Regret & the Desert Island: cars you should've bought

In this round of “What Should I Buy” we discuss cars we regret not buying, regret selling and regret having! Collectively, we’ve had and/or driven over a 1000 cars, and we discuss cars we regret not buying, regret selling and regret having! But to add a twist, if you could only have 3 cars on your desert island, what would they be? Would they be one of the cars you regret?

Notes

COMING SOON

and much, much more!

Transcript

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

What’s going on everybody? This is your host of the GTM podcast, Brad ak the triple six with me, as always, is uh, Eric. Hey, uh, we have a few special guests tonight with us. We’ve got, uh, a couple club members. Hazmat, got Mr. Crutch himself, and then we’ve got Mountain Man, Dan, today’s episode. We’re gonna do something a little different.

We’re kind of gonna go around the horn style. Basically. We’re talking about the one that got away. No, we’re not talking about your high school girlfriend that you, you broke up with, broke your heart, and you had to go cry to mama. No. We’re talking about the cars. Cars that you used to own. Between the five of us, we’ve probably had, shoot, I don’t even know, prob probably 5,000 cars between the five of us.

I, I would say that’s an exaggeration, but probably not too far off. But anyway, we’re gonna talk about those cars, the ones that we regret getting rid of the one that got away. And then on top of that, we’ve got a special thing for you all. It’s gonna be the Desert Island [00:01:00] question. Alright, so let’s hear what Matt has to say.

All right, so you, the, the, the car that got away, huh? Yeah. I mean, you’ve had several cars since I’ve known you, and that’s only been a short time, five or six years. People used to give me cars. The the blue GTI that Eric ultimately ended up with, somebody gave me, and according to the Volkswagen nerds, it was the, uh, rarest color ever.

And the only thing that made it different from every other GTI 16 valve was it was blue, which apparently is a, is a big. But cars that got away when I was in college, I, uh, had a good friend who his father was a mechanic, owned a repair shop in, in the town of Star North Carolina, and they lived in the town of I Kid Unite.

Ether. Mr. Jenkins worked on a lot of interesting stuff. First time I had ever seen a load of seven or replica and he had a Westfield, he kept a 1956 Packard Caribbean convertible for the local millionaire. But he had a car that he offered to me and I should have bought it. That [00:02:00] would’ve paid the same for that 86 G t I eight valve that I bought that that I kept for many, many years.

In fact, Eric probably remembers that car very vividly. All I learned to drive on , he tried to kill me. More than once. The car that I was offered was interesting. It was a Ford Mustang. It was black and it had gold dust stripes on it. It had this really big ugly tachometer on the, on the dash and it had snakes all over it.

and um, I think I know where this is going. The, the VIN started CS for tho for those who know the Shelby Mustangs, they made the GT three 50 H. They were rental cars. The first 85 of those cars were manual transmission. Manual brake cars. Were those Hearst cars? Hertz rental car. Hertz. Yeah. That’s what I meant.

First shifter stuff we rent we’re we’re manual transmission cars. After that, her excuse. It took an excessive amount of effort to here and break the cars. The, uh, the standard 2 89, I believe was the 271 horsepower motor. [00:03:00] The Shelby motor was a 2 89 and made 306 horsepower, which in that day was amazing.

The, the, the Mustang that I was offered was, it was 90 a numbers matching car. But it was at four speed at $13,000 because it wasn’t worth anything at that time. It would’ve been a hell of a car, but I, I guarantee you, none of you would know me now cuz I’d been dead about 20 minutes later. I remember one morning, I, I used to spend the weekends there because it was a nice way to get away from from school.

I remember one morning, Mr. Jenkins looks at me, he says he was about six, eight and he, and if he said three words a day, that was a lie. And he says, you written in must. No, sir. Well, you should. No kidding. You know, wrong. Let’s go for a ride. You know, he backs it outta the driveway and they, they were, they were, they were Chevrolet people.

You know, that’s a big thing in, in the, in the South. Mount Manan smiling now. . Oh yeah. Well, he says, He says it makes all them horrible forward noises. Goddamn them damn metal bushings. And he says, well, I’ll take it easy. We’ll go down, go into [00:04:00] town. You know, he takes it easy and he, there’s a, there was a bypass from Star to Ethan.

Don’t ask me why. There, there was nothing else out there. It’s not like they were bypassing the big city. Got it out on the main drag. Damn if that thing wouldn’t catch all four years, . So on that, let’s, uh, let’s pause there cause I have another car in mind that I want to ask you about in a little bit. But I want to, I want to go to Dan next.

What, what’s the car that you regret either selling. Not buying or even owning or not getting for free . Oh yeah, that’s a big one for him. I’d have to say for me, the car that got away, I never had the chance to buy, but my cousin when I was in high school, she’s a little bit older than me and her parents, when she graduated, decided to buy her a car.

They bought her a first gen Camaro, so she had this nice, beautiful maroon with black racing stripes, black leather interior. 68 RS Camaro, 3 27 with a four speed. She decided she was older having kids. [00:05:00] It was time to get rid of the car. I begged her to let me buy the car from her and she was like, that’s too much car for you.

You couldn’t handle it. Da da da. . I’m like, no truck. Now I can handle the power. That’s not an issue. Fortunately that car, cause it was all original. Original paint, original tear, original everyth. with the exception maybe tires and brakes and things like that. It was an immaculate car and it always was in the garage.

I don’t think it ever spent a night outdoors. Unfortunately, I did not wind up with it. The gentleman that she wound up selling it to, I got very frustrated with, for the fact that being the car that it was, he set it up for the drag strip where he cut it up, put a roll cage in. Pulled the engine out, all kinds of stuff.

