B/F: The Drive Thru #68

• Hertz's Shelby-Branded Ford Mustang Mach-E GTs Are Hitting the Market at a Big Discount -- The electric SUVs have Borla's fake exhaust and the classic black-and-gold Hertz Mustang appearance.

• EXPLAINED: Why Leclerc was hit with a 20-second time penalty after the Miami Grand Prix

• Mitsubishi Rarely Recalls Anything, Then 108,000 Outlanders Got A Letter -- A familiar Outlander defect just pulled more than 108,000 vehicles back into dealerships, and the cause traces to a single corroded part

• 2,200-Kilometer 1992 Volkswagen Scirocco GT II 5-Speed

• The Last BMW Z4 Has Been Made, Ending Nearly 30 Years of Roadsters -- The last BMW roadster for the foreseeable future has officially rolled off the production line in Austria.
• 2027 BMW M3 Handschalter Breaks the Rules by Giving the CS a Manual -- BMW says goodbye to the sixth-gen M3 with this lightweight, rear-drive CS that's also the only one to ever have three pedals.
• 2027 Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Is the Porsche Taycan's New Nemesis -- Mercedes-AMG introduces an electric rocketship that bucks the trend of automakers that are retreating from the EV space.

• NASCAR icon Kyle Busch dies at the age of 41
• Analysis: How dominant was Max Verstappen at the Nurburgring 24 Hours? -- Verstappen left a lasting impression on the 'Green Hell', but what do the cold, hard numbers reveal about his performance in the Winward-Mercedes?

• EXCLUSIVE: Monopoly F1 Edition Board Game Revealed With Its Own Monopoly Grand Prix -- This special edition version arrives in July.
• I Guess I’m Buying Red Bull F1 Crocs Now -- If you missed out on the Lightning McQueen Crocs a few years back, here's your chance to wear little F1 cars on your feet.

• Chrysler Killed The Voyager And Pacifica Hybrid, And Now It’s Considering This -- Following a warm reception from fans, Chrysler is reportedly weighing a production version of the Grizzly Peak concept
• Stellantis Employees Complain Of 'Nose Bleeds, Migraines, Vomiting, Skin Issues, Digestive Issues' After Returning To The Office Five Days A Week
• Stellantis unveils two major partnerships as strategy shifts

• Tesla Recalls RWD Cybertruck For Wheels That Could Fall Off, Inadvertently Revealing It Only Sold 173 Of Them
• Minivan to the Rescue: Beached Cybertruck Extracted by a Rental-Spec Sienna -- Of course you want to enjoy some Cybertruck schadenfreude on a Friday morning.

• VW Sounds The Alarm: 'We Must Fundamentally Transform Our Business Model' -- More cost-cutting is on the way.
• Volkswagen Golf Mk9 Will Bring Back Mk4-Inspired Design -- With the promise of reestablishing the brand’s identity, VW CEO Thomas Schäfer is making a lot of promises for the Mk9 Golf.
• 2027 Volkswagen ID.Buzz Returns, Now with a Version for Campers -- VW's modern-day Microbus is back for the 2027 model year, and the lineup now includes a Tourer model.
• Why Porsche’s EVs are a competitive advantage: Opportunity in Uncertainty
• Porsche announces 2026 Cayenne Electric Coupe: When does an SUV become a sport sedan?
• Can Shift-by-Wire Save the Manuals? -- A recent patent filing indicates that Porsche may be developing a gearbox that functions as both an automatic and a traditional stick-shift. But can a simulated manual transmission satisfy those who are used to the real thing?
• Porsche Just Stole Back the Nurburgring EV Record With a Third of the Power: TDS -- Big power only gets you so far at the Green Hell, as a Taycan Turbo GT beat the 3,000-hp Yangwang U9 Xtreme's time by four seconds.

Another thing we don't want...

The road to our first 24 Hours of Lemons race continues, and this time it took us to a parking lot with a dead Ford Fusion, a too‑small trailer, and a desperate hunt for wheels that wouldn’t doom us to running 900‑treadwear all‑seasons. What should have been a simple tire upgrade spiraled into a downhill‑gravity‑assisted loading attempt, a hood jammed under a tire rack, and an unopened bottle of antifreeze being used as an emergency wheel chock. As Crew Chief Eric put it, “Not only do I go all the way up, I hit the wheel rack with the hood… I don’t care about this car anyway.”

CHECK OUT THE BUILD UPDATE ON THE GTM CLUBHOUSE SITE.

But somehow, out of the chaos came victory: a set of 18×8 Fusion wheels, a fresh set of General G‑MAX RS tires, and a Lemons Focus that suddenly looked like a budget Focus ST ready for battle. The donor Fusion? Hauled away by CashforCars.com in the easiest part of the entire ordeal. The race car? One step closer to the grid — though with the way this saga has gone, we’re still knocking on wood and whispering prayers that an engine swap isn’t lurking in our future.

There's more to this story!

All of our BEHIND THE SCENES (BTS) Break/Fix episodes are raw and unedited, and expressly shared with the permission and consent of our guests.

Executive Producer Tania: [00:00:00] Welcome to Brake Fix’s Drive Thru News, your monthly recap for everything fast, fascinating, and usually four-wheeled. We’re serving up a fresh batch of automotive headlines, motorsports madness, and car-adjacent curiosities, all with zero wait time and maximum flavor. From Formula 1 drama to concept car debuts, with garage-built legends to the quirkiest stories rolling out of the state of Florida, we’ve got your fix.

So grab your coffee, buckle up, and let’s cruise through the latest in the world of wheels with a side of entertainment and just a dash of tire smoke

Crew Chief Eric: Bradley, Bradley, Bradley, look. Magic. I’ve done magical things for this drive-through episode. Look, look, I can do cool things with the articles in the background.

I’m the man in the box.

Crew Chief Brad: Nice.

Crew Chief Eric: You like that? Can

Crew Chief Brad: we put on something more interesting in this picture-in-picture?

Crew Chief Eric: No, because we’re gonna start talking about Volkswagen. This is it, man. This is this year’s big best of episode. We can’t do Tesla anymore. We already had Formula 1 [00:01:00] Showcase, which spun off into its own show, which we’ll get to later.

We’ve done all the Florida man stuff every other year. We’re gonna focus on Volkswagen, because what else is there to focus on?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, you know, with what happened to Pumpkin Spice, I told like 15 people, “I am done with Volkswagen. I will never own another Volkswagen ever again.” And I am here to tell you today I’m the proud owner of another Volkswagen.

Crew Chief Eric: This is why our showcase is What Should I Buy?, or as you like to say, “What the hell was I thinking?”

Crew Chief Brad: So i- i- in my defense

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, here we go. Order in the court …

Crew Chief Brad: uh, I- I’m one for four for running and driving cars. At least this one runs and drives. It’s got Virginia state inspection. It’s been on the road, and it moves under its own power, quite well actually.

Crew Chief Eric: [00:02:00] Okay, you, you’ve set up the lead. Now let’s go 72 hours ago and rewind the clock

Brad, start at the beginning.

Crew Chief Brad: So we’re gonna go back even further than that. Everybody saddle up to the campfire. Papa’s got a story for you all.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, this is beyond dashboard confessional.

Crew Chief Brad: This is my confession. It’s the summer of 2000. Baby Brad, 19 years old, was driving around in a little red Honda Civic, 125, 130,000 miles, living my best poor man life.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey, that was a really good Civic, though.

Crew Chief Brad: I never should’ve gotten rid of that car. You know, in retrospect I should’ve kept it, but you know, hindsight, 20/20, all that good stuff. I get a wild hair up my ass that I’m gonna buy myself a new car, and I know absolutely nothing about cars. You and I hadn’t started hanging out again yet after high school.

I’m just farting [00:03:00] around through life, you know, not knowing anything about cars, but I get the idea that I’m gonna buy myself a new car. And one of my friends mentions, “Oh, you should look at Volkswagen.” It’s like, okay. So I pull into a dealership, and sitting there- Jesus …

Crew Chief Eric: is this

Crew Chief Brad: bright blue Turbo Beetle, and it was a brand-new color for the year, vortex blue.

And I was like, “Okay, I’m gonna test drive this car.” And I test drove it, and I loved it. It was great. It handled well, had plenty of power. It was the fastest thing I had ever driven to that point. And then I go home, and I’m, like, thinking about it, and then I talk to my friends some more. And it was like, “Well, why would you buy the Beetle?

Why don’t you just get the GTI? It’s the same car.” I was like, “Okay, true, true.” And then I put in a order for a black GTI, and that’s how I ended up with the very first GTI, ever, very first Mark 4 I ever bought. Fast-forward to, as Eric said, 72 hours ago. Somebody in our friend group had a line on a Beetle for sale, vortex blue, pretty much s- same year, same specs, the exact same car minus [00:04:00] the faded paint, that I test drove all the way back when I started this entire Volkswagen s- obsession.

So this morning I went, I looked at it, I liked it, had plenty of power, handled well. It, it’s in really, really good shape for a car with 160,000 miles on it, and I bought it. So there you go. Eric’s got the, on the screen right there, vortex blue, one of 2,000 brought to the US in that color. Now granted, the front end is completely faded.

Somebody parked it directly facing mercury. Uh, and, but other than that, the rest of the car is, like, tip-top. It’s perfectly clean. Under the hood is really clean. It ran really well. It, it has Virginia tags on it. It’s got a Virginia state inspection. It actually is street legal, which is a first in, like, three cars that I’ve bought.

Crew Chief Eric: And the windows go up and down too, right? I mean, there’s a story

Crew Chief Brad: there. The windows go up and down, the sunroof opens, the trunk opens, the hood opens, although the little, the plastic pin to pull the- Mm-hmm … the hood latch broke. Um, but we were able to get it open, and they were [00:05:00] gonna MacGyver it to stay.

Yeah. So that may be something I need to look at. And it’s got BBS wheels on it, so you can’t go wrong with that. Although one of the BBS center caps does not stay for whatever, or doesn’t fit for whatever reason. You can only turn it a little bit, and they’re three-piece center caps. For whatever reason- Oh, that’s right

BBS in their infinite wisdom made three-piece center caps. So I need to source a center cap.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, no, no, that’s perfect. So wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. Again, you have jumped right to the punchline without telling the joke.

Crew Chief Brad: Is it the joke? Do, do I need to back up and talk about Pumpkin Spice?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we’re going to, and, and if Mark Hewitt’s been paying attention this entire time, which he has been, he takes copious notes on every Drive Thru episode, we all know that you bought Pumpkin Spice back in October.

So it’s been six months, let’s just say. We had a couple of months of winter where we didn’t do anything with the car, it just sort of sat there in, in the snow. So Pumpkin Spice lived a very interesting and sordid life.

Crew Chief Brad: I think lived is a stretch. It was on life support. It was a vegetable, and we we, we, we decided to not resuscitate.

Crew Chief Eric: But we took it down [00:06:00] from the mountain, and we brought it back to life, and it ran. And we started doing things to it, and more work to it, more work to it, trying to make it more like your old silver GTI, Eddie, for those that know its nickname. So we tried to get it to that point. And I’ll say I think we made really good progress with the car.

Things were really looking up, wouldn’t you say?

Crew Chief Brad: It, it seemed like it was close to roadworthy, to the point where I thought I was gonna bring it down here to Richmond. So I got it tagged and titled and, granted, I did vintage tags, so it wasn’t gonna be state inspected or anything like that. But I was moving forward hopeful, and then we ran into a brick wall.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m, I’m gonna admit it on radio, I got a little miffed, ’cause I was like, “Do you remember the 924? Do you remember going through that nightmare? Don’t put tags on it yet.” Like, I was 90% confident in this car, but there was always something in the back of my mind that was like, “There’s something off.

Something’s not right.” Especially when we kept hearing the previous owner took it to the track and parked it because it [00:07:00] overheated, and there was no indication any time we ran the car, moved the car. I ran it up and down the road. It drove a little schizophrenic, but there was never an indication that was like, man, this car overheated and, like, Chernobyl-ed in the paddock at Summit Point.

So I was like, what exactly is going on with this car?

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, this is after, like, running it and letting it run- Yeah … for, like, 20, 30 minutes. No issues whatsoever.

Crew Chief Eric: Right. And so what’s super funny about that is I finally got to the point where I was telling you, “Hey, I gotta wrap up these things, do this kinda stuff.”

I had done a buncha cooling stuff up at the front. We knew the radiator fans didn’t work, and the radiator didn’t look so hot, so I was like, “Let me take all this apart.” We had an aluminum radiator sitting around, so I put that in, and it was leaking because, like any 20-year-old Volkswagen, the stupid flanges, the O-rings rot, and then as soon as you touch them, everything starts leaking.

