B/F: The Drive Thru #69

• 2027 Slate Truck
• The U.S. Strongarms Polestar Out Of The American EV Market -- The Swedish automaker, owned by the Chinese Geely Group, will not be allowed to sell EVs in the U.S. model year 2027 onward.

• Audi Quietly Introduced an Upgraded F1 Engine in Spain
• McLaren, Red Bull lodge intention to appeal Pierre Gasly's right of review win -- McLaren and Red Bull are understood to be requesting more time to study the FIA stewards' decision to reinstate Gasly's podium finish in Monaco
• Gasly regains Monaco Grand Prix podium place after Alpine's Right of Review successful -- The outcome of a 'Right of Review' submitted by Alpine over the time penalties given to Pierre Gasly during the Monaco Grand Prix has been announced.
• Alonso treating each Spanish race like his last visit amid future uncertainty
• Gucci becomes title partner of Alpine F1 team for 2027

• Fact or Crap? Subaru is building 3 new manuals and 1 is a Hot Hatch?
• The Box Is Back: Honda Is Reviving The Element As A Hybrid In 2029
• Toyota's Fake Manual For EVs Might Be Too Real -- Toyota has filed a patent that simulates an engine stall in an electric vehicle.

• Mercedes-Benz may be shut out of U.S. market under bill aimed at Chinese automaker ownership

And this is apparently the most important news we’ve ever heard from BMW

• Watching This Audi Slide Its Rear Wheels Back and Forth Is Deeply Unsettling -- This Audi "runs" on compressed air, if you can call this "running."
• A California Proposal Aims to Regulate Aftermarket Tires -- While the proposed rule has good intent, the regulation hinges on a misunderstanding of how vehicle tires actually function.

• New Book by Preston Lerner – Coming Soon!

• Mattel Brick Shop Hot Wheels ’84 Audi Sport Quattro Building Toy Kit (864 Pieces), For Collectors
• Mattel Brick Shop Hot Wheels ’94 Toyota Supra Mkiv Building Toy Kit (824 Pieces), For Collectors
• Mattel Brick Shop Hot Wheels ’83 Chevy Silverado Building Toy Kit (225 Pieces), For Collectors -- This one goes out to Mountain Man Dan!

• FERRARI LUCE: A NEW CHAPTER FOR THE MARANELLO MARQUE
• Nissan Deletes Its Ferrari Luce Troll Post, Mazda Doubles Down -- After fans likened the Luce EV to its new Leaf, Nissan thanked Ferrari for the flattery, only to delete the cheeky jab soon after
• Chrysler’s Sub-$30K SUVs Will Be Rebadged Fiat Grizzlies -- The Chrysler Arrow and Arrow Cross will be rebadged versions of Fiat's latest compact SUVs
• Ferrari Luce first look: going where combustion can’t follow
• Ferrari unveils its first electric car - and it comes with a $640,000 price tag

Ferrari Stock plummets amid Luce reveal

• Audi’s TT Successor Is Still A Porsche Boxster In Disguise -- The upcoming Audi is based on the 718 Boxster EV and will be the production version of the Concept C
• VW Could Bring the Base Golf Hatchback Back to the U.S. Soon -- Volkswagen is moving Golf production to Mexico, and if tariffs are lowered, the base model Golf could soon be imported into the United States.
• Here's what VAG has been wasting it's time on...
• VW adds Costco incentives to help straighten out yearlong U.S. sales slide

This month’s Lemons update isn’t about victory — it’s about perseverance, busted knuckles, and the stubborn optimism required to race a high‑mileage Ford Focus in a 24‑hour endurance event. The car didn’t make it to the grid. But the team isn’t done. And the saga continues in true Lemons fashion: messy, hilarious, and full of heart.

CHECK OUT THE BUILD UPDATE ON THE GTM CLUBHOUSE SITE.

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 Brad: Ayatollah rock and rolla

Crew Chief Eric: Is that how this month goes?

Crew Chief Brad: Sure.

Crew Chief Eric: Are you working on your new number one hit single?

Executive Producer Tania: Recognize.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: I make those songs up for my girls.

They don’t like them very much, and then they’re like, “Dad, where did you come up with… Where, what is this song?” And I’m like, “I made it up. I’m an aspiring artist. What are you talking about?”

Crew Chief Brad: Yes.

Executive Producer Tania: We’ll have that audio recording somewhere. A number one hit single. [00:01:00]

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: My,

Crew Chief Brad: a- a- Adam is always telling me to stop singing or stop dancing, and I said, “I can’t.

I got the music in me.”

Crew Chief Eric: They’re gonna remember all these shenanigans that we did when we were- Yeah … considered old to them. When they look back, they’ll be like, “Your dad, you know, your dad was pretty g- He was a fun guy.” A- and then they start doing the stuff that you did because it imprinted on them, right?

Mm-hmm. And they don’t even know why they did it.

Crew Chief Brad: Exactly. Just wait till each school drop-off. And I’m dropping ’em off in a, in a, in a blue-ish purple Beetle.

Crew Chief Eric: You know what? And what’s gonna happen is one of your sons later is gonna be like, “My dad had a Bug. I’ve always wanted a Bug. I’m gonna get one,” blah, blah, blah.

Yeah. And that Mark 4 Bug, to him, is gonna be a classic, just like your grandfather’s Bug is a classic to you, see? Yep, yep. That’s how it works.

Crew Chief Brad: Exactly.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s generational automotive enthusiasm right there.

Crew Chief Brad: I thought you were gonna say generational autism.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you know, some of that goes with the hobby, too.[00:02:00]

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: But in all seriousness, well, maybe not, because if we don’t laugh, we’ll probably cry. Because the month of June should be a celebrated month. The month of, the month of June is amazing. Did you know that today, the day that we’re recording this episode, is the exact six-year anniversary of our very first episode?

Crew Chief Brad: Really?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Crew Chief Brad: I did not.

Crew Chief Eric: Today is the day. So there we go. Happy birthday to us.

Crew Chief Brad: Okay.

Crew Chief Eric: But June is also the month where we celebrate the high holy holiday of Motorsport, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Did you watch the race? I ask you this every year. Did you watch the race?

Executive Producer Tania: Who are you asking?

Crew Chief Eric: Both of you. Did you watch the race?

Crew Chief Brad: I watched what I could, having two children climb and jump all over me. I had it basically, it was on my computer screen for the entire 24 hours. I got to watch probably about an hour of it.

Crew Chief Eric: Which of the boring hours [00:03:00] did you watch?

Crew Chief Brad: I got to watch the start and a couple of the, the first laps, and I w- I did watch some at night.

A- and then I watched the ending to, and then I got to see Toyota win.

Crew Chief Eric: You did the Formula 1 thing then. You watched the beginning, you watched the end, you skipped it, you napped through everything in the middle.

Crew Chief Brad: Yep, so I missed if there was any drama about Ferrari, uh, or-

Crew Chief Eric: No.

Crew Chief Brad: No … I think when I started, wasn’t, uh, Cadillac wasn’t winning.

Was BMW winning the Hypercar?

Crew Chief Eric: Cadillac was in the front row, and so was BMW, and Cadillac’s reign at the front was very short-lived. Toyota qualified, like, 14th and 15th. They were way back. Like, you’re talking Genesis is in front of them. Like, everybody’s in front, and we’re like, “Man, this new car is terrible.”

And then we have a Cinderella story at the end. No spoilers if you haven’t seen it.

Executive Producer Tania: Because somebody’s gonna go back and watch it two weeks later?

Crew Chief Eric: No, of course not. Ah, forget it. You can watch the highlight reel in about 20 minutes. How about you T- how did you watch the race, Tanya?

Executive Producer Tania: Who [00:04:00] did I say had the streaming?

Crew Chief Eric: Was it Hobo Max?

Executive Producer Tania: I, maybe that’s what it was.

Crew Chief Brad: It was on, it was on, uh, yeah, I think it was supposed to be on

Executive Producer Tania: Max. It was on, it was on Max. So I tuned in and out throughout the day. I went to bed like a normal human being, ’cause I’m old.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s all of us.

Executive Producer Tania: And then the next day, I tuned in, and in and out, and then I caught the last hour?

Basically

Crew Chief Eric: And what did you think of the race?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, I mean, I don’t think I watched enough of it to see excitement. I heard when I came back in, even the announcers, like, the next day were ta- commenting that they, like, the first race was not exciting until, like, sometime in the middle of the night or something like that.

Crew Chief Brad: Because it’s a Toyota, and it’s reliable.

Crew Chief Eric: Because the first 12 hours were super boring and subject to basically perfect driving conditions and pit rotations. So wherever you started the race was basically where you were for the first 12 hours. It was incredibly boring for the first [00:05:00] half. And then we got a little sprinkle of rain mid-morning, kind of as the sun was com-

And then it was like, okay, so that kind of made things different and interesting. A couple cars, you know, broke or behind the wall, came back out. A bunch of cars were laps and laps down, and that’s the typical race. But it was just, there was something about this year’s Le Mans that was just like ho-hum, mm-mm, meh, meh.

It just, I don’t know, it, for some reason it just felt like any other year.

Crew Chief Brad: Boring.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, a- and th- that’s the s- and that’s the weird part because GTP was packed full of brands, just packed. Three Ferraris, two Toyotas, two Hyundais, the Astons, the BMW. I mean, you have the list goes on and on and on, and it’s like, how is this r- is it because Porsche wasn’t there?

Is that what makes it that much more interesting?

Crew Chief Brad: I will say, unless you’re in the know, there was very little marketing and pomp and circumstance- Yeah … leading up to the race. I mean, they, [00:06:00] the only reason I knew the race was happening is because I actively sought out, okay, when is Le Mans? When am I gonna to watch?

How am I gonna watch it? It, there was very little online about it-

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah …

Crew Chief Brad: until race day. And even then, there was, th- there’s just not a lot of coverage.

Crew Chief Eric: This is a sign, as you know, the race was super boring. They gave LMP2 tons of TV coverage this time around. Maybe they listen to our show. Maybe that’s, ’cause we’ve been complaining that LMP2 doesn’t get enough TV coverage.

And then I was shocked by how many times they would actually stay on the LMP2 cars, and we’d watch them go around and battle it out, which was kind of exciting. But that speaks volumes to Le Mans fans, right?

Crew Chief Brad: You know what was funny to me is I was watching the LMP2 cars, and I was like, “Why does LMP2 exist?”

Are they just trying to fill the field? Are there not enough hypercar manufacturers to wanna do this, so they have to fill it with the Delaras?

Crew Chief Eric: They pay for the race. That’s what LMP2 does.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know. There was, [00:07:00] they did feel a little bit less- A little blasé. And it was, I guess, the first year to see not Dunlop.

Crew Chief Eric: Right? But it’s weird. I, we talked about that. It’s very strange. No Porsche, no Dunlop. It just felt off. And to make matters worse, this is the first Le Mans in a long time that wasn’t on Father’s Day.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. Correct.

Crew Chief Eric: That had trickle-down effects, because we went, as a family, to Simeone for the museum overnight camp-out thing, you know, the viewing party and all that kind of stuff.

Which I will say, mad props to Simeone Foundation Museum. They stepped up their game. I wrote a whole article about it. It’s on the website. All the TVs were, like, everywhere instead of relegated into one corner. They had a family fun zone. They had simulators. The ACO had its own lounge at the museum. All this kind of really cool stuff.

But attendance was less than half of what it was last year. And, you know, we were just chit-chatting and speculating about it, and I ran into some guests of the show, and other people that we [00:08:00] know from the Society of Automotive Historians, and we’re, we’re sitting there talking. People just couldn’t put their finger on it.

The race was kind of meh, attendance was down, and I said, “I think it’s because it’s not on Father’s Day.” Because Father’s Day, you get that hall pass. What does Grandpa wanna do? What does Dad wanna do? You know, we’re gonna go to the museum. We’re gonna watch the race. We’re gonna buckle down and watch Le Mans.

It’s always been on Father’s Day. And to shift it up to the same weekend as the Spanish GP, which we’re gonna talk about maybe some speculation as to why they did that in the other episode, it just was, everything was off. It’s like that weekend when the time changes. Yeah … and you just kind of feel neh for like, three days.

It was like, the same thing. It just, it was wrong. They need to go back to the way it was.

Crew Chief Brad: I think any year Toyota wins, it’s kind of a boring race.

Crew Chief Eric: But you gotta hand it to them. Either they were sandbagging like crazy, but to come from the back of the GTP pack, basically, and end up winning it, I mean, that’s a hell of a feat.

Because there weren’t a lot of GTP [00:09:00] cars, LMP1, whatever you wanna call them, that were out. The Peugeots were still there. The Ferraris were all still there. A couple of the Cadillacs. BMW basically stayed in second place for the entire race. Made no sense. It was like, okay. I mean, they did lead for the first while in the first half, but eventually they gave up the goat on that too.

But still, it was just, where the hell’d Toyota come from? It’s very bizarre. And I gotta go there. We gotta take a bite out of this 900-pound elephant in the conversation of Le Mans. Did I or did I not say last year Ferrari needed to stop?

Crew Chief Brad: You might have.

Crew Chief Eric: It was embarrassing.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t think it was embarrassing, because, okay, they started somewhere at the t- they got all the way to the bottom, and then they came back up to the top, so I mean, that’s good.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, they didn’t even podium. They didn’t even podium.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, considering how terrible they were doing at one point, to almost be close is not bad. Uh,

Crew Chief Eric: did they switch teams? Did the Formula 1 guys go to Le Mans this year and Le Mans went to Formula 1? Is that, is that what’s [00:10:00] going on?

Executive Producer Tania: Possible, ’cause didn’t they say last year that they were gonna try and get help from the Le Mans team for the Ferrari?

Crew Chief Eric: Right? Maybe they were all at the Spanish GP trying to help them, and not in France.

Crew Chief Brad: That would make a lot of sense to the results of the Spanish GP, then.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we’re gonna talk about that, too. But it was just, it was so disappointing. And now, if Ford comes in next year with their car, name yet to be determined, let’s call it the GT 2027 Ferrari needs to stop.

