B/F: The Drive Thru #33

• 2026 Ford Mustang Raptor Is a Car Worth Waiting for

• Afghanistan made it's own supercar - and it came out of nowhere!

• FORMULA 1 TO LAUNCH FEMALE ‘FORMULA ACADEMY’ SERIES IN APRIL

• The Next-Gen Toyota MR2 Will Be The Cheapest Mid-Engine Sports Car

• 10 Sports Cars That Borrowed Headlights and Taillights From Other Cars
• Rare classic cars up for auction after huge 230-vehicle find

I bought a $2m McLaren flood car... and it's worthless

• Craig Breen (1990-2023)

Hyundai Press Release about Craig Breen's death.

• Crazy YouTuber Puts 10ft Wagon Wheels on a Tesla So That He Can Drive It Upside Down, Successfully Creates the Most Outrageous Vehicle on the Road

• Tesla Sells Out of Steering Wheels as Owners Rush to Replace the Yoke
• Tesla workers shared images from car cameras, including “scenes of intimacy”
• NPR quits Elon Musk’s Twitter over ‘government-funded’ label

• Audi Owner Finds Basic HVAC Function Paywalled After Pressing the Button for It

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motor Sports Podcast Break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something motorsports related. The Drive-Throughs GTMs monthly news episode, and is sponsored in part by organizations like H P D E junkie.com, hooked on driving American muscle.com, collector car guide.net, project Motoring Garage style magazine, and many others.

If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of the drive-through, look no further than www.gt motorsports.org. Click about and then advertising. Thank you again to everyone that supports Gran Touring Motorsports, our podcast Break Fix and all the other services we provide.

Welcome to drive through episode number three, three. This is our monthly recap where we put together a MAU of automotive motorsport and random car adjacent news. I see the L he, he showed up. This [00:01:00] episode’s probably gonna be recorded on some sort of recycled digital media, right? It is Earth Day after all.

Earth Day is April 22nd. It’s Earth Day, e r f, earth Day. Well, I mean, it’s four 20, so maybe we should all have green backgrounds. No Earth. It’s, that’s why it’s e r F Earth. It’s Herb Day. It’s, oh, there we go. It’s Herb Day. I like it Tanya. In a really good mood. Four 20 at the time of this recording. Mm-hmm.

This month’s drive through for the first time in three, three episodes, we’re going to focus on Earth Day Green Initiatives, EVs, and concepts and the like. Well, before we start, I wanna apologize to Mark Hewitt. I don’t know for what yet, but I’m gonna go ahead and apologize to him now. This is gonna turn into the Jimmy Kimmel saying We’re sorry Matt Damon, we don’t have enough time for you today.

We’ll, we’ll get you next week. I apologize, Mark Hewitt, for whatever I do this month that I shouldn’t have. So [00:02:00] there you go. But thanks for listening. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for listening. We appreciate your support. Previous months, I kept talking about an event that was coming up at Watkins Glen called The Green Grand Prix.

Maybe it just flew by your desk. Maybe you stopped and listened to the pre-release episode that we put out. What exactly is the Green Grand Prix? It’s been going on for 19 years now. Sponsored by Toyota. It used to be in the old days, they would do a time, distance rally around Lake Seneca. It was about 80 miles around the lake.

It’s evolved over the years. It’s held at Watkins Glen International and it’s basically 80 miles of the track, which comes out to roughly 26 laps of the track over about a 90 minute. And what was the point of the event? So it’s a memorial event for Doris Bovie and basically she was an environmentalist very much about, you know, the green initiative, all this kind of stuff, even going back 20 years.

And so this event is an honor of her. It’s a time distance rally. It really kicked off in the [00:03:00] early days of the Prius to help showcase the early hybrids and stuff like that. And so they’ve continued to perpetuate the event, grow the event. It’s actually become a STEM event as well. So a lot of the participants are from surrounding colleges and universities.

They invited 1200 people to this event, which is pretty cool. The whole point of the thing was to do the 80 laps in a certain amount of time. Highest MPG one or something like what? Correct. I was invited to not only participate in the event, but cover the event from different perspectives. Being part of the media team that was there, we live streamed multiple portions of the day.

I didn’t really know what to expect. Right. I’ve done some other rallies and Jim Kana liked things in the past, but I’ve never done A T S D. I was very fortunate to go into this event with my quote unquote alternative fuel vehicle, which by their definition was alternative to gasoline. So Diesel does qualify for that, and in full disclosure, they [00:04:00] had to kind of like hem and haw about it and get approval, and then finally they’re like, go, okay, cool.

I’m out there in my, you know, 5,000 pound Jeep Diesel and you know, live streaming from the truck and all this kind of stuff. You know, I wasn’t expecting anything. I kind of had an idea of what it might do, but I really wasn’t expecting the day to play out the way it did. Time distance rally by yourself with no navigator is more challenging than I thought it would be.

You know, kind of talking to some of the folks that won overall and kind of looking at the scores and stuff. I was like, well, how did you guys do it? And they’re like, oh, well we’re calculating as we’re going along, how quickly we should be going down the straightaway and you know, how much speed we can scrub off and all this kind of stuff to really maintain that average lap speed around the track.

And so I was sort of going at it too much at face value. Like all, I’m just gonna set the cruise control and we’ll do what we can do. But in reality, the more I looked at it, my lap times were consistent. I don’t know, I wasn’t really hitting the, maybe the number that I was supposed to be hitting my lap should have been slower.

I [00:05:00] noticed that some of the folks that during the award ceremony had won. I had passed those cars. I was like, man, they’re going really slow. So you had a target mile per hour. You had to be 46 miles per hour was your target? Correct. It’s the average lap speed. Even though I was talking through the live stream, I was sort of, kind of thinking about it.

They gave you a window. You weren’t supposed to go slower than 35 or faster than 55. And so somewhere in that window, You can achieve an average lap speed of 46, which is the number they said was the target. And my Aimes solo was actually showing me the ranges of my upper and lower miles per hour, which is pretty cool.

And I was falling in that range except when I did 70 to get around the Mustang. But you know, the race is over. I can say that. Now. I’ve driven around Watkins Glen several times. You go into some of those turns a lot faster than 46 miles an hour, a hundred percent. So why not just set the cruise at 46 miles an [00:06:00] hour and let the vehicle just take you around the track?

So that was my initial goal. And I thought that was gonna be the plan for the Jeep. Just lock it in at 46 and call it a day. The problem is with the cruise control, when you started to go downhill, it would put on the brakes. Mm-hmm. So rather than do that, what I would let it do is I would kill the cruise control.

I would let it speed up a little bit, and then I would trail break in, like especially like turn sixth. Mm-hmm. Ease that breaks in to nose it in to allow it to come through. But like turn nine, it’s a slow turn. It’s tight. I wasn’t confident with the Jeep, although I did push it through there a little faster towards the end.

Cause I wanted to see under acceleration with the all-wheel drive, it’ll pull through. It’s not a problem. So I was a little nervous, right. I didn’t want. To really upset the vehicle so much. Yes, I could have gone faster, but I think the lap conditions when you’re racing are different because you’re planning your breaking zones.

You’re not just trying to do the B M W school thing where you throw it in with no brakes. So [00:07:00] there’s a little level of apprehension that you have to overcome when you do that, especially in a 5,000 pound vehicle. It’s not the same as in a GTI where you could, yes, of course, turn the wheel and who cares, you know?

Yeah. I would’ve been curious how my tdi, I would’ve done. It’s cruise control is very tight. Where some cars, you go down a hill and suddenly you’re like, I’m doing 10 miles an hour faster because like it’s got such a band before it like catches itself and and comes back to set point. I see very little movement in my cruise control, whether it went up a hill or down a hill, it reacts very quickly.

Mm-hmm. I’d be curious to see how it would do. Apparently my car would be not eligible because I don’t have stock tires size. Well, that should be easy to overcome. We can find a stock set of wheels and tires around, well, you’re running a 2 25 40 17. That’s a stock size. The stock that came on the car. Oh, it came with fifteens, right?

No, no, no, no, no. Hold on. It is a OE size for a mark for golf, period. Yeah. Full stop. Because S E C A is weird like that. If you go to them [00:08:00] and say, this is a stock available OE size. Oh. If that’s the rule, I interpreted the rule meaning. If you bought that car? Nope. It came with like 180 fives or something.

That’s the leeway that they give you in the s e c rule book. So that is an manufacturer size that is legal on that car. Well then I could have been there and I would’ve gotten first place for diesel category. Yeah, there you go. And you just answered another one of my questions. Who put this event on? So it was S C C A, correct.

It’s an s c. Now you said your alternative fuel vehicles, but there were nine elevens and Mustangs and Oh yeah. And stuff there. So really if you just want to go and drive Watkins Glen, sign up for the event. Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. But I believe if you have a non petrol car that isn’t a diesel, so if you have a gas car, I think you’re kind of moved down the priority list.

Like they hold you and if there’s open slots and then you can get in, they give priority to the alternative fuel vehicles first. That, I mean, that makes sense. After all. A [00:09:00] green, green Grand Prix. Yeah. Green P. Yes. I thought all the cars were supposed to be green. I guess I was wrong. I was shocked too. I mean, you see an El Camino and you’re like, well, that’s about as not green as we can get.

It was interesting. It was really kind of nerve-wracking at some points where you’re like, oh, you know, how much speed can I carry through this corner? This guy has. Dive bombing on top of me, stuff like that. I will say the pit stop was just, I dunno, thankfully Tanya was back in the studio and she’s texting me going, oh, you know, you have this much time left, you have this much time.

And I’m like, cuz I didn’t even pay attention to when I rolled into the pit. But it was like, Four minutes of absolute torture because I’m like, do I turn the vehicle off? Do I let it run? And I’m just watching my M P G calculation just fall and fall and fall. And I’m like, no. Well, what was the point of the pit stop?

You know, I don’t know if that goes back to something that is part of the original time distance rally. It didn’t make sense to me. I’m like, why do we have to stop for four minutes? But I think it allows them to change [00:10:00] drivers. The thing I was confused about, because there were some teams that had three drivers and four drivers, and I saw people like pitting in and then leaving cuz like the Mustang did that cuz there were three drivers.

Is it a cumulative four minutes or is it four minutes and one shot? Again, the rules were a little unclear and I wanted to ask these questions at the driver’s meeting, but I felt like if I asked these questions, I’m gonna look. That guy, I’m gonna be that nub and I didn’t wanna be that guy. You know? You gotta get over that sometimes.

Right. I think going into next year I’m going to have more questions that I want answered before the event. I think you took a longer pit stop too, cuz after you got into the pits and you read the rules about the pits, the timing should have started apparently when you crossed the line into the pit.

Yeah. I didn’t start counting you until you stopped in your pit box and then the counter should have ended like as you pitted out. So you took like an extra solid extra minute or more. Yeah, I was gonna say does, does it count from pit end to pit out four minutes or is it four minutes at your stall? Yeah, [00:11:00] as long as it’s four minutes you can go more apparently.

But what they do is in the timing, cause they use the same transponders we use in time trials. They just delete the lapse before, during, and after. I think they said. So they take those away so they don’t even count. We were able to claw back from that, which was good. Honestly, I’m still really proud of my Jeep for being almost 10 years old and getting.

As we recorded livestream, 31.9 miles to the gallon. I think that’s pretty good. What tune was it? It was the G d e Tune. Okay. It was tough. It was challenging and there’s a lot of things going on and obviously multiple cameras in the car and talking to you guys and, and everything that was happening. It was interesting and I think with two people, maybe you could do the rough math as you’re going along, but I don’t know.

It’s weird. Like a four and a half minute. Flew by, but also felt like an eternity. Once we got done with the t s D part of the event, we moved to the conference center where there was a talk by folks from Toyota, from B [00:12:00] a e systems, from the TCAT service, which is like the bus service or whatever, and they were actually showcasing and they, you could go for joy rides on these electric full size, you know, like bolt buses or whatever around the track, which a couple people said it was kind of sketch going through like the boot with the big massive, like greyhound.