Why that car was perfect the way it was, there was no need to do that, to go find one that was already chopped up to do that too. So, hold on. Could you have gotten that car for less than a thousand dollars? Because I mean, you have a reputation to maintain that car. I don’t believe so, but I wouldn’t have been willing to pay that little, and especially [00:06:00] for what it was, it was worth, well, more than a thousand dollars.

$1 Bob. $1 . I think I may have mentioned when I was younger, my stepfather used to haul scrap vehicles a lot of times, and so we go to down to Virginia too. There was a family down there that owned some property and over the years, vehicles accumulated on it. We go down, started hauling the cars out of there cause they decided to want to clean the property up.

Many of these cars were in horrible condition where they’d sat in the same spot so long. They sink into the ground almost five, six inches up past the bottom of the door into the mud and everything. This is a very familiar scene you’re painting here, but please continue. . There were a couple of nice gems that we pulled out of there and one of em just so happened to be a 64 Chevy two Nova.

It just an endline six car. An automatic, but. Automatic was a paraglide. So that’s a good thing sitting so long. The bottom floor pans were shot. We started restoring it a little bit, took care, replacement floor pans and stuff. I was only probably 12 years old at the time, and the intent was for me [00:07:00] to fix this up until I became 16.

Unfortunately, hard times came, needed to sell it, so they got sold and I didn’t ever wind up with it, but it did turn into a very phenomenal looking car. So in an earlier episode we heard from, uh, crutch and he talked about one of the cars he regretted. So, Mike, do you wanna unpack that or do you have a even better story?

Well, there’s, there’s a little backstory about how, while we lived in Germany, we had, uh, E 93, 25 B bmw. We had, I don’t know, about six months before we came back and the, the new one series was coming out, first time in the us. . And so we went to take a look at ordering one of those, but when we stopped by the dealership, they had an E 92 M three there at the time.

So I was kind of weighing my options of either getting the E 92 or the one series. And we had bought the prior BMW here. So the, uh, the guy who worked there said, oh, you wanna take that out for test drive? And handed me the keys to a brand new E 92 M three, about 500 yards away from an unrestricted autobon.

So , that’s a test drive and a. It very, very [00:08:00] quickly hit 155 miles an hour, which was the governor on that. We ended up buying the one series. Part of me wishes we had bought the E 92, but that would’ve probably meant we got rid of it even sooner after we got back to the States. The one series was a hoots, uh, 300 horsepower twin turbo inline, six a six speed manual convertible.

A lot of, uh, interesting road trips with that car all over Europe, up and down Sylvia Pass, which is just as amazing as it looked on. I am so if not better, , I’m so jelly they don’t even understand. And to this day, there are two pictures hanging in my house of that car. Uh, one from the top of Sylvia Bass where we pulled over, take a photo of just the car and then another entering the carousel on the nurburg ring with my wife actually driving it at that time there, there is another famous photograph of that car though, where my boss at the time came along with me toner berg ring and was sitting in the passenger seat.

And most people don’t even realize he’s in the photo. because they’re distracted by the fact that the car is airborne . Uh, as as we enter a breaking zone for our sharp [00:09:00] prang corner. Ooh. So air brakes, my, that’s when you put your hands up, right? You work as an air foil to slow the car down. Well, well my forehead was an air foil cuz my head actually lifted above the windshield cuz the top was.

No helmets required. Very, very different world, uh, over there on the track. So, so what you’re saying is you wouldn’t have passed the broomstick test in that car? No. No. Not, not in the slightest. We, we’ll save that comment for another episode, . All right, Mr. Monte. Quatro, your turn. Oh man, I got a list of ’em, but you know what?

I’m gonna start with the earliest regret and it, it, it kind of popped into my head today for, for various reasons, but I actually, I had mentioned this on a previous episode and I’ve talked to you guys about it before, especially to Matthew. Uh, my dad, you know, we were always, we had coops in the house, you know, always two door Volkswagen, Chacos, all sorts of stuff, Carras, et cetera.

My dad had pre-ordered one of the first 16 Val Chicos the the A two s and it [00:10:00] was a triple black, black leather black car with black basket weave b b s wheels. And I thought that was the coolest car in the world as a kid, right? Come it was an 86 and I’m like, man, one of these days when I’m old enough, I’m gonna have, this car is gonna be amazing.

Fast forward a couple years. He used to autocross that car. Uh, the wheels ended up, you know, I think Matt ended up with a set of wheels from that car. Parts went all over the place and he ended up deciding that he wanted to sell it because he was moving on. He was buying the carrado. They had bought my mom a, um, second gen co cuatro.

They got rid of her eight valve Chico. And I was, and I was just heartbroken. . And the worst part was when my dad sold the car, he had it all packaged up, all cleaned up. You know, he was real anal about keeping the cars in really nice shape. The guy that came to pick it up came and got it at night, and my dad actually happened to be away on some sort of trip or business trip or something like that.

And I just remember when my mom handed him all the stuff and then they drove away and I could hear the exhaust of the car. I just. Bawling. And I looked at my mom and she’ll [00:11:00] verify this whole story. And I looked at my mom and I’m like, that was supposed to be my card. And I’m just like, you know, and it, it is, it’s a, it’s a memory and it’s a feeling that has always, you know, stayed with me.

And then I drove Matt 16 Val Chico many years later, and I, I kind of got over it. But , well, reme, remember, remember what I always. Don’t drive your heroes. Absolutely. And I’ve made that mistake several times, unfortunately. But how about you, Brad? I’ve had, I’m looking at my, I made a little, uh, diagram here, a little list like you, much like you’d see at the bottom of the Wikipedia for like bands, like who’s in the band and who’s not.