They either need to redesign the car, because that chassis’s already old at this point, or they need to stop. They need to get out, just like Porsche did. Because it just, it doesn’t- I don’t think they- It doesn’t make sense …

Executive Producer Tania: abandon everything. But who knows? Maybe it’s one of these off years where they are doing that.

Next year they’re gonna have the new car.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. How, how embarrassing would it be to not be there the same year Ford comes back, given the history between Ford and Ferrari?

Crew Chief Eric: In 1967, ’66, all those, ’68, all those years where they were [00:11:00] doing those battles, it was Ford and Ferrari neck and neck, going at it, you know, as dramatized in the movies, et cetera.

But if they just kind of show up and throw up, like, a seventh place finish, and Ford ends up, like, on the podium, that’s not Ford versus Ferrari. That’s Ford versus Toyota.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s still better for them to show up than to not show up, because then you’d be saying, “Oh, they couldn’t even get their act together and get a car to Le Mans,” or they, they chickened out, and they saw Ford was coming, and then they, they backpedaled and decided they didn’t want any piece of that.

You know how the Ford fanatics are.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s true. And Porsche lost three years in a row, so… And then they stopped. I kind of looked at it the other way and said, “Ferrari won three years in a row. They should have stopped.” Do we see the 499P for two more years? But stop

Executive Producer Tania: and then what? That’s it. They’re done.

They never run in Le Mans

Crew Chief Eric: again. Porsche will come back with something. But it’s not gonna be the 963.

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, I’d be curious to what the development plan and the strategic plan was when they put the car together. I mean, did they… I mean, we obviously weren’t in those meetings. [00:12:00] Could they possibly have said, you know, I’m speaking about Porsche, “Okay.

We’re gonna do this for three years, and then we’re gonna back out and do something else.” If they were just executing on the plan that they originally created, so be it.

Crew Chief Eric: Then the results are the results. Yeah. Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Could be the same with Ferrari. I mean, Ferrari probably said, you know, “Win, lose, draw, we’re gonna do this for five years, and then after that, we’re gonna go back to the drawing board.

We’re gonna focus on something else. We’re gonna focus on fixing the entire EV debacle that happened, and then we’re gonna come back.” Oh.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re gonna talk about that, too. My God.

Crew Chief Brad: Which I just, I just saw. The CMO for Ferrari was fired because of that launch.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, let’s put a pin in that and come back to it.

So let’s kind of go down the rungs a little bit. So, you know, we know what happened in GTP. LMP2, if you can tell them apart, that’s great. There was some good racing, though, in LMP2, I will say. Let’s talk about GT3 for just a second. Did anybody else see what I saw happening in GT3?

Crew Chief Brad: I saw Corvette won.

Crew Chief Eric: [00:13:00] Corvette won, but who was in second place, and who was leading for most of the time? It

Executive Producer Tania: was Lexus, wasn’t it? Yes. In their, like, 10-year-old car.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Crew Chief Brad: I thought Aston came in second.

Crew Chief Eric: No, Lexus came in second, and Lexus was leading for a really long time in GT3, which begged the question, ’cause I asked some other people, I was like, “Do you think they BOP’d everybody else to the slowness of the Lexus?”

‘Cause the Lexus has always been reliable, but it’s never been fast compared to the Corvettes or the Mustangs or the Porsches or the Fra- like, they’re always sort of just there. To Tanya’s point, that chassis’s old, that car’s old, that layout’s old. All of it’s old, and here they are leading GT3 at Le Mans.

You don’t wanna tell me that they basically put potatoes up everybody’s exhaust pipes and restricted them so that Lexus stood a chance.

Executive Producer Tania: You know, apparently that’s only the third time that Lexus has showed up.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Once they got the rules right where they could cross the IMSA [00:14:00] cars to Le Mans a couple years ago, I think that was 2024, the Lexus showed up, and it’s been there.

But you forget about it, because just like when it runs at Daytona, you just sort of forget about it unless all the other GT3 cars break.

Crew Chief Brad: The Lexus is always in the, the lowest class. It’s always in the GTD class. It’s never in the GT Pro. Or whatever. At least on the, on the IMSA side

Executive Producer Tania: So according to the interwebs-

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, boy

Executive Producer Tania: they had consistent pace. Consistently avoiding unforced errors, mechanical issues, and capitalizing on track restarts, the Lexus stayed at the front of the highly competitive GT pack for 24 hours. Their fuel efficiency. The team’s calculated fuel strategy allowed them to stretch their stints, giving them the edge to stay out on track longer while preserving both tires and engine.

Crew Chief Eric: They’re still out there with a Camry.

Crew Chief Brad: So basically, it’s Toyota being Toyota.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. Exact- exactly.

Crew Chief Brad: Exactly … reliable, not the fastest, but fast enough, and- And dependable … will, will run forever. Reliable and dependable. I [00:15:00] mean, that’s the Toyota motto.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. It was just shocking. But as we know, and having talked to Mark Raffauf and other people that are in the know and, and write the rules, especially Mark, the BOP exists, and if Toyota lobbied, you know, maybe it was a thing.

Like, if we can lobby the Lexus, then if Toyota ends up winning, maybe they were sandbagging. Again, conspiracy theories, put your tinfoil hats on. Then it’s a double win for Toyota, right? It’s a win at the top, and it’s a win in GT3 for the brand. So who knows, right?

Crew Chief Brad: So they don’t do that.

Crew Chief Eric: No, there’s no politics in racing whatsoever.

Crew Chief Brad: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. There’s no sort of, like, BOP in the upper classes. I mean, uh, definitely not in, uh, Prototype 2, because they’re all the exact same car. They’re

Crew Chief Eric: spec cars, yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. But, but in the, the Hypercar class, the top class, they don’t do a BOP. It’s basically run what you brung, right?

Crew Chief Eric: Kind of.

They build to a- With-

Crew Chief Brad: within the parameters that they have.

Crew Chief Eric: Correct. There’s a limit that they build to, but GT3, because the cars are so [00:16:00] disparate-

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah …

Crew Chief Eric: 911 is not the same shape as a Lambo, is not the same shape as the Lexus, so they have to figure out how to make them all equal, hence the balance of performance.

Right. And then what ends up happening there is, and Mark came on and talked about this on a Evening with a Legend episode, the manufacturers literally lobby to s- figure out the BOP, and in the end, they sort of squeak ahead or behind, and then it’s all the s- the typical racing stuff. Cheat until you get caught, and then it’s not cheating anymore.

It becomes a rule, right? It’s all that kind of stuff that’s been going on forever. But there is a lot of lobbying and a lot of politics in the GT classes, for sure.

Crew Chief Brad: Right. But in the Hypercar classes, basically run what you brung, and that’s where all the innovation and, and technology- Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: And that’s where you see all the diverse engines, too, where the-

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, yeah

Crew Chief Eric: the Magma is running, like, a six-cylinder, and the Valkyrie’s got a 12, and the Toyota’s got a four-wheel drive hybrid, and it’s all this mix-match of stuff.

Crew Chief Brad: I think we determined the, the Magma was running a small V8.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right. I had also heard rumor in testing, when they were testing the chassis, [00:17:00] they were running the Rally four-cylinder in it.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. Testing all kinds of stuff, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but I was impressed with them.

Crew Chief Brad: And we’ll talk about this later, but BOP is kind of what they’re doing in F1 right now. Like, allowing teams- Yeah … to do either one upgrade or two upgrades. But we’ll, we’ll get into that

Crew Chief Eric: Well, overall, Le Mans has come and gone. I worshiped at the altar like I do every year.

You know, now I just gotta wait for Petit, and then we start all over again with Daytona and Sebring and just keep going down the line. But there’s the other side of this that everybody’s been anxiously waiting for. June was gonna be an extremely busy month. We were gonna go from lemons to Le Mans. I think we gotta make some lemonade out of this lemon that we have.

Executive Producer Tania: Did that work out as planned?

Crew Chief Eric: No, it did not. We gotta fill our audience, and normally we would do this as the GTM Trackside Report.

Crew Chief Brad: You gotta make it to the track to make it a trackside report. Right?

Crew Chief Eric: Hey, now. Hey, now. The starting line is half the battle. It’s like G.I. Joe with this thing, [00:18:00] okay? And it’s funny because it’s sad.

Dave Lowe from Enduroverse called me the other day and, you know, he’s like, “So how’d you guys do? How did it go?” And I’m like, “Dave, I got bad news for you. We never made it to the starting line.” He’s like, “What happened?” So here’s the deal, as Tanya knows, Memorial Day weekend, we are wrapping the car up, like literally put stickers on it, getting it all done, trying to get it ready, going through all the final tech stuff, just making sure this is done, and we gotta go move the car out of the garage.

It had rained over the weekend. It’s fine. It stayed in the garage. We’re like, “Whatever.” It’s all clear now. We’re gonna take it outside, we’re gonna park it, it’s gonna be ready to go racing no problem. What did I go, like 50 yards from the house? I stopped to take a picture of it with the stickers on it so I could send it to our sponsors and say, “Hey, look, we put your stickers on the car.”

I just let it sit there in idle. I put it in reverse to back it into its spot, and it went into limp mode. And now, oh, I don’t know, a month later, it’s still in limp mode. It will not come out of limp mode. [00:19:00] So to make a very long and sad and expensive story short, I gotta give mad props to the guys over at Benchmark Motors.

I threw my hands in the air after doing a bunch of diagnosis, asking everything under the sun to include ChatGPT, like, “What the hell’s wrong with this car?”

Executive Producer Tania: Changing parts.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, replacing all sorts of parts, throttle body, pedal assembly, pigtails on the wiring harness, like all sorts of stuff that is, you know, indicative of the issue that we were getting with it, and apparently these are known problems with the Ford Focus, and we’re like, “Okay, fine, whatever.”

Crew Chief Brad: Wait, wait, wait, did you try unplugging it and plugging it back in?

Crew Chief Eric: So many times. Let me tell you- Did

Crew Chief Brad: you try rebooting it?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, well, that too. Oddly enough, in a fly-by-wire system, the car runs better right now with the throttle body disconnected than it does with the electrical system intact. So we can move it around a little bit.

Again, sob story. Shout out to Benchmark. We took it over there and I said, “Look, guys, we’re running out of [00:20:00] time. We have a week to go. I need a legitimate diagnostic tool to figure out what the heck is going on with this. I’ve maxed out everything I have, all the research I’ve done. Can one of your mechanics look at it?”

They said, “Sure, bring it in. No problem.” And I said, “Here’s what we’ve done. This, this, this, this, and this and this.” Granted, they’re gonna do their due diligence. They’re not gonna trust everybody. So they went through and retested everything that we did, and they got to the point where they’re like, “Look, man, there’s a problem with the computer itself, the ECU.”

And I’m like, “Oh, God, this is gonna be painful.” And to make matters worse, on the Ford, the ECU is hidden in the fender liner behind the driver’s side front wheel, which in my opinion, is like the dumbest place in the planet to put it. I sort of scratched my head ’cause I’m used to the Volkswagens and I’m like, “I know where things belong,” I’m gonna say it that way, and they don’t belong there.

So again, researching the Reddits and the forums and talking to ChatGPT and Copilot and whatever, and it’s like, oh, yeah, you know, they get wet there, and then the [00:21:00] wires, like, go bad and stuff happens and shorts out the computer and okay, fine. Our car’s got high mileage. It’s in really decent shape. It doesn’t have any rust or anything like that, so- We end up ordering a new ECU, which costs a fortune, from Ford, because we have to get it coded at a dealership.

And then there was a big old goat rodeo between Benchmark and the local Ford dealership saying, “Well, it’s a race car,” and they’re like, “No, it’s not. These guys have been really good about not touching any of the electronics. It’s actually just a bone stock Ford Focus. Hook your OBD thing to it, reprogram the ECU,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Again, a bunch of rigmarole. Coming down to the last day before, the morning of, we’re supposed to be at Tech, and the car is still not running. So I go over there Friday morning, and they’re like, “Look, man. They tried to program the new ECU. The ECU doesn’t wanna talk to the throttle body, which means that the programming is technically incomplete, but that stage of the programming you could do yourself, you know, blah, blah, blah,” all this back and forth.

“Let’s try a couple other things.” [00:22:00] So I brought them the original throttle body, all these other parts, and they’re messing around. And I’m like, “Guys, I don’t want you to spend any more time on it, because the more time you’re spending on it, the more aggravated I’m getting and the more expensive it is,” right?

Because they’re not gonna do it for free. Although, they’ve been keeping in touch with us. Like, one of the head guys there just reached out to me the other day. He’s like, “What’s going on? Did you guys get the car running? It’s been a month, basically.” And I said, “Look, this is where we’re at. After a couple failed attempts, we finally got a brand-new, from Ford, engine wiring harness.

We’re gonna replace all the electronics on the engine side and move the ECU. We’re gonna relocate it. Since the battery’s out of the way, we’re gonna move the ECU into a better location, not where it can get wet, and hope to God that that solves the problem.” ‘Cause if it doesn’t, the next move is a Molotov cocktail.

What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? I- I- I’ve researched other options too. People are like, “Oh, yeah, yeah, buy programmable fuel injection. Put a Haltech on there.” By the way, Haltech doesn’t support that motor. “Oh, yeah, [00:23:00] yeah, yeah. Yeah, Motec.” Motec’s $15,000 because it’s a direct injection engine, ’cause it’s modern.

That’s out of the Lemon’s budget, folks. There’s a carburetor option. There’s even another option. I talked to these guys in England. They’re like, “We’ll sell you a computer. It’ll run the motor, but it doesn’t interface with any of the other electronics in the car.” So you’re on the hook to figure out how to make, like, the tachometer work, and how to make all the other stuff work that Ford will basically neuter the car, right?

Like, if you don’t hit the clutch and turn the car on, like, all… They’re like, “Yeah, none of that stuff works. You gotta figure out how to bridge it.” And I’m like, “Who invented this system? This is ridiculous.” Plug and play. We’re gonna put that in air quotes, right? I’m like, “Oh, my God.”

Executive Producer Tania: That’s that British electronics.

I,

Crew Chief Brad: I, I will say, to make this a little bit more palatable for us, if anybody at Benchmark is listening, we are accepting sponsorships.