You know, it’s pretty cool. They’re silent, they’re quick, they’re super torquey. And so they had a whole discussion about that and the future of EVs. But it was all with respect to those big buses and the technology that B, AE and Toyota and all them were working. And then the later part of the day was an autocross, which I wanna dive into a little bit more.

I know Tanya was watching the livestream and we were chatting back and forth through the livestream about like the times and stuff. And it was really interesting to see the hybrids versus like the gas cars that were there and, and stuff like that. It’s a full day event, award ceremony dinner. It’s the part that got a little kind of confusing.

There’s different classes, like they, they subdivided the results by like generation of. And insight and [00:13:00] stuff like that. And then there was like, okay, gas cars, which confused me cuz as I walked around the paddock, I’m like, that’s a Saly Mustang, that’s an El Camino. There’s a couple miatas over there. I was like, what does that have to do with anything?

Granted, you know, you got extra spots to fill, you’ll sell ’em to people. Right? Sure, fine. And I don’t take any satisfaction in coming home with a trophy first place. You know, I did hang it on my wall in the garage cuz the Jeep won something. I, I’m proud of the Jeep. But yeah, it was the only diesel there, right?

I mean, so I was kind of competing against myself, you know. How did they score that? It was weird because the gas calculations were easy. You know, how many gallons of fuel did you burn over 80 miles, you know, during the time period and all this kind of stuff. And they could just do a rough calculation.

The E M P G for the hybrids and the EV calculations. Like I got a little bit lost cuz they were all cheering about like 0.2 kilowatt. Mile and I’m like, I don’t know what that means. Like you gotta translate it for me. Cuz the part that was crazy was when you’re hearing about these guys with the Prius and they’re like [00:14:00] 112 miles to the gallon.

And I’m like, what? How? There’s no way you went around 80 miles without burning any fuel. There’s almost not enough of Watkins Glen to use regenerative braking. Or maybe there is, maybe I don’t understand how the Prius makes its electric. That part was a little sketchy. I didn’t get to really see how they scored everything, but I felt like IMSA racing, it was like there’s 16 different classes of cars out here right now, and we’re really not competing against each other other than the fact that we’re running the same format.

The Prius would’ve been running on the gas engine the entire time is what I was thinking. According to the interwebs, most Toyota Prius’s will switch to gas when the car reaches speeds of 15 miles an hour. And the average speed you were supposed to be somewhere 46 miles an hour is what they said. Yeah.

Okay. 46 miles. Okay. The gas engine was on then. A hundred percent. I don’t know how they calculated this. Right. And when I heard the numbers, I was like, baffled. What? [00:15:00] How? How did you do that? Because I was sort of thinking, okay, a Prius probably in line with, say a VW T D i, they should be getting 45 miles to the gallon, kind of almost regardless of the conditions, right?

They’re just sort of that type of vehicle. But 112, I was just like, How were you hyper modeling and, and even the guy who had the nine 11, and I’m not trying to call him out because they sure as heck did during the award ceremony. I mean, they were giving him grief, but stock 9 11 4 s with the all-wheel drive and he’s getting 40 miles to the gallon.

I was like, what did he pop it in? Neutral and like just coast h how, again, according to the interwebs, a Prius is probably, let’s just call it somewhere around 50 miles to the. How do you double that? Are you turning the car off? Are you coasting? I mean, they didn’t say you couldn’t hyper mile. I personally don’t have the patience for that.

I would say on a racetrack it’s sort of nerve wracking to, you know, like I’m just gonna let it coast. How are you hyper mileing up 600 horsepower hill. That’s what I was wondering. Right. With all the pre [00:16:00] I and the insights, it’s like as soon, I mean I had torque for days. I could just tip into the throttle and it just climb the hill with no problem.

But you’re in a what? 1.2 liter Prius. Might as well be going backwards trying to get up that hill because there’s also the hill up, the S’S that you have to climb from. Turn two to the bus stop is on wall. I meant, I guess you could coast from the bus stop all the way to the hill, but then you’re accelerating the rest of the way.

All the way around the turn. Eight, nine basically to like pit. Yeah, cuz it’s all a hill straight. And then you could coast till you get to the s’s. There was a top gear skit where Jeremy Clarkson took an E 46 M three and drove it around the top gear test track. Got better mile per gallon than a Toyota Prius that he was following.

Yeah, he drove the Prius first, I guess, to get a target lap time, and then he drove the M three. And at that same speed, the M three was more economical? Yes. Was there any type of hooliganism or shenanigans there? This event kind of around something like that? [00:17:00] I, when you say there were Mustangs there and No, because the Prius got 112 miles to the gallon as a showcase for a Prius event.

I call ion drafting’s not allowed. There’s a lot of things you’re not supposed to do. They stagger start it like a proper rally so everybody is sent off 10, 15 seconds apart or whatever. But. You end up catching people. I mean, it just happens, right? Especially, I was one of the only people as I was going through traffic that was actually driving the race line, trying to hit all the apexes to maintain as much speed as I could.

Stuff like that. And, and I’m not trying to boast, it’s just I was sort of like perplexed by where people were putting the car. That was the problem. You drove more than you needed to. Maybe that’s it. I should have shortened the track up. I figured to maintain that average lap speed, I was really targeting a four minute 25 lap.

I was looking at lap times and I was like, once I set my base lap based on what I thought was good, I could keep being in that range for 24, 4 25, 4 23, and [00:18:00] kind of float around in there. And I was like, I felt that was good. That was consistent be what I was hoping for was better than 32 miles to the gallon because I know the Jeep can already do 32 miles to the gallon.

So tough. It was challenging, right? But yes, I was looking at people’s. I’m gonna call them lines and I’m like, where are you driving? The other one that was kind of interesting and we joked about it during the autocross and I have pictures of it up on our website. It’s the converted all electric geome, and apparently like that blew all the EVs out of the water.

It got like 12.5 kilowatt per mile or whatever the heck the conversion is. You know, a billion times better than the Chevy Bolt. That ended up winning the EV class because that’s considered like a super modified, it was in its own class, but the numbers were just like, okay, we have 0.2 and then we have 12.5.

And to me, I’m like, That’s like s slight, your apart, I, I’m assuming the geometric probably weighs half as much of the bolt. Yeah, I was [00:19:00] gonna say the weight difference. Oh, oh yeah. Yeah. But as we saw during the autocross, I still underst steer like crazy, which was pretty bizarre considering it had no weight up front.

It had no breaks. That’s how they saved weight. They didn’t put breaks in it. They just had wood up there. Did they have those little teeny skinny tires too? Yeah, they had everything and, and they blocked off the front to try to make it more aerodynamic. It was totally home brew. They blocked it off using like duct tape and cardboard and it was just like, all right, whatever.

It was comical, but the car was quick. My real question is, where in the standings did Eagle Eye hammer thrust? End up, I think I beat the eagle eye hammer thrust. So we’re all good there. Just really quick about the autocross, the young guys that were there from the colleges who were like, oh, Vivian’s gonna crush everybody, you know?

And I’m like, no, that formulas SAE car over there is definitely gonna crush everybody by like a mile. So it did, it did their little autocross course in like 20 seconds flat. It was like, all right, cool. Let’s take the outlier out of the equation. But the top five was modified Miata with a turbo, not a Mazda [00:20:00] speed Miata.

Then it was the nine 11 that I talked about A G T I mark seven with an A P R kit on it. And then there was a couple other cars that were in that area and they were all right around 22 to 23 second times. And what was funny is when they talked about their fastest times, so it was like, that’s not what I reported on the live stream.

So it was a little weird when we got to the award ceremony. Either way, it was interesting to see how tight the Porsche, the Miata, and the G T I were, and they looked so different when they were out there on the autocross. But what really shocked me were these supposedly stock Chevy Volts. Those things were quick right there with those other cars that I mentioned, like within a second.

Especially that green and blue one. The Alfred State car. I don’t know who was driving it, if it was the teacher, one of the students, cuz you know there was so many drivers in the same car, it got a little confusing. You’re doing like a 22 second lap and I’m like, dang, that is Ballistically quick for a Chevy Volt.

It’s. I’m gonna [00:21:00] put air quotes around it stock. So I was actually really impressed. I was looking at how the vol handled it has the typical front wheel drive lift, throttle over steer cuz they were getting it to rotate and stuff, but it was pretty well planted. I mean, yeah, they could get it to push but not as much as like the bolt where they basically flung that car and pushed it through every turn and it was just screaming for mercy, just like the Prius’s were.

And he was like, man, that hurts me to watch that car because you know, skinny five inch tires and they’re just like rolling over on themselves. But they managed to make it work. The otros lot’s, a little small if anybody’s ever been to Watkins Glen and especially to a lot of the H O D events we go to, if you’re familiar with the big garages and where we.

Out to go onto the hot pit. They use the little lot right there next to the garages in that area where there’s like those medians and there’s couple trees and guys will camp out there and you know, put their trailers and stuff. So it wasn’t super huge. I was expecting them to use the other paddock [00:22:00] that World Challenge uses cuz it’s much larger, like a proper outros.

But apparently that was closed off because it was opening weekend, you know, is what it. I think overall I had fun. I think I need a redo. I need a mulligan. I wanna try it again. And I think it would be cool to go back with Tanya’s, t d i and see what that does, you know, next year compared to the Jeep. It was a neat experience.

I would recommend people going and checking it out. If you ever wanted to see what your alternative fuel vehicle does in an event like this. Sign up for next year’s Green Grand Prix. Keep an eye on what they’re doing. Again, very low-key tech wasn’t anything that you really had to be worried about. You know, you had working turn signals and headlights and stuff like that, so it wasn’t like proper track day or an autocross where they gotta check a million things.

And by the way, there was no helmets, so you don’t have to worry about that. You know, windows up the whole thing, you know, all the, you wanna run with the air condition. It’s not like a track day because again, the speeds are much slower. And I will say there was only one flagger the entire time. And he was, I was gonna ask, were there even [00:23:00] anyone to see that you were drafting somebody?

I don’t know how they police that, because again, there was only one flagger and he was a turn 10 right before you pitted in. And I was like, okay. Your experience reminds me of when GTM got together and tried to do that electric cart in du Yeah. And not fully understanding the rules and the strategy. And we were pitting in and changing drivers and, and swapping carts and stuff where everybody else literally was driving the carts till they died.

The race would stop and then they would get a new cart. Yep. And then the race would resume. It was the most ass backwards thing I’d I’d ever seen. Yep. It made no sense. Absolutely. What was a nice follow up to the Green Grand Prix, especially if you wanna make a weekend out of going to Watkins Glen. I mean, there’s a million things to do up there.

Go to Lake Seneca. Go to the local wineries and the breweries and do some antiquing and all that fun stuff. It’s a great place for a weekend getaway. Our friends over at the International Motor Racing Research Center also held their eighth annual model car [00:24:00] show the next day, so I stopped by. Before I went home, I grabbed some breakfast at Toby’s Donuts, which was fantastic.

Great little diner cafe there in downtown. And I went over to the I m Rrc, which shares its location with the Watkins Glen Public Library. A bunch of collectors came out, and it wasn’t just model cars, it was Legos, it was dioramas, it was slot cars, it was all sorts of stuff and was cool as I got to experience another side.

Of the Motorsport enthusiast community I always knew existed, but I never personally kind of crossed that threshold. And I’m sitting there and a guy’s talking about this McLaren Lego thing, and then the other guy’s like, oh, I got that, the model card. And they’re like comparing the models and the details and then they’re suddenly talking about Daniela Ricardo.

