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After months of chasing electrical gremlins, dropping gas tanks, and wondering whether our Lemons Focus would ever run again, our team finally hit a breakthrough — and the car lives! In this month’s Trackside Report, we dig into what fixed it, how it drives, what’s next on the race calendar, and why the 2026 season might finally be turning around. CHECK OUT THE BUILD UPDATE ON THE GTM CLUBHOUSE SITE.

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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: How’s everybody doing?

Crew Chief Eric: You know, we’re doing… I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m a little pissed off this month

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, I can’t wait to hear this rant.

Crew Chief Eric: I wanna come at this episode swinging, and I want you guys to talk me off the ledge, because I know we’re wrapping up car week, we’re getting ready to resume the Formula 1 season.

August is just one of these blech kind of months. It’s hot, it’s gross, it’s humid. Everything you can check off the list just sort of gets [00:01:00] under your skin. But there have been so many posts this month, I have to ask you guys, is car culture dead?

Executive Producer Tania: We just went straight into it.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m coming out swinging.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes, car culture’s dead.

Car culture’s been dead for a little while.

Crew Chief Eric: Let’s walk back from that, ’cause that’s the edge. That’s, “The world is ending, the sky is falling, everything is over. Let’s pack it up and sell it all and, and be done with it.”

Crew Chief Brad: I believe this episode title should be Chicken Little.

Crew Chief Eric: Is it the end or are we at the beginning of something new and something different?

It’s

Executive Producer Tania: the end of the world as we know it.

Crew Chief Brad: And I feel fine.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, does that make us dinosaurs? We like cars of a certain age, because we feel the peak car was in the ’90s going into the 2000s, that kind of stuff. You know, nothing is better than Volkswagen from the early 2000s. I mean, that’s an exaggeration.

But the point is, have we passed our prime? Not us, not you, me, and Tanya. I’m talking about cars. Car [00:02:00] culture, has it passed its prime?

Executive Producer Tania: Well- Yes … watching The Commish has taught me anything, yes.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, oh, please do fill me in. Because Murder, She Wrote doesn’t have nearly as many cool cars.

Executive Producer Tania: One watches Murder, She Wrote for the guest appearances, and one watches The Commish for all the German appearances.

Crew Chief Eric: My God.

Executive Producer Tania: Corrados, 1928s, Audi 5000s,

Passats. I mean, somebody was a Volkswagen Audi enthusiast.

Crew Chief Eric: You remember that show Viper? It was, like, all the Chrysler prototypes on that show that you could think of. Stuff that they never made or they made one of was on that show.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, have you ever seen a show that had a Corrado? There’s been two so far.

Crew Chief Brad: The Gran Turismo movie.

Crew Chief Eric: Gran Turismo had a N- uh, had a Corrado in it. Oh, yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: yeah, yeah. That’s right.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s his father’s car. He drove his father’s car- Yes … and he- That’s right … went and did some nefarious stuff, and then got in trouble- That’s right … and yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: But anyway.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, we haven’t finished the talk about the car culture.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay, okay. What, what? Tell me. Enlighten me.

Crew Chief Brad: [00:03:00] Well, this is our showcase. I, I think this is the head of the showcase, and you’re Chicken Little. Car culture’s dead.

Crew Chief Eric: It

Crew Chief Brad: is. I mean, they, people have been talking about how kids, like the next generations and then the next generation after that, like fewer and fewer people are getting their license.

Fewer and fewer people are driving. Fewer and fewer people are owning cars.

Executive Producer Tania: There’s that, and then there’s the advent of all the new cars all look the same. They’re all blase. Yeah. You’ve got this EV, the self-driving concept, where I have a car, but it’s literally becoming an appliance. And then you have- This new manufacturer, no more manual.

This one, no more manual, and it’s, and it’s like what do we have left?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, some of them are no more cars.

Crew Chief Brad: And the subscription-based pricing for features and stuff like that too.

Executive Producer Tania: That

Crew Chief Eric: too. Yeah. It’s insane.

Executive Producer Tania: Like, it’s sucking the life out of it.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s the culture that up and coming generations, that’s all they know.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s the tech bros and how they make money. That’s the

Crew Chief Brad: reality. Yeah, they have subscriptions for their cell phones. You know, they, they, [00:04:00] they don’t buy anything. They, they lease their cell phones. They trade up every six months, every year when a new one comes out. Same thing with computers and iPads, and cars aren’t any different.

Crew Chief Eric: Let’s talk about the phones for a second, ’cause I had an epiphany. And I was talking to my wife about this. The other day, I remember where I was, I saw a young lady bust out a flip phone.

Executive Producer Tania: Some people are going back to that.

Crew Chief Eric: But here’s the deal. As much as I wax poetic about my Motorola Razr and how it was, like, the coolest phone, and it was the best ’cause it fit in your pocket, it was super lightweight, and the battery lasted like three years without charging it, the whole nine yards.

There was a lot of suck in that phone, right? But this modern flip phone, to say that, “Oh, I don’t wanna have a smartphone,” watching this person use it, trying to take a picture, and I guess because we’re just so accustomed to the iPhones and the Androids and whatever, I hate to say it, she looked like a doofus.

You look really stupid holding up a flip phone trying to take a picture, and watching [00:05:00] that flash come out of the hinge and every- I was like, what decade are we in? Like, it was so backwards. And that’s when I had the epiphany that when you go around and you’re driving an old car amongst all these younger folks, maybe coming into their peak earning potential, buying the Teslas, buying the new Corvettes, buying the Porsche GT3, ’cause that’s all they sell, are you the guy with the flip phone?

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, in their eyes.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Here’s the other piece of it, too, to Brad’s point, how people live their lives right now, that’s their culture. Yeah. So however they view cars is now their culture. So it’s like every decade’s progression where back in the day, that Elvis Presley rock and roll music was, you know, the devil’s hips, and oh my God, and don’t let your children see it and listen to it, right?

And, and then the next culture was like, “That’s crap,” you know, the next generation. “I like,” you know, whatever the next hot thing is. Disco or whatever, yeah. And then so on and so [00:06:00] on and so forth, right? So are we now those people?

Crew Chief Brad: Translate that thread to car culture. The generations before us, the people that owned the ’60s cars and stuff like that- Yeah

their car culture was you go to the drag strip, or you drive up and down the, cruise the boulevard. You know, you go to a car show and you set up a sign, and you sit next to your car, and people come out and talk to you. Our culture was more you drive the car. You did a couple stupid things, maybe a little bit of street racing.

You took ’em to the track, did a track day. You know, you’d go to a swap meet. You, you didn’t really polish up the car too much because people like to see cars that were driven kind of thing. Mm-hmm. You know, we enjoyed our cars. Now they do it for the views. They do it for the clickbait. They take pictures.

For the ‘gram. They buy these cars. They don’t do anything to ’em. They pay somebody else to do everything to them. They get views and clickbait and everything, and th- then that’s their culture. But- I think we are, we are the dinosaurs.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, that’s another good point, because those people that are still around that [00:07:00] grew up with those ’60s, ’70s muscle cars, they are still very much ingrained in their viewpoint.

All them new fern cars that were coming out, those little Japanese sports cars and these little Volkswagens were pieces of crap. They did. And it was ‘Merica, horsepowers, and, and they probably still view it that way, that tho- that was the greatest generation of cars.

Crew Chief Brad: Of course, and, and we think peak car was our generation of cars.

They probably think peak car was their generation of cars.

Crew Chief Eric: And those folks still control the collector market and the collector values. That’s the other thing, too. You go to any auction, it just blows your mind that a Camaro from the ’60s is bringing in a million dollars. You’re like, “Why?”

Crew Chief Brad: They’re also the ones that have the wealth.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Something that we talk about at my company, because this is something we, is a very real thing that we have to deal with right now, is there is a huge shift in transfer of wealth that’s about to happen. Yes. As all those people that generated all that wealth, all those baby boomers are dying [00:08:00] off and leaving money to the younger generations, what’s gonna happen with all that money?

And the same thing with these cars. Like, what’s gonna happen with these ’60s Camaros and GTO Judges and 442 Cutlass Supremes and stuff? Like, what’s gonna happen to all these when the, the- Yeah … baby boomers that own them die and transfer them to their kids? Their kids have zero attachment to those things.