Crew Chief Eric: Uh, yeah, yeah. We’re accepting.

Crew Chief Brad: So if anybody wants to help sponsor this, I mean, we, we could start a GoFundMe if we have [00:24:00]

Crew Chief Eric: to. Dude, we’re gonna have to, because I’m gonna have to sell a kidney at, at some point.

This thing, we’re just hemorrhaging money on it at this point, and it’s been the stupidest stuff, and this is just, like, ridiculous. And, and you know what’s funny? I was talking to Greg Stanley recently. He came on the show and we did an interview, and he quoted Jay Leno. It’s so true what Jay has said. He’s like, “Mechanical things break, and they can either be remade, remanufactured, or repaired, but electronics degrade.”

And that’s why there’s not gonna be classic cars of this era, because 50 years from now, when all the electronics rot out and- There’s

Executive Producer Tania: not gonna be a classic car Tesla that everybody’s- Going to go get?

Crew Chief Eric: No, that, and that’s just it. Once all the wires corrode inside of that loom and nobody makes the loom anymore, are you gonna sit there in your garage and take it apart and make a new loom that’s only gonna last 10 years, and then the car’s gonna be a brick again?

I mean, we’re gonna have a bunch of museum pieces.

Crew Chief Brad: So what you’re saying is we should start collecting Mark IV looms now.

Crew Chief Eric: I am already working on [00:25:00] that. That is the next thing, right? Because Mountain Man Dan came to the table and says, “I got this shop in Pennsylvania, little $200,000 machine. They’ll hook up the car, and they’ll tell you down to the inch where the break is in the wires,” which apparently this is also an issue with the Ford, the way they split the wires.

Rather than what the Germans do, which is we’re gonna home run a wire to its location, but we’re gonna make it two inches too short so there’s no slack if you ever have to go mess with it. It is, like, exactly exact to save money. What Ford did is they said, “Hey, look, we’re gonna put a branch here, and then we’re gonna put some chewing gum and some bailing wire and a wire nut from, like, your home, you know, electric system, and that’s how we’re gonna hold it together,” and that’s gonna rot and then fall apart.

If you look at the schematic, there’s like 10 of these branches where they soldered wires together in, like, a Y shape, and apparently any one of those can go bad. And then suddenly the whole system is a cascading failure. Rather than haul the car all the way to this place, you know, a couple hours [00:26:00] away or whatever to deal with it, I’m just gonna hand the loom to Dan and say, “Take it to the shop,” and if they can fix it, then we have a backup using the original that’s repaired.

That way we… It took us weeks to find one because a lot of people were saying, “It’s no longer available. You can’t get a wiring harness for it.” And to make matters worse, the highest percentage of Focuses sold are not manual transmissions, and the wiring loom is different. So even if you tried to find one in the junkyard, you’re taking a risk, but you’re not gonna find one.

We’ve looked. There just, there aren’t any out there. bonkers. So I put my hands together and pray to our benevolent motorsport overlords in the name of the duct tape, the WD-40, and the nighttime that we make it to Summit Point in October. That is the plan at this point. We have no other recourse. Cross our fingers, and if we don’t blow up the motor, hopefully maybe we can do Road Atlanta after that.

But our season is not even started yet, and it’s halfway over.

Crew Chief Brad: If there are any listeners out [00:27:00] there with a rental car for us to borrow, a spare track car, we might, we might need your contact information.

Crew Chief Eric: Former guest Mike Carr, if you’re listening, I know you got, like, 15 of them, dude. Come on, now.

Executive Producer Tania: I did listen to…

I say listen, ’cause I didn’t really watch it. Glanced. I did listen to a video on somebody doing this, quote, “repair.”

Crew Chief Eric: Uh-huh.

Executive Producer Tania: Taking the harness out and putting a new one in. It does not seem, famous last words, that complicated.

Crew Chief Eric: The loom isn’t that big. The Volkswagen loom- Yeah … is actually bigger, and I’ve done that one.

Executive Producer Tania: I was very surprised. I was like, wow. And it’s all just laying on top of everything.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that’s what it looks like.

Executive Producer Tania: Apparently. Like, there’s a couple that run down in the front, but then, like, uh, it’s all just, like, laying on top. Yeah. And I’m like, okay, this isn’t that bad then maybe.

Crew Chief Eric: The loom sits on top of the engine for the most part.

It’s, like, right there in front of your face. Mm-hmm. So other than pulling it out of the fender well and sealing that hole- Yeah … ’cause we have to seal the hole.

Executive Producer Tania: And coming through the firewall, which should be a lot easier, ’cause the battery’s not there anymore.

Crew Chief Eric: Correct.

Crew Chief Brad: And the, and, and the plan is also to [00:28:00] relocate the computer, right?

The ECU.

Crew Chief Eric: Correct.

Crew Chief Brad: Put it right on the hood so, I mean, you just bypass all the extra bullshit. The race, right on it. Right there. So it just- Right on it … it just hits it im- like, immediately.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I’m going to move it probably where the battery used to be, because there’s a big open space there now, and then we can put it in a box or, you know, get a box for it or some, waterproof it or something like that.

My other plan is actually to make sure that when we relocated the battery, that I rerun a brand-new ground from that location back to the battery, just to make sure that we didn’t break a loop in the circuit somewhere. I’ve got cable on the way.

Executive Producer Tania: I have cable.

Crew Chief Eric: You have 12 feet of battery cable?

Executive Producer Tania: Probably.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, I ordered it, so.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, ’cause we bought all that stuff to do the battery in the Audi, and we never did it.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, shoot. Okay. Well, I ordered it today. Okay. So it’s no big deal. But yeah, only because our local battery place had a fire incident not too long ago. And that’s a real shame, ’cause they’ve been an [00:29:00] awesome sponsor over the years, just getting us everything we ever needed for the race car.

Well,

Executive Producer Tania: seems like they’re rebuilding, so.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, hopefully they bounce back. Because that’s a tremendous fire. When a battery place goes up in flames, that’s a hard fire to control.

Crew Chief Brad: Almost like a Tesla.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, it’s been a really weird month. Unfortunately, we’re gonna make lemonade out of these lemons. We’re gonna keep going.

We’re past the point of no return. Mm-hmm. Nobody wants a car that doesn’t run. That’s the age-old story. Whether it’s a classic car or a race car or even a lemons car, if it doesn’t run, nobody’s gonna buy it from you. You know what I mean? So it’s not like we can get out from underneath of it. And it would be disappointing to go through all of 2026 and not turn a lap in this car.

Executive Producer Tania: Mm-hmm. Time will tell.

Crew Chief Eric: Time will tell. Mm, mm, mm.

Crew Chief Brad: We should probably just take it to a DE to shake out the leg, shake, shake out the-

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, God.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, God.

Don’t get me started. You wanna see me go zero to 7,000 RPM. Let’s keep going, Rand. And then as you say, my voice, start escalating my voice.

Executive Producer Tania: What’s this about, [00:30:00] uh, Volkswagen Audi news?

Crew Chief Eric: Uh, yeah, let’s, let’s switch gears, shall we? Ah, Volkswagen Audi news. We know that it’s a bridge over troubled waters at Volkswagen, but I don’t understand the hokey pokey.

We literally had episodes where we said goodbye to cars like the two-door GTI. We said goodbye to the Passat. We said goodbye to the TT. They said, “No more. It’s not gonna happen. We’re only gonna sell e-Golfs and ID.Buzzes and ID.4s and all this other stuff.” And now they’re talking about a successor to the TT, and this particular test mule is built on top of the Boxster.

Isn’t it terrible? I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, it looks like a Porsche. Who cares? Why are we calling this a TT?

Crew Chief Brad: It’s also mid-engine.

Crew Chief Eric: Bingo.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s not TT either.

Crew Chief Eric: Bingo. So that’s what’s interesting about this. Is the new TT going to be the budget Boxster? Because if it is, this actually goes back to the concept [00:31:00] R that they had in 2003, which was a Boxster with a VR6 engine instead of the Porsche Flat 6 with the EOS nose and its own unique rear end or whatever.

So this is not a new idea for Volkswagen. They’re going back 20-plus years and rehashing this. But what it does is it sort of ushers in the idea that if we’re gonna build the TT with this mid-engine platform, supposedly with Quattro, right, ’cause they always do a Quattro. They don’t do front-wheel drive or rear-wheel drive only Audis really anymore.

Does this mean its big brother is coming back, too? And that’s the R8, ’cause as you guys know, the R8 and the TT in the later generations, they look very, very similar.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, I think the answer to that question is look at Lamborghini. Is there a new Lamborghini coming?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, there’s always a new Lamborghini coming, unless Volkswagen decides to sell that company, too, along with Bugatti and Rimac and everything else they’ve been scuttling over the last couple of months.

Crew Chief Brad: I guess Bugatti didn’t sell enough Baby IIs. [00:32:00]

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I mean, what else did they sell? All right, Tanya, what do you, what do you think about this TT other than you don’t like it?

Executive Producer Tania: It’s ugly. I mean, I hope it doesn’t look like this. It, it looks like a Porsche, right?

Crew Chief Eric: Is it gonna look like this thing, whatever they’re calling this thing now, the new Volare or Concept C or whatever it is?

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I hope not either, because that looks like a cartoon drawing. It belongs in Batman: The Animated Series Original.

Crew Chief Eric: So is this gonna be mid-engine?

Executive Producer Tania: Who knows?

Crew Chief Eric: You see how they parked the Mk1 next to the Concept C? The

Executive Producer Tania: TT has become something like the Beetle. Its own iconic design, love it or leave it.

The TT’s a particular shape, because it was the Carmen Ghia or whatever. Yep. The Carmen Ghia was its own particular shape. And it’s just a weird hodgepodge, that Porsche thing. To make it look like a Porsche is stupid. It’s badge engineering again. If you’re not gonna pull the thread and keep it looking like a TT, I don’t know what we’re doing.

It’d be like saying, “Oh, we’re making a new Beetle,” and it’s a fucking four-door sedan. [00:33:00]

Crew Chief Eric: They call that the Panamera.

Executive Producer Tania: And then be like, “Ooh, the new Beetle.” I’d be like, “No, that has nothing to do with the Beetle.”

Crew Chief Brad: It’ll, it’ll be the Beetle Clubman.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. Oh, my God. Exactly.

Crew Chief Brad: What Audi should do is they should take the RS 3 chassis and put a redesigned TT body on it.

And then boom, you’re done.

Crew Chief Eric: But the

Crew Chief Brad: problem with the Jetta

Crew Chief Eric: is that it’s not sporty enough.

Crew Chief Brad: The chassis? The R- you’re telling me an RS 3’s not sporty?

Crew Chief Eric: Not if you’re targeting that particular market. If you want something to go into that convertible market, into that sport coupe market or whatever, a sedan chassis is not gonna do it.

Because the RS 3 at the end of the day is a Jetta. I mean, the older Jetta, but still, it’s, it’s a Jetta with all-wheel drive, and a lot of horsepower. Let’s get real. And not only that, if they’re going to do what they said they’re gonna do, which is come out with the new ultimate Golf R with the RS3 engine in it, why would you build something inferior to the GTI?

It has to be [00:34:00] drastically different than the GTI. So for my money, a rear-wheel drive, mid-engine TT, Boxster, whatever you wanna call it, kinda makes sense.

Crew Chief Brad: As long as it doesn’t look like a Porsche.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, that’s just it. If it ends up looking like this concept car that we’ve seen renderings of, looks aside, if it’s pinned on top of a Boxster chassis, at least you kinda know what you’re getting.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s the interior that kills me, though. This interior is God awful. Like, what is this?

Executive Producer Tania: Wow. It’s very utilitarian.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, there’s spartan and then there’s this dentist office that I’m looking at here. I mean, this is- Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Where do you shift the gears?

Crew Chief Eric: You don’t shift the gears ’cause it doesn’t have any.

I bet you this thing’ll be electrical, too. I don’t even wanna know.

Crew Chief Brad: The TTEV? The

Crew Chief Eric: TTEV. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, Tanya, you brought us this next article. Again, some more Volkswagen hokey pokey.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, this article annoys me tremendously-

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, do tell …

Executive Producer Tania: for various reasons. Basically, they’re saying [00:35:00] the base Golf hatchback is gonna come back to the US soon, ’cause Volkswagen is moving Golf production to Mexico, and if the tariffs are lowered, the base model could soon be imported to the United States.

So first of all, they’re, like, contradicting themselves in this article, that it’s moving to Mexico, but then it really depends if the tariffs get lifted whether or not we get it in North America. And then there’s the, “While the Golf has been built in Wolfsburg, Germany for more than 50 years, production of the hatchback will shift entirely to Puebla, Mexico in 2027.”

Excuse me. Golfs have always been m- also made in Mexico.

Crew Chief Eric: And Brazil, yes. Only the special Golfs were made in Wolfsburg, and the last Golf to be made in Wolfsburg was the original R32.

Executive Producer Tania: The person writing this article is clueless, for one, and two, I just… Maybe they’re moving more production there ’cause they’re gonna sell them there, but I don’t know how they win if the whole tariff thing isn’t-

Crew Chief Eric: Right

Executive Producer Tania: then what can of worms opens up? Because there’s also supposed to be [00:36:00] everything made in America. How is that gonna work? Who’s gonna shine a favorable light on Volkswagen for doing this?

Crew Chief Eric: I wanna know what motor it’s gonna be in, and I wanna know about these lies on the price.

Executive Producer Tania: Under $30,000. Apparently there’s a Jetta that’s 25 and a Taos under 30 also.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s no way that Jetta’s 25 grand. Who’s selling a car for 25,000 right now that isn’t used?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know. Probably Kia. Well, that’s not true. We do know who’s selling a car for $25,000 right now, but we’ll get to that later.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, Lord.

Executive Producer Tania: Slate

Crew Chief Eric: All right. Did you guys watch this video? Look at this.

Executive Producer Tania: I think I might have posted that.

Crew Chief Eric: I watched this. This is the most bonkers thing I’ve ever seen.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know what the point of this is, other than it’s an engineering feat.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I feel like I could watch that all day, just going back and forth and back and forth.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, this looks like somebody’s, like, Lego Technic set.