And like it evolved into these conversations and I. They’re car guys just like the rest of us, but they’re probably smarter cuz they’re only spending, you know, 94 cents for a matchbox versus, you know, $94,000 for, you know, a brand new car or whatever. But it was [00:25:00] really cool to share stories. And then they were like, well, what do you have in your collection?

And I’m like, One to one scale or are we talking, you know, 1 64, like those kinds of things and, and you know, swapping stories. And I actually talked about the Falcon X B G T build that I recently did from the block zone, which we’ve talked about on our holiday episode. And the guys were really interested about that.

Somebody else was like, oh, I got one of those right here. And he had a McLaren Formula car that he bought and we talked about the build experience and it was, it was really cool. It was different, it was very pleasant. You know, going to the center is always a lot of fun. It’s entrenched in history. Every time you turn around there’s something else going on.

There’s new things to look at and whatnot. So it was a good time. Very much enjoyed that. So if you’re interested in next year’s Green Grand Prix, check out www.greengrap.com and then look at some of the other things that might be going on Watkins Glen that weekend. And don’t forget to hit up House of Hong.

Uh, yeah. Hey, moving on. We need to talk about some more states. [00:26:00] That are pushing back on the alleged ice bans and phase outs. Wait a minute, hold on. Did you mean states that are in support of phasing out ice? Correct. No. Oh. There are states that are in favor of getting rid of ICE and all EV and all electric and all that, but there are actually states retaliating, pushing back and saying, no, we wanna keep our petrol cars.

Two of them. You can probably guess that would be the country of Texas. Yeah, the Republic of Texas is definitely top. The Republic of of Texas is at the top of that list, followed closely by Colorado, I mean one of the most outdoorsy states in the country. Shout out to Herb Day, Colorado. That’s right. The one I was a little kind of surprised by is New Hampshire is pushing.

Saying, let’s take a chill pill on these phase outs and these bands, hmm, maybe they actually have intelligent lawmakers in their state. Their lobbyists are better than the rest of, I would’ve thought Michigan would be on the list if that was the case with [00:27:00] the heart of the automotive industry there. But I guess not.

In light of all that, there are organizations like P R I and SEMA and things like that that are going to bat as well for these types of initiatives. They’ve been behind the Right to repair act, the right to modify. They’re behind keeping Motorsports alive. There’s a lot of things going on. I tell a lot of my Motorsports compatriots, if you’re not a member of P R I, you should be thinking about it.

It’s pretty cheap. It’s like 40 bucks a year and you get access to. All the government affairs things that they’re working on, the legislation, a lot of insight webinars and things like that where you can actually see what they’re up to, what they’re talking about. There’s some really interesting stuff going on with P R I and SEMA in terms of them advocating for us as enthusiasts, but also advocating for par lovers in general and for folks that maybe aren’t ready to transition to EV or hybrid or or whatever have you.

So really interesting stuff going on@performanceracing.com. You’ve said multiple times that the answer is not [00:28:00] all one or all the other. It’s a nice mix of all because everybody has a different use case, so, yep. Why can’t we all just be happy since we’re still talking about Earth Day and the green initiatives, there’s been a lot of aloo in the last month over at the environmental protection.

They would like to close as they say, A S U V loophole. Oh oh. Which I didn’t appreciate that this existed and is basically the reason, I guess, why so many people were willing to purchase these monstrosities back in the day even. Right. They’re much better today. Somewhat better fuel economy, I guess, and more luxurious and they don’t flip over and all that good stuff.

But apparently back then there was a loophole that was, goes as far back as the seventies because there was a lot of people, obviously there always has been that use SUVs or big trucks exclusively for. Work, whether you’re a farmer or other industries. And so there was a loophole for them not to suffer severe [00:29:00] punishments because of fuel inefficiency.

That became a loophole for personal use. Oh. And so that allowed people to not be penalized, have any sort of repercussion to having some monstrosity that gets eight miles to the gallon as you’re just going to work and sitting stuck in traffic. And then to further that, apparently in 2010, Further loophole, craziness that happened that essentially said the bigger your footprint i e, the larger your chassis, you still get exempt from like more stringent shit.

So car manufacturers, it’s in your best interest actually make shit bigger. Wow. Oh man. Thank you. Thank you. And this was from the epa? Come now. And wasn’t there something we talked about like last year, if you slap stickers on the side of your monstrosity, like a G wagon or something like that, you could consider it as a work vehicle and therefore it would fall into this loophole.

Yes, yes. So, you know, small businesses do that stuff all the time. Because the vehicle, [00:30:00] it’s over a certain weight or something like that. Yeah. And they use it as a commercial vehicle and then they write it off on their taxes and yeah. It’s good stuff. As someone who’s in the market for a suburban, now that my family is growing, I hope I can still buy a used one before they close this loophole.

Port Flex with the eco boosto. That’s all I’m saying. Uh, not big enough. Have you seen my family? I have soon to be two children that would potentially reach seven feet tall. Yeah, right. And then the dogs and a hundred pound Labrador. Yeah. So a four Flex. Not gonna do it. Sorry. Sorry, bro. Not gonna do it. Not gonna do it.

I mean, we drive maybe 5,000 miles a year combined. It’s not that terrible of an issue. Well, what is terrible is the epa. Yes, I agree. The EPA is terrible, but it’s end of story. Leave it right there. What is the next article? There’s another article from P r I kind of affirming what I was mentioning, that there’s a lot of aloo over at the EPA this month.

And basically, I even heard this on NPR r I heard this on other places. They are pursuing new [00:31:00] standards before the supposed 2032 cut over all ev, no more petrol cars, da, da, ba, ba. And when you boil it back, 17 states that are basically latching onto the new carb rules that are coming out. And they’re changing the numbers, the metrics that manufacturers have to achieve in terms of their emissions output.

And here’s where it gets a little tricky, because people are like, oh my God, this is the end of everything. There’s never gonna be another Mustang. It’s like, all right, put your pitchforks down. You extinguish your torches for a second. The way this works is they have to have a 90 mile per gallon. Chevy Bolt to basically swing the pendulum so they can have a nine mile per gallon Chevy Camaro, ZL 1 28, whatever the hell it is, and then everything else has to fit in between.

So what it is, is they’re changing the standards for the average miles per gallon, sort of like that average speed per [00:32:00] lap that we talked about, the Green Grand Prix. Same thing with these manufacturers. They’re changing the average miles per gallon that the entire. Needs to achieve. And so that number is going up.

But with the recent adoption of EVs and the the new mental gymnastics and new math that you have to do there to make that convert to miles per gallon, they can still afford to have big pickup trucks and things like that in the fleet. So I’m curious to see how it all comes out in the wash. Uh, at the end of the day, what I find interesting though is just before all this hit is when Ford is like, ha ha, we’re not gonna sell anymore sedans.

Forget the hatchbacks. The focus is dead. The EO is gone known as the fusion here in the United States. You know, stuff like that. They just check them all at the door. But they don’t have an EV right now to really compensate for the number of F one 50 s bestselling car in North America. They have the lightning, they’ve got the Mak and they’ve got the plug-in Hybrid fusion.

No, the fusion’s dead. The [00:33:00] fusion’s gone. Don’t they have an EV escape or a plug-in escape or something like that? I, I don’t know. I’m not a Ford fan, but what I’m getting at is there’s not much to compensate for the amount of, but then they just go to Tesla buy credit possibly. Right, and the cycle continues.

Exactly. So nothing’s really changing. But what is changing is the number of wagons, sports cups, the things that some of us really do enjoy. Those numbers are getting smaller every year that goes by. I know we talked at the beginning of the year, the number of cars with manual transmission sold is up this year compared to previous.

I don’t see that lasting forever either. Right. Well, the problem that none of this takes into account is what’s going on with Porsche and others, right. In their development of these. Greener traditional fuels, eels, gasoline, diesel, whatever, that aren’t gonna have the, maybe the same environmental impacts as we see today.

How does that play into here? Suddenly we had right magic gasoline that there’s nothing harmful coming outta the tailpipe because [00:34:00] those molecules don’t exist if you don’t have nitrogen and those bad things in the fuel to begin with, it can’t convert into, there’s nitrogen in the air and all that stuff.

Naturally, yes, but like it’s not going to have the same impact, right? Yeah. So, If we magically had that today, how, what does this conversation look like Exactly, and, and you know what’s funny is, I don’t know if it was an April Fools thing, and we’re gonna talk about crazy YouTubers as we move on here, but there was something coming back saying that Porsche’s new eel is illegal.

You know, they’re pushing to make it illegal. I’m like, what are we talking about now? What? Why let them experiment? Let them see if they can come up with an option to keep petrol engines on the road. I don’t know what it is, but there’s definitely something fishy going on and, and somebody has their hands in the government’s pocket.

Oh, capitalism baby. Somebody has the excellent lobbyists. There’s something going on that we don’t know in the background that yes, there’s somebody’s pockets pushing all this crap. Yeah, somebody’s pockets getting lined. I hate when the government oversteps and starts pushing people [00:35:00] around to push their agenda.

And it’s not even their agenda. It’s the agenda of private corporations. As Tanya alluded to, capitalism. Leave me alone. Just let me do what I want to do. Some of this is because as a commodity in the energy sector, electricity itself in the United States was cheap, was super, super cheap. It was super cheap.

And what’s the best way to make everybody have to pay $500 a month at home for electricity? Well, let’s introduce electric cars. Not everybody can afford an electric car. Not everybody can afford the infrastructure to charge an electric car there. So many people in this country that can’t afford to do any of that stuff, they can barely afford.

I mean, we joked about her in this LA in the last drive-through, but that woman who was so proud of herself for going out and being able to buy a Ford Escort for, what was it, $300 a month? Yeah. There are so many people in this country that are like that. Unfortunately, that’s the way the world works. How is this going to be possible?

I don’t wanna say the driving is a necessity cuz it’s not, but you’re basically [00:36:00] pricing them out of the ability to get to work and, and have transportation. Are you gonna, in conjunction with this, are you gonna increase the. Public transportation infrastructure. If you’re gonna do something to offset it to where these people that can’t afford to drive anymore have alternate means to get where they need to go, then okay, we can talk about that.

That’s what was really interesting about the Lunche and learn at the Green Grand Prix, is seeing those electric buses and hearing from British aerospace and hearing from Toyota about the technologies on the big scale, because how many times have we talked about why are they penalizing the consumers and the workers when you’ve got Buse.

At airports around the country and metro systems and all this stuff, and you’ve got delivery vehicles and police cars and stuff that’s just sitting there idling all day long. What you don’t think? Because they’re idling. They’re not polluting shit. To your point there in DA Tanya’s point earlier that she made, we don’t have enough money to pay for lobbyists.

We’re not corporations. We can’t pay for lobbyists. So if we got everybody together, everybody puts in [00:37:00] $5, we’ll start a new tier on Patreon. We’ll call it the lobbyist here. You can start it today. Yeah, we’ll start the lobbyist here. Everybody puts in their $5 and we will lobby for the general consumer, not a corporation.

We’re a nonprofit. So we will lobby for the general consumer to get your needs passed, because apparently the politicians don’t give a shit about it. There’s a lot of different, unfortunately divisive topics here, right? It creates these arguments and whatever. I mean, I’m all in favor of all cars. I have my biases, the things I like, and like I always joke, just like, you know when I find something at the grocery store that I enjoy to eat because I like it, they’re not gonna produce it anymore.

Right? So it’s sort of like manual transmissions and two door coops and things like that. It’s just the thing of the past, I’m always in the 1%, but it’s not like I’m one percenter. It’s I’m in the 1% of enthusiasts that like really weird stuff. But for the general population, I agree with. The movement is a little premature.

We’ve talked about that before and I look at it too. We have a [00:38:00] hybrid. I don’t have two 20 in my garage for these level two or above chargers. And getting a level two put in, I don’t care how many government incentives you give me, I still have to find an electrician that is willing to take my money, do the work, retrofitted into the house, which is way more expensive than a lot of people realize.