And I’ve got a list of all the cars that I’ve owned and it’s totals 23 vehicles. Since I was 16 years old. Now I say that to a bunch of car guys and they’re like, yeah, so I’ve had double that. You say that to my wife and she’s like, oh my God, look at all that money you wasted. . . But anyway, so there in that list, there are two.

To three vehicles that I really, really wish I had. [00:12:00] The first one I’m gonna say is my, my Ducati motorcycle. I was 20 years old, 18, 19, 20 years old or something. I don’t know why, but I got this hair up my ass that I really wanted a motorcycle, but I didn’t want any motorcycle. I wanted a Ducati, new Ducati at the time were.

13, $14,000 and you’re just completely outta my price range. But I knew somebody who knew somebody who knew some other people who happened to know someone that was a mechanic at a Ducati dealership selling a used 7 48. I got in contact with the guy, he had some cool cars as well. He had a, uh, a fourth gen Supra and he had, uh, a CJ lifted and all that other good.

So I ended up buying this Ducati from ’em, had it for a couple years, but then I found that I never really rode motorcycles like I had ’em. I’ve, I’ve had three, but I never rode ’em. I mean, it’s always a pain to put on all the gear and everything. And you know, someone my size in the middle of the summer, riding a motorcycle, you get somewhere and you lost five pounds of water cuz you sweated it all out on the way.

Plus the Ducati was air cooled so that didn’t, you know, [00:13:00] all that heat and everything you need to really keep it moving or it got really hot. Uh, so that’s, that’s the first one that they got away that I’m really, really sad about. The second was a 98 Chevrolet Camaro Ss. Now I had a 99 Camaro Z 28 that I, I bought used as a dealer after I got rid of the, the first gti.

I. The 99 Z 28, I had full suspension on it, and it was, it was a fun car. I ended up wrecking it as I explained in the, in our origin stories. Um, but the, the 98 that I bought several years later, I actually bought from a, a club member I bought from Andrew Mason. He was having a family. He was downsizing his fleet, uh, and he needed to get rid of the, the cool.

Sports car to get something more practical. So I bought the car from ’em and it was, it was a lot of fun. It was set up kind of similar to the 99 I had, but it was bright red. It was a beautiful car. And I ended up selling it because all my friends around me were getting Super S STIs, and I was like, Ooh, I want an sti.

So I sold the Camaro and got an STI and I regret it now because that would’ve been a great track car. Uh, engine engine for cruising [00:14:00] around the street and everything. Uh, so that’s number two. And then number three that I will have again someday, I will get into that later, is that my, my Jeep Wrangler, my 97, it was a tj, uh, which I think is the, the better body style, had the upgraded suspension and everything, but it had the, the more traditional looks.

It was green. It lifted three and a half inch. 32 inch tires and manual transmission and everything. And I just, I, I love that vehicle and I, I regret getting rid of it. I am gonna call a yellow flag on that, uh, flag on the play. Gentlemen, I believe he said in the previous episode he was buying a Murano cross, Cabrio le in Champaign Rose metallic.

This is what we settled on. That’s in, that’s in the future. And I, I have a three car garage so I can have two and I, and I guarantee you all that is a future. Right there, . I just know when you get that Jeep, we’re gonna Ls swap it, right? Of course, of course. I mean that’s, it’s gotta be the plan. We’re gonna also, we’re gonna add that to the regret column too.

Oh, [00:15:00] just mark my words on that one. Well, my, my, you mean my mechanic is going to be doing the swap . Across Cabrio is no geometric convertible. Ah, see, that’s convertible. That’s what I was, I was holding that gem for Matt, because I know he regrets Geome convertible. Come on. He, he regrets not buying one of those yet.

Come on now, Matt. That is true, true. Someone give me, if, if I did, I’d have bought one by now. What’s really, really funny, we tried, we tried actually really hard. Me and a bunch of your, your friends, Matt, for your 50th birthday, we tried to find a fuchsia geo metro convertible manual. We were, we were gonna buy it

We were, we had a whopping budget of $52 spent. That’s about all their work. And believe you, we couldn’t find one. That was the worst part. It was like, there was a point there where they were everywhere. They’re like, ah, geometric, convertible, yellow, white, whatever. And the closest thing came was some clapped out stoner, you know, electric blue car in Denver.

And I’m like, I am not going that far. But [00:16:00] we will find that fuchsia geo for you. I, you know what happened? They, they all bought the, uh, Chrysler PT d Cruiser convertible, the standard, uh, purchase. For any geometric convertible is you had to weigh at least as much as the car and as they got older and heavier, they needed to get bigger cars and that’s why they bought the PT Cruiser convertible.

I have to say, you, you say they went from the metro to the PT convertible. I think there’s a transition period where a lot of ’em got, uh, the Chrysler Seabring convertible. I rented. I rented one of those in. And I auto crossed it and it was phenomenal. Wait, wait, wait. Ho ho. You auto crossed at Chrysler Seabra.

Was it John Voz? I flew in and outta Cleveland because it was cheaper. I had, I had a mask enough points and I said, uh, they, they first they tried to give me a rom prix with like 40,000 miles. Which in rental car miles as all as those of you who travel? No, that’s like, what, like 200,000 miles in dog? . And so I, I went back, there’s no way.

Oh, we can give you a convertible. Well, it’s like March I think, in Detroit. [00:17:00] Sure. Give me the freaking convertible. And so I ended up driving it. I went to Erie for the weekend cuz I have a family friend I grew up with and they had an autocross there. The car was amazing. You would turn in and it would literally lay down on the, on the, uh, rocker panel.