So we ordered new ones, got it all together, started putting water in it. I wanted to run it. You know, you do the typical flush, right? Flush everything out. You put water in it, run it through the heater core, make sure there’s no air in the [00:08:00] system. And because it was warm outside, I didn’t put any freeze in it yet, thank God.

Needless to say, there’s a stain in my driveway, but that’s okay. But that’s a result of the fact that as I was pouring literally clean water from, as Tanya likes to say, 150 feet below my house, there’s nothing in it, pure clean well water into the thing to, you know, just flush things through. I noticed that the water was turning brown.

And not in a New York City in the ’80s, I opened the hot water and brown came out. It was clear, and then you would just see this stream of brown coming into it, and it would get darker and darker. So I flushed it and flushed it and flushed it. And it just kept coming back, and I’m like, “The hell is going on?”

So Tanya had come over, and then our new neighbor, who’s a car guy, comes over and he’s like, “Uh, this looks no bueno.” And I’m like, “Yeah.” ‘Cause the engine, again, not a single ounce of smoke out the back, not an indication that the head gasket was trash. The water was mixing with the oil through the water jackets and not through the cylinder, so you could argue that’s the better way [00:09:00] to do it.

And the, the death knell discovered when we pulled the dipstick and frothy chocolate milk water was coming out of the oil pan, that your motor was basically hosed.

Crew Chief Brad: Yep.

Crew Chief Eric: So that’s how we ended up with The Bug.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s how we ended up with Pumpkin Spice Part Two. Where do

Crew Chief Eric: we have-

Executive Producer Tania: Does this one have a name yet?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, we gotta

Crew Chief Brad: name it

Crew Chief Eric: now. Uh,

Crew Chief Brad: I, I, I don’t have a name for it yet. We need to figure that out. It looks like a Smurf. Inspiring. But it, it should not be a Smurf. I, uh, it’s gotta be something more manly than that, whatever, Vortex Blue.

Crew Chief Eric: Blueberry, Smurfette.

Crew Chief Brad: It could be l- it could be Blueberry. We could go, like, Letterkenny and, uh, Shoresy, and, and it, it’s sponsored by the Blueberry Farm or the Blueberry Syndicate or whatever.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, that’s right.

Executive Producer Tania: He’s blue, da ba dee, da ba die.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, that’s awesome. Oh, I didn’t even think about that. It’s gonna be our theme song. We should do a Top Gear thing and wire it to the horn. Every time you hit the horn it plays that song.

Crew Chief Brad: That would be perfect, because I never use the horns.

Crew Chief Eric: Ah, [00:10:00] blue, da ba dee, da ba die, da.

Or you could be Blue Man. Oh, dude, talk about a Halloween car. You could do blue face like Blue Man, like Arrested Development you know? Like Tobias Fünke, and then at, at Halloween you get out of the blue car and you’re all blue and like, “Look what it did to me. Look!” It’s that Honda virus

Crew Chief Brad: No, I think I just came up with something.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, what’d you come up with?

Crew Chief Brad: Who was the girl in Willy Wonka that ate the blueberry candy-

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, um- … and

Crew Chief Brad: turned into, like, the giant blueberry?

Crew Chief Eric: Veruca’s a good name for that car. I think that’ll work.

Executive Producer Tania: No.

Crew Chief Brad: I think it was the other chick.

Executive Producer Tania: Wasn’t it Violet Beauregarde?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, Violet Beauregarde.

Crew Chief Eric: Veruca’s the other one then, the one with the, the nuts.

Executive Producer Tania: The one with the chicken.

Crew Chief Eric: The squirrel in the, in the Johnny Depp version.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, yeah, Veruca Salt.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, also

Crew Chief Eric: a bane. She’s the one where she’s, like, spoiled. She’s, like, super rich or whatever.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. “Daddy.” She’s the one who was singing In The Room With The Chickens.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Violet Beauregarde was the blueberry girl.

Crew Chief Brad: Violet Beauregarde.

Crew Chief Eric: There you go.

Executive Producer Tania: I do declare, Mr. Beauregarde. [00:11:00]

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, but do you know him? Does he call you at home?

Executive Producer Tania: Does he have a doorstop in?

Crew Chief Brad: But, uh, yeah, I, I, I… To be determined on the name. Yeah. Uh, and also I need to figure out, like, what’s going on with the orange car. What are you g- what do you guys wanna take off of it?

What can I have off of it? Do I wanna try and take the turbo and all that stuff off ’cause I just bought a new, or didn’t I buy an intercooler or whatever? I, I don’t know. We, we, we’ve gotta talk about all that stuff offline, like what I’m keeping from the orange car, what you guys are keeping from the orange car and-

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Yeah, I would say your control arms are probably ready to be taken off and moved. They’re brand new. They’ve never been on the road. You know- Yeah … stuff like that, so yeah, that’s totally doable.

Crew Chief Brad: And the exhaust, like, is the exhaust interchangeable?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, all that stuff changes over.

Crew Chief Brad: Because this car is stock exhaust.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay.

Crew Chief Brad: So the exhaust and then, um, I mean, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll talk about it, but- Yeah … yeah, we, we need to, to work out all that.

Crew Chief Eric: So basically what you’re saying is you will have a tropical orange two-door Mark 4 GTI shell available to anybody that wants it.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes. [00:12:00] Yeah. But we didn’t tell the story about the first issue-

that we found with the car.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, please inform our audience.

Crew Chief Brad: So I, because I live in Richmond, have a hard time getting up to where Eric and Tanya and where the car is currently located. So they took it upon themselves to try and put in some work and turn some wrenches on it during some free time, just to get the project moving in a direction.

And as they were doing this, lining up the body panels, putting everything on, they noticed something. The driver’s side didn’t quite line up. It was off, what? About an inch? Inch and a half? Yeah. Something like that. So after looking at it, they looked at the frame rail, and it was cocked. It was pointing down towards the ground about an inch.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like melty face.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, yeah. It, it, it was… It had, uh… It was like Picasso had put the frame together. So, so yeah, it was gonna need to go to a frame shop, and I called around, could barely find one person that was willing to work on it, and it was this guy who was a [00:13:00] body shop guy, but he basically does frame work on the side-

FLORIDA MAN: Yeah

Crew Chief Brad: down here in Richmond. And I was like, “Okay, that’s not terrible.” The whole selling point of the car was, like, the motor with the upgraded turbo and all that stuff, so once that blew, then the whole project was dead at that point. For me. Yeah. In my heart, the project was dead.

Crew Chief Eric: Poor Pumpkin Spice.

Crew Chief Brad: And then I swore off Mark 4s for the rest of my life, and now here I am, the proud owner of a blueberry Beetle.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re having a hard time getting that out. It’s, you’re like, you’re stumbling on the, “I own a Beetle now,” grr.

Crew Chief Brad: You know, it’s, it, it’s… I have my own insecurities about being a man driving a Beetle, especially one colored like a Smurf. But also, it made me happy driving it, so I just need to get over myself and just be happy driving a Beetle.

Crew Chief Eric: See? The Beetle’s like the neon, it just makes you smile, and you’re like, “Ee.” It

Crew Chief Brad: does. Like, even, like, the doors have the blue paint.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Just like the old Beetles, and it’s- Yep … it’s just like, [00:14:00] I didn’t realize that when I got in. I was like, “Oh, it’s the blue carries into the”… And it, so it’s just a whole thing, and it just made me smile.

Crew Chief Eric: Does it have the flower vase?

Crew Chief Brad: No, the guy replaced the flower vase and put a skull. Which is even better. You know, he real- really butched it up there with the skull. But- Yeah … you know, whatever. Either I don’t know how much power or how quick a stock Mark4 was, or this car is putting out more power than-

Crew Chief Eric: It’s probably chipped

Crew Chief Brad: because it pulled really, really well. It, it reminded me of driving Eddie.

Crew Chief Eric: Nice.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. Nice. So when I come up, I’ll drive it, and you guys can take a look at it, ’cause we got a… There’s a list of little things that need to be done on it. Yeah. Like, getting brake calipers, the front calipers should probably be changed, uh, and stuff like that, so.

Crew Chief Eric: Nice.

Crew Chief Brad: But the timing belt and all that’s been done.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah, that’s what Mark was saying, like, that a whole bunch of money had been poured into the car.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: When you look at it from that perspective, and that it was mechanic-maintained and stuff like that, it’s a good deal for what you got it for.

Without talking about price, I think you [00:15:00] did really well.

Crew Chief Brad: I, I think so, too. Had I found this car before I ventured down the pumpkin spice alley, I would be a blueberry man from the beginning.

Crew Chief Eric: All right, so in all fairness, when you went to go look at the Beetle, you were also tempted by another Porsche mistress, were you not?

Crew Chief Brad: I did not even bother looking at it. Oh. I, I saw it. So I saw it because it was parked in Mark’s driveway, and Mark that we’re talking about is Mark Francis, who works for OG. So if anybody needs any safety gear, please go shout out Mark. Good guy. Um, but no, so I mean, you know me. I, I flirt with the idea.

I’ve always wanted a P car, like a running, driving P car. You know, 924 side. And, uh, like, it was very tempting, but going on this journey of finding out about myself and going through therapy and all this other stuff, I’m realizing things about myself. Like yeah, it would be great to have that Porsche, but I’m not that guy.

I don’t have the resources, I don’t have the money, I don’t have the expertise to drive a 40-year-old Porsche and continue maintaining it and keep it on the road. I just, I, I can’t do that. Have enough time [00:16:00] keeping an old Mark4 Volkswagen on the road, let alone a P car. So I didn’t even, I didn’t even tempt myself.

I saw it, I was like, “That’s a nice looking car,” and then I walked right over to the Beetle.

Crew Chief Eric: Good for- You know what? Bravo, Brad. Bravo for resisting the temptress that is the- Mm … 944, because it, it’s, it was one of those just kinda sexy cars and you’re like, “Oh, man, I’d love to have one of those. I wanna get in with that.”

And then you get it and it’s a, you realize it’s a basket case.

Crew Chief Brad: It was a really good-looking car, but then Mark started telling me about all the work that he put into it. Uh-huh. And he just put a, he put a clutch into it a couple thousand miles ago, and he d- I think he’s … I don’t know if it’s timing belt or water pump or whatever.

I mean, he, he said he’d, he’s put a lot of money and time into it.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: And I was like, “Yeah, I w- I can’t do that.” Just because you put a lot of money and time into it does not mean that there’s not a lot of money and time that needs to go into it still.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Yeah. And like you and I talked about on the phone, had you driven them back to back, you would’ve realized that the Beetle is quicker than that 944.

Crew Chief Brad: I wasn’t interested in spending that much money-

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, yeah …

Crew Chief Brad: on a vehicle [00:17:00] anyway.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, it’s triple the cost. Yeah, for sure.

Crew Chief Brad: It was. It, pr- pretty much, yeah, triple the cost. So I didn’t even, I didn’t even follow down the, the, the P-Car temptress. I didn’t go that route.

Crew Chief Eric: Bravo. Bravo. Well, and, and good for you for staying in the Mark IV mafia.

So, you know, the, they all derive from the Beetle at the end of the day.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s basically a 911.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, if I do this, and, and- You know? Yeah. It’s exactly like a 911.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s a, it’s a 911 if you have CTE.

Crew Chief Eric: So what have we learned, Bradley? What have we learned about used cars?

Crew Chief Brad: Um, just stick with the ones you already have.

Crew Chief Eric: I think the moral to the story, though, is the ones that survive are the ones that run and drive.

Oh.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. You gotta be a certain, you gotta be a certain type of person to be able to bring a car back from the dead.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.[00:18:00]

Well, switching gears to the topic that we cannot move away from every month. Uh, talk about coming back from the dead. Headline, as you can see on my screen with this cool new stuff we’re doing, “VW sounds the alarm. We must fundamentally transform our business model.”

Crew Chief Brad: I feel like car companies that strive to be the biggest car companies in the world always end up tragically crashing and burning.

Crew Chief Eric: Right.

Crew Chief Brad: General Motors fought so hard to try and be the biggest car manufacturer in the world. Volkswagen fought so hard. I feel like if it’s something you’re striving to be is just be the biggest car manufacturer in the world, you’re gonna lose sight of whatever- Yeah … it was that got you there in the first place, and you’re ultimately just going to fail.