They’re gonna flip ’em. They’re gonna sell ’em. They’re gonna dump ’em. They’re gonna make a quick buck. They’re gonna put it into crypto. They’re gonna go out, they’re gonna buy an R34 GT-R, or they’re gonna- Mm-hmm … buy a GT3 RS or a, a right-hand drive FD or a Mark 4 Supra or, or whatever. They’re just gonna dri- And the, those prices are, they’re already inflated.

They’re gonna inflate even further. That car culture is gonna die off, and our car culture is already singing its swan song as we get older, ’cause we all die. Well, whatever happened to the car culture of the pre-boomers? I mean, granted, cars aren’t that old.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re talking, like, the Packards and the Duesenbergs and all those cars?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: [00:09:00] My Tin Lizzie is the best.

Crew Chief Brad: No.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, my God. Top speed, 37 miles an hour.

Crew Chief Brad: But no, like, what, what ha- We don’t even talk about those cars or those people anymore because it’s, they’re all gone.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: And the same thing’s gonna happen to the muscle cars of the ’60s. You know, the same thing’s gonna happen to the car.

Like, the malaise era is the malaise era. We can just

Crew Chief Eric: skip over- No, the mal- Nobody wants those cars

Crew Chief Brad: But the cars of the ’90s and 2000s, give it 20, 30 years when all- Oh, yeah … of us start dying off, if we’re lucky enough to live that long, nobody will talk about the Mark 4 Volkswagen, the 1.8T Fiero cars. It’s just not gonna happen.

Crew Chief Eric: Dude, that pains me too because I still see these groups online that are taking 20th anniversary cars and, and R32s, original R32s, and just stripping them down and basically throwing them away. And I’m like, “Well, I guess that means the value of all the ones that are left just goes through the roof,” which was the same problem with the 914 community where they were junking them and racing them and trashing them, and then they were like, “Oh, nobody wants these cars, they’re crap.”

[00:10:00] And then now you can’t get into a 914 for less than 100 grand if you want a nice one, you know what I mean? It’s craziness. So I, I agree with you there. But to dive into the showcase, Tanya brought an article that I think talks about the first part of this conversation, which is digging in your heels and staying in your lane and staying in your generation of cars.

So Tanya, you wanna talk about this particular article from The Wall Street Journal?

Executive Producer Tania: I, it was something about this guy not wanting to buy new cars because he wanted low-tech cars, but the cars he was looking at, if I recall, they were still in, like, it was in the 2000s or ’10s, I don’t remember. But it w- it, wherever it was with the year starting with a two, it was still in a window of time where there was tech in the cars.

And I was like, “Bro, if you’re really trying to go techless, you need to go another decade backwards. You still have a lot of tech even in a mid-2000s, 2010s era car. They still have a lot of tech in them. You still have backup cameras and this, that, and the other. If you wanna [00:11:00] eliminate all that, you’re going earlier.”

Crew Chief Brad: We’ve obviously surpassed it, but I feel like there was a sweet spot- Yes … where there was enough tech to make driving still fun, still convenient. Like, you bring up the point about the backup camera. It’s very effective, it’s very helpful. There was a point where the harmony between cars and technology was pretty much perfect.

Crew Chief Eric: 2008, that’s the year.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, ’cause that was when, I think that’s when backup cameras were mandated as m- as, uh, standard equipment, right?

Crew Chief Eric: Certain cars had Bluetooth, and a lot of them s- still didn’t yet.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s in that range, and it’s in that time window where the nannies were really primitive, so they stayed out of your way so you could still drive the cars.

But once you got to 2010, 2014, you saw the end of that. That was like the, stretched it out to some of those- Yeah … cars were still kind of in that sweet spot. But really, 2008, I kinda dug back into this, is really the year where things [00:12:00] changed.

Crew Chief Brad: That was the sweet spot. That was the, a perfect harmony between automotive excellence and technology, up-and-coming technology on the rise, but it didn’t interfere with the driver.

Right. And you could still enjoy the car, you could still enjoy the features that the car had. You were still in control of the car. It wasn’t signaling back to Big Brother-

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah …

Crew Chief Brad: the mischief that you were committing in your car and all that. Gone are those days. I, I understand the want to drive cars with fewer and fewer technology.

There wasn’t, I, I don’t agree with zero technology whatsoever, because I do feel there was that sweet spot where you could have your cake and you could eat it too. A problem I think about often, especially with the, the fact that I just bought a 25-year-old car, is parts availability.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: You brought up a great point about how people are dismantling and destroying and disassembling these, what we [00:13:00] thought were collector cars.

Like the- Right … the original Mark 4 R32, the 20th anniversaries. Just to stick in the Volkswagen lane, you know, people are dismantling ’em like they’re Toyota Corollas. Like- Yep … they have zero value whatsoever, which is making it even more difficult in the future to be able to find parts for these cars, which makes it harder to keep them on the road.

And the other piece that we haven’t even talked about yet is- Government oversight

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah

Crew Chief Brad: The government wants you driving the newer cars with the newer technology because they can track you. They’ve got systems in place to monitor you and see what you’re doing, see where you’re going, blah, blah, blah.

Eventually, I think it’s gonna get to a point, especially with the current landscape, they’re just gonna make driving all cars before a certain age illegal.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: If they can’t track you because they don’t ha- it doesn’t have X, Y, Z, or … I mean, I’m probably tin foil hat theory here now or whatever, but not necessarily wrong.

Crew Chief Eric: No, but then it becomes like that movie we reviewed, The Last Chase, right? Where he buried his car underground, and then when the apocalypse [00:14:00] came- Mm-hmm … they couldn’t track him because he was in a, you know, 1917- Well- … Chevron thing.

Executive Producer Tania: They, they wouldn’t … I, I think it’s too extreme probably to say that they’d ban them, but-

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t know

Executive Producer Tania: they’d probably make it, well, if people play by the rules, everything’s historic, and you can only drive it on a weekend. And you can only drive it- Yeah … to a show, and you basically can only drive it 2,000 miles a year. And so then it just becomes a paperweight in your driveway.

Crew Chief Brad: Think about what’s going on in California with the tires.

We talked about it- Yeah … last episode. But I think they actually passed the law. I, I don’t know if it’s fully in effect yet or not, or if it’s gotta get past the state Senate or whatever, but they’re trying to pass that law to mandate that you can only buy a certain kind of tire, which makes, like, 75% of the tire market illegal.

All they have to do is make it illegal, and then we can’t drive our cars anymore.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, it’s craziness.

Crew Chief Brad: Which may be extreme, but I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility.

Crew Chief Eric: So, uh, like I said, there’s two sides to this conversation. The one side is those of us are digging in our heels, and we [00:15:00] want our old cars, and we wanna keep our old cars going.

I mean, we sound just like the baby boomers, right? I wanna drive my ’57 Chevy even though it’s LS-swapped, and it’s all good. You know, that kind of thing. But on the other side of the coin, you said, Brad, people trying to hit that nostalgic nerve there, trying to get people excited. And then there’s companies like Ford that comes up with this.

Just like the Mach-E, I don’t wanna call this a Mustang. This is, quote-unquote, the Mach 4 Sedan, and this is how Ford is gonna be getting back into cars, says the headline from MotorTrend.

Executive Producer Tania: If they just made it two doors, that’s not even bad-looking.

Crew Chief Eric: It looks like an Aston with a Mustang nose on it.

Crew Chief Brad: You know, if they just made it two doors, it would just be a fucking Mustang.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. Ah!

Crew Chief Brad: So to Tanya’s point, I actually don’t think it’s a bad-looking car. I think it’s a very good-looking car. Where I have issue is that they keep beating a dead horse and putting the Mustang nameplate on cars that it does not belong

Crew Chief Eric: on. On everything.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m okay with it even just being called the Ford Mach [00:16:00] 4.

Call it a Mach 4. Do not call it a Mustang. Call the Mach-E whatever the fuck you want. It’s great. Call it a Pinto. I don’t care. It’s not a Mustang. Don’t call it a Mustang.

Crew Chief Eric: I’ll agree. Styling-wise, I like it. I wouldn’t call it a Mustang. I don’t know what to call it at this point. Let’s just stick with the Mach 4.