And as you turned in, you could watch the rear of the car twist in the opposite direction. The, uh, thank you. Your sarcasm nose. No. So, so are you saying you regret not buying a Chrysler Seabring? Is that what I’m hearing? Is that the one that got away? Matt? I think he regrets that rental . You know, he said he got that with rewards points.

I don’t think a Chrysler Seabring convertible is a reward. That’s a punishment. 1 1, 1 of my many trips involved going to, uh, Chicago. And the reward car that I got was a TAUs with a sunroof. You can . I can’t. Are you, are you cashing in like the monopoly things from McDonald’s and these, you’re in glu for punishment.

Matt. Oh. Are you taking [00:18:00] enterprise reward points and cashing ’em in? It hurts. Yes. Now I, fortunately I had hurt, but still, oh, well, you know, the, the, the, the beauty is as I, as I started traveling more and became more, uh, more educated, I gravitated towards the Crown Vic because A, they didn’t get beat up like the little cars did, and b I usually got ’em in white.

because that way I kind of blended in except for the one, the one night I got lost in the garment district in LA who drives around and who drives around the garment district at, at 10 o’clock at night? No one. No one with a brain. But my, my coworker who would travel with me was a little gal older than I am, but she was like five foot tall.

And you’re only five foot two. Thank. And, and she, she would ride in that car, she couldn’t see over the dashboard and she, I said, what do you think of these things? She goes, well, it’s like my father’s, father’s Oldsmobile . But we, I loved those cars. They were comfortable could, you could park ’em anywhere cuz it was the damn big no one would get in your way.

Well, there, there you have it. Never a dull moment. [00:19:00] So, so we’ve, we’ve gone around the horn. We’ve gotten everybody’s, uh, regrets. . Oh, no, no. I have, I have a list. I didn’t cover ’em. I’ll give you No. Alright, let’s, let’s keep it going. Let’s keep it rolling. Let’s see what you got. Mon cuatro. All right. Regrets.

So I will say, I’ll, I’ll throw it in for my mom real quick. She regrets. My dad’s selling our wide body nine 11 that we talked about in the first episode. Mm-hmm. reason being was that was the car that he apparently bought for her. And I’m gonna put air quotes around that. Put the red. Yeah, the red one. She never, that she never drove.

The one, the one that I drove, and I think everybody in the Porsche club shipped themselves because I drove it. Yeah, exactly. He, he, I’m, I’m sensing a theme here. He had a tendency to sell the vehicles that were earmarked for other people. . Yeah. Right. So with that being said, big regrets. I regret buying that bmw, but we’re gonna save that for the BMW episode.

Oh, he, I think everybody regrets buying a bmw. Oh geez. And that’s actually car I was gonna bring up for Matt and we’ll talk [00:20:00] about it in a second. Is, uh, his E 28, M five. So on my list, let’s just kind of wrap that up. One of the cars I really wanted to buy and regret the fact that Volkswagen never produced it is a car you all are gonna have to Google, which is a vehicle known as the VW Concept.

R came out about 2001, 2002 timeframe as a prototype built on the boxer, but it was powered by a 3.2 liter. Beetle, RSI Golf R 32 engine, and they were gonna bring it in as a kind of base market sports car, you know, $30,000. And it was fantastic. I love the look of it. It’s actually what inspired the look of the, uh, the Mark five GTIs with that kind of chrome nose kind of bakish.

It actually has the same headlights as an eos. , you know, stuff like that. They never ended up producing it. And I still have that picture, you know, as one of my desktop wallpapers. I, I mentioned in the previous episode, my wife and I both regret selling our SS Trailblazer. I blamed Dan entirely for buying it.

I blame myself entirely for getting rid of it, but that was the ultimate hashtag track truck. It [00:21:00] was an absolute pleasure to drive. Granted it was 1998, you know, Chevy interior, so you had to kind of put up with that. But everything else it offered was fantastic. and the last car, big regret. And it’s a car I, I’ve said probably many times over that I would still have to this day.

It’s like my dad who pre-ordered cars. I pre-ordered a two, 2004 VW Golf R 32. Now for those that don’t know, and if you happen to be in the D M V. In the late 2003 timeframe when the Baltimore Auto Show was still in the fall and the DC Auto Show was then in in, in the winter. It’s kind of moved a little bit over the years.

The car that was on display at both of those shows is actually my car now. 50,000 public butts sat in my car, unfortunately, thank God they fumigate it after it was over, but my car was actually 2003 triple black. and I had that car for three plus years, and unfortunately it was stolen right out from underneath of me.

It’s a void in my life. It wasn’t one of those things that I could get closure on because it was taken, and I’ve said many times before, I [00:22:00] would still have that car to this day. I mean, I found things that are as fun, if not more fun to take its place. But for me, that was my first big boy sports car that I bought on my own.

Saved up for it. I wanted it so bad. You know, I bought my 24 Val VR six, the first one, and I put a down payment on the R 32, the same day when I had heard, you know, yes, you can get one of these. And I actually had, I had, uh, down payment to two dealerships. Cause I wasn’t sure which one was gonna get it first.

Uh, yeah, so that’s a huge one for me. And it’s, oddly enough, Baltimore calls me every once in a while and says, did you ever find your car? I’m like, is that really my job? , like, we’ll just leave it there. So you, uh, you bring up the concept, but I seem to recall there was a different Volkswagen that didn’t get made that you wanted more.