Whereas if you just stuck to what your business model was that made you successful in the first place, to grow to be at that level, if you just continued with that, you would probably get there naturally instead of- Yeah … just striving for [00:19:00] it. I don’t know. I, I mean, I, I, I’m sure that could happen or probably happens a lot in just other businesses as well and other industries.

But it seems like because they fought to be the, the biggest in the world, they end, end up shooting themselves in the foot.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, not only that, you put a target on your back. That happened to Toyota when they had reached the top, right? And that’s when Volkswagen started to try to reach for the top.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, but the, but the difference to that is I don’t think that Toyota necessarily sought out, like, their goal was to be the biggest.

Yeah. They just wanted to make good vehicles, and that led them there naturally. Whereas Volkswagen was like, “We’re going to be the biggest,” so they acquired a ton of other companies and, you know, it just, it, it didn’t work out well for them.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, in their latest attempt to shore up the ship, remember I mentioned the last time that there were some spy photos of what the new Mark 9 Golf was gonna look like.

Volkswagen is claiming that the new Mark 9 design is inspired by our favorite, Mark 4.

Executive Producer Tania: How?

Crew Chief Eric: [00:20:00] Blasphemer. Blasphemer.

Executive Producer Tania: Where?

Crew Chief Eric: Look at this thing.

Executive Producer Tania: In their mind’s eye?

Crew Chief Eric: Look at this thing.

Executive Producer Tania: I would never think Mark 4.

Crew Chief Brad: No, that screams Toyota Corolla hatchback to me.

Executive Producer Tania: That just screams ID something or other.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: That is hor- What about this says Mark 4 Volkswagen?

Crew Chief Brad: I think Volkswagen listens to the show, and they listen to us- … wax poetic about the Mark 4 Volkswagen, and that’s why they mentioned that they’re gonna go back to the Mark 4 Volkswagen ’cause the Mark 4 fans are speaking the loudest.

Crew Chief Eric: But wait, let me scroll back and show you what a Mark 4 Volksw- do you see that?

Let’s go back over here. One of these things is not like the other. I don’t get it. I mean, yes, if you say that it has a Golf-like shape, sure, they all have had a Golf-like shape

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, a- as does every other GTI and Golf.

Crew Chief Eric: Looks nothing like this red GTI on the screen right here. This is terrible. In addition to this, they’ve also said that the electric Golf is unnecessary because [00:21:00] Volkswagen EV sales are doing fantastic Right?

So they’re gonna come out with this new Golf, which is ugly, and they’re delaying the e-Golf, which would be in line with their portfolio of trying to be all electric, which isn’t working. So yeah, I don’t get it.

Crew Chief Brad: Was that a Volkswagen or a Urus?

Crew Chief Eric: D- I don’t know. It’s about the same size. So Tanya, this one you brought to our attention, and it’s a little bit of hokey pokey here, because didn’t we just talk about the fact that this car was gone?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, but now it’s back, back again.

Crew Chief Eric: Ah. Why?

Executive Producer Tania: I saw one thing, but it’s unsubstantiated, before I got that article, where it was like it was gonna be under $40,000. Lies.

Crew Chief Eric: Lies.

Executive Producer Tania: And I’m like, “No way,” because the official article here from Car and Driver saying that Volkswagen ID. Buzz is back for the 2027 model year does not include a price yet.

Crew Chief Eric: The old price was 62 to [00:22:00] $72,000 for a Volkswagen van that has terrible electric range.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t see how they drop it to 40 grand, but if they did, they’d probably sell a lot more.

Crew Chief Eric: I know how they’ll do that. They’ll put one of those oil-burning two-liter turbos in it, ’cause those are cheaper than the electric platform.

Crew Chief Brad: I was gonna say they were gonna take it a step further and put a revolutionary TDI motor in it.

Crew Chief Eric: You know-

Executive Producer Tania: Supposedly the 2020 model is also gonna have a camper trim.

Crew Chief Eric: The Westfalia?

Executive Producer Tania: Basically, so-

Crew Chief Eric: That’s 80,000 …

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, then if you had decent range at that price, is that better than, what are they called? The, like the van life vans.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, like the sprinter vans.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. Probably not, because a sprinter van you can stand in if you’re not 6’3″ like Brad. I don’t know. I mean, I, I saw one on the road the other day, and for a retro redesign in the modern era, I don’t think they did a bad job.

Crew Chief Eric: No, it’s… There are certain colors. I don’t like this green.

I don’t like the yellow. I like the all [00:23:00] white ones, the all black ones I’ve seen. You know, they, they remind me more of the Euro van in that way.

Crew Chief Brad: I see a yellow one almost daily with like, it’s basically mocked up like a replica of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles van, and it- Oh, wow … looks really, really cool.

Like that person did it right. Now that I know that they spent probably $70,000 for it, I think they’re a moron. But it looks cool. It’s not $70,000 cool. Right. It’s probably $40,000 cool. I think that’s what Volkswagen did wrong with it. I think it’s nice. I would consider owning one if I was in the market for a van if it was 25 to $30,000 cheaper.

Crew Chief Eric: So let’s put that in perspective of the announcement that they made last month, which we talked about, which they’re gonna bring back the Touareg as their premier model as an EV. So if the Bus is 72, let’s just go on the high side of the old number, how much is the new Touareg gonna be then? 120?

Crew Chief Brad: How are they going to do all th- like, they’re, th- they’re talking out of both sides of their mouth.

On one end, they’re talking about they’re gonna bring back all these cars and [00:24:00] they’re gonna- Yeah … build all this new stuff. On the other end, they’re laying off people and shutting down factories. So what is the truth? What is actually happening?

Crew Chief Eric: That is systemic in the Volkswagen/Audi world. The only place we’re not hearing about it is Audi, because of Formula 1.

We can’t say anything bad about Audi. All of this is because of that. I keep telling you this. They have to pay for the Formula 1 program somehow. But on the Porsche side of the house, it’s just as confusing. Last month we talked about another article from PCA where they were like, “This is why you should invest in electric Porsches.”

And then y- there’s another article this month that’s like, “Competitive advantage, opportunity, and the uncertainty in the EV market, why you should buy a Porsche EV.” And th- that’s not how I would invest. They’re, like, almost, like, playing the stock market here. Like, the EV market is so uncertain, you should invest in the EV now.

Like, that’s a terrible sales ploy. But on the same token, Porsche on the other side is, is scuttling EVs just like Volkswagen’s doing. And I’m like, what is happening here?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, if [00:25:00] people don’t wanna buy the EVs directly from Porsche now, what makes them think somebody’s gonna wanna buy an EV 10, 15, 20 years from now from a secondhand seller just because they bought it and shoved it in storage?

It’s not an air-cooled 911.

Crew Chief Eric: No. And Porsche’s hanging their hat on everybody just wants a 911 GT3. That’s all they want, you know what I mean? And if you don’t want that, you’re gonna go buy a Singer if you have that kind of money anyway, so th- they’re about part and parcel. But the funny part is, and I’m surprised Tanya didn’t hang her hat on this little bit of statistics here, because as we know, 27% of all statistics are made up.

But it’s like, AutoTrader reported 28% increase in EV inquiries. Yeah, Tanya’s got her hand up. Go ahead.

Executive Producer Tania: It says that when the excursion started-

Crew Chief Eric: The excursion.

Executive Producer Tania: That

Crew Chief Eric: was last month.

Executive Producer Tania: Hey, what was said when the excursion started, uh, however many weeks ago now, that search [00:26:00] queries increased, which of course, because all people are hearing is gas prices- Right

are increasing, gas prices are increasing. Ooh, of course I should get an electric car. Let me trade it in because spending $80,000 on something versus what I’m already paying for definitely ain’t gonna be worth it and pay off, you know. Even at $6 a gallon, it’s still gonna be many, many, many, many years before you pay off that $80,000 equivalency in- Yeah

in fuel, but whatever.

Crew Chief Brad: So if I send Porsche an email saying, “Hey, your EV sucks,” does that cons- is that considered an EV inquiry?

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t know, but that’s where they’re getting this bullshit like, “EV demand surges.” Why? Because people are doing a lookup to see, like, what the specs are on the Taycan? It’s like true miles per gallon.

How far did you drive and how much did you pump in the tank? How many cars did you actually sell, Tesla?

Crew Chief Brad: I- if you go to Porsche’s website and it directs you to the EV page, are they counting that as an inquiry?

Executive Producer Tania: Okay. Yeah, I could buy that people are bored and sitting at home, and they’re doing EV searches to see [00:27:00] what’s, what’s out there, sure.

Doesn’t mean more EVs have been purchased, just means more Google searches were happening.

Crew Chief Eric: So you hit the nail on the head.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, considering the article never talks about more purchases, yes.

Crew Chief Brad: You have to have purchases to talk about them.

Crew Chief Eric: I sort of hate this, and I don’t hate this at the same time. And this is the new 2026 Cayenne Electric Coupe.

Crew Chief Brad: So it’s an X4.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. Thank you. You nailed it. I’ve been trying to figure out what this is. I just could not put my finger on it. You nailed it right on the head. That’s an X4.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s an X4. It’s a Mercedes GLS or whatever the, that one, the grand coupe that they make. It’s a- It’s

Executive Producer Tania: ugly.

Crew Chief Eric: What?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: What? The front is horrendous.

The back looks great. That is ugly.

Executive Producer Tania: I’m sorry.

Crew Chief Eric: The back is- That

Executive Producer Tania: brown picture, that is ugly.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, that thing is- Looks

Executive Producer Tania: better in the white one further down. Look

Crew Chief Eric: at those seats. Look at that interior.

Executive Producer Tania: That front bumper is a lot better.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s the same fugly bumper though is the problem, right? Look

Executive Producer Tania: at- No, it’s not.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, it’s not. [00:28:00] You’re right. They’re different.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. There’s a different bumper apparently. I’d rather have this white bumper.

Crew Chief Eric: What did we do here? Like, they triple stacked it. We started designing one car and then we added… It’s like a Hot Wheels when you put the bottom… You know what I mean? It’s awful.

FLORIDA MAN: AI did it.

Crew Chief Eric: Look at these prices. Base model, 113,800 all the way up to 168,000 for that ugly brown thing. Who needs 1,139 horsepower? Why is that a thing?

Executive Producer Tania: Wow, says the person with all the American V8s that we, course we need that. Goo,

Crew Chief Brad: goo, goo, goo, goo, goo, goo, goo.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I like the sound. You can get that sound out of 178 horsepower.

They proved that in the, in the 1970s. Too bad that 178 horsepower came from 7.2 liters of Detroit iron.

Crew Chief Brad: And it gave everybody cancer.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah, 100%. My little scoot around town car makes 225, and it’s perfectly quick, and I’m totally content with that, and it sounds amazing. Are people equipped to drive 1,100 [00:29:00] horsepower?

That, I’ve, I know I’ve been saying that forever.

Crew Chief Brad: People aren’t equipped to drive 200 horsepower.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, my point. Bonkers. I don’t know. I, ah, this is the only angle I like from. Three-quarter rear shot, typical auto journalist photo. I like that. That looks good.

Crew Chief Brad: But just get a Panamera. It looks better.

Crew Chief Eric: Nah, Panamera’s too big, and you’re paying double for an A8.

Executive Producer Tania: Okay, hold on. I just did some quick math.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, here we go.

Executive Producer Tania: If I didn’t fat finger the numbers. So for that 113,000, now I’m gonna go rush out and trade in my Corolla-

Crew Chief Eric: For the base model …

Executive Producer Tania: for the base model because a, an excursion’s going on and gasoline’s $6 a gallon. So I’m going high ball with $6 a gallon.

Assuming 30 miles per gallon, that is 565,000 miles. Jesus. Okay? If you averaged, and this is- If you had an 80 mile a day commute-

Crew Chief Eric: Right … ‘

Executive Producer Tania: cause there are some people who have that, and you went to work five days a week, all year long, that is [00:30:00] 20,800 miles you’d be doing a year. Uh-huh. That’d be 27 years before- Oh

Crew Chief Eric: my

Executive Producer Tania: gosh

you accumulated all those miles.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh.

Executive Producer Tania: Was that investment worth it?

Crew Chief Eric: No. No. No new car is worth it unless you need it or you can afford to want it. It’s one of those two things. You absolutely have to have it, or you just are flush with the Benjamins and you can just have it. But it’s okay. So this next article, I read this and I said, “This is not what we meant when we said save the manuals.”

Shift-by-wire manual transmissions.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t understand what that means.

Crew Chief Eric: The whole thing- Yeah, me neither … is confusing, and apparently Porsche has some patent on it. I know Toyota was working on something similar. This is some video game BS. You’re gonna have this clicky click, force feedback, Moza, Logitech, Fanatec thing in your center console.