My house is older, so I gotta upgrade my service. I gotta do a bunch of stuff. Sub boxing the, it’s a lot of money that has to be put out to do this conversion. And so right now I’m really fortunate that my wife’s vehicle can be charged in a level one charger over. But if we were to replace that, or let’s say tomorrow I ran out and bought a machi, I wouldn’t know what to do and I don’t have the patience to drive down to the local library and go charge and wait there for 45 minutes.

It’s inconvenient. Plug it in and spend a week charging like that one guy. Did you own a house? You’ve got a single family home. Yep. What do you see a lot of driving around the cities in [00:39:00] particular? Normal driving. You see a lot of apartments. Yeah, A lot of renters. Yeah. How are they gonna charge their cars?

How is, you know, a single mom gonna charge her car to go to run her shift job? Yep. You know? What about people that are on campus right in school or whatever, and some campuses you’re not allowed to have a car on campus in your X years or whatever. And not until the lady years, but still, nonetheless, there are people on campus that have cars because they also have jobs they have to get to and they’re living there.

Are universities gonna install chargers for these people to be able to like go do their lives? I mean, there’s a lot to it. I think it’s disheartening all these years that they throw out where it’s like in 10 years from today, we will be ev. Y’all can’t even freaking repave the road, two mile stretch, but you’re gonna like redo an entire country’s electrical infrastructure grid to support this.

Right. In 10 years for D M V people be on alert that the GW Parkway is commencing construction that will go on till 2025, where you will alternate between two [00:40:00] lanes and one lane available during weekday rushes and then only one lane available on your weekends and any other time. Enjoy this for the next two years.

That’s okay. Those of us in the Bmer area are already used to 6 95 constantly being under construction, so it’s not a big deal for us. No, but the point is it’s like they’re repaving a two-lane highway divided, I forget the total mileage once you come off the beltway and they’re heading to the airport or whatnot.

I mean, it’s not short, but still it’s like that’s gonna take two. Just to do that. But you’re gonna rein infrastructure, everything in like 10, and everybody’s gonna be buying EVs. That’s where the disconnect is. That’s true. And our last article here dovetails right into the, what we’ve been talking about.

It’s the coverage from npr. They have about a 15 minute podcast that they added to this. I actually listened to this the day. Everything went really sour with Elon and npr, and we’re gonna talk about that as we move along. But their reporters got on, they said, look, let’s summarize all these E P A changes for [00:41:00] you guys.

And they were basically saying, the E p A wants to put millions more EVs on the road, should you buy one right now? And actually I thought it was really good of the NPR R reporters to say, you know what, no, understand that this rule applies to new cars. They’re not gonna take away your petrol card. They literally said Gasoline is not going away anytime soon.

And that’s great. And that was very positive. And they’re trying to basically dispel and dilute any sort of sudden panic that people are gonna have. What I wanna remind people of is, yes, there are plenty of petrol cars to go around. But right now there’s a weird situation happening where it’s actually cheaper to go buy a new car than to buy a used car in a lot of cases.

And so we talk about this a lot on what should I buy? Uh, you know, our subseries here on break fix. Be careful what you’re buying. Don’t end up with a 98 escort that’s costing you $300 a month [00:42:00] because the used car market is due for a course correction very soon because it cannot sustain the prices that used cars are at right now.

Not for what you’re getting. Well, every individual person has to look at their particular situation, right? Because if you already have your car paid off, it’s in good, reliable condition and it has many, many miles to go. It is not more cost effective for you to go out and shell out 50, $60,000 for a brand new car.

If you have it, then it’s like buying chicklets at the grocery store. Cool. Otherwise, keep driving your car and even if you’re doing regular maintenance, have to fix something here and. It’s still going to be more cost effective for a long time versus just dropping and buying something new that also still has its own issues.

And if it’s an ev, as was just mentioned, level two, charging all this stuff, you gotta pay extra infrastructure in your own home and you have to have a place to have and all that stuff. There’s other considerations, not only that, there’s something that you touched. [00:43:00] In the Ladies and EVs episode of What Should I Buy that we did earlier in March?

And what was really important about that is people are not thinking about the long-term environmental impact of getting rid of their existing car. What you guys touched on and what you talked about was really important because not only is there not a plan right now, although there are a lot of propositions to say, this is how we’re gonna handle the batteries, when it’s time to recycle them.

Well guess what? Everything’s new. So we haven’t crossed that bridge. We’re not recycling anything yet, right? Even the Tesla model S’s from 10 years ago, we’re still on the road, so we haven’t really had to handle the hazmat until we’ve gotten into an accident situation. But here’s what happens to your used car.

Let’s think about diesel. We talked about this years ago, even before we started the show. What’s gonna happen to all these cars? Daniel buys ’em. Yeah. What happens to all these cars that Volkswagen bought back? And the speculation was they were getting put on container ships and sent to like [00:44:00] Africa and Asia and all these places, and they were being resold because the demand was super high and the US government wanted him out anyway because this EV thing was already on the horizon.

You know, all this conspiracy theory and speculation. But what I’m getting to and what I’m driving towards with that is your car. Just because you traded it in it doesn’t mean it’s dead. Somebody else might continue to drive that car for 10 years. They’re gonna put in those couple extra bucks, maybe it is a couple thousand dollars to get it back on the road and it’s gonna continue to live.

And then once it is, let’s say, dead, it continues to live more in a salvage yard, rotting in the middle of a field where it’s letting go of its fluids into the ground and you know, all this kind of stuff. And it’s just like your car isn’t really done done until even it’s gone through the crusher, or it gets melted down.

They’re better at recycling them now than they used to be. It doesn’t happen the day after you trade in your car. It happens years later, maybe a decade [00:45:00] after you got rid of that car. So think about it for a second. I need to change a starter in the car. What’s that cost me? 200 bucks. Oh, I’m just gonna trade in.

Am I get a new car? Spend the 200. And your car’s got a lot more life in it than you think. Maintain your car, maybe just, yeah, bare minimum stuff. Don’t be an ass hat. You don’t have to hit every pothole you see and run over every curb that you encounter. That’s very true. You know, that’ll keep the longevity of your car as well.

A hundred percent. Change your oil. Yes. That is super important if you’re worried about that too. You know, we’ve talked about it before, we had Rick Lee on the show. Look at alternative oils like Evolve that are made from plants rather than petroleum. There’s a lot of alternatives out there right now.

There’s a lot of science that’s being perfected and things like that, but it’s not as cut and dry as it used to be. So in kind of wrapping up this thought about Earth Day and about Herb Day and Earth Day and all that is just take a step back and think about your car and think about what you can do, be a better steward of the environment.

But like we talked [00:46:00] about on other episodes, there’s different ways to go about doing that. Well, it’s time that we switch to Volkswagen, Audi in P News. I’m just gonna read the headline. Audi owner finds basic HVAC function, pay walled after pressing the button for it. I called it. I knew it was. I knew it was coming.

I’m gonna revise that cheap bastard. Audi owner finds basic HVAC function paywall. There you go. The owner jokingly, tongue in cheek, calls himself out for being cheap anyway, and he says every time that he gets in his car, now it reminds him. That he’s cheap cuz he did not buy the Audi Trizone climate control for his q4 e-tron.

The button for it is still there in the car cuz Go on. Are the days of the manufacturers putting blank buttons there? It’s cheaper just to manufacture them all the same. And if you don’t have the function, it just doesn’t work. Doesn’t do anything. This one does something though. It says that function has not been purchased.

He doesn’t have heat. No. He doesn’t have a [00:47:00] very specific way to use the HVACs wa. Why? All right. All right. Karen. Every car has heat. Yeah, it’s called try zone Climate controls. I’m assuming it must. Divert, you know, like, oh, you can control different part, like the back seat versus the front seat. Yes. You can put heat on your feet and coolness on your balls.

Yeah. Come on. Yeah. Right. So I mean, totally like a, A luxury purchase add-on. Obviously it’s a Q4 e-tron, that’s a luxury purchase itself. Yeah. It’s already spending a hundred grand. These, this is some first world BS problems right here, but it is scary nonetheless, when they start talking about all the subscription stuff because it’s following the airline model where they’ve gone, oh yeah, economy.

Now we have basic economy and not because you are a basic B, but we want to nickel and dime you even more. For everything. It’s the Spirit Airlines model. Oh, that’s terrible. I mean, basically, but now the majors are doing it, right? So it’s like, oh, United. You want [00:48:00] the cheapest ticket possible. Well, you will be forced to sit next to the toilet and you’ll have to pay to bring a bag on the plane to put under your seat.

Can I sit in the toilet? Yeah. But you can upgrade to Economy Plus and sit one row in front of the toilet. Yes. For $50 a ticket. Yeah, right. This is why I don’t like to fly. Again, this is why I’m all for used cars, but this new stuff scares me because again, you buy this car used in five years. Can I turn this feature on?

What’s the infrastructure supporting? It is the Amazon in the cloud system that’s running the subscription for the HVAC gonna be there in five years. Like it’s insane. Like stop, give me a button, turn it on. I’ve never been a fan of all the packages on cars. You gotta have the premium package and the premium plus and the prestige, and the prestige black and just gimme all the options.

And let’s call it a day. The car is the car like, Everybody’s making it way more complicated than it needs to be. You just want the car to be too bespoke. It’s what I [00:49:00] don’t want it to be as software where it’s like, well, you need this add-on and you need this D L C. It’s like when you buy a video game now, you can’t get the full game.

They give you something half baked over the next six months. You gotta pay for all these add-ons. And cars are not like that. When I buy a car, I wanna hit the HVAC and I want it to work. And what was wrong with the dials like we had 20 years ago where you pointed at your head and you pointed at your feet and you’d pointed at the defroster and you just turned a freaking knob to get this done.

Eric, you’re a dinosaur. I, I like, yeah, I’m from the Jurassic Era. Cars haven’t had that since like two thousands, year 2000. There’s an argument to be made around safety in that because. All these infotainment screens where the stupid buttons don’t work and you gotta pound on ’em because all that crap, technology is still crap.

Honestly, it’s more distracting to have to, oh, I gotta sift through four screens I need to turn my heat on or my defrosts on [00:50:00] versus like dials and buttons. You can see them out of the corner of your eye. You instinctively no muscle memory like you can reach for them without even looking and keep your eyes on the road as you should be doing, as opposed to completely distracting yourself with a fricking laptop in your car.

I’m telling you, it’s all bullshit. The government trying to make things safer and all this other bullshit, it’s all fucking bullshit. They don’t care about us. It’s all about the money. The lobbyists for those infotainment systems. Capitalism, maybe. Yeah, capitalism. They don’t give a shit about us. Whoever thinks that the government cares about us.

The bottom dollar. Yes, the, the gov, the government cares about the dollar. It’s all about the dollar. Yeah. It’ll be Sing it Tanya. Amen. Amen. Sister sing it. It’s the eighties all over again. Like I just see Michael Douglass greed is good. It’s like Gordon Gecko, right? I mean, it’s like, come on. Yeah. It, it’s out of control.

I will probably never buy a new vehicle ever again. I probably have the last two. Maybe there’s [00:51:00] another vehicle in my future down the line, the long way away. But, uh, I think I, no, I, I’ve turned all my attention now to older cars. I’m in that collector mindset and I’m just like, oh, well, if I get rid of this and I can buy that and blah, blah, blah, and I want this car from the eighties or from the seventies, like, you gotta stop doing.

What should I buy? As you’re, you’re, you’re starting, you’re being influenced. It. It’s bad for me, man. I, I did. I stopped the other day. I was like, I was looking at a Ford Maverick, not the pickup truck that everybody’s thinking about. Now I’m talking about a 72. Or Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. So cool.

