B/F: The Drive Thru #4

• Chevy Reportedly Issues Stop-Sale Order on C8 Corvette Over Brake-by-Wire Issue
• Vintage Ford Broncos being rebuilt, transformed — into something like you’ve never seen
• GM unveils 'Factory Zero' as it embarks on electric vehicle push
• 2021 Ford F-150 Has up to 430 Horsepower, Can Tow 14,000 Pounds
• Ford Robots Perform Test Drives Too Dangerous For Humans: Video
• Chevy Has Logged 80,000 Brutal Miles on Its 3D-Printed Racing Parts

GMC HUMMER EV | “Revolutionary World Premiere”

• Nikola surges 13% after GM president reiterates confidence in partnership plans
• New Texas EV startup unveils US-made electric motorcycle with the right specs and price
• Behind the scenes look at Ewan McGregor’s 9,000-mile LiveWire electric motorcycle ride
• Battery Fires May Slow The EV Revolution

• Schumacher helmet 'one of coolest gifts in sport' - Ricciardo

• Nürburgring Spy Photos Reveal Toyota Yaris GR Hot Hatchback Could Soon Go Supernova
• This Missing Link 1990s Nissan Z Prototype Is Cooler Than It Has Any Right To Be

• These futuristic concept cars from the 1950s are up for auction with a $20 million estimate

• 2021 BMW 128ti Fully Revealed To Show FWD Bimmers Can Be Sporty

• WATCH: TWIN-TURBO DIESEL PICKUP TRUCK EXPLODES ON 3,000BHP DYNO RUN
• FORD OFFERS TO RESCUE STRICKEN JEEP WRANGLER FROM A BIKE TRAIL
• Watch a Hydraulic Press Show What It Really Takes to Make Jack Stands Collapse
• Shaquille O’Neal Takes Stake In Genius Brands, Set Kids Animated Comedy For Kartoon Channel
• Ridley Scott Made A Super Bowl Ad For Nissan That Was Shown Only Once Because People Freaked Out

Driver tries to run over Kentucky snowman which had tree trunk has base

• Porsche to Debut North American Carrera Cup in 2021
• CASEY STONER: ‘KILLER’ VALENTINO ROSSI CELEBRATING TOP FIVES IS SAD’
• IMSA, SCCA launch collaboration to cultivate motorsports involvement

• Reviving The Fiat 126 As A Modern Electric City Car Is Pure Eye Candy

• Tesla’s $25,000 Electric Car Means Game Over For Gas And Oil
• Tesla admits design flaw led to vehicle rear bumper falling off when driving in puddles of water
• SpaceX's Tesla roadster made its first close approach with Mars
• This Clip Of A Tesla Model 3 Failing An Automatic Emergency Brake Test Is Hilarious
• Tesla Model Y roof allegedly falls off brand new car — turning it into a convertible

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

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

Hello and welcome to another installment of the Drive Thru, October 2020 edition. Thank you for tuning in to channel 666. This is Brad, your host. With me as always is Eric, and we’ve got Tanya as well. As you may know, the Drive Thru is our monthly recap where we’ve put together a menu of local, racing, and random car Jason videos.

Now let’s pull up to window number one for some industry news. First thing I’m going to talk about [00:01:00] here is Ford says that they’re killing off the Shelby GT350. It’s time to say goodbye. They didn’t really announce they were kind of forced to because there were some rumors going around that they were going to do this.

But because of the GT500 that is coming out, the 760 horsepower Mustang, super Mustang, essentially, they are ending production now or relatively soon this fall on the GT350 and the 350R. is a very sad day for Mustang enthusiasts. Those cars were probably the greatest Mustangs ever made until people start driving the GT 500.

I assume GT 350 ran for six years and was widely unchanged during that time. And it sported the flat plane crank, the Voodoo V8, 526 horsepower and six speed manual transmission. To replace this car, they are releasing a Mach one, uh, which is going to have similar power to the GT three 50. And it’s also going to have the same six speed transmission from the [00:02:00] GT three 50.

Sad news, sad Panda over here that that car is being killed off one because it’s such a great car. And, and also because anybody that was looking to secure one on the used market. Better do so quickly because the prices are going to skyrocket. And next month’s headline reads, Ford says goodbye to Mustang Shelby GT500 in lieu of the King of the Road Cobra edition.

Right, I mean this is just going to be a downhill battle against Chrysler. This is, this is what I see. Unfortunately, I agree with you. I think the 350 and the 350 R were a great compromise car, especially if you wanted a dual purpose track street car. But I’ve said it many times before, and people have asked me if you could buy a new car to do everything, what would it be?

And I usually respond, if you told me the last car I was ever going to own was a Shelby 350, I’d be okay with that. So are we saying that there’s a thing as to. Too much power? Because I thought everybody always complained you make a big power big motor of America and [00:03:00] now we’re complaining that all we have 700 horsepower and not 500.

It’s the Star Wars race, right? It’s the race to a thousand, but we’ve already gone there. I mean, the demon and all those different challenger options, they’re already there making four digit power. So I’d say, Like we say about Chevy being late to the party. I think Ford’s late to the party in terms of making big power numbers compared to some of the other muscle cars.

I mean, if you’re looking at the numbers that even the new Corvette supposed to be putting out, it’s like, all right, okay. I think as a driver’s car, the three 50 was the best of everything to quote Jeremy Clarkson. I mean, yes, there was such a thing as too much power. He said it about, I think it was the eight 12 super fast.

Well, he was test driving it and he just, there is such a thing as too much power. And if Jeremy Clarkson, you know, Mr. Moore power, there’s too much power. Then yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a thing that can happen. 760, how are you going to use 760 horsepower? On a [00:04:00] racetrack, let alone the street. I mean, some race cars don’t even have that much power.

I think the, the IMSA GT cars are around the 500 to 600 range. I don’t think they’re pushing over, over 650. Well, they also weigh probably 1200 pounds less, if not more. I mean, that’s probably a low ball number. So power to weight ratio on a, On an IMSA GT car is better than a street car with less power.

But they can all, they can also use much stickier tires and suspensions completely different and things like that. But for an everyday car, you know what we’re going the wrong way. Who are we kidding? No, there’s, you can never have too much power. Screw this, but to finish out the story, the sixth generation Mustang has been around since 2015.

And in that time Ford has sold over 633. Thousand of these cars worldwide. I’d say that’s a success given that this is a pony car that, you know, until recently they haven’t really sold overseas. It hit market [00:05:00] and it’s just, it blew up. It is a great car. Eric will wax poetic about this car all day long. Uh, the, the S five 50 Mustangs are excellent cars.

The GT three 50 was the best of the best of them. So it is, it is sad. I just hope that we don’t go the way of. Mustang 2. We give all the credit in the world to Iacocca and the team that developed the original Mustang and it was a hot cake seller as well, selling, you know, a million plus Mustangs at the original, but you know, the Mustang 2 was not so good.

So let’s hope that whatever comes next for the new generation of Mustangs is not a repeat of the past. So speaking of the Ferrari 812 Superfast, at some point we’ll have an episode where we don’t talk about rich people. And how much money they have, let me know, let me know what that is. That’s not this episode.

Unbeknownst to me, I didn’t realize that Ferrari actually, I think for about the past 10 years or something will make you a custom Ferrari, one of a kind, [00:06:00] if you have enough money. And so recently they have made a custom Ferrari based off the 812 super fast. And as the news release stated commissioned by a discerning European client, the latest offering in Ferrari’s line of unique coach built one off models is a vibrant evocation of the values that define Ferrari in relation to GT racing, a car that is equally at ease on the road as it is hitting the apex on the track in the hands of a true gentleman driver.

Now I will say if you Google custom Ferrari A12 super fast, I will give it to this discerning European client that he’s got some good taste because I actually think he made it better looking. In my opinion. So kudos for him and his one of a kind Ferrari from the front. Yes. I like the back better. Really?

I don’t know. I’m digging it. I think Ferrari also did this. There was something bouncing around Jalopnik a year or two [00:07:00] ago. Somebody had a custom one off made based on the 488. Very similar deal. They made a one off and that car was stunning as well. I’m all for letting rich people do rich people things with Ferraris and make these one offs because I think they’re all beautiful, all the ones I’ve seen.

I just thought the title of the article was misleading, right? And from Jalopnik, the clickbait was Ferrari basically made a prettier Dodge Viper. And I’m like, it looks nothing like the Viper. I don’t even know what they’re talking about. And they’re taking a shot at a car that isn’t even being made anymore.

Yeah, exactly. And the Viper has its own unique style. Which you can recognize right away. All the Ferraris nowadays, in my opinion, kind of all look the same. Not to say that that wasn’t the case like back in the 80s with the 3 Series Ferraris, the 308s, the 28s, the 48s, etc. They all look the same, but I don’t know.

At least it wasn’t designed by a computer like the Senna and the Veneno and some of these other cars. Viper? No, I don’t think so. Now, I haven’t seen any spy photos of this alleged new Viper that’s coming. That they’ve been talking about ever since Fiat took over [00:08:00] Chrysler. But we’ll see, you know, looking at this cat, this car more, it looks like the wealthy businessman was looking at the two 50 GTO when he, and he was inspired by that car to make this one.

Cause it very much has similar lines to me, uh, to that car. The front of it looks like the F Type Jag. That’s what I, when I first glanced, I was like, it looks like a Jag. So what else is going on in the industry? Uh, Chevrolet, you know, they just came out with a new car, the C8 Corvette. Well, other than not allowing me to sit in them at the dealership, they have issued a stop sale order on C8 Corvettes because of a brake by wire issue.

Basically, there’s possibly material contamination within the electronic brake boost system. And basically it can cause the brake boost system to not be able to communicate with the brake pedal, forcing you to have to apply more pressure. And then the system doesn’t talk to each other and it just creates an issue and you could die in a fiery ball of, uh, it does not just affect the Corvette.

It [00:09:00] also affects the trailblazer, the encore, whatever that is. And a few different Cadillacs. This is the first recall that Chevrolet is issuing where you actually have to go back to the dealership. And the fix is basically to replace the brake boost module. So what was wrong with vacuum? Uh, it was too archaic.

It stopped the cars too fast. Oh, okay, gotcha. It worked! Ah, that’s the problem! That’s the prob got it. Okay, all right. But we can move on. Thanks, Chevy. Yeah. And Chevy, I’ve got a little tip for you. Please put a 1 C8 and whatever dealerships are selling C8 Corvettes in the showroom. Don’t have them all sold because people actually want to come and look at a car and touch a car and see a car and sit in a car.

Before they buy a car. Well, the problem is you got to stop licking the cars, Brad. You know, you, you’re doing it wrong. Brad gets hungry. So what else? He don’t want to know what the car tastes like. So this next one [00:10:00] or next two, maybe are probably irrelevant to those of us living in the. Wonderful United States.

But this is BMW who is unveiling yet another front wheel drive. Uh oh. Hold on. Stop. Don’t fall out of your chair. Yes, BMW and front wheel drive were used in the same sentence. And we’re not talking about minis. On wheel drive. So yes, they are getting ready to release their new 128 Ti hot hatch, which will be front wheel drive and possibly is going to be an answer to Volkswagen’s GTI, specifically the GTI TCR.

That’s going to be releasing only in Europe. And I mean, this is not too interesting. It’s not coming to the U S so who cares? There’s a lot of people that thou hast the blasphemed greatly. Oh, great Bavarians. Um, how dare thou make a front wheel drive? All I heard was grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble from all the BMW fans out there.

