WSIB: Italian Exotics!

• We are focused on Italian Cars… collectors, sports cars and exotics, etc.
• Our audience is the collector / buyer who has always dreamed of buying an Italian car, but has been too afraid to cross that line, maybe it’s because of bad word-of-mouth, horror stories, misconceptions on parts availability, etc. – we want to myth bust that!
• Target price ranges are always <$50k, $50k-$150k, and the $150k+ buyers based on current economic climates. 
• “bang for the buck” is always key, and don’t be afraid to think outside the box on suggestions. example: cars designed by Italians, think Volvo P1800 ES – penned by a former Ferrari employee. Or any of the Zagato, Bertone, Ghia cars that are out there. 
• The grey-market and 20+ year cars are open season, so let’s bring up things like the popularity of the Lancia Delta Integrale HF’s (as an example) which are finding their way here now. How difficult are these cars to import?
• Suggestions for good “Investment Italians” – ie: Donovan has said, the Gallardo’s are the hot ticket right now for future growth/sell potential – what else is in that space? 

and much, much more!

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motor Sports Podcast Break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something motor sports related

for petrolheads of a certain age. The posters on our bedroom wall, the dream car, the exotic, the temptress, if you will, those are the cars that corrupted our souls and invited us into the enthusiast world for the first time. They are defined by painstakingly passionate craftsmen, vehicles with luscious curves, exaggerated features, spicy accents, and fiery red paint schemes from manufacturers with names that end in vowels.

But thanks to misconceptions, myths, and limited availability, it’s often not at the top of collector’s minds unless they’re willing to take that risk or make that plunge into the worlds of Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, and Alpha Rome to name a few. With the help of returning what should I buy? Panelists and Italian [00:01:00] car owners and experts such as William Ross from the Ferrari Marketplace, Chris Bright from Collector, part Exchange, Don Weiberg from Garage Style Magazine, along with Petrolhead extraordinaire Mark s Shank.

We aim to prove the naysayers wrong and find you or me the perfect Italian collector car. That’s right. Welcome back to the show, gentlemen. It’s always good to have you. Thanks for having us. Yeah, good to be back. It’s always good to see me. I know. I look in the mirror every day and I think, man, if the good Lord had created anything fine, he’d have kept it for himself.

No Goti, . Shall I goti you? Doing that introduction with cracking me up. It’s like when you watch the newscaster, it’s like, hi, my name’s Chris Bride and I’m down in medical. Mak.

I mean, English is my second language. That’s all I’m gonna say. Clearly it just killed me. It’s like you’re going along and then it’s like [00:02:00] don’t, don’t get me started. Bik. Right. I have no bias. . I am not interested in, you know, those little Italian jobs. William, you’ll be, you’ll be happy to know I have absolutely no ego at all.

William. You’ll be very happy to know. I have no ego at all. None. Oh, I can see that. Yeah, you’re very. Very humble. My father was a dictator. You know? Which side did you take after the dick or the tater? ? . I’m the most humble. There is no one more humble than, so, you know, I own enough for Romeo. Mm-hmm. and Rome got stolen.

Oh. About a month ago, I used it as a daily driver and some people gave me grief about that, and I’m like, fuck you, it’s my car one two. I’d rather every now and again, have a little bad happen to it, but be able to enjoy every moment with this car, right, and let people enjoy it out on the road, like it [00:03:00] sparks conversations and all sorts of things everywhere.

I. I was at the airport, I came back, it wasn’t where I left it, so I called the police and they thought I was a little crazy. But here’s one thing I learned at the airport, and it’s probably true at most airports, they go around the entire parking garage and inventory every car where it’s parked. Like they drive a camera car around and they know like, I give ’em my license plate and they go, yeah, your car’s in uh, two F, the second slot in.

And it’s like, no, I’m standing exactly right there. And it’s not. But the fact that they even knew that was a little bit surprising. My car got stolen and. It got recovered. About three days later, a mechanic at a shop that I actually go to was driving home and he saw a car that looked out of place where it was, and he took a picture and he posted it.

This Facebook group that chases stolen cars, it’s called pdx, which is our airport code stolen cars. Guess what? My friend, uh, who had had her car stolen, You should post up there. So she said, send me your information and I’ll do [00:04:00] it for you. Cause I was just kind of pissed off and not happy. And she did it.

So she’s the one who actually saved the car. I went and I recovered it. It was part, actually not in a terrible place, but behind an RV of some people who were, you know, partaking of, of the rock. The rock that is Oh, and, and what did they want with the sixties era? Alpha A male, but I don’t think they’re the ones who stole it.

I think they’re the ones who kind of got it when the people who actually stole it, who knew what they were doing. Because you’re in an airport that is a highly surveilled place, right? Yeah. I mean there’s cameras everywhere. They’re taking pictures of you every which way. Coal gates and all that kind of stuff to get outta there.

So they went in, they had face mask on and they did it in such a way. If you take a ticket and you leave within 10 minutes, cuz the parking lot’s full, you don’t have to pay. So there’s no payment required. They went in after that inventory, the inventory ends by two. My car was. Rolling out the gate by two 30.

So they had maximum time to kind of like before they brought it. But what I think they [00:05:00] didn’t realize is a 1974 Alpha Romeo Julius Super is not a valuable car. It’s just . It’s not worth nothing. But it’s also highly, highly conspicuous because within a day I had had an A P B put out to the entire Alpha Club nationally.

Every member got a note saying, be on the lookout for this car. If you see it in Craigslist or whatever, like, hit us back. And that all brings me around to what we were smoking. Well, I now owned a crack pipe. I have . I looked at my glove box the other day when I got my car back and lo and behold, there’s a nice green crack pipe in there.

So, oh. There you go. They took the time to dash it in the glove box. It was great. Yeah. But, but the best part about the crack pipe is the patina. Oh, . The Cru station on it. Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s authentic. It, it, it really came, it had some authentic use by a real passionate member of that community.

They’re [00:06:00] stolen Alfred. All right. All right. The inside of my car, they had clearly smoked quite a bit in there because yeah, so I haven’t tried it yet. In fact, I haven’t taken it out yet because I have to get some rubber gloves or something to be able to like, I’m not touching that thing and I had to. You haven’t tried the crack pipe or tried driving your car?

Not the crack, but I have driven my car, but whenever I lick my fingers I get this weird tingly sensation . So was there any damage to the alpha? Did they try to hotwire it? Anything like that? Anything that they did, yeah, was with the ignition, they put a screwdriver into the ignition and my car, I’m the first owner in the us, it had gotten imported in from Italy directly.

That part is why I haven’t had my car until just a couple days ago. Like I got it out to my mechanic and it’s just taken a while for the part to come in. And actually the part didn’t come in, but he kind of figured out a way to hack it by taking in a US barrel and flipping it upside down and kind [00:07:00] of like hacking it in there.

I can drive my car until the real part comes in. No, I need downstairs and get the crack pipe. . I’ll be . Yeah, I know how your Portland people are Chris, so you know they love the pipe. . It’s outta context. That sounds extremely terrible, but sounds terrible with context. So that said, like every good, what should I buy?

Episode, we have some shopping criteria. So we have to kind of let our audience know what the purpose of this episode is. And as you guess from the intro, we are focused solely on Italian cars. This episode is a long time coming, so we’re gonna be discussing collectors, sports, cars, and exotics from the country of Italy.

And we are also gonna be focusing on all different ages of Italian cars. So we will stand the gamut from pre-war to the modern cars, whatever suits our fancy. And we’ve kind of bucketed things, unlike other, what should I buy? Episodes into price criteria. So cars under 50 grand, [00:08:00] between 50 and 150. And then those special vehicles basically going from $150,000 to Infinity and beyond.

I would like to add a criteria, just a special criteria if anybody wants to size requirement. So an Italian car. This is gonna be a tough one. Red size doesn’t matter for a large individual when you, when you’re my size, size does matter. So we’re gonna start with that new Ferrari, S U v and work backwards from there.

Is that where we’re going? Is it made for a small Italian named Antonio, or is it made for a large American? Is it for the American market? If you’re a Girthy boy, don’t get the carbon fiber seats. They’re never gonna work. . No, no, no. I am a girthy boy. So Chris, how tall are you again? I’m six foot tall. Oh darn.

I thought you were five foot something, because I was gonna say, you’re our staple. What? Resident Italian, right? Is that like a tender six foot tall? Yeah, six. Six foot on tender. Six foot tall in a box. . I will say we [00:09:00] did allow a special caveat for vehicles that were penned and produced by Italian coachwork, like Gia and Beton and Pinine Farina and others.

So if you got some oddballs that are Italian adjacent, we’re gonna allow those into our suggestion. To get us going. Why don’t we start on the cheap end of things and talk about some Italian collector cars or sports cars under 50 grand. Who’s got something they want us to chew on? I was gonna say, I note, I, I don’t see 10 grand or less on this list.

is that even possible? ? Oh yeah. Always remember the cheapest. Exotic is gonna be the most expensive. That’s it. Bar none. Like with women. , are we talking acquisition price? Are we talking acquisition price than what’s gonna take to get it to run? You know, that’s really up to you, William. Exactly, because you can fall under that fifth easily, but then, you know, you’ll be over a hundred on some of these on the ultra low end.

There’s a couple of things down there, like have you ever ridden in an X 19? [00:10:00] Yeah. Yeah. It’s like a little go-kart. Why not? I think I’ve worn one as a shoe once. Yeah. , you did the tops out, uh, the passenger seat out and then, um, removed. Yeah. , you know, you could probably even get like a Fiat Chino, one of those itty bitty fifties cars, like for around 10 grand if you looked hard enough.

Are they that low? Oh yeah. You know what I love about those little cars? Those you say better than me, Chris, the Chinos, the five hundreds. Every time I’ve shot one, I, I really, because of my size, six three, three hundred and thirty pounds, believe me, I sit in that seat very gently because the way it’s put together and I just sort of sit there and hope that God, he doesn’t hit a big bump, cuz I’m gonna break that seat.

That’s my big fear. And yet I drive a fiat, I have a fiat, it’s a 1 24 spider. It’s a, well, it’s actually one of the worst cards I’ve ever had, but it is a lot of fun and it’s like, it’s, you know, it, it’s wonderful. That’s not a safety concern off the seat. Were to crumple in an accident or anything. . I mean, is there a single [00:11:00] crumple zone on a p f 500?

I, I think if I were in an accident, they would just bury the whole car. Yeah, it just becomes your coffin. Mm-hmm. . So what else is in that then? Sub $10,000 range? Is there really anything out there outside of Fiats? I thought the price on the 500 s had climbed well above 10 K by now. When I first moved to San Diego, I’m like, oh 8, 0 9.

I was shocked by what I would see on Craigslist for old alpha GTVs and stuff under 10 K, but like that market’s dead and gone. What about a Alpha Romeo spider? Like a later one from ? Yeah, I was gonna say, if you’re, if you’re willing to put the work in it, it’ll be needing a lot. I think maybe more constructive would be under 20 K.

I think you could find some really cool stuff under 20 K. That’s a good one. And we create these big buckets. This is a huge difference between 20 K and 50 K. Yeah. You know, that’s a new, it’s a new car in between those two. If you’re in that 15, 20 range, a lot of the major stuff’s gonna be done. So it’s probably just little things.

It’s gonna have to be done to it to really make it acceptable to drive, you know, you’re not gonna be talking major body work, [00:12:00] engine out or anything like that. Work wise. So if you get up there, you can have a, probably have a car that you could drive as soon as you got it. You just have to do basic stuff to it.

Oh, so you’ve clarified Chris’s $10,000 card because he said I could buy an Italian car for 10 grand. I mean, I don’t know what I was getting Fred Flinstone mobile cuz the floorboards are rotted out. You get an Italian paper weight for 10 grand hundred alarm to piss off the neighbors, you know? Yeah. I get it.

Goes back to the saying, it comes, okay, you gonna buy, is it the cost of just when you buy it, not including working on it. You include everything. I guess it’s all how you perceive it. I agree with, you know, under 20 grand you can find some decent stuff out there that you could drive. Soon as you get it, gonna have some nice patina to it, what’s gonna have character to it.

But you’re gonna be able to drive it and not, don’t have to worry about it. You could leave it at the airport and let someone borrow it for a few days and smoke some crack in it and not worry about it. , that story’s never gonna get hold of us. You gonna, you’re gonna get a sweet pipe at the end of it.

Exactly. You can get a partying gift. It was like in the bottom of the, of the cracker jack box. It’s like, Ooh, I got a [00:13:00] problem. . I like your recommendation cuz the X one nine was definitely on my list. I love those cars. A lot of people are like, it’s the slowest car on the planet. If you’re hoping to do burnouts at a traffic light, it might take 20 or 30 minutes to get that done.

I mean it’s not a fast car, but they’re definitely fun cars And it’s the Italian MR two or I, I’m sorry, nine 14 or all of those things. Right? Of those, yeah. Or the Fiero. You have just blessed themed . That’s what I’m here for. I thought that’s what you wanted me here for . Mark hit on a good point. Cars under 2025 grand is probably more reasonable because you are into William’s point.

You’re gonna find things that are fixed up at that point that are gonna be runners, they’re gonna be drivers. You’re gonna have a lot of fun with them in that category for a while. Cause we were seeing the show up at the track, it might have been one individual or more, but the Maserati coupe the two door, not to be confused with the cuatro report there, which is the four door was always right around 25 [00:14:00] grand and it was like the baby Ferrari front engine rear drive paddle shifters.

But for 25 K, it was a great car that has the uh, Ferrari V8 in it. Correct. It does have the Ferrari v I had a friend with a grand sport. And God, that thing was expensive to own. It’s got a single clutch automated manual that really dies quick. The grand sport was just the continuation of that cupe a couple years later.

I think the grand sport looks better. I mean, you could find ’em real cheap and I don’t doubt that you can find 1 25 K, but if I were buying that car, I would be prepared to set aside a significant amount of money, a significant maintenance budget. right there. You’re getting right back into the whole conversation of the cheapest exotic is going to be your most expensive one down the line.

That’s just kinda the way it works out. I mean, depends what you’re doing. Like if it’s a 1500 mile a year car you’re just taking out on Sundays to have fun with, that’s a different story. Like if you’re trying to really drive it. My friend used it as a daily driver. It was horrible. And that was one of those relatively new, he was only a few years old at that point.[00:15:00]

We got into this kind of debate when we did the collector car muscle car classic car. In that episode, we kind of debated what those terms mean. Are we saying that all Italian cars are exotics? No, no, no, because this episode I think is, is about Italian cars in general. So you can say some cars that aren’t necessarily exotics.

They’re just, they just happen to be Italian. They’re all imports. We can say that. We did also say classics. Yes. So that. Like a Fiat 1 24, in my opinion. That’s a sports car. That’s a Roadster, right? It competes right alongside of Triumphs and mgs and all those kinds of cars. That’s what it was designed to do.

And classic cars would be like Chris’s super Julia, where it’s not necessarily like a, you know, Zagato or a two 50 short body or something like that. But it’s still, it’s a classic. It’s from that 50, 60 seventies era of Italian cars that needed to be brought over to the states or probably a handful that were brought here.

So I think we can kind of split hairs on that, but to me exotic means supercar. We’re [00:16:00] talking Lamborghini Kuta test, Rosa F 40, stuff like that. That’s an exotic Right, but for this episode, just Italian cars in general. Yes. Any kind cars. If someone wanted to bring over a, a fiat panda, that’s fair game.

That’s a classic. And yes, and you can get that for less than 10 grand. So points to you. Right? Yeah. Just saying the same thing when he said panda Chris is like throwing up in the back of his throat. . I couldn’t disagree. More . Oh, but please dude, tell me what, I think Chris wants to come back when we get to the more expensive stuff.

I think that’s Chris’s 14. No, no, no. I think I disagree, but you know, I, he we don’t want to talk about just ordinary cars. That’s very true. I came here with some weird stuff. I’d expect nothing less from Don . Does it go in a pipe? You are your camera on right, Don? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I, I come from, you know, weird stuff, so I’m just gonna barf it out.

And you guys do what you want with it and let it’s done. It’s, it’s on the table. But I, I’ll tell you, I, I came here with a [00:17:00] couple of weird oddballs that were, uh, penned or built or partially built, or whatever you wanna say in Italy. One of them, because Eric put it on an email, was the Volvo, not the P 1800.