Crew Chief Eric: This is the most important sentence in the whole thing.[00:37:00]

If you didn’t read the article, this is the only part that matters. The reason this weird scaffolding where the wheels can move back and forth on this Audi is to help get it unstuck.

Executive Producer Tania: What?

Crew Chief Eric: Pardon my idiocy, but we just made this A8 front-wheel drive- … so it’s less capable, and you’re telling me with all this stuff, as soon as that gets stuck in the mud, that the front wheels are gonna pull it out by jerking these wheels back and forth?

Are you kidding me? The front’s still gonna sit and spin regardless of what these rear Lego Technic wheels are doing back here. I mean, I’m not a scientist, but, like-

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t understand what that’s doing because the other big deal of this car is that apparently it runs on compressed air. Where’s your compressed air tank?

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t get any of this.

Executive Producer Tania: Which apparently that is stroking the air tank.

Crew Chief Eric: What? [00:38:00] Oh my God. I don’t know. So they’re like pistons now. So terrible.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, how far do you go, five miles with this thing? Like-

Crew Chief Eric: The first turn you take in this-

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t even know how this thing… This must be someone’s capstone project at school or something.

It

Crew Chief Eric: has to be. It has to be.

Executive Producer Tania: Where they found a totally blown car that they got for, like, 200 bucks, and they said, “Hold my beer. I’ve got our senior project.”

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I can tell you it’s overseas because this Jetta- Yes … station wagon- … has European bumpers on it. That’s how I know.

Executive Producer Tania: A Euro license plate holder is probably

Crew Chief Eric: an indicator as well.

Again, I’m more interested in this 25-year-old station wagon in the background of this picture- … than I am of this entire piece of junk that I’m looking at here. Science fair project. So, you know, we’ve talked a lot about Audi wasting [00:39:00] their time on doing things like this TT, and doing things like bringing back the Golf, et cetera.

But I, I brought this up on Discord the other day. I found out what they’ve really been wasting their time on, and I wanna, I wanna talk about this again. The new Audis have projector turn signals where it shows the arrows on the ground.

Executive Producer Tania: Why? Nobody uses turn signals. What a waste.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s the first thing I thought too.

I mean, BMW will never have this option. And the door that opens itself. I mean, this is just ridiculous stuff that nobody needs, right? I mean, this is like Bentley, Rolls-Royce level kind of automation stuff. But here’s the thing. Aren’t we always taught, at least in racing we’re always taught to look up, look ahead, be situationally aware.

Why would I wanna divert my eyes to the ground to be able to see your turn signal? Who does this benefit? ‘Cause I mean, if you have your nose in Instagram while you’re driving like everybody else I see on the beltway, they’re not gonna see this either. So I’m wondering, I’m gonna pose the question to you, [00:40:00] Brad.

Do we think this system is actually for autonomous self-driving mode 38, where the cars flash each other and indicate that they’re gonna change lanes? Is that what this is for?

Crew Chief Brad: This is the thing that gets you to the next thing. The next thing is the cars are going to announce-

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, God …

Crew Chief Brad: turning left, moving left, moving left, flashers-

flashers.

Crew Chief Eric: Please mind the gap.

Crew Chief Brad: Slow-moving car, slow-moving car. But they’re gonna talk to each other in binary.

Crew Chief Eric: Awful.

Crew Chief Brad: We’re all gonna drive down the road and it’s just gonna sound like we’re all trying to log on to AOL Online.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I got a shout-out to Chrissy Crutchfield, one of our GTM-ers. She was on the show many times in the early seasons.

She found how Volkswagen is going to solve all their financial woes.

Crew Chief Brad: They’re gonna sell everything.

Crew Chief Eric: Nope, they’re gonna sell everything at Costco. You can now buy VWs through Costco.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, you can already buy a lot of cars at [00:41:00] Costco, and allegedly it can often be cheaper than going to the dealer.

Crew Chief Brad: They have a whole dealer, discount dealer- Yes

partnership network.

Executive Producer Tania: Mm-hmm. This isn’t, like, anything new to Costco, but I suppose it’s new that now Volkswagen is in their lineup.

Crew Chief Brad: Actually, let’s, let’s see. Costco autos. I bet you can buy a Mercedes at Costco.

Crew Chief Eric: And that begs the question, do the Germans now feel like they are debasing themselves by having to sell their cars through a discount bulk store like Costco?

Executive Producer Tania: Okay, it’s not like it’s nothing, but so limited time special deal right now on an Atlas, Atlas Cross Sport, a Tiguan. Now till August 31st, 2026 if you’re looking. $1,000 incentive if you’re a Gold Star or business member. $1,250 if you’re an executive member. There’s also a limited time special on the Chrysler Pacifica.

Crew Chief Eric: Ah.

Executive Producer Tania: Chrysler Voyager

Crew Chief Brad: You can buy Volvos through Costco

Crew Chief Eric: Are we sure about that? [00:42:00] We’re gonna talk about a Volvo subsidiary here shortly. We might not be able to buy Volvos from anywhere soon. We’ll leave that dormant for the time being.

Let’s stop talking about Volkswagen, because one of the greats now has a blemish on its report card. There’s been some ugly concepts in the past. There’s been some weird designs. There’s been Pininfarina pushing the envelope of what they could do with bright red sheet metal. But now that Pininfarina is gone, Ferrari has lost their freaking minds.

Executive Producer Tania: I would never say Ferrari.

Crew Chief Eric: I wouldn’t say Apple either, and I know Jony Ive was involved in the design. What is this?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t even know who to say automaker that belongs to.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s better looking in blue than it is in that God-awful yellow.

Crew Chief Brad: Have you seen the people on Instagram that are redesigning it, making it lower, a little bit longer, changing the dimensions a little bit?

Executive Producer Tania: Basically [00:43:00] creating a whole new car?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, their- Yeah … their cars look significantly better-

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, you don’t say …

Crew Chief Brad: than what Ferrari actually is putting out. And why is it a million dollars?

Crew Chief Eric: $640,000.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh.

Crew Chief Eric: Somebody said to me, jokingly, but I don’t think they were wrong, “This is Ferrari’s checkbox.” There was a rule somewhere that said they have to build some sort of EV, so they built this.

Executive Producer Tania: Did they have to make it look like ass?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, because they don’t actually wanna sell them. So then they can say, “Our EV program was a failure, and we’re gonna destroy all these,” like GM did with the EV1 back in the ’90s, and then nobody will ever talk about it again except when they’re laughing about them.

‘Cause they’re terrible. ‘Cause who’s gonna buy this? How many Teslas can you buy for $650,000?

Executive Producer Tania: More than you should. Right?

Crew Chief Brad: I like how Teslas have become the Miatas. Like, how many Miatas can you buy for $640,000?

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I’d rather drive a 30-year-old Miata than drive this. I’m not trying to throw stones or throw shade [00:44:00] at the Miata, ’cause I like them, but this is horrendous.

This even starts to make the Fiat Multipla look good.

Crew Chief Brad: Wouldn’t that kind of backfire? Because if you’re a collector and you have inside information, and you know that Ferrari only built this ’cause they don’t wanna sell it, and they wanna kill the program as quickly as possible, as collectors, you’re gonna wanna get one of these to say that you have one of the only Ferrari EVs ever made before the program is killed.

Executive Producer Tania: There’s gonna be some twat that buys that.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. It’s gonna be some YouTuber or whatever. It’ll be WhistlinDiesel or somebody, you know, ’cause they wanna light it on fire or something like that.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s for sure.

Crew Chief Eric: But $640,000 is a huge pill to swallow, even for a footballer, even for a YouTuber.

Executive Producer Tania: Ain’t no footballer gonna fit in that.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but smart collectors, they’re not gonna spend nearly three-quarters of a million dollars on something that looks like that. It’s terrible. They’ll end up in a museum somewhere to say, “Look. Look at this [00:45:00] concept car that we built that never went anywhere.” You know, you read these press releases on the Ferrari website, “A new chapter for the Maranello marque.”

I was like, “Oh my God, what ChatGPT wrote this?” I was like, “This is terrible.” All this, like, pomp and circumstance about this car, it’s, it’s just heinous. And then at the same time, the market responds and the Ferrari stocks take a hit. They just plummet because people are like, “What the hell are you doing?”

And the whole month, social media was just exploding about how terrible this car is. And my favorite one, ’cause I was following the Italian social media as well, and they had Montezemolo on there, who’s the former CEO of Ferrari, and he goes, it was so great, translated to English, “It’s so ugly, even the Chinese won’t copy it.”

Damn. I mean, that’s savage. And he’s not wrong. It’s terrible. Th- this was my favorite part of the month. Did you guys see this when it came out, where Nissan was trolling [00:46:00] Ferrari by showing pictures of, like, the Leaf?

Executive Producer Tania: I did see that, but the Mazda doubles down. What’s that?

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, yeah. Mazda apparently did the same thing with their car.

They had another one that they showed, and they were pestering Ferrari- Oh … about their car as well. But it does look very Japanese, I will give it that.

Executive Producer Tania: It looks like something that belongs in a video game.

Crew Chief Eric: So another quote I read was, “Cyberpunk Fiat Multipla.” I was like, “Yeah, that’s not wrong either.”

There’s not one redeeming thing. I don’t even like the wheels. Like, there’s nothing I like about this. Okay, if you had built this out of Legos and put it at Legoland, I would’ve been okay with it. Then it’s acceptable. It looks like a Playmobil.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. Fisher-Price, this would’ve been perfect.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, since we’re still talking roughly about Stellantis, Chrysler’s gonna save itself by re-badging some Fiats.

Look at this thing. The Chrysler Aero and the Aero Cross will be re-badged versions of Fiat’s [00:47:00] latest SUV, which is called the Grizzly.

Executive Producer Tania: But the Grizzly was supposed to be one of the Pandas, I thought.

Crew Chief Eric: And this sorta looks like the successor to the little Jeep Cherokee as well. I mean, they’re all very, very similar.

Executive Producer Tania: Call it a Chrysler, though?

Crew Chief Eric: Chrysler Aero and Chrysler Aero Cross, which is probably the all-wheel drive version.

Executive Producer Tania: Mm.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, no. I’m sorry. One is a lift back and one is a hatchback. There’s the difference.

Executive Producer Tania: The gold one’s the lift back, right?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Look, they even say Fastback on there.

Executive Producer Tania: Mm.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s got that Corrado shape to it.

Crew Chief Brad: It looks like the Polestar 2 or whatever.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s not great, but it’s not terrible either. I mean, it looks better than the Luce. I mean, I’ll give

Executive Producer Tania: it that. The colors are fucking heinous. Um.

Crew Chief Eric: The wheels are awful.

Executive Producer Tania: These could be improved with better colors. I don’t hate them for Fiat. I think they’re gonna look stupid with a Chrysler badge.

Crew Chief Eric: 100%. Why are the gas doors getting so big? You notice that?

Executive Producer Tania: Are these electric or actual gas?

Crew Chief Eric: It says right here, “Expected to [00:48:00] utilize Stellantis’ familiar turbocharged 1.2 liter three-cylinder engine.”

Executive Producer Tania: Right above that, they’ll be able to choose between gasoline, mild hybrid, and full electric powertrains.

Crew Chief Eric: So that’s why it’s got the big flapper.

Executive Producer Tania: So you can put the charging port there.

Crew Chief Eric: But they look awful ’cause they’re so big now. Like, we were at a point where they were trying to make the gas doors as small as they possibly could. Now we’ve gone the other way. They’ve supersized them. But they’re claiming sub $30,000. Would you buy this for less than 30 grand, Brad?

Crew Chief Brad: I wouldn’t buy that for $20.

Crew Chief Eric: God.

Crew Chief Brad: With a 1.2 liter motor, it’s gonna go zero to 60 in 25 days.

Crew Chief Eric: You say that, but all those Ford Bronco Sports that are out there have three cylinder turbo engines in them.

Crew Chief Brad: I’ve never seen one moving particularly fast.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s ’cause they blend in with all the other high top SUVs that are out there.

Let’s see what else we got here in the news.

Executive Producer Tania: So this actually dovetails with a later issue too, technically. [00:49:00] So political world turmoil issues.

Crew Chief Eric: I did not know this.

Executive Producer Tania: Because Mercedes-Benz is technically, has Chinese shareholder-

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, come on …

Executive Producer Tania: and we do not want Chinese in the US, basically this new bill in the auto market industry would make it that Mercedes-Benz wouldn’t be able to be sold here anymore.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay. How many lobbyists from GM are on this particular bill to try to get more people to buy Cadillacs instead of Benzes?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m just gonna throw it out there.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s wild. I mean, I did not realize that Mercedes-Benz’s largest individual shareholder is a Chinese-owned automaker, so that was news.

But also it would be wild to suddenly be like, “Mercedes aren’t sold in the US anymore.”

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, Volkswagens won’t be sold in the US anymore either because nobody wants them, so you know, it doesn’t matter if they get Chinese funding or not.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t [00:50:00] think I’ve heard that, uh- … how large the Chinese stakeholder is in Volkswagen.

But it’s okay ’cause the Volkswagens are being made in Mexico now, so.

Crew Chief Brad: Whatever happened to if you want somebody to buy your car, you actually just make a better car?

Crew Chief Eric: Nope, can’t do that ’cause all the cars look the same now.

Crew Chief Brad: You can still make a better car.

Crew Chief Eric: No, it’s not possible.

Crew Chief Brad: Toyota’s been making better cars for decades now.

Crew Chief Eric: But they’re boring, you see.

Crew Chief Brad: They’re still better cars. They still outsell anything General Motors ever sold.

Crew Chief Eric: That is true. They are, like, they’re number three largest company, or are they number one again?

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t know if they’re number one.

Crew Chief Eric: They’re definitely on the podium, that’s for sure.

Crew Chief Brad: Always. Quality over quantity for me.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Reliability, dependability, that is Toyota’s middle name for sure.

Executive Producer Tania: This dovetails with a later article which I think makes sense to talk about now even though it’s EV, is the Polestar for the same reason because Polestar is owned by a Chinese group. They too are now [00:51:00] being shut out of the US market.