I mean, it’s for their compact and [00:11:00] sub compact cars. So it kind of makes sense why they’re doing it front wheel drive. Let’s you have more space, the engines oriented different. You don’t have the drive train going back to power the rear end. So it lets you have a little bit more space in the cockpit cabin, if you will.

Um, so they’re really doing it for those reasons to get a little bit more space for people inside the vehicle. And, you know, some other things are, well, you know, these days in modern times, you really can’t tell the difference between front wheel drive and rear wheel drive, which you’re going to trundle down the road and grab groceries.

As a normal person, that’s probably true enough, with all the nannies controlling everything. Granted, if you were actually going to drive spirited or on a track, you would still notice a difference. But, again, it’s not coming to the US, who really cares? I will say, though, it’s not unattractive looking. I think they still need to figure out their whole kidney grill proportions.

It’s not as horrific as, uh, Some of the cars we have here, but it’s not a heinous looking car. I think it’s a pretty [00:12:00] nice looking lowered X3. I was thinking Mini Countryman and BMW X1, which are already front wheel drive, probably a very similar platform, much like, you know, VW has the MQBs and all those different You know, shared platforms that they have.

U K L is what it’s called. So, yeah, it only makes sense. And to your point, the whole reason behind front wheel drive, or like in the old days, a beetle or a Fiat 500 or a Hillman imp where the motor was in the back. Behind the people was to maximize the people space. So it makes total sense. And you’re right.

If you’ve ever ridden in a BMW, as great as they are, they’re very cramped. And in the old days, especially in the heyday of the, you know, the E36s and the E39s, you know, you got a three series cause it was the sports car and you got the five series. Because you wanted three extra inches of legroom in the back.

That’s all you got. And you went from one series to the next, right? So I don’t know. I think in the advent of [00:13:00] EVs, which we’ll talk about here in a little bit, it also makes sense to do away with a normal front engine, rear drive layout. It just doesn’t make sense anymore for these new power plants. We’ll see.

We’re not getting one over here. So BMW enthusiasts. It’s on the state side. Do not panic. They continue to rejoice. Now the next one, all of probably zero people also care about this. However, I care about this one. You care about this one. I would be remiss not to mention news regarding the fun favorite Toyota Yaris.

Who cannot love the little three cylinder beast that puts down 257 horsepower and 266 foot pounds of torque. I mean, I would love to drive this little thing out of three cylinders. Yes. Wow. That’s impressive. GR Yaris. Makes those kinds of numbers. I mean, that is insane. Is that because of the turbo is the size of the block?

I was wondering that myself. Details, details. [00:14:00] Okay. Let’s not worry about it. Makes 250 horsepower at 47 pounds of boost. Once it does it once, but it’s spectacular that one time. So apparently there’s been some spy photos of a little Yaris running around the Nurburgring lately. And now there’s all the rumor mills are going spastic about.

Is this the GRMN? If you don’t know what that is, that’s the Gazoo Racing Master of Nürburgring edition. How exciting! What does that bring? How many more horsies and pounds of torque will we get out of three cylinders? I mean, if you think about it, a hundred horsepower per cylinder That’s a hell of a ratio.

If they could get it up above 300 in that MN version, that would be nuts. There was nothing indicating what, you know, any of the, the stats or specs are on, on this version or what this version exactly is going to be. But there’s something coming that we will not get here once again. [00:15:00] So speaking of big horsepower and big fun, a company you’ve probably never heard of until about last week, SSC, put out a car with a name that’s even worse than the Touareg and some of these other ones that have come out in the past.

They have the Tuatara, and I’m hoping I pronounced that correctly. And if I’m wrong, I’m sorry, but come up with something better. I shall drop knowledge now. And it is pronounced Tuatara. Sure. I think I like Eric’s pronunciation of the twatsara. They are reptiles from New Zealand. And it means peaks on the back.

And now that I look at the car, I totally get the name. There you have it, folks. That is the most interesting part of that entire article. Thank you, James May. It is now being touted as the fastest car in the world, with Incredible top speed of 331 miles an hour. It looks like every other super hyper car that exists.

So in [00:16:00] terms of fashion and style, it’s pretty cookie cutter, but here’s the one thing I take issue with this car is that yes, it just set the Guinness world record for fastest car in the world. However, I want to put a big Asterix there because the car that still holds the fastest production car top speed in the world is still the Bugatti Veyron or the Chiron, I guess.

In this case, because the SSC is still considered a boutique manufacturer, and they are slated with a 2B and that’s future production run of only 171 bespoke cars, which means there’s got to be 171 people signing up for their special edition limited production SSC. So I know I’m splitting hairs here. It is.

Technically the fastest car in the world, but I don’t know. I still tip my hat to Bugatti. I think what’s sad is that the owners, all the owners of these cars, they will never reach five miles per hour because [00:17:00] they are going to be put on a cart. And dragged around their garage. They’re never going to run.

They’ll have like 2 miles on them. And it’s basically just to get it off the truck that delivers it and into the temperature controlled garage where they will stay until they are flipped in about 3 or 4 years. For whatever the new hotness is. So switching to even more exciting news. We are set to see ink dry on paper very soon.

The European Union has said they are going to improve a 38 billion, and that’s with a B, merger to create the world’s fourth largest automaker by finalizing the merger between Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot. Once that’s all said and done here, hopefully in the next couple of months or so, we will finally see the birth of Stellantis, yet another terrible name to follow.

Terrible names we’ve already mentioned on this episode, but I’m actually excited to see where this goes, propelling Fiat Chrysler into that number four spot around the world. [00:18:00] Stellantis and if it’s right for you, some side effects may include owning an Italian car. Fun question since Peugeot and we’ll get no cars over here probably, but hypothetically in a different world, what Peugeot past, present, or future would you want to see in the U S?

206 GTI from like the Gran Turismo days. The 205 T16 is the rally car. That’s what I would go after the slightly older one, but I’m going to mention one here in a little bit. When we talk about retro cars, I’m actually a big fan of the Peugeot RCZ and I’ll explain that. In a little bit. If anyone’s asking, I would have gone with the 205 turbo or a 208.

Well, speaking of retro cars, we found by way of Jalopnik, the missing link between the last of the 300 Zs and the more modern 350 Z Nissans. And it appears that there was a two door prototype. That’s a combination of the 280 [00:19:00] ZX. Some look and feel of the 300 ZX and some pieces borrowed over from the Sylvia.

We placed the link for this on the show notes, so you can check it out yourself. Maybe leave some comments. Tell us what you think. Personally, I think it looks just like the Maserati 4200 GT that came out in the early 2000s. I agree with that. At first glance, I actually thought it was Italian or maybe the rebirth of like an Alpine.

I can see that. You know, because at that time, well, this would have been in the 90s. So Renault still hadn’t had its influence yet, but it definitely has some of those European cues to it. Confused when I look at it, quite honestly, like, I don’t know what I’m looking at. And I just stare at it, good or bad.

I haven’t decided yet. I just, And that’s the beauty of prototypes, right? As you kind of stare at them longingly wondering, should I, or shouldn’t I? They decided they shouldn’t. Absolutely. And probably, okay. Honestly. So moving on from that and speaking of the [00:20:00] French, I came across an article from grassroots motorsports, where they did a review on the.

Peugeot RCZ, which I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, and it was Peugeot’s answer to the Audi TT. So if you look at it closely, it carries some of the same design cues. It’s based on the 308, the slightly larger hatchback, and it showed up in 2007. Audi was already working on the second generation TT at that point.

So this kind of picked up where the Mark 1 TT left off. Personally. It’s odd. It’s quirky, but I like it. I’ve seen him in person. If I was living in Europe, it wouldn’t be my first choice. I’ve actually never seen this car before, and I think it looks pretty slick. Totally looks like a TT. Like a TT kind of competitor.

I think it’s kind of cool, but here’s the impressive part. Here’s what gets me granted. It’s front wheel drive. So everybody, everybody just discounted it immediately. And all the BMW people turned us off 10 minutes ago. [00:21:00] It’s got a 1. 6 liter turbo. And depending on the model year, we’re talking 266 horsepower and 243 ft lbs of torque out of a 1.

6. Now what most people don’t realize is that 1. 6 liter turbo is what eventually ended up in the Mini Coopers. So that’s a strong bottom end that’s been used in a lot of cars to include the SRT4 Neon and a bunch of other vehicles that use that same turbo. Peugeot 308 bottom end. It was also available as a diesel with up to about 160 horsepower and 251 pound feet of torque, but that gas motor, those are really, really good numbers, and those are still the kind of numbers we’re seeing out of BMW and out of mini today on their smaller four cylinders.

So as much as you can kind of take it or leave this car, I think it. Ushered in and it opened the door for these other companies to take advantage, at least of this power plant and use it for cars that a lot of us do like hats off to Peugeot on that one. Sadly, I don’t think I fit. [00:22:00] I stopped listening when you mentioned it needed one extra cylinder to get all that power.

Nice. The Yaris Gazoo Racing, you know, has something to say about that. I want to know what it does at the Nürburgring. So many of you guys might not have ever heard of the B. A. T. Also known as the Batmobiles. And they’re a set of Alfa Romeo concept cars. And they’ve been hidden away for many, many years now.

private collection, and they’re actually up for auction. And the price tag is somewhere north of 20 million dollars for all three cars, but a little bit of back history if you’re not an Alfa Romeo enthusiast like I am. The BAT, which stands for Berlinetta Aerodynamica Technica, Which were prototypes designed to better understand the flow of air over a vehicle.

So they’re very streamlined. They’re very futuristic looking. They’re very much like the Batmobile from the 1960s Batman, but they [00:23:00] were built in 1953 through 1955, and they’re known as the bat five. The seven and the nine, and that’s why there’s three because they’re actually three different models, although they look very close and they get slightly larger as every year went by.

There’s a lot of information on these cars in the article from CNN that we posted. You can also do a lot of research on them on the web, especially there’s a really good blog. article on Wikipedia, but I also found out that there was a bat 11, which was designed nearly 50 years later to commemorate the original three bat cars.

And it was built in 2008. And there was only one of that as well. So in total, there are only four bat prototypes. Ever built and the original three are up for sale. So if you got an extra 20 mil laying around, these would be really cool to add to your collection. So, uh, head on over to your local Barrett Jackson, right?

I would like to start the bidding at 50. Uh, yes. 50 and one, 50 and one. Do I hear 50 and two? And you might look at [00:24:00] them and go, wow, they’re unattractive. But guess what folks, they’re not the ugliest vehicles ever. This is true. And we’ll talk about that on another episode. But I got to hand it to Alpha because the coefficient of drag on those backcars is extremely low for that time period, unlike anything else at that time.

So good for them. Again, Alpha pushing the boundaries of Italian design and engineering. So we talk about this all the time, not on the show, but just in general, talking about cars and car design, we’ve got a couple of members that say, That car design kind of died with, like, the whole aerodynamics revolution and trying to get the most efficient vehicles and, you know, uh, form following function, uh, and things like that.

And I think they’re quite stunning, actually. There, there’s a lot of art, artistic ness in the design of these vehicles. And if they were aerodynamic at the time, I mean, This just proves that theory is wrong. All cars do not have to look the same to be [00:25:00] slippery. So I don’t know why car design changed, you know, over the years to where everything has to look the same.

In an attempt to continue our thought here on what’s old is new again. I think we’re going to segue right into. A can of jolt cola.

So what do you got for us, Tanya? Retro cars. Most people won’t probably know a Fiat 126, but it’s another one of those. It’s very older Italian cars that a very small Italian person fits in very comfortably. Brad, unfortunately, no, you probably don’t fit, but somebody decided to reimagine what a modern electric one, two, six would look like.