That’s a car that, it’s a great car, whatever you wanna say about it. I was always a fan of the seven 80 Coupe came out in about 1986 in Europe. It had hit the United States, I believe in 87 and it lasted with us until about 91. What was interesting to me about that car, if, if I’m not mistaken, that car was not only designed, but it was also built by Penn and Farina.

And even though the car’s, body panels look exactly like what you find on a seven 40 or a seven 60, nothing, nothing lines up with those sedans, nothing. They’re completely independent. It’s just in the chassis of the motor. All that stuff is standard Volvo. I always thought those were an amazing car, but I like Volvos and a lot of people don’t cuz they’re just too boxy.

So if y’all want to chew on that, that’s great. Or do you want me to bring in the other weirdos? [00:18:00] That’s a good weirdo because you’re right. But there was also a Barona Volvo later too, wasn’t there, where they went back to the Italians and asked them to design another Volvo before the seven 80 in, uh, late seventies, early eighties.

They had the 2 62, I want to say, with the number, and it had a vinyl top and it looked like it was a chop top. It was squashed down. Typical Volvo brick is shape, but it looked like the two 40 sedan that had been heavily, heavily customized. That was actually, I don’t wanna say the first, but in terms of this modern coupe look, that was the first one that Volvo worked with Bertoni on.

Then they came out with a seven 80 later on in the eighties, which was a, in my opinion, a sharper car. But the 2 62 was also yeah, designed by, in both cases. Try to find one. Yeah, try to find one. They are rarer than hen’s teeth. Especially if you say to yourself, well, you know, I want one, but you know, I, I got a budget of 15,000.

Holy cow. That is a lot of Volvo coop because nobody wants ’em. [00:19:00] They’re just not that much money. They don’t, they’re not quick. They’re not fast. They’re really for an oddball person who just likes weird styling. They like weird stuff. They like stuff that you don’t see every single. You know when you go to an Italian car show, if you pull up in a Volvo and they let you in, you can be pretty safe.

You’re gonna be the only one there just because there just weren’t that many built. There aren’t that many left around. And fortunately or unfortunately, those Volvos were treated like most Volvo customers treat a Volvo, which is, I drive it every single day. It’s my only car. It’s gonna get two, 300,000 miles by the time it gets there.

If they’ve taken care of it, yes, being a Volvo, it’ll still stand the test of time, but it’s still gonna be. I’m pretty tired at that point, so you’re gonna start sinking money into it. And believe me, you haven’t lived until you’ve sunk money into an old Volvo. They suck money better than an old Maserati.

Trust me that they do. I could come better suck analogies than that, but we’ll take a pass on that. Uh, you know, to me, I think [00:20:00] we started at the lower end of the scale. I, I think that’s interesting. But in Italy, they. You know, and I already mentioned the chin CTOs and things like that and I really like the suggestion that came up earlier cuz I was driving 1989 Alpha Rome Spider the other day and that is a cool engine.

It’s an inline for double overhead cam chain driven cams and they use that engine for 60 years. I mean that same inline four starts in the seven fifties in the 1950s and finally sunsetted I think in the nineties at some point. It really went for many, many, many years. It’s a fun car. It’s not very expensive to own if you’re in the affordable into things.

I think Alpha is probably the the standard because they’re pretty easy to fix. You can literally disassemble the engine with a set of Allen keys and a set of metric wrenches and you’re good to go and the parts are accessible, the parts are plentiful and they aren’t [00:21:00] expensive. My car that we were talking about is a really cool car.

It’s a Julius Super. For those who aren’t so familiar with it, they were all on the same platform. And there’s the two-door coupe, which is the G T V. There’s the spider, which is the two-door open top, and then there’s the four-door bar, which is the Julius Super, which I own, but I’ve also owned GTVs and like anything in.

in that category from the seventies, has character for days and is maybe at the high end. You’re getting up into the forties, but are very accessible in the 20 to 35 range. Like a really good G T V will be up in the mid forties. But a driver G T V, you can get in the low thirties right now. It’s a beautiful bartoni body.

It’s one of my all-time favorite bodies of any car period. And it comes along with the notion of do you want a car with a ton of horsepower that you can’t use or do you want an underpowered car that you can throw around on some roads and have a [00:22:00] good time and not get in trouble with these? Fall into that category.

It’s like I was on a car tour last week driving my super and I was working hard to, to keep up with everybody cuz they had more powered cars. But I was having more fun, I can promise you. And not getting in any trouble. Don brought up a good point. So first of all, I know Chris and I are a little inimical, but I agree with everything he just said.

Just a, just a little, I’m just gonna throw that out. I agree with everything Chris just said. Hug. Oh. Going back to Don’s comment real quick. I was going in the other direction with this. Are we trotting out anything Pina or, or Briton ever designed as a potential Italian exotic? Are we, are we shopping catalog galantes and shit?

I mean, well, that, that’s an interesting call. But I think what we’re, we’re trying to do is scratch an itch, right? We’ve got our first time collector, like always for these, what should I buy episodes? Sure. Who goes, you know what? I don’t want a Mercedes. I don’t want a Porsche. I don’t want, um, a hot rod. I wanna buy an Italian car.

What should I buy? We need to hone in on, on what that is. I think there’s some quintessential [00:23:00] like starter Italian cars. Like we could just throw out Ferrari 3 0 8. Okay, great. The 9 44 of, of Italy, right? And Alpha O male’s. To Chris’s point, it’s like the B BMW of Italy, right? You’re like, if you want a three series buy an Alpha OEO G T V, you know?

So there’s sort of these equivalencies when we boil it back, but people don’t realize that about those cars. It’s where you start to get off the deep end. To Don’s point, there’s these coach builders that were making cars for other people under different brands, whether they’re Berton or Pina or whatever.

But then you kind of go the other way too, and it’s. Have you thought about an Alpha Milano or a 1 64 Sedan or Alan a Delta somewhere available in the States. Some are now available Gray market because of the statute of limitations being lifted. And then obviously we wanna talk about the high-end collector, right?

The guy that’s already got 50 cars and goes, I need to add one more. And it’s gotta be an Italian. And obviously we’re gonna defer to William and his expertise on that as we get to that part of the conversation. So I think [00:24:00] we need to hone in on where do we live and then where do we adventure to, if we’re gonna be talking for that individual that’s looking to buy their first one or buy their 50th one.

It’s that question you always ask that person when they’re looking about, well what are you going to do with the car? All of us can sit here and talk cars for days and everything. Obscure ones this and that, and they, the little minute things about it. What’s fun about it when it boils down to when, so to go buy the car, it’s like, Hey, what is your intent goal for this car?

What do you wanna achieve with it? Are you gonna wanna do it to go to car shows? Are you gonna wanna, you know, are you gonna go cross country? I mean, what are you gonna do with the car? Because I think Dak can dictate to a lot too, with what you’re gonna. X one, nine, you’re gonna buy that thing. You’re not gonna be taking a lot of luggage in that thing.

Going very far in it. No, you’re gonna be jotting around on the weekend here. Going to a car show that’s maybe only 30 miles away. Or are you gonna want some of that’s four door’s. Got a trunk and you’re gonna be able to go drive somewhere. You can drive 8, 10, 12 hours in it. Go somewhere with the family.

Your kids or whatnot. So I mean, I think that’s the question to ask too, is what is your intent with the car? Yeah, that’s a good point. So let’s start with the cruiser slash [00:25:00] cars and coffee guy. What does he or she buy rather? Is the person flashy or they wanna be understated? I think the cars and coffee guy wants to be rare.

The cars and coffee guy would like to be the only one in the parking lot. Right, I agree. So that’s where you start looking at Lancia, cuz you don’t see those at cars and coffee too often. But the quantities are so low. Some of the older Maseratis where the quantities are so low, are they sold in the hundreds?

I think that stuff is really interesting for that person. But which, right, because the Lancia, you could be all over the map on those. The Maserati, are we talking about the, are we talking about a morak? Ss? Are we talking about, you know, one of the gibs or whatever? I mean it, we’re all over the map with these cars.

And I think that’s the problem with the Italian cars. They’re so frenetic. There’s not that consistency that you find in the German cars where there’s just these evolutions, these legacies. And it’s just like the Italians just like, Today I felt like designing the Alpha 33, boom, here you go. And then they move on to whatever their next thing is.

If you’ve ever spent any time with [00:26:00] the Italian army, you know that’s how they do it. Never spent time with the Italian army on Leonard. You should. It’s fun. It’ll wake you up. It’s wonderful. And that is how they build cars. Just like you said this morning, I woke up, I felt like building this and there it is.

And we built three and we moved on. Yeah, we move on. We go Now, one of my favorite old top gear episodes, 2005. I thought of it immediately when you sent out the topic for this call was they did Italian mid-engine supercars for hundred 10,000 pounds. Well great old episode. I remember that. What did they land on?

They got a Lamborghini Oaco. Mm. Which is now $50,000. At least a Maserati. Merrick I thought of cuz you just said it. And Ferrari 3 0 8 g d Horror. Of course. Same episode. They reviewed the Zon app, you know? Mm-hmm. . Great episode. If anybody wants to go back, I remember is that episode, it was a good episode.

The Merrick, to me is like a baby Bora. Although the Boras for what it is relatively affordable. Yes. It’s 150 grand. I’m not saying 150 grand is affordable for what it is. They made what, like less than 600 of those cars? Yeah. How many Italian cars? [00:27:00] They made? Less than 600 of can you buy for, you know, 150 grand?

Not too many, that’s for sure. So that’s actually a pretty good deal. But. If we take the other side of that, what about a Detto Maso, Panera American muscle under the skin of an Italian car? Are we still in the sub 50 K range? Because that’s, I think the Mer, the Merrick pushes 50 K. You could do that Merrick’s on the cuss, but the Panera, we gotta save for the middle.

That’s 50. The Panera grew up. That’s fair. Remember the Pantera, you could buy ’em all day long for 10 to 15,000 in really nice shape. And then it was like one day overnight. Bam. 60 grand. I said, whoa, whoa. Where’d that come? And then they keep on going. It’s insane. They turned up in a fast and furious not too long ago too.

Um, I can’t remember the ruiner of car values. . I thought that was spring. A trailer. I wanna throw this out there just cuz here I go again. You know, Mr. Malay is here and, and all the oddballs, but we’ve kind of bumped on the ETE a little bit and I gotta tell you, yes, I love ete. You know the, the, hello? My name is Don[00:28:00]

I said that sarcastically. I know, like I said before, I gotta vomit these out and then just see what y’all do with him. Next. He’s gonna say the Chrysler TC by Maserati. What? Yes. . Yes. Yes. Baron. That was designed in over in Italy or something. Oh, so terrible. Want that car? Great. They were so awful. You had to love them.

We scared William off. William just straight up ran away. I think Don is lost. We gotta bring it. . Don stole your pipe. Yeah. God, Don, stop my track pipe. What I wanted to get at, I remember when those cars were new, the ante and the tc, which by the way stood for two costly, if you remember how expensive those things really were.

You know, I grew around car guys. All my dad’s friends, they were all car guys and some of them liked them, some of them didn’t like them, but I, I remember one word specifically that always floated around both of ’em, which. Poer Poer [00:29:00] because you have this ete, which was confused. Was it an SL competitor or was it its own bag of lasagna that’s trying to compete with what?

What from Italy is similar to the ete. There’s nothing, oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Dr. Aya Koka says, pulled my key. Yeah, he sends this labon over to Maserati and says, fix it up. So they did and they sent it back. Some of them had Maserati heads and a five speed manual transmission, and believe it or not, those little bastards would cook.

They could really, really go. You had to rev the hell out of them, but they would really get going. My favorite shoot me now. It was the Mitsubishi v6. That was the best of all of ’em, in my opinion. If you’re looking for a cruiser, it was strong. It was healthy. The only problem with it was it was nose heavy.

That car, you put it into a curve, it didn’t wanna do anything. But wait a minute, we’re talking Alan, we’re talking tc. They’re not sports cars. They didn’t wanna be sports cars. They wanted [00:30:00] to be kinda like poor man sls, but they were so confused. But there’s really nothing from Italy that came from them.

Okay. Yes. You know my problem. I like those cars. My question is, you show up to a cars and coffees. Are you still branded as, oh my God, I can’t believe he had the guts to bring that thing here. What a opposer Is he still a opposer today? I anymore You’re weird, but you’re not a opposer. I’m the only one wearing a Maserati headband, so I’ll go with eccentric.

You’re eccentric sex offender. Watch list. But other than that, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re well accepted. . I just love the fact that Don’s pick for an Italian car is an American car with a Japanese motor, all bases . He’s paid. Let’s look at Don’s list. Got a Volvo flag on the play. . . Let’s bring this back a little bit because we’ve skirted around some cars and even my list is all over the map because as I was trying to remember, cars that were sold in the United States that were purely Italian, the list is pretty short.

It’s actually [00:31:00] longer now than it’s ever been. If you look at all the offerings between Ferrari, Lamborghini, alpha Rome and so on, back in the day, I’ve mentioned this before, the Fiat eight 50 rear engine kind of beetle, like Hillman imp looking thing came in a bunch of different body styles. I think those are fantastic little cars.

Yeah, and if I can, when you go eight 50, you’ve also got the merei. You’ve got a few little coach builders out there who played with the eight 50 and created their own little demonn, and they were fantastically styled cars, especially that Merei coop. That thing was beautiful and it was so tiny, and yet six foot 3, 330 pounds.

I fit in those cars very, very well. Those are. I do throw the alignment out, but I fit in the car. And the passenger, the passenger also gets thrown out. negative Camber. It’s all good. It’s crazy. You, you have to counter, uh oh. I lost my, I lost my badge. Hold on. Okay. There it is. I just taped him on because I [00:32:00] wanted to reflect Italian quality as well, you know, so I use.

And I put it right there and I have my Ferrari badge over here and my ma ratti hat. I’m good to go. So did your shirt come with holes in it from the factory? Is that what you’re saying? Yes it is factory air conditioning, , the panels of the shirt misaligned is like one one sleeve longer than than the other.

That is a true ex Italian shirt. Very exotic. There are definitely some defacto Italian cars. We’ve seen more Delta HFS on the shore now they’re like these Guinea cars, like the 3 0 8 and some others, you know. That’s fine. There’s some other ones that I think we forgot came to the shores, or I’ve mentioned one of ’em before was the launch of Beta Monte Carlo, right?

With the panda front end kind of looks like a DeLorean, it’s a mid engine coup two-door sport coop. But you could take that a step further and they sold less of them. But then you had the scorpion and the scorpion was the baby O 37. So if you’re into that like group A, group B rally and [00:33:00] you’re not interested in a hatchback, you know, penned by Jiro like the Delta, you could look down those other avenues of Lan and people forgot that those cars were actually sold here.

Another one I mentioned before is the Fiat 1 31. You could very easily do some Boltons and create your own a Barth. You’re not gonna have the Jack Knight flares that the Abarth came with, but you can build a little hot rod out of a plain Jane. 1 31. Mm-hmm. , the scorpions are great. I, I just got a ride in one the other day and man, very cool styling.

You know, it’s kind of got that group C, group B kind of look and it’s, it’s like a hot hatch type of sailing. And if I remember they had a detuned Dino engine in those, just like in the. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a very cool car and very affordable. It’s easily in this price range of the sub fifties, you know, another launch that I think gets very overlooked for people in the know.

Love it. The fulvia. Yeah. Everybody knows the fulvia from the sixties and seventies. Rally car, [00:34:00] front engine, front wheel drive. They look funny when you open up the hood, if you’ve ever gotten in one, the, the engine is rotated off axis and then flipped over by like about 30 degrees. It’s lever. Yeah. It’s laid over just to get the weight down a little bit.

Very cool. You can get those for 30 or less. If you look around, you’re rolling into cars and coffee. You’ll be the only person in Lanio. Fulvia for sure. What about one of our ugly cars from the uncool wall? The Alpha Romeo s z. What are you talking about? I love that car. It’s like the Italian carrado. Why?

What’s not to like about it? It’s amazing. Why? Why would you even call it ugly? You’re the worst . I know. I think it’s cool. A lot of people think it’s heinous, especially that back end because it’s completely slab sided. Oh, oh. Don’s got something to say about that back end. No, no, I, I agree. I think it’s kind of an ugly car, but I think that’s the charm of it.