Executive Producer Tania: But I don’t understand. Isn’t that just an automatic transmission?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, that you make vroom vroom [00:31:00] sounds, and you make the stick go back and forth like this, and you get your angries out, and nothing happens.

Executive Producer Tania: How is that any different than a manual mode in an automatic transmission car, and it just make you go up, up, up, down, down, down?

Crew Chief Eric: You see this picture?

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, it’s gated.

Crew Chief Eric: This is the Lamborghini version, you see. But-

Executive Producer Tania: Oh …

Crew Chief Eric: but see, this gives you the feeling that you’re still in a super car, and that you are- Oh … actually shifting the gears And so you can skip shift, just like in a video game. Oh. You can go from first to third to fifth.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, you can’t money shift.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, the computer won’t let you money shift, but you can jam it in second gear all day long.

Crew Chief Brad: But my question is, what is the subscription cost to be able to shift your own gears monthly? Thank you. For $45 a month, you can have sixth gear.

Crew Chief Eric: And what happens when this stops working?

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, it’s an automatic, so as long as you can stick it in drive, I bet it’ll keep functioning.

So even if, like, you jam that where it shouldn’t be, you [00:32:00] probably can still drive the car. There’s probably a button, gonna be a button somewhere.

Crew Chief Eric: Since we started this conversation talking about Mark IV Volkswagens, and even working on the Focus this entire time, I’ve looked at how simplistic the cable-driven transmissions have become, and these are already 20-year-old technology between the two cars.

They’re less complicated, they don’t weigh anything, and they just work. Why can’t they just put a regular manual transmission in the car? Nobody cares about saving 300 milliseconds between shifts because the computer did all this stuff. When this stuff breaks, you cannot fix it, and it’s more prone to failure than the old manual stuff is.

If anybody hasn’t driven an old manual car in a while, go drive one, because they still work after all these years.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know that that’s true, because how many automatic transmissions are blowing up every five seconds? Like, this is a gimmick. This is Thrustmaster’s, Logitech-

Crew Chief Eric: Yes …

Executive Producer Tania: stick shift accessory for your computer rig, just in your car.

Yes. Like, that thing is [00:33:00] not doing anything. If anything, that’s the piece that’s gonna break, and the rest of the transmission’s still gonna work fine.

Crew Chief Brad: This is the Gen Z equivalent- Oh, my gosh … of manual shifting. They wanna say they can drive a manual, but they don’t wanna put in the work to actually learn how to drive a manual.

This is Ozempic for manual shifting.

Executive Producer Tania: I wouldn’t be surprised that you don’t have to depress the clutch pedal. And it’ll still shift

Crew Chief Brad: I’m sure you don’t.

Crew Chief Eric: What’s the point of going through the exercise if you don’t get the gratification?

Executive Producer Tania: Because I’m so cool, yo.

Crew Chief Brad: To say they can. I’ve got a gated shifter in my Lamborghini.

Crew Chief Eric: How do you dump it off the line? What’s one of the funnest- I mean- … parts about owning a manual transmission is revving it up, dumping it, breaking some axles, and laying some 11s while you’re at it

Crew Chief Brad: If you’re lucky, you get to lay the 11s before the axles break.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you know, I did it in that order on purpose, but you’re taking all the fun out of it.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, if they really design it in a way that interlocks everything, that you have to drive it as if it was a manual, then in theory you should be able to dump it. [00:34:00] But if they give you the option, which I wouldn’t be surprised, that, like, “Oh, I can be full automatic mode ’cause I’m tired and I don’t feel like shifting anymore.

I’m in traffic.” I don’t know. It’s stupid. Just be manual if you’re manual, and don’t if you’re not.

Crew Chief Eric: I just, I hope that this does not catch on. I hope that this is just, like, a thing to get people all riled up because it’s controversial or whatever, but I, I just, no, I don’t wanna see this happen. I’m sorry.

This is terrible.

Executive Producer Tania: And, like, what, can you, like, replace the weights on the back of the clutch pedal to make it feel like something, like your sim rigs? ‘Cause, I mean, how light must that clutch pedal feel? It’s not tied to anything.

Crew Chief Eric: Gotta put the short shift kit in this.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s just a software update

Crew Chief Eric: No, no, no, no, no, no.

It’ll be a kit that ECS will sell for your Porsche fake transmission thing that you can shorten the throw.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, for $300.

Crew Chief Eric: $3,000. It’s a Porsche, you gotta add, add a zero to that. All right, so this is-

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, boy …

Crew Chief Eric: ridiculous.

Executive Producer Tania: Nope.

Crew Chief Eric: First [00:35:00] modern car without hydraulic brakes is headed into production, Brembo says.

What?

Executive Producer Tania: I, I don’t-

Crew Chief Eric: What? …

Executive Producer Tania: do not want my brakes being Bluetooth.

Crew Chief Eric: Right? We don’t have to dive too deep into this one, because much like the fly by wire shifter we talked about earlier, electric brakes where there’s no connection between you and the brakes is a bad idea, full stop. There’s nothing else we need to say about that.

But the public service announcement I wanna make is as soon as they publish a list of cars that have this system on it, I want everyone to keep a Post-It Note in their car on their dashboard to be on the lookout for them, and when they are on the road, steer clear. Get out of the way. It doesn’t matter if they’re going two miles an hour or 200 miles an hour, those cars will not stop.

They will run into you. Get out of the way.

Executive Producer Tania: I’m confused, because I’m on Brembo’s website and I’m reading about Sensify, the best synthesis of Brembo, and designing the state-of-the-art braking system, because we want a world [00:36:00] free of accidents and injuries and all this stuff. And unlike traditional braking systems that apply the same pressure to all four wheels, Sensify continuously controls and supervises the braking action on each wheel independently, quickly, and more precisely.

I’m sorry, I thought that’s what traction control did.

Crew Chief Eric: Shush, you. Shush.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. Isn’t that modern-day traction control, has the ability to independently control-

Crew Chief Eric: Through the ABS module, yes …

Executive Producer Tania: while you still h- actually have hydraulic fluid?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, because there’s a little electric pump that actuates the brakes independently.

It’s great. But it’s still fluid-based, and you can override it by pressing this thing called… Brad, what’s it called? What’s that device? Or do you have to invent it, this thing where you put your foot on it and it makes fluid go and get hard?

Crew Chief Brad: Isn’t it… It’s, it’s like a, it’s like a pedal.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, is that what it’s called?

Oh, yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: You know what we could call it? We could call it the brake pedal.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s an idea. And what, what does that do? It slows you down, right?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, you know. Brakes, all they do is slow you down.

Crew Chief Eric: You know what the next [00:37:00] generation of this, though, is? I can see it now. So you’re gonna get in the car, and like The Matrix, this thing is gonna come out from the back of the seat.

It’s the same thing they use in the Lexus to anesthetize you so you don’t realize how boring they are to drive, and it’s gonna plug into the back of your head, and you’re gonna use the Tesla neural link, and you’re gonna think about braking, and then your car is gonna slow down. That’s the next generation of this platform.

Executive Producer Tania: No. Dude, the video playing right now on Brembo’s website just said, “You only think about braking.” See?

Crew Chief Eric: See? ”

Executive Producer Tania: We do the rest.”

Crew Chief Eric: It’s foreshadowing. Boom. I called it. Soothsayer. God, this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. I don’t even know why they wasted their time on this. Speaking of wasting their time on things, Porsche with another stupid hot lap of the Nürburgring.

When are these gonna stop? Like, why does anybody care anymore? Does it matter how fast a car goes around the Nürburgring? And there’s people that, right now, that are nodding their head, going, “Yes. Yes, it’s super important that it goes six seconds around the Nürburgring.” Ugh. I

Executive Producer Tania: don’t think it could do [00:38:00] six seconds around the Nürburgring if it was shot out of the back of a space shuttle, thruster rocket.

Crew Chief Eric: Tesla would tell you it would do it in six seconds, but the point is, who cares? And this car’s never gonna be sold on the street. So what record did we- what did we prove? It’s not like the hot lap challenge of VIR that they do every year, where it’s like the car’s stock, driven by a pro driver, and the whole nine yards, and they try to keep it even.

This is, like, a special… Look at this thing. It’s got canards, and it’s got wings, and it’s got, like, air-diffused rear wheels for air to… Like, I mean, what is this? This is not something Porsche is gonna sell in the showroom. It looks like it’s out of Gran Turismo.

Crew Chief Brad: They just, they couldn’t have Yang Wang on top.

Crew Chief Eric: Ah, is that what it is? Although it starts to look like a Yang Wang the more you look at it. It’s like the Tesla drag races. The Nürburgring hot laps and Tesla drag races are, like, the same level of I don’t give a crap anymore. Why do we even bother with these? What are we proving?

Crew Chief Brad: So people can brag. You know, “Did you hear?

[00:39:00] The Taycan just got fastest lap around the Nürburgring.” Blah, blah, blah. “I and, and Kitty, we, we drive Taycans.”

Crew Chief Eric: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. ”

Crew Chief Brad: So our cars are faster than your yang wang, Cheers Chang.”

Crew Chief Eric: All right. Well, let’s switch gears and talk about somebody who’s doing worse than Volkswagen, and that’s Stellantis.

So, I, I mean this one pains me in a way. The headline, “Chrysler killed the Voyager and Pacifica Hybrid,” that hits close to home.

Crew Chief Brad: No surprise.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, and is now considering this. This being a off-road version of the Pacifica known as the Grizzly Peak. What, what the hell is the point of this?

Crew Chief Brad: Is it all-wheel drive?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, well, there you go.

Executive Producer Tania: Likely to have all-wheel drive.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, yeah. ‘Cause Toyota has the all-wheel drive Sienna, and they also sell not an off-ro- like, like, a, a more rugged version for people to do stupid stuff like this. Pictures in a field, basically, is all it’s good for.

Executive Producer Tania: [00:40:00] I mean, this is still, like, I won’t say concept, but basically concept.

They’re, like, audience testing this or whatever.

Crew Chief Eric: Other than the lift kit and the knobby tires, how is this different than any other all-wheel drive already available Pacifica? It has

Executive Producer Tania: yellow fog lights.

Crew Chief Eric: It does. And you know, I put those on my wife’s car by changing the bulbs. It was amazing. She’s got yellow fog lights, too.

They were a Mercedes part, by the way. Just popped it in and it was done. It

Executive Producer Tania: has a grizzly bear side door icon.

Crew Chief Eric: Can you make that? I’ll put it on her car, too. What? Instead of grizzly bear, we’ll put mama bear on there. It’ll be great. Every mom with a Chrysler Pacifica will want that decal. Mama bear.

Crew Chief Brad: How many inquiries did they get-

about this to make them wanna sell this?

Crew Chief Eric: How much does that add to the roof weight? How do you get that spare tire off the roof?

Executive Producer Tania: Slide it down.

Crew Chief Brad: You call AAA to come do it for you.

Crew Chief Eric: The Pacifica’s tall. Ask me how I know. Good Lord.

Crew Chief Brad: This one’s lifted.

Crew Chief Eric: Y- okay, so you’re gonna go camping, and we’re gonna put white seats in it.

This is [00:41:00] a brilliant plan, Stellantis.

Crew Chief Brad: They’re camping at Great Wolf Lodge. That’s where they’re camping.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, my God. Uh, but that’s okay because the factory that they’re building it in, employees complain of nosebleeds, migraines, vomiting, skin issues, and digestive issues.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s not funny, but that is. Like, what the hell, like…

Crew Chief Brad: People will do anything to not have to work five days a week in the office.

Crew Chief Eric: They’ll get Legionnaires’ disease so that they don’t have to go back to work five days a week.

Crew Chief Brad: They’re gonna- they’re, they’re all gonna die of dysentery.

Crew Chief Eric: My God. I mean, I, I read through this and I just kept laughing ’cause I was just like, “Seriously?”

You know? And it’s like this is a weird way to do, like, a union strike. “All right. Tell them you’ve got diarrhea, and they’ll let you go home.”

Executive Producer Tania: No. No. Apparently, people are actually getting sick, so they think it might be a mold problem.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s from lack of actually building cars at this point.

Executive Producer Tania: Black dust, mice, rats, general mustiness, and [00:42:00] several flooding incidents.

Crew Chief Eric: So they have Honda virus. Is that… I mean, sorry, what? Honda virus?

Executive Producer Tania: Ah. Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: that’s terrible.