And if you Google Fiat one, two, six electric, you’ll see pictures of it. And I think this is a very good looking retro redesign. It’s very reminiscent of the original, but it looks better. It’s got the whole [00:26:00] electrification. Yay for that piece, but it’s cool looking. I’ve seen some comments, Oh, it just looks like the Honda E.

No, actually, if you Google Honda E, which is their little electric that’s coming out, this thing looks way better than the Honda E. Yes, they’re similar in that they’re both small little boxy cars, but it’s kind of where it ends. I wish they’d make it put alongside the 500E that’s soon to debut. And please put it right there with the retro Panda electric.

Are you listening? Fiat Stellantis, are you listening? So for our Italian listeners out there, when I look at this, I see La 126, right? 100%. It is a complete throwback. I honestly would say they should build this instead of the 500e. I like the way this looks. It’s very rare anymore to see a two door coupe, especially a two door hatchback.

You know, all these cars back then, be it, you could say on our side, the Escort. Or the GTI on the German side. I mean, they all have this very similar shape. The one unfortunate part is that this rendering it’s, it’s beige. [00:27:00] I’d love to see it in another color, but it’s a period appropriate color. And it’s a color, but it’s a color that the one 26.

And, and I like it. I mean, I think it’s cool. And I think we need more cars like this. I would love this. And I, and I like the Fiat 500. I mean, it’s, it’s iconic. It’s classic, but if this existed and someone told me you have to choose between the two, I would definitely choose this one, but unfortunately again.

We’ll never see this. Moving on to more electric news. So besides that, we, we’ve got some industry news. We’ve got some Tesla news. We’ve got parts of cars falling off. We’ve got some battery fires and we’ve got two wheel fun for the first time. I don’t think we’ve covered two wheel fun yet. So starting off with industry news around electric.

So GM, similar to, uh, I believe it was last month. announcement from Ford with them retooling their Rouge plant for electric vehicles. GM is unveiling that their Detroit Hamtramck assembly plant is going [00:28:00] to be reborn with a new mission to solely build electric vehicles. And I believe that factory was.

Factory one or something like that. So they’re going to call it factory zero now. Um, obviously that’s a little bit of a play on zero emissions and all that good stuff. I thought it was patient zero. Whatever the factory is going to be where the new GMC Hummer. EV is going to be built. So if you heard this week, that unveiling and Brad’s going to talk about it in a little bit, they’re also going to build a couple other cars there as well.

So the cruise origin going to be designed as part of the partnership between GM and Honda that they’ve got going on the facility itself. It’s going to be, you know, 2. 2 billion upgrade, and it’s going to be pretty cool actually, because they’re going to put it a hundred percent renewable energy to power it.

So it’s all going to be wind and solar, and they’re going to do some other. If you will, energy saving and environmentally friendly things with the construction and how it’s going to operate. So [00:29:00] good on them. And I guess we’ll be seeing some Hummers pop out of that. The Hummer GMC has decided that they’re going to make the Hummer EV.

And holy crap, they unveiled it with a five and a half minute video, uh, they took a cue from Lincoln and had a nice smooth talking Matthew McConaughey type dictate the details and everything over space and the Hummer driving on the moon or Mars or the desert. I don’t know where it was. There are Wait, wait, wait, wait, they didn’t bring in Neil deGrasse Tyson?

That would have been better. That would have been better. He probably turned them down. He was probably their first choice and they, he turned them down. But anyway, there were a ton of specs. I’ve got a page here full of them. Thousand horsepower. This number is kind of funny. 11, 500 torques. How they come to that, it’s, they use a little bit of funny math.

They take the actual torque number multiplied by the first and last gear ratios to come up with like a max torque number. They haven’t actually said what the gear ratios are. So to come up to what the actual torque number is. Zero to [00:30:00] 60. The first gear is. 10, 000 to one, right? So, exactly. Uh, it’s a CVT transmission.

Uh, zero to 60 is in three seconds because every off roader wants to go zero to 60 in three seconds. The price is 112, 595. Uh, it comes with 35 inch tires stock, comes with adjustable air ride suspension that can take the ground clearance from 10. 1 inches. To 15. 9 inches, it can scale at 18 inch vertical, 24 inches of standing water.

It can wait through my truck can wait through that. So I don’t know why that’s such a big deal, but in comparison to the new Sasquatch Bronco, which is the top of the line, like most offer capable Bronco that has a ground clearance of 11. 6 inches. And so this, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

The Sasquatch Bronco. Like, is that for real? Like, are we going to have the Bigfoot 150? Is that next? Because I’m so ready for that. The Bigfoot 150 exists. [00:31:00] You just can’t find it. Oh, okay. It’s never been spotted. It’s got four wheel steering. It also has a mode called crab mode. Which means all four wheels turn the exact same direction.

And you can essentially just wait, what they all go forward, right? No, you can turn that. You can turn the wheel and the, all four wheels turn to a certain degree. Yeah. Crap, like a crab walks. Yeah. That’s what I said. Crab mode. Crab crawl. Can I get a vanity plate for mine that says crab man? Sure. This could go wrong very quickly.

Let’s get off the crab thing. So the Hummer is a pickup truck, this edition. The, the edition one is a pickup truck. It comes with a five foot bed, which is plainly useless. Yeah, it’s got a Ultium battery packs. It’s a tri motor, 350 miles of range, 350 kilowatt, 800 volt charging up to 100 miles in 10 minutes.

There is a package, it’s called Watts of Freedom. The Watts of Freedom [00:32:00] package includes, it’s a launch control package. It primes the motor for max power. It lowers the ride height. It rumbles the seats. And it pumps in artificial noise through the speakers. You know, my Jeep does that when I do, uh, when I stand on the brake pedal and the accelerator at the same time, my first initial instinct or initial opinion of this, when I first saw it, other than the fact that, holy crap, it’s going to be super expensive and I’ll never own one or never want to.

Uh, that it looks just like the Rivian R1T, the other electric truck that’s coming out. It looks almost identical to me. Also, it’s wider than an F 150 Raptor. Just saying a lot because those trucks are ginormous. I mean, a Hummer to me has always been something that someone with a lot of money is going to buy, I mean, because what they’re so not useful, I mean, they get four miles to the gallon, right?

The, the ice versions. And then my understanding is. A normal small svelte person barely [00:33:00] fits inside one. They’re cramped as all get out. Because all the drivetrain is tucked up into the cabin for ground clearance, so you can only fit four adults. Not well. I get it for the military use and all that, and they’re extremely rugged and blah, blah, blah.

Okay, that’s a particular use case, but to go down to your local grocery? Yeah, but the, the mill size. Speck Humvee is not the same as your GM produced Hummer. Although they look the same. I understand that. So that’s, I’m just, I’m just saying, cause people like, yes, there’s Hummer of military and then there’s the Hummer of every day.

And if people think they’re getting the military version, they’re sadly mistaken. And the, and the Hummer that’s. The pedestrian guts. If you want a GTM top tip, go pick up at a military auction, a decommissioned Humvee and stay away from the consumer oriented Hummer H1s that came out because the Humvee is going to be significantly cheaper and it’s going to be a better vehicle for you.

It’s going to be a diesel and if you want to do some serious off roading, nothing can take a beating and a half. I just want to know [00:34:00] in this Ludicrous mode that it has with 11 and a half thousand foot pounds of torque what tire they’re going to put on this thing when I want to launch from a stoplight that won’t basically Chernobyl the minute the launch control disengages.

Duratrax. Oh, is that, okay. 900 treadwear. No, and I don’t want to offend anybody. Cause I always have thought of the Hummer as being kind of a niche thing. So just like any other niche car, you know what, if you got the money to afford it, I mean, whatever, more power to you, I mean, cool, but that’s not, that’s not the only thing GM has been lurking around in the dark, working on.

Have they last month’s talked about how they were going to Create an alliance with Nicola, who, you know, all hydrogen and EB and all that. And they’re do this for semis on hydrogen and all this, this business. And they announced that they were going to do a big merger there. Um, or at least GM was going to buy in certain percentage into the company.

And then. I think like, it was not even a [00:35:00] week later, all of a sudden the shit started hitting the fan. And there were allegations against Nikola and misleading investors and bad characterizations of business dealings. And then shortly after that bomb drop, the other shoe fell and Milton stepped down as the CEO, and then he was accused of sexual assault and this, that, and the other.

So then it was like, first thought was, Oh, what’s going to happen now with this GM Nikola partnership. And so it looks like they’re still sort of talking and it’s likely to still happen that there’s going to be some dealings going on. And they’ve got till December 3rd to reach an agreement on this 2 that’s going down.

There’s really not much else to say on it. There hasn’t been any other reporting other than GM hasn’t fully walked away. They’re still having conversations. Maybe it’s still a good deal for them. I don’t know. I almost think they kind of still need to go with through with it, especially since they announced the new, I agree with that vehicles that [00:36:00] they’re I’m sure they’re counting on Nicholas technology and in part of this partnership to help get that off the ground.

I mean, I feel like GM’s walking around with this diamond encrusted dollar bill gun right now, just like, spraying money, making it rain 2Billion on the new plant factories here 2Billion to Nicola 2Billion over here. It’s like. Good Lord. It’s like, yeah, no wonder the Hummer is 112 grand. It’s like, good God, but I’m hoping I’m crossing my fingers because maybe they’ve learned from the mistakes of everybody else from Ford, from Tesla, from Volkswagen, et cetera, and maybe they’ll surprises and maybe they’ll come out with something earth shattering.

And that’s where I’m kind of putting my faith at the moment that maybe GM will surprise all of us at the end of the day. So let’s stay tuned on how that develops. So we would be remiss to talk electric and not talk about Tesla. So moving on to some Tesla news, apparently they’re talking about building a more affordable electric vehicle that would be [00:37:00] priced about 25, 000.

Wait, wait, wait, so are they able to lower the price because they’ve decided to get their parts from Ace Hardware instead of Home Depot? They’re getting military discounts at Lowe’s.

Senior citizen AARP discounts. Yeah, yeah. There’s not a lot of information and to the extent that even the journalist who’s reporting on this kind of Personally dubbed the car as the Tesla model two, seems like it would be something smaller than the current model three, helping bring the price down, et cetera.

And the whole article was a little bit of annoying. Cause it was, you know, Tesla’s 25, 000 electric car means game over for gas and oil. And it’s like, not want. Uh, I love how Tesla’s the only person making electric cars right now. You know, there’s not Renault or Volkswagen or Porsche or Audi or Hyundai or Honda or any of those people.

It’s only Tesla. So only Tesla is going to be responsible for [00:38:00] crippling the. Oil and gas industry. Let’s get that right. I mean, it just goes on and on how it’s going to be the Volkswagen golf killer and all this stuff. And it’s going to go to directly compete against the ice. And I’m like, really? I mean, and if you’re marking this in Europe, really?

I mean, first of all, your competition is going to be the Renault and the Peugeots and the Audis and the Kias and the Hyundais and all the other things that are flooding into the market. And the Gazoo Racing Yaris, come on now! I mean, just wait for their electric version, it’s gonna make like 900 horsepower with one little battery cell, okay?

But it’s like, I don’t know, the whole article is slightly obnoxious. Yes, and? Great, make a more affordable electric vehicle. Wonderful. I mean it probably will be attractive in Europe where they still sort of like smaller cars, but I mean I don’t know who would buy a Model 2 if it’s going to be smaller than a 3 in this country.

I don’t know if it’s as ugly as the Model Y that I saw on the road the other day. You can count me out. I’ve got two [00:39:00] questions for you though. One, how many bags of mulch can it carry? And two, does Europe give EV credits like they do for against taxes here in the us? Does, do they have a program like that?