It’s come full circle. It was ugly. It was cool for like six months when it was released. Very quickly became ugly. It has been a [00:35:00] very interesting, good looking car. I, I think for the last 10 years or so. See, and for me, I think it’s ugly. I do, I think it’s a hideous car, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t buy it.

I mean, I appreciate a car that goes out on its own and says, Hey, Look at me, I’m ugly. I don’t care. I love that attitude. I love it. It’s kind of like an American car that was built in Italy with a Japanese engine. Something about that, that woo , you know, to me it just reminds me of like a Milan fashion house or something.

It’s like, it was ambitious. It was over the top. It was oat couture kind of. Exactly. Car in very small quantities and it’s very cool. You know, it’s, but it’s a performer too. It’s got a great engine, good balance. Everybody that drives one and reviews, it says you don’t see it from the inside, but it is a driver’s car.

Right. So you get that shape in the eighties from the G T V six. Yes. As well. Obviously in more volume than the SC 86 is a great one. You, you hit and it’s, yeah, it’s a, you [00:36:00] know, these were the kind of cars that like, I did not like them when I was a kid in the nineties looking at them, I was like, ah God, that’s so eighties and horrible,

And now I look at ’em and I’m like, ah, that actually looks pretty damn cool. The only thing that’s really slab sided about the SC is the back. Okay. The back is just a big flat. You know what’s funny? I’m with you, mark. But on the opposite end of that spectrum that when I saw that car, it went immediately on my wall alongside the Viper and a bunch of other cars.

And I’m like, the SZ is amazing. But then a year later when they introduced the rz. The Cabrio le, or the spider, whatever you wanna call it. Oh my God, that car is heinous. Take the roof off of that thing, and suddenly I’m like, no, thank you. Not enough , but an underappreciated car. If you’re looking for something that really nobody wants, It’s like an uglier ETE in convertible form.

We’re gonna keep going back to that , never letting the ete go. Today’s episode is brought to you by Cadillac . [00:37:00] The only way to travel is Cadillac style . So William, what about it from your experience? What’s a bargain basement Ferrari that isn’t a 3 0 8 or a 3 48? What’s some of these more obscure ones that people aren’t thinking about?

Well, the Vidino, that’s a good looking car. You got the Ferrari engine in it. It’s just got the, you got badge on it. But if Vidino, that’s a great car. They’re going up in value, that’s for sure. Again, you’re not gonna be killing anybody zero to 60 times that, but it’s a lot of fun. It’s a great engine. It’s a beautiful looking car.

That would be my thought. I was gonna say, I, I’ve always been a fiat guy ever since I got my 1 24. I’ve loved fiat even before I got my 1 24, I always wanted the Dino Coop. I always thought that was a better looking car than the convertible, which both people disagree with me on, which is fine. I, I’m the guy who brought the ETE to town, so, you know, what do you want

Anyway, where, where I was gonna go with this though was the Dinos are kind of going up pretty nicely. One car I’ve always wanted, and here I go again with the Volvo styling, the Fiat one [00:38:00] 30. Do you remember those? It’s kind of, yeah, it, it, it looks a little bit, honestly, like the Volvo seven 80 V6 engine, but they were Fiat’s entree to, we can produce something like Alpha Romeo, but we can still do it on a budget.

They were nice. and there’s two versions of that. There’s the round headlight early car and the rectangle, headlight late car. Yeah. So if you’re into that square body round headlight thing, you could go either way with this thing. They’re pretty cool. Yeah, they are. And not a lot of people know about them.

They were never imported to the usa. So any one 30 that you see here, were brought over by a private person. But I, I think, like you were saying, now that the statute of limitations is lifted, I don’t think that car would have too many problems being registered in almost any state. I, I really like those cars and I, and I think trying to go back to the focus, which is what should I buy for my first collector car?

As much as I might like the ETE and the TC to look really weird, I don’t want somebody to pull into a cars and coffee and think, oh God, what a [00:39:00] opposer. I’d like them to pull into a cars and coffee and have guys around think, whoa, wait, wait, wait. Where’d you get that? Yeah. And that’s where that alpha comes in and that’s where kind of the fiat comes in and, you know, these are little oddballs that people don’t see every day.

These are cars that you, you pull into cars and coffee and a lot of people wonder what is like, oh my God, that’s a fiat the Dino people are pretty familiar with. But I think those one 30 s, I’m not gonna say they’re cheap. They’re certainly not commanding Dino. You know, yet, yeah. They are going up. And I think that has to do with the Dino people who know the one 30, it’s not a dino, it’s not a sports car at all.

It’s a big Gran Touring car. And I think that’s where Eric and I kind of have a lot of fun bouncing off of each other because he seems to be much more the sports car. Get out there and run through the cones and terrify your dog, dog do. And I’m like, no, no, no, no, no. I wanna go on a nice leisurely cruise to a restaurant at the beach.

And that’s where we kind of have fun. You know, I, I look at these little Valencias that you and Chris are talking about. I’m like, oh my God, that car just looks like a headache to me. Good. I [00:40:00] got another one for you, Don. How about the 1 28 3 P? That’s basically Fiat’s answer to the Mark Onesco. Yes. Yes. They were a great car.

Don’t get me wrong. All of them that we’ve talked about, I think are terrific cars. I, I know Mark, you’re gonna keep bringing up the elan. My mom had one of those. Oh God, I gotta meet your mom. , are you gonna tell you the coolest thing about my mom going car shopping with my mom is amazing. She walks in and people are like, excuse me, ma’am, you’re looking for a car?

Yes. Well, what are you shopping for? Uh, I need a car with a manual transmission. Uh, You need a car with a manual transmission? Yes. I never learned how to drive an automatic. Do you have anything with a manual? If the answer is no, she turns around and walks out the door. That is it. . That’s awesome. I learned how to drive an automatic.

That’s awesome. . That said, going back to William for a second, what was the Ferrari from Rain Man? Was that a four 12 or something like that? 400, yeah. Yeah. 400. 404 12. And And [00:41:00] know what? I’m a big fan. I love those. I think that’s a great car and a lot of people don’t like it cuz of the design, but I’m actually a huge fan of that car.

I think it’s fantastic. The, the design of that was way ahead of its time when it came out, right? Because they made that car forever. What? 72 to 89? So someone please correct me or what? Yeah, 76. But you imagine gotta seeing that car in the mid seventies, that was 10, 15 years ahead of its time from a design language perspective.

Mm-hmm. . It also made a big movie, reappearance in the Nicholas Cage. Unbearable weight of massive talent. Yeah. He was driving a 400. But the four 12, you get ’em with a manual. Oh geez. I don’t know if it fits under our 50 k I was pulling the sales on bring a trailer, looking at their charts. Unfortunately, the bring a trailer lumps ’em all together.

You know, from all of the years you kind of have to dig in and, and look at ’em. Certainly in that sub 100 K, 50 to a hundred K type [00:42:00] range. A lot of really interesting options. I’ve got 41 k for, uh, 400 GT in, uh, sports car run. The, the big difference is the four 12 was a fair jump and then there’s whether or not you got the five speed or the three speed auto.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s up to 80 K now when you get up. Yeah, if you get the mango, it’s gonna have a nice, it’s gonna have a 20 to 30% markup on it with the five speed in it. You know what, the automatic’s not that big because it kind of goes back. You’re not gonna throw that thing around some autocross event.

That’s a nice touring car to go for a nice long distance drive, pop that thing into drive and just go and cruise at 89 miles an hour. And, and nice luxury comfort. Right? Well, and it, it’s not that I want to go there too far because you start stepping in a Ferrari’s backyard and it gets real expensive real quick.

But Ferrari was always brilliant at building four place coupes with a V12 front engine rear drive. My God, those cars taught other people how to build a coop. I mean they, they were fantastic. They would move like bats outta hell. But like you said William, you’re not gonna [00:43:00] throw it around too many curves and corners because that’s not what it was built for.

It was built to take on a nice long journey. It was built to take you over, land it over a hundred miles per hour and you didn’t know you were doing it. God, they were dream card. They really, really were to me. And maybe I’m wrong, but I mean I look at the five 50, the 5 75, not that we can bring that into the, our conversation cause they’re still really expensive.

What fantastic cars, and I’ll tell you the one I would, the one I’ve been looking at most recently, not that I’m gonna pull the trigger on it, is the uh 4 56. The 4 56. Yeah. Which, and I’ll be honest, you know when they were new, I was a 5 50, 5 75 guy. By God, that was the end all be all Ferrari. That was that.

This 4 56 can go straight to hell. I started kind of growing up a little bit and I realized, God, you know that 4 56, that’s a real nice look to it. It was almost like the 5 50, 5 75 was that really hot girl in school. You just loved this girl. She was smoking hot. . You realize [00:44:00] she’s a little bit of a pain.

All the guys want her, but you know, she’s got a sister . All right, we, well, let’s stay away from the teenage girl metaphors. Who said teen? Who said, I don’t know. I didn’t say teen. You said school. I’m assuming you didn’t mean graduate school. She went to the team comment. But the the point is though, the 4 56 is that quieter classier sister who you’re just leaning into this, aren’t you?

Gets overlooked. Just gets overlooked, but Oh, I agree. Yeah. Once you meet her, once you, you know, once you , this is where it gets weird. I know. Never all moment with Don. You move on from the metaphor and talk about the car . So anyway, the Elan is a wonderful car. Can we put me time out? And I think you uh, I think everybody knows you’ve gotta buy an elan.

You’re gonna have a Cadillac kind call. You need right there. Everyday usage is quiet as conservative. And that’s why I like [00:45:00] the 4 56. It’s quiet, it’s conservative. And for me, I gotta get it in. I can never pronounce it, but it’s basically champaign gold. But I don’t know. I see those cars as a bargain right now.

My, oh, they’re, God. It’s a v12, it’s front engine, it’s fuel injected. It’s four place. It’s everything. The 404 12 I was, and yet because it was ugly. The four 12 just kind of lingered in the value. Now they’re starting to go up, if I’m not mistaken. Is that right William? Yeah, they’re so, you know, the guys like me, they’re becoming unobtainium and yes, the 4 56 is still unobtainium, but I look at that and I think, you know what, and correct me if I’m wrong, I think that would be a better car just simply because it’s more modern.

Just the technology, the engineering. Is there a 4 56 sold on bringer trailer just this week for 60 K? That’s not bad. Was it an automatic or the six speed and it has 25,000 miles, get ’em under 50 If you got the service history, I mean of course it’s gonna go with probably, you know, any car you want get service price.

But even with that [00:46:00] 4 56, if it’s got 40, 50, even 60,000 miles on it, but it’s got to service everything done to it, that’s not a problem. Right. A again, cuz it’s not a car that you’re gonna be kind of revving the piss out of it and you know, slamming through gears or anything like that and you know, you don’t have to worry about the automated transmission that it, it’s.

A great car to go for a nice touring car. I was gonna say, the V12 on that is supposed to be one of the most reliable from that era. Yeah. Simply because they didn’t lean into it as hard as they did on the five 50. Right. And so to slot it into its product placement, but as a result of that, it, you know, doesn’t break.

But there’s plenty of these ultra rich Japanese track rats that had taken 4 56 s and put ’em on places like Scuba and Fuji and other, and put them against other cars like nine 11 turbos and M three s and stuff, and the 4 56 as curvy as she is and everything else, she can hold her own against those other cars.

And I was shocked that some of those videos, granted these are six speed V12 s not the automatics, but I think can [00:47:00] scoot and it can handle, I mean it does have some body role to it. I’m of the personality that if I could tighten it up, I think it’d be a performer. I think it’s a, it’s one of those wolfs and sheep’s clothings.

Yes. And Eric, was it you that sent me the video? Somebody sent me a video of, and I think they were in Japan and it was a 4 56 on a race track. It was full race prep, 4 56. This damn thing is keeping up with an F 40. Yep. The only challenger to that car is an F 40. Yep. And as long as she keeps that F 40 behind her, she’s fine.

But sure enough, the F 40 found a way around her and bam, that was it. But it wasn’t it. The 4 56 stayed right on the rear end, dogged them the whole way around the track. Yeah, it was awesome. Incredible, incredible. And you think of how much weight the, and granted, okay, they prepped it a little bit, so I’m sure it lost a little weight, but it’s still just a heavy, heavy car compared to an F 40, you would think there’s no way this car could hang onto it, but sure enough, there it is.

No, I I, I’ve really, really started becoming a fan of the, uh, 4 56. I really have automatic fire speed. Doesn’t matter. I. [00:48:00] I was gonna bring this up later, but do we have any research on manual swaps for 4 56? Because I think to me that’s the key to a lot of car value. In some situations where the manual swap is relatively easy, like an F four 30 where you can go in, do it, it’s a known quantity, it’s not a rabbit hole, and then all of a sudden you’re just in a totally different category from a car value perspective.

And yeah, sure the market will figure that out, but it’s, if you can pick up an automatic on the cheap and do a manual swap for 20 grand and then it just becomes like a totally different car, I think that’s really interesting. I’m, I’m with you on that. I think at that point it’s worth doing if it’s doable and there’s probably a high probability that that transmission is probably shared with something else and more than likely it’s probably a ZF transmission or something.

You know, that I don’t know that maybe Ferrari built those drive trains or maybe they’re fiat transits and then we got other things to think about. But isn’t the automatic a GM unit, was he automatic on the first E six from General Motors? That I’d have to check. You’re just trying to bring us back to that freaking Cadillac again, aren’t you?[00:49:00]

speaking of the Cadillac. Oh man. And here we go, . But there is another car that I wanna bring up for us to chew on, and it’s my reg. No stop. . It’s a weird car. It is not Italian. It’s just as an a Spanish sounding name that said, there is another car. It’s my second least favorite car on the planet. And those of you that listen to the show know my number one least favorite car on the planet is the CI on Ds, followed by, I was just driving one of those.

What is wrong with you? Where you gonna hate a Ds? God, dude, don’t even get me started. I hate those things. Oh my God. You know why he hates the Ds? He hates the Ds because it’s French. My friend , he’s Italian. He has no choice, but you hate us. We are better than him. Truth be told, I have an affinity for French cars.

There’s just something about the Ds that gets under my skin. We’ll put a pin in that for now. My second least favorite car on the planet, second to the Citron DS is the Ferrari. Alt. And I know you guys are gonna tell me I’m wrong, [00:50:00] but yeah. So wait, by show of thumbs, like Roman Coliseum style. come down.

Yeah, . Now you wait a moment here. You wait a moment. I’m gonna tell you a story, okay? Oh man. Here we go. For your time. Get the editor ready. I was the hater of the Mandel too. I used to hate it all the time, but then I went to Concorso Italiano, and I gotta tell you, this is where I was changed. There it was sitting on the green, on the field, all by itself.

Dark gray, lightly tinted windows. A coop. I gotta tell you, I, I was a changed man. All the rest of ’em, I don’t like, you’re right. I still don’t like the mom deal, but that one painted correctly. Wow. It actually came out pretty nice. So I learned that if you put the right makeup on an ugly person, they can look pretty good.

That sister you were,

here’s the conundrum with it though, because that’s like a $25,000 car. You know, you can get those [00:51:00] pretty cheap nowadays and it’s basically the running gear of a 3 28 or 3 48. Right. I think it’s a 3 48 if I’m not mistaken, is when thought it was a 3 0 8. 3 0 8, okay. It goes both ways. Yeah, it goes both ways.

You have a 3 0 8 and then the 3 28. Yeah. Yeah. Depending on the year. So it’s got the same suspension, the same engine, the same transmission, the same steering box, the same everything except for they wedged a little bit more space in there. And, and I agree with you. I, I know there are not anything to look at, but if you were to just like set that aside and go bang for the buck, and I’m not talking about maintenance.

If it’s gonna be a maintenance hassle, then you’re in a world of hurt. But if you got a good one that was driven and cared for, you get that for $25,000 and you can rip. You can have a blast in that thing. So that’s my counterargument. But it’s still too ugly. It’s just ugly. Yeah. Mean it’s a light car, it’s got 300 horsepower.