Crew Chief Eric: So what does that mean for Volvo, the parent designer of Polestar before they split them off? Because the Polestar name even comes from Volvo. Remember they had the Polestar series cars. They were all blue. They were the hot Volvos and everything, and then they spun up this company. Volvo’s owned by Geely, Jeely, Giggly.

What, what was that movie? Geely. Jenny From the Block, was it J.Lo? At any rate

Executive Producer Tania: So this is the weird thing, and I, I don’t know the reason yet, but apparently we’re allowing Volvo to stay

Crew Chief Eric: Lobbyists …

Executive Producer Tania: which doesn’t make any

Crew Chief Brad: sense. Because they aren’t direct competitors to Cadillac.

Executive Producer Tania: No. There

Crew Chief Eric: you go.

Executive Producer Tania: They aren’t direct competitors, or they are competing against Tesla.

Crew Chief Eric: There you go. So Elon’s got his lobbyists trying to get all the competition out of the way.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I doubt they’re selling as many Polestars as a Tesla, but-

Crew Chief Eric: I haven’t seen one in… They, they sell about as many of these as they sell Fisker Oceans

Executive Producer Tania: I haven’t read in [00:52:00] enough into this new legislation or bill that they’re trying to pass that would make all this happen.

I don’t know why we would exempt Volvo of the same Geely as Polestar.

Crew Chief Eric: And if that’s the case, if they’re successful in pushing Polestar out, it’s only a matter of time before the other shoe falls, and then Volvo will be no more. But it could also be that Volvo’s dealer network is mature enough now, robust enough, that maybe the US can’t get rid of them versus maybe there’s a couple pop-up Polestars here and there.

Crew Chief Brad: Instead of too big to fail, too big deport.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, pretty much.

Executive Producer Tania: The problem part of it, too, is their software- In the cars, and that’s also a reason to create this ban. Again, I haven’t read deep enough into it, but it’s like if you’ve got software still being put in these cars that’s originating out of China, and that’s part of the reason to have this bill or whatever, then I don’t understand, still [00:53:00] don’t understand how Volvo gets away with it.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t know. Maybe there’s more Bosch stuff in a Volvo than there is in a Polestar.

Executive Producer Tania: Unless they’re changing the stuff in the Volvo so then it, it makes it compliant.

Crew Chief Eric: Look at it this way. The tin foil paranoia hat says you park a Geely car in a garage somewhere in the District of Columbia, I’m sure it’s designed to do nefarious spy versus spy type of things, right?

That’s what that car is doing all day long. It’s sitting there pinging and trying to capture packets in the air from the White House wireless system or something. Like, this is the kind of stuff I deal with on the regular, so it’s probably not far from the truth.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, that’s what it… So here we go. The rule, so the rules included a ban on most Chinese-developed and maintained software that took effect in March 26 for the 2027 model year and covered companies with significant Chinese ownership.

Lawmakers have proposed making the rules even tougher. Quote, “Given our ownership, Volvo Car USA was required to follow a process with the US [00:54:00] Department of Commerce to obtain a specific authorization for the continued import and sale of connected cars in the US,” the company said. “With this specific authorization, Volvo Cars can continue its growth plans in the United States.”

Like, that doesn’t tell me anything.

Crew Chief Eric: No, what it says is Volvo is now TAA compliant. That’s what they are.

Executive Producer Tania: I guess. This is courtesy of CNBC.

Crew Chief Brad: Volvo filed the correct paperwork.

Executive Producer Tania: Basically, and Polestar didn’t.

Crew Chief Brad: But they only did it for Volvo because I think they were planning on shutting down Polestar anyway.

So instead of saying, “We’re pulling out because we’re not selling enough Polestars,” they’re using this as kind of a scapegoat to say, “Well, we’re not allowed to sell them in the US anymore.”

Executive Producer Tania: So the end of this article says that Polestar continues to, quote, “work with the US authorities to meet the requirements of the announced regulations.”

Crew Chief Eric: Trying to get their authority to operate. No, I get it. I get it. It’s all very DOD-esque at the end of the day.

Executive Producer Tania: Who knows? Maybe Polestar will be [00:55:00] able to continue once they meet whatever the requirements are.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Nobody’s buying their cars. Nobody’s gonna buy them then either Oh, so as we wrap out this segment that took a left turn at Albuquerque somewhere, but we’re still in Lower Saxony, I wanna talk about the hottest piece of BMW news that was all over the month of June.

This is the only thing there was to talk about, right here. How many ways can you say the same thing over and over and over again?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, you also missed that the new M3 is gonna be an EV. No,

Crew Chief Eric: I didn’t miss that. I just choose to ignore the fact that that car even exists, because it’s terrible. No, the M2 is really the M3, right?

The M3, I don’t know what that is now. We talked about it before. It’s big, it’s huge, it’s the size of a 5 Series, blah, blah, blah. The M2 sort of eclipsed the M3 in terms of, like, I can get it with two doors, and I can take it to the track tomorrow and go have fun. And now it’s like, “The first ever all-wheel drive [00:56:00] M2 has a button that makes it rear-wheel drive,” and, you know, blah, blah, all this stuff.

And I’m like, “What? That sounds really complicated. I don’t want any of that. None of it.”

All right. Well, let’s talk about domestics before we talk about Japanese cars. A little note here from General Motors.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, which follows on to another note that we had in a previous drive-through about, I think it was Volkswagen-

Crew Chief Eric: Yep …

Executive Producer Tania: getting into the munitions business- Oh, my God … as, I guess, a way to help them sell their Costco cars.

It was recently announced from Lockheed that they have a collaboration to strengthen America’s manufacturing defense industrial base. And working under a memorandum of understanding, Lockheed Martin and GM Defense will explore opportunities to accelerate the [00:57:00] delivery of critical capabilities and innovation by combining Lockheed Martin’s defense production expertise with General Motors’ advanced industrial capabilities and high-rate commercial manufacturing and engineering, courtesy of Lockheed Martin’s webpage.

Crew Chief Eric: It comes as no surprise that General Motors is involved with the DOD, DOW, whichever acronym you wanna use these days, because they’ve been supplying Hummers to the military for how long?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, that’s the thing. Here’s what I just learned with this article that I had no appreciation for, ’cause why would I care?

GM Defense, the subsidiary of the parent company, General Motors, has been around since 1914.

Crew Chief Eric: Yep.

Executive Producer Tania: So this really isn’t news. I don’t even know why this is newsworthy.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s old news.

Executive Producer Tania: This is something they’ve already been doing for over 100 years then.

Crew Chief Eric: Yep.

Executive Producer Tania: Now, maybe specifically munitions hasn’t been- That’s different

what they’ve been focused on, but supporting military vehicles and software and [00:58:00] things like that, they must have been doing with the Hummers for the last 100 years.

Crew Chief Eric: To that end, there’s a difference between building the thing that carries the things that go boom and building the things that go boom.

That

Executive Producer Tania: goes

Crew Chief Eric: boom. Right?

Executive Producer Tania: Apparently now they’re going to add the thing that goes boom.

Crew Chief Eric: All right, let’s play a little fact or crap.

Executive Producer Tania: Fact or crap?

Crew Chief Eric: The Subaru headline here is Subaru is building three new manuals, and one of them is a hatchback.

Executive Producer Tania: I believe that is fact.

Crew Chief Eric: Is that before or after they settle the massive class action lawsuit- What?

they have against them right now? Or is this a result of the class action lawsuit so they can try to make up lost ground for making nothing but cars that look like refrigerators with plastic cladding on them? Dude, that last Forester looks like an industrial oven. Tell me I’m wrong.

Executive Producer Tania: No, they’re pretty ugly.

And whatever that WRX thing is really heinous looking, whatever their latest one is, or [00:59:00] sedan, whatever one it is, it’s really ugly. I, I don’t know. I mean, this is coming from a reputable source more or less, so it’s a tease, so who knows what is actually gonna happen.

Crew Chief Eric: I think that market is past. I think Subaru has changed their brand to align itself with REI and Clif Bars.

Executive Producer Tania: No, they’re more, I think they’re more L.L.Bean.

Crew Chief Eric: But no Eddie Bauer. That’s Ford. You can’t have a Eddie Bauer edition Subaru.

Executive Producer Tania: Eddie Bauer’s gone.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, that’s right. That’s sad. Imagine a Eddie Bauer edition Bronco today. Those were cool.

Executive Producer Tania: Eh, they-

Crew Chief Eric: Brett’s like, “No.” Despite the fact that the images of these cars under these covers are fake, they’re AI generated, and one of them’s supposed to look like a BRZ.

Executive Producer Tania: We don’t have to assume, they said it.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay, fine. And then WRX hatchback and WRX sedan. Those are the obvious choices.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, they said it would be a [01:00:00] WRX STI, a Brezza, and an Impreza hatchback.

Crew Chief Eric: Again, Brad, would you buy any of those cars?

Crew Chief Brad: If it was a BRZ STI, maybe.

Crew Chief Eric: Which will never exist.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, there you go. I think you have your answer.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t want a Subaru, but if you told me I had to buy a Subaru, I would probably go for the Impreza hatchback. But I would want it to be the STI, to Brad’s point. So if it wasn’t, then probably the Brezza.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay, okay. Let’s make it equal.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, STI versions.

Crew Chief Eric: STI hatchback, Golf R, and I’ll give you the five-cylinder turbo, or a Mazda 3 Speed.

Crew Chief Brad: Why’d you leave off the GR Corolla?

Crew Chief Eric: All right. We’ll add the GR. That’s fair. That’s fair. Of the four, these are the four hot hatches we have to choose from in the United States, assuming that this Impreza comes back. Which one would you buy?

Crew Chief Brad: What’s the price point?

Crew Chief Eric: It doesn’t matter, ’cause the price point, as we know, is all over the map.

You might as well just throw darts at a sandbox. It makes no difference. [01:01:00]

Crew Chief Brad: Well, at that point, I would buy whatever fits my price point. So if I can’t afford a $75,000 Golf R with the RS3 motor- Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah. There we go. There it is …

Crew Chief Brad: then I’m not buying a $75,000 Golf R with the RS3 motor. I mean, the, my bank account has already dictated to me what I’m going to be able to buy.

But a GR Corolla at the $40,000 mark is much more palatable and much more friendlier to my finances, so I would probably end up with the GR Corolla.

Crew Chief Eric: No, no. You see, now you’re just falling into the Toyota thing. Dependability, reliability. I’m gonna go with that. They’re not that dependable and they’re not that reliable, those GR Corollas, as we’ve come to find out.

So let’s stop thinking with our brains and start thinking with our hearts. Brad, what makes you go boom, boom,

Crew Chief Brad: boom? The Golf R with the RS3 motor. I mean, duh.

Crew Chief Eric: Tanya’s like, “Mazda 3 Speed with a power pack is faster than the Golf R,” so that’s what you’d pick, [01:02:00] right?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, we haven’t seen how fast a Golf R with an RS3 motor is.

How fast is an RS3?

Crew Chief Eric: Because it’s never gonna happen.

Crew Chief Brad: How fast is an RS3? An RS3 is pretty wickedly fast.

Crew Chief Eric: I read some articles, though. If you hop up a Mazda 3 Turbo, they’re faster than the Volkswagens are.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t doubt that, but you had me at five cylinder.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes. See?

Crew Chief Eric: Okay, so if we took the five-cylinder off the table and said-

Golf Fahrenheit edition, the top of the line regular GTI

Executive Producer Tania: Then you can buy two Mazdas.

Crew Chief Brad: I’d get a GR Corolla.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay, that’s fair. So no love for the Subaru from anybody, basically? Like, “Nah, STI, I’m over it.”

Executive Producer Tania: Here’s the reality. You’d blow it up. That’s

Crew Chief Brad: it. That’s all you have to say. You’d blow it up.

Crew Chief Eric: Boom.

Crew Chief Brad: How many people do we know that have Subarus that are tracking them that are still on their original motors?

I’ll wait.[01:03:00]

Crew Chief Eric: That’s a nah, dog. No. There’s none. Zero. I mean,

Crew Chief Brad: I know- Exactly. Exactly. How, how many Mark 4 Volkswagens are still on their original motors?

Crew Chief Eric: That’s true. There’s a lot of them. I

Crew Chief Brad: think pretty much all of them.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s a lot of them, yeah. To that end, you don’t even have to be tracking your Subaru. The Subarus are sort of like Volvos in the sense that if you leave them the way they came from the factory- They’re fine

they’ll probably run forever. But the minute you go to go touch them, the tolerances are such that they’re grenades. That’s it. Boom. Drop in the comments what motor you’re on in your Subaru. I don’t think anybody’s gonna answer one. All right, so switching gears-

Executive Producer Tania: This is your favorite. I, I put this especially for you, ’cause wasn’t there a whole What Should I Buy episode where this was the answer?

Crew Chief Eric: This was the answer, and I just saw one of these today, as a matter of fact. I have a feeling when nuclear holocaust comes, there will be two things on this planet, [01:04:00] cockroaches and Honda Elements. They will just outlive everything. They don’t die.

Crew Chief Brad: The Japanese Fiat Panda.

Crew Chief Eric: Dude. You know, and when you sent this, I was like, “This is the right time for Honda to reintroduce the Element.

It really makes sense.” They had a good thing going, and then they got rid of it, and people are nostalgic for them. And the people that still have them, their Elements are getting old enough that they’re probably in a position to consider, “I would get another one.” So now they can do, like, a tech refresh, and they can get a new Honda Element.

Crew Chief Brad: God, I kinda want one now.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, they’re not the prettiest thing on the planet.

Executive Producer Tania: No.

Crew Chief Brad: Better than an Aztec.

Executive Producer Tania: Better than that Ferrari.

Crew Chief Brad: Better, better than a Luce.

Crew Chief Eric: Everything’s better than the Luce. Good Lor- That is now the lowest of the low. I gotta put the Luce on the uncool wall. I mean, it, it nominated itself.

It’s like, “This thing is fugly.” End of story. I mean, the

Executive Producer Tania: people have spoken, so.

Crew Chief Brad: How can a car manufacturer make arguably [01:05:00] the best-looking car in the world next to the worst-looking car in the

Crew Chief Eric: world? You know, if you think about it from an art class perspective, what do they call that? The dichotomy, the imbalance between the perfect and the imperfect.