But if you’re okay with this, Brad, you being former Camaro guy, are you okay with this?

Crew Chief Brad: Thank God that’s just a rendering. It looks just like a Mustang.

Crew Chief Eric: And they’re saying that the next Camaro might be a four-door. So where Ford goes, Chevy follows, right?

Crew Chief Brad: Again, don’t call it a Camaro. Call it a Caprice. I don’t know.

Call it a HHR. I don’t care. Don’t call it a Camaro. There are some names, some badges-

Crew Chief Eric: That are sacred …

Crew Chief Brad: that are sacred, that mean something. The Mustang, the Camaro, Corvette. Germany, they all use numbers and letters because, you know, they don’t know how to formulate words. So the 911, the M3, whatever. I don’t know, I’m going down a rabbit hole.

But [00:17:00] yeah, don’t call it a Camaro.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Don’t call it a Mustang.

Crew Chief Eric: Now, if we keep it in this two-door shape, this looks better than the current Camaro. I will say that.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, there is no current Camaro. They don’t make it anymore, right?

Crew Chief Eric: The last generation Camaro. Yeah. The most current ZL1 that was produced, you know, however many years ago or whatever.

So I like it. I think it looks good. It begs the question if there is room at the table in 2026 and beyond for muscle cars, and we’re gonna touch on this again as we go on, because muscle car culture is a whole nother thing, pulling on those nostalgic heartstrings there with those types of cars. So I wanna come back to that.

We’re gonna put a pin in that for just a second. Tanya mentioned it before.

Executive Producer Tania: Integra.

Crew Chief Eric: Ah, the Integra. Honda is halting the manual Civic Si and the Integra A-Spec. So just to add more fuel to that fire, even the Japanese are deleting the manual transmissions. We know Toyota’s been working on that [00:18:00] fake manual transmission for a while.

There’s rumors about Subaru coming back with manuals. They already got rid of those. If it’s no good for the Germans, ’cause they’ve declared no more manuals as of the end of this year, so Honda’s getting in the… So who’s gonna have a manual left? Anybody? Nobody.

Executive Producer Tania: Subaru.

Crew Chief Eric: They don’t count. They have a class action lawsuit and all sorts of dumb stuff going on.

You sure they even gonna be in business?

Crew Chief Brad: So, I d- I wanna see is there an actual link for this article? ‘Cause I wanna see the reasoning behind why they’re halting

Crew Chief Eric: it. Just ask Gemini

Executive Producer Tania: So it says that they are pausing the production of the manual transmission versions of the Civic SI and Acura Integra after the 2026 model year, driven by upcoming shifting EPA emissions regulations and certification rules for 2027 and later models.

Honda intends to bring the manual powertrains back once regulations clear up, potentially around 2028.

Crew Chief Eric: Lies,

Crew Chief Brad: lies. So it’s, I, I mean, it says temporary. So basically the laws have changed. They need to [00:19:00] reconstruct the manual transmission to fit with the new laws.

Crew Chief Eric: I think the Japanese have the same problem that the Germans have, but not as bad.

They don’t know how to gear their manual transmissions. The Americans, it’s like double, triple overdrive. You’re doing 1,500 RPM in a four banger at 80 miles an hour. The Germans, it’s like 4,000 RPM, 80 miles an hour. Must be at maximum one-to-one ratio of speed always. Ah. And the cars are, like, burning themselves out, and it’s like gear them down so they get better mileage.

A long time ago manuals were more efficient than automatics are. I think the automatics today are, are a lot better than these old slush boxes that we’re used to. So is there an advantage? Mm, probably not, but I, I like having three pedals.

Crew Chief Brad: True. But I also think given the initial part of the showcase, talking about car culture and is car culture dead, I believe the manual transmission is a part of our [00:20:00] car culture.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly.

Crew Chief Brad: And our car culture is dying, so it makes sense that it would go that way. Uh, you already just pointed out that-

Crew Chief Eric: But wouldn’t the kids that are buying the flip phones wanna drive a manual transmission car?

Crew Chief Brad: They’re doing it ironically, but the problem is- Ah … who’s gonna teach them that skill to do it?

Crew Chief Eric: There you go. All right.

Crew Chief Brad: And where are they gonna buy if there’s no manual transmission?

Crew Chief Eric: ChatGPT will teach you how to drive a manual transmission, right?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I’m sure. Cha- I’m, you’ll put ChatGPT right seat. I’m gonna put my computer there, and it’s like, “Okay, how do I do this?” “Okay, Brad, here’s what you do.”

Crew Chief Eric: Stalled out 12 times. You’re doing great.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. You, you-

Crew Chief Eric: But this is what you really need to do …

Crew Chief Brad: you push it to the dealership and swap it for an automatic. That’s what you- Yeah, that makes- That’s how you do it. So I think it’s just another part of our car culture that’s dying.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, you gotta look at where populations are too because sitting in constant traffic crawling, what do you need a manual for?

Crew Chief Brad: It’s a purist thing that we’re, we’re trying to hold onto because it’s fun. Personally, given the way technology has changed so much, there are no practical reasons really right now to have a [00:21:00] manual transmission.

Crew Chief Eric: They’re definitely no fun at the track. I have not been in an automatic that has been fun, like, ever.

Executive Producer Tania: Right. For your daily driving, there is no advantage to a manual.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s very true. You know, this next one, I want to talk about it with respect to car culture because normally we would’ve reserved this for rich people things. And this is- The Luce. We talked about this, we ranted about this, we made fun of this.

Everybody doesn’t like this from what I understand. According to the headlines, Ferrari has hit its sales target with these things. I think I know how. But I, I just want you guys to… Gut reaction, like, they’re actually selling these pieces of crap? ‘

Executive Producer Tania: Cause there’s a shoe for every foot.

Crew Chief Eric: Is that what it is?

Crew Chief Brad: I was gonna say, they must be using the same data that Tesla uses when they, you know, announce their sales figures.

Crew Chief Eric: Or they only made one. So remember, we have to hit our sales targets, right?

Crew Chief Brad: They made one, they sold [00:22:00] one. Job done.

Crew Chief Eric: They sold one to this guy. They sold one to Dr. Herbert “Herbie” Wertheim for $40 million. That’s Luce number zero. So all the ones we’ve seen pictures of, this guy bought it for 40 million bucks.

Crew Chief Brad: You know what’s funny? I thought that was Bernie Ecclestone.

Executive Producer Tania: Willie Nelson.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes.

Executive Producer Tania: But sober.

Crew Chief Eric: What I’ve come to find out is that this is the second time this gentleman has made, quote, “a donation” to Ferrari. He bought an SP3 last year for $26 million. Who is this? I would like to have this shoe store- This is Herbie.

This is Herbie. He’s, like, 100,000 years

Executive Producer Tania: old. I would like to have

Crew Chief Eric: this

Executive Producer Tania: kind of no fucks money.

Crew Chief Eric: He is a famed optometrist, philanthropist, billionaire inventor. Okay. Anyway, so he buys a SP3 for $26 million last year. The money goes to the Ferrari Foundation. He buys Luce number zero for $40 million. [00:23:00] The money goes to the Ferrari Foundation. I don’t think he took delivery of these cars.

From what I come to understand, he’s not actually a Ferrari collector. So what I’m thinking is, tell me how to launder money without telling me how to launder money. You know what I thought of? ‘Cause people were talking about this and how crazy it is. Ferrari Formula 1 cannot take a donation. They have to have a sponsor, and it is that.

W- this guy isn’t gonna sponsor Ferrari Formula 1, but if he makes a donation to the foundation and the money finds its way to the Formula 1 t- ‘Cause what is Ferrari gonna use the $40 million for? Are they in that much debt?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, I would think with a name like Ferrari Foundation, it should be a nonprofit, so they should be using it for nonprofit things.

Crew Chief Eric: Lies. Lies. It’s all lies. Lies. Let’s just say that X amount, we don’t know how many of these Luches that they’re supposed [00:24:00] to make, at $850,000 a piece. If they’ve allegedly met their sales targets, and you know Ferrari has that weird Ponzi scheme where you gotta buy in at certain levels to get accepted to the bigger levels, and then when you get to the big levels, then you can get to the, the really extreme stuff.