It, it’s gonna scoot. You can have fun with it. Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder. I [00:52:00] mean, it’s one of those situations as it ages. Is it gonna be more attractive to someone now? I don’t think so.

you know, I gotta, I gotta side with William on that one and, and Chris too. You’re getting a lot of car for the money. You really, really are. It? Okay. It’s an eighties Ferrari, early nineties Ferrari. You are getting quite a bit of, of car for the money. And I think the younger generation is gonna embrace those cars.

You gotta think you, you’re going after the Rawood crowd and as the 3 0 8 3 28 continue to just skyrocket in value, people are gonna start looking, well, what’s the next step? And then they’ll realize, oh my god. The Moneo is pretty much the same car. It’s just got four seats. And like I say, I was a shame guy.

I always hated the moneo. I always thought they were ugly and and horrible. But then I saw the gray one and I’m not kidding you, I’m not joking around. When I saw that gray one, I thought, you know, that actually looks really good. And I think that’s it. There are some cars that just have a presence and they, they need to be painted seriously.

They are you gonna paint a 4 56 bright red? I’ve seen them, they look [00:53:00] okay, but in my opinion, they look a lot better when they’re blue or dark gray or that silvery gold color. They have to have a sort of a businessman’s presence to them. And I think the mania was trying to do that, but it just sort of failed because people wondered what is this?

This is like the labon of the Ferrari world. Speaking of which, Chrysler had a car called the qc. Oh my God. No, I’m kidding. . But, but to that end, since Don has established that all Italian cars are female, no, they’re all high school girls. Apparently , unlike his painting of the flowing blonde hair, the Mandel lt upon the prairie grasses of the car show.

Where I got impressed upon the Mandi LT was with the movie Weird Science. And I’m like, oh, that’s cool. It’s a Ferrari. But when it pulls up next to the 9 28, I was like, you can keep that turd. Like . Mm-hmm. . And the nine 20 eight’s a weird car. Right. By all respects and all means, but when you put them side by side, Both iconic cars of the period, you’re just like, nah, there’s other ways I can spend 25 [00:54:00] grand than on a Monday lt.

True. But then you’re getting back to guys like me who wanna be a little bit different, a little bit out there. Here’s my question for you, and I’m not trying to bring them back into it. Mark, I want you to answer this because you seem to be the number one hater. Hater. I’m a hater of the lan. You seem to feel toward the Elan as, oh man, as, as Eric does toward the the Su and Ds.

I never got to see a good Cadillac there. It was post Malays my whole life. Whi which one is more poser? The Munk, the Elan or the tc? Which one is more posr. I’ve never known a person who owned an ante that didn’t love the hell out of that car. There was no posing there. It was just love posing is this kind of disingenuous car ownership.

You don’t love that car. You love the way people look at you and you drive that car. That’s, to me, disingenuous. And the poser is the guy that builds a Lamborghini in his basement out of wood and fiberglass and tries to pass it off as the real thing, you know? Or they just buy a Guyardo. . He, but [00:55:00] the point is that, I dunno, I don’t think there are any posers in that.

I, this is a trick question. There’s no posers in any of those questions. If you’re driving amand at this point. Yeah, sure. In the eighties, nineties. Yeah. You know, someone’s buying that cuz it was the most depreciated Ferrari fine. Fair enough. At this point, if you’re willing to pay the maintenance bill on keeping that thing running, then you must like the damn car.

No one’s seen that person driving down the street. Alright, let me throw a weird one out there. You know me, I don’t know where they all value it. I haven’t been paying attention, but I’ve always been a fan of the Lamborghini Hapa. Oh yeah, the jpa. Yeah. Well the, how do you say it? Is it Jpa or Hapa? I’ve heard both.

No idea. Well, Hapa would be Spanish. So in Italian it’s jpa. So that would be perfect then. No, no, that wouldn’t be perfect because remember Lamborghini always named their cards after Spanish bulls. Spanish bull fighters. True. That’s true. Et cetera. So hapa would be the way to say it, I guess. What do y’all think of those?

Am I going too far astray for the price-wise yet? Have we gotten there? That’s the car that people confuse for a kuta when they don’t [00:56:00] know. So it’s sort of like the difference between an M three and a three series, when you kind of don’t know. To me that’s where it’s at. But I think there’s value in that, Don, in the sense that people don’t know that the JPA is like a thing and that it can be just as cool as mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm , they think it’s a pantera. If you drive down the street in a Joppa, they just think they saw a Pantera. Especially with the wing on. Yeah. If you put a wing on it, a hundred percent. My point is, I, I always like that car. If for no other reason, I love Ferrari 3 0 8, everybody’s gotta love a 3 0 8.

Those things are just a perfect car. But Lamborghini said, hold my beer, we can make a better one. And that was the silhouette, of course was the first one. And then from the sil. To Halk and I, I’ve just always loved it for that gumption of this is our take on what a Ferrari 3 0 8 should be. And yet I I, I’ve heard both sides of the coin.

I’ve heard, you know, it was not as good. It was better. I, you know, so I don’t know, but I think my fiat thing fell off the tape again. It’s the rust spot underneath. There it is. Yeah. Little bit. It comes from the factory that way, you know. But I think to Mark’s point though, [00:57:00] it’s one of those things, you’re right, it, it is a love thing if you’ve got the money to put into this thing and, and you’re, you’re dedicated.

Yeah, there’s some love going on there. Or to Williams point, you know, what’s your endgame? Is it an investment situation? Is it something you wanna buy, hold for a couple of years, and then hopefully sell it with a little bit of a profit. You know, that might be a good way to go too, if you can find one. I just didn’t know where the values were.

I haven’t been paid attention to those cars for a while. They had ’em in production a long time, but they only built like 600 of ’em over like eight. It’s a rare. But the point I’ve been made is not a lot of people really know it is. They think it’s a Panera, they think it’s something else. They think it’s a kuta.

They just don’t know. You would think, oh, let’s see. Low production, volume, whatnot. Oh, rarity. You know, think, oh, value up here, but they’re actually not that expensive. Body panels and whatnot. If you’re crash it, you’re gonna be screwed on it. Motor wise, stuff like that. You should be able to work on it yourself.

In all honestly, if you got some common sense to yourself, it’s not that difficult of a car. It’s just got very, very unique looks to it. You pull into a car and coffee with that and guarantee you we’re not gonna see another one there, and you will absolutely be [00:58:00] opposer. No , no, no, not at all. No way. For me in this episode, this is my favorite car buying advice so far, is the hapa.

It’s low volume, inexpensive for what it is. It’s a cool car. I think that if you’re looking at a collector car that you can love and, and has some potential, I like it a lot. It is gonna be a pain in the ass to buy like, I think six or seven transactions in the last five years on bringing a trailer. So, you know, that’s tough.

It’s not gonna quadruple in value the next 10 years, but it’s not gonna lose all that much in value either. You’re gonna maintain your value. No, not at all. Not at all. . Yeah, I think the helper would be a fun one to have it. It’s a little offbeat. It’s a little different like you guys are saying. People are gonna say, what?

What is that car? And I think that can be kind of fun when you have a car. You know that not everybody knows you. Look, if you pull into a car in coffee where you’re surrounded by cars, you’re surrounded by car guys and they’re saying, what kind of car is that? You’ve done something great. You really have.

And you know, correct me if I’m wrong, Chris, William, you might know this better [00:59:00] than me. I think they built fewer Halas than they did Kuta. Oh by, oh yeah, by far. Oh yeah, that’s what I thought. Yeah. And yet the kuta was just, I mean, that was just the poster child of eighties excess. The only problem I have with the ALPA is that it would be in line with like the Lamborghini Gala, which is another one that people don’t really remember.

It’s the precursor to the Guyardo and the me Lago and all those. And so you’re like, do I really want that? And for the same kind of money, I know you look like a poser if you’re in a guyardo, but is it more value for the money at that point? You’ve gotta, like, I hate to say a commodity Lamborghini at that point, but it’s not hard to go down to the Audi dealer and get parts for your 4.2 liter v8, or, you know, your V 10 or whatever it is.

The Hupa, yes, it’s going to, or the jpa, it’s gonna be more rare. But I, I don’t know. I, I’m, I’m torn on that car. It is the best choice so far in terms of checking all the boxes. But Chris, I, I think you’ve been sitting on some stuff. What have you got? Oh, you know, I think that, [01:00:00] like I’m a big GT guy, so I really like that idea around the four fifty six, and you may recall from prior appearances, I owned a 9 28 and drove it every single day and put 200,000 miles on it.

Love the car. To your point, if you drive ’em, they last and they don’t misbehave. And same with my daily driver Alpha. Now there’s one that I was in recently, and this is on the cusp of kind of moving into the, we’ve kind of gotten with the Alpa and I’m gonna go with that pronunciation and then we can have a Sharks and Jets kind of fight later about where are the jaas, where are the.

Maserati, indie. Ooh, yeah. Maserati Indie is this killer. Unibody gt car, roomy, backseat, fold down backseats. You can get stuff in there just like a 9 28. That’s why I was mentioning that. Great. Sounds great. Manual transmission, you know, it’s a cruiser and it’s, you know, a Ghibli [01:01:00] is the same. Car with some changes but not really and it’s a hundred thousand dollars more a good indie you can get like in the 50 to 60 range.

And I just don’t even understand why that car is so cheap, to be honest with you. It’s a great engine. It’s a great drive train. Beautiful styling, beautiful car. You know, to me that’s like a real diamond in the rough. I agree. You guys are agreeing for a change. This is super weird Don. I know We gotta Chris, you suck

There we go. I know we’re back to normal . No, but speaking of diamonds in the rough, I think there’s another car as we kind of come up the rungs of the ladder and we’re talking about pricing, one of the ones that I really like in William’s world, especially in the fine art world of Italian automobiles, you know, everybody wants the short base, two 50, you know, the 360 fives, all those, you know, super rare.

Just like the early air cold Porsches and stuff. There’s thelan flak, which is basically the baby’s sister to the two [01:02:00] 50 short wheel base car. It almost looks exactly the same, change the grills and and the taillights and it gets forgotten all the time. Mm-hmm. great car. The argument. The poser question is the fact is, you know, a lot of people look down, you know, especially I guess say non-car or something.

They see someone driving a Ferrari, they look down, oh, you got a Ferrari. You know, they’re not gonna know what the hell it is. Not even a lot of people in the cars will know what that car is. And again, kind of going into a cars and coffee, you’re gonna pull into that. That’s gonna be the one where people are gonna become what is.

It’s gonna get that question asked. Creates a great conversation. It’s something different to set yourself apart than someone else that has the Ferrari, the 2 75, the two 50, or what have you value wise, you know? Yeah. Obviously it’s not where that is. What do you think a flamini goes for? I don’t want to guess.

I’m sure it’s probably CL in the six figures it has to. Oh, it’s well into the six figures. It’s a, we’re talking like 300 to 400 k. I see. It’s a bar. It’s [01:03:00] a val, it’s a bargain compared to the Ferrari. That’s like 7 million. I know, I know. But, uh, you know, the one that I really like in the launcher range is the early ones.

And I’m a huge launcher fan, by the way. So the B 20. Oh yeah, it’s the B 20 s in the, just over the a hundred k. Like the 120 K range. And I know that sounds like a lot, but I think one of those got second overall in the meal. Amelia, it’s a big sedan. You look at. And it’s like, what is going on here? But that was the first production V6 engine in the world that came out of Victoria Yano and a guy named d Vergilio Atlan.

That was a groundbreaking car. It has a transaxle, it handles crazy, but it again, it’s a wolf and sheep’s clothing. Like you look at it and you go, what the heck is this thing? But you get one of those tuned up. Well, and it will hang with anybody in that era. Well there was that video, was it like two years ago or or so where that B 20 where they did the chop top on It was making, it was [01:04:00] like a viral video.

I saw one of like that. The guy who does those, he’s done about eight of ’em. Yeah, I was on a tour with one last year and oh my God, it took your breath away. It was like a gorgeous, yeah, that so cool. He got a lot of heat for doing that . They were like, what are you doing in this car? But then to your point, once it was done, they’re like, oh, I get it.

It’s gorgeous. You know it. They turned out fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, they’re incredible. It’s sort of like the Lincoln Zephyr of the Italian world, right? That B 20, if you think about it, , yeah. That, that’s not far off, but there’s another hidden Lamborghini kind of in that era of like the, I think it’s the uh, mark, is it Rahma or Rahma?

I’ll give you a Rahma. . I don’t have a hernia. Trying to figure that out. It’s like an early seventies. It’s almost like the Lamborghini Daytona. Yeah, the Asada. Yeah. Yeah. It kinda got into that little angular [01:05:00] kind of vibe, so it wasn’t, the Curvy is Laro, which is a very cool car. The Hark was just kind of after that and had that little extra angularity to it, which some people don’t find appealing and it’s very distinctive to that early seventies, I mean, but it’s a crazy V12 screaming engine.

It’s, I think what we all love about. Lamborghini. It’s like, I love your Ferrari engines, but we’re all children of the Cannonball Run movie. Hearing that Kuta dreaming engine down the, the highways, it still rings in my ears today. It’s the same engine. And man, what a great g e t car that is. And they are not exp they’re just like, I think they’re just getting over the a hundred K point right now.

They are. Yeah. No ante, Don. I mean, we just said a hundred K car. Isn. Inexpensive relative. It’s relative for. Before Don brings us back to the Cadillac Ete by way of Ka the Stutz Bearcat and God knows what else he’s got on his list. . [01:06:00] I wanted to bring up another weird Italian brand, the Iso Grifo or the Griffin.

Those are pretty interesting cars. Often forgotten sort of Homologated Maseratis in a way. Let’s talk about those a little bit. You know, the Grifo is a great car. What I love about that, what I love about those ISOs, and don’t forget the, uh, the Volta. A lot of people argue with me. I got nothing against the Grifo, but I think the Volta is actually just a little prettier of a car.

I really do. It’s a little cleaner, little sharper. She’s got a little more of that Maserati look to it. But what I love about these things, you can go to Pep Boys and get engine parked for these things. Oh, yep. It’s fantastic. You know, uh, it’s a great, great way to, to go. I wanted to bring up the Maserati, Mexico a little while ago.

I always thought that was one of the most, that’s a beautiful cars ever made. Yeah. I always thought that was a gorgeous car, Eric, now that you bring up iso absolutely. The Grifo and the, uh, the Volta are great ways to go, especially if you’re buying your first, that whole world of. You know, the American engine [01:07:00] designs, you know, so we are kind of leaning into the Panera and deferred till now, but it’s like these are all birds of a feather where you have these Italian designers who don’t have the wherewithal to build their own engines from scratch and just use a powerful hotted up hot cammed Chevy engine.

Or forward, I think in the Panera. Yeah, Panera was Ford. It was the Cleveland 3 51. I was hanging out with the Panera last week and it’s like, what a crazy ass. You know the funny thing about the iso grifo, if I’m not mistaken, he had a 3 27, 3 50 or a 4 54. Yeah. Yeah. I mean for God’s sake, you know that, that was just incredible.

But you talk about a nose heavy beast, you know, don’t try to put that thing into too many curves or that’s one of those cars you’re driving on the coast to get some ke in that. That’s what that is. You know, I get though, they start out with that. We lost, lost him. Williams dead. Now that, that is Italian right there.

That’s Italian right there. Got right off his chair. He’s so engaged. He died. Deri is I, [01:08:00] that’s what I love too. Cause I, I, I like the mesh of the Italian design Italian built car with the American. . I, I wanna say it takes it off the stress, so to speak, but to your point, you go down to AutoZone and whatnot and gets parts for the motor.

Mm-hmm. and get the thing running. It’s not intimidating to an owner to own it and be worried about going out and driving it because it’s got American V8 in the engine bay. Again, you’re not gonna be toss this thing around, but you know, it’s a great cruising car and it’s got style for days. Again, it’s kind of one of those ones you come router and not a lot of people will know what it is because it looks like a body kit on a c3, Corvette,

I mean, just to play devil’s advocate, . Thanks Mark. Thanks for putting a pin in my balloon. You know, mark it, it’s funny you bring up putting a body kit on a C3 because back in the eighties Chrysler put a body kit on the LeBaron and he called it PC . It’s a wonderful car. It’s a great way to go. Love it. I swear to God he’s gonna utter the words.