No, it didn’t get made or wasn’t brought to the US that didn’t get made. It was the, uh, Volkswagen Blue Sport. Oh yeah. The wanna be nine 14. God, don’t remind me if you’re gonna go with that, but you know what Chrissy would kill for right now? What’s that? The Tian shooting break? Yeah, I [00:23:00] saw that. That that’s pretty high.

And we’re going, we’re gonna talk about that when we do our, uh, what car should I buy? Wagons edition. Oh, looks so beautiful. Followed by the episode. Entitled The Cool Stuff to Europe. Gets it. We’ll never see. Mm-hmm. . Uh, Buick just discontinued theirs too, but that tox was pretty hot. I can get, I can get you one of those.

Buicks. I, I have a friend who just bought one. Does he own small French cars? One. Okay. I I, then I know where my vote goes. . Yeah. So I’m gonna have to add on to the, uh, got away list. Eric’s trailblazer because when he did decide to sell it , you wanted to buy it that didn’t offer it to a 4,000. Well, no, it was the fact that at that time I didn’t have spare funds to pay what it was worth, and I would’ve loved to have, but I couldn’t justify buying it when I have the collection that I do have already, if we’re gonna go with a couple other cars while I was stationed over in England, most people don’t think it’s much.

But for me, I, I had a German spec, Caro G six. Love that car. Unfortunately, when I went to ship it back [00:24:00] stateside things. The importer and didn’t work out and that didn’t make it stateside with me. So it’s somewhere still cruising around over in Europe, hopefully, and enjoying its life. Other vehicle that I kind of kicked myself for not getting while it was over there, body of mind now, station over there with Rizzo had a Hillman super Amp.

So those of you who don’t know what that is, look it up. Most people are gonna look at it, think it’s an ugly car. But I thought it was a really cool rear engine car that was, you know, it was an older car, but it was. Something about it. I think it would’ve been fun to go out and cruise around on the weekends with, and Brad, since you said you, uh, mentioned your Ducati, I almost brought a Ducati back from Europe with me cuz I knew what they were selling for here in the US mm-hmm.

So over there I could get it for like a quarter of the price. And with the military they would ship motorcycles and inside our, our household goods. So it didn’t count a shipping a vehicle. So I almost brought one back just for the purpose of selling it. So I could have told you had I. I’d have bought it and brought it.

There’s one other vehicle that I wanna talk about that I got, I had for a short time, and it’s a 71 Super Beetle. I got it from my, well, my grandfather owned it, you know, when I was very young. He [00:25:00] passed away. It ended up in my uncle’s hands. I had the grand idea that I was gonna get it and fix it up and, and just turn it into a, a street rod and, and make it really cool and everything.

Of course, I was in my early twenties and I made early twenties. Though I wasn’t able to do that, I ended up selling it to some guy for like 500 bucks and he took the, uh, the rear end out of it, the suspension out of it, and used it for a trike. So I regret getting rid of that car and if I could have a Super Beetle today, name a grandpa and have it done up the same way he had it.

Daniel, I’ve got one other question for you. Of all the cars on your property that are not running for those of you don’t, that don’t know? He’s got about 472 cars on his property right now. No, at last down it was just over 30. Which one? Which, which of the cars on your property do you regret is not running?

That would be the Mercury Regretable wagon. Mercury stable wagon. That’s a hard pass on that. . . That’s why he has two. Okay. No, there’s only one table. The other’s a Taurus, . Excuse me. [00:26:00] one one. One. One’s for blue collar. The other’s for mid-level management. Yes, there’s a difference. available today. Your local Earths.

Yes. Anybody interested in one hit me up. I can make you a great deal on it. You can find him on Facebook Marketplace for all of ’em on the property right now that do not run, I would have to say it. It does run right now, but it’s not at its final product, which is going to be my crew Cab Square body, them doing the dur, the Duramax swap in.

I thought you were gonna say your grand. your Pontiac or was it, is that a Bonneville? It’s a Grand Prix. Yeah. It, it does run. I can start it up and drive it right now, but the reason I haven’t is the fact that I’m planning to put a stroker motor in that, and that vehicle doesn’t have the hundredth digit on the odometer and it’s sitting all zeros right now.

Cause it just hit a hundred thousand. Right. So I figure what better way to track mileage than putting it in with it? Reading zero. You can’t argue with that. I wonder though if there’s a, you know, with Mike and Dan on the line, if there’s anything about the burgundy E 36 that [00:27:00] we need to cover. Talking about regrets.

Yeah. Caging it in the first place. How’s that Frank Time will live. I bet Mike regrets keeping it for as long as he did. And Dan regrets buying it. . But I wanna talk about BMWs for a second. Matt, I mean, for me to, you. . I really like DOS Boot. And you had that seven 40 I bmw. That was such a fantastic riding car.

Granted, I didn’t have to live with any of the misery you did with its maintenance and stuff like that. Every yuppy in America drove one. You know that they, uh, hello. I’m a. Stockbroker and I am very wealthy and I have a bmw. The ones who drove those were the same people who drove four 50 SEL Mercedes. My esteem for BMW plummeted was the E 36 was the first car that they compromised on so heavily.

The E 36 was the M car that had a single throttle body. It was production line built, and they ultimately offered an automatic because the market wind that my wife won’t let me buy [00:28:00] one because it’s a manual. Well, and, and, and to be wholly honest with you, that’s probably the one car I regret selling is the E 28 M five, compared to today’s BMWs, it’s horrible.