It’s a showcase in the ability for them to perfect ugly and perfect beauty all in the same design. They were able to do it.

Crew Chief Brad: Do you have Copilot up?

Crew Chief Eric: I do. I

Crew Chief Brad: want you, I want you to take a picture of the Luce, put it in the Copilot, and say, “Redesign this car as if Pininfarina designed it.”

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah?

Crew Chief Brad: And I’d be really curious to see what it comes back with.

Crew Chief Eric: Let, let’s see. Okay, here’s Copilot. Please redesign the Ferrari Luce into a car that people actually want.

Crew Chief Brad: I feel like that’s a dangerous-

Executive Producer Tania: It would be funny if it just

Crew Chief Eric: showed, like- Look at this. Look at this. These are so much [01:06:00] better. Look at this. These are so cool. Oh, that is sick. What is this? That’s, like, the redesign of a 575. That looks amazing.

Crew Chief Brad: But it’s gotta have four doors.

Crew Chief Eric: No, it doesn’t have to have any of that stuff.

Well, and I love how it gives me a picture of a Porsche.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, it’s not actually, it’s not actually redesigning anything.

Crew Chief Eric: Eh, no. I’d have to feed it some pictures. But whatever that is, that’s hot. All right, enough of that. Let’s talk about EVs and concept cars.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s here, people. You can put your order in. No.

You can put your order in for the Slate truck.

Crew Chief Eric: In time for Prime Day?

Executive Producer Tania: Which is funny, because this article is showing them at 27 to 30,000. However, the big hoopla that’s been being said is that they’re starting at 24- Really? … 595 or something like that. And the, the news keeps talking about how [01:07:00] it’s starting there, but the thing we haven’t been told yet is what the destination fee is going to be.

Crew Chief Brad: $20,000.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, exactly.

Executive Producer Tania: Here it is. 24,950. I had my numbers at the end mixed up. But a heretofore unknown destination price.

Crew Chief Eric: With an estimated 60 mile an hour time of eight seconds.

Crew Chief Brad: So is Amazon, is Amazon going to buy all of these cars that they’re making so that they can use them as delivery vehicles?

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, yeah.

Of course.

Crew Chief Brad: They’re gonna get high on their own supply.

Crew Chief Eric: Man, the EV range sucks, though. 200 miles? I mean, I guess it’s good for an around town runabout if you’re doing, like, little deliveries and here and there, and just going around and around. Yeah. If

Crew Chief Brad: I, if I owned a delivery k- Like, if I w- was a florist and I delivered flowers or some shit, I’d have a couple of these.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you see it’s got roll-up windows?

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. It’s very basic, and it’s, like, all, I think, plastic poly I don’t know which one. Propylene, ethylene, something. Like, it’s all plastic, basically.

Crew Chief Brad: So is Tanya putting in her order for [01:08:00] one?

Crew Chief Eric: I was gonna say, like, this is right up Tanya’s alley. This is her kind of thing. If Lex Luthor wasn’t in the front seat here in this picture, I would have told you that these pictures are actually a 1/18 scale model car, ’cause it looks super chintzy.

It looks really plasticky. But once I saw, you know, Mr. Clean up here…

Executive Producer Tania: This is only, quote, “up my alley,” because it is basic AF.

Crew Chief Brad: And it’s cheap.

Executive Producer Tania: It would be perfect to throw bags in the back of and, like, drive to the dump.

Crew Chief Brad: And, and bags of what, Tanya?

Executive Producer Tania: Bags of yard waste. Oh. But you could also buy bags of mulch from

Crew Chief Brad: the store.

Ah, that’s what, that’s what I was getting to. Or just, you

Crew Chief Eric: know. Notice the build quality here. I just wanna point this out.

Executive Producer Tania: Hey, it’s, uh, he’s friends with Elon probably, so.

Crew Chief Eric: You get what you pay for. They say that.

Crew Chief Brad: Do- Are they using parts that they get from resellers in China that they s- use on their platform?

Crew Chief Eric: This is all Temu and Alibaba. I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, [01:09:00] there’s nothing. This thing is, like,

Crew Chief Eric: basic Well, if it’s all plastic, does it melt in the sun? Does it, like, start to warp?

Executive Producer Tania: Some sort of composite material. I mean, no. I mean, that’s not fair to say because, you know, there’s lots of plastic on cars, on all cars.

Crew Chief Eric: I haven’t seen a rivet on a car in, like, 70 years.

What is this?

Executive Producer Tania: That’s fine. You can’t take that off.

Crew Chief Eric: You can drill that out.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, it’s all, they’re all customizable ’cause you can convert that. Remember, you can get the cab on back that turns it into an SUV.

Crew Chief Eric: This is hot garbage. Look at this interior stuff. I mean,

Executive Producer Tania: it’s not great.

Crew Chief Eric: Not great. This is so ba- … The gapping is-

Executive Producer Tania: Might be intentional.

No, it might be the glove box. I don’t know.

Crew Chief Eric: Come o- look at this.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s pretty bad. They could’ve at least touched that up AI. This is

Crew Chief Eric: so bad.

Executive Producer Tania: Ah. But

Crew Chief Eric: so great. I love this gray. I don’t know why I like this gray so much.

Executive Producer Tania: You know what? This is still better looking than a cyber dumpster.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s better looking than the Luce.

At least it’s [01:10:00] proportioned.

Crew Chief Brad: That, so that one’s cool.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, the Range Rover-looking one?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I kinda like that too. It needs wheels, though. These wheels are garbage.

Executive Producer Tania: They’re steel wheels, baby.

Crew Chief Brad: Cut down on cost.

Crew Chief Eric: Why can’t I have these Jeep wheels on there?

Executive Producer Tania: Sure, you can. This is, this is a la carte, buddy. You can buy, mix and match all the parts and pieces.

This is all the pickup truck that they’re just adding body panels onto.

Crew Chief Eric: This is like a budget Rivian. Look at this thing. Yes.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s-

Crew Chief Eric: There it is. There’s the winner. There it is. Number 77, racing slate. Look at that. That is awesome. That’s the Baja edition right there. Good lord. Wow. Look at this. Is it,

Crew Chief Brad: is it too late-

Executive Producer Tania: That’s a choice

Crew Chief Brad: to scrap the Ford and get this for Lemons?

Crew Chief Eric: This would be hilarious for Lemons. The problem is, we would run for about 20 minutes, and then we would spend the rest of the seven hours and 10 minutes- Charging … recharging the batteries. Yeah. Well, since we’re talking about EVs and concepts, Tanya, you brought another one to the table.

What is this?

Executive Producer Tania: Can you imagine [01:11:00] Toyota’s filing a patent that simulates an engine stall in an electric vehicle?

Crew Chief Eric: What? Why?

Executive Producer Tania: This is another article where I’m, like, questioning sanity. If the driver operates the vehicle in a, quote, “unfavorable way,” such as selecting the wrong gear at the incorrect engine speed, the car stops the motor and applies the brakes, simulating a stall.

This also recreates the harsh, jerky motion drivers experience in a conventional vehicle. I’m sorry. You don’t stall a car once you’re already moving.

Crew Chief Eric: Right.

Executive Producer Tania: You can’t stall by going from second to third or third to second or fourth to fifth. It does not work that way.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. It’s only when you take off, only-

Executive Producer Tania: It’s only on takeoff.

So to say that selecting the wrong gear at the incorrect engine speed, you’re gonna suddenly have the brakes slammed on you.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s gonna be like that race at Suzuka with [01:12:00] Colapinto, where it drops anchor in front of everybody and suddenly everybody on the beltway is going every which direction because your Toyota decided to shut itself off.

Executive Producer Tania: Because what you’re really trying to simulate there is a money shift, and that isn’t going to slam the brakes on in your car.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s just gonna go pop, and then you’re gonna keep rolling and catch fire.

Executive Producer Tania: So this is just wild. Like, really?

Crew Chief Eric: Why do you need to simulate that? We can just drive a GR Corolla and do it for real.

I mean, what the hell’s the point of this?

Crew Chief Brad: Maybe this is the next transmission for the GR Corolla

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, my God. Don’t solve the motor problems they have. Invent this garbage.

Crew Chief Brad: Also, for stalling, I mean, you can, you can stall out in any gear. It’s not just when you’re starting. It’s if the RPMs go low enough-

Executive Producer Tania: I have never-

Crew Chief Eric: No

stalled

Executive Producer Tania: No … outside of first gear takeoff.

Crew Chief Brad: You haven’t, no, but theoretically, you

Executive Producer Tania: can- Theoretically, yes.

Crew Chief Brad: If you- You can be in second. The, the reason you stall is ’cause the RPMs go low enough.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. That, this is true.

Crew Chief Eric: The only time that would happen-

Executive Producer Tania: You’re coming to a stop …

Crew Chief Eric: [01:13:00] if you have a carbureted motor and you don’t have the butterflies set right for idle, or on a fuel injected car, the idle speed motor isn’t working, because it’s always going to catch itself.

Executive Producer Tania: No, you could do what he’s saying, and the only way to do what he’s saying is you are coming to a stop, and you do not take it out of gear or downshift through the gears.

Crew Chief Brad: I guarantee

Executive Producer Tania: you- You clutch in …

Crew Chief Brad: you get in your, you get in your wagon- Yeah, yes, yes … uh, you put it in fifth, you get up to fifth gear, and you just let it coast down, you don’t shift, you don’t do anything, your RPMs are gonna go low enough that you’re gonna stall the mo- stall the motor.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s impractical driving. This makes- Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: nobody drives

Crew Chief Brad: like that … no sense. Well, of course it is. I’m, I’m just saying- But yes … to say you can only do it at start is incorrect.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay.

Executive Producer Tania: Theoretically,

Crew Chief Eric: technically,

Executive Producer Tania: yes. Technically,

Crew Chief Eric: yes. All right. Yes. Whatever. Whatever.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, I don’t want Mark Hewitt to say,

Crew Chief Eric: No, Mike Crutchfield to say it instead.

“Well, technically…” Well, Volkswagens

Crew Chief Brad: don’t stall. Volkswagens are the greatest cars ever.

Crew Chief Eric: Mm-mm. And Hoover’s are the best vacuums, too. I mean, what, it’s like, who cares?

Crew Chief Brad: You can stall your Hoover.

Executive Producer Tania: [01:14:00] You could, actually. Too much, stop clogging it.

Crew Chief Brad: Too much sucking?

Executive Producer Tania: Too much-

Crew Chief Eric: Well, no lost and found. We already nominated the Luce for the Cool Wall.

We don’t have any Tesla news. I didn’t even

Executive Producer Tania: look it up.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re gonna jump to lowered expectations. What we call Seriously, What Could Go Wrong? And this one is a seriously what could go wrong. California proposal aims to regulate after-market tires.

Crew Chief Brad: Aren’t all tires after-market because car manufacturers aren’t making tires?

Crew Chief Eric: I think what they’re trying to say here is you will only be able to buy the tires that the manufacturer contracted with the tire manufacturer to put on your car when you bought them from the dealership. So for instance, Porsche for years has come with Michelins, and Mercedes has come with Continentals from the factory.

If this rule passes, whatever tire your car is supposed to have, you only have one [01:15:00] channel in which to buy it.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s not forcing you to buy the same tire, but it’s forcing you to buy an equivalent tire.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but they’re gonna limit what’s considered equivalent.

Executive Producer Tania: The way I skimmed this article, you’re buying all seasons.

You’re not buying a summer, ultra high performance, low tread wear that you’re changing them more often. You’re not buying that track tire disguised as a street tire.

Crew Chief Eric: Right.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s the crux of it. ‘Cause if you look at an all season, an all season, honestly, what’s gonna be the difference between a Michelin and this and that and the other one?

They’re all turds in every-

Crew Chief Eric: Right …

Executive Producer Tania: condition. They’re all gonna last long, and I think that’s the crux of this, is don’t go get stickies and ride around them on the street, ’cause they’re not gonna last long.

Crew Chief Eric: According to the bullet points of this probably AI-generated article, California’s proposed replacement tire efficiency program would set standards requiring all after-market tires to be at least as efficient as the tires that were sold on the car when they were new.

Executive Producer Tania: And you got all seasons.

Crew Chief Eric: The second bullet point [01:16:00] says, “While the proposed regulations could improve fuel economy figures, they could also impact the lifespan of the replacement tires.” Okay, the only thing that affects the fuel efficiency when you switch tires is the overall diameter of the tire. If you go to a taller tire, it makes your gearing longer.

If you go to a shorter tire, it makes your gearing shorter. That’s gonna impact your fuel economy. If the overall diameter of the tire is the same, the rolling resistance really doesn’t matter. The tire is the tire is the tire. The motor and the transmission are gonna operate at the same speed that they were operating at with the factory tires.

I mean, next they’re gonna tell you that you can only use factory crap brake pads, too, because it’s illegal to make your stopping more efficient, because that is less efficient for fuel economy if you have better brakes. That’s gonna be the next thing. This is all to make sure that we put the collector car and enthusiasts in motorsport [01:17:00] communities under the thumb of the government.

Crew Chief Brad: Tire shops in Nevada, and Oregon, and Washington State, and all surrounding states of California are about to get a bump in business.

Crew Chief Eric: How do we do an economy of scale here? ‘Cause if I’m driving around in an old car, which they already wanna try to ban, what’s the efficiency of the tires back then? I might as well get sticky tires, ’cause the tires back then were garbage.

They don’t make tires that bad today. So where do you draw the line? Where is the statute of limitations here? Where’s the cutoff to say all cars after 2020 abide by this rule? Because it doesn’t make sense to impose it on a 1965 Ford Mustang convertible when the tires back then, you could get bias-plys or you could get potentially radials.

They don’t make those kinda tires anymore. If you got an old Packard, what tire are you gonna put on there? Th- this is ridiculous.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know what to say.

Crew Chief Eric: This is right up there with the CEO of Ford basically saying, “We make the cars overly complicated on purpose so that people can’t fix them.” Like, [01:18:00] that’s their way around the right to work thing, is they’re, like, intentionally making the cars harder to work on so you have to take it to a dealership.