Crew Chief Brad: They’re like Fabletics.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, right? So l- so you’re telling me, let’s say there’s 100 of these things other than the one that they sold, I think is the only one that they made. There’s 100 people out there that have put down 850 grand on that?

Crew Chief Brad: So WhistlinDiesel probably will. Has

Crew Chief Eric: he got that kind of money?

Crew Chief Brad: Definitely.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, The Stig mentioned him recently, talking about how he should’ve been one of the people that go on the new Top Gear. I was like, “No way.”

Crew Chief Brad: I would watch that. What? But he’s too, he’s too crass.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, exactly. He’s just not polite. He’s not

Crew Chief Brad: professional enough.

Crew Chief Eric: So sticking with Ferrari, I got $850,000 burning a hole in my pocket, I’m gonna go buy that toaster instead of buying this, if they make it.

This is, [00:25:00] they unveiled this during Monterey Car Week. This is the Ferrari CZ26, and it looks like an SF90 and a Luce had a baby. So is this what Ferrari was actually intending on making the whole time, but it wasn’t ready yet, so they had to come up with that other thing? Look at that. That’s, that looks good.

This looks like a Ferrari. You can’t tell me that this is electric.

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, it looks like a modern Ferrari.

Crew Chief Eric: But it looks like a Ferrari.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Unlike the Luce, which I don’t even wanna burn my retinas with looking at again.

Crew Chief Brad: What does Luce translate to?

Executive Producer Tania: Light.

Crew Chief Brad: Light, okay.

Crew Chief Eric: Ugh.

Crew Chief Brad: Wanted to make sure it didn’t translate to, like, stupid American or something like that.

Crew Chief Eric: Only in dialect.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. At the same time, we’re talking about $40 million, you know, Luce Zeroes and $850,000 for this, and

there’s the CZ 26 and blah, blah, and [00:26:00] then we got the Temerario Lamborghini coming out, which looks like an insect. There’s also reports from The Drive talking about how the luxury market is crumbling from the top down. Now, I want to, again, car culture, words are really important. What does luxury mean to you?

Executive Producer Tania: Generally, that would be something, and I don’t even know if that’s true anymore, I guess it still is, like a Lexus or Mercedes-

Crew Chief Brad: Lexus, Mercedes, BMW … be

Executive Producer Tania: luxury.

Crew Chief Brad: Bentley, Rolls-Royce.

Crew Chief Eric: Used to be Aston Martin as well, luxury.

Crew Chief Brad: Aston Martin would be in there, yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: No, I don’t think a Lamborghini is a luxury car.

Crew Chief Brad: No.

Executive Producer Tania: I think it’s a supercar.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. Supercar brand, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Every car on this except for this Rolls and the Bentley that they showed are all hypercars of s- or sports cars of some point. 911, Mercedes SLS, even these Maseratis, these are not luxury cars.

Crew Chief Brad: I would consider Maserati a luxury brand.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but the cars that they’re showing are their [00:27:00] sports cars, right?

It’s not like the big Quattroporte, you know, limousine of a car that you’re gonna drive around. But the Valhalla, like, come on. That’s… The s- no. Is the hypercar market collapsing? Sure, because who’s gonna go out and spend a million bucks on a car that they can’t drive? By the way, this Rolls-Royce down here, this was used on Your Friends and Neighbors with Jon Hamm.

His buddy Barney drives one of these. It’s actually really cool-looking. It’s got suicide doors. They open the opposite way, which is pretty neat.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, that’s a nice-looking car.

Crew Chief Eric: See, but that’s a luxury car.

Crew Chief Brad: I feel like this should go under rich people things.

Crew Chief Eric: 100%. But I just wanted to bring it up because we were talking about rich people things.

But I wanna move on from that because we always have to segue into Volkswagen because they have lost their mind. But this actually dovetails right out [00:28:00] of our showcase, and I don’t know if you guys watched this video, but what is the fascination with OEM Plus? What is OEM Plus? Is this a new car culture thing?

Like, I feel when the kids say words, you know, slang that I’ve never heard before, like OEM Plus, what does that mean?

Crew Chief Brad: My guess is it’s OEM with a mod or two.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, is it like HBO Max, Paramount Plus? Like, is that the plus part? G- I could look at this different ways, and Tanya and I talked about this. The more of these that pop up with this OEM Plus stuff, a- and it’s very much in the Volkswagen community right now, ’cause the Volkswagen community is not the same as it was when we were young.

But then again, if we look back, maybe we were silly like them, too. I don’t know. Basically, it’s like, “Hey, I got a Beetle like yours, Brad, and I’m gonna put a Mark 6 steering wheel in it.” Boom, OEM Plus.

Crew Chief Brad: So is OEM Plus just m- changing one or two things, or is it upgrading from one OEM part to a [00:29:00] OEM part from another car?

‘Cause that’s what you just described.

Crew Chief Eric: All of the

Executive Producer Tania: above. The goal to make a vehicle look, feel, and perform better using subtle upgrades that look like they came straight from the factory.

Crew Chief Brad: Okay, so that’s kinda how I like to do cars in the first place.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re an OEM Plus guy?

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, I wouldn’t call it something as stupid as OEM Plus.

But yeah, I, I like subtle, tasteful mods. Now, I also want something bonkers and completely crazy and out of this world, but I’m on an OEM Plus budget.

Crew Chief Eric: And I think when we were younger, we called it bolt-ons, right?

Crew Chief Brad: Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: And some of it was, okay, I bought a base GTI, and then they came out with the 20th and they didn’t tell anybody that they were coming out, and it’s like, “Oh, man, I really want that black headliner or I want those seats,” or whatever.

And you would find it, like you said, at a swap meet from somebody that wrecked their car or took it apart or decided to put race seats in there. You know, we were OEM Plussing 30 years ago.

Executive Producer Tania: So you [00:30:00] just weren’t cool enough to know- Oh … the term, because according to Autoblog, the term OEM Plus originated organically within the late ’90s and early 2000s car enthusiast communities, particularly the Volkswagen, Audi, and BMW tuning scenes.

Crew Chief Eric: Did you hear me throw up in the back of my throat a little bit?

Executive Producer Tania: So-

Crew Chief Brad: I, I, I think we can gloss over all the rest of that and just focus on BMW tuning scene.

Crew Chief Eric: There, there you go. There’s that

Crew Chief Brad: too. Yeah. They’re trying to lump Volkswagen into that, but no, I, I mean, Eric and I, and you, Tanya, we’ve been members of the Volkswagen scene for the better part of 30 years.

Executive Producer Tania: No. Just nobody apparently was widely calling this, because roots and evolution of the style, it, does this not describe the VW, Audi subculture. Early Euro tuning scenes popularized taking base model Golfs or Jettas and upgrading them using rare parts from European spec variants or high performance factory models, like adding [00:31:00] Audi or GLI parts.

Crew Chief Brad: But did anybody call it OEM Plus? No.

Executive Producer Tania: Allegedly, the term was there, but no one knew about it because nobody had the internet, so it was two people saying it in a back corner somewhere.

Crew Chief Eric: Behind the Dairy Queen. So a flag on the play, because this is the problem with the internet rewriting history at any given moment.

Executive Producer Tania: Could be that, too.

Crew Chief Eric: You could write a blog tomorrow and say blah, blah, blah, and people go, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That must be true. It- that’s how it was done.”

Crew Chief Brad: This strikes me as a journalist or somebody tried to coin a term, it didn’t go well, and now he’s got a voice because of the social media and the internet.

“I’m gonna create this term, and I’m gonna make it cool.”

Crew Chief Eric: Or you just see everything that’s trending on Instagram, and you spin a tale and put some history behind it, and then suddenly people take it as gospel. We’re, we’re rewriting everything all the time. Thanks, Chad.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m gonna pose a question to the listeners.

Have you ever used the term or heard somebody that you know use the term OEM Plus [00:32:00] before this episode airs?

Crew Chief Eric: I think you’re gonna get a big old negatory there, my man.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, true.

Executive Producer Tania: I will say, it’s not new to this, the year 2026, though. At least dates back to last year, because there is a, and this is a reputable source, a Euro Tuning news article dated in, a year ago, actually, What Are OEM Plus Mods?