The seats are hard. The ride was stiff. The coolest thing about it was, and I, I read this so it’s not, actually, I didn’t come up with this, but as you drove it and you got on it really hard, it almost here, an F1 race somewhere in the back. You could, you could definitely tell when he opened up the throttle, I, I made a point of telling people that the short shift kit in my car had been installed by Rob Levinson himself, and I had the exhaust system that he designed for those cars.

Uh, I also visited him in, I think it was New York or Connecticut. I was forced. To drive his E 28, M five with a din turbo or two. Yeah. Terrible, terrible thing, . And it’s interesting, you know, as, as much as I’ve never owned a turbo car until now, the other car that I regret not buying, and I should have. Aan R has an 86, 9 [00:29:00] 30 turbo.

My uncle had a 78. That’s one that, uh, I, I could see owning. I, my uncle was incredibly generous, man. Uh, I went out for a wedding in the Bay Area and asked if I could take the car and he said, oh, take the Porsche. Go ahead. Nothing like coming across Dunbarton Bridge at two o’clock in the morning at 125 miles an hour because you can’t

I just wanna say it was just us lowly Americans who got the bastardized M three motor. The Europeans actually got independent throttle body, uh, M three motor. That’s how we used to piss off the E 36 owners. They, they were the ones that were the freshly minted millionaires. They would go into the store and they’d whip out the a hundred dollars bills and said, oh yeah, real, real, real m cars have individual throttle box

And, and, and to show you what an idiot I am. There was a period of time where I owned two of the rarest German sports sedans ever built. I had Audi, Audi V eight and an E 28 M five, and I used to have people who would talk about, dude, dude, my, my, my GTIs rare because they [00:30:00] only made 20,000 in white. And I, I, I used to piss people off.

I said, I tell you what, when you have total production under 1200, call me Mike, drop. So Bradley, I guess the final challenge here, right? What three cars would you have in your garage? Exactly, exactly. And I guess I can go ahead and kick us off here. I thought about it. For me, my, my wants and desires change.

Like I change my underwear every single day. It’s just, it’s, it’s hard to, to keep, keep my mind on one, you know, thing. But for today, the three cars that I would have in my garage, I’d have a, a Dodge Cummins Diesel. I, I’d have the dually just because I just. They’re badass man. Has anybody seen Lethal Weapon too?

When, uh, Mel Gibson takes his dually, it’s a Chevy Dually in that movie, and he pulls down that, that house up on stilts from the beach and everything. I’ve, I’ve seen a better video. That’s, uh, one of our members, Nick, doing donuts around a skid pad in a dually diesel. Big, big girls need love too. I want a, I want a dooly.

So, so that’s, that’s the first one, because I need something to tow my track car. Right, right. So the next vehicle I’m gonna have in my [00:31:00] garage is a Porsche nine 11. I’ve wanted one, I don’t know why, since I was a kid. I used to be a huge Ferrari fan, but they’re fragile and they, they like to barbecue themselves.

So I, I, I think I really wanted nine 11. It’s. , it advertises the everyday supercar. I mean, you can drive it to the grocery store, you drive it to the track the next day, go pick up your kids, your whatever. You, you can do anything with it. So I, I kind of, I won a nine 11. I don’t know which one I want to, A GT three Rs would be cool.

Um, but just a base, uh, regular nine 11 with a manual. I thought it would be a great car to have, uh, in, in my garage and. A wrangler with a motor swap something, I can take the doors off of the, the top off of uh, and just enjoy, you know, the weather. That would be my convertible. So yeah. And then for an honorable mention the Volvo V 90 Wagon, cuz I just think that they’re beautiful cars.

So Mount Man Dan, you guys know that I have trouble with limiting down to three 300. 300 I GED four. That’s more real. I would have to say one of the cars I would definitely have, only because it’s been one of my favorite cars since I was a kid, [00:32:00] 57 Chevy Bel Air. Some people think it’s an overrated car cuz so many other people liked them and everything, but any of the, try five, you know, 55, 3 57.

But I like the big pins on the 57. If I had one, I would definitely have it modernized with an LS in it. But I, I should actually ask a question. Prior to listening to ’em all, how big is this? Because, oh man. It’s, it’s, it, the island is a metaphor. It’s just the, the question is, if you’re going on a desert island, you can only take so many things with you.

Essentially, your island is your three car garage. You can only have three cars for the rest of your life. Did, did anybody else just hear the theme Music from Sanford and Sun? Um, other than that, I would definitely have one of my square box, shocker, . I would have to have one of my square bodies and of, of the, of the 15 year span of square bodies.

Which year do you pick? And the span of square bodies is more than 15 years. Just so you Yeah. Yeah. It’s like that Johnny Cash on 51, 52, 53 . Honestly, like, so if I were to take one of ’em, it would [00:33:00] probably be between my K five, which was my brother. before, uh, he was killed, or it would be my shorted two-wheel drive that my brother helped me bill before he died.

So probably be one of those two. Although I’d possibly option for one of the four-wheel drive crew cab trucks, square bodies that I have because I might need to tow something. And then for my third car in the garage for years, I’ve always said I would never own. Volkswagen Jet? No, . Um, for the longest time I always said that I would never own a Cadillac cuz they were an overpriced Chevrolet.

And then Cadillac did me dirty and came out with the Ctsv and I fell in love man. I thought he was gonna say the xlr cuz that was gonna be a. Big points win right there. I want the, I want the Simeron. Yeah. Or or the Kotera. He wants the Kotera. I’m cheap. I’m cheap. I will take the citation. Thank you very much.