Don’t buy. That’s so cool. Don’t buy that piece of shit. But since we’re talking about Fords, let’s switch gears. This is something that is right up here, alley Brad. So let’s talk domestic news, brought to us by American Muscle, your source for OEM performance and replacement parts for your Chevy Ford or Mopar product.

The 2026, you’re gonna have to wait a little bit. Ford. Mustang. Raptor. Raptor. All the things. Yeah. [00:52:00] Raptor. All the things. Do you mean the Porsche nine 11 rally? Thank you. Thank you. Because that’s exactly what I thought when I first saw it. Ooh, why ge? What this is? The auto manufacturers see the writing on the wall.

They realize that we’re gonna be in a post-apocalyptic world soon, and they’re giving us our Mad Max cars now so that we can prepare for the impending doom when the world implodes. Dang. That’s the good ones. I’m good with that. And if the Aussies still made cars, cuz we’re not sure if they make anything anymore.

This would be the Ford Falcon Xb G t. This is Mad Max’s car. This is pretty cool. Here’s a, what should I buy? What should I buy? Mad Max edition in the future post-apocalyptic world. What car would you want to be like this? The first question is what fuel source survived? My guess is diesel. Diesel beer out forever.

We’re all gonna be running biodiesel cuz we can go out and find vegetable oil. They used to joke all the time. You can run a diesel on piss. Well, [00:53:00] let’s get that done. I mean, think about that recycling plan. How efficient would that be? Right? How also, oh, I, I gotta stop. I gotta fill the tank. I mean, think about it.

You get the def and the power from the same fluid. It’s all, it’s all right there. Just urinating the. Done. We’re gonna start this company and we’re gonna start researching now. If there are any chemical engineers out there that wanna help us with that wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Tanya, then please sign on. Uh, we’ll have a job applications on our Patreon under our lobbyist tier soon to be on Patreon.

Yes. Yeah. Yes. We’re looking for chem E interns to make piss diesel. What does that smell like coming out the pipe? It’s gotta be better than deaf now. Well, it depends. Did you have asparagus for lunch? Oh, that’s how you get that extra five horsepower. Is that that green diesel? Those cars are gonna be running in the Green Grand Prix next year.

As I was coming back from the Green Grand Prix, a lot of miles on the road back from the track to home. And I saw in traffic, remember we talked about [00:54:00] the last two route for the Passat? They’re not being built even here anymore in the States. They kind of phased them out. Last year saw a brand new Passat, and then next to it was a literally a brand new, still had sticker plates on it.

Malibu and it got me thinking. I paused for a second cuz at first I didn’t recognize the Malibu. They redesigned it. The rear lights are a little angular, kind of reminiscent of the Camaro and they added this nice little integrated kind of spoiler to the back. It’s sort of aggressive looking. The front hasn’t changed too much.

It’s sort of all the blazer and they all look the same. The Equinox and all them from the front, it’s got that big massive grill like Alexis and I’m looking at them from the third lane, they’re next to each other and I’m like, what would I rather own being a die hard Volkswagen guy for so long? That was the question because I was thinking about it.

They’re sort of like the last of the sedans because those cars are being baed out as we know the Malibu is still. You know, we don’t know what the expiration date is on that, but the Passats gone. [00:55:00] The Malibu should have died in 2000. And I’ve rented a Malibu and, and the inside, they’re quite nice. I mean, we make fun of the Impala for sure, but the Malibu is not bad.

The interior cannot withstand candle fire. Though this we know to be true. Again, looking at them going back forth and what it did is it brought to light. You don’t see too many full size sedans on the road anymore because again, they’re just being phased out. And so I said to myself, you know, if I was in that market, what would I buy?

I sort of fell squarely on the Malibu because in profile it doesn’t look like a rental car like the Passats. It’s a little more aggressive the way they restyled it. In reality, I would have neither, but I became a fan for a moment there as I was in traffic and, and so I just, I wanted to bring that up.

You could go get a Toyota Crown, you know? You’re right, talking about not having full size sedans, Toyota’s bringing it out. The all new 2023 Toyota Crown full size sedan, which will probably be a hybrid. So that [00:56:00] fits with this whole green theme, huh? Well, since you brought up Toyota, I mean they’re, they are all over the map right now.

We’ve heard you say before Tanya, Honda and Toyota seem to flip flop in terms of, you know, who’s exciting for a decade or so. And right now Toyota is the hotness and they have teased the fourth generation, MR two. Oh, you have my attention, right? I don’t fit, but a lot of my friends do so I can live vicariously.

It doesn’t look like a car from this decade. It looks like it’s straight out of the late nineties. Early 2000. The blue one doesn’t look like a car from this decade. The yellow one looks like a car from this decade. Not in a good way, just like the Integra. These are two different designs for the new MR two.

And actually there’s a third one. If you scroll down. There’s a black one. Yes. And so they’re just throwing out some ideas out there. I don’t dislike really any of them, honestly. I think the yellow one looks like an aurora. That [00:57:00] was in an accident. I did kind of think that too. And the black one sort of looks like a cross between the third gen TT and the Cayman.

No, the Lexus. What’s that little two door convertible Lexus. The S SC four 30 kind of has a a profile shape and the blue one looks like a scion. I just kind of go, is that a tc? You just kinda look at it sideways and you’re just like, okay. Again, they could produce any one of these, all three of these. I’m okay with them because I think this is exciting because when was the last time a two seat midship runabout, which is what Mr.

Two stands for, by the way, has been produced. Something that’s like a little nine 14 or, or, or like a lotes lease type of car. I th This is cool. This is exciting. And if they make a GR version of this, let’s face it, it’s gonna have the three cylinder, 300 horsepower turbo. They said it’s gonna have the three cylinder.

Yeah. So that’s awesome. Awesome. So I sort of don’t care what it looks like. You know what I do care about, you know, since I mentioned I was in traffic, guess what I saw the [00:58:00] new odea Integra. And it’s ugly. I mean, it’s a tlx tsx, which one? It’s bigger than I thought it was gonna be. I appreciate the lift back.

But then it makes the profile look really strange right around the sea pillar. Uh, and actually I ended up seeing two of them, one in navy blue and one in gray. And the color didn’t make a damn bit of difference cuz you know how sometimes cars look better in certain colors than they do. And I was just, I was not impressed.

What I did confirm is what we suspected. It’s huge. It is really, really big and it’s just like, has nothing to do with an Integra quote, original Integra, and the only way I recognized that it was an Integra was because of the little badge on the bumper. Otherwise, you’re like, okay. To your point, it’s like, that’s an Acura TL tsx or whatever.

Like, all right. You know, I thought I saw one at the cars and coffee I went to a couple weeks ago and whatever. It’s a car that about sums it up. It’s a car with a manual transmission. I [00:59:00] can’t say that I hate it. I have to like it based on those facts, but I would not own one. Yeah, unfortunately. I mean, I’d still drive one.

I’d still ride around in one. If somebody wanted to take me around a lap with a track, I’d love to experience it, but yeah, I was like, not for me. Maybe that Malibu is where I.

No, I would not own a Malibu. But would you own this new Afghani supercar? I mean, we’ll never see it. Ooh, it’s interesting. Apparently it’s basically Toyota underneath the front end is very Maxima, also Mustang at the same time. It’s stingy. It’s very stanky. The silver one kind of reminds me of the Mercedes vision, eq.

But not in a good way. The back looks like a McLaren. Yes. It’s got a lot of different cars in it. I’m not sure the front spoiler. That’s the cow catcher. Yeah. I’m like, is that to scoop people up? It’s different for sure. I mean, I mean, I don’t see Afghanistan as a burgeoning car manufacturer mecca [01:00:00] of any sort, but you know, good on them if if they’re gonna try, somebody’s gonna make this happen.

Maybe this design gets sold to somebody. Ooh, I just figured it out. This is the will I am car. So he couldn’t sell it here in the States. He went to Afghanistan and had it made there. That’s what this is. Tell me it’s not the will I am car. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense now for sure. Brad. It’s time for lost and found.

Where you scoured the internet looking for the newest old car available on dealership lots. All right. For this month’s old gem, the 1988 Cadillac Deville base is still available. Gray Chevrolet? Yep. Gray Chevrolet. 275 miles from where I am right now and it will stay 275 miles away. I’m gonna go get it for you for Christmas.

If you wanna buy me a car for Christmas, I That’s gonna be the running joke. It was Dodge Darts. That Cadillac is gonna end up on our holiday shopping guide as a bargain. Cause it’s been sitting for [01:01:00] so long. It’s cheaper than an ev. Let’s see. We’ve also got the four GT still out there. I’m looking for things.

Of note, there’s a 2005 Buick las. Custom. Ooh, by custom, I mean it’s just a plain white Buick Le Saber at Mark McLarty Toyota. It’s not quite as good as Chuck LeDuc, but Mark McLarty is pretty good to rival your Cadillac. There’s a 2006 Lincoln Town car signature. Oh, again, signature means nothing. This one’s in my backyard.

It is four miles away. It’s Shey Ford Lincoln. You should go do a retro test drive. I think that would be fun. Yes. I, so I need, I need to dress up like the eighties, of course. Hundred percent. Big lapels, man. Big lapels. Yes. Yes. And, and, uh, bell bottom pants. No, not those GenCos. Right? That’s Jenko. Yes. You.

That’s the nineties, early 2000. Yeah, the new metal phase. Yeah. Look at Tanya. Way to go. There are a couple, 2013 Corollas [01:02:00] out here. Remember what we used to talk about? Should Andrew Bank buy it? Yeah. What would Andrew buy? W W A B. We found a $2 million McLaren flood car. Well, this was already purchased though.

Yeah, and you know what the guy said it’s freaking worthless then. Why’d he buy it? Is this the, is this the one that of Irish bought? I didn’t see the video. Car is junk. And unlike Andrew’s flood car, Mercedes that he. Which he alleges he made money on. The math doesn’t work for me, but he, he uses mountain math.

We know how that works. I mean, this video is an interesting insight into why sometimes, as Don Weiberg likes to say, from garage do magazine, the cheapest exotic ends up being the most expensive, but the views further. Graham, meanwhile, Tanya, you came across something interesting. Yes, I did. Apparently there was sort of a barn find in Holland recently.

Oh, 230 classic cars discovered in [01:03:00] warehouses, an abandoned church. Apparently there was a Dutch gentleman that was collecting cars for the last 40. Recently at age two years old, his health has declined considerably. So he is no longer been taking care of them. They’re no longer I think in his possession.

They were all sold off and so they now are further going to go into auction. Some things like Alanche B 24, spider America is in that fleet. He’s got other VA varies and Alphas and Mercedes Jags, ASINs Z yada yada. I see a FB Mazda X seven here I see the Xj Jag. One of the pictures you might go, wow, these are in really horrible conditions.

They’re really filthy. Apparently there was a fire in one of the warehouses, but like the brigade got it out like immediately, so nothing was actually damaged. Apparently a lot of the cars are actually in like pristine mint condition, so it’s unfortunate that his health failed and you know, people found out about this after the fact, so no.

Really knows the backstory here. Like why was he collecting all these cars? Like how did he do this? [01:04:00] Where did he find them? That’s a little bit sad to miss out on that story, but if you’re in the market for some classic cars, go figure out how to get in on this auction happening. May 19th in the Netherlands.

How is this still a thing? How many more barns full of cars are we gonna find? It’s just ridiculous warehouses. Like there’s cars shoved everywhere. This is what happens when you trade in your old junker for an evening. You’re exactly right. You thought this thing was dead. This is where the cars go.

People like Daniel buy it and shove it in a building and it sits there for 50 years. There you go. Until someone discovers it in other interesting historical facts, I guess. Here’s a list of 10 sports car vehicles that share headlights or taillights from another car. Damn, I thought you were gonna say they had three spoke steering.

