you would pull a Mitsubishi FTO out of your hat.

You know,

Mark Shank: my favorite understeering car was my 1998 Eclipse GST. That car was a lot of fun and very, very understeering.

Crew Chief Eric: William. Money’s no object. You’re buying yourself a gray market car. What is it?

William Ross: Probably an E36 M3 GT. Ooh. One that won’t be for another, what, two years? E46 M3 CSL.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

William Ross: Understeery, I don’t know.

Any front wheel drive car is pretty much all understeery. Anything older than 10 years old front wheel drive is going to be understeery.

Crew Chief Eric: [01:35:00] Writing them all off like John.

William Ross: Yeah, those are the ones I’d look at.

Crew Chief Eric: Bradley, what you got for us? What are you buying?

Crew Chief Brad: You know, I’m kind of digging that Lotus Carlton.

Either that or any early 2000s Land Rover Defenders.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, we didn’t talk about those too much. I love those.

Crew Chief Brad: No, I’m looking at one right now. It’s a really cool, it’s a Defender 130 double cab pickup truck. I mean, that’s super unique here. I mean, never seen one here. It just looks really, really bad ass.

It’s really well done. Uh, and then understeery car. I mean, any stock Mark four Volkswagen is pretty damn understeery before Eric dials in the suspension. And then it’s very oversteery.

Crew Chief Eric: 100 percent oversteery. Go completely the other way. All right. So for me, I’ve been hiding one right here, right in my sleeve.

It is my extra ace. I only have to wait one more year. I’m going to give a nod to my sister. A couple other people because I think they would buy one of these too. I would have in my garage, it only came in silver. It only came with a roll cage for [01:36:00] interior. And that’s the 2001 Beetle RSI with a 3. 2 liter VR6 and all wheel drive.

That’s the precursor to the original Golf R. Those things are awesome. And that’s what I would have as my gray market car. And in terms of understeery front wheel drives, you know, the worst front wheel drive car I ever drove was my grandfather’s Alto Bianchi Y10, which is the Y10. It had the skinniest tires on the planet, the worst suspension, and the most wheel deflection I have ever seen, that I literally curb rashed the wheels from its understeer.

That’s how bad it was. Complete rollover. Absolutely horrible, horrible handling car. There you have it folks, yet another what should I buy in the bag. So Brad, take us home.

Crew Chief Brad: From JDM icons to forbidden European speed machines, we’ve explored the thrills and potential pitfalls of bringing these once unattainable cars to US roads.

Whether you’re dreaming of owning one in the middle of an import process, or just love the [01:37:00] idea of these automotive uniforms finally getting their moment stateside, the adventure is just beginning. And if you’d like to continue the conversation or expand on some of the topics here, don’t be shy. Check out our break, fix discord, where you can get in contact with the panelists you heard here tonight.

And I want to thank all of our panelists for another great, what should I buy debate? Sorry, Don Weaver, we ran out of time. We’ll have to have you on next time, you know, and uh, good night.

Crew Chief Eric: And with that gentleman, I can’t thank you enough for returning yet again for an evening of frivolity and. Seriously, thank you for coming back on, sharing your thoughts, and I look forward to seeing all of you back for yet another What Should I Buy?

We got some others lined up for the season, so thank you again for sharing your wisdom and your comic relief. Careful

Crew Chief Brad: with that understeer. Ha ha

Chris Bright: ha ha ha ha! Next time I come through, head south, I’m gonna drop in on you, Jonathan. I’d like to meet you properly, Chris. Thank you. Great, thanks. And thanks for the invite, fellas.

Appreciate it.

Mark Shank: Thanks, man. It was a lot of fun.

Chris Bright: Ciao.[01:38:00]

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 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.

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Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

• 00:00:00 Exploring Forbidden Fruit: 25-Year Import Rule
• 00:00:45 Setting the Stage: Gray Market Cars
• 00:05:53 Diving into JDM Cars
• 00:17:02 Exploring Holden and Australian Imports
• 00:21:28 TVR and British Imports
• 00:33:03 Exploring European Rally and Touring Cars
• 00:33:35 The Appeal of British Cars
• 00:41:22 Diving into Italian Cars: Alfa Romeo and Beyond
• 00:59:36 The Allure of French Cars: Renault, Peugeot, Citroën oh my!
• 01:14:21 The German Car Market’s Hidden Gems
• 01:23:29 Importing Cars: Tips, Tricks, and Legal Loopholes
• 01:27:50 Investment Advice for Car Collectors
• 01:32:33 Lightning Round: Dream “Gray Market” Cars
• 01:36:45 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

• Importing a Hot Hatch Volvo – The 480i Turbo
• Drive Thru News #53
• James Humphrey’s – 25 “Cool Cars” you can Import in 2025.
• UPDATED: International Car Importing Rules & Regs guide for 2025.