I cannot recall. I’ll leave it at that. I’m not sure. I’d have to look it up. Well, you know, we do need to circle back because I have to say, despite being a dinosaur, according to you guys and the listeners out there, I do still, I still like to burn my dinosaur blood, but I am intrigued by the idea. Of the E 150 that we talked about last month.

And just after we recorded the third episode of the drive thru, Ford announced that they are coming out with a 430 horsepower hybrid version of the F 150. And apparently it’s going to be able to tow up to 14, 000 pounds. Now, Ford, you have my attention. However, there’s a big asterisk here. We talked about this on a.

Different conversation. I’m a [00:40:00] big fan of, and I wrote about this in a previous article, what I call self contained hybrid, where the ice motor is used basically as a generator to keep power going to the electric system, and I don’t have to plug it in, and I don’t have to deal with unicorn farts, and a lot of other things to power my vehicle.

I don’t have a good understanding to how this new F 150 hybrid is going to work, whether it’s going to be a plug in and you’re going to have some limited city range, or if it’s going to be a self contained hybrid, similar to Ford’s previous hybrids. If that’s the case, you definitely have my attention because now you’ve got the range, you’ve got the backup power, you’ve got the ability to tow massive amounts, and probably you’re Some really good city MPG with that self contained hybrid system.

And all the articles tend to be very vague on listing out stats and specs and things like that. But it seemed like it was the hybrid, not the plugin, the self contained yeah, self contained not of the plugin variety. Furthermore, I’m extremely confused by this truck because there was one article that some, Folks [00:41:00] had gotten their hands on the truck and all this stuff.

They said there’s not a single badge on it indicating that it’s a hybrid, which the argument there was that sort of genius because you’re playing to your market of people that, you know, want the built Ford Tough and Merca and gasoline guzzling. And I don’t want no hybrid. And so. Don’t put the hybrid badge on it.

Confuse them a little bit. But then the few statistics that they gave, they talked about a 36 kilowatt motor and then it would run off a 1. 5 kilowatt hour battery. And I’m really confused what the hell that could possibly do besides like Transcribed by https: otter. ai Run your auxiliary features. The other thing with this truck, a lot of the things, the attributes of it or whatever, it comes with the 220 volt plugs and all this stuff so that like, it’s really being marketed more as this is a truck you work with.

So I’m going to go to my construction site and I’m going to plug in my drill into the back of my pickup truck and, and all this stuff. And it’s like, well, one, chances are, you’re probably not going [00:42:00] to. Back your pickup truck to wherever you actually need your drill. So I don’t know how useful that’s always going to be, but partially that battery is there to support these auxiliary functions for, you know, these particular use cases.

I don’t see such a small battery pack being useful to you’re suddenly on an incline towing. I mean, that thing ain’t going to do crap. Maybe it’s powering your radio, but that’s about it. But I mean, it’s a step in the right direction, I guess. Now, in order to bring this truck to market, Ford had to do some testing and they got creative by building what I’m going to put air quotes around is robots.

And if you look at the article, the first adjective that came to mind was robots. Because I don’t know if these robots were designed by the local S. A. E. team at, you know, at like Michigan State or something. But to me, it wasn’t the robots I was expecting. You know, granted, we all have a fantasy of Johnny Cab driving around and, you know, testing [00:43:00] these vehicles.

And the reason that they were using robots. Quote unquote robots to test the new E one 50 and hybrid F one 50 is that they’re putting them in through conditions that no human would be able to, they say, quote unquote, survive. I think that’s a big exaggeration, but I think the funny part of it was when you looked at how it was really cobbled together, it’s cool that they’re doing it and they’re, they’re doing a lot of this stuff remote, but it was just so janky and I think my favorite part.

Was the ring gear that they attached to the steering wheel was zip ties. I mean, I just found myself chuckling at this going, we got 2 billion to spend on whatever, and this is the best you came up with in terms of robots for testing vehicles. It looks like something we’ve done. Yeah. Right. Zip ties in use.

There’s a, there’s a warning label on the side of the door. Now I know where all the surplus stuff from RadioShack ended up. Robots come in all shapes and sizes. Okay. Yes. Maybe. They’re taking a page from Tesla’s playbook and buying all their supplies from Home [00:44:00] Depot. We can build robots at Home Depot now, so we’re all good.

No, these all came from Radio Shack and Toys R Us. These are erector sets and little battery packs and stuff. Speaking of Tesla. And they’re renowned build quality, just kidding. I mean, but seriously, I mean, it’s common knowledge Tesla people themselves will admit that there are quality control, fit and finish issues with Tesla vehicles.

We’ve got two more that are popping up. First is the Model Ys. At least one. And I believe there was at least more than one person to have the moon roof disappear while driving on the highway. So apparently you can be driving along the highway and your model Y and suddenly you can have a convertible Y for free.

There was no upcharge for this folks. Part of the base package. Eric, there’s your E prepared car right there. I know. What was that roof being held on by? Elmer’s glue [00:45:00] instead of superglue. It was held on by caulk. She’s the wrong kind of pair. Yeah. Uh, you know, I don’t, I don’t, I hate to be mean. To them, but no, do it.

Go for it. I mean, it happened to someone. So there you go, people. I like this next one better though. So on a model three, cause I like spending tons of money on a car to have pieces fall off while I’m driving when I didn’t do anything. Okay. That’s what I look for when I go car shopping. Don’t know about the rest of you.

So apparently the model threes, and this is A two year old problem that’s finally being acknowledged by Tesla is, you know, you’re driving around, you know, it’s, it’s a rainy day, you know, Oh gosh, you’re out there. And then suddenly you’re for your bumpers on the ground. And you wonder making my bumper fall off because of rain, the damn things melting off.

No, no. From what I can gather based on pictures and everything is [00:46:00] Basically, the whole rear bumper is one bumper fascia plus skid plate all built in. So apparently what’s happening is road debris, sand, dirt, mud, water, because it’s raining, because this only seems to happen when there’s puddles and things like that, collects in the skid plate, and then eventually the weight is too much to bear, and the bumper falls off.

falls off the car. I, I think they’re going about this wrong. I think they, they meant to advertise it as a hydrogen electric car and that’s just a water collector. Oh, that collects the water and there’s a conversion. And then they have a, they have Home Depot parts in the trunk that convert it. And then use the hydrogen.

They separate the hydrogen and oxygen. No, no, no. You don’t understand. It is a water collector for the evaporative cooling system so that you can cool the batteries down by spraying water on them. And as it evaporates off it, it dissipates all that heat. We use it for inner [00:47:00] coolers. It work. It’s fantastic.

Oh gosh. Can you imagine you’re driving down the road or whatever and your bumper falls off ’cause it’s crazy. I can honestly say that has never happened to any of the vehicles I’ve ever owned. What I wanna know is. And not that I’ve ever seen a Tesla in the snow, but does that bumper act as a plow when you’re Well, now that’s a, that’s a great question now, actually.

So apparently they have since fixed the issue with diffusers and, and other shields and this, that, and the other things. I don’t know. They probably drilled some holes in the bottom of it. So drains because that would be, that would be more on par with the type of fixes that normally get reported on. At any rate, hopefully this doesn’t happen in the future.

The snow one’s a probably really good question. I don’t know, but watch out if you’ve got a model three or a model Y. So moving on from Tesla again, apologies, not to bash on them too hard, but you know, sometimes when you make it easy, so there was another article from [00:48:00] friends at clean technica, their report on all EV stuff and things of that nature.

They had a headline battery fires may slow the EV revolution. And I find their. Title a bit harsh, particularly they’re pointing the finger right now at Ford and GM and Hyundai, who are all seeing issues with batteries and batteries overheating and then catching fire. You forgot a company to add to that list.

Samsung had an issue with that too. And yes, that’s very bad. And they need to address that. And they need to figure out, you know, the root causes and mitigate them and all that stuff. But. Also, let us not forget our friends Tesla, who also suffered some battery fire issues early on, and they have seemingly since addressed most of them.

I mean, they seem to maybe still happen less frequently. I think the title’s too critical. I don’t think just because The technology and the evolution of that technology is suffering setbacks right now. It means that it’s never going to work out in the future. They’re already [00:49:00] evolving battery technology.

It’s a known fact right now that lithium ion batteries are slightly dangerous in that they have an overheating tendency. And when they overheat, it leads to thermal runaway, which can then lead to a fire. These are known facts. And what are all the batteries? Kind of being used right now, lithium ion, because they’re very powerful.

They’re, they’re lighter weight, this, that, and the other. Evolution is already taking place. There’s lithium iron phosphate batteries, sort of the same technology, the same kind of in the same family tree, if you will, of the lithium ion batteries. But the chemistry is such that generate less heat. While still generating pretty much the same amount of power.

And so Tesla’s actually talking about already shifting over to the lithium iron phosphate batteries, because they’re inherently safer because they don’t have this tendency for thermal runaway and to cause fires. Don’t paint this doom and gloom prophecy here that Ford GM and Hyundai and everybody else are never going to get there.

off and running with batteries because they’re going to catch fire. No, what are they going to do? They’re also going to [00:50:00] move to lithium iron phosphate batteries because the manufacturers of these cells and whatnot are going to shift to that. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s kind of growing pains. Are the different battery I guess components are the lithium iron phosphate batteries as efficient?

Are they as powerful and as efficient have the same performance as lithium ion? Seemingly, yes, based on my very limited research, but your deep understanding of chemistry. So we’ll give you that. Let’s not. All right. So moving on from that. So we haven’t talked about motorcycles very much or at all, and apparently there is a Texas startup that is going to be building an electric motorcycle called the Vulcon Grunt.

All right, let’s, let’s stop there. Cause the names are getting really, really good these days. I don’t make the names up. I just read the names. So let me get this right. The Vulcon Grunt. Not Volcan. Volcan. And not [00:51:00] Voltron. Not Voltron. Volcan Volcan. And not gr Grunt. Exactly. Now you’re with us here. All right.

Brought to you by the letters . So the Volcan Grunt is gonna be a super affordable EV motorcycle. It’s gonna be priced at just under $6,000. So $5,995, and it’s gonna be ready allegedly in Spring 2021. The motorcycle’s gonna have. 50 horsepower, 75 foot pounds of torque and a 60 mile an hour top speed and a hundred mile range.

Now I just heard everybody keel over going, what the heck? My understanding is I don’t think this is at all intended to be a street legal bike. So I don’t know much about bicycles, but there were some comments talking about how this bike is very similar looking to a Rokon. And even similarly named, I guess.

So for people, motorcycle enthusiasts and, and kind of off roading vehicle enthusiasts, you might know what, what that is. So the intent [00:52:00] is, this is more of a hobbyist or worker bike. So if you had, you know, your, I guess it makes sense in Texas, you’re on your ranch and you want to get from one side to the other, you hop on your little electric bike and you scoot across the ranch, or maybe you’re going to go out hunting or something.

And this is your bike. Does it, it’s, it’s basically a electric dirt bike. I mean, if you think about it from that perspective, I can see the, the appeal. I can see the use. I can see sneaking up on wild animals much more easily because you don’t have the going on where, you know, you can hear them from half a mile away.

So I kind of liked the idea. I could see this being very popular in Asian countries, like, especially like Vietnam and places like that, where motorcycles are extremely popular and they have a lot of bikes that. over here we would consider not street legal. I could see something like this working out really, really well.

I’m really shocked by the numbers though, because when you tell me, you know, a hundred miles of range and 60 mile an hour, I’m thinking moped on steroids, not [00:53:00] motorcycle. So, I mean, neither here nor there, but you know, I’m still holding out for the Tron light cycles. So when those become available, please sign me up.