No, we haven’t found that list yet. This is a grasp. So the, apparently the 1991 and 2001 Lamborghini Diablo share some illumination with the Nissan 300 ZX Lister Storm in Audi 80 Lotus [01:05:00] PRI and Toyota Corolla. 11 TVR Servera and Ford Fiesta. Mark three Panos GTR one and the Mazda NX six the MG and the Fiat Punto.

Yeah, I like it. Wait, you weren’t excited about the Morgan Arrow eight sharing its front end with the Beetle rsi? I thought that’s would be like super exciting for you. Yes. That’s very nice. I like the eSATA lights though for your tail taillights. Zeta Moroder and the Alpine GTA have the same taillights and the Invicta S one and the B 5.5 Volkswagen Passat have the same.

Taillights. And interestingly they’re, they’re just rotated 90 degrees on these. I was about say, this is not the same light. And I was like, oh, look, it is the same light. Yeah. That was very creative. Yes. Which you won’t fool us. That’s right. And the real question is, how many of these vehicles share their lineage with the legendary three spoke steering wheel of the Nissan R 32?

The answer is 300 [01:06:00] zx. Maybe The 300 zx. Nope. Step. Nope. That’s got a four spoke steering wheel. You are a loser. Loser. I think it’s that time again. It’s Tesla gate time. We would be remiss. And speaking of steering wheels, oh boy. Apparently the yoke is a bit of a joke. Oh, you’re pulling my yoke. Oh, I heard the yolks on them.

The steering wheel’s gonna cost you. Ooh, yes. Their whole yoke steering wheel idea, which. Sounds silly to me unless you’re in a Formula One car. But what do I know? Apparently people also think it’s quite silly and not that effective as you’re just kind of driving to the grocery store and buy sold separately regular circular steering wheel that’s been tried and true for decades.

However, if you’re looking to replace your yoke, I guess they’re back ordered because they’re sold out. Um, how about you head on down to OG racing and pick up yourself a nice [01:07:00] Momo steering wheel? That’s okay because all the model wises where the steering wheel has come off in their driver’s hands, you can just pick those up on eBay.

I’m sure. I wonder if you could even like take a aftermarket steering wheel and put it on a Tesla now without the airbag situation. Right. So that’s the problem with all that. It wouldn’t, yeah, it wouldn’t pass any type of state safety. But I bet it’s not even, I’m like, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some sort of like special hub that’s.

Or Tesla, even that racing Tesla that we saw at Emera last year still had the stock steering wheel in it. Because to your point, there’s a lot of things like, you know, you have to have your hands on the wheel for the autopilot. So I’m sure even if you don’t use that stuff, it still probably freaks the car out and the software if you don’t have the wheel.

So here is one instance where I wholeheartedly advocate for changing vehicles. You’ve got a Tesla, you need a new steering wheel, just get a new fucking car. It’s appropriate. In this one instance, well, you know what is [01:08:00] not appropriate is the use of the interior cameras. It’s not just the interior cameras, it’s the exterior cameras.

Because when it’s like, oh, there’s video from within my house of myself naked, oh, looking past a window, uh, That’s not I Interior camera. Yeah. You didn’t hear about this. Apparently all the cameras on the Teslas have been record. It’s like how you gotta the, the Amazon Echo. You gotta put that little sticker on your webcam on your laptop, you know?

So the government, it’s called electrical tape. I have a yellow post-it note with a smiley face, you know, so the government ain’t looking at you topless sitting at your computer all day. I don’t know. Same thing here with the Teslas. The cameras apparently are always on and they’re always recording. And so if you are the dude or dude.

Back in wherever watching the video footage. You’re getting the show maybe? No, it’s like that movie with Robin Williams. You remember one hour photo? Oh God. It’s like super creepy. That’s the kind of people that are into this [01:09:00] stuff, right? I mean, I, I don’t know, but I don’t think they were trying to be creepy.

But it’s hard because I think I’ve heard of reports where that camera actually caught somebody trying to burglarize a home or even burglarize a car and then actually caught that person on camera. So it’s like, on the one hand you make the argument of like, okay. It’s a camera catching something. On the other hand, I don’t think these people realize it was actually doing all this stuff and okay, I can see the justification there.

I would be more okay with it. If you could say there’s an integration between Ring and the Tesla, or Blink and the Tesla, where you could say, when I arm my alarm system at the house, it can activate the cameras in the car and become part of my security system, which is actually kind of a cool idea, but that doesn’t exist.

What they’re doing here is technically illegal. They’re spying on people. They’re recording them for no apparent [01:10:00] reason without their consent. Yeah. Only the government can do that. They’re collecting data, you know, probably for the, the self-driving that information because when the car is parked, that’s a really important self-driving data.

No, the disclaimer is like when you call and you get the automated voice and it’s like, this call may be recorded for quality assurance. Like that’s the excuse that they’re using. That’s what they need when you get in the card. They need the little zoom thing that comes up that. Recording in progress and you have to hit Got it.

Or decline. If you hit decline, you can’t move the car. Exactly. So here’s another instance where I say, if you’ve got a problem with your Tesla, just go ahead and sell it for Doge. Yes. Sell it for do. That means they’re capturing all this footage. This is all footage that you can’t see. So they’re capturing footage of you that you’ll never, you cannot verify.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So who knows what they. And that part is creepy. And then them sharing it across working email, be like, look at this dingus. Oh my God, please. I can see his dingus. Oh, look at this girl’s tits. Oh my God, she really needs to close her [01:11:00] windows. Makes me wonder how good is the zoom on the cameras?

Are they able to see other sensitive information? Can they really spy on you? Eric, get on your, uh, cybersecurity soapbox. I want to hear it. No, no. We’re, we’re gonna park that for another day. Let’s do it. I want to know. But here’s the other thing. So if those cars are recording in the privacy of your home, what are they recording in public?

Uh, you know what? As I changed lanes around the tu the other day, I was like, Hmm. So are you just recording me right now? And you wonder, and then what? Your car was seized because it was at the location of a crime, and then the footage could be recalled from Tesla because the Kit 2000 is recording everything that it seized back at Tesla headquarters.

So what if your car is suddenly involved in like a murder investigation? You weren’t there. I mean, what your alibi is that you weren’t there. They can prove that, but your car was, and now it’s gonna be subpoenaed. I mean, think about that. And it is a slippery slope. But in this modern day and age, [01:12:00] if you go out in public and don’t think you’re being recorded by something at any point, you’re kind of delusional because you’re always being recorded and public.

But there’s a problem legally because there’s such a thing as consent. Yes. And in certain states, if you are being recorded, you had to have given consent to that. So even if they are recording you, I don’t think, and none of that could be used. It’s all in garbage. I didn’t give consent for you to spy on me and record what I was saying or what I, yes, I can go out and commit murders again.

Well, no, but, but the point is like, I don’t know that. It could go that far. The point is Elon is watching, that’s all we know, what he’s doing while he’s watching, I, I see it like, do you guys remember the Watchman where Omand is sitting in front of all the screens? I just had that same vision of him sitting with like a hundred monitors and like just seeing, and he’s in a throne with a cape.

That’s, that’s Elon. He’s got what’s her name and the child that’s just characters and not a real name. And his name’s Kevin. Yeah, right. Rufuss do sign asterisk pound sign L [01:13:00] 7 2 5 9 6. Decimal point star 8 32 0.59. Two Musk. But they call him Kev, like e, like ev is, oh. And their car lineup is sexy. Elon verse the world.

Let’s go there. Now we’re canceling N P R. Like seriously. It’s like the most government sponsored news outlet that ever existed. So it’s like the people that don’t listen to our Patreon. Outro on the show, do you not realize N P R exists at the behest of what’s her face? Who was the wife of Ronald McDonald?

The hamburger Happy clown. Well, you know, like 3% of NPR R’S funding does come from political backing, blah, blah, blah. Even though every year they do their NPR telephone for like a week straight to get money. Super annoying too. Again, most of the money comes from the McDonald’s people. Joan B Crock, that’s her name, right?

At the behest of Joan B. Crock, who? She was the wife of the [01:14:00] McDonald’s founder. You never watched that on that first? Oh, crock with a K. I don’t know. I was thinking Crock with a C. Yeah, Ray Croc’s wife. Exactly. The McDonald’s. Ronald McDonald, the hamburger, happy clown. Jokes aside, everybody’s always said, not popular radio, whatever I find, except during the Trump administration that their reporting has always been very neutral.

I stopped listening to NPR during that time, not because I’m a fan one way or the other, I just thought I need to just stop listening to the news period. Like it was just too much for me to handle. It is what it is. I guess. Elon’s canceling npr and NPR is canceling their Twitter account. Well, and I guess a lot of people are gonna cancel their Twitter accounts since they’re now unverified and now we can have chat G P T.

Yeah, pretend that they’re like Oprah on Twitter and Twitter’s going to a pay model soon, and like all, it’s like, who cares? Twitter’s dead, isn’t it? I was like, who cares? Not yet. But he is trying to grind it into the ground. I think trying to roll it into the Everything app that does everything but does nothing at the same time.

And in other Tesla news, they’ve like slashed their prices again, and I think [01:15:00] what came out today is like they’re. Sales or something is down 20% versus like last year or something. They have never been down. They have sold all the vehicles they have made. Is this one of those things where Elon Musk is buying all the inventory just so that you can show the numbers are going somewhere?

Yeah. Right. Exactly. So many gain. Yes. 20% drop in net income. That was the thing. They’re still holding onto those carbon credits that Chrysler doesn’t need anymore. This is like the fifth or sixth time that they’ve, oh, here’s a couple thousand dollars less, couple thousand dollars less on the price of the cars.

You’re only gonna do that if you’re not selling. Right. Your inventory, exactly. Your demand is low because if you’re still selling, you are gonna keep your price high. It’s basic economics, supply versus demand. Right. But then at the same time you hear how like they’ve sold more than ever and it’s like, okay, I’ve sold more than ever, but I lost money.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s a good business model there. Uh, my [01:16:00] expectations are lowered once again. I don’t know. Isn’t this old? Didn’t we hear about this a long time? Or is this another person who put the world’s largest ongo wagon wheels on a Tesla? The one person did it on a Hellcat. Oh, that’s what I was confused by.

And I think this is the same guy. It’s the same guy whistling diesel on YouTube. Not that I’m trying to give him more publicity than he already needs. Let’s just not talk about this. This is also the same idiot that sawed that mirror off of the Ferrari, which we were talking about on Discord. So this guy is over the top as mountain man.

Dan likes to call him. He’s a shock jock there ever was one. And he basically puts those. Stupid wagon wheels even bigger than the ones he had on the Challenger. Hellcat on a Tesla and flips it upside down. And then he is all like, your move. Elon didn’t move to do fucking what? Right. I’m like, what are you proving here that yeah, you can drive a car upside down and then use a giant crane to flip it over and you have to drive it in reverse [01:17:00] to go forward.

So yeah. And you could have done that with a metal and it doesn’t steer worth of shit. It goes straight. You’re like, what? Of course it can’t steer because there’s zero turning radius. Cuz as soon as you turn the thing, the fricking nine foot wide wheel hits the door. That’s what happened with the hell cat.

It like destroyed the car. Oh yeah, a hundred percent. It did. It was awful. I felt so bad. And that was a brand new Hellcat too pissed me off. And every car he touches, he destroys. And the bigger question I have is, where is he getting them from? Thank you. Where is he getting the money to afford this stuff?

YouTube. Yeah, but the YouTube pay models. Our garbage. If you think you’re gonna become a millionaire on YouTube, got news for you. Like the payout structures are awful. You have to have like a jillion views a second, and then they pay you like 10 bucks. Really? Why do you care? Screw that guy. Lower expectation.

Well, it’s that time that we go down south and talk about [01:18:00] alligators mirror.