Let’s go back to simple stuff. Stop cutting corners. Build cars that are reliable, that can be fixed, because at the end of the day, when a car breaks, it breaks not when you’re 10 feet from the dealership and you can just push it in there and, you know, whatever. It always breaks in the worst of places, at the most inopportune time, in the worst conditions, and it’s like, why can’t I do like an old Land Rover and fix it with a broken spoon and a screwdriver?

I gotta be a space shuttle scientist now. But it’s like every time you turn around, every consumable piece of the car is suddenly gonna be government regulated. It’s insane. You’re taking all the fun away. Cars are fun. Am I wrong?

Crew Chief Brad: No.

Crew Chief Eric: Brett says no. Brett says no.

Crew Chief Brad: You’re not wrong. They’re not supposed to be fun, though.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh.

Crew Chief Brad: Just like music and dancing’s not supposed to be fun.

Crew Chief Eric: America was built on driving freedom, I’m telling you. Just getting away from this, ’cause it’s just [01:19:00] raising my blood pressure.

Executive Producer Tania: Don’t say.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m trying not to get on my soapbox.

Crew Chief Brad: Good thing we live on the East Coast.

Crew Chief Eric: You know as well as I do that California is the head of the snake.

If it gets approved in California, it’s five years, and then we’re gonna see it over here. It’s just a matter of time. Anyway, I have a recommendation for this month’s book club. Shout out to guest of the show, friend of the show, and Target Singer Symposium presenter many times over, Preston Lerner, has a new book, The Deadliest Decade.

It is now officially available. You can actually hear part of the book in an excerpt from a symposium presentation he did in the past. Preston was on the show back in the winter, along with Matt Stone, talking about their careers and their past and working together at MotorTrend and things like that. He alluded to his book coming out on that episode.

It’s finally out. You can buy it now on Octane Press, 39.95, and that’s all about the deadliest decade [01:20:00] of Formula One. So very cool. I have to order my copy still, and it’s gonna be on my list of books to read for my summer reading. I don’t wanna put my official Break Fix recommended read on it, but knowing Preston, this is a recommended read.

I don’t even have to read it yet. And having heard the excerpts already, I know it’s gonna be good. So if you’re a Formula One fan, definitely check out Preston’s new book. And just as a final reminder for the summer, if you happen to be in the Midwest, in the surrounding Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, or Ohio areas, and you wanna make a run up to one of the coolest concourses in the Midwest, come join us July 10th through the 12th in South Bend, Indiana, for the Concourse at Cobbs Hill Home, where we will also be presenting Automotive History Live.

It’s a automotive history conference. William John Summers and I will be presenting on the Bianco Speciale. You’ll be able to meet Don from Garage Style and a bunch of other personalities from the NPN. We’ll all be there in South Bend in person. So if you can make it, great. Tickets are [01:21:00] still on sale. You can go to concourse@cobbshillhome.com.

And if you can’t make it all the way out and you’re interested in the topics, which are posted on the Concourse website under Automotive History Live, you can watch the live stream on our Twitch, twitch.tv/grandtouringmotorsports. So this is the last time we’ll talk about this, because we’re gonna go live here in about a week or two, so you’ll be able to catch up on all that.

And there will be a introductory episode to our new series, Automotive History Live, named after the symposia at the Studebaker Museum. So watch out for that. Andy Beckman comes on, tells us all about the history of the museum and South Bend, and why they started the conference, and all that kind of stuff.

And that’s gonna lead the way for some really great presentations throughout the year. So we’re kicking off a whole new series as part of the Motoring Podcast Network, so look forward to that.

Crew Chief Brad: Don’t forget, if you’re looking for that 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 [01:22:00] up for sale all over the country.

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

Crew Chief Eric: Thanks for that, Brad. You know what belongs in our garage?

Crew Chief Brad: Ferraris, Luches.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, that, but Tanya always finds the coolest stuff. Take my

Executive Producer Tania: money No.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s almost the right color.

Crew Chief Eric: I know, I know.

Executive Producer Tania: I know. I need, like, two of them so that I can do the rallied out version, if you look at the pictures, ’cause it comes with, like, the lights and whatnot to put on the front, and the stickies, and then the regular version without that.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m going to buy two, so you might as well just buy two as well.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s coming soon. No date yet, but Mattel Brick Shop is launching the ’84 Audi Sport Quattro set.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m just gonna say, why can’t Lego do cool stuff like this?

Executive Producer Tania: It’s a lot nicer than that wagon.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, it is. And you know what? As we’ve said in the past when we talk about them on the [01:23:00] Christmas episode, they’re really taking a bite out of Lego Speed Champion Series, and unfortunately, Lego, I feel like they’re just…

They’re mailing it in with those Speed Champions.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, they’re all in on the F1 right now.

Crew Chief Eric: And that’s just the same design with different colors.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: And then the other cars look kind of weird. Like, my daughter got the hot pink Honda S2000 from Fast and the Furious, and she loves it. She asked for it for, you know, like, a year, and then we finally got it for her, you know, one of those birthday Christmas gift type of deals, and it’s just like she put it together and, and it’s cool, but it doesn’t even go together that nicely.

I asked her, at one point, I was like, “Is this you or did they purposely make it look like it got into an accident?” Yeah. It literally looked like it was in a wreck. So she’s like, “No, Dad, you just… The front end, they, they made these pieces move,” and then, yeah, it kind of looks like it’s smashed and I’m like, “Oh, looks weird.”

These are really nice. They’re very detailed. You actually presented us with more than one, quote unquote, “extra value meal.” I mean, look at this Supra compared. The Lego one is [01:24:00] super chunky and blocky and just… Let me see if I can find it. Lego Fast and Furious. Let’s compare these two so you guys can see them.

Executive Producer Tania: Mm-hmm.

Crew Chief Eric: Look at this thing, and then look at that.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Come on, Lego. Stop mailing it in.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know if the problem is Brick Shop Mattel has no reason to sit here and try to make small pieces of stuff. Like- Right … they made one big hood piece, right? So they could form it exactly as it needs to be, as opposed to be like, “Let me try to reuse 15 pieces to get the, the shape.”

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but the problem with Lego is if you’ve built any of the modern sets today, they make all these very special one-off pieces

Executive Producer Tania: that- I don’t

Crew Chief Eric: know … you can’t reuse for anything, but you can’t do this? I don’t get it.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know.

Crew Chief Eric: And then finally… Oh, come on. Even Lego could do this.

Executive Producer Tania: We’re about it, baby. ’83 Chevy.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s actually kinda cool.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s missing something.

Crew Chief Eric: What, rust? Rust?

Executive Producer Tania: Fire?

Crew Chief Brad: [01:25:00] I was gonna say leaking fuel and fire.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s still one of my favorite videos. When we went off-roading, ugh, why did I have to be his co-pilot? God. That’s pretty cool. I like that, too. Good j- yeah, you’re, you’re always the master of these extra value meals.

You know, I, I am at a whole new low. This whole month has been blah, like we’ve talked about. It- you gotta lift my spirits, Tanya.

Executive Producer Tania: Lift us up where we belong.

Crew Chief Eric: We gotta go down south and talk about alligators and beer.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, this first one actually technically is south of the Mason-Dixon Line. And this one hits real close to home. Starts with a B. [01:26:00] So apparently a family gifted their college son an $80,000 ZL1 Camaro blah, blah, blah, blah, blah edition. It was stolen It was retrieved, ended up at whatever dealer, only to be stolen a second time.

Crew Chief Eric: You lost me at, “I gave my kid an $80,000

Executive Producer Tania: ZL1.” I don’t know who these people are.

Crew Chief Eric: Can I be adopted by these people? I want an $80,000

Executive Producer Tania: ZL1. Well, he apparently was getting his third degree at the University of Maryland.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow. Okay, well, he deserves it. I mean, you know.

Executive Producer Tania: So I don’t know if that means he deserves an $80,000 supercharged V8 ZL1 Camaro or not, but-

Crew Chief Eric: Maybe he’s in automotive engineering, so yes he does.

Executive Producer Tania: Maybe he does. But I don’t think they found it for a third time yet, even though the guy at the dealer said, “I watched it being stolen. I thought it was just a tech taking the car into the garage for inspection.”

Crew Chief Eric: [01:27:00] Oh, come on. Come on. I think after the first time, like, LoJack should have been installed on this car, like, for real.

Executive Producer Tania: So I don’t think they got it directly back when it was found, and so when they went to go get it, it was gone again.

Crew Chief Eric: And Brad, remind me, this is a leftover, ’cause they don’t even make Camaros anymore, right? They’re gone.

Crew Chief Brad: Right.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s still a pretty car, though.

Executive Producer Tania: Ah.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, boy.

Executive Producer Tania: So we’re still in Maryland, apparently.

Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: yes.

Executive Producer Tania: We have wacky Maryland people. So there’s an Instagram video. Someone caught in good old Dundalk, Maryland, and if you don’t know where that is, it’s right outside Baltimore.

Crew Chief Eric: This is amazing.

Executive Producer Tania: This dude is in a motorized wheelchair zooming down the streets, and this thing is fast.

Crew Chief Eric: This thing is buck wild.

Executive Producer Tania: It could be the video, but he looks like he’s hauling.

Crew Chief Eric: He’s rolling.

Executive Producer Tania: He’s booking down the road.

Crew Chief Eric: Why is he not in the [01:28:00] bike lane? It’s not a bike. It’s got four wheels. That has bicycle wheels on it. At

Executive Producer Tania: least three.

Crew Chief Eric: Pops out, whoop, whoop-whoop.

Executive Producer Tania: Also, what are these wheelchair wheels that can go that fast?

Crew Chief Eric: Dude, there’s a Porsche right there.

You think he was like, “Bruh, let’s go”? But if you look at it, it’s a scooter. Yeah. But I think he’s actually on a scooter and tho- Yeah … and he attached the wheels for stability.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t know what

Executive Producer Tania: that is.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s awesome is what that is.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s illegal is what it is.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. The next article would be, “Baltimore Dundalk Man Arrested On His Motorized Wheelchair, Evading Arrest.”

Crew Chief Eric: They’d

Executive Producer Tania: never catch him. If this was in Florida, it would’ve ended up in a chase in a swamp.

Crew Chief Eric: And he would’ve been naked.

Executive Producer Tania: He would’ve started naked.

Crew Chief Eric: Probably.

Executive Producer Tania: With a beer in his hand. With a White Claw in his hand, ’cause that’s another article they chose not to put in here.

Crew Chief Eric: It would’ve been a riding lawnmower in Florida, though. You know as well as I do, they’re [01:29:00] not gonna mess around. They just get on their Stabil or their Toro or whatever and they’re gonna go.

Crew Chief Brad: It would’ve been a riding alligator. What are you talking about?

Crew Chief Eric: Mm-hmm.

Executive Producer Tania: Apparently Big Brother’s got some new tech for us. Already existing license plate cameras are not only gonna be able to track and read your license plate, but apparently they’ll have the added benefit of now being able to track any sort of electronic devices on you, such as phones, wearables, infotainment systems, or even your pets, depending on what sort of electronic tracking devices you have on them.

Oh, how nice. I like this. This is wonderful. Please, I need one of those Faraday cages to put my phone in while in the car.

Crew Chief Eric: This is the police state that we are turning into now.

Crew Chief Brad: California’s gonna buy the version that can read the type of tires you have- Oh, my God … and then they’re gonna start mailing you tickets for having the wrong kinds of tires.

No, but look at the table. Track devices, vehicle components, tire pressure sensors. Yep. What?[01:30:00]

Executive Producer Tania: Which means they’re also tracking your E-ZPass when you’re not on the E-ZPass-

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah …

Executive Producer Tania: when you’re on a toll road.

Crew Chief Eric: Yep.

Executive Producer Tania: And asset tags, so does that consider, like-

Crew Chief Eric: Air Tags. Yep. Yes, it does.

Executive Producer Tania: This is wild. Wild.

Crew Chief Eric: This is some Skynet stuff right here. This is craziness.

Executive Producer Tania: Like, how is it gonna filter all that? ‘Cause I bet any given person’s car literally has all of these in them at once, ’cause you probably have a- wireless headphones in your backpack or your purse.

You’ve got a phone. You’ve got at least one wearable watch or fitness tracker. Right. You got tire pressure sensors. You got other sensors. You got an infotainment system. You probably have a computer, maybe a tablet, laptop, whatever, ’cause you’re coming from work, blah, blah, blah. Key cards, your badge for work.

Like, oh my God, like…

Crew Chief Brad: Which means they’re gonna, they’re gonna know where you work, so this has gotta be a huge security risk.

Crew Chief Eric: They already know that because your phone, especially if you have an Android, reports where you are all the time anyway. Have you ever noticed, like, Google Maps, [01:31:00] it’ll assume where you’re going now?

It’s like, “Oh, it seems like you’re on the road to work. By the way, blah, blah, blah, blah, do you wanna stop and get a cup of coffee?” You’re like, “What the… Turn this shit off.” So they already know. They already know. The problem is the municipalities won’t be able to afford it long-term- Mm-hmm … because the data center charges that it’s gonna cost to run this stuff is gonna be astronomical at the end of the day.

So I don’t see it going for too long.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, well, well, then that’s where you’re wrong, because how do you make money off people’s data?

Crew Chief Eric: You sell it to the Chinese, yeah. I know.

Crew Chief Brad: There you go. So they’re just gonna sell it to the highest bidder, and it’s gonna be like Minority Report.

Executive Producer Tania: They’re gonna sell it to Bezos so then you can get Amazon-

Crew Chief Brad: Yes

Executive Producer Tania: requests or ideas in your Facebook feed. So they’re gonna sell it to whatever that dude’s name is and

Crew Chief Brad: Bezos. Yeah, and we’re, we’re gonna start getting targeted advertisements. “Did you know that the batteries in your tire pressure monitoring system are going low? You should replace them now. Here’s a set I can add to your [01:32:00] Amazon cart right away.”