Crew Chief Eric: See, I think it was a year ago. But, you know, if your source is Urban Dictionary, and that’s a whole nother thing, too, right?

Crew Chief Brad: J- just to pull on this thread a little bit further, Volkswagen community’s not the first people that were doing that. I mean, people back in the ’60s, I hate to keep going back to that generation, but- Right

people back in the ’60s were buying, you know, the cheapest model Charger or whatever that they could get, GTO or whatever, and they were taking the bits from the Judge or, you know, from the, the Scat Pack or whatever.

Crew Chief Eric: Right.

Crew Chief Brad: The 454s and stuff, and putting them on their cars. What were they calling it back then?

Another question for the, the listening community. I don’t remember, but I’m, I’m, I guarantee they didn’t call it OEM Plus, but I’m sure they had a term for it.

Crew Chief Eric: They’re called mods.

Crew Chief Brad: I always called [00:33:00] it bolt-ons.

Crew Chief Eric: Or mods.

Crew Chief Brad: You’re just making mods, right? Modding. You know, I’m, I’m modding my car with bolt-ons.

Crew Chief Eric: To your point about the old guys, they were hot rodders, right?

They were hot-rodding the cars.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, they, they, they were souping up.

Crew Chief Eric: They were souping it up, yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Damn, look at this. We’re peeling the onion back here. Yes. I have found an Urban Dictionary entry from 2016.

Crew Chief Brad: She looked up shrimping.

Tanya, that’s inappropriate for this episode.

Executive Producer Tania: They were talking OEM Plus back in 2016 at least, so we’re going back in time here. We’re slowly peeling the layers to see where this originated from.

Crew Chief Brad: Who was?

Executive Producer Tania: Somebody on Urban Dictionary. The same guy

Crew Chief Eric: that wrote the Wiki entry for it, right?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. When, when does it say that, that entry was created?

In August 2026.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, buddy.

Executive Producer Tania: February 28th, 2016.

Crew Chief Eric: Uh-huh. OEM Plus. Wow, look at that. Well-

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. It, it sounds so elegant.

Crew Chief Eric: I, yeah, right. It’s, yeah, it sounds very, very posh. I’m

Crew Chief Brad: gonna get a OEM Plus badge for the [00:34:00] Beetle.

Crew Chief Eric: Can I get an OEM negative? Like throwing stuff away that was factory p- I’m gonna put that on the race cars.

I’m OEM negative. I threw all the garbage away.

Crew Chief Brad: You’re always so negative. You, you simplified and added lightness.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s the Lotus way.

Executive Producer Tania: Okay. Wait, OEM, that’s kind of funny.

Crew Chief Eric: OEM negative?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Dude, we should start posting on Instagram about how we’re OEM negative.

Crew Chief Brad: What, what’s your car type? Oh, I’m OEM negative.

Oh, I’m OEM positive.

Crew Chief Eric: But then you could be like, “Look at what I threw away. Look at this garbage the factory made that was completely pointless,” like the emission system on a Mark IV, that you don’t need that to go racing, that’s for sure.

Crew Chief Brad: Your OEM carbon footprint.

Crew Chief Eric: OEM negative. What’s up?

But anyway, let’s stay on this Volkswagen thread for a second because, again, with the guys of Car Culture, I think this is what’s wrong with modern cars and modern car culture. If you [00:35:00] watch this video, this gentleman goes through the process of basically reformatting his transmission. I don’t know what else to call it.

It was like a complete wipe and restart, and he goes through this whole procedure and he’s like, “Feel a slight lag or jerking from your trans-” And I’m like, “DSG and all these modern transmissions shouldn’t have these kinds of problems.”

Crew Chief Brad: Well, it’s a Volkswagen.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, yes. And then we got the Kool-Aid rant from certain loyalists in our organization that are just like, “But this is the way, and this is this,” and trying to justify.

And I’m just like, “No.”

Executive Producer Tania: I’m honestly still confused. I don’t know enough about automatic transmission vehicles, but this boggles my mind. The argument being that the car is learning how you drive, so if you drive aggressively and it’s shifting faster, then it will just shift faster at all times. I’m sorry, that’s stupid programming, because the car should know how I’m driving at all times and modify how the car shifts based on that, because there’s real time data and it should be able to trend and forecast [00:36:00] what you’re doing.

So just because two minutes ago I did a burnout off the line to smoke somebody, and it banged through the gears, doesn’t mean two miles later when I’m just cruising that it should still be banging through the gears. If it sees your acceleration at a certain curve.

Crew Chief Eric: No, I agree 1,000%, and even older ECUs and transmission modules could figure this stuff out.

And with the advanced computers that are in cars now, I mean, maybe they need AI.

Executive Producer Tania: If it’s true that that’s how Volkswagen transmissions are programmed, wow, that’s dumb. Cars are

Crew Chief Eric: junk.

Executive Producer Tania: Or they’re Terminators.

Crew Chief Eric: Remember the Terminator, “I’m a learning computer.”

Executive Producer Tania: Well, they, then again, you’re not very good at it, then.

No. Because learning, you should be adapting continuously to how I’m driving and matching what I’m doing, like you would do if you had a manual transmission. Because you wouldn’t just, some tool bags would, but if you’re just cruising around you wouldn’t be like, bang, second, bang, third. I’m doing 25 miles an hour.

Like, really?

Crew Chief Eric: I knew a guy who had a Mark3 VR6 [00:37:00] Jetta who would never take it out of fourth gear because he liked the way it pulled all the time, so he would never put it in fifth. I was like, “You’re out of your freaking mind. What are you doing?” He was OEM negative as well.

Executive Producer Tania: I feel like there’s a problem and this person needs to…

There’s like should be a recall on these transmissions if that’s out there. Right? That’ll be the next news article is a big massive recall on shitty transmissions from Volkswagen.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, that’s okay, because it’s not gonna matter, because again from Motor1 confirming that Volkswagen is about to kill h- roughly half of its lineup.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s already killed, like, half its staff, so.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that’s true. And you know, we talked about this the last time, so I don’t wanna beat this one down again, but I did post on our Discord. I was like, “Hey, I would love to find the truth to this,” because they mention a press release in a worrying press release issued just minutes ago, you know, written like Dan Rather in the ’80s or something here, like Walter Cronkite, the end of the world.

And there is exactly here, the executive board present the future plan for Volkswagen, and inside of [00:38:00] this they outline how they’re gonna streamline by 50% and reduce this and that and do here, do there. And it’s all very technical and German and whatever, but it’s all there in black and white from Volkswagen as to what they plan to do for at least the short-term future.

So maybe it’s not a complete flag on the play?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, because they’ll cut half the workforce because they have AI now.

Crew Chief Eric: Is that what they’re using to program those transmissions? ‘Cause, uh-

Crew Chief Brad: ChatGPT, set my transmission to harsh shifting, please.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, my God. And in 20 seconds reset it back to regular. But that’s okay, because Audi says that their operating profits are holding steady despite a challenging first half of the year.

Lies. Lies. I don’t know how their operating profits are holding anything with Formula 1. They suck so bad. Not as bad as Aston and Cadillac and-

Executive Producer Tania: They aren’t the worst

Crew Chief Eric: But they’re pretty bad.

Crew Chief Brad: They’re solidly in the middle. We’re going to talk about that during our [00:39:00] stupid show name.

Crew Chief Eric: Everything is great over at Volkswagen, okay?

Everything is wonderful. Everything is awesome.

Crew Chief Brad: Everything is awesome.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly, but you’re still part of the team, you know? Yeah. It’s all good when you still work there. I bring this up, and this should be rich people things, but I have to bring it up in this section because people might not know that things are so awesome at Volkswagen, I’m gonna mention it again, that they divested Bugatti and Rimac, and they’ve scuttled a bunch of other stuff.

And in the midst of all that, you know, they made this thing. So what do we think of the Bugatti Bolide on steroids? This is the… I can’t even pronounce this French word, so I’m gonna stick with Bolide. It’s

Executive Producer Tania: not a French word.

Crew Chief Eric: How do you pronounce that, then?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, it means fireball.

Crew Chief Eric: Does it?

Crew Chief Brad: Destrier?

Crew Chief Eric: Destrier?

I don’t know how to pronounce. Destrier? Oh,

Executive Producer Tania: sorry, I thought you meant Bolide.