Florida man and alligators drinking beer. That’s right. Beer drowning alligators. So last month we talked about the new Netflix series called Florida Man, and I vowed to you guys that I was gonna watch it and as promised I did. I binged it. I watched every episode despite the previews that show you the raccoon, Aquanet blow torch and all the other stuff that’s going on.

It is not what you think. It’s not a blur to man putting wagon wheels on a Tesla and driving around. Nope, nope, nope. So it is definitely a drama. It’s dark, it’s like a mobster type of thing. So I think Bateman produces it. So he did Ozarks. Correct. And so it has that Ozarks feel to it, right? [01:19:00] It is a little gritty at times.

The cast is interesting. Anthony LaPaglia Paise, the father of the Florida man, some hilarity ensues. There is some stupid stuff that happens. The most entertaining Florida man esque as we like to report it on this show is with the news reporter and it’s usually in the background of the scene. And she’ll be reporting upon, like the stuff that we talk about.

Florida man goes on golf course and crashes in the telephone pole and 20 miles an hour and blows up his car and an alligator eats him. You know, all that kind of stuff. And it, and so that’s in the background. And then there is another sort of ancillary character in the show that pops up and it all starts with him trying to bring a gun into Florida and buy a gun.

And he’s a cop and like all this crazy and he ends up like your typical Florida man that we talk about in these stories. He’s like, he’s wearing his basketball jersey and he is got Crocs and he’s got cracks and he is like beat up and he’s dirty and he shows up at one point on a minibike that he stole.

That character sort of [01:20:00] epitomizes all the things that we joke about, but it’s not. Theme of the show. The show is, to your point, Tanya, more like Ozarks. It’s drug running and they’re looking for gold and there’s a mobster involved. People backstabbing each other. It’s not bad. It’s actually excellent. I highly recommend watching it.

It was a great couple hours of these eight episodes. By all means, watch it. It’s actually quite good. But don’t go into the expectations of it being like, we joked about a continuation of, my name is Earl, because it’s not, it sounds like a Florida man origin story. It’s sort of click Beatty in the sense that they called it Florida Man to be sort of like Tiger King, where you wanna jump in there.

And I’m like, I gotta watch Florida, man. They called it something else. Like, I don’t wanna say it’s like Magnum pi. It’s more like in that genre. He was a cop and like all this stuff happens to him and it’s like a series of unfortunate events and they’re not that funny. You know, they’re things that happen to him and [01:21:00] he’s, you know, he is trying to work back from that, you know, arose by any other name is still the same.

But yeah, the Florida man thing gets you. But I recommend, gee, you guys gotta watch it. It’s on my list. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. You gotta finish up. Love is Blind. Love Island. Is that what you said? You’re watching? No, you know what? I thought it was gonna be light on Florida, man. And at the 11th hour I was like, let me look again and you just Google search for Florida man and see what comes up.

Oh, that’s what I always do.

I didn’t know it was a secret. No, I kid you not. I had a meeting at work. Somehow this came up and people didn’t know if you just put Florida Man or Florida man stories into Google, what it gives you back. Three people in the meeting didn’t know and they did it. And their faces like, Hit the floor. Oh, you just do floor to man click news.

So it filters down. And you just got headline after headline after. Oh yeah. They were beside themselves. And then the one guy just busted out laughing. I think he got like to the [01:22:00] bottom of, and he saw something that got his attention and he’s like, oh my God, I didn’t know this was a thing. And I’m like, wh what kind of rock have you been living under?

I mean, you can do it with any, you can do any state. Maryland man. Texas man, Michigan man, Michigan woman, California woman. You know, do whatever you want and just filter all the news headlines. But the Florida man is always the most entertaining. It’s a special breed. It really is. And we’ll see that here. I that got some nuggets.

I wasn’t expecting them. But before we go to Florida, we’re gonna go up into the Great Northwest. I haven’t read any of these. I’m going in blind for an Oregon, man. Oh, in celebration of Herb Day, we’re going to Oregon. Oregon. Oregano. Well, speaking of things that are green, this dude decided to. Wipe out all his family’s bank account, $200,000, drive down the highway and literally make it rain.

A hundred dollars. Hyundais out the windows of his Hyundai. It was a Chevy Malibu. Avi. [01:23:00] Chaos kind of ensued because when people realized there were Hyundais flying around, everybody like was pulling over and like collecting all the money. What possesses a person to do that? He wanted to share his money generously with others, except you just ripped off your, there must be more to that story nonetheless.

If you were in Oregon that day on highway something or other, you might have had a little early present there. We’ll call that a tax. This is like when the beer truck turns over. Yes, exactly. You’re scrambling to get cases of your When it’s Bud Light, nobody wants it. That’s the problem. They’re like, how don’t you wanna clean this up?

There’s a lot of people out there with no taste. It’s half the calories in the same taste. Brad, like I said, no taste. So now we’ll go to Florida. Oh, Sweetss. You gotta love it when it starts with only in Florida. Yeah, man. Spotted riding jet ski motorcycle in Cape Corral. Go ahead and click that link and check the picture out.

He [01:24:00] is literally on a jet ski converted to a motorcycle. What the hell is.

Why? Why is this a problem? Well, apparently the police would offer that it probably is illegal, not having a license plate, not having headlights, not having a rear view mirror or turning signal. No, so, so Jetskis have headlights. You can have a headlight. Well, we don’t know if this one has a headlight. It’s probably as safe as if it was a regular motorcycle.

It’s amphibious. He did the top gear challenge and made an amphibious vehicle. He built this himself. I gave him props. Yeah. Him and his, his purple backpack. I can imagine how this chase scene should have played out. All he had to do was find a boat ramp and he’d be gone. Well, not even that. Wrap the throttle bang a heart rate and go off into the swamp.

Yes. This guy’s got it figured out. This is the ultimate escape vehicle for Florida. [01:25:00] Wow. You know what? He could be onto something. He truly needs to make them amphibious and he could be onto something. He could have a business. I love the detail that was put into this. Do you see the exhaust tip, how it comes out?

The back of like that faring back there? It’s just he spilled a lot of time making this. This is amazing. This is that Florida man ingenuity. I love the backpack and the matching hat. He’s going off to school riding his jet ski. I mean, he had a jet ski and he had a motorcycle and he had one too many joints.

Let’s put ’em together. No, he was talking to some friends and God knows what they said and he goes, hold my beer. And then this came out. Oh my God. So he had a jet ski that he needed to t. But he only had a motorcycle. So he said, all right, well, if I gotta move ma, jet ski and I got a motorcycle, I’m gonna move them both at the same time.

Hold my beer. Hold my beer. But speaking of Florida, man, ingenuity. Ooh, I’m not gonna take a look at [01:26:00] this next one and let me know. Would you buy. This Ford Crown Victoria convertible. Now I look at this in the second picture. He’s got a smirk shit eating grin. I love it. He’s like, I know what I got. No low balls.

I know what I got. Why is the air filter routed with like a five inch PVC pipe up from the front of the hood up to the dashboard? This vehicle too can go in water. So therefore, if you look. He made it look like a boat. It has a boat windshield, and that’s a snorkel so that when he goes in the water, he doesn’t suck water into the motor.

God damn. You’re right. My favorite part is the temp tag. He just registered this vehicle better than the shit and grin better than obviously all lack of safety on this. Cuz if you look at the seatbelt mounts, it’s covered with foam. Right? I don’t even know how that’s bolted on. I would argue that the jet ski motorcycle is [01:27:00] safer than this.

All of this is absolutely amazing because it is almost ready for a lemons race. And at first I thought maybe, maybe just, maybe this is a lemon’s car. You’re right, actually. So it is part of the gambler 500. Okay. In Florida, which is like an off-road rally, blah, blah, blah. 2, 3, 4 day challenge. Okay. And basically yes, it’s like off-roading lemons.

Okay. But did you scroll down to the picture where he has his shit eating grin on his face? Did you look at the logo that palm tree’s got boobs that are truck nuts? I haven’t figured out which yet and I love the fact that it’s pissing rain on him the whole time.

Everything about this is awesome. Okay, our last floor to man, and there’s a water theme here. I’m [01:28:00] gonna die like my stomach hurts. Like this is going to, it can’t get any worse. Oh, it gets better. 23 year old man in his Nissan Sentra crossed the center line, collided with a semi-truck. So had an accident.

First thought you have an accident. Get naked. Get naked, and run into the swamp because I’m gonna be less noticeable. Naked going through a swamp. I’m gonna be less noticeable as gator food. While he was looking for the jet ski motorcycles. So you get away. I think that’s like step one in the Florida man handbook.

Step one, no matter what you did, step one, get naked. You got, you gotta reduce the drag and save some weight so you can run faster. Simplify and add lateness. Simplify and add nudity. Lord of man motto, Harlan Chapman had it right. This guy is brave. Brave, brave is the word. Yes. Yes. I don’t know that that I would [01:29:00] use that particular, no, no adjective.

Describe this guy. The other ones were taken but brave. I say because he got naked and jumped into a swamp at 8:30 PM Ooh, you can’t see what shit’s out there. What swamp thing’s there to eat you. Oh, that’s, that is he got, he got in so deep. Apparently he was happy when the cops found him cuz he wanted to get the F out of there.

But don’t anything scary swampland. Is it in the water? Is it something about when the water evaporates and goes into the air that people just go crazy in Florida? Like, you know, they say it’s because of the water. That New York bagels are so good. So I could see something down in Florida causing all these people doing shit.

I figured it out. It’s from all the drug running in the eighties. There’s so much cocaine in the water. It’s just everywhere. It’s like that cocaine bear thing you see on, oh my God, they should just [01:30:00] rename Florida cocaine. It was Cougar Town now. Now Cocaine town. Woo. So now it’s time to go behind the pit wall and talk about news.

Brad and Tanya are resident formula and experts. What has been going on? There was a race. It ended poorly. You’re welcome. Mic truck. It depends on your perspective, but that was a cluster. Oh my god. The, the end of that fucking so many wrecks. Apparently they let a bunch of club racers out in an F1 track.

Yes, it was romper room. Who We even won that one. Vern. Vern. Hamilton, Alonzo and then Alonzo, he lost five spots and had to give it to Russell. He was given a five second penalty, took him off the podium and put Russell on the podium, and then about an hour later that penalty was reversed and then they put Alonzo back on the podium.

Then Russell off the podium. Was that that race or the race before that Was Australia, Russell crashed. He was crashed out or no, his, his car broke. He was DN FD in Australia. Was he? I think [01:31:00] that was the race before, cuz Alonzo also came in third in Saudi. I think that was the one that had the uh, podium. I retracted but Russell came in fourth there, but he dn FD in Australia because like, sorry, Mark Hewitt.

I retracted my statement. Eight cars, dn, fd, and like six of those eight was because they crashed into each other. Driving in Florida it was bad. It was romper room, but we’ve been on spring break for the last couple weeks, so there has been no races since April 2nd, and the next upcoming races, the 30th and Azerbaijan, you know, I’m really glad that they get a break.

You know, they work so hard. They really deserve a spring. And a summer break. I’m so happy for them to get quick respite from all the hard work that they put in. They are athletes. Let’s give them that. I know, I know. I’m, I’m, I say that in jest, but whatever. So there’s some interesting changes happening now that Formula w has been on pause.

Formula one, the F I A made an announcement that there’s a new Formula Academy for [01:32:00] women drivers coming on. They’ve got five teams already lined up and they’re, I think the inaugural season opener race is coming up in Austria on 28th, 29th, so it’s right ahead of the Azure Baja Men’s Formula One race on April 30th.

And this program is actually being managed. The director of this is Susie Wolf, and if Wolf sounds familiar, it should, because that is Toto Wolf’s wife, team principal for Mercedes, the most overpaid person in Formula One right now. I mean, he’s not having a good year, but we’ll see if they can turn it around.