But so, so those will be my three vehicles, but I’m going to add a cheater to that. One of my Harley’s is gonna be in the bed of the truck. Oh, there you. [00:34:00] That’s a smart move. Boy, I’m, I’ve got a garage big enough to fit a dually in. So I mean, come on now, , if we, if we do it right, we can build some sort of a rack system, we can drive the Lotus in the back of my truck.

challenge accepted. All right, so Mike, what’s your three on your island? I’m weird. I, uh, where it goes without saying, I have a thing for wagons and I don’t know why. There’s one wagon in particular that Volkswagen actually made, which I just feel like I haven’t to screwed around. B five Passat wagon, all-wheel drive stick shift.

W eight with the W eight motor. Yes, yes, yes. excellent choice. The unicorn of unicorns. I actually saw one for sale not that long ago. There’s a reason It was for sale . Well, yeah, cuz the W eight maintenance. It came with a spare. Audi four, two that you can swap into it. , the best thing about those cars is how you change the oh two sensor engine out lift, lift, lift the carpet and drill the hole on the floor.

You know, as, as something that can [00:35:00] be kind of dual purpose. Ctsv wagon, that’s a win right there. Major points. Good luck finding one of those at a price. Well, and, and they have a habit of getting stolen these days. That’s what I mean. I mean, you know, what, what were they new? They were $50,000 new and now they’re $70,000.

I don. Number three. Probably something stupid like an R eight. Nice. I figured you would’ve thrown in the Kiwi station wagon you wrote about while you were over in New Zealand. What was that? Oh, the Holden Commodore HSV Wagon or whatever that was. No, no, it was so, yeah, actually there’s a Holden Commodore H S V Ute.

I mean, just a, a whole bunch of the stuff I saw over there was really cool. But those, uh, some of those Holden h s v worked over Utes are amazing. They did the full thing like Dodge did with, when they came out with Challenger. They offer them in bright, obnoxious colors that look amazing on that thing, like a bright lime electric green.

I hope you and Dan enjoy your Mary Kay Cadillacs. That’s, that’s really nice. . Uh, but we’ll move on to Matthew . The colors Chrysler used, they were from the, [00:36:00] they were from the seventies. They were, they were just retro, you know, what was it? Vitamin C and, uh, plum. Plum crazy. Oh, they were, they were, I mean, they were great names.

You know, cuz you, you see ’em today and they’re just, I’ll pause you there in the colors just to add a little bit of color. Yeah. Uh, have you ever seen, and this was a factory card, the color pattern challenger, which featured every stripe of every color that was available at that time from Chrysler. It was a factory produced car and apparently it.

Today in a museum it was reproduced or, or, or whatever. It’s actually really, really neat and the story behind why that car was developed to showcase all those crazy colors like Sublime Green and, and Plum crazy, and all these other ones that we talked about. So I thought that’s a pretty neat piece of history there.

I like the Harlequin Gold. I hate to admit that I liked the new Challenger because I really wanted to hate it and then I drove one and well, you know, the 3 92, you just can’t, you just can’t, uh, you just can’t say no to it. But I wanted to find one in purple and I have yet to find one. Yeah, I was gonna say, it, it, it was a [00:37:00] hard choice between going with the nine 11 for my, you know, dream garage or the Hellcat, cuz I, I really want a hell cat, but I just feel that the nine 11.

Would’ve been a better Just all around performer. Yeah. Which is why I elected to, to have that in my, my theoretical garage. Well, what about you, Matt? What are, what are you thinking for your, your garage, your dream garage? If I could afford to do it every day, I would drive that pickup truck of mine, not, not worry about a car.

I alternate between liking the dually and liking the single rear wheel. I drove the exact same truck I have now in a dually and ended up buying this. 22 years later, the single rear wheel ain’t bad. It fits in parking spaces better, although within 20 foot long truck, as Dan knows, you don’t really fit in parking spaces anyway, so I, I’d probably have something like that, you know, full, full size truck.

The key thing about yours is it’s manual instead of the automatically had behind it. In fact, I would tell the dealers as I was looking for those, I says, you know, I’m looking for an F three 50. You know, you’d see that look and they’d, uh, I, you know, I want the [00:38:00] diesel. And of course you’d get even more. and I looked at him.

I says, oh yeah, and it’s gotta be a manual cuz I never learned how to drive an automatic . My mom says the exact same thing, . As much as I like the nine 30 Turbo, I’ve had a fascination with these cars since I was 10 years old. I want a real cobra. My high school friend, hi. His, his dad. You, you’ve heard me talk about him.

Uh, my friend Billy’s, he had a super performance Cobra, which is the, uh, factory approved fiberglass version of the original AC Cobra. His, however, happened to have a 4 27 side wheeler in it. You know, the motor that the block is worth, like 20 grand. There’s just something about those cars. They, they said more than one buyer did not make it to the first payment.

They said you wouldn’t. A first time shooter, a 44 Magnum, just like you wouldn’t put them in a 4 27 Cobra. Agreed. And I like, and I, and I like that. I like, I like a car. You’ve gotta respect. So, so we’ve got your, your Ford, we’ve got your, your, the biggest truck in the world and the smallest car in the world.

Your Cobra. What are you gonna [00:39:00] put in between if I could find another one? And they were only 53 ever built. I really liked my Audi v8. It was an interesting car. Nobody knew what the hell it was. The automatic trans. Suck. It was a four speed speed that was geared for Europe. So just like a Mercedes, if you’ve ever driven a Mercedes, as you pull away, it starts off in second gear and it’s really soft.

Now, when you’re going about a hundred miles an hour and you put your foot down, it moves, unfortunately until you get to about, I don’t know, 40. It’s a slug. I, I, I, I hate to say I like the car. I mean, quatros are amazing cars to drive. They stick like glue. The sophistication in the, in the, uh, 90 to 93 Audi V8 Quat.