Executive Producer Tania: Get the black lung from the black mold.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Tanya, you brought us some Stellantis news this month. What do you have here?

Executive Producer Tania: So apparently there’s potential rumors of a Jaguar, Land Rover, Stellantis partnership.

Crew Chief Eric: Why does that help?

‘Cause they’re doing terribly. So is, like, Chrysler buying Jaguar because it’s worth, like, pennies on the dollar?

Executive Producer Tania: Great question

Crew Chief Brad: Who does this help?

Crew Chief Eric: Here’s the new theme song, Brad. I’m gonna have you sing it. I suck, you suck, we all suck together. We’re one big happy family.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know where that song comes from.

Crew Chief Eric: I just made it up. Isn’t it great?

Executive Producer Tania: Okay.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s my number one hit single. Topping the charts nowhere.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s, so, so this is a case of a rising tide sinks all failing ships.

Crew Chief Eric: Who is Dongfeng?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, they want a [00:43:00] joint venture with Chinese automaker Dongfeng to build Jeep and Peugeot vehicles in China.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s the Chinese mafia.

Crew Chief Eric: Triad, yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: The, yeah, this is just a way for them to, to launder money.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s something, man. I don’t get it. You know, we talked about the Poissy factory shutting down, where they’re gonna stop making Citroëns and a bunch of other stuff. So now we’re shifting that to China so Dongfeng can build knockoff Jeeps and Peugeots and sell them as Yangwangs.

And then, I, uh… You know what? I’ll give them credit. I will give them credit in the fact that at least they have a plan, because Volkswagen doesn’t have one. They’re sitting there crying, looking for a handout from, you know, the State of Lower Saxony, not knowing what the hell they’re doing, and at least Stellantis is trying to do something.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, also, in, I guess, a, an attempt to bolster their sales, but this time globally, Stellantis has revealed plans that they’re going to take the factory in Italy and start making $18,000 electric Jeeps.

Crew Chief Eric: [00:44:00] Lies. Lies. Lies. Or

Executive Producer Tania: some sort of e-car they’re calling it, that are entry-level, fully electric cars in Europe to compete with BYD, who’s offering low-cost EV brands.

I hope this works for them.

Crew Chief Eric: Lies. This is all lies. Now, this looks like the updated version of the current Jeep Compass. So I’m not hating on it. I’m a little confused about the light situation. Like, I would like to see the headlights turned on. But it’s not hateful. It’s not bad. I can see where they’re… I like the flares.

The flares are big. They’re pretty cool. But, like, 18,000, I don’t believe it. There’s no way.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s base 18,000, then you gotta, like, add the seats-

Crew Chief Eric: $40,000 on top of that … add the steering wheel. Yeah, got it. All right. Thank you. Now, now we’re talking. And

Crew Chief Brad: then you gotta, you gotta add the subscription cost for the power.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah. Now we’re at the magic number of $45,000, where every other car is starting these days. Got it. Good job, Stellantis. So [00:45:00] Brad, w- I know we’re not allowed to talk about BMW anymore, but we kinda have to talk about it this month because it’s the last hurrah. They’re getting rid of a car from their lineup.

Because BMW is notorious for this proliferation of models for everybody, right? But they’re actually getting rid of one. It must be an underperformer. They’re getting rid of the Z4 after nearly- Mm … 30 years of Roadsters. They’re getting rid of the Z4.

Crew Chief Brad: I can’t tell you which I’ve seen on the road less, a Supra or a Z4.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s a hard one to judge there. But next month we’ll be introducing the new Z4, so stay tuned, guys, ’cause this is the new German way. Bye-bye till the next one comes, suckers.

Crew Chief Brad: It’ll be the Z4 M40i Sport 460 some other bullshit letters and numbers.

Crew Chief Eric: This thing is so big, it- they might as well just called it a 3 Series convertible.

It’s no longer the little Roadster, like the little shoe used to be.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely terrible. All right. Tanya just dropped breaking news.[00:46:00]

Executive Producer Tania: 2027 BMW M3 CS in a manual.

Crew Chief Eric: No. Lies. Where’s the picture? That’s a stick shift. Look at that.

Crew Chief Brad: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Crew Chief Eric: Stick shift.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s the new shift by wire stick shift.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, fail.

Executive Producer Tania: No, no, no, no, no.

Crew Chief Eric: BMW, the last holdout. Although this car is going to cost what?

Crew Chief Brad: Unattainable

Executive Producer Tania: amounts. Uh, 108,450 starting.

Crew Chief Eric: There it is.

There it is.

Executive Producer Tania: It will also only be sold in the US and Canadian markets.

Crew Chief Eric: Ooh, those seats are hot, though. Oh, I love that stitching on the seatbelt, too. Mm. Sometimes BMW gets it right. I’m checking to see if there’s a third pedal. It looks like it’s right there. Not a fakey. Good call there. All right, BMW, get rid of the Z4, bring us a manual transmission M3.

We’ll call that a day.

Crew Chief Brad: Coming to a series of TikTok videos near you.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, thousand percent. Burnout videos. Mm-hmm. All right, let’s talk about this atrocity. Ugh, Tanya, what [00:47:00] is this?

FLORIDA MAN: Ah.

Crew Chief Brad: These are your people

Crew Chief Eric: This has to be the worst Mercedes I’ve seen ever. I don’t know if there’s an uglier Mercedes out there right now, or ever

Crew Chief Brad: Uh, the Mercedes van was pretty bad

Crew Chief Eric: Less ugly than this.

At least you knew what it was. It was a van

Crew Chief Brad: And they had an AMG version of it

Crew Chief Eric: The Metris AMG. What is this?

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, first let’s talk about how they just took the AMG GT and made it a four door

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that’s dumb. But what is this? What is this?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know. The back especially, I haven’t zoomed in enough, so I don’t think it’s intended, but those look like radiation symbols

Crew Chief Eric: This looks like a Opel GT.

I don’t understand what this is

Executive Producer Tania: If you just show someone the back of that car, no way would you go Mercedes. That would not be- No … in your top five guesses.

Crew Chief Brad: I beg to differ. With the Mercedes badge in the center, I feel like the three lights on either side, they’re not r- uh, [00:48:00] radiation symbols, they’re Mercedes symbols

Executive Producer Tania: Each light looks like a radiation symbol.

It’s like there’s six radiation symbols

Crew Chief Brad: I think they’re all three-pointed stars

Crew Chief Eric: They are, but I think they’re going for this

Crew Chief Brad: Well, they missed it

Crew Chief Eric: They did

Executive Producer Tania: This is the equivalent of the Mark IX-

Crew Chief Eric: Yes …

Executive Producer Tania: taking design-

Crew Chief Eric: Correct … from

Executive Producer Tania: Mark IV.

Crew Chief Eric: Correct. They were- Mm … going for the C 111, and they ended up with this.

Ugh. Looks like a carp. Like, there’s Pokemon less cartoony than this thing. What is this?

Crew Chief Brad: Can you find a picture of it in a different color? I’ve only seen it in that green.

Crew Chief Eric: No, and I’ve seen a video of it, ’cause when I first saw it, it was in video and I was like, “You have got to be kidding me.”

Executive Producer Tania: There’s a picture of it in white, and black actually

Crew Chief Brad: What ruined the video was George Russell drove it

Executive Producer Tania: There’s a picture of it in white from Car and Driver

Crew Chief Eric: I do like the wheels, though.

Oh, it’s an EV as well. Barf. F- so with the trunk open, doesn’t that look like a Ferrari 360 from the back? Is that what they were going for?

Crew Chief Brad: It looks like a C8 to [00:49:00] me

Crew Chief Eric: God, it’s so ugly

Executive Producer Tania: Ugh

Crew Chief Eric: The white’s better, but it’s still ugly. God, it’s awful.

Executive Producer Tania: I get what you’re saying. The back feels Japanese.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, the back is giving me FD RX-7 vibes

Crew Chief Eric: I, I know what you’re saying because it had the domino mask looking rear with the lights and the bar that went through, which is design language even today where they’re doing that on a lot of cars.

This is just, like, it’s so big.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, it’s-

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t get it. And I think they had to put three, because with two it looks really dumb. But if you add the third light on each side-

Crew Chief Brad: It just looks stupid.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. It’s, God, it’s horrible. God, get this out of my face. This is just disgusting. Ugh, how many tabs did I open?

God damn. Get rid of that All right, let’s go on to domestic news. Tanya, you brought this one as well. I am not gonna dignify this by calling it a Mustang- … because it’s not. Because it’s not.

Executive Producer Tania: I didn’t even know that Hertz apparently had Shelby-branded Mach-Es.

Crew Chief Eric: Why is this a thing?

Executive Producer Tania: Apparently, uh, [00:50:00] they’re selling them now at a huge discount.

So if you want that fake out Borla exhaust on an electric SUV.

Crew Chief Eric: 480 horsepower equivalent with a fake V8. Ugh. What are they selling them for? 40 grand? That’s the price of a base model. That’s actually a good deal if you can put up with all that swoopy stuff. I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, do you want that paint job?

Crew Chief Eric: You know what?

I wouldn’t mind it had they not done this swoop over the fender and then pulled back. Like, I don’t understand why we couldn’t have just gone lower on the rocker panel and done something over the bump and filled in that space, ’cause I understand that there’s that bump there in the cladding. Like, the hood looks fine.

I don’t mind the gold stripes. It’s very Shelby-esque. Obviously, it is. But the thing on the side just looks strange.

Executive Producer Tania: So they’re losing their butts on this because buying this without Shelby add-ons, the Mach-E GT without Shelby

Crew Chief Eric: add-ons-

Executive Producer Tania: Is 60-something … 54,000.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: And now they’re selling them. And so then, so it was more than that then for the Shelby bits and pieces- Yeah

[00:51:00] and now they’re gonna sell them for 40? They have not experienced positivity in their electric vehicle fleet, ’cause they had the Teslas too that they’ve all tried- Yeah … to unload now.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, the first thing is it’s in the Premium Plus Hertz Gold package, so only a select number of their members are gonna rent a car at that level.

When you and I go travel, is that what you sign up for?

Executive Producer Tania: No.

Crew Chief Eric: This car has no miles on it. The three people that drove it to lunch just because they could from the Hertz rental place, nobody actually said, “Oh, yeah, I want to rent the Shelby Mach-E.” So it’s not like they recouped it on the rentals, ’cause that’s the thing with the rental cars- I know

right? They buy them under fleet pricing, then they rent them out, they make their money, and then they sell them at full boat so they’ve made… You know, they’ve doubled and quadrupled and tripled their money at the end of the day. But, yeah, they lost their butts on these. I mean, if they wanted to give me one, I’d take it.

So we don’t talk about Mitsubishis ever, but I brought this one up because, Tanya, you had an experience with one of these as a rental, so I couldn’t pass up bringing back the nightmare [00:52:00] and letting you talk about your adventure in a Mitsubishi Outlander, and the fact that they- Yes … recalled all 108,000 of them that they made.

What was this wonderful piece of Mitsubishi engineering like to drive?

Executive Producer Tania: Life or death. Literally at any given moment, your life was flashing before your eyes because you might unexpectedly careen off the road by the flagrant and blatant turn of a suspension imbalancing that this thing has. Never have I hit so many pebbles in a road and thought I was gonna lose control and veer off the road.

Crew Chief Eric: And apparently that’s what this recall is about too, because corroded suspension components.

Executive Producer Tania: No, it’s not. Ah. This is actually, this is actually lame. So they say affected strut. What they’re talking about is the lift gate gas strut.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, that’s … I misread that. Oh, no. Yeah. I was thinking the strut when I skimmed [00:53:00] through this, ’cause I was just like, “Tanya’s gonna tell us how terrible this is.”

Executive Producer Tania: That would explain a lot, because just the sheer level of body pitching and tail wagging that the Outlander does literally just hitting bumps in the road, I do not understand how there hasn’t been, like, some sort of class action huge lawsuit and all of them have been recalled because people have died.

Crew Chief Eric: You did some research and it’s partially because they under sprung it, kind of like an old Dolce Volto, keep it super soft and be able to-

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, apparently. It is not just me. Like, these are pieces of crap. And I had passengers in the car, and they were-

Crew Chief Eric: Scared?

Executive Producer Tania: They had ridden in the back, they rode in the front, and they were like, “It is so much worse when you’re sitting in the back.”

They were feeling the instability of it.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow.

Executive Producer Tania: It was that noticeable. When I tell you, I literally thought at one point, I had a moment, I was like, “This is where we die,” because- … I just hit a bump, the steering [00:54:00] wheel was slightly turned ’cause the highway was curving, and we’re at highway speed. I literally was like, “Guys, if the road was wet right now, we’d be into the cement barrier.”