Crew Chief Eric: No, this.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, I didn’t look at that. I didn’t read that far.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s, like- … literally the second half of the first sentence.

Executive Producer Tania: That also is steed.

Crew Chief Eric: It is. It’s [00:40:00] got quad exhaust pipes coming out the back like the Batmobile. But here’s the problem.

I don’t like the front. In profile it looks good. In the back it looks like something from LEGO. In the front it looks like a carp. This is a Pokemon.

Executive Producer Tania: I-

Crew Chief Eric: Look at the steering wheel.

Executive Producer Tania: What is that?

Crew Chief Eric: Liberace’s hot tub, that’s what this is. S-

Executive Producer Tania: so in this smaller view of it, that looks like a cross-sectional area that you dissected a human, and you’re seeing, like, the muscular-

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah

Executive Producer Tania: fibers and everything. That is the heinous interior.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I’m sure these are all renderings. I mean, this is a little Knight Rider-ish going on here. I mean, I saw the Bolide when I was at Le Mans in ’23, and they ran it on track to kind of show it off and everything. And obviously it’s a little more subdued than this.

It looked more like a Veyron Chiron than it did like this. But there’s aspects of this that I really like, and then there’s things about it I just absolutely hate.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, who’s buying this? The luxury car market’s collapsing.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, that was my next point. So if that’s true, what they’re [00:41:00] saying, and this is considered a luxury car, why are they even bothering to build this?

And now Bugatti’s on its own. So how long are they gonna last building stuff like this that nobody can afford?

Crew Chief Brad: Maybe they’re using Home Depot parts.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey, now. Hey, now. Hey, now. That’s reserved for a different car manufacturer. So earlier I mentioned the Camaro and the Mustang potentially being four doors, and then I also said to you, Brad, “Is there room in 2026 for muscle cars in today’s car culture?”

We’re gonna put air quotes around car culture. And Stellantis has answered the call yet again.

Crew Chief Brad: The call nobody made.

Crew Chief Eric: What the fuck is that?

This is the worst badge engineering I’ve ever seen. So it’s the Charger Super Bee Sixpack. And if you know anything about the Sixpack from back in the day-

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, it was a six barrel carb,

Crew Chief Eric: right? Correct. What is it? Triple Hollies or whatever the… Yeah, yeah, you know, I’m not [00:42:00] a hot rod guy, so I’m gonna get pounced on for this.

But the point is, the Sixpack was all about carburetion of the engine. So this is called the Sixpack because it’s a twin-turbo six-cylinder making 600 horse- It’s all the sixes, you see. This, today’s episode is brought to you by the number six and the color chartreuse.

Crew Chief Brad: I thought it was because it ca- it came with a six-pack of non-alcoholic beer, ’cause that’s the clientele that they’re

Crew Chief Eric: in.

No, that’s the car culture today. Yes, I would agree. I mean, can you call a twin-turbo six-cylinder hurricane-powered Charger a muscle car anymore? Like, what defines a muscle car? It’s gotta be a V8 rear wheel drive, right?

Crew Chief Brad: That’s a good question. Everybody’s got their own definition.

Crew Chief Eric: Hold on, because I’m gonna draw you a parallel.

In the olden times, you know, when we roamed the earth as dinosaurs, there were the Camaros and the Mustangs and all the other pony cars and all that stuff of our, you know, the Fox Bodies and, you know, all that kinda stuff.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, Camaro and Mustangs.

Crew Chief Eric: But then you had the AMG Mercedes, which everybody went, “Man, those are some German muscle cars.”

And then you had the Baker’s [00:43:00] hot rods, like, you know, the big Lincolns and stuff like that with the big V8s, you know, and the Marauders and all these other cars that existed that were out there. But you always knew what a muscle car was. V8, rear wheel drive.

Executive Producer Tania: It was huge displacement

Crew Chief Eric: Well, well, yeah, and huge displacement.

Exactly. Like 9.2 liters that makes, you know, 250 horsepower or whatever.

Executive Producer Tania: But you’re right, it was huge displacement V8s. Like, that was-

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, like the Australian Holdens and the Monaros and all that stuff, right? What I’m getting at is BMW never had a muscle car until they put a V8 in the M3. Didn’t come, but just, what, maybe 15, 20 years ago.

So what I’m getting at is this new Charger with a six-cylinder turbo is stepping down and is akin to a six-cylinder BMW turbo, which is a real thing now, right? Because there really isn’t a V8 M3 anymore. So is the M3 now a muscle car with a six-cylinder? It, it was always a six-cylinder, and there’s plenty of other six-cylinder cars.

Would you consider Mark 4 Supra? Would you consider that a [00:44:00] muscle car?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t think you can consider anything other than American cars muscle cars. I think a hallmark trait that has lingered is that these cars can only go in a straight line. And a German V8 car can corner.

Crew Chief Eric: Except for an AMG Mercedes, they can’t corner

Executive Producer Tania: worth a crap either.

They’re more of a sports car.

Crew Chief Brad: According to Gemini, a muscle car is an American-made two-door midsize coupe equipped with a massive high-displacement engine, usually a V8, in parenthesis, built for explosive, to Tanya’s point, straight line acceleration at an affordable price.

Crew Chief Eric: Ah, there’s the extra part. It’s not that luxury car like we were talking about earlier.

Crew Chief Brad: No, it’s got a, the engine power is usually a powerful V8. Drivetrain, typically rear wheel drive. Body style, generally two-door hardtops or coupes with aggressive, bold styling. Strictly for raw power and speed in a straight line.

Crew Chief Eric: Also, did anybody notice these pictures, probably AI generated, some of them are two-door and some of them are four-door?

Crew Chief Brad: [00:45:00] Well, ’cause one’s a Charger and the other’s a Charger Plus.

Crew Chief Eric: OEM Plus is what it

Crew Chief Brad: is. OEM Plus. Yeah, my plus is two more doors.

Crew Chief Eric: So I will say this, of all the interiors we’ve looked at probably in the last six months on cars that we bring up on this show, this has the nicest interior. I like the way this looks.

Crew Chief Brad: This is gonna be an unpopular opinion, but I actually really like the interior of the desterior- the desterior interior. The,

Crew Chief Eric: of the Bugatti? Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: The one that said looked like it was, like, an autopsy in there?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: It

Crew Chief Brad: was pretty terrible.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Hey, maybe that plays into, like, my love for horror movies, but-

Executive Producer Tania: There you go

Crew Chief Eric: There’s obviously a bridge between muscle car, supercar, hypercar.

Because, you know, when, during our days, supercars were the top of the line, right? The F40, the 959, the XJ220, the Countach, the Diablo. Those were supercars. There wasn’t such thing as a hypercar like that Bugatti that we talked about earlier. And then below supercars were sports cars, so on down the line. I don’t know where this one [00:46:00] sits, but still in the Stellantis camp.

Could love the headline here. Maserati realized nobody wants quiet supercars, and now it wants its V8 back. And Maserati’s also considering putting a manual back in their car.

Crew Chief Brad: But do you know what Maserati hasn’t figured out yet?

Crew Chief Eric: How to sell cars?

Crew Chief Brad: Nobody wants a Maserati.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. The value on these will plummet immediately, just like all the rest of them.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: It is not bad looking, though.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, for whatever reason, Maseratis are always seen as just, like, the red-headed stepchild of the Ferrari world.

Crew Chief Eric: They are a bargain basement Ferrari, because oftentimes they have Ferrari engines in them. Now, granted, you’ve got all the rest of the Alfa Romeo Fiat stuff going on with it.

But I met some people this summer who have his and hers Maseratis, and they’re like, “They’re really not that bad. They’re easy to work on. The parts are inexpensive.” And I’m like-

Executive Producer Tania: What? … ”

Crew Chief Eric: These are some bargain basement cars.”

Executive Producer Tania: Are they inexpensive because these people are in an economic bracket where- … it is inexpensive to them, or are they really inexpensive?

Crew Chief Eric: I wasn’t going to pry, [00:47:00] but that thought did cross my mind.

Crew Chief Brad: We talked about this when we talked about F1, and how there’s such a disparity between the teams and everything. Yes. And I brought up, I think, uh, the, the unpopular opinion that some teams just deserve to die off. And I think I used Williams as an example.