And apparently this company too, they’re also, they’re going to be doing electric ATV. So they’re very focused on this off roading hobbyist, not street legal running down the highway. So if you’re in the market for anything, uh, look out for the Volcon Grunt. At your local grunt dealer, head on down. Also staying with the motorcycle theme.

So I don’t know if anyone’s aware, the actor Ewan McGregor of various fames, most notably, I guess, Obi Wan Kenobi. From Star Wars, he embarked on a 9, 000 mile electric motorcycle ride, starting from basically the Southern most tip of Argentina, all the way up through South America, ending in Los Angeles.

And he did this with a buddy of his and he was on a Harley Davidson live wire, which is Harley Davidson’s electric bike. We’re poo pooing just a second ago, very lightly poo pooing on the hundred mile range of the Vulcan. Well, the Harvey [00:54:00] Davidson. Livewire has 146 mile range. So it’s really not that much greater.

So they were doing this as part of, um, some sort of TV series that he’s, he’s going to, he recorded all this whole journey for, so I think he’s. I believe I recall him kind of being a bit of a motorcycle buff and even a car enthusiast. This isn’t the first time he’s done this. He actually did this in the early 2000s, I think on BMW motorcycles.

He went all the way around the world. Yeah. So it’d be interesting to kind of see, obviously he’s doing it this time, probably with the whole electric take, not a lot of details out. Cause they don’t want to see. Things for the TV series, which is going to be coming out and apparently it’s going to be on Apple TV for anyone who would be interested in this.

They had support vehicles with them as well, which were allegedly Rivian R1T electric trucks. So that’s pretty interesting. It sounds like it was a heck of a adventure. Obviously it goes without saying that there’s probably not a lot of charging stations along the West coast of South America as you come up and [00:55:00] whatnot.

So. There were a couple of mentions about how they had to rely on the kindness of strangers, literally stopping at strangers doors and asking to plug into their, you know, electric outlets and then causing blackouts and stuff as they blew fuses in the, in the fuse panel. So I bet it’s probably going to be a pretty interesting TV series.

But nonetheless, they did travel that whole distance on electric motorcycles. It reminds me of the days of sailing ships. You needed to cross the Atlantic. It took six months. Now we can do it in two days, you know, or whatever. Yeah. I mean, he did do this in three months, apparently. So, and, and I don’t think that was nonstop driving.

I believe they, they stopped in different locations, probably tried to get culture and see different sites and whatnot. Granted. Obviously wait, you know, several hours to recharge. It’s a really cool idea, but I think in some ways it adds fuel to that fire about electric and range and all that, which we won’t get into in this particular episode.

But, you know, I, [00:56:00] I think it’s interesting. I commend him for doing this. And then as Brad said, he did this. About 10 plus years ago, I actually didn’t realize until time you shared this article that Harley was building an electric motorcycle. I mean, we have many people in GTM that are into motorcycles. I’m not one of them.

So I thought this was actually Really interesting and I’m looking forward to seeing, you know, maybe what Harley does next. Maybe if they could double that mileage, you know, get it close to 300. You’ve got something. I think the live wire is kind of cool. It’s been out for a little while, but it’s way too expensive.

Just like any Harley Davidson motorcycle. They just cost way too much. And it kind of reminded me a little bit of a sportster. I mean, it’s not like everybody’s regular Harley where, you know, you saddlebags and the whole kind of thing. He needed something for those off road conditions. So I like the fact that it was a little bit more racy, but I couldn’t see your average Harley buyer going out and getting that because it’s not.

It’s not the type of market that we have here. Now I, I’m [00:57:00] probably doing a gross generalization, but the Harleys that I see out our way, most of them are, are the larger, you know, cruiser bikes rather than something like a sportster. Harley’s trying to get away from their previous market because they’re going under.

So they’re trying to find a way to capture a new audience and new. Buyers. And I think the live wire was a way they could have done it, but it’s just way too exciting. It’s like 25, 30, 000 for a motorcycle. Uh, millennials aren’t going to pay that. They don’t pay that for cars. They’re not going to pay that for a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Um, but I do like the idea and to talk about the range a little bit. I mean, I’ve had a couple of motorcycles in my life and none of them got over 150 miles to a tank. I mean, it’s got a four gallon gas tank and you know, they don’t go very far anyway. So 146 miles range. On a motorcycle is actually pretty good as an aside, actually with Harley Davidson, I saw something earlier today.

Actually, that apparently they’re branching out [00:58:00] into bicycles and they’re actually going to be coming out with an electric bicycle line by Harley Davidson, which I can’t imagine what that would cost. Look for those around your, your local track paddock. Yeah, there you go. All right, I think it’s time for us to make some donuts and scoot into motorsport news.

So first of all, we got to tip our hats yet again to our friends over at HPDE Junkie for always Providing us with the latest up to date information about all the track events going on in our area. Their list is extremely comprehensive. Always make sure to check it out. So the season is wrapping up here.

We, Brad and I just recently released our fall finale episode from BIR. Unfortunately, Governor Cuomo had decided to start closing borders again and disallowing certain States from coming to New York. So we weren’t able to really finish out the year like we wanted to at Watkins Glen with our friends from the Northeast.

I’m happy to hear that a lot of people had. last weekend. But you know, there’s really only a [00:59:00] few events left in our area on the calendar. There’s about three events left at New Jersey Motorsports Park. You’ve got a handful of events left at Summit Point. And that’s to include helmets off to heroes, which is a charity event, which has been taken over by SCCA in the last couple of years, benefiting military veterans, etc.

Usually held on Veterans Day this year happens to be held on November the 8th. So if you’re You’re looking to come out and have a good time, volunteer, et cetera. We also need coaches for that event. Look to either WDCR’s website or Motorsport Reg for that listing. HPDE Junkie has a good number of events still left on the calendar for VIR.

By my count, we have about six to seven VIR before they close the gates for the winter. So you’re looking to make that trek for that. From the DC area, check out what HPD Junkie has on the calendar. And if you’re somewhere else, remember that their schedule [01:00:00] is nationwide and soon to include Canada. A little word of advice.

If you’re going to VIR, leave the slicks at home because the days start out typically in the thirties or forties around this time of year, and they don’t typically go above 50, 55. Well, some exciting news for us. for 2021. There was an announcement through grassroots motorsports that Porsche is set to debut a North American Carrera cup.

Now, a lot of the Porsche enthusiasts out there might be saying, well, this isn’t really news to anybody. You know, we have all our GT cars and GT twos and GT threes and GT GT three blah, blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff. However, if you look at the history of cup racing, In North America, there hasn’t been a fully sanctioned Carrera Cup since the days of the 993.

And I’m actually really excited about this because I’m getting really tired of watching Ferrari Challenge and Lamborghini Super Trofeo. Seeing a Porsche Cup race for the first time in, let’s [01:01:00] call it, 20 years. Is pretty exciting. So I’m looking forward to this. I’m looking forward to seeing the final schedule.

Obviously they’re going to be coming to tracks like VIR, like Watkins, Glenn, et cetera. And so it’s going to be exciting to see that kind of racing along with, you know, the featured races on an IMSA weekend. So good on Porsche. Sticking with racing news, NASCAR has added a couple races to the season next year for the Cup Series.

Both of them at Bristol Motor Speedway. One of them in September during the playoff section of the season will be on the concrete track. But the most notable one is the race in March. March 28th at Bristol is going to be a dirt track race. So they brought in Tons and tons of dirt cover the track. Uh, and it’s going to be the first time that NASCAR has run a dirt track race in 50 years.

It’s going back to the, uh, I guess the old days where NASCAR got its roots of the, the bootleggers running up and down the mountains, the last cup series race on a [01:02:00] dirt track was September 30th, 1970. That was won by Richard Petty. Uh, so that’s kind of interesting. Uh, two races at Bristol, one on the dirt, one on the concrete.

It’d be interesting to see that the difference in lap times. The, and just the, the, the carnage that happens from a dirt track. I’m pretty excited about it. I’m not a NASCAR fan, but between adding the rovals, the, the half oval half road course tracks and adding something like this, they’re definitely trying to appeal to a different audience.

Uh, and I’m actually interested in tuning in next year to see what happens. Yeah, this definitely has my attention because nothing screams awesome like NASCAR’s on dirt. Right. Kind of a dovetail to this. Recently, Mountain Man Dan introduced me to a show on the new streaming service, Peacock, and it’s hosted by Dale Earnhardt Jr.,

and it’s called Lost Speedways. And the first episode is kind of an interesting episode. It’s a touching episode, and he talks about, you know, his dad and his grandfather and stuff like that. But, uh, It highlights NASCARs on [01:03:00] dirt down in North Carolina. And so I found it an interesting tie back into this particular article.

So if you want to learn a little bit more about what Brad’s talking about, why that ended, how they switched to asphalt, all that, I would definitely tell you to check out Lost Speedways on Peacock. It’s worth a watch and it’s available on the free side of the service. So you can tune in today, you know, whenever you like.

Tanya, do we have your attention now for NASCAR? Actually, yes. I would say we have her attention. when they announced that NASCAR’s going to COTA next year. Wow, that’s She speaks with everybody, look at that. I’m just thinking about the S, like the Yeah, okay. Yes, I will watch that. Man, that hairpin at the end.

Woo! If you think that’s interesting, they’ve also said that they’re going to do Watkins Glen with the boot, they’re going to go to Road America, and potentially run the Indianapolis Road Circuit, the former F1 GP track. Are they planning to do any suspension modifications? Nah, nah, nah. Oxcart [01:04:00] with slicks.

We’re done. I want to see NASCARs at Long Beach. And I want to see NASCARs at Laguna Seca. So basically, we’re going full body IndyCars now. Is that what we’re doing here? I mean, why not? Yeah. So, so IndyCars are running nothing but ovals and now the NASCARs are doing the road courses. Is that, is that what’s happened here?

If they can do super trucks at Long Beach, they can do NASCARs anywhere. But it just feels like Freaky Friday. You know, there’s a lot of guys out there and some of our, our guys included, like Sam, who had, you know, as we talked about on the last episode was up at Road America doing the runoffs, et cetera.

There are lots of guys that have budding. SCCA careers. But where do you go from there? Right? Unless you’re 12 years old and super karting champion and this and that, and you’ve got somebody bankrolling you in the United States, maybe into something like NASCAR or stock car racing, et cetera, and working your way up.

It’s really hard to move out of some of these amateur and pro am racing series. [01:05:00] Recently through an article through Racer, IMSA and SCCA are collaborating on how to cultivate more drivers coming out of SCCA to go into IMSA. So I’m really excited to see where this goes, and I think that’s going to open a lot of opportunities for some very talented drivers in SCCA all around the country.

To maybe have the opportunity to get away from formula enterprise and go into, you know, LMP cars or go into GT or whatever it might be, or some of these, you know, spec racer, Miata guys that are super awesome. They get the chance to, you know, drive in GTE or whatever it might be. So I’m really excited to see where this goes.

And hopefully maybe we get some more American drivers. into these international series, which has been very difficult to do. I mean, I don’t know all the facts like the guys from the International Motor Racing Research Center do about who won what and when we’ll talk about them more in a minute, but I have a feeling like the last American that ran and won on the [01:06:00] big stage was like Mario Andretti.

You know, we’re talking like 40 years ago. And so again, it’ll be really cool to see where this goes. Now sticking with racing, Chevrolet. Has logged 80, 000 miles using 3d printed parts. Now, before you get all crazy, they weren’t using like 3d printed pistons or any cylinder heads or anything like that.