Crew Chief Eric: Wow. There’s

Executive Producer Tania: no way we would’ve maintained traction.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow. I mean, I wouldn’t own one of these to begin with, so like, I’m out. I’m so sorry for the people that have to put up with it, but ugh.

Executive Producer Tania: Like, if the choice of rental is like, “Oh, all we have is this Outlander, or you can go in the premium aisle for, like, an extra $75 a day,” hell yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re getting the maki from Hertz.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t care because you know what? My life’s worth that $75 a day.

Crew Chief Eric: God, this is terrible. Oh, Mitsubishi, how you’ve fallen so far.

Crew Chief Brad: I think the, the most surprising part about this story is that they sold over 100,000 of these.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, right? That, I read that t- I was

Executive Producer Tania: like, ”

Crew Chief Eric: Wow.”

Executive Producer Tania: They, they swindled- … 100, or 100,000 pe-

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah …

Executive Producer Tania: people out of their money.

Crew Chief Eric: Swindled. I love it. I love it. Collusion. Well, [00:55:00] Tanya, we need to switch to lost and found, where we call up Chuck LeDuck at Gray Chevrolet and scour the internet for cars we’ll never buy. This one you dropped on Discord- And wow, I, that’s all I have to say.

’92 Scirocco. Wow.

Executive Producer Tania: It was a showroom car.

Crew Chief Eric: That color.

Executive Producer Tania: It was, like, never driven.

Crew Chief Eric: Look at this thing.

Executive Producer Tania: And I think it only has had the one owner who bought it from the showroom, ’cause it was the leftover. He bought it, apparently it was registered by the owner in 2003, and it was a ’92 that remained unsold that whole time.

Crew Chief Eric: Look at that.

Executive Producer Tania: It has 1,400 miles, allegedly.

Crew Chief Eric: This brings back so many memories of the good old days. These cars were so much fun to drive.

Executive Producer Tania: Good luck finding one.

Crew Chief Eric: They’re all rotted by… Look at that engine compartment. You could eat off of it. You can’t get parts for it anymore, but you can eat off of it.

Executive Producer Tania: By the time this recording, you will have missed out, but as of right now, with 19 hours left, the current bid is 14,000 euros.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s not [00:56:00] bad. Now, I’m gonna point out, it may only have 1,400 miles. This flag mirror flaps, guaranteed.

Executive Producer Tania: 100%.

Crew Chief Eric: These were never strong to begin with. The color’s wild, though, because this is the color that the GTIs came in in the final years as they were moving into the Mark 3s with the two liter 16 valve.

So that’s really funny to see a Scirocco painted in this color because when you look at the old books that the colors that they came in, it was, like, platinum and silver and black, white, and red, and all the 16 valve colors and stuff. But to see this kind of aqua blue, this is really cool. I, I love the seats.

Remember these banana handles on the seats? Uh,

Executive Producer Tania: yes,

Crew Chief Eric: yes. These things would fall off. Yes. As soon as you looked at them, they would be on the floor or outside the car. Man, this brings back so many memories.

Executive Producer Tania: So sometimes I like to, like, look in the comments section- Uh-huh … and scroll through. Somebody with the tag name Autocentro Imports was- Oh

asking questions on this.

Crew Chief Eric: I know who’s gonna buy this car then. We’re gonna be able to go see it really soon.

Executive Producer Tania: [00:57:00] Well, if it is truly who we, who that could be, they don’t have a bid on it.

Crew Chief Eric: I bet you they would. The last minute they’re gonna go in and snipe. ‘Cause what’s, what’s 14,000 euros in US dollars? It’s, like, less than 20 grand, right?

Executive Producer Tania: It is 16,000. That’s

Crew Chief Eric: nothing. Nothing for a brand-new Scirocco. Nothing. God. This is super rare. I mean, this is the end of the line. In the States, as we know, they stopped bringing these here in ’88. So just like the UR Quattros ran until ’91, overlapping with the second generation cars, this is the tail end of the Sciroccos.

This is the best it gets.

Crew Chief Brad: Why don’t you buy it?

Crew Chief Eric: I’d love to. I don’t like the color. If it was gray, this would be hard to pass up. It would be really hard to pass up. I would buy this car if it was gray. All right, moving on to things that are gray. God, this … God. Can we get away from these things yet?

Executive Producer Tania: No, not yet.

I didn’t even know. Honestly, I didn’t even really pay attention. The … I, I think I just forgot.

Crew Chief Eric: Let me read the headline for our fans here. “Tesla recalls rear wheel drive Cybertruck for wheels that could [00:58:00] fall off.”

Executive Producer Tania: They made rear wheel drive ones? I guess so. I guess I forgot that fact. I’m sure I knew that, but since I could care less, deleted it.

But apparently they sold 173 of them. And have to recall all of those, because, yes, the rear wheels … Well, I guess it doesn’t say which wheels. But the wheels, the wheels on the bus fall off. I don’t think that’s how the song was supposed to go, but …

Crew Chief Eric: Brad, is this where your reservation went? You’re supposed to get a rear wheel drive one?

Is that what it is?

Crew Chief Brad: No. No. No.

Crew Chief Eric: They could have sold 174 of them.

Crew Chief Brad: So I’m gonna play devil’s advocate here, and I’m gonna say the headline is clickbaity because, yeah, it says, “Oh, they only sold 173 of these trucks.” Well, yeah, because nobody fucking knew that they were selling rear wheel drive ones.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Majority of the ones sold were all-wheel drive. I feel like this is clickbaity.

Executive Producer Tania: Did you not have that option when you put your deposit down? Was it just Cybertruck?

Crew Chief Brad: No, I’m pretty sure I could choose rear wheel drive or all-wheel drive.

Executive Producer Tania: So then the people knew.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s [00:59:00] any of the Cybertrucks that were equipped with 18-inch steel wheels instead of those guillotines that they came with, you know, from the Roman Empire.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, this is the equivalent of people buying the base model, the base, base model vehicle, which nobody does, clearly, ’cause they only sold 173 of them.

Crew Chief Eric: Are these the special off-road tires? What’s going on with these tires?

Executive Producer Tania: Flowers or something.

Crew Chief Eric: Did you notice that the tire has a gear molded into it, I guess?

Isn’t that where the cover’s supposed to go, like, the ones that literally fly off and kill people?

Executive Producer Tania: They probably have their own special tires that they made, so it’s just the, the sidewall impression. Oh.

Crew Chief Eric: Since we’re still talking about Cybertrucks, this is where the grizzly bear comes in to play. “Minivan to the rescue.

Beach Cybertruck extracted by rental Sienna.” The Pacifica grizzly bear would have taken care of this. Like, every time we see one of these on the road, the first thing that comes out of my wife’s mouth is, “Why? Why did [01:00:00] people buy these?”

Executive Producer Tania: But the best is there’s some lady driving that Sienna pulling this truck out.

Crew Chief Eric: She has the tow strap. That’s the best part, too, right?

Executive Producer Tania: I’m waiting. There’s a video, ’cause I’m waiting to see that bust off the tow hitch.

Crew Chief Eric: What does she have it tied to?

Executive Producer Tania: The tow hitch, I think.

Crew Chief Eric: What tow hitch? That minivan doesn’t have a tow hitch.

Crew Chief Brad: She’s probably got it tied to the-

Executive Producer Tania: It’s going inside.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

It’s, it’s probably tied to the, the bracket that the rear hatch closes to.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s a terrible all-wheel drive system.

Executive Producer Tania: Are we sure this isn’t a rear wheel drive one? Only the rear wheels are spinning.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s the good all-wheel drive that it has.

Executive Producer Tania: This is like me with my lawnmower, stuck in the backyard.

Crew Chief Eric: Little show and tell. It’s book club time. New author, new book Well, not really. Maybe. Yes. Well, Greg Stanley, the host of the Collector Car podcast, has been around for quite some time, and he put together a new book. It’s called The Enthusiast’s Guide to Collector Cars. And so it’s part [01:01:00] story, picture book, field guide, so if you’re at a concours, you can, you know, go through, and checklists and facts and figures and values of the cars and whatnot.

It’s really well put together. He’s got some very famous people that have done the forward in the book, like Richard Grieco and Jay Leno and Keith Martin, and the list goes on and on and on. Even guests of our show, like Samantha Zimmerman, are in the book as well. So they’ve all put their thoughts in the forward part of the book, which is pretty cool.

So we’re gonna have Greg on in a couple of weeks, so we’re gonna talk to him a little bit more about his past, what inspired him to write the book, and things like that. And oddly enough, if you go back in our catalog, William Big Money Ross did a crossover episode with Greg between the Ferrari Marketplace podcast and the Collector Car podcast.

You can jump in and listen to some of that now, but we’re looking forward to having Greg on as a guest in a couple weeks. And the book is available for sale now, and if you were one of the early people to buy it, you got an autographed copy of the book. So I happen to be in the first 100 people to order [01:02:00] one, so I’ve got it here.

Looking forward to having him on the show. And also shout-out to Break Fix guest, whose episode comes out very soon after this one, and that’s to Jesse Fresco, who we talked about. He did the Autumn Frost book series. The first one in that is Drive Like Hell. His second book, Black and Blue, just came out.

You can order that today on Amazon or at IngramSpark. And the third book in the installment, Funland Fury, is also coming out soon. So I wanted to say thanks again to Jesse for doing that. And if you haven’t read his novella series, it’s really cool. I’m looking forward to seeing how that works out. So tune into the episode in a couple weeks, and you get to learn his whole backstory and how he’s tying this into the car world and all that kind of stuff.

So good stuff there. And, uh, we’ll be on the lookout for other books as we go along this summer for our summer reading campaign. How about that, right? While we’re sitting around the paddock, waiting for other people to drive our car. So with that, I’ll switch to Rich People Thangs, sponsored in part by Garage.Magazine, because after all, that doesn’t belong in your garage.

I’ll remind you all again to come join us [01:03:00] on the 10th through the 12th of July in South Bend, Indiana, for Automotive Live. It’s a conference in conjunction with the Concours at Kulshan Hall, both operated by our friends at the Studebaker National Museum and sponsored by the Society of Automotive Historians.

You get to meet folks from Studebaker. You get to meet folks from SAH. There’s people coming up from REVS that you’ve heard present in the past. Maybe one of them happens to be one of our many personalities here in the Motoring Podcast Network. And you’ll also get to meet Don from Garage.Magazine, along with William Big Money Ross, Jon Summers, the motoring historian, and myself as we present on stage.

But if you can’t make it all the way out to South Bend, you can always tune in to our Twitch channel, twitch.tv/grandtouringmotorsports, and watch the live stream. There the week end of July 10th through the 12th. So more details on that to come as we get closer to the event, but I think it’s gonna be a good one.

We got some really cool speakers coming, and looking forward to seeing some cars and, you know, learning some new stuff while we’re out there.

Crew Chief Brad: Don’t forget, if you’re looking for that [01:04:00] extra special automobilia to complete your garage, office, den, or man cave, be sure to check out garagestylemagazine.com for a list of upcoming auctions and events, along with a curated list of items going up for sale all over the country.

Because after all, what doesn’t belong in your garage?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, what’s next is are you faster than an Interceptor? So let’s go down to Florida for some alligators and beer.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh my

Crew Chief Eric: What the hell is this? I cannot- Ron DeSantis wants Florida ready for flying cars. Okay Because the drivers in Florida are, are ready for terrestrial vehicles, right? Like, come on.

Executive Producer Tania: I really do not look forward to the day when this starts [01:05:00] actually happening, right? Because there are already flying cars today.

There’s just so few of them, right, that it’s not really making a dent in anything. But it, it does technically exist. Can you imagine not only on a regular basis you need to look to your left, to your right, back behind you, under you for these people, but now, now you have to look up because you might be attacked from above.

These people can’t drive on a clear, sunny spring day on the middle of a Sunday afternoon, but now we’re gonna trust them up inconceivably a place where there should be very few things to hit. Just the opportunity for this to go wrong. Can you imagine Florida man in one of those?

Crew Chief Brad: Dropping gators on people.

Executive Producer Tania: Dropping gators on people. I mean, like, how are you policing this too? You just track them from the ground and wait for them to land somewhere? I don’t know. No, you shoot

Crew Chief Eric: them [01:06:00] down. You

Executive Producer Tania: can’t shoot them down. Why

Crew Chief Brad: not? Lower court costs.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, exactly.