Buy a Brooklyn. By the end of this episode, , [01:09:00] I should have got some weed for this. Well, since you’ll bring it up, , we’re playing a drinking game and every time you mention it, we’re doing a shot. We all be really drunk, . So I think the 900 pound gorilla that William has brought up is, do we have a reliability problem we need to overcome, or is it just the expertise is missing on this side of the pond?

What’s the issue? Like, what’s the apprehension with these Italian cars? You know, I remember reading an article, I think it was Car and Driver Magazine a thousand years ago, and they were talking about how to own a Ferrari 3 0 8 on a working man budget. And I read that article five or six times to make sure I got it all and basically it, it, it said the bottom line was just budget.

Just budget your money. The other thing that was a little undertone. And I think a lot of people, especially with Italian cars, don’t do enough. They don’t drive ’em. You gotta get out there and drive ’em. Yeah. Cause that’s when you’re gonna work out those bugs. People always say, oh God, Italian cars, they’re horrible, they’re terrible, [01:10:00] blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I always wanted the 84 Cuatro forte. People always thought that was just an ugly car. It was either a love it or hate it kind of car. And I, I knew one guy, he had five of ’em. He always said, you’ve gotta drive him, you’ve gotta drive him. He had a very low mile one. It was an 82 and if I remember right, that car had something like 3000 miles on the clock.

It was like brand new, but it didn’t run. It was just a paper weight hit other car and 80, I wanna say that was the 84. He had close to 250,000 miles on that car. And he said that car ran like a chimp. No trouble, no problem. It was always going, but he did. . It took a lot of money, a lot of patience and a lot of time to get it to that level.

But once he got it there, there it was, he was brilliant. You gotta drive it with a little gusto too. You can’t just putz around. You gotta really kind of work that footer. Right, right. Yeah, you do. You gotta let it breathe. Yeah, you really do. And I, I think most Italian cars are that way. I really do. Well, I mean, the one thing is if you can find a person that can work on ’em, that’s gonna be your friend for life or as, as long as you own that car, you’re gonna have [01:11:00] a great relationship with them, period.

They’re gonna love you. Do you have to be like a soothsayer or a mystic or some sort of profit to work on an Italian car? I mean, an engine’s an engine. Chris was saying it’s a twin cam. How different is it than any Kasi or a Toyota four a g e or anything else that’s a twin cam four banger. I get the intricacies of a v12, but if you’re a Jag guy, how different is the Ferrari V12 than the Jaguar v12?

Right. At the end of the day, so why are we so afraid of these cars? Well, that’s the problem. You’re afraid if you have some sense about you and some mechanical ability, you can work on it yourself. YouTube is awesome in regards to learning stuff. I mean, you gotta trust the guy that’s putting the video out there, but you know, you’ll watch a few ever.

It’s not too crazy to work on these things yourself. Avoid that 150, $200 an hour labor charge and try and do it yourself. It’s not too out of the realm of trying to accomplish that. You gotta have the confidence in. You know, once you take it apart, put it back together, that you go and [01:12:00] turn the key, it starts and then you can drive away.

I think just a lot of people are intimidated by it. That’s their biggest issue. I think there is a service problem or there was years ago, and I think that that is a stigma. That has stuck with the Italian car community. I really do. You know, when I got my fiat, everybody warned me. Oh my God, you’re gonna be in the shop all the time with that car.

Just get rid of it. Problem, problem, problem. Everything. And admittedly, yeah, we had to work through some bugs. But I’ll tell you something. That car, when I was in college, that was my daily driver. That was the only, well, wasn’t the only car I had, but it was the daily driver. It was the one that got me to school to work and work was the worst.

I don’t know how well you guys know California, but I lived in Glendale, went to school in Pasadena, worked in Hollywood, but the work would often send me out to Beverly Hills, Malibu, sometimes Ventura, over into the San Fernando Valley. And yeah, guess what? That was the fiat doing that run. But yes, I did have to work out some bugs.

I did have to pay the mechanic because these don’t like to work on cars. [01:13:00] But I think it goes back to, it’s an old stigma. I really, really do. I, I, I think they’re quirky, maybe the way they’re designed, they’re engineered, whatever. But you do have to drive ’em. You’ve gotta work those bugs out. And William, you’re right.

Thanks to the day and age of YouTube, you, you can find almost anything out there about how to fix or how to tune or how to dial it in. And thanks to the internet, there’s a whole community out there who can help you out with this as well. You, you got a question? You don’t understand the, the YouTube video.

Go on Facebook. You’re gonna find a community out there who’s gonna be able to help you dial in whatever it is you’re trying to dial in. Eric, you brought it up. Why are we so afraid of these? Why are the ISOs so attractive? Cuz they’ve got a Chevy engine under the hood. I think that just goes to economics.

It just makes it easier if you are gonna work on it. It’s easier to go Chief Auto Parts or AutoZone or whatever and buy a water pump for a Chevy engine than it is a Maserati, Lamborghini, Ferrari, whatever. So that just boils down to economics and parts availability. I, I don’t think anybody should really be afraid of an Italian car.

I, I don’t, I [01:14:00] think you should go in it with a little bit of caution, a little bit of education. Have some guys around you who really, really know these cars like William does, like Chris does, like some other people out there. Go on Facebook and start to learn these cars before you dive in. See which one might be right for you.

I think that’s really the best way to. And it just enhances your ownership experience too. I mean, when you work on that car yourself, as we all know, and you get your hands dirty and greasy and stuff like that, the ownership of that car, it just takes it to a different level because of you’re just becoming that much more connected with it.

It creates that relationship. It just, it makes it that much better owning that car when you’re working on it yourself because you, you know it. Then you’re starting to really know the intricacies of that car. Mm-hmm. and learning what it’s about. Mm-hmm. , and especially with Italian cars back, the older ones that age almost everyone was kind of a little different than the next one that came down the line because, you know, as a day went on, you know, they were drinking their wine on the assembly line.

You know, hey, you know, some corners get cut or whatnot, but you know, each car’s gonna have its own little [01:15:00] quirks and stuff like that. And you learn about it. And that’s what’s great about owning those cars cuz it becomes your car. I’m gonna disagree. . I was gonna disagree first. Oh shit, mark, sorry. So I’m a Ferrari 3 48 owner.

Service position engine out. Exactly. You have to be careful and, and I don’t disagree. Working on your cars is good, but it’s kind of soured me a little bit on Ferrari. It’s a lot of low volume unobtainium and they put in planned obsolete, isn’t there? So they, the engine out belt change needs to be done every three years.

Well, guess what? You’re always in the window of having to do that. Either you just had it done and you spent 12 grand to have it done. And it’s really hard to do on your own. There’s special tools and dropping your engine out. It’s not like changing some filters or anything. Dropping an engine out is a, you have to know what the hell you’re doing.

It’s one of those things, yes, if you’re mechanically inclined and you have the equipment to do it, but you’ve gotta have the tool sets to do it. And that is by design, by Ferrari because they wanted to keep [01:16:00] enough action going through the maintenance bay in their local dealerships that make ’em make sense.

If it’s a low volume car, you’re not gonna get enough work to keep the mechanics around and keep ’em fed and happy. So I think that’s one of the dirty little secret of the car world, especially the Ferrari world, is that they’ve really kind of built that maintenance cycle in to be. A little bit beyond the normal maintenance cycle of any other cars that are out there.

You know, I think that’s a little disappointing. Now, that isn’t true necessarily of earlier Ferrari’s and the later ones. Now they’re so electronic and digital that, you know, it’s like you have to be more of a computer guy than a mechanical guy to deal with them. But the parts are low volume and they’re often made of exotic materials.

Like here I, I have a recent example. Something wasn’t feeling right in my transmission. I take into the shop in the 3 48, they used what’s called a dual mass flywheel. So in the flywheel, in the clutch, they have grease packed in there to be a shock absorber. Well, I don’t know if you know about [01:17:00] grease and if grease and how a clutch works.

It’s a frictional device, right? If any of that grease leaks out, guess what? You gotta tear the whole thing down. The good thing is it’s very accessible on that car. It’s just like, okay, that’s unnecessarily complicated for that car, right? They wanted to bring their F1 technology in. It’s a great car. Like I, I will say with a 3 48, it always gets called the baby test OSA because of the streaks on the side.

But it’s actually closer to a baby F 40. It’s got the longitudinal engine, it’s got the cooling ducks behind the driver. A lot of the steering is very similar. It’s a great car. It’s a ripper. It’s fun. It’s not gonna be the world’s fastest car. It’s kind of gotten beyond that. It’s got go-kart. One of the best steering.

Oh yeah, it’s one of the last true manual Ferrari, like the end of the day. Yeah, absolutely. That. Well, that’s to thing is the 3 48 and the 3 55, your major services, it’s all engine out, everything coming out and when, uh, I’m gonna hack his last name up, but when Luca [01:18:00] Dibaba, I, him , he’s trying to recognize these problems and they said cuz when he came outta the freeway, they 3 55 was already basically coming out and doing it.

So, all right, so the 360 came, cause 360 belt service, they got the panel door, whatnot. So you’re have to take the engine out, you can get to it, you can go your local guy that knows how to do it. Three or four grand, so not cheap, but the view things when they went to the four 30, everything went to chains, everything like that.

Hey, you know, kind of solved some of those issues there. But it’s unfortunate in regards to some of those things, cuz yeah, I mean, you have to know what you’re doing and it kind of goes to the ownership to your point. Either you just had it done or you’re planning to have it done. You have to put in your budget, all right?

You gotta balance it out that you gotta roughly have five, six grand a year. You gotta basically kind of put a aside in your mind that you’re gonna have for maintenance. Now one year you might only have to do two, three grand, but the follow year might be seven or eight. So it’s, it’s kind of one of things.

You also have to think, it’s just, it’s part of the ownership. A lot of people get intimidated by that and that’s why they kind of steer clear. Cause they’re like, oh, I don’t wanna spend the money. But I say, well, any older car you’re gonna have, you’re gonna have to spend the money. It’s just depending on what model [01:19:00] isn’t what it’s gonna take.

It’s just part of the ownership of it. Would I tackle doing an engine out? Gonna take No. You know, I know my limit. Very cautious in regards to what I’m gonna do myself. You know, I know what I can and can’t do. I’m more than happy to have my guy down the street. No, take ze Carson. Just have at it. Here’s my credit card.

Charge me . There’s a lot to be said there. I mean, I’m still trying to put two and two together with Chris’s spaghetti sauce powered, dual mass flywheel, because the Germans, it’s all metal plates and springs and things. So I’m trying to figure out how this viscus setup actually works, but, we’ll, we’ll put a pin in that as well.

But the Ferrari, I think give the rest of the brands a bad rap, whether it be the Fiats or the Maseratis or Lamborghinis and so on. They all have their complexity. The Manetti, Marelli, electronics, the right up there with Lucas. Unfortunately, to Williams point, if you know how to turn a wrench, some of those more, let’s call them basic engines, even the twin cam alphas and stuff like that, the V6 is the buso engines.

Those you shouldn’t be afraid of, because honestly, I’d recommend those power plants over a [01:20:00] flat six Porsche any day. I know Mark and sympathize with me on this, cuz timing a flat six is a pain in the neck. If you do it wrong, you blow up half the motor. You know, there’s a lot of intricacies in the German engines, high tolerances, all this kind of stuff.

The Italian motors, non Ferrari engines, they’re pretty stout. I mean, they’re designed to rev to like 10 billion RPM all day long. Where do you think Honda got the idea from? I, I don’t know. I, I just don’t want. To sour people’s impression of Italian cars by basing it solely on Ferrari. I think there’s still some gems out there.

Airplane. So one I might add, we haven’t addressed either of the other two price categories. We spent the last hour and a half sub 50. Oh, we’re, we’re getting there. We’re climbing up. So take us there. I I, I would say if you’re going with one of our sub 50 K relatively exotic recommendations, they’re very low volume and that’s a real fucking problem, right?

You’re shipping stuff from Italian junkyards at that point to get back to you when some just 30 year old piece of metal fails as it is want to do. I [01:21:00] haven’t heard in the sub 50 K any obvious future classic, the two most obvious ones to me being the Quadrifolio Julia and the Alpha four C, the four Cs that was on my list.

I mean, obviously the four C isn’t as good as a Cayman objectively, but subjectively you can make a strong argument for it. Transmission notwithstanding, it’s a really cool little car. under 50 K. You’ve got the Quadrifolio and you got the foresee, and those things are much more modern. They skip all of these kind of problems, carbon tub notwithstanding, and you’re in a situation to deal with them in a much more, uh, reasonable, contemporary kind of fashion.

I’m with you, mark. If I had to start all over again and to satisfy that itch, check that box that says, thou shall own an Italian car to be a proper petrol head. I think the four C is the answer to your point. It’s not as good as a Cayman, but it’s better than an Elise. If you think about it from that perspective, it’s better than a lot of other cars.

Maybe not as good as [01:22:00] some, but the power plant in the four cheese comes right out of the Juliet. It’s a two liter turbo. It’s a commodity engine. Right. They’ve been running that two liter turbo in a bunch of stuff overseas, so it’s not an exotic engine, but it’s hopped up. Right. 250 horsepower or whatever they make, the way that car is built, that whole mono cock design they came up with, if you, there’s a whole thing on History Channel about that car specifically, cuz it’s extremely unique the way they do it.

It’s F1 technology and yet somehow managed to be heavier than a bonded aluminum chassis in its competitor. I I know we’re not gonna go there. We’re not gonna go there. But you can pick one up for 35 grand. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. No, a hundred percent. I, I totally, I totally recommend it. You forego a manual transmission.

That’s the only thing that would keep me from a four C. It is at the top of my list. It’s a dry dual clutch. Yeah. That they bought from Dodge. That’s the really unfortunate part. Lantis . I had St. Man, if you’re suffering from Lantis for more [01:23:00] than four hours, see a doctor. All right. I had to get some appointment for that shit.

I have Lantis and I have an appointment in the morning. . I was gonna ask, you know, so for a bigger car, what about the quattroporte? It’s been around longer. You can find him for within probably 25 to 45, depending on the year. And the, I guess the, the mileage and everything. It’s fu ugly. Hmm. It looks like a fish.

How dare you ? Is that bad? It looks like a fish. How dare you. How dare you, sir? I think the Quattroporte is a good looking car. It’s like a very dangerous fish. It’s like an exotic and dangerous fish. It’s an exotic catfish. It has those Buick Air inlets along the, like, the fenders along the hood. It’s ridiculous.

It’s like a Roadmaster like, I, I can’t, it’s got that big gaping mouth, like a carp. Like I don’t get it. Thought we were friends. So I wanna, I, I want to hear from the real Italian petrolheads, like Chris and and William, what [01:24:00] their thoughts are. Eric, Eric is the only Atte. He, he’s a, an Italian redneck.

Quattroporte Fuck

not a fan. And I’m talking about the, the mid late two thousands. Not the, Hey, you said two votes fu two votes. Fu let’s Roman style voting Quattroporte. It’s an executive car. One of the, it’s an executive car that I can fit in. See? Yeah. There’s a whole, it’s an Italian car that I. Squeeze my frame into, and I don’t know, William, maybe have a, has a different opinion.

I mean, good running gear I guess, but it’s also kind of expensive. We were talking about Maseratis earlier, kind of being problematic, the SCS and that kind of stuff. And it’s like, I think we can all agree it’s no ETE . No, no one’s recommended the buy turbo. Where’s the, I was gonna go there because no one recommends a bi turbo because you have to buy like 200,000 miles turbo B turbo A B turbo

The JPA crowd is, says it buy turbo, [01:25:00] turbo. So I’m gonna start calling the Audi S four B turbo next too. All right. So it’s all good. You know, nobody recommends those cars because they’re like Jags, if it has low mileage, run away from it. The by turbo is notoriously just terrible. It’s a nightmare car. I’ve met some people that owned them and they’re like, it’s fantastic for the five seconds that it runs, but if you don’t find one of the high mileage, it means it was not a runner.

And that’s, that’s a scary reality with those cars. I’ve heard. You gotta rewire them soup to nuts. Just again, do you want to go through that nightmare? No, but yeah. man. Yeti marelli for the win. I think we’re turning into the Jerry Lewis telethon of of podcast.