It’s more of like the, the stuff you would expect, like the, the one piece items that you would expect. Um, but they use them in all their race cars in the car that runs an EMSA. In their IndyCars, the Silverado race trucks and the NASCAR Camaro that they’ve been using. I think that’s kind of cool. I know 3d printing right now is expensive, but as the technology, you know, advances and it becomes more, I guess, readily available and more people are able to do it.

It means you can print new parts trackside. Uh, if you’ve got the materials, it’s very interesting to me, I think it’s kind of cool. And in Formula One news, uh, some of you who may have been under a rock did not hear, [01:07:00] Lewis Hamilton both caught and surpassed Michael Schumacher for most F1 wins in history.

He recorded his 91st win at the Eiffel Grand Prix about a week ago. After that, Mick Schumacher, who’s Michael’s son, gifted him the Schumacher’s helmet from the Final 2012 season. Uh, and then this past weekend, uh, he got the 92nd win and now he sits alone at the top. Eric, wake up. Oh, man. Yeah. Oh, were you talking about formula one again?

Holy cow. But you know, it’s an interesting question because Lewis Hamilton is still fairly young and he’s still extremely dominant in that Mercedes car. Who cares? Who cares? I’m so tired of it. I watch Formula One. I think it’s interesting. It is so boring. Oh my God. It’s like a book report when I was in school.

You watch the beginning, you watch the end, whatever happened in the middle is completely irrelevant. It is so boring. You’re not going to watch the third [01:08:00] Italian Grand Prix this weekend because they’re at Imola this weekend. They’ve already done Mugello and Monza. I could care less, dude. There’s so much more interesting racing.

I’m On TV right now between IndyCar, TCR racing, IMSA, WRC. I mean, Formula One is kind of, it’s just played out. I mean, that’s my personal opinion. I know there’s a lot of F1 fans out there. I stopped after Schumacher retired. And ever since then, I feel like I’m just watching WWE. Right. It’s so much drama, so much BS.

It’s all super political. I don’t know. Carry on. That’s all I’m going to say. Why don’t you tell us how you really feel? I’ll go back to sleep. What’s funny is that you mentioned that you were watching it back when Schumacher was dominant. How is this any different? It’s like, it’s still the same kind of racing.

It’s not, it’s not really different. It’s because back then they were still driving the cars. They were still mixed engines. They were still mixed technologies. There was still a lot of [01:09:00] advancement. Now the cars are all the same other than the liveries. They literally all look the same to me. There really is no characteristic differences.

The drivers are all like super young. They’re all, in my opinion, they don’t have the same. I don’t want to use the word maturity because I see the stuff on Instagram. I see how all these guys act with each other, and it’s funny for a minute, but they’re not of the same caliber as a Fit Aldi or a Sena, or a Schumacher or a Stewart or a Hill, or a Graham or a Grabba or all these names.

You’re gonna look back and you’re like, wow, Lando is a clown. And Ricardo. Yeah, he was a nice. guy. Nobody liked Hamilton, right? And I’m exaggerating a little bit here. It’s different. And they’ve curated these characters and these personas around the drivers that don’t need to be there. And so for me, it’s ruined formula one, because it’s no longer about the technology.

It’s no longer about pushing the boundaries. It’s like this whole. Bread and circus thing. And I wanted to go back to the days where it was like [01:10:00] Senate versus prost. Right. And it was, it was just different. And maybe I’m showing my age, but there’s a reason I guess it’s the golden era of F1, the modern era, et cetera, et cetera.

Right. So I do agree with you that the Persona of the drivers has changed. It seems like there’s a lot of immaturity bouncing around. You don’t have any more of the James Hunt, like Playboys out there, you know, which was really cool back then. I guess it fit the era in which he drove nowadays, I guess, with millennials growing up and liking stuff like this, it’s, you know, the persona of the driver is different.

I agree with you that the personas back then were. Cooler and this is more fun, I guess, but there are people you look up to that you’re they were your motor sports heroes. Nowadays. I have a hard time. I mean, and maybe it’s because I’m on the other end of the pendulum, right? I mean, I’m looking at a driver.

Who’s let’s call it 20 years. My junior. How do we how do you look? Up to them, you know what I mean? I guess maybe my kids will look up to them as a hero. I don’t know. It’s for me. It’s just hard to relate [01:11:00] anymore. I totally, I can, I can see that. And I understand your point. So anyway, we’ll move on from formula one on a whole different plane of racing.

The true, true pioneers. The true bat shit crazies, the motorcycle racers in a class of their own. So I came across a, an article that was mentioning Valentino Rossi and my dad used to watch all the super bike, the MotoGP, all the different racing classes. And, you know, so it was back in the day when we had VCR and we had TVs where you had to leave the TV on to be able to record on the VCR.

Right. And so like, You know, countless, whether it was F1 at, you know, back then or, or motorcycle races or IMSA or whatever, there was always something being recorded on the TV and, you know, I’m trying to study on a weekend and well, there goes Valentino. So I happened to actually catch a lot of motorcycle races, um, long time ago.

And even F1 races for that matter, don’t really watch [01:12:00] any anymore. Um, so anyway, I always like to kind of follow and see what Mr. Valentino’s doing. Cause he’s pretty much. Considered the greatest of all time in motorcycle racing. He’s still active. He’s I think 40 or 41 years old. So he’s getting up there compared to the younger crowd that’s coming in.

And now he’s a nine time world champion for people who don’t know who he is. Seven of those championships are in the premier class, which is considered MotoGP, and then he’s got one each in some lower CC, um, classes that he competed in when he was first starting out. So his record has not been broken yet.

He there’s actually, Mark Marquez is on, I guess, the cusp of. Tying him for MotoGP wins. He’s sitting at six right now. He’s not going to get it this year because Marquez basically shut himself down for the whole season. He broke his arm in the first race of the season. So he’s been out. So he’s not even on the points board.

So we’ll have to wait, I guess, till next year to see if he’s able to tie Rossi. But the article that, that I came across was, uh, another former. [01:13:00] Rival and racer Casey Stoner, who has since retired. Um, he’s only with two world championships, but he, he made this comment about it’s sad seeing Rossi celebrating top five victories now.

And, and the article kind of went on that, you know, and it’s true. I mean, he’s no longer always winning. You know, number one position, et cetera, et cetera. He’s, he’s kind of mixing it a little bit. He, he does still get podiums, but he’s often now back kind of in the top five and whatnot. But, and I guess he was being a little bit of critical of that and, you know, Oh, maybe it’s time to retire.

And then at the same time, you know, well, if Rossi is still out there enjoying it and having fun, it’s up to him and rightfully so it is up to him. You know, I mean, he’s. He’s proved himself over and over again, he’s just out there having a good time still, and he’s still competitive. He’s mixing up the field, more power to him, go for as long as he can.

I mean, eventually you have a 41 year old or an increasingly older 40 year old competing against 20 somethings and they’re at their prime, their reflexes and everything are there. And [01:14:00] unfortunately, no matter who you are, those start to, to wane a little bit in your age and your, in your perspective has changed too, maybe he’s not as aggressive anymore.

Maybe he realized. Well, I don’t need to do that last minute, late break, amazing pass in the last two turns to, you know, win the race. Maybe he decides it’s just not worth it anymore. You know, whatever his reasons may be, but he is still out there. And interestingly, I don’t know if many people know he actually is also.

A little bit of a rally driver. And he’s a seven time winner in the Monza rally. And he’s actually set to race again in that rally that’s coming up. So we’ll see if he makes it in a eight time winner in that whole little, little championship they do. He’s also competed in Britain, WRC, as well as one of the rally, New Zealand races.

I love Valentino Rossi. I’ve been following him for years. I think he’s amazing. And yes, he is the greatest of all time. In my opinion, on the formula one side, someone who’s less Not quite as successful, um, but still kind of in a very similar situation. Kimi Raikkonen, I mean, he’s still [01:15:00] out there doing it.

He’s still mixing it up. I mean, this last weekend he went from 17th place. I think it was up to 10th place. And then obviously he fell back because of the car and just, he’s, he’s just out there having fun at this point. But yeah, I agree. If they’re still having fun and they’re still competitive enough to be mixing it up in the top, you know, five, 10 or 15 or whatever, why not?

If people still want to give them money, throw money at them to get out there. And if people like their names, people like Rossi, I started watching MotoGP because of Rossi. I enjoy watching F1 partially because of Kimi. Why not? Hopefully they bring in more fans. I guess. I mean, I, I would, you know, kind of this whole conversation, we’re talking about two drivers or pilot and a driver rather that have dominated for years.

You know, you throw a Schumacher into that mix as well. And I kind of wonder though, why not, let’s say, do your time and move on to another discipline. Right. And I’m not saying do something extreme, like, like Mika Hakkinen did where when he retired from formula one, he went to rally and he was terrible, but, [01:16:00] you know, why not?

You know, Hamilton, like you’ve already proven your point. Go do Lamont’s like Alonzo did. Like I have more respect for Alonzo because he’s gone and done other things. He’s done Indy. He’s done formula one. He’s done IMSA. He’s done Lamont’s he’s done all these other things. And so when I look at him, he’s a more well rounded driver.

And for me, those are the kinds of drivers that I’m more apt and more inclined to follow than, you know, the people that we were talking about earlier. And so, and you see that with. Other drivers that didn’t make it like, um, who was it? Olivier pennies. He ended up being a touring car driver. He was extremely successful in touring car.

He wasn’t very good at formula one net. Then again, he wasn’t on one of the better teams either. So there’s some of that going on, but again, it’s like kind of mix it up. You know, let’s follow you to another discipline. Let’s look at something else. There’s more than just one way. Of racing. And, and, and this goes back even to that story of, uh, was it back when Montoya and Jeff Gordon swapped places, did that trading places day.[01:17:00]

And Jeff Gordon came up through carding. He got in the formula card. He’s like, oh man, this is like the old days. This is amazing. And Montoya, he struggled with the NASCAR, but then eventually Montoya ended up in NASCAR. But it was good to see them cross the boundaries and try something different and not be completely typecast because the question is, yeah, so Hamilton just broke Schumacher’s record.

Where does he go from here? And does it really matter? Fun fact for formula one, the person you just spoke about Fernando Alonso, he’s coming back. He will be in a Renault, I believe next year. All right, then let’s see what’s going on. He’s come full circle. I think he’s still trying to run Indy though.

Cause he still wants that motorsports triple crown. Yeah. Which is super rare. And again, That is, you know, unless you’re a Jim Clark, a Mario Andretti type, you know, AJ Foyt, those types of guys, there’s very few names on that list. So to be on that list, I mean, that to me means more than I’m the nine time formula one champion, big deal.

I will say in defense of Rossi, and it’s probably more due to the [01:18:00] nature of motorcycle racing is I wouldn’t say that every race he was in, he was pretty Number one, and then the whole race went and he was always in the number one position, right? There was a lot of races where he was battling. He fell back in position.

He came back remarkably, you know, forward in positions or it was lit or tons of races were literally, and maybe it was part of his awesomeness that he did it on purpose where, I mean, there was countless races where it’s the last lap. He’s not in first place, but he’s somehow by miracle in the last lap.

Four turns before the finish line pulls out, you know, this impressive pass from God knows where wins it. And a little bit as I don’t know, is that just, he was that good at that time and could do those things and maybe held back a little bit or either that, or there’s just the nature of motorcycle racing, there’s just a lot more back and forth.

So it’s a little bit more interesting. It’s, it’s not, Oh, well, Rossi was in first place from lap one till, you know, the end of the, end of the road. I mean, the, the same. The same is true of Senna and some of the other great [01:19:00] drivers. They didn’t win every race they were in. And that’s the part I have a problem with, with the current formula one, you know, everybody gets excited.