He’s still getting paid. Good year, bad year. He is still making that Doge coin. I mean, you know, we’ve been talking a lot this season about W R R C and at the time of this recording here on Earth Day, we are just ahead of the Croatia rally, but that. Also comes at the heels of some very sad news and a statement from Hyundai Motorsports on April the 13th, [01:33:00] 2023.

Hyundai Motorsport is deeply saddened to confirm that W R C driver Craig Breen lost his life during an accident. During pre-event testing for the Croatia rally, co-driver James Fulton was unharmed in the incident that occurred just after midday local time on the 13th. And Hyundai Motorsport sends its sincerest condolences to Craig’s family, friends and his many fans.

Hyundai Motorsport will make no further comments at this time as WRC fans. You know, we’ve been talking about Craig and his progress and some awesome results he’s had at the last three rounds of the 2023 season wrc, and he was one of our hopefuls. Definitely not an underdog, a contender to take the crown this year.

And I think we’re all shocked and saddened by the sudden news and the sudden passing of Craig Breen. And I think I saw something where Toyota was only gonna run two cars or something like that to kind of limit the amount of points that they could take away from the race and some sort of show of solidarity for Yeah.

Missing man type of thing. [01:34:00] Yeah, because Hyundai is down a driver now. They’ve just got Terry Newville. They haven’t said who’s gonna fill his spot. It is a little quick to just jump into that, you know, maybe one of the backup drivers. Again, we won’t have results from Croatia or any additional news until next month’s drive-through, so we’ll be paying attention to that to see what the changes are for Hyundai.

But again, all of us deeply saddened by the passing of Craig. Motor sports history being kept alive by our friends at the International Motor Racing Research Center, and we are happy to have them here as a sponsor of our Motor Sports News. So again, it’s brought to you in partnership with them. Check out what they’re doing over@racingarchives.org.

If you’re interested in helping preserve racing history, the I M R R C has opened officially their sweepstakes for this year. You could be a winner and come home with a 2024 Co. E Ray in a Hyper Silver with [01:35:00] blue Pinstriping package, there’s a promo code, so you can actually buy more tickets for less money.

The code is E Ray launch. The details are in our show notes. They’re on our website. You can go to racing archives.org, click on sweepstakes for the 2024 Corvette E three LZ convertible, and that will be running through April, 2024. Also, if you haven’t, or you’re just now tuning into Break Fix for the first time, season four is going to be showcasing a mini-series in partnership with the I M R R C and the Society of Automotive Historians, where we’re going to be bringing to light a lot of really cool topics about racing history.

So tune in each month for new episodes, brought to you by the I M R R C and the s a h. Upcoming local news and events brought to us by collector car guide.net, the ultimate reference for car enthusiasts. Coming up in May, we’ve got the project, EG. Mountain Takeover, [01:36:00] May 4th through May 7th, that will be held across four states, Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

The description shows a closed off mountain roads closed off tunnel drags. Airport runs. Police escort. Need I say more? That sounds like a pretty awesome event to me. Where are the police escorting you to? Probably across state lines, get outta my states. Also, the Golden Gears 50th anniversary car and truck show is May 6th and Frederick Maryland.

The Dana MEMS 36th original Spring Classic, May 12th through the 20th and Indianapolis State Fairgrounds Music mimosa’s Mother’s Day weekend. May 13th and 14th at Volo Museum Drive toward a Cure, the Alisal Ranch getaway. May 15th through 17th at Alisal Ranch in California. The description is Drive toward a cure, is constantly imagining, investigating new programs to directly benefit Parkinson’s disease patients and research programs.

Something old, something new, [01:37:00] something to look forward to. The I M R R C Corvette Festival will occur May 20th and 21st at Clte Park in Watkins Glen, New York. And the great Pocono Raceway Air Show May 27th through 28th at ue, Pocono Raceway, and tons more events like this and all their details are available over@collectorcarguide.net.

Now it’s time for our h hpd junkie.com Trackside report. What’s going on here in early spring in our area? Speedo de Mayo event with H O D Southeast is on Friday, may the fifth. It’s a one day event at Florida International Rally and Motorsports Park, also known as the firm. Like the movie, John Grisham will be there for $189.

So there’s some updates here for H O D Northeast that came across our desk. There’s a couple new events that they’ve added to the schedule. On June the third, they’re gonna be at Pocono and they’re hosting a one day event on the 21 turn mega course, 3.51 mile mega [01:38:00] course at Pocono. It’s where they use every bit of the track except for NASCAR turn three.

So that’s all the infields and two-thirds of the NASCAR oval. We’ve done that configuration several times before. If you’ve never done it before, it is the biggest, baddest configuration at Pocono, and it is definitely worth trying out. And usually at the end of that day, they will open up the circuit and allow you to run the tricky triangle.

So if you want to get your NASCAR fantasy on, that’s a good time to do it. There’s also an un muffled day at Lime. It’s two half-day open track sessions at Limerock on Friday, June the ninth from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM and on Saturday June the 10th from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. But again, the best of all for these two half-day events is that there are no sound restrictions, so you don’t have to worry about getting thrown out of Limerock because your Miatas with its stock exhaust is too loud.

At the same time, h o D has partnered with Trackmaster to offer discounted rates for all H O D novice and intermediate level drivers for three two day event. [01:39:00] At Watkins Glen in 2023, so you’ll see familiar faces to help ensure you have a great Monday, Tuesday at these track events. And make sure to wave to Kenny Avner as he points you by in his Miata.

More details on that. If you check out Hooked on Driving, you can also. Register on Motor Sports Reg. Take advantage of this current offering and opportunity of events at Pocono Limerock and at Watkins Glen and you can save $50 on any Trackmaster’s two day H B D event as well. Again, we wanna remind you as a thank you for everyone being loyal supporters of G T M and fans of Break Fix.

Mike and Mona from Hooked On Driving our offering a discount all season on their H P D events can use Code Break Fix 23 to receive a discount on your event registration at checkout. So thank you all again for being supporters of our efforts and tune in throughout the year for more promotions. So does that discount only apply to H O D Northeast and does not apply to H O D Southeast with, uh, Steve?

So I have heard from Steve [01:40:00] Ferman that the code does work or is supposed to work on southeast events. That was sort of the original plan. I haven’t had anybody test it to confirm. I know that people have used our code for the Northeast events, so it does work, but if it doesn’t work for some reason, please reach out to us and let us know.

All right, so news from S C C A, there’s a lot of people that are sort of upset about this. There’s some changes coming to our favorite registration platform, Motorsports reg.com payment policies. Have been changed, and they’ve announced that they’re introducing an added fee to processing of every event entry through their system.

So this applies to not only S E C A, but other events that use M S R, like track days, like nasa, whoever. It’s not that anybody’s leaving the platform, but they just wanna make you aware that there’s now an experiential fee that will be added to people’s registration. And it’s a who. $2. So there’s some people that are very upset about that.

Bake it into the cost. [01:41:00] Whatever you wanna do. Honestly, I think Ticketmaster charges a lot more for their convenience fees. Cool. And experiential fees. So two bucks isn’t so bad. At the end of the day, but yet just be aware that they are changing this policy and it will show up and you’re like, Hey, where’d this extra two bucks come from?

What does it go for? But M S R has stated specifically, a $2 fee is applied once and only once to all registrations with an entry fee. Fee registrations such as those for volunteers, workers, instructors, crew, et cetera, are not charged and nor will volunteer registration be charged. Registrations paid entirely by credits on file are not charged the fee.

So the booking fee can be refunded if the registration is refunded in full. The long and short of that disclaimer is that this only really applies to people that are paying full boat for an event on M S R. So those of us that are instructors, et cetera, this is pretty much moot. So, but we just wanted to bring it to your attention.

Why did they feel the need to point out it’s paid once and [01:42:00] only once. In what instance would it not be paid once? I don’t under. I don’t understand. And that’s misleading too. It’s not like a one-time membership fee. Yeah, that’s what it sounds like. They make it sound like we’re going to charge you one time, a $2 fee.

No, it’s once per registration. Exactly. Exactly. So again, thank you for clarifying that, Brad, because you’re not getting an M S R membership of any sort. It’s just a $2 fee every time you sign up for an event. Capitalism. In case you missed out, check out the other podcast episodes that aired this month. We rounded out International Women’s Month with an extra episode where we chatted with a third generation S C C A club racer Taylor Hyatt and her plans to get more ladies on track.

Kat DeLorean. Return to break fix to introduce us to Rimac Bugatti designer Angel Guerra from Seville, Spain, who is determined to bring the steel bodied gull wing door, D m C 12 squarely into the 21st century with a next generation concept. We welcome back Steve from everything I learned from movies. To help us review Lamborghini, the man behind the [01:43:00] Legend.

The last of the cheap Porsches, the 9 24 s and 9 44. Might not have the panache of the nine 11, but that’s okay. Kevin Duffy from 9 2 4 s nine four four.com joins us to discuss why you should consider buying one as your next collector vehicle. We wanted to let you know we did some spring cleaning on our YouTube channels.

Yes, we have channels now. You can find all your favorite break fix and long format content on our new at Gran Touring Motorsports Media channel. So please hop over there and resubscribe to get all the latest updates and notifications. All of our clubhouse material will remain on our existing at Gran Touring Motorsports.

Sorry about the inconvenience, but it’s a new season with all sorts of great changes coming your way. That’s right. And speaking of great changes and people supporting us and giving a helping hand. A shout out to our new Patreon supporter, mark Shank. Our resident nineties expert stepped up to the plate and is helping us out.

Again, every dollar accounts, every dollar helps keep [01:44:00] the show going, keep the lights on, help us pay for all the really cool technology and all the changes that we’re making to make things better, easier, more efficient, and more entertaining for all of our listeners out there. So if you haven’t signed up for Patreon, check it out.

patreon.com/gt motors. We’ve got a few anniversaries to shout out Here we’ve got Amer and Christine Abdu Wall are celebrating six years with GTM Todd Lilly. Our most recent G tmr Award winner is celebrating two years with the club and Graham Clemson and his low cost Super seven are also celebrating two years with us.

If you’d like to become a member of gtm, be sure to check out the new clubhouse website@club.gt motorsports.org to learn. And special thanks to l Hehe. Does that make us l g t? Does that work? L g t. Tanya wants to know why we’re saying things in these weird voices and it stems from our discord. If you’d like to be a part of the [01:45:00] conversation, join us on Discord.

Us for keeping the show going cuz we don’t have any guests. But we need one for next month. We need a guest for next month. So Mark Hewitt, get off the the cans and join us on an episode. Why don’t ya see, this is why he apologized at the beginning of the episode. Yes, because I’m gonna call you out throughout the episode now through the whole season.

Yes. Every episode I’m on, I’d like to apologize to Mark Hewitt. I’d like to apologize, Mark Hewitt and of course our co-host and executive producer Tanya. Thank you. Woo. That’s right. And remember, for everything we talked about on this episode and more, be sure to check out the follow on articles and show notes available at www.gtasingrandtouringmotorsportswithans.org.

All the members who. Without you, none of this would be possible. Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay? Any, are you okay? [01:46:00] All of it is amazing. Can I say something? Yes. Can you all both look at this picture of this guy smirking and tell me that’s not John cfii. Project Motoring sponsored this vehicle. He, he’s supplied all the same, all the safety equipment.

Oh, you’re gonna have to cut this shit out. Oh, I’m leaving it in just for you.

Oh, that’s so good. And we.

Well here we are in the drive through line. Me and her cars in front of us, cars in back of us all. Just waiting to order. There’s a idiot in a Volvo with us. Bright son behind me. Hi Lena. The window and scream. Hey, watch ya. Tryna do blind me, my wife says Maybe we.[01:47:00]

If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour 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 crew chief gt motorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you. Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.

For as little as $2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of Fig [01:48:00] Newton’s, gummy bears, and Monster. Consider signing up for Patreon today at www.patreon.com/gt motorsports. And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be.