Is amazing. Uh, I would, I would venture to say that it was more technically advanced in its day than anything else on the road. You know, there, there, there certainly weren’t a lot of all-wheel drive cars. This thing had switchable abs, uh, front and rear fog lights, which were unheard of in the us. And not to mention when my parents were looking at their coop, Quatro, the salesman, you know, was [00:40:00] showing off a black on black V8 Quatro, which was very rare color combination.

Cause all of them were Pearl White for the most. It was, uh, one of the only cars at the time to have an integrated car phone. And that was a selling point. Yes. Yes. Well, the, the, you know, the neat thing was it had a ski sack and all four seats were heated. Put that all in perspective. You know, we, uh, Eric and I have had this, this, these conversations before as well, which is, yeah.

But that car, you know, that car sucked, right? But in 1988, the E 28 M five was amazing. But the v8, the V8 was more practic. I, I made the mistake of driving a E 28 M five to work one day when it snowed. My boss’s boss and I were, were in the car as I am idling out of the parking lot sideways. And he’s laughing at, because he goes, what the hell’s with this thing?

Well, that’s how a high horsepower car with, uh, with independent suspension and, and, and some tires happens to handle the weather. The Quatro, as long as you put real tires on it. And I, I learned that from experience was unstoppable. Uh, I drove it to work one day and [00:41:00] there was probably two inches of snow in the fast lane and all the, uh, all the big giant SUVs were poking along in the, in the clear flow lane at about 20 miles an hour.

And I went by them at about 35, you know, rooster tails of snow with my seat heater on and the radio on cruising along as if it were dry. But yeah, I mean, I think, I think those would be my, my, my three. So what I’ve heard so far is we’re on an island. Yes. There’s no price point. We got guys bringing trucks to transport, I don’t know, coconuts or something.

We got Mike with the station wagon for to, to move Aborigines around. Again, the island is a metaphor. Oh, is it? So I, I’m defining the island here and I’ve defined my island as Nu Burging. Uh, yeah, it’s definitely a racetrack. . I mean, New Zealand has race. And is kind of an island, just saying, and you’re transporting sheep.

I mean, you got all these wagons on your island. I’m not sure what’s going on here. Seven sheep per person. . Yes, they are warm and infection animals. Indeed. Thank you, Matthew. So on my [00:42:00] island, on the other hand, I would have a 70 Challenger RT in white with a vanity plate that says Kowalski. Yes. Okay. Very straightforward car.

That’s Oh yeah. Dirt primitive, big v8. And just go rip roar and have. In addition to that, I want a metallic emerald green Mark Onesco with a 16 Val swat. I swear I I thought you were gonna say a Buick Skylar convertible there. Uh, again, my money is on the Chevy Citation. Thank you very, very much. h HR that will not be on my island, no Prius’s.

They will be bazookas and turrets ready to blow those. At first sight. So in addition to that, I would have to say, I gotta have a Gen one viper, but not the Gen one Viper you’re thinking of, it’s not a GTS coop, it’s not a target. I would have the defender from Viper, the TV series because hey, it’s my island, and apparently no one else lives on there, so why not enjoy my boyish fantasy?

So I have to, [00:43:00] The defender, does it count as multiple vehicles since it’s got your off-road option, your water option? Well, that’s why I want it on my island because realistically it is an s u v. Okay. It is a sport utility vehicle. I can turn it into a pontoon, I can turn it into, it’s an all sorts of things.

He’s, he’s gonna use it to get off his island . Yes. And I will also use it to blow up Prius’s and h. But realistically, because I can’t have a movie car, it’s a really hard tie between what’s available. Since we’re in un unlike, we’ve set no budget. If I could get an F 40, that would definitely be in my garage.

That is a car that in 87 when it came out, I have never stopped loving that car. It’s an incredible design. It still looks good today. I’ve seen him in person. I can’t wait to drive one in my afterlife. I don’t know. But it’s, if I couldn’t have one of. I would definitely have a black on Black Alpha gtv. Six mm And this is the 1980s version like we [00:44:00] saw on Top Gear.

Not too long or the Grand Tour. . All kidding aside, Brad, take us home. I think we’ve heard some really interesting, uh, debate here on, on what people want, why they want it. Uh, I don’t necessarily agree with everybody’s choices, but I’m sure nobody agrees with my choices either. And that’s the beauty of individuality and that’s the debate we call.

What should I. , what should I buy? Yep. Which there will be plenty of other episodes discussing all kinds of different car categories for what should I buy. So on that note, I guess we’ll go ahead and wrap it up. Thank you. Thank you Matt, Mike, and Dan for, for stopping by. And we welcome you guys for future episodes.

So just, uh, since you mentioned you were making a list of your vehicles, I decided to start, I’m nowhere near done so when I do get it done for a future episode, we’ll know how many vehicles I have owned over my, uh, span of. But I’m only up to high school years now. I’m sitting at about 30. Is there a database big enough to store this list?

What’s the over under on him finishing that list and on that disappointment, . [00:45:00] Exactly.

It folds full disclosure. Our high level assessment of all the cars on this list is really based on our members and our and owner experiences. We urge you to do your own research and fact check everything before committing to any one of these vehicles. G T M and Brad and I specifically, we’re not responsible for your satisfaction, your happiness with whatever vehicle you choose.

So make sure to visit, you know, vehicle specific online forums and or owners clubs for highly detailed firsthand information on any vehicle you might be interested in. If you like what you heard and wanna learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out@www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at Gran Touring Motorsports.

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