Oh, well, Botas is at the top and so and so is on the pole. And then it’s like three laps in and Hamilton’s at the front. And then you’re like, all right, it’s time to turn TV off. Cause you know how that’s going to end, right? So it does get boring if the same guy’s always in the lead. And so again, in the old days.

I think there was more competition. There was more discrepancy. There’s more uniqueness between the cars. They weren’t just cookie cutter. And that led to better competition. And I’d like to see that return in many of the sports. And to your point of drivers doing other disciplines, Jimmy Johnson from NASCAR will be running an IndyCar next year.

Interesting. Someone to watch. We’ll have to check that out. So now I think it’s time to switch to our fan favorite section of the drive thru. A section we call Would you like some fries with that? Where we’ve scoured the world looking for the best in car adjacent news. So what’s first? [01:20:00] Best, but it’s always interesting.

So what’s on the docket this month, Tanya? Well, the first one is this probably very little known Nissan 300 ZX turbo commercial that unless you were watching the super bowl back in 1990, you probably missed this little gem because that was the first and the last time that commercial was ever shown. And it’s not because it was terrible commercial.

It’s. Very bizarre, um, and maybe fit in with 1990. I don’t know. I mean, it’s, it’s this guy in his 300 ZX turbo and he’s dreaming. And for some unknown reason, he’s on some random deserted desert road and he’s being chased by a motorcycle and then some bizarre looking prototype and then a plane, and then the plane is trying to catch him, but as he says, Just as they’re about to catch me, [01:21:00] the twin turbos kick in and he like skyrockets off some ramp or some crap like this, like off the hill in the road.

I mean, it’s bizarre. It makes zero sense. It was very dystopian, Mad Max ish. The reason why it was never, ever showed again is apparently the insurance Institute got very upset because apparently it was glorifying stuff. Speeding and it’s like, really, have you seen a car movie or any other car commercial?

No, it just exemplified everything that Ridley Scott put his hands on. If you’ve watched Aliens, if you’ve watched Blade Runner, what you described, dystopian, makes no sense, the whole thing, that is, you’ve summarized everything he’s ever put his hands on. So, to me, when I saw this, I wasn’t shocked, but I was I was in awe of what I had seen though, so I recommend people definitely check it out.

What they didn’t show at the end [01:22:00] of that video is after the twin turbos kick in, the motor blows up and he stops at a crawl. It did remind me of the gentleman that jumped the bridge in Detroit last month as he came off of that ramp. I think all four tires were blown out and that motor was on the ground.

Send it! 100%. 300 ZX were destroyed in the making of that commercial. But anyway, not enough. So another interesting little piece of news for three people that probably care. The Tesla roadster that’s out there in orbit somewhere is close to Mars and moving on. No, just kidding. I don’t know who really cares about this.

I guess it’s a fun fact. It’s traveled 1. 3 billion. Miles since it was launched and it’s approximately 37 million miles away from the planet earth. So it’s going to be a very long time before it’s ever back, sort of close to earth. And even then you won’t be able to see it with, you know, high power [01:23:00] telescope or anything like that.

And it did this on a single charge. Oh, just because you can. It doesn’t mean you should. I still don’t understand the point of the whole thing, but hey, it’s out there being space junk. So, moving on. Does the bumper fall off when it collects moisture in space? Is there moisture in space? Dun dun dun!

Sticking with the theme, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. We’ve got a public service announcement for you and anyone that goes to a car festival or a car show or a hot rod weekend at the beach. You know, like H2O and Ocean City. Don’t be like this Dumfries, Virginia driver and shut down the Bay Bridge so you can do burnouts and donuts and all kinds of illegal activity.

in the middle of the day, you know, for, for the gram, don’t do that crap because you will get caught. You will get in trouble and you could get seriously hurt if you do it. So please don’t be like this fool. It’s just not worth it. So you remember last month when we talked about [01:24:00] the DIY turbo kit on the Audi RS3?

Do we remember how that ended? I especially remember the My feet ain’t gonna do shit quote. I think Johnny Cash wrote a song about it, right? Yeah burning blaze fire Exactly. So speaking of burning blazes of fire in car shows We had a yet another entry come across our desk where you get to watch a twin turbo diesel pickup truck explode on the dyno as it’s making 3, 000 horsepower Horsepower.

It is epic. It is something to behold. An example of another perfect DIY scenario that ends in a huge flaming dumpster fire. I mean, it’s been a while since I watched that video, but I mean, that could have been catastrophic. I mean, parts were flying. Correct. Like people could have died. I mean, that was insane.

It is epic. So if you are a diesel owner, always remember to watch your EGTs. Follow up [01:25:00] update from the story we had last month about the stranded Jeep in California. You know, someone really intelligent at Ford decided to reach out to this Jeep owner and ask if he needed some help. Someone at Ford, you know, reached out, sent the guy an email, and the guy confirmed that he was contacted by Ford, and they were going to rescue the Jeep for him.

He did not take them up on their offer, and instead his Jeep was recovered. By a huge group of jeepers and people would pick up trucks and even in helicopter came out to get in on the fun So ford tried it was a great publicity stunt had they been able to do it But unfortunately the owner of the jeep did not take him up on it Well, I heard they he turned him down because they offered to pull him out with a bronco And he would have been too embarrassed that allegedly they were talking about pulling him out with a Bronco, but I’m, I’m sure for probably would have sent some big tractor or something to go out there and get them or whatever it would have been great for a photo op.

It would have been excellent advertising had they been able to do it, but I guess they just, it wasn’t in the cards. Regardless, someone give that man or woman at Ford a [01:26:00] raise. Yes. Agreed. Brilliant. Was it good? Hey, but was it going to be the Sasquatch edition? That’s what I want to know. So last month we talked about our crazy Northern neighbor who thought it was all right to, you know, recline the seat.

And your Tesla, stick that sucker in autopilot and just cruise on down the road. Well, there was a headline about watching a clip of a Tesla Model 3 failing an automatic emergency brake test. That is hilarious. And so it caught my attention, of course, from our friends at Jalopnik. And so I clicked into it and it’s really.

It’s a little bit of clickbait, if you will, cause the whole self driving automatic braking is not a Tesla unique thing. It’s across a lot of different manufacturers are trying to roll out this technology. Tesla really likes to beat their drum on it and claim a little bit falsely about how autonomous their quote self driving is when the, the fact of the matter is nobody has.

100 percent autonomous self driving vehicles right now. The technology is not robust enough yet. And so obviously all these [01:27:00] manufacturers have to do tests and whatnot. And speaking of robots, they use dummies. They got rails in the ground and they got a little dummy that like shoots across and then there’s a car coming and the car with these automatic break features is supposed to stop.

Right. But no, it doesn’t. I mean, it’s funny, poor dummy, you know, obliterates the dummy. It looked like 10 pin bowling. I mean, it was like everywhere. I mean, and, and not to beat on Tesla because there was another clip or, or screenshot of a Honda and it obliterated the dummy as well. So, I mean, it’s not, again, it’s not a Tesla only problem.

It’s a technology ready problem. However, if I had been in the car. In that same situation, I would have stopped way earlier than what the automatic braking system did because I have eyes and a brain or, you know, I don’t know, maybe they’re just programmed with a smaller tolerance. I personally wouldn’t stop within inches of a human being.

Especially if I can see them, like I would have already been slowing down and stopped. If you’re [01:28:00] paying attention while driving and that’s what you should be doing, you know, there’s no reason to panic stop when you see a pedestrian crossing in front of you. So I’ve got a philosophical question for you.

What do you think is easier, an easier problem to solve? Teaching these cars to stop for these obstructions using the LIDAR and the radar and whatever. Or teaching these morons not to walk out into the street in front of a moving car. Which one do you think is easier? That is a very difficult question. I mean, it goes back to the whole joke about Astronauts in space and writing instruments, right?

We spent a gajillion dollars to design a pen that worked in zero gravity and the Russians took pencils, right? It’s the same simplicity principle. So, yeah, I agree. We need to spend more time teaching people a how to drive. better and be to be more aware and get off their phones and whatever, as they’re walking around and kids are kids, right?

Kids are hard being a parent. They’re, they’re, they’re rambunctious. They are [01:29:00] not aware they, they think they’re alone in their own little world, in their own little bubble. So you have to be extra vigilant and extra careful. But as adults, you don’t know to look both ways. I don’t know. There’s a lot to be said there, right?

You shouldn’t be driving. You should be walking, you mean. Yeah. But speaking of people that don’t look ahead while they’re driving. In Kentucky, Kentucky man or woman, we don’t really know, decides to try and run over a nine foot tall snowman during a recent snowstorm. And what do you think happened? Who won?

Frosty or the driver? I’m going to tell you Frosty won because Frosty had a secret weapon. He had wood. He was built over a tree stump in the middle of this guy’s yard. And I don’t know what happened. No, they never caught the, uh, the person affected by the instant karma. Um, but apparently this guy did not like this snowman and decided to try to take it out with the pick them up truck.

And he lost like, did he leave the truck there [01:30:00] damaged the truck? No, the owner of the property. built the snowman in the morning, I guess, or the night before, and then went back after work, you know, the next night and there was the tree trunk was exposed. Frosty was still standing there and there were truck marks or tire marks leading up to Frosty.

Wow. So we would be remiss again, not having a Florida man to comment on. Oh boy. And of course a headline like Florida man makes scooter with mop bucket and leaf blower.

I mean, it very well might be clickbait, but you have to click on it. Right. And so I did Harley take note. Okay. So first of all, I want to say that leaf blower. is forced induction. All right. That is some turbo charged action right there. Well, I didn’t look, is it a Ryobi? Is it a Ryobi 18 volt? No, this, this is, this is horrible.

[01:31:00] Like video, there’s a video to watch. And I mean, definitely watch the video, but this whole thing is absurd and it’s just. fake. I mean, a hundred percent. What a publicity stunt. Let’s be real. There’s so many things wrong. Why this isn’t going to work. I mean, the still images are freaking ridiculous if you look at them.

And again, the video, I definitely recommend it, but let’s walk through it. First of all, the video starts and we’re talking like the yellow janitorial mop bucket, right? We’ve all seen them on caster wheels. Okay. The video starts. The man takes his mop bucket and he dumps the water out from it. Then suddenly though, the mop bucket, the caster wheels are gone.

And it’s sitting on a skateboard. Okay. Next, the magic of Hollywood, but it gets better because next he’s holding the leaf blower, which appears turbo charger, which appears to me to be a plug in electric type blower. Okay? Okay, it wasn’t [01:32:00] gas powered, it wasn’t battery, it was no Ryobi, okay? He pull starts it, and you have sound effects as if there’s a gas engine running.

N n nothing started when he, whenever he pulled, okay? Now, the umbrella. He’s holding an umbrella out. In front of him. Unless this is a NASA developed umbrella. Have y’all ever used an umbrella in the wind? It takes approximately 2. 0 seconds for it to flip the other way when there’s a little bit of wind.

So how the hell is he, if the leaf blower was even running, how is the umbrella even stable? I call bullshit. I think we found a new form of racing here. And, and maybe, but, and then this just. Cheap, like, Walmart brand looking electric plug in blower that’s operating off magic right now, because it’s not plugged into anything.

How the hell do you expect it to propel a 200 pound [01:33:00] some odd man or something across The road when you can barely sometimes push grass clippings in your yard with the leaf blower, but yet he propelled himself with the leaf blower that’s not plugged in with the umbrella. Florida, you don’t need to make the stuff up.