As a team that, yes, it’s got great racing heritage, great history. They were champions at one point, but for many, many recent years they proved to be back of the pack, you know, before we added more back markers. I was of the opinion that they should just go away.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: You can’t compete. You don’t belong to be there, heritage or not.

I feel the same way about Maserati as just a car company in general. Yes, it’s got a great heritage. It’s got a lot of enthusiasts for cars that they used to make. If they can’t sell cars, then now’s the time to find a different business, because if you can’t sell cars, you don’t deserve to be a car company.

And yes, I feel that way about Volkswagen too, as much as it pains me to say. If [00:48:00] Volkswagen can’t make cars that people wanna buy and they start to die, then they need to die.

Crew Chief Eric: So there’s a definite distinction between the circus that is Stellantis trying to keep all of those plates spinning on little poles that they have, because they have these little fiefdoms everywhere, right?

It’s Fiat doing its own thing, and Ferrari’s doing its own thing, and Maserati’s doing its own thing, and nobody talks to anybody because it’s all Italian histrionics, and there’s hands flying everywhere, and all that kind of stuff. So we’ll just leave that where it is. And then they added the French cars to the mix too to make things even more interesting.

The Germans just think they know everything, and that they know what the market wants. That’s been Volkswagen’s problem for 50 years. They never bring the cars people want because they don’t think those people are gonna buy them, so they give us a bunch of junk like rental quality Passats that people bought because they’re like, “Well, it’s this or a Nissan Altima, so maybe I’ll try the Passat instead ’cause I’ve had an Altima before.”

But again, they’re in a position even now where they’re like, “This is the Volkswagen you should be driving.” And everybody goes, “No, I want a manual transmission [00:49:00] GTI that doesn’t suck oil and burn its rings, and need a walnut treatment every 30,000 miles. Where are the cars of yesteryear?” “Well, we don’t make those anymore.

We make electric buses that no one gives two figs about.” You know? It’s like, come on.

Crew Chief Brad: I know I threw out the dig about Volkswagen, but to get back to, to Maserati, let me ask you a question. Okay. It’s kind of a hypothetical, but I think I already know the answer. Speaking about Maserati and their racing heritage and, you know, their desirability, can you name one person that had a m- poster of a Maserati on their wall when you were a kid?

Maserati is the Oldsmobile Of the Ferrar- of the Ferrari ecosphere. Tell me I’m wrong. They are the Oldsmobile, they’re the Buick, they’re the not quite-

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. Okay …

Crew Chief Brad: the top, kinda under the radar. But some people want them because their dad had them and they were good cars, but majority of the people don’t even know they exist.

Crew Chief Eric: And I’ve often argued that Alfa Romeo is the [00:50:00] Italian BMW, right? Where they make a car for everybody, ’cause every 10 minutes they’re changing their design. Right. Which is my question to you. If this Maserati that we’re talking about was wearing an Alfa Romeo badge and was painted red, would it change your mind?

Not doing anything else but changing the logos, would you suddenly say, “Ooh, that’s r- that car’s really cool”? I

Crew Chief Brad: mean, I think it’s cool as a Maserati. To answer your direct question, yeah, I would say. It w- does it make it more desirable? Maybe. Does it make it less desirable? No. I mean, I just, m- the fact that it’s a Maserati is, it’s irrelevant.

A cool car is a cool car. I feel like Maserati as a company doesn’t really need to exist, to your point, because it could be sold as an Alfa Romeo.

Executive Producer Tania: Right.

Crew Chief Brad: It doesn’t need to be sold as a Maserati. The Maserati is hanging on to something that doesn’t exist anymore.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: And they sh- they do not need to be around.

I feel if Stellantis really wanted to make a wise business decision, they would get rid of Maserati and rebrand whatever, which they’re already doing anyway, because Maserati, for the most part, most of their cars are s- [00:51:00] something else rebranded, rebadged. Just get rid of the Maserati nameplate. Yeah. Nobody cares.

Just, I don’t care. The new generation doesn’t care.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Fold them up under Alfa Romeo and call it a day. Exactly. Just, just all Maseratis are Alfa Romeos now.

Crew Chief Brad: Done. I

guarantee nobody would notice if the Maserati Levante- Oh my God … or the Ghibli, which is the Dodge Charger, disappeared. And you never saw one again. The only car that anybody would miss is the GT.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s true.

Crew Chief Brad: The GranTurismo, which could be an Alfa.

Crew Chief Eric: You know who might miss it? This guy might miss it. Oh, we can’t not talk about domestic cars and take a visit over to General Motors.

I didn’t understand this article. Tanya, you read it. You sent it to me. I read it. I still don’t understand it. I read it multiple times. What is our leader trying to say? Is he taking a dig at General Motors?

Executive Producer Tania: Uh, it has to do with his seemingly infatuation with small cars and the kei [00:52:00] car thing, right? Yeah.

And so trying to tell them, I guess, they make cars that are too big.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, yeah, and he’s quoted as saying, “Your company, Mary, if you want it, I mean, you have the choice. It’s tiny, a little beautiful car. I’m not sure you’d wanna get hit by one of your Silverados, okay? Or one of your Cadillacs. But you make them as safe as possible, right?

You put a cocoon. You put, like, a little cocoon around them.” See, I would’ve been a wonderful automobile- … designer. Like, this is absolute gibberish. Even the most hallucinogenic AI wouldn’t come up with stuff like this. He is making a point that if you have seen the latest Silverado or the latest Escalade or just about anything that General Motors is making, if you painted them in camouflage, I would just say, “Yeah, those are military vehicles,” ’cause they’re massive.

They’re absolutely huge. They look like they’re… You know, remember we talked about that Silverado that ran over that Lamborghini ’cause she didn’t even see the guy? Now, granted, that was a bro-dozer, but the point is they’re just big from the factory. So yeah, if I was driving a kei car, the [00:53:00] little Daihatsu or something, or a Cappuccino, I mean, no, I would not wanna get hit by a Cadillac or a Silverado.

So Brad, I wanna revisit something from last month. We were talking about Subaru, would you buy an STI if they did this, this, and this versus a Golf R versus a GR Corolla versus a Mazda 3 Speed. We kind of like racked them all up, and you said at the end of the day, your wallet dictated the answer. Your heart says you want a Golf R, but your wallet says, “I have a beer budget and I’m gonna take the Corolla because it’s $25,000 cheaper.”

What if I told you that the GR Corolla now clocks in at $64,360?

Executive Producer Tania: No, thank you.

Crew Chief Eric: Would you still choose this over the Golf?

Executive Producer Tania: Read what this says. $64,000 for a Corolla with no rear seats, no extra horsepower. So I could just buy a base one for less and take the seats out myself?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Crew Chief Brad: Uh, yeah, I [00:54:00] don’t, I don’t understand this, the last part.

730 reasons it’ll sell out immediately?

Crew Chief Eric: Because they’re only making 730 of them.

Crew Chief Brad: Okay. So, well, that, that’s just a stupid line. But they followed the Porsche model, where they take things away and charge more for the car. This is basically the Corolla version of a GT3

Crew Chief Eric: RS. Yes. You got it.

Executive Producer Tania: No, when they first came out with the hatch, they had that, and it was the same thing.

It was a racetrack ready. It had no back seats. I think it had a half cage in the back, and that was it. And it was sold for, I think at that time it was, ’cause this was already a couple years ago, it was like 50-something thousand dollars. But inflation, so you know, we’re at 64.

Crew Chief Brad: They’re doubling down, Tanya.

They’re doubling down. OEM negative.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, this is OEM negative. They took stuff out of it.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s OEM negative. They stole Eric’s idea. They went full OEM negative.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, man, see? Toyota always, always at the front end of creative thinking.

Executive Producer Tania: Except those are the same ones that you took to the track [00:55:00] and the motors blew up.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, and they weren’t covered under warranty.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. Subaru. My God, Subaru. They are getting into the game. Monthly fees for remote starting your car. Shouldn’t remote start at this point, especially if you have an automatic, remote start is like power windows. I mean, it should just be part of the car, standard option.