Jerry say, Hey Ed, I hear the Tiffany . Davis and I are sitting over here. We’re gonna have Carol Channing come out and sing with us. . Hey Mark, [01:26:00] that’s low. He’s going right for you. . I’m just hanging my head in shame. I think we ought to like spend some time in the fantasy world of, I think so too. The Maso cars, the ones that we all dream of.

And, and I’m gonna ask a controversial question. Oh, gutta, would you own one? Oh wow. Four votes down. Two votes off. I’m imagining Don getting into a, a kuta right now. Nope. . Which, which half of him, I’m gonna tell you a little secret with a little bit of Vaseline and a, a shoehorn and a guy pushing. I can get into Atosh.

Ask him how he knows. No, don’t ask. No. Otherwise, I’ll bring up an. . I’d rather own a Diablo to be cleared. Yes, take a thank you. Thank you. Diablo’s, where it’s at. And the Kuta was on our walls. And then I don’t come from car [01:27:00] stock, you know, my parents didn’t care about cars or anything, but I did Cannonball Run.

I saw there was a car show and they were gonna have a kuta show up. So I went to this car show and I was like, utterly disappointed. I have to say. It was like there was this era where the front wheels were like just a little too small, a little too weird looking. I think it’s true with the Testa of, you know, kind of that general era.

Like when you look at ’em, they’re just not scaled exactly. Right now, the next generation, they got it right and all that sort of stuff. I’ve never owned one, so I can’t talk about the ownership issue. And maybe one of y’all can, or William might play in that world, but a Diablo, a Mego, something like that.

I’m there all day. And if I could have a dream car, it might be the Mira. I just think that’s a beautiful, beautiful, amazing car. Everyone’s dream car is a mirror. Yeah, the Mercy E gear is uninteresting to me person. Yeah, the mercy , I mean, the mirror set the stage for what we [01:28:00] define as exotics. Right? Let’s, let’s be serious, but yeah, no, a hundred percent.

When you bring up Diablo, you have to be very careful with that because I think there’s gen one and Gen two, even though that’s not an official thing because I’m a pop-up headlights Diablo guy, early Diablos, because the later closed over kind of competi look with the svs and the S VJs where they kind of bloated ’em, they changed the wheels, to your point, came in those funky, uh, plump, crazy and all those weird colors that, you know, they were getting from Dodge, that they were painting ’em in.

I just, uh, it doesn’t do it for me. Remember one thing though, when we’re talking about Lamborghini and go back to the mirror. The mirror is the car that put the super exotic on. That was the car that said, this is what we’re going for. That was the car that made Ferrari say, oh shit, what do we get ourselves into when we piss that farmer off?

So he builds the mi. The Mira had a major Achilles heel, which was transverse engine fuel tank. And the front end weight. Yep. Front end weight. The way [01:29:00] the engine was mounted, it created a lot of handling problems. The kush came along and its job was to not only solve that, but again, put the fear into the heart of Ferrari.

And at this point it started splitting the crowd. Now, Eric, to your color thing, one of the separating dynamics that made Mire so popular was the color palette that was available. Ferrari was all red. It was just red. Everything was gonna be red with Ferrari. But we were in the sixties, the psychedelic movement was coming out.

Younger people had some money, and so Lamborghini cashed in on that by offering the psychedelic colors. And that really, really worked for them. So when the Kotahi came along, they were kind of getting away from that. They wanted to go into something totally different, get away from the mito, get away from what we used to do in the sixties, is over.

Let’s move forward. The Kush takes us into 1989 from what, 1974. And you had a car that stepped up to the ball plate and you talk about the most unapologetic, the most [01:30:00] dynamic, ridiculous looking car. You know, Chris, you brought it up. The wheels didn’t look quite right on the first, on the earliest series.

They, they really didn’t. In fact, if you look at the early series ku. They didn’t really look right at all. They looked a little weird. It wasn’t until they started refining it and made it what it was. I stay away from the anniversary editions. I think those are an abomination. I think they’re horrible. I hate to say that, but there’s too much Tupperware going on.

My only problem with Diablo, and this is where I still side with Kuta, is the Diablo was essentially a Chrysler. Which is really interesting that when you go later down the line and Eric, you hit the nail on the head. They started coming up with all these dodge colors. Well, that was the way a lot of people saw it.

They, oh my god, they’re stealing colors from Chrysler Corporation. No, they were trying to go back to the Nere days because they were the ones who brought it up first. Chrysler copied them back in the sixties and seventies. The psychedelic movement, that’s where it came from. When Chrysler invested so heavily, they saw what they [01:31:00] thought was a really ugly car.

That really ugly car became, and forgive me, Eric, I know I’m messing this up badly with your accent, but I think I’m saying it right. The Chita Mora, the Chita. Yeah. I was gonna bring that car up. The V 16 Chita. Yes. Yes. And that car was supposed to be the original Diablo, correct? Chrysler said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That car looks way too ugly. It doesn’t look good enough. We’re taking the design back to Detroit and we’re gonna smooth it over. We’re gonna make it more like maybe a Chrysler TC or La . Oh, geez. . And that became the Diablo. Now, I have nothing against Diablo except to me. When you have the MUR stepping up to the plate and telling everybody, by the way, I am Lamborghini.

And people took a breath and said, oh my God. And then that car wore out and they said, ah, we’re gonna knock your socks off again. They said, by the way, I am Kuta. Holy cow. And what does that translate to Kuta? [01:32:00] So you have these unforgiving looking cars coming out of Sonta, and then there was Diablo. It’s easy to make one of these cars when it, you make it unlivable.

You know the Diablo. Only by Lamborghini standards could you call it more practical for Christ’s sake. It’s a Diablo. It’s still trying to murder you, and it’s still holy impractical. And that’s where we go back to the jpa, Halk Jalapeno, the Lamborghini Jala. Jalapeno. Yeah, exactly. Because that was to the point that was made earlier, more of a competitor to the 3 0 8.

It was more of a driver’s car. The kuta, every review I’ve ever seen about it, whether it was filmed yesterday or 30 years ago, people are like, you can’t see out of it. It’s noisy, it’s hot, it’s undrivable, it steers like a truck. It’s all sizzle and just no steak at the end of the day. Right. So it’s very flashy.

And I’ve always wondered, because you don’t hear people talking about Diablos. You don’t see them in shootouts like that [01:33:00] Japanese videos that we were talking about. You don’t, you just never see Diablos. Maybe because they made three of them. Yeah, they’re low volume because the konta was so revolutionary that they made a ton of them.

It stuck around forever. But I think that UND drivability is still there in the Diablo. You can’t see out of it. It still steers like a bus. You know, all those kinds of things that didn’t get corrected until you got to the gala prototype, the Mercy Lago, the, the Guyardo and all those R eight platform based Lamborghini, when they’re finally straightened out, even the Kuta is an engineering miracle.

If you look at how that motor is mounted on top of the transmission and the shifter is directly into the tail. I mean, it, it’s bon. The prop. Jeff goes through the engine. Oh, it’s, it’s absolutely insane. It’s like what mental patient came up with this thing and then, you know, again, we get into the reliability question and maintenance and all that.

Kutas is just so over the top extreme. I love them, don’t get me wrong. And I do like the JC Whitney body kit ones, you know, the later [01:34:00] ones, non-US bumpers and all that kind of stuff. You mean the Tupperware edition ? Hundred percent only came in white. The Tupperware edition. Yeah. David Hasselhoff drives them.

You know, those kind of cars, uh, Lamborghini, I mean, they are the poster on the wall, but then you have Testa Rosa on the other side saying, look, I’m here too. That was less interesting. I mean, the Kuta was everything you wanted to be in your fantasy is, it’s just in reality, like I was describing earlier, when you saw it in real life, it didn’t quite live up to the eye candy that it was on the poster.

Even when you see it on tv, one of those things like, oh, okay. It’s like when you meet a famous actress and it’s like, you’re not exactly what I remember. You’ll meet your heroes . No, I mean, I think it’s fair to appreciate the longevity of the Kuta. Right? Like I was gonna say, the Kuta is like, a, was a little bit like the gtr, but it’s probably more appropriate to say the GTR was more like a kuta and that it was revolutionary when it landed and, and that gave it.

The longevity that it had, and by [01:35:00] the time you’re really complaining about it, it’s very long in the tooth from a car design, uh, perspective. They didn’t have a choice though, because they’re going through bankruptcy so many times. They didn’t take good. Yeah. I mean they couldn’t make money , you know exactly that.

Not withstanding, you know, reasons not withstanding to your analogy, mark. I think the kuta is closer to the GT 40 than anything else. Cuz if you look at how it evolved and even now, the modern kuta, when we stack that on top of the pile, it really follows more of the Ford lineage than it does anything else.

And it’s evolution. That’s fair. I’m not gonna argue on that one. It was a big deal and that’s why it was able to, to maintain the sales volume relative for its time, low volume for today. It, it was sticky. Now we could flip that over. If you wanna buy a drivable Diablo to go into Don’s world, just buy a Viper and get it over with the Dodge product, with the Lamborghini engine and it buy one of the early first gen rear world drive ones and call it an today.

All right, I’m gonna throw one out here. Could be the one car [01:36:00] I would buy. Oh. Oh, we’re talking about what we’d actually do. That’s a different conversation. Ferrari 2 88, gto. Oh my god. An F 40 with a street body on it. One one. You’d actually buy what for like half a million dollars or? Yeah, we’re in fantasy land man.

We’re world. Yeah. If I win the Mega millions, sure. The problem with the 2 88 G T o is that Yes. It’s awesome. It’s like the five 12 bb, right? You’re like, that is super cool until you realize for slightly more money, you just buying a 40, you call it a day, actually less money. Because the 2 88 g o it’s DNA is in the F 40 I.

I’d rather have the F 40 I F 40 s cheaper than a 2 88. Play that right now. 2 88, you’re at about 3 million plus your, your F 40 s, your two to two five depending on what mileage and whatnot going on it. So if I have my druthers, I take the F 40 over to 2 88. I love the 2 88. You know, it’s one of my favorite code.

It’s kind of right there. I have that F 40 and 28 are like right there, but if I had to pick one, I’d take the F 40. It’s just such a [01:37:00] raw, analog car. Nothing in it that’s just motor pedals seat and go, you know, it’s just a great car. It’s Roman vote on F 40 or 2 88. Office F 40 down is 2 88

I think the F 40 vote, John, there’s no abstention. There’s no, there’s no, you know, you can’t abstain. Fist is F 50. Fist is your disconnected fist. Is F 50. F 50? No, honestly, the F 50 is probably the least. It’s one of the most underrated cars. Even though it’s like well-respected. It’s Ferrari’s. Diablo. It’s terrible.

No, no, no. V12. Oh it, it’s not even Ferrari Diablo. It, it’s more like Ferrari TC . That’s how bad that car is. Ferrari, London. I mean, I don’t like the Enzo either or the, I don’t really like the FX X. I mean, it’s cool. It’s like the Batmobile, but all those after the F 40, it’s like they couldn’t figure out what to do because the F 40 was so perfect and so timeless.

You know? You know, it’s funny, [01:38:00] Eric, sorry Chris to drag this back, but going back to the Lamborghini, the Diablo was that moment for Lamborghini where they sort of said, God, what do we do after Kush? And I think that was where the F 50 fell. After you did that F 40. What do you do? Throw air conditioning in it and a stereo call it a day.

Well it also had hood scoops. That’s right. Yeah. I mean the hood scoops in the air conditioning. Totally different. Yeah. . Yeah, totally different car. Totally different car. Ferrari has kinda lost its way in the last 20 years. You building an SUV for Christ’s. Yeah, but they sell. And you gotta think that’s what they need now is the money.

Even, even Lamborghini is building an s u v, the uterus or uterus, however you wanna say it. I think that’s actually a pretty damn cool car. I really, really do. It has that little bit of that unforgiving, edgy look. As one of our previous guests. Put it Don, it’s the prettiest Pontiac. Aztec . It’s, it really is it really?

But it’ll go 200 miles an hour. Is that such a big deal [01:39:00] these days? I’m not sure that it’s, and you have the cache of saying, I’ve got a Lamborghini. And let’s face it, the last time Lamborghini built an suv, it was called the LM oh oh two. Yeah. It was the precursor to the Hummer, the Stallone Mobile. That thing was something else, but it was built for the, uh, the, was it the Saudi Arabian army?

So Arabian, yeah. Army. They wanted this car and then they said, no, we don’t want it. And Lamborghini said, I bet we can sell this thing. They made like 50 of those. Wow. Yeah. They actually put it out there and wasn’t it code named the cheetah or something like that? Yeah, Chee Cheetah. Yeah. Very good. Yeah, that was the cheetah.

Yeah. So you gotta admit, going from the LM oh oh two to the UUs, boy, that’s a hell of a leap. You know that. That really is. And again, the LM oh oh two, the Ferrari suv, which was the company that put high performance SUVs on the map. Oh, was it Porsche? Porsche, yeah. Who made all the nine 11 guys? Oh my God.

Jesus. And it was horrible for them, but you [01:40:00] know, Ooh, damn. If those Porsche don’t bring in the cash to egg, they totally bring the cash to egg. Just wanna point that out. The cayenne is a to egg. It is. You can’t compare the LM W oh two to the UUs theorist is just an Audi. Yeah, it’s a Q seven or whatever.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But, but that actually brings up a really good point that I wanted to touch on earlier. We’re gonna go back to the fantasy cars. STIs has the opportunity to mimic the GM model of the tier system. And I really truly believe, to answer Brad’s question from before about the Maserati Quattroporte, does he fit in it and this and that, I think Maserati should actually stop building cars and be the s u V brand for Lanis because they’re, they’re, again, they’re gonna start competing with themselves.

Alpha has the Stelvio Ferrari’s come out with their thing. Then there’s the tok, which is gonna be dubbed here as the Hornet. It’s like, no, no, no. Split it up. Ferrari makes the sports cars like Porsche. VW makes the econo boxes. Audi makes the luxury cars. Lantis needs to do the [01:41:00] same thing with Fiat, Maserati, Ferrari, and all the brands that are under their umbrella right now.

They, they, they’ve gone in the other direction with releasing their latest exotic Maserati. Yeah, a hundred percent. But the Maserati S u v actually looks good. I like that fish. Look, it works for that thing. It doesn’t work as a sedan, in my opinion. But let’s put that aside. Let’s get back to fantasy land, William, and I’m not, I’m not trying to downplay where you’re coming from.

Throw us some bargain cars. Two above bargain. Two 15 above, uh, Bugatti EB one 10. That’s French. Oh, the original. The original Eeb one 10 French. Sorry. You want, you wanna throw it out there? It’s just, I, I just, you know, to me, I just think that’s a great car. I, I just, if you wanna go above, we gotta keep it Italian,

There’s a lot of card at the top of my head trying to go in Tal. What about the Daytona? The 365 s? Where are they clocking it at? Oh, you wanna go old or wherever? Wherever you want to go, man. Take us on a journey here. Take me on a trip. Miami [01:42:00] Vice. We are 1984. Let’s go. You can’t be a 2 75 GTP forecast.

Those things drive phenomenal. That’s a car you could drive, I wanna say on a daily basis. But that’s a car you could drive around continuously. It’s not gonna beat you up. The motor’s fantastic. You don’t have to worry about keeping up in the revs. Great, great engine in that car. Do you wanna get really crazy?

Start getting into like a, a two 50 California drop top Ferris fueler. That’s just a dream car, you know? And. You really wanna get obnoxious, you go to the two 50 gto, you know, you start getting into those type of cars. But you getting that, say the two 50 to seven 50 range. Here’s my thought on pricing on these cars.

It be it. Some of these cars, I don’t understand how they’re priced where they’re at because I just don’t see it. But, you know, DeMars gonna dictate what something’s worth. So let me ask you this. What’s the card that you get requested the most to search for? At least in the Italian side? The 40, the 2 88 gtl.

Wow. Okay. Those are the two I probably get the most train trying to find when you get to those cars, the next question is, [01:43:00] okay, all right. How many owners mileage, original paint, you know, service, history, they really wanna start? Will it down? And then you start getting costs wise. Okay. Okay. I have one that’s got six owners that’s got, you know, 20,000 miles and it’s that okay, you’re at 2.9, but then if you get a A two owner car, original paint class E certified red books, the whole nine yards.