It dirty comes naturally . But thank you nonetheless. I mean, it was, it’s amusing. I mean, watch it. I mean, I’m dying. Every time I look at this. It just gets worse and worse and worse. Stop poking holes. I mean, the still pictures, you’re like, okay. And then you watch the little, the video and you’re like, yeah, okay.

I mean, great job. Fun video. I’m sure people were staring at you. Florida man does Florida man things. Exactly. Well, let’s talk about Michigan men because they’re a special breed, too. I’ve got to say move over Toyota Hilux because the terrorists of the world have a new preferred vehicle. It is the PT Cruiser.

There’s a video out there posted on Jalopnik on October [01:34:00] 19th of a group of terrorists in Michigan. They’re called the Wolverine Watchmen and they were Developing a plan to kidnap the governor of Michigan, I guess they have differing political views and they thought the best way to handle it was instead of getting out there and vote, they would get out there and kidnap and their vehicle of choice.

Was a PT cruiser. The video is actually quite interesting. These men are getting out, I guess they’re doing some sort of military drill where they drive up and they stop the BT cruiser, they get out of all four doors and they just start shooting into somewhere. I don’t know where they’re just wasting ammo for the sake of wasting ammo, but yeah, so Toyota Hilux is no longer the preferred vehicle of terrorists.

It’s the PT cruiser. Wonder if that Kentucky man had a differing political view with Snowman. Let’s go back down South to Florida for a hot second, Florida, man, and woman quote, obviously racing. So it was reported that two people were traveling at high rates of speed in and out of traffic and trying to pass [01:35:00] each other.

Now I’m going to ask gentlemen, let’s have some guesses here. No, we don’t know what the woman was driving or the man was driving, but what two cars do you think? We’re involved in this obviously racing scenario. Oh, one of them has to be a 1999 Dodge Caravan. I am thinking a Pontiac Sunfire with one headlight and a dent in the passenger door and then a Dodge Intrepid.

No, no, it’s going to be, it’s going to be a, it’s going to be a late 90s, early 2000s Corolla. Automatic. And I’m thinking they’re obviously racing on the highway and an HHR, just because I want it to be an HHR. I actually think it’s a Cadillac Cimarron and a Cadillac Cimarron. You found the last two in existence.

Back racer Cimarron. Now, [01:36:00] do you think that Cimarron can get over a hundred miles an hour? Doubtful. A hundred kilometers per hour. So they were traveling in speeds of excess of a hundred miles an hour. Apparently, I think you will be surprised with the two cars based on your guesses that were dead wrong.

It was in fact, a Yugo, a 1991 Eagle Talon. What? At 108 miles an hour and a 2013 Subaru Impreza at 117 miles an hour. You know what? Mad props to the Eagle Talon. That’s all I’m gonna say. For still running.

That’s the true gem of this story was the Eagle Talon. 100 percent because the 117 is not impressive with the Subaru. That’s actually pretty sad. But that Eagle, that’s good stuff right there. Especially for early 90s. Which person was driving which? We don’t know, they didn’t say. I think the woman was driving the Talon.

[01:37:00] I’m with you on that. I don’t know why, but I am. So, so we’ll round out the last two with a little bit lighter, less serious and fun things. So I learned very recently that apparently Shaq, Mr. Shaquille O’Neal, is going to be executive producer and star in an animated comedy for kids called Shaq’s Garage.

So I really didn’t know that apparently Shaq must be a bit of a car enthusiast. So, so interesting to him. The show follows the secret adventures of the NBA legends collection of animated cars and trucks, all of which have unique abilities from super spying to language, to music. The lead vehicle is named Big Diesel and will be voiced by Shaq.

Through comedy and adventure, the show will showcase strong and diverse characters as positive role models with purposeful storytelling. This is going to be a special show that touches every button, music, adventure, humor, and positive, prideful [01:38:00] messaging for kids. That’s kind of nice. And from the animation, it actually looks very much like Cars, the cartoon movie.

So, I mean, it’s nice to, to see something that it’s fun and positive messaging in the world, especially for little kids. I hope he’s successful with that endeavor. So to Shaq’s credit, I actually wrote about him in an article right after, uh, season two of Car Masters came out, the Rust to Riches, uh, series.

And they talked about a kit car known as the Vader, which is built on a G35 Infinity. Shaq happens to own one of those. So, and I actually have a picture of him in his Vader in that article. So I think he is a bit of a car guy. Obviously that’s a specialty car, it’s obviously a kit car, but I would be very curious to know what else is in Shaq’s garage.

So kind of cool to know that he is a bit of a petrolhead. Did they say where this show is going to be, I guess, broadcast? Cartoon channel. Cartoon with a K. I mean, I’d check it out. It sounds fun to me. But let’s [01:39:00] talk about real fun because we are getting Dangerously close to Halloween. Yes, we are. We are at time of this recording fast approaching the witching hour, otherwise known as Halloween in 2020 has been quite the year so far.

And unfortunately I think threatens typical Halloween trick or treating and other activities all across the country. If you recall, a few months ago, we reported on a drive through Halloween experience that was coming to. Florida. Oh yeah. And folks, it is here and it’s still running through November 7th.

So if you find yourself in or are from the Orlando area, you know, go check this out. It seems like it’s probably going to be a pretty cool thing. Just wanna give a shout out to what seems like a really cool idea, which I could go on something like this. Um, I love haunted houses and Halloween and all that looks pretty cool.

That’s it. I will say, looking back, we did make fun of it a little bit, but. Putting on our COVID goggles, this drive thru trick or treat Halloween experience makes a lot of sense. [01:40:00] And I will say, tune in to our November drive through for Florida man runs over vampire and werewolf. I was curious. I did go on their website, the haunted road.

com and, and they list kind of out all their safety features and this than the other. And so basically. I think they’ve thought of that. So they said that as you’re driving the car through this attraction, nobody is going to be interacting with you. So it’s kind of like a point A to B to C to D kind of thing.

And then you kind of drive up to the scene or the scenario or whatever. And then that’s where the interaction happens in your car to put your car in park and this, that, and the other. And then while you’re moving from one checkpoint or scene to the next, the speed limit is five miles an hour and all this stuff, and all the performers are wearing masks and complying with COVID recommendations and same thing if you’re in your car and your windows are up, you’re fine.

If you have your windows down, they ask that you do also please wear masks, et cetera, et cetera. So apparently there’s also a super [01:41:00] scary experience for like certain age group or whatever that costs like way extra. So I’m not sure what you’re getting out of that, but it’s, it’s, it’s called carjacking.

That’s what I know. It’s like an extra 80 bucks or something to go on like the ultimate experience or something. I’m like, Whoa, it’s to pay the tow truck driver. So you can get it at a Hawk later. Yeah. I don’t know. I want to throw out a challenge to any of our listeners who may be in that area who decide to go to this, please put a GoPro on the top of your car.

We would love to see footage from it. 100%. Well, folks, it’s time to wrap things up with our final segment, the secret sauce. We rally together our GTM specific news. So to recap the month of podcast episodes, if you only tune in for the drive through, I think we set off the month pretty strong. We had our special guest, Mark Francis on break fix to talk about safety as a city.

System, and he represents one of the largest motorsport safety distributors in the United States. That’s OG racing [01:42:00] and good news there. There’s a lot of really awesome closeout deals right now on, especially on 2015 helmets and other goodies. So if you’re looking to save a buck, please be sure to check out www dot OG racing.

com. In addition to that, we played a round of name that engine or name that tune. We did a little lighter episode, a game show episode. where we pitted our resident Viking, Brad, our co host here tonight, uh, against mountain man, Dan, in a name that tune like game show where we played, uh, sound clips and had them guess for points, you know, what the vehicle was and what engine it was.

They did have some lifelines. It was a very entertaining episode. So if you missed that, be sure to check it out. After that, we had a sit down with Garrett Walls from Chaz’s used auto parts. We talked a little bit about the history of Chaz’s, but we got deep and dirty in the world of dirt track racing. So if you’re into that.

Please be sure to check that out. In addition, we had a special bonus [01:43:00] episode, which was a weekend recap episode that Brad and I did with John Richter regarding the fall finale at Virginia international raceway. And by the time you guys hear this episode, there will be a special pit stop episode, which is a sub series within break fix, where we do some off the cuff interviews with fans.

folks specifically for John, uh, as he is transferring from the DMV down to Texas to join Tanya in the Southern States region. And, uh, we do a special recap episode with him about his time here in the DMV. And that’ll be available on October 30th through Patreon. And we will re air on our normal stream sometime in January of 21.

In addition to that, wrapping up the month of October, we had the Dr. Anthony DeCesaro and Race Liberante from Race Factory USA on the show to talk about how they’re changing the world of karting. So five really strong episodes there for you guys to check out. And [01:44:00] obviously that bonus Pit Stop episode with John Richter.

And we have more really cool things coming for the month of November. So stay tuned for updates every Tuesday on our regular stream. In addition to that, I think we were happy to announce some new partnerships. Who have we got on board now, Brad? We have the IMRRC, or the International Motor Racing Research Center, and Garage Riot, who we hope to have on the show soon.

In addition to that, one of our members, Jordan Furman, is putting together his capstone project. He is a soon to be filmmaker director, and it’s a comedy based upon a car that is near and dear to Tanya and I, an 83 Audi coupe. It’s supposed to be set in the nineties. It’s a period comedy, and it’s about an unlikely friendship, a replacement battery and sketchy street vendors.

And so we’re going to have Jordan on the show to talk about that a little bit more in the future. But right now he’s asking for support. He’s looking for funding, you know, Putting [01:45:00] together a movie as his, you know, final, let’s call it his final exam for school is a costly endeavor. So if you’re interested in helping him out, we’ve posted the link in our show notes so you can go and support him through Indiegogo so that he can get this film off the ground and maybe finally graduate college, right?

Outside of that, I think we have some, a couple of shout outs left. Uh, we’d like to thank Dr. T and Race Liberante from Race Factory USA. We’d like to thank Dan Rao for coming on the show. He’s going to be on in November to talk about truck night in America. Uh, we’d like to thank Ryan Staub from Lockton Motorsports.

And we have a couple new Patreons for October. First off, we have Leonardo Giambi. Lenny is an avid listener. He happens to be a relative, and we thank him for his support. And we look forward to more suggestions and feedback from Lenny as we continue to, you know, build out the show. In addition to that, we’d like to thank Andrew Bang for also signing up to be a Patreon.

And holding on to that, 302 boss Mustang for me [01:46:00] for an extra week. And of course we would love to thank our co host and the person who keeps the drive through going Tanya. Thank you. And I have a shout out or two. There’s a certain host who I believe has a birthday this week. So.

And also, member zero of GTM has a birthday this week, so I hope he’s up there running some laps with Senna. That is for sure. And if you don’t know who we’re talking about, visit our website and search member zero to get that backstory on it. And it’s part of the GTM origin story as well. But yes, uh, we can’t sing happy birthday to Brad over the air because apparently royalties and copyrights, etc.

So, uh, If you’ve ever seen, uh, several episodes of sunny in Philadelphia, we’re not allowed to do that here. So yeah, right. But we will, we will wish you the best of happy birthdays and congratulations on completing yet [01:47:00] another lap around the sun. Well, thank you. Thank you. All right. And with that, I think it’s time to end.

I agree. Let’s let’s end this, please. Hi,

Cars in front of us, cars in back of us, all just waiting to order. There’s some idiot in a Volvo, with his brights on behind me. I lean out the window and scream, hey, whatcha tryna do, blind me? My wife says maybe we should

If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out on www. gtmotorsports. org. You can also find us on Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at 202 630 1770 or send us an email at [01:48:00] crewchief at gtmotorsports.

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