Executive Producer Tania: Then you got the whole death of the person thing. You can’t do that.

Crew Chief Eric: This is gonna be like motorcycles and why they don’t chase motorcycles, because it’s more dangerous if they go into hot pursuit. When I look at this Xpeng, which Xpeng is a car manufacturer, that’s why I’m bringing this up, along with Dongfeng and YangWang and all the rest of the Chinese auto manufacturers that we’ve mentioned before, not to exclude BYD.

This is a giant drone.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: When I looked at this, I didn’t think, oh, Xpeng, the car manufacturer. Do you remember Willy Wonka with Gene Wilder at the end? And they get in the golden elevator and it turns into a helicopter, and it’s basically- Yeah … a drone with very, you know, 1960s Star Trek graphics. That’s what this is.

This is Willy Wonka’s helicopter right here. I think I’d poo myself a little bit if I rode in this. I don’t like riding with people normally. Would you take a ride with somebody in [01:07:00] a drone?

Executive Producer Tania: Hell no.

Crew Chief Brad: What about a track day?

Crew Chief Eric: Uh, I got stories there too, you know some of them, where I’m like, “I’m amazed you got here, let alone you’re driving on track.”

No, I’ll pass. Hard pass. Texas-sized hard pass. Meanwhile, this is where truth is stranger than fiction. Suspected car thief spider-mans through underside of bridge trying to escape the police.

This is San Francisco, people

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, he didn’t wanna get caught for stealing a Honda Civic

Crew Chief Eric: But he was okay with falling to his death?

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, at the time it seemed like a good idea, and when you’re into it, then you can’t- you gotta keep going.

Crew Chief Eric: How much cocaine is involved in this particular escapade?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know if it was cocaine, but it was probably something.

Crew Chief Eric: God bless. I mean, look.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t think the color of it was probably white, but I’m sure it was something.

Crew Chief Eric: What is… Sorry, I scrolled and I got lost in this guy’s face. What is happening here? [01:08:00] Is it a requirement to have the Super Trooper’s mustache now? Like, is that a thing?

Crew Chief Brad: Enhance.

Executive Producer Tania: Mm.

Crew Chief Eric: Tell me ab- come on, Farva.

Good Lord. What’s n- Florida Man. We got another one. Oh, boy.

Executive Producer Tania: No.

Crew Chief Eric: Holy shit, what is this?

Executive Producer Tania: We’ve got a Georgia man, and he solved the gas crisis problem. Life in plastic, savings fantastic. I love that.

FLORIDA MAN: What is this?

Executive Producer Tania: Well played, reporter. What is this? But guess what? He’s only spending $3 at the pump. Not $3 a gallon, $3 total.

Crew Chief Eric: Wait, he spent $3 on the whole thing?

Executive Producer Tania: It cost him $3 to fill that up.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s a go-kart, right?

Executive Producer Tania: That’s because it only can take $3 worth of gas.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Oh, okay. It’s a lawnmower engine, of course.

Executive Producer Tania: Basically. He built a, a g- go-kart with a pink little van ish-

Crew Chief Eric: Did he just merge onto the road?

Executive Producer Tania: That thing’s quick.

Crew Chief Eric: I gotta back that up.

Hold on a second. Wait, wait, look at him pull out. Wait, I’ma [01:09:00] do that again. Look at him pull out into traffic. Look at this. He’s gone. Look, look. He did. You can’t chase that guy down.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know how that’s legal.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s not.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I guess you too can turn your cozy coupe into a, uh, gas-saving piece of machinery.

Executive Producer Tania: Take your life in your hands.

Crew Chief Eric: He must be from Florida. Come on. There’s no way.

Executive Producer Tania: He transplanted north.

Crew Chief Eric: So this guy gets a drone if he moves to Florida, life-size. Runs on $3 worth of gas.

What could go wrong? Wow. All right. Well, it’s time we go behind the big wall and talk about motor sports news. So I just wanna mention that there are three more Evening With a Legend set up for the series, and then we got some interesting things happening later this summer going into the fall. So if you haven’t signed up for them yet, check out our [01:10:00] sessions with the Michael Kaiser, that’s the man behind the movie and the book, The Speed Merchants, along with the Steve McQueen book, The French Kiss with Death, and many, many other books.

So those on Senna and Le Mans, and so on and so on. So he raced at Le Mans three times between ’72 and ’76, and he’s coming to tell his story on May the 27th. And then in June, we got Nicholas Boulay, who is a LMP2 driver, who is hopefully returning to Le Mans here in the near future. He’s also attempted the great race several times.

And then wrapping out in July, we’re gonna have David Cowart, who’s famous for running the Red Lobster BMW M1 in the IMSA Camel GT series. He’s coming on to talk about his attempt at Le Mans when he drove with Bob Aiken and other famous names from endurance racing. And we’re still crossing our fingers.

We’ve got some feelers out there for some other celebs that may come on for some Evening With a Legend. So look forward to those. You can sign up and be part of the live audience today by going to motoringpodcast.net and clicking on shows, and then Evening With a Legend, and then go from there and follow the form, and all that fun stuff.

Since we’re speaking about [01:11:00] endurance racing, Le Mans is right around the corner. It is earlier this year than in the past. Father’s Day is late. Father’s Day is Juneteenth weekend. Le Mans will be the weekend before that, so looking forward to being at Simeone again this year for the camp out. Gonna do a night at the museum.

There is a discount- If you are going to the Nite at the Museum, if you are a ACO USA member, they takes about 30% of the price off of admission if you go to the event. Otherwise, it’s, it’s about 30 bucks if you’re not a member. But there’s other discounts if you’re a member of Simeone Foundation, things like that.

But it’s a 24-hour event. Food, they run cars throughout the night, they do demos, they do lectures. There’s a live feed of the race. There will be an ACO booth along with, uh, simulators and a bunch of other stuff going on at Simeone. So looking forward to that the weekend of June, the 13th and 14th in Philadelphia.

Executive Producer Tania: So on a sad note in the NASCAR community, we’ve lost a NASCAR Hall of Famer, basically. Kyle Busch, at the age of 41, [01:12:00] passed away.

Crew Chief Eric: What?

Crew Chief Brad: Whoa.

Crew Chief Eric: When did that happen?

Executive Producer Tania: Two-time Cup Series champion, record holder for the most wins across the three national series in NASCAR, days away from competing in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Crew Chief Eric: What? Kyle Busch died? Man, he wasn’t that old either.

Executive Producer Tania: He was 41 years old. Some sort of illness that put him in the hospital recently.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow.

Crew Chief Brad: Hantavirus.

Executive Producer Tania: He was just at the Glen for that race not too long ago.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that’s why I thought I, I heard that. Wow, that’s really sudden. That’s a name I recognize from NASCAR.

I don’t recognize many, but I recognize him. Do you notice his nickname is Rowdy? That must be a Days of Thunder reference. Gotta be.

Executive Producer Tania: Rowdy, and, uh, he has, he has a second nickname.

Crew Chief Brad: Wild Thing.

Executive Producer Tania: Wild Thing, and it has to do with, uh, post-race confrontations.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow. Wow. Uh, legitimately, NASCAR icon passing away so suddenly.

That’s sad. [01:13:00] Damn.

Crew Chief Brad: So go out and get your Kyle Busch Crocs.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey, now. Our condolences go out to the Busch family and all the NASCAR fans. That is a loss that will be felt for a while in the NASCAR nation.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. I mean,

Crew Chief Eric: dang, sorry to see it. Switching to virtual stuff really quick. I gave you guys an update last month, and I decided to kind of rotate the gears a little bit here and talk about two of the other titles that I’ve been watching.

AC Rally, so that’s Assetto Corsa Rally that’s being built in conjunction with AC Evo coming out. It got a massive update. It’s awesome. Its dynamic weather is amazing, and you can now have snow on any course you want, even courses that, you know, didn’t normally have snow before, which makes it super cool.

They also added the Colin McRae Subaru Impreza to the list of cars you can try out. I like the fact that they also updated the UI in the sense that the navigator now gives you the instructions, and it shows almost like a progress bar, so you can really gauge, well, how far is 100 meters? It’s really hard to judge on a, you know, on a simulation platform, so it’s really [01:14:00] cool to see that fill in as you’re going from, you know, the beginning of those 100 meters to the end, so you can really plan your turns, set up your apexes, stuff like that.

I’m like, “This is way ahead of any other rally game that’s come in the past,” and I’m really excited to see, as it continues to grow and expand, the changes that they’re making. So really good stuff coming for AC Rally. Can’t wait for the next update. And I gotta tell you guys, I also, in preparation for Le Mans, I figured, “You know what?

I’ll log on to Le Mans Ultimate and check it out.” I bought that when it came out. We did an activation with the ACO a couple of years ago up in Detroit at M1 Concourse, and I liked it when it came out. It was pretty cool. It was like, “Oh, I get to drive the 2023 cars from the 100th Le Mans,” all this kind of stuff.

And they’ve continued to update the game, but not in a way that I really appreciate. And I say that because it still focuses around the big race, the big race being Le Mans, but they haven’t brought in all of the rest of the WEC races into the platform yet, nor have they done any legacy. It’s supposed to be Le Mans Ultimate, right?

And I’m thinking, “Where’s my [01:15:00] 1960s Le Mans cars? Where’s my 1971 Porsche 917K, you know, that I can run on the old configuration, pre-Mulsanne Chicane?” You know, all that kind of stuff. None of that stuff’s gotten incorporated. What they’ve done is they’ve added season passes with DLCs, so you can spend a ton of money to buy a Ferrari that looks like the Ferrari from the year before or the year before that And so for me, that was super disappointing.

It felt very un-ultimate. This feels like a money grab in, in some respects. Until something changes, I don’t find myself jumping back into the game because it’s also very neutered. If you don’t buy those season packs, you don’t get access to some of the other tracks, you don’t get access to some of the new cars, like let’s say the Hyundai Magma that’s coming or, or things like that.

So you’re sort of stuck with what you got, which was already kind of expensive to begin with. So your mileage may vary. If you’re into it, it is still a very good sim, but it’s just hard to swallow the pill when every DLC costs almost as much as the game did originally, and all you’re getting is new [01:16:00] cars with new skins.

But we’ll leave that where it is, and we’ll pick up our Le Mans conversation next month. That being said, our motorsports news is brought to you in part by Enduroverse, powered by Hyperdev, America’s premier endurance racing community and sponsor of our 24 Hours of Lemons car. So check it out online and become a member at www.enduroverse.com.

We will wrap out here with a little track-side report. I just wanna reiterate that we will be attempting our first 24 hours of LeMans race. We’re so close. By the time people listen to this, we’re, like, within a week of going racing, right? And it has been an interesting situation. Obviously, we continue to work on it, and so we discovered the other day, we went, “Oh, shit, we don’t have any toe straps.”

Like, we might fail tech for something really simple. So we’re in the middle of all that. But there’s a more interesting story here, Brad, and I, I don’t know if I told you this one or not, but it has to do with [01:17:00] getting rubber for the car. Focus that we got had these 17-inch by 7 wheels, and they’re just this weird tire size that you can only get, like, tires from Costco or Sears.

Like, you couldn’t get anything high performance that would fit that wheel. I was doing some research, and I’m like, “Man, we’re, we’re gonna be running on, like, 900 treadwear all seasons and this is gonna be a miserable event.”

Crew Chief Brad: With the la- the last all-season.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, right. Yeah, for sure.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s why they’re called all-seasons.

Crew Chief Eric: If they don’t completely fall apart within 10 laps, kinda like the Duralast brake pads, you know what I mean?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So that being said, I start doing some research and I realize the Focus ST shares a bunch of stuff in common with the Fusion from the same time period. And I said to myself, “I know a guy with not one, but two Fusions.”

So I call him up and I said, “Hey, man, I need your wheels. Can I trade you? ‘Cause I know your car is dead, the motor’s shot, and it’s just sitting in a parking lot. Can I come over and swap the [01:18:00] wheels?” ‘Cause it had 18 by 8s on there that are the same bolt pattern offset as a Focus ST and all that fun stuff.

He’s like, “I’ll give you the wheels if you take the car.”

I’m like, “Oh, boy,” right?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, give you the wheels if you take the car.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Crew Chief Brad: If only we were a non-profit, he could get charitable donation.

Crew Chief Eric: The picture I’m showing right now is really after this was all said and done. So you can see the wheels that were on the Focus, these black wheels. I go to go get this Fusion, and it’s parked in this lot.