Okay, you’re at 3.7, 3.8 million. It’s gonna run the gamut on what someone wants to pay and what they wanna do with the car. And again, it’s like not a lot of these people that buy this car really go out and they’re going, Hey, I’m gonna drive this thing and put miles on whatnot. No, they’re buying more than the best than anything.

They’re gonna use it. They’re gonna take it to shows. They wanted to show their buddies and say, Hey look, I bought one. I finally got one. I’m part of the club. One of those situations, which unfortunate, because you should get out and drive the cars. What we’d said earlier in our conversation, you know, you need to go out and drive those cars.

They’re meant to be driven. It’s a car, go out and enjoy it. But those are the ones that are really kind of get the most requests for you. Again, the person that’s buying those now is the person. And they have those cars and those posters on the wall. People that are in fall net age group between, you know, your late thirties, early [01:44:00] forties into your mid, late fifties, early sixties, they’re gonna go after those eighties supercar.

Piper cars that they grew up and they loved. The guy that’s looking for the 2 75 is looking for the sixties front engine, V12 s that guy’s looking to complete a collection. You know, he’s got 20, 30 cars and that’s one he needs to finish off. What he is looking, there’s something special about it that he wants it.

It’s a different buyer when you start getting into those level of cars, you know, it’s not someone that’s, that’s the only one I’m ever gonna own. Yeah. I mean, you’re gonna have your outlier here and there with someone. They’re gonna put all the money into one car cause that’s your dream card. It’s a different type of buyer that’s going into that market and buying those cars at that price point.

If I’m looking in this exotic price point, the first thing that comes to mind for me, I don’t know how they pronounce it. Is it m a t? Is it Matt The Stratos remake. Oh yeah. That they do on top of the F four 30 chassis. So basically you give them a donor F four 30 and they give you back a Stratos ish.

Hundred and 30% version type car. I think [01:45:00] eight inches out of the chassis on the F four 30 shorten the wheel base, you know? Yeah. It’s stupid expensive Reviews I’ve read around it are like 500 K British pounds on top of the donor car to get where they are. But for me, if I’m looking at stuff, I’d like to have it.

It seems like a really, really well done version of that kind of car. Rather have that than just a Stratos proper. I mean, a strato stra is like 500 K. I’d rather have that wizzy V6 right behind my head. Legit total rally heritage that d n A in there. I think that’s a cool car. I like that car. It’s like, I’d rather have for the same money you can have the real deal.

That’s fair. I think, I’m not sure how many public options they’ve really had for Lanci Estrada since the values of everything has gone up through the roof. Mm-hmm. , was it 500 K four years ago? Certainly it was. I’m not sure it would be 500 K today. [01:46:00] I have a hard time finding public examples of that, that notwithstanding, they’re two different cars, right?

It’s like owning the GT 40 from the early nineties versus the original one. They made a modern car that looked like the shape of the original GT 40 didn’t have all of those compromises. You’re looking at a lot of compromises to get into some mid seventies. Original Stratos right. Versus F four 30 that they put body panels on to turn , to turn into ASEs Stratos.

You know, it, it, and it kind of brings up the whole idea of these like newer versions of things we were talking about that outlaw launch a, you know, an alcoholics GTA kind of thing where they go through and they take a, from the ground up, a brand new G T V bodied Alpha Romeo that’s got carbon fiber, all the bits and bobs, and it’s like, it’s cool, but it’s kind of like, it’s starting to fall into that restomod world where it’s like, yeah, a hundred percent.

I mean, the, the people are looking at what [01:47:00] singer did with Porsche, right? And saying, can I do that? in these other market niches right in in the Alpha Rome and saying like, you know what? I’m gonna just redo all these body panels and carbon fiber, right? I’ll have Cosworth build this out and we’re just gonna, yeah.

I mean at that point it, you’re getting him to absurdity land. It’s an amazing place to be if you can afford to be there. Yeah. Don, you’ve been very quiet. Me. Yeah. He hasn’t found another American car pinned by an an Italian yet. . I was just looking on eBay. Of course, some elans for sale. I’m gonna be going out to Palm Springs, have a steak and a few martinis, and I want a nice new elan to take out there.

And I’m debating 4.9 liter or North Star and that, that’s my big problem today. Oh my God. I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit. pay a car that we haven’t brought up. I think I’m in the right price range here. I think it’s called Maserati Mc 12. Remember those cars? Yep. They’re reintroducing a new one.

Yeah, [01:48:00] they, they built like 25 of ’em, if I remember correctly, and then they built another 25 later on. I always thought those were kind of a neat car because it, it was, you know, it’s almost goes back to that category of what kind of car is that, you know, you pull into a cars in coffee and a lot of people might wonder, is that a Ferrari that Lamborghini?

What is that thing? And then he saw him some Maserati. Oh, a Maserati. You know, they’d never seen it before. And that’s kind of fun. I don’t know, I just wondered what you guys thought about that. I, I think they’re hugely overpriced, but you know, I’m an Elan guy. It’s a bloated Enzo. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It’s bigger, it’s wider.

I mean, it’s just, it’s a bloated Enzo, the new one seems better, has a better speck, I think. But I haven’t paid too close of attention to it. I believe the Mc 12 put down a better lap time around the top gear test track than the Enzo did. Yes, it did. Yeah. Well, they were able to obviously take the Enzo, they were able to, I would say, tweak it and make the adjustments to it that.

To make it a better handling card. And that was one that they actually took basically to go racing, whereas the Enzo wasn’t. [01:49:00] So that’s what they wanted to do was make that thing better. So because they wanted to take that thing racing and it was actually extremely successful. I think it was like three straight championships or something.

I mean, it was really successful in their series, raced in. How much of that is just tires? This is an honest question. If you put Michelin Sport Cup to our. Tires on that original Ferrari in the mid nineties or one of the hell was what? What would be its lap time then? No, that’s a good point. Especially this day and age.

I mean, cuz you’ve got so many different compounds and everything you can put on a car. That would be really interesting to see. Just to be able put it down to tires. I would say a, a good percentage of it could come down to tires. What you have on it. Remember a couple of years back when Chris Harris went to Porto and took the McLaren, the Ferrari and the Porsche Piper cars and like tested ’em and then they had to mandate, it’s like no one could bring their own rubber.

They had to like use Yeah, those guys were not happy about it, but, well, you got a lot of cars today that they’re built around the tires basically. Start with [01:50:00] those that go to what that car’s gonna be specked with and go from there to what that thing can do. You, you get cup two s on there. I mean those scenes aren’t gonna last what?

Maybe 2,500 miles ? 1500 miles. I’ve got 9,000 on a pair of cup two s right now. Oh you do? I do. . He didn’t tell you that they were corded, but you know, whatever. . No, I, I just had service. They told me they were doing great. I asked them if I needed a new set, and hoping they would say no. Kind of going back to these Italian collector cars.

I don’t know that there is one right answer. I really do think it goes back to what William was saying early on. It’s what you wanna do. Don’s racing his hand cuz the answer’s Cadillac . No, it is not a Cadillac. This time. Eric, you, you challenged me and you said, Don has run out of AM America? No, I’d like to contend, I’d like to offer up for your consideration.

All right. Let me guess the Oldsmobile four or the Chevrolet Testudo or any of these [01:51:00] concept cars that never made it to reality. There is the Oldsmobile tro, which has an Italian name, but that’s an American car. I’m not gonna bring that up now you said penned. Okay, so I wanna bring up the Ford Granada gia, oh God, the Mustang two Gia.

Uh, these are all classy cars that you can run around in for 5,000 bucks. Mint condition. These are wonderful cars. If my Italian was worse, I would say that Gia was synonymous with trash, but you know, hey, whatever, , there’s certain design houses that I favor over others. Let’s just put it that way. And there are a ton of Italian designers out there, and I think.

Also the beauty in some of this, right? We’ve talked about on other episodes where you know, there’s collaborations between Porsche and Mercedes and BMW and Toyota and all sorts of stuff. But in the old days it’s kind of like when you realize that the Bee Gees wrote half of the music for everybody in the seventies and they never really took credit for it.

There’s a lot of Italian designers that did the same thing for auto [01:52:00] manufacturers all over the world, whether it was Volkswagen or Subaru or Fiat. So on down the lines. And it’s kind of neat when you dig into that side of it. So I think we’ve been exposed to Italian cars, at least Italian design cars for a lot longer than we realize.

But it goes back to what William was saying earlier, it kind of depends on what you wanna do with this thing. Mm-hmm. , it seems like money is no object when it comes to an Italian car. I mean, pick your poison gray market cars, there’s a million of them. It really depends on what you’re interested in. I mean, me personally, you know, we were talking about the Alpha Sz.

I wouldn’t in Portland as much as I wanna drive one, I mean, please, somebody hand me the keys. I want to drive my hero. But if I had to choose, I’d buy a later Alpha Romera because it’s the evolution of the sz. It’s a little bit more easy on the eyes. It has all the right stuff, and none of the weird quirks of the nineties, you know, that kind of thing.

There’s some understated cars, like the as an example, right? It’s a watered down Alpha Romeo sedan that can be hot rotted out. It has the same motor as the Alpha, the 1 [01:53:00] 64, stuff like that. There’s so many neat cars, but I think people need to take the time to look into them and see what excites them and what they can get into.

And I think services like what Chris provides, where if you’re interested in the older cars, he’s breathing a second, if not a third life into a lot of these vehicles. By making the parts more accessible in a global way for people that were like, I could never afford to work on that as easy as a a Fiat eight 50 or a 1 24.

You know? I don’t know where to get the parts for that. These places exist, you’re looking for. And exotic. You call William up and say, Hey man, I want a 2 88 G T O. You know, he’s got all the answers. It’s a lot more challenging because we put up these artificial roadblocks, unlike we do for A B M W or a Porsche or a Mercedes where they have reached an established supercar status long time ago than nine 11 is no longer the every man Porsche.

I mean the 9 44 was, but it’s super car status now. The Corvette has transcended, right? If you look at its price tag, [01:54:00] $150,000 for a Corvette. You know, things like that. So I wanna wrap this up in some way, but I think it’s, it’s hard because we seem to wax poetic about all these cars, but we haven’t come to any sort of conclusion.

I think you hit it right there. We wax poetic. You know, if there’s one thing that I think we can all agree on, and I think we’ve all been around the block a few times with a few different cars, a few different nations who build cars. Nothing drives like an Italian car, nothing. A absolutely, they have a feel, they have an intuitiveness, they have a certain earthiness, if you will, to them.

And I don’t care if you’re talking about my little fiat or that mc 12 there, there’s gonna be. Certain something that lets you know you’re driving an Italian car and it’s wonderful. I mean, they, to me, they drive better than any other car on the planet. I mean, there’s a reason I’ve had my car for 28 years, you know, and, and it’s the lowly little fiat.

I can only imagine what some of the other cars are like. You know, Eric, you correct me if I’m wrong, but the Italians are also a very emotional mm-hmm. , they’re very passionate about what [01:55:00] they do. And when they build a car, you know, we were making jokes about them early. This is what I’m gonna do today, and, uh, that’s it.

I build three, I’m done. Well, they’re on to the next thing because they’re done up here. They’re done, they’ve done it, they built it. Let’s go onto the next thing and good, bad are indifferent as car people. You’ve gotta love them for that, because that’s just how they do it. The French are very much the same way, but we’re not talking about them.

We’re talking about the Italian and the Germans just keep refining bad ideas forever. You know, like the nine 11 , come on , I’m not gonna go there. But, uh, you know, okay. Germans make bad ideas. Good. Eventually, eventually. Is that what far fig Newgen translates to? Yeah. . But you know, I, I think that’s what it boils down to.

And to William’s point, what’s your goal? Okay. We can bring up the Diablos and the Mc twelves and the GTOs and all this other stuff till Kingdom come. I, I think at the end of the day, if we’re talking to somebody who’s gonna be buying their first collector Italian car, yeah, it depends on the bank roll.

And yes, William, it depends on their goal. But [01:56:00] I think what we need to think about is. What’s gonna make ’em come back for more? What’s the car that we can put them in that they’re gonna say, wow, this is the coolest thing in the world. I wonder what it’d be like, you know, having the fiat, everyone always said, well, why don’t you get an Alpha Romeo?

That seems to be the next step up. I don’t know. I just never did. It’s not that I don’t like them, I, I just sort of got married to the fiat and that’s where I’ve been. I think you hit the nail on the head, and we can do another gladiator vote here in a minute, but I think the answer to all of this actually lies in the halls of Alpha Romeo, because like b w as we said earlier as a joke, it’s the Italian b bmw.

There’s, it is something for everybody there between station wagons, compacts, hatchbacks, full sedans, luxury. They’ve got it all. You have to decide which one you want. And they all exude that Italian passion and that flare for design. They’re not ugly cars, they’re sporty cars, just like BMWs, right? [01:57:00] They’ve gone through their phases.

They had their bangal period too. The answer always sort of goes back to Alfa Romeo at the end of the day. I guess we lost Chris Mark. What did you do? Mark, bring Chris back. I was texting him. I think I sufficiently offended him that he just left , but I, I think that’s where people need to divert their attention is look at Alpha a male, look at what they’re putting out.

They just released spy photos of the new Duetto. There’s a lot of progress still being made under that brand. It’s been around a long time. It’s over a hundred years old. It’s one of the older car manufacturers, so don’t take that for granted. There’s a lot of racing pedigree there. There’s a lot of refinement.

Some of the best engines, some of the best sounding engines on the planet come out of that manufacturer. Well, and you know, you brought up age Italian car manufacturing. Fiat is 1899. Yeah, alpha Romeo is right there with them. Maserati is not far off. Ferrari, what is that, 49? I think they were established.

48. I have a new kid on the [01:58:00] block. Yeah. And you know you wanna talk new kid, God, Lamborghini 63. You know, they’re brand new compared to everything else. But yeah, Italian car manufacturing has been there for a long time. There’s a reason when you drive an Italian car, it feels like an Italian car. You know, you made the joke about the by Turbo for the five minutes that it runs.

It’s fantastic. That Fantastic does transcend, you know, it really, really does. And I, I think Alpha’s a great place for any, anybody looking for that first Italian car. I think Alpha would be a great place cuz there is such a variety. And not to be the biased guy, but I think they’re foolish to discount fiat because again, you’ve got a whole bunch of different personalities, a whole bunch of different cars, a whole bunch of different price ranges, et cetera.

You know, William, you brought it up, you, you’ve got the Fiat Dino as well, and I brought it up. We have the Fiat one 30, so we have some different ones, but Eric is right. The sound, the performance, the refinement that you’re gonna find in Alpha Rome. You know, you’re going out of the Volkswagen realm into the B m BMW realm, and that’s where you are.

So yeah, I, I think we can definitely agree. [01:59:00] Anybody looking for that first time collector car Italian? Yeah. I, I think if you tell ’em, you know, look to the Alpha Rome school, I think you’d be good because you’ve got that age, you’ve got the engineering. Do you want a GT card? Do you want a family car, a, a touring car, or do you want an all out sports car?

They’ve got something for you. Yeah. And then that product support’s out there too. You got so many, uh, out there that, you know, aftermarket suppliers and manufacture parts and to do whatever you want to ’em, it’s out there also, so it’s not like you’re gonna be left high in drive. So that’s what’s fantastic too, about it.

I agree. Alpha’s a great route. and Alpha, they’re still racing. Look at the fan base in Formula One. I mean, they’re still alive and well. People who are in a Faris don’t realize that in Zari started working as the race director for Alpha Mayo. Right. You know, it’s like basically Vittorio Yano went and got launch in, started that V six and started that whole program, which then turned into the Ferrari Formula One team in 1956 with B 50, but then became the V6 ban of the Ferrari.

It’s like not all [02:00:00] paths lead to Alpha Mayo. A lot of the Italian heritage and, and I think the, the charisma and also that drivability that Don, you were really getting at, it’s like that ethos is in there. It’s really comes out of that house. And in fact, Enzo Ferrari was more of the mind of we’ll build a more powerful engine and that’ll make us win races.

And you know, alpha was more, we’re gonna build a car. People can drive that our drivers can take around a track and is balanced and has that right ergonomics to make them be successful. And that has been their gift to the whole Italian car industry in that era. Building on that Chris Alpha too, if you buy one of their sedans, be it the, I don’t know, the Julia, be it the Milano, be it the The 1 64.