Crew Chief Eric: So Tesla was doing that, remember, where they were trying to determine that your tires needed to be changed, and they would automatically order you new tires for your car and, like, send them out? They were already messing with that, like, five years ago or so. It’s crazy. I

Crew Chief Brad: do it with dog food. I don’t need to do it with car parts.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, well, you know, the comfort war. You know which car isn’t gonna have this problem?

Crew Chief Brad: Mark IV Volkswagen?

Crew Chief Eric: No. ’65 Buick. You won’t have any of these problems. Drive something like that, and you can maintain it with a screwdriver and a wooden spoon, and you’ll be fine.

Crew Chief Brad: You can even rob the sack of suds.

Crew Chief Eric: Buy old cars. That’s all I’m saying. If you don’t like the police state that’s coming, buy old cars, ’cause you know what’s gonna happen next. All this data is gonna end up in the laptop on the

Crew Chief Brad: cop’s- Of

Crew Chief Eric: course … you know, passenger seat. Boom.

Crew Chief Brad: So they’re not gonna need to chase anymore. They just meet the person at their house.

Yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t even know why we need license plates, to be honest with you. Who cares? If you have all this other da- the [01:33:00] license plate on the car is irrelevant because the car eventually will just transmit its own VIN number. So what’s the license plate for? Who gives a shit? A tax.

Executive Producer Tania: A tax.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, it’s BS to pay for those stupid metal plates that are ugly as sin.

All right. What do we got next?

Executive Producer Tania: Now we’re going to Florida.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, boy.

Executive Producer Tania: And we haven’t had a good chase in a while.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, boy.

Executive Producer Tania: And I don’t think we’ve ever had one involving an

Crew Chief Eric: RV. Wait, what?

Executive Producer Tania: This guy bobbed and weaved, trying to evade the police while driving an RV.

Crew Chief Eric: No, come on.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s the allegation.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, there’s no video, though.

There’s

Executive Producer Tania: no video- No … unfortunately. It’s very disappointing. But he racked up about eight eight charges.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh my God. Oh, look at this. Driving while license revoked, fleeing to elude, lights and sirens, reckless driving, DUI, leaving the scene of his accident with injuries, resisting law enforcement officer without violence, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of [01:34:00] controlled substance.

Executive Producer Tania: Glorious. So another person trying to evade police. So this one didn’t make much sense, and the video is hilarious a little bit ’cause a wanted man leads deputy on chase around the car.

Crew Chief Eric: No, come on. Ring around the rosy, ring around the rosy. What do they call that? A, is it Chinese fire drill? Oh

Executive Producer Tania: my God. The best part was- It’s like mice and fires

he wasn’t even driving the car. The lady driving the car, they got pulled over in this Camry because of an expired tag, and then I guess the cop asked what the dude’s name was in the passenger seat.

Crew Chief Brad: He said, “None ya.”

Executive Producer Tania: Well, when he looked up the name, that’s what his computer said because this guy didn’t exist.

So then he found out the real name, and this dude was an eight-time convicted felon with multiple arrest warrants.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, wow.

Executive Producer Tania: And then he tried to run around the car. [01:35:00]

Crew Chief Eric: I just wanna start playing, like, the Benny Hill music. Be like,

as they’re just running around the car. I mean, this is ridiculous. And then he just takes off into the swamp.

Executive Producer Tania: Into a swamp.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, the body cam footage on this is amazing. God, look at this.

Executive Producer Tania: He a fast runner, though. He didn’t trip. He would’ve kept going.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, no, he tackled him. That’s what happened.

Crew Chief Brad: So was he faster than the interceptor?

Crew Chief Eric: No, because he got pulled over, but, like, he’s pretty quick here. Look at this

Crew Chief Brad: Sir, what’s your name? Dragon. Dragon what? Dragon these nuts, bitch. Come get ’em.

Executive Producer Tania: Ah, this is so good. I think he tripped. I think he tripped before he got tackled. Boom. Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah, he, he did. So- He definitely did. He definitely did Yep You see him trip, and then the cop just, like, jumps on him. Oh, wow. That’s wild.

Executive Producer Tania: All right. Before you dive [01:36:00] into this next one-

Crew Chief Eric: Uh-huh …

Executive Producer Tania: I want you to guess the vehicle, vehicles, they only said what one of them was, the vehicles involved.

85-year-old

It’s not working. What? 85-year-old Florida man accused of hitting triple digits in street race. Oh, hell yeah. So there’s two people involved in this. We only know what one of the cars is for sure.

Crew Chief Eric: On any given flea market Tuesday, I would say it’s, like, a Buick Regal and an old Cadillac DeVille or something like that, right?

With a Northstar in it.

Crew Chief Brad: Chevy Lumina and Ford Taurus.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m gonna go out on a limb without looking at the article and say that it’s Florida. This guy’s 80. He must have bought a pony car. It’s one of those deals where it’s like not only did he buy a Challenger, he bought a Challenger Demon 170 or something like that. Like, something just [01:37:00] outrageously stupid.

Executive Producer Tania: I’ll give you a hint, ’cause we don’t know what his car is. Okay. But the person he was racing was 57 years old, and we know what their car was.

Crew Chief Eric: In an Altima? He

Crew Chief Brad: had a pair of New Balance.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, he did.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh. Oh, he’s in a Corvette then. There’s video and there’s photos.

Executive Producer Tania: Of him getting arrested, ’cause they caught…

Whatever he’s driving, they caught him. They didn’t catch the guy in the Corvette, or they caught him later I think.

Crew Chief Eric: This is a Z. He’s in a Z. He’s in a Z convertible. That is a 350Z door handle right there. Look at that. That’s what that is. He’s in a 350Z Cabriolet, and it’s got the sloped nose with the lights.

Executive Producer Tania: They just called it a gray sports car.

Crew Chief Eric: I called it. It’s a Nissan. It’s always a Nissan. Whenever people are in trouble, getting arrested, it’s a Nissan.

Executive Producer Tania: And he said, “I was out having a ride in my favorite car.”

Crew Chief Brad: He’s driving the Nissan Fastima.

Crew Chief Eric: Trying to see if they can show from behind here. So who’s he catching up to?

Wow, [01:38:00] 110 and 125.

Executive Producer Tania: 85 don’t mean you can’t still go.

Crew Chief Brad: Does that say extra on the side?

Crew Chief Eric: Definitely a Z. You can see the wheel as you watch the video just for a split second. That’s a Z wheel. That’s a Z door handle. It’s a convertible. Boom. Nissan for the win. Boom. And this Florida man wasn’t even in Florida. He was in Brad’s backyard.

They identified the Corvette. The question is: Who won?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, not the guy, uh… Well, they both got ar- caught, so neither one. I’m gonna guess the Corvette technically won, ’cause he got arrested later.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s true. Granted, the speed limit was a little slow, but say they were doing that on a 65 mile an hour road.

Let’s just be nice about the speed limit.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s still reckless driving.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay.

Executive Producer Tania: Especially if it was in Virginia.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I mean, they would melt your license and throw you in jail. But I see this guy with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a ball cap [01:39:00] on, and he’s driving a, quote, “gray sports car” and he’s doing a buck 10, I would’ve shaken his hand.

I would’ve said, “God bless you, sir. Enjoy the rest of your life, what l- what little is left of it.”

I mean, come on, really? When was the last time you saw an 85-year-old go 110 mile an hour?

Crew Chief Brad: When’s the last time you saw an 85-year-old go 85?

Crew Chief Eric: Into a flea market or leaving the flea market?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, you knew there weren’t any Mustangs involved, ’cause there were no casualties.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, 100%. See, it’s nice, clean street racing.

That’s what I’m saying.

Crew Chief Brad: Nice, clean fun.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. Why we gotta take this away from this 85-year-old man? That’s good stuff right there. Well, let’s quickly go behind the pit wall and talk about motorsports news. I only have one bit of news, because we already talked about Le Mans and all that stuff, and I’m sure other racing was happening.

Oh, yeah, Formula 1. We’ll talk about that on the other episode.

Crew Chief Brad: You skipped IndyCar.

Crew Chief Eric: Wait, there’s IndyCar stuff?

Crew Chief Brad: They were at Road [01:40:00] America this weekend.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s all.

Crew Chief Eric: Thank you.

Crew Chief Brad: IndyCar was at Road America.

Crew Chief Eric: I enjoyed your TED Talk. It was great.

Crew Chief Brad: The, the next race is at Mid-Ohio on July 5th.

Crew Chief Eric: I still don’t get IndyCars at Mid-Ohio.

It just seems too small. But I just wanna point out, we just recorded our final Evening with a Legend. That’s right, our v- very last one. After 30 of them, our, j- our very last one. That was with Nick Boulle, an LMP2 driver. He was really cool. Great interview. Talked a lot about what it’s like to be a, a longtime LMP2 driver.

Three attempts at Le Mans, and no, he did not meet Jackie Chan, Brad, even though he drove for J- Jackie Chan DC Racing. So that being said, it’s not the end of Evening with a Legend, it’s just a metamorphosis for Evening with a Legend. So starting July 1st, we are changing the format, and David Kohrt, who was originally on the calendar for July, is going to join us in July.

The new format is gonna be called Voices of Endurance, and the idea is [01:41:00] that we’ve kinda wrung out the wash rag on Le Mans. There’s not much more water we can squeeze out of that thing. I mean, how many more times can you tell the same story, I hate to say. So what we decided to do was, under the sponsorship of Enduroverse, we’re going to change the format to Voices of Endurance, and we’re gonna expand to not just drivers, but we’re gonna try to talk to engineers and technicians and folks behind the scenes at organizations like IMSA, bring back folks from SRO.

You know, do some stuff with the ACO as well. But we want to expand the breadth of endurance racing and talk about famous races, like the 24 Hours of Daytona or maybe, you know, 6 Hours of Sebring or, I don’t know, Spa and the Nürburgring and Fuji. Just endurance racing around the world. We want to expand that whole idea.

So starting in July, we’re gonna be switching formats, and it is still a series where you can be part of the audience. And you’ll be able to register on the Motoring Podcast Network site. Just go to Voices of Endurance, sign up, and you’ll be able to sit in on the audience [01:42:00] and get your questions answered by a living legend or somebody that’s in the industry, somebody that’s part of sports car and endurance racing.

So we’re excited to be updating the format after three years of Evening with a Legend, and being able to continue that journey and getting more and more folks on the show. So really, really looking forward to that and hoping you can join us in the future. That being said, our motorsports news is brought to you in part by Enduroverse, powered by Hyperdev, America’s premier endurance racing community.

So check it out online and become a member at Enduroverse.com. All right, what’s left?

Executive Producer Tania: Couple announcements.

Crew Chief Eric: We don’t have any. Well, Brad, that pretty much wraps up this Drive Thru episode, so… We don’t have a trackside report, ’cause we’re, we’re sad and broken and-

Executive Producer Tania: We’re on the track, ’cause we’re on the track side.

Crew Chief Eric: Ba-dum, tss. We’re here all night. Try the veal.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, if you’re not quite ready to hit the track, or your car is not [01:43:00] 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 catalog and check out other programs we offer, like The Ferrari Marketplace, The Motoring Historian, Voices of Endurance, The Racers Roundtable, Formula Fanatics, Brake Fix, and of course, The Drive Thru.

Crew Chief Brad: And if for whatever reason you enjoy our various podcasts, there’s a great way for you to support our creators on the NPN. There’s tons of extras and bonuses to explore on our updated Patreon page. You can learn more about our bonus and behind-the-scenes content, get early access to upcoming episodes, or support our 24 Hours of Le Mans team when you consider becoming a Brake Fix VIP by visiting patreon.com/gtmotorsports.

As always, we’d like to thank our co-host and executive producer, Tanya, and to all the fans, friends, and [01:44:00] family who support Grand Touring Motorsports, as well as the Motoring Podcast network. Without you, none of this would be possible. Outro.

Executive Producer Tania: Man, our neighbor really, these days,

Crew Chief Eric: geez.

Executive Producer Tania: Like, what is this, this rumbling?

It’ll last, like, 45 seconds, and it’s… Never mind.

Crew Chief Eric: You said Le Mans team. There has to be a better word for that. Le Mans… But lemons don’t have pits, unfortunately. That’s the problem. Lemon

Crew Chief Brad: seeds? Seeds.

Our 24 Hours of Lemon Seeds.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m hemorrhaging lemon juice. That’s what I’m doing right now.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t wanna hear about you lemon juicing all over the

Crew Chief Eric: place. Oh, I need to cleanse.

Crew Chief Brad: A juice cleanse. You know, they use lemons and cayenne pepper. It’s perfect. Can

Crew Chief Eric: we put that in the gas tank,

Crew Chief Brad: maybe? Maybe. It’ll probably run better.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s not the problem.

Crew Chief Brad: Lemon juice-injected[01:45:00]

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 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 Dad Jams and Car Culture
• 00:02:28 Le Mans 2026
• 00:07:23 Simeone Viewing Party
• 00:09:25 Ferrari Frustrations
• 00:12:52 GT3 Surprise Lexus Run & BOP Politics Explained
• 00:17:29 Lemons Plans #EpicFail
• 00:29:59 Volkswagen Audi Rumor Mill – Is the TT Coming Back?
• 00:34:46 Golf Returns with Tariff Drama
• 00:36:37 Bonkers Audi Contraption and Projector Turn Signal Debate
• 00:40:37 Volkswagen Goes Costco
• 00:42:12 Ferrari Luce EV Design Roast
• 00:46:45 Chrysler Rebadged Fiats in 2027
• 00:48:59 Chinese Ownership Car Bans
• 00:55:04 BMW ///M2 News Spiral
• 00:56:17 GM Teams With Lockheed
• 00:58:17 Subaru Manual Rumors
• 01:03:41 Honda Element Nostalgia
• 01:06:31 Slate Truck EV Breakdown
• 01:10:53 Toyota’s “EV Stall” Patent
• 01:14:14 Aftermarket Tire Crackdown
• 01:19:16 Book Club Pick: Preston Lerner
• 01:20:22 Concours at Copshaholm Event Plug
• 01:22:40 Mattel Brick Shop vs Lego
• 01:25:59 The Florida “Chase Files”
• 01:39:41 Motorsports Updates
• 01:42:35 Wrap Up and Sponsors