It hasn’t run in forever. Apparently, they start it up every once in a while, but I was warned the battery’s dead. I was like, “Okay, cool.” So I jumpstart this thing, and I try to move it, and you could’ve put your foot through the grill and walked faster than this thing moved. It was just pathetic. Like, something was completely wrong with the motor, right?

And I got it to start moving, and I came around to my trailer, and I realized that it wouldn’t go up the ramps on my trailer. Oh, man, I’m hosed. [01:19:00] And I’m there, like, by myself, right? So then I’m like, “Well, what if I take my trailer and I put it facing downhill, and if I can come around the parking lot and sort of get a running start and throw it in neutral, and if I hit the trailer just right- You know, I can get up on the trailer and, and all this kind of thing.

So I do exactly that, and it was kind of a hair-raising moment too, ’cause I’m like, man, if I don’t hit these ramps right or if a m- a ramp flips, it’s gonna be a whole deal and I can’t see. You know, I’m trying to hang out the window, all this kind of s- Like, get it up on the trailer, and I’m like, “Please just go far enough.

Please just go far enough. Please just…” ‘Cause I don’t want… I’m not gonna be able to push it if it doesn’t go all the way up. So not only do I go all the way up, I hit the wheel rack with the hood. So I didn’t bend the hood, but I, like, scraped the paint off it, whatever. I’m like, all right, I don’t care about this car anyway.

So now I’m like, oh, crap, it’s an electric transmission and it has electric parking brake, and the hood is stuck under the wheel rack. I’m never gonna be able to turn this thing back on when I get it home. I’m never gonna be able to get it off the trailer, right? ‘Cause I can’t pop the hood. So what I end up doing is I stuck it in [01:20:00] neutral and I didn’t set the park brake, and I turned the car off.

All right, so I’m sitting here and I’m going, “I hope this thing doesn’t roll off the trailer.” So me and my infinite wisdom, right? I look around the car. It’s got stuff in it, but it doesn’t have, like, a ton of stuff, and there’s a bottle of antifreeze that’s unopened. And I say to myself, “Th- this’ll hold the car.

No problem.” So I open the door while I’m still sitting in it, and I take the bottle and I chuck it under the wheel to keep it from moving, and then I get out of the car and it doesn’t move. It starts to crush the water bottle. So then I’m running around the truck looking for my chock because I didn’t think to pull my chock out of my box, which was, you know, up front.

So anyway, got the car chock, and then I have to tie it down. So I tie it down. I’m tightening the belts, tightening them as much as I can. And it was one of these moments where I’m like, this is gonna be the most nail-biting, stressful tow. And I don’t have to go that far. I gotta go maybe, like, 30 miles, so it’s not that big of a deal.

It’s long enough when the car’s in neutral and the straps are holding it. So I get to the end of the [01:21:00] parking lot and then I s- and then I see the car just, like, lurch forward and hit the wheelbarrow again. I’m like, “Oh, Jesus.” So I jump out of the car, tighten the straps down even harder, like, as hard as I can get them.

And I said, “All right, screw it. If it comes off the trailer, it is what it is.” I trailer home, and I, it was just one of those sort of golden moments. I pulled out into traffic. There was nobody there. Breathed on the accelerator and sort of, like, whispered on the brakes and tried to keep the truck just moving.

That way the car wouldn’t jostle back and forth, ’cause it would, like, kinda rock back and forth. And I’m like, the more it rocks back and forth, it’s gonna l- try to loosen and stretch the belts. I made it all the way home, thankfully. Just sweat pouring down my face. Like, I’ve had some bad tows in my day, but nothing was as bad as that.

And I’m like, “If anybody cuts me off or whatever, the car’s just gonna come rocketing forward, you know, and it’s gonna be a mess.” So I, I made it home luckily. Then I get home and I have to have Tanya help me unload it.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, it, but when, when you got home, how much looser were the straps?

Crew Chief Eric: You know, it wasn’t too bad.

There was a couple inches of play, [01:22:00] and so it was all right. It kept hitting the bar, which kept scraping the paint, but the other problem was, what I didn’t realize until it was up on the trailer, the Fusion was too long for my trailer. Not only because the hood’s super long and it, it hit the wheel bar up front for the tire rack, but because the ass end of it was sticking off the end of the dovetail.

So I’ve got a, what, a 16-footer or whatever it is, you know? And so it’s not a super long trailer. Took up every inch of it, you know? So I needed something bigger.

FLORIDA MAN: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Make a long story short, we get it off the trailer. I was kinda thinking… Then there was some stupidity with getting the wheels off. I’ve never in my life had to hammer a socket onto a lug to reform the aluminum casing on the outside of the steel nut to be able to get the…

It was, like, a whole thing, and I, I had called my buddy. I was like, “Is there some magic trick to getting these wheels off this car? Because stuff is spinning and nothing’s coming off.” And he’s like, “Oh, yeah, you could just put a punch through them and then break the caps off, and then you can get to the nut, and it’ll take you, you know, all day to do that, or you could take the socket and beat it on there until it [01:23:00] reshapes the casing, and then it’ll come off.”

I’m like, “Ford quality stuff, man. Ford quality.” And the Focus doesn’t have this problem. It just has nuts, like we have on the race cars, so it’s like you can see the stud and it’s not a big deal. So all right, fine. We go through all that, and then get the wheels on the car. We got new rubber. We got 18-inch General GMAX-RSs looking like a Focus ST.

Look at that. Look at the hotness. Those are the wheels off the Fusion. I think it looks super good. It makes the car look a lot better. We got that going on, and then going back to the picture that we had before, what that was all about was I was like, “Well, I got this free car that doesn’t really run.” I asked a couple people if they wanted it.

I was like, “I’ve got the title, I’ve got the keys, I’ve got the car.” I ended up calling the Cash for Cars from Copart. They came and got it, like, couple days later, and it was, like, a super simple process. So they came and got it with a flatbed, took it away, and boom, done. It could not have been a much easier process, which is why I wanted to put out a public [01:24:00] service announcement to folks like Mountain Man Dan.

If you’re trying to get rid of a car, instead of talking about it, just call these guys. They give you money, and the car goes bye-bye. It’s a very simple process.

Crew Chief Brad: So what you’re saying is that’s what we’re gonna do with the orange car?

Crew Chief Eric: Uh, I’m glad you said it and not

Crew Chief Brad: me. Just need to decide if I’m gonna pull the motor out

Crew Chief Eric: of it.

Well, the, the motor’s coming out.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: The thing is, though, they do give you different values based on the condition of the car. And the condition of the car, they don’t care about mileage. They care about its completeness. So I think we could have done more had I said it ran and drove. I just said it started and kind of…

There’s, like, different options, so it, like, starts and moves versus runs and drives and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then there’s options for, like, how disassembled is it. Like, I actually talked to the tow truck driver and he’s like, “If it’s a shell shell,” like, they gotta drag it up on the trailer, he said, “They won’t give you anything but nothing for it, basically.

But if it’s got some completeness to it, you’ll get a couple bucks, even if it’s just, you know, disassembled or whatever.” [01:25:00]

Crew Chief Brad: Nice.

Crew Chief Eric: And then it was funny. Like, he almost felt bad. He told me, like, what junkyard it was going to, like I cared. Like, if I wanted to go sneak- So

Crew Chief Brad: just in, in case you wanna go get some stuff off of it, it’s going to X, Y, Z.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I wanna pay for stuff off of that car that, you know, I didn’t want in the first place, right?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So I thought that was hilarious. I was just like, “Oh, okay. Well, all right.” I was like, “Thanks for that.” But no, I, I will say if nobody’s ever used that service before or are interested in it, they definitely should check out the whole Cars for Cash thing from Copart.

It’s super simple process.

Crew Chief Brad: Can you call Cars for Cash or whatever for your friends? Like, can we have an intervention for Daniel and just send them up there?

Crew Chief Eric: Right? Right?

Crew Chief Brad: We know of a couple Mercury Sable wagons. Can you just go get them?

Crew Chief Eric: Right?

Crew Chief Brad: Ridiculous. And about 500 square bodies.

Crew Chief Eric: Man needs to clear house.

Hey, but look, our fans can come meet Mountain Man Dan, see if we’re making this stuff up. He has registered to [01:26:00] drive on our team. He will be driving the Focus. We’ll see how that goes. But yes, we should have the car done this weekend, hopefully. All the livery stuff done. It should be ready. It should be race ready, ready to be r- loaded on the trailer, so looking forward to it.

Hopefully all goes well, and we can continue the season without too many troubles, but I don’t know. I feel like there’s an engine swap in our future. Again, I’m crossing my fingers, knocking on wood, doing everything I can to hope that we don’t end up going down that route. Plenty of updates on our club site, and if you wanna be part of the team, you’re still in time to come out and help.

And if you can’t come out and help, you know, a couple shillings here and there do go a long way, especially when we’re gonna have to buy another motor. But, you know, hey, I’m not, I’m not putting it out in the universe. I’m just saying. Keep my expectations low. Really, really low.

Crew Chief Brad: Uh, and if you’re not quite ready to hit the track, don’t forget that you can find tons of upcoming local shows and events at the ultimate reference for car enthusiasts, collectorcarguide.net.

Executive Producer Tania: If you’re hearing us for the first time, be sure to jump back into our podcast [01:27:00] catalog and check out other programs we offer, like The Ferrari Marketplace, The Motoring Historian, Evening with a Legend, The Racers Roundtable, Formula Fanatics, Brake Fix, and of course, The Drive Thru.

Crew Chief Brad: And if you enjoy our various podcasts, there’s a great way for you to support our creators on the MPN.

There’s tons of extras and bonuses to explore on our updated Patreon page. Learn more about our bonus and behind-the-scenes content, get early access to upcoming episodes, or support our 24 Hours of Lemons team when you consider becoming a Brake Fix VIP by visiting patreon.com/gtmotorsports. And as always, thank you to our co-host and executive producer and team principal, Tanya, and to all the fans, friends, and family who support Grand Touring Motorsports, as well as the Motoring Podcast Network.

Without you, none of this would be possible.

Crew Chief Eric: Blueberry.

Executive Producer Tania: Is it me on my end that the audio’s coming in garbled?

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t know, is it?

Crew Chief Brad: I hear you both very [01:28:00] clearly. Can you all hear

Executive Producer Tania: me? Okay, so it’s my reception.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I hear her fine.

Crew Chief Brad: Before we move on, though, we didn’t actually talk about that last article, though.

Crew Chief Eric: Do we want to? Is there anything else we have to say?

Crew Chief Brad: Remember, failing to prepare is just preparing to fail. That’s right.

Crew Chief Eric: See, now you and Brad, you have Beetle buddies now. My goodness. All right. With that, we’re out. Blueberry

Executive Producer Tania: The Drive Thru is our monthly news episode and is sponsored in part by organizations like collectorcarguide.net, Project Motoring, Garage Style Magazine, The Exotic Car Marketplace, and many others. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of The Drive Thru, look no further than www.motoringpodcast.net.

Click About and then Advertising. Thank you again to everyone that supports the Motoring Podcast Network, Grand Touring Motorsports, our podcast Brake Fix, and all the other services we [01:29:00] provide.

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

• 00:00:00 Drive Thru Kickoff
• 00:00:49 Buying yet another VW?!?
• 00:05:27 Pumpkin Spice Autopsy
• 00:09:15 Naming The Blue Beetle
• 00:11:09 Parting Out The Orange GTI and Resisting The Porsche Temptress
• 00:18:01 VW Business Model Panic
• 00:19:41 Mark 9 Golf Controversy
• 00:21:21 ID.Buzz Returns? Price Debate!
• 00:24:24 Porsche EV Hype and Cayenne Electric Coupe Roast
• 00:30:22 Fake Manual “Shift By Wire” and “Brake By Wire” Warning
• 00:37:39 Nurburgring Record Eye Roll
• 00:39:15 What’s going on at Stellantis?
• 00:44:59 BMW Z4 Farewell and Manual M3 CS rumored for US
• 00:46:55 Ugly Mercedes Concept – The AMG GT 4 door
• 00:49:40 Hertz Shelby Mach-E Fire Sale
• 00:51:49 Mitsubishi Outlander Rental Nightmare
• 00:54:59 Lost and Found Scirocco GT-II
• 00:57:42 Cybertruck Recall Chaos
• 01:00:42 Book Club Updates
• 01:02:49 Events and Automobilia
• 01:04:16 Flying Cars and Florida Men
• 01:09:38 Motorsports Legends Series
• 01:13:12 Sim Racing Updates
• 01:16:24 Our Lemons Prep and Towing Nightmares
• 01:26:46 Wrap Up and Thanks