The 1 64 is always one of my favorite cars. You’re gonna have a wonderful driving experience. and you can still take the family out to dinner or you can still, you know, enjoy a cars and coffee. You can go all over the map with that car. You’re not stuck in a run of the mill cookie cutter kind of car.

You’ve got something [02:01:00] very special. And they do move and they do handle, and they do have that passion and, and that it’s just an irreplaceable bit of Italy. I can honestly say I imprint imprinted on alpha at an early age. You know, I was driving age, I guess you could say, but I drove my grandfather’s Alpha 33 up in the mountains of Italy, and it’s one of those unforgettable drives.

It wasn’t the most fantastic alpha male on the planet, but it was unlike anything else I had ever driven. And at that point I had driven a ton of cars because I started running cars at an early age. To me, I was like, this is really cool. It was a driver’s car, even as a basic sedan, but you could rip through the mountains and then again a high strung twin cam, four cylinder.

It was a joy to drive. I walked away from it and it just, I still remember it to this day. And that was merely shoot, 20 years ago, right? Or more now. Mm-hmm. that I haven’t driven that car. And it’s just like, it still just leaves that impression on you. I imagine you, even when you’re 16 with a full thick beard

Oh dude, this came, this came in in like eighth grade. Man, come on man.[02:02:00]

you know, I, I’ll just say I live out in Oregon and Sports Car Market magazine had a CM 1000 and we had an amazing array of cars from John. Shirley’s like 30 million cow spider. You know, it’s like one of the world’s most important cars down to little Alpha Rome spiders and stuff. And I was driving a 1965 Julius Spider Che.

Just a charming, beautiful car with 1.6 liter engine and a perfectly tuned gear box that just engaged in the steering was tight. It’s one of the greatest driving experiences you’ll ever have. Just full stop. Get your alpha’s, listen. So there’s something we haven’t talked about, which is if you are a first time buyer, are you looking at financing and and how does that work?

There’s this weird gap in financing that I experienced when I was in my twenties and trying to buy cars that maybe weren’t the best, you know, financial decision that I was making at the time, but I did it anyway. You know, you [02:03:00] can go through a major bank kind of up to like seven years old and then after that they don’t wanna finance it.

And classic car financing kind of starts at like the 25 year range and one financing can make these things a lot more affordable. It’s one thing to say you’ve saved $30,000 in cash and you’re willing to put all of that into a car. And it’s another thing entirely to say that, yeah, you know, I’ll make my $600 a month car payment on, you know, this car versus that car.

Getting back to what we were talking about with Alphas, you know, as we talk about kind of, you know, the more obtainable under 50 K range you get the quad portfolio, the foresee that falls into your more traditional financing realm. I personally think the nineties have the most upside. Williams said it earlier in regards to, you know, the age groups of the people that are buying this stuff.

The people that are coming into the money, they’re coming into the strongest buying position of their career. The cars they were looking at that they wanted were nineties cars, right? You’ve got nineties GTVs. Very cool V6 s, gorgeous [02:04:00] headers and great sound. Things that you can look at from that perspective that are actually falling into classic car financing range.

I bought an 85,911 in 2009 or whatever using classic car financing and it was the youngest car they were willing to finance. I had to actually like talk to them and be like, explain to them, no, this was the date it was built and therefore it meets your 25 year age requirement and you can finance me for it.

And after that they were totally cool and I got a loan and five years later I’d paid it off. That enabled me to get into that 85 9 11 that I wouldn’t have been able to get into otherwise. I didn’t have 25 grand in cash that I was gonna spend on that without it. So, William, do you want to chime in on that from the financing perspective?

Because I mean, you deal with this stuff all the time. Not really. He’s all cash transactions. Oh, millions in cash. They just show up with a dumb truck full of cash at the other guy’s house and leaving their driveway. No, I mean, no, it’s a good point. Fact, you know, I mean obviously to get into it though, [02:05:00] you’re gonna have to find that route.

I mean, especially to RA get, I mean now lately this day and age, they’ve kind of got up cuz of what’s going on, but money’s still relatively cheap and you know, if you can finance it out and sit on your money a little bit to keep it for it, I would recommend going that route. But there are so many classic car financing out there.

Pick up Sports Car Marketplace. You pick up any of the magazines out there, you’re gonna find the advertisements for these companies. Just call. Shop around like you would anything if you’re getting a mortgage or whatnot, finance’s gonna best rate. Some people are gonna be a little more flexible on how old the car is, what they’re gonna be able to do.

So it’s get the best terms you can and some of it’s gonna support you too, but not financing it but ensuring it. Also, it’s gonna be your other big thing. You wanna kind of look at, will they give you the value of what’s their total value on the insurance is a big one. Yeah. If it gets totaled, what’s it worth?

And then the other part of exotic car financing that almost doesn’t get talked about nearly enough is the idea that when you make a claim, they also owe you for the depreciated value of the car as a result of you making the claim. I don’t know how, I’d never really heard about this [02:06:00] until I got it into the community a bit.

It’s a huge thing that isn’t talked about enough and they will certainly not tell you about it. And your friends who old Honda Accords are never gonna tell you about it cuz obviously they don’t experience it. Depending on your car, it could be a large percentage that that car’s gonna appreciate after the fact.

Especially if it was a car that would never been an accident. Nothing all of a sudden, you know it’s got this depending on the extent, but a lot of people won’t touch a car. It’s been in an accident gauging what you depreciation was just because it was in an accident too. Plays a key role because it’s, if you get an accident with your insurance, you wanna be sure that you’re gonna get that value also back.

Cause it could be a nice amount of. Well gentlemen, I think it’s time to do a quick lightning round. As we close this thing out, I’m gonna give you two options. Your number one alpha male pick for this newbie collector or soon to be adding an Alpha male to their collection. And then the second car is that Pinnacle just over the top.

You had to buy one Italian car and money was no [02:07:00] object. What would that be? Crisp, bright. You know, there’s so many great entry points with Alpha. Most of them are still in a pretty reasonable range. If I were to recommend one, I would probably go with like a 1968 to 72 gtv 1750 engine right around the 30 K range can go up.

If there’s one that’s really super sorted and fresh, great car, you’ll have fun. It looks gorgeous and it’s just a great entry point and I think Alpha is a really good and supportive. Mark. You know, I’m the president of the Alpha Club for Oregon where I live. If you’re interested in getting one call the club first cuz they’re turning over and people will look out for you and they’ll also recommend the right mechanics and things like that.

In terms of like the, the car. Oh, there’s, there’s a few. You get three max if you’re gonna go there. oh three. I thought you one. Alright, I’ll go [02:08:00] pre-war. I’ll go with an pre-war, the Civil War. Oh man, Napoleon. We’re going pre Napoleon. No pre-war. I’ll go Alpha Romeo. P three fifties. I’ll go with a Maserati 300 s and more modern.

I don’t know if I’ll even go modern. I love the 2 88, but if I could get an Alpha Romeo 33 stra, I think that could be the most beautiful car. It’s hard to bust this balls when you make such nice choices. I know, right? So Mark, you’re on the other end of the, you’re the yin to his yangs once you guys Yeah, sure.

No. So first time collector, I go back to the recommendation I just made previously in in nineties G T V. I think that’s a super cool car. You’re, especially in the us you know you’re not gonna run into many of those in a cars and coffee type range, and it still hasn’t had its values jacked up. If I could pick something and I would go so far as to say, dare I say something that isn’t totally [02:09:00] ridiculous, I would buy an F four 30 scud and do a manual swap.

That’s a solid. I buy the scd, it’s a hundred fifty, a hundred seventy five K. I’d spend the 25 grand on the manual spot and you’d have one nasty ass, 500 horsepower mid engine v8, naturally aspirated. Just angry, angry car. That would be fun as hell to drive. Sweet. All right, Mr. Weiberg, what is in your Manetti Marelli three car garage.

And what’s your alpha recommendation? Also’s? A little bit weird. Yeah, this is the car that I ran into when we were photographing garages. It’s a little weird. So work with me here. The Alpha Rome, Julia. GTC is essentially the coop. They cut off the roof and now you’ve got this little fore place. Oh, Chris, you know, go get something to drink.

Okay? Yeah, go find your pipe. Chris, where’s your pipe? I’m in, I’m in the sunlight out here on the West coast. I haven’t even eaten my dinner yet. . Chris, I’m gonna send my elan for you. I’m gonna take your first take dinner. We’ll, gonna take you to a nice dinner. It’s gonna be great. The only problem is that [02:10:00] Don’s ante is Mary Kay Pink.

So I just , aren’t they, y’all? I thought that was just like, oh, they were all pink, made Mary color. It’s not Kay Pink. It’s Pearl Pet. Rose . Oh geez. Champagne gold, metallic. Yeah, whatever. So, anyway, that I, I think that’s the alpha that I would recommend to somebody. And I, I think I would do that because it is limited.

It has a very workable, uh, drive, train. Parts are available. It’s going to have that driving experience. Again, you’re not gonna see too many of ’em are cars and coffee, but it is gonna be a conversation starter as to is that a factory thing? Is that, you know, how they get the top off. I think that’s gonna be interesting.

Yeah. There’s so many pie in the skies Italians to go with. The one that’s been recently catching my attention a lot is the Lamborghini Vento. That is a solid choice. I like that. Great car. William, you’re up. I’ll have to piggyback on Chris. I agree with that on the alpha. I think that’s perfect for, you know, someone who’s gonna jump in.

I think it’s perfect. Not only we just with what the car is, the enjoyment you [02:11:00] got, but the clubs, you know, and just the camaraderie you’re gonna have with with have that car. I think that’s the perfect car to get. You know, you’re gonna start out with. If I’m gonna go in my three car garage, it’s gonna be the F 42 88 and the 2 75 4 cam.

Ooh, man, I hope you got good insurance. , did you win the Mega Millions , you better win the Mega Millions. I might actually buy that SCD one day. know what your choice of that. That’s good. I mean, that’s, that’s, but now, you know, and 10 years ago people would frown on that immense, but now it’s so getting so common.

No one cares. Everyone’s going for it. That’s a fantastic thing to do. I mean, those, those SCDs are just fabulous cars. It’d been nice. They would’ve made ’em six speeds from the factory. But you know, those are, I think you’re gonna see a lot more of those. Lot of that happening. A lot more. Brad, you’ve been quiet tonight buddy.

You doing okay? Because I, I don’t know much about Italian cars , you know, except for, you know, what I’ve seen from the nineties and on, we’ve actually been shopping while you all have been talking for a newer [02:12:00] 2018 Julia Quadrifolio. So that’s where I’m going with the alpha, because like you all were saying, it’s in the 50 range.

That’s not terrible. And it’s a future classic pie in the sky. I’m doing a 5 75. I’m doing an F 50. I don’t know. I’m gonna do a Diablo vt. Ooh, the all right. So I’m gonna give you Jerry’s final thought here. You know, mine are always uber complicated and involved for Alpha Romeos. To Don’s point, I’m always on the sporty side.

I want a car I can jump in and kind of thrash and hoon around in and things like that. I fell in love with the GTP six a long time ago, but I wouldn’t recommend that, right? It’s a problem child. It has its issues. I can get better performance out of an E 30 BMW if I’m gonna, if I’m gonna go down that route, right?

So I’m gonna park that one. I fell in love with the Alfa Rome sz. That’s the car for me. That’s Alfa Romeo’s Carrado. But. It’s also in that category of, okay, even though I got it here, now what do I do with it if I’m going to import an [02:13:00] alpha from overseas, I said it earlier, the is the way to go. It’s the modern version of both of those cars.

It’s got everything you want. Modern electronics, all the suspension dialed in, that kind of thing. I close cousin to that would be the 1 47 G T A hatchback. So they’re very kind of similar in that respect. Both those kinda shooting brake designs. I like that style of cars. So that would be my choice. If you’re into hot hatches, you know the beta or the 1 47 is really gonna be up your alley if you’re tired of the same old, you know, Subaru Impreza and and golf G T I and that kind of stuff in my three car garage.

It’s really. An interesting bunch of cars in there. I mean, obviously the F 40 is always gonna be at the top of my list. I don’t know that I would buy one because if I’m spending ungodly amounts of money, I want a 1 55 ti you know, 12,000 RPM touring car from the D T M era. I would love to have a Ferrari 4, 5, 8 GT three, just like our friend Andy Pilgrim runs in s [02:14:00] r o.

You know, cars like that really excite me. I think they’re great at the end of it. There’s just something that we forgot on this list and there’s a lot of cars. We mentioned many of them were actually pinned by Giro and I, you know, you guys know I’m a big fan of his, from the Bora to the Morak, to the Dino coop to, you know, the Panda and, and a bunch of other vehicles that we talked about were all pinned by the same guy and he often gets again forgotten.

It’s kind of lost in the weeds. There’s another car that he penned and Donald appreciate this cuz it has some funky doors and it’s not a DeLorean. The, yeah, the Alon. It is the Deto. Mazo Man. Gusta. Ah, good car. Yeah. I absolutely adore those cars. I saw one again in person at the Peterson. It’s just so funky.

So cool. You could take that to any car show from cars and coffee to Amelia, to Pebble and back, and everybody’s gonna go, wow, what the heck is that? Because it’s just so unique and it’s just got the juro [02:15:00] flair all over it. So that would be my like top of the list, just funky. Just gotta have it sort of car.

So we’ll leave on a high note. , I’m glad for once we came to a consensus on a, what should I buy episode and only here is the man Gusta. High note . We’re talking Italian cards. All right. Okay. Yeah, yeah. No, but I, I’m really happy that for once we come to a consensus, we come to an agreement on something and Alfa Romeo seems to be the way to go.

So listeners, if you’re thinking about an Italian, you’re thinking about getting into this world. Alfa Romeo is the place you gotta go. So if you started off this episode, always dreaming about buying an Italian car. You’ve been too afraid to cross that line. Maybe because of bad word of mouth horror stories, misconceptions or parts availability.

We hope that the advice that you were given tonight proved that wrong, muted some of those fears, and you begin to turn your attention and investment dollars towards an Italian collective card. We want to thank [02:16:00] William Ross from the Ferrari and Porsche Marketplace. Also sales director for Garra Borsch.

You can reach out to him directly atWilliam@ferrarimarketplace.com. Also, we’d like to thank Chris Bright for coming on the show from Collector Part Exchange. You can find all the really cool Italian goodies on www.collectorpartexchange.com or at Collector Partner Exchange on social media. If you want to continue this conversation, be sure to jump over to Garage Riot, where Donovan Laura has created the social media platform for car enthusiasts, www.garageriot.com, also available as mobile app for your iOS or Android device.

That’s right, and he owns one of those Gallardos that mark this blank , even though he wasn’t able to join, we want to. John Cfii from Project Motoring for sending in some recommendations that we mentioned tonight. You can check out pmx@projectmotoring.com, your source for custom and bespoke safety gear at Project Motoring on Social Don [02:17:00] Weiberg from Garage Style Magazine and their new and improved website at www.garagestylemagazine.com and at Garage Tile Magazine on social.

That’s right. And finally, our petrol head extraordinaire, mark s Shank, who has been on several great break fix episodes and more to come in the future for sure. So tune into the show to get caught up with Mark. So gentlemen, I cannot thank you all enough for coming on yet. Another abusive episode of What Should I Buy?

No, I’m just kidding. , another episode of What Should I Buy Here on Break Fix. So it’s always a pleasure to get together and who knows what we’ll talk about next. Maybe French cars, race cars, who knows? Elans forever. Yeah, Elans Forever. We can do a whole episode on Elans. Can we just have on a show on Elans?

Absolutely. A whole episode. They have three different motors. Okay. Wait, wait, wait. I have an idea. Yeah, we do an episode on Elans and I will send you some edibles out from Oregon. We’ll take them at the same time, or maybe that’s better for French cars. I don’t [02:18:00] know. That could be nice if under Finder’s, keepers rules.

I own a crack pipe now. . Anybody, any you fools can, can, can do that. Huh? Only in an Alpha . Catch you later. Thanks guys. We’ll be in touch. Bye goo.

If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tory Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call or text at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew chief@gtmotorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you. Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that G T M remains a no annual fees organization, and [02:19:00] our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.

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