Crew Chief Brad: From what I saw with, like, Lexus and I think maybe Mazda as well, I feel like it’s a little misleading. It’s not for, like, remote start completely, and please jump in and correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s for the app that allows you to remote start from your phone. I feel like if you have a remote, you can still remote start, you know, in the, in that closed system.

But if you want the convenience of the app on your phone to do remote start and various other things, I know Lexus does it this way, you have to pay for the app, and there’s a subscription for the app. I don’t know if it’s for remote start altogether.

Crew Chief Eric: It takes longer to do the stuff from your phone, especially after you’ve used [00:56:00] your pin, your phone says, “Oh, it was offloaded ’cause you haven’t used it in 10 minutes,” gotta load the app, then it’s gotta do two-factor authentication, and blah, blah.

By the time you’ve done all that garbage, you could’ve walked up to the car and just started it.

Crew Chief Brad: But I think you’re making a fatal error.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, okay.

Crew Chief Brad: You’re assuming that people have common sense.

Crew Chief Eric: Ah.

Executive Producer Tania: This is the new car culture. They gotta have the car started for them, cooled a little bit before they get in because, “Oh my God, I just can’t right now.

It’s so hot. I just can’t. I can’t even with this right now.”

Crew Chief Brad: First of all, younger generations, they all have their phones glued to their hands, so their phone is out anyway. They’re already scrolling social media. They’re already on TikTok and Instagram posting their reels and clicking views and all that stuff and talking to their friends.

And so their phone is already open. They don’t need to two-factor authenticate because they did that when they woke up in the morning. Ah, got it. And they never, never put it down.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, that’s a fair [00:57:00] thing too, because you don’t have a door lock cylinder on the, to open your car anymore. You don’t need your key.

It’s just a fob. It’s just a sensor that alerts in vicinity that you can unlock your doors and start your car. You’re not putting that key anywhere. So if you have that key buried in your purse, a backpack, your pocket, but you have your phone glued to your hand, well, yeah, I can start my car and lock it with my phone.

Why would I go dig through my pocket and pull my keys out?

Crew Chief Brad: So why even generate a key? Why not-

Executive Producer Tania: But today’s car culture …

Crew Chief Brad: yeah, why not just use the phone’s NFC capabilities and, and open the door that way?

Crew Chief Eric: Because that’s how it’s gonna charge you. It’s like Apple Pay. Yeah. So to open the door, it’s 50 cents every time you tap your phone against the door handle.

Crew Chief Brad: You know what? I think Ford had it right when they had the little two-digit keypads.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: They were ahead of their time.

Crew Chief Eric: Like that guy in the first article, I don’t want any of this stuff. I mean, I like remote start. I have it on my Jeep. I can be in my office and go boop boop in the wintertime, and it’ll fire up and warm up and don’t…

But you know, it’s a diesel, so it needs extra time. [00:58:00] Anyway, but I was thinking about what you were saying, Brad. If you can communicate with this Subaru from your phone and remote start, that means the Subaru has cellular access, right? So it’s connected to the grid. To your point of earlier, all these new cars are all connected to the Internet of Things.

And so I don’t want any of that stuff. But it also makes sense why they would charge a subscription fee, because who’s paying for the cellular access to the car? Because the remote key fob just sends an RF signal. There’s an RF, you know, receiver on the other side, and it goes, “Oh, s- I received the car start signal, and I’ll start it.”

It doesn’t need all this other infrastructure, Verizon and T-Mobile and all this other crap, to make it work. But I also wonder, for those that are addicted to their phones, if you’re in the middle of Montana doing Subaru things like you’re supposed to be doing, like the commercials say, how does one unlock and start their car when there’s no cell service?

Executive Producer Tania: Then they get, they get the special satellite [00:59:00] cell subscription on their phone.

Crew Chief Brad: They have the satellite phone so they can start their car. You

Crew Chief Eric: gotta have Starlink to make it

Executive Producer Tania: work. You pull out the phone from Jurassic Park. Do, do, do, do, do, do. What was the music it would do? As it was in the Tyrannosaurus rex feces.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh my God, terrible. Well, Tanya, in spite of all this doom and gloom, you brought us an article that might shed a ray of hope. Car and Driver says, “These are the cars worth waiting for, 2026 through 2030.”

Executive Producer Tania: And is there anything on here that would be worth waiting for?

Crew Chief Eric: Okay, let’s see how many of these we haven’t already talked about.

This is that weirdly Russian-designed rendering of what the Stelvio could look like. This wasn’t even like a thing from Alfa Romeo. I remember we dug this up and we fact checked this car, so that one’s junk. This is that TT new Volare thing that we don’t like, so I can wait forever as long as that doesn’t get made.

The new [01:00:00] BMW M3 got revealed at Car Week. I’m sorry, it’s ugly. It’s the size of an M5. It’s huge.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, it’s also the IM3. Let’s, let’s just be- Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah, it’s got the electrical-ness in it …

Executive Producer Tania: sensitive to that.

Crew Chief Eric: The only thing I like on this is the wheels. That’s it. I think the wheels are cool. Moving on. Silverado shouldn’t be on this list.

Nobody salivates over the next version of the Silverado.

Crew Chief Brad: They just don’t wanna be hit by them.

Crew Chief Eric: This Camaro goes back to the Camaro we talked about earlier, although it looks like it’s ready for the next Transformers movie. Dodge Charger Hellcat V8. See, the V8’s gonna be the OEM plus now. You’re gonna be stuck with a six cylinder, and then you’re gonna want the V8.

I don’t like those wheels on that. It looks terrible. Dodge Copperhead. I read about this. This is sort of the return of the Viper without being the return of the Viper, and Dodge wants to get into the pony wars. So if you look at the body styling, there was a Copperhead concept back when the second generation Viper came out.

I actually have a model car of it. Pretty interesting, but I don’t see that ever coming. I’m just gonna skip over [01:01:00] whatever that thing is. Then we got the Mustang Dark Horse, which already exists, so this is just an- another whatever. The Ranchero as a pickup truck.

Crew Chief Brad: Which is just a Maverick.

Crew Chief Eric: Which is just a Ranger.

I mean, who wants a four-cylinder turbo pickup truck? Forget that noise. All right, we got the Genesis GV90. This looks like something out of Batman the Animated Series. Uh, we have the Magma, the GV60 Magma, which is the Veloster rebadged. Then we have the Genesis Magma, which is never gonna happen. This is that weird Lexus, the GR GT thing.

Crew Chief Brad: The successor to the LFA.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t like it.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I

Crew Chief Eric: don’t think it looks good. Infinity, who cares? This one looks like the same Infinity they’ve been making for 20 years. This Jaguar is horrendous. Jeep Wrangler Scrambler, like yeah, okay, they had those in the ’70s, the Scramblers. It’s okay. I mean, I’m not gonna salivate over it.

Then they’re gonna do an LFA again? That looks better than this other GT thing up here. This thing looks terrible. Let’s see. What else is on this [01:02:00] list? CX 5, they ruined that. Mitsubishi doesn’t make cars. Nissan- Ugh … this is the Ultima. Boxster, that’s a lie ’cause they said they’re not gonna make those.

Nobody salivates a Ram. Dakota’s com- ah, look at this thing. Ah.

Crew Chief Brad: I wanna talk about the Scout ’cause that’s, I, I, I would love one of those, but I don’t wanna gloss over the Rivian. I think the Rivian, I’m gonna call it the Rex, the R3X. The Rivian Rex is definitely a car I’m looking forward to seeing, and would totally consider owning one.

Crew Chief Eric: Never gonna hap- we talked about this car, like, a year ago, and now they’re saying 2029

Executive Producer Tania: This would be the most interesting thing on the list

Crew Chief Eric: Correct. Yeah. I agree, I agree with that 100%, yes.

Crew Chief Brad: But the Scouts look cool, too. They a- they’re like-

Crew Chief Eric: Okay. All right …

Crew Chief Brad: the Rivian-

Crew Chief Eric: Who owns Scout?

Executive Producer Tania: Volkswagen.

Crew Chief Brad: These are Volkswagen?

Oh, well then these aren’t gonna get made. They’re gonna get scrapped.

Crew Chief Eric: Hold on. Let me do some general arithmetic for you, okay? They lost 100,000 people. They’ve closed factories all over the place. They’re cutting half the cars that they make. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, [01:03:00] all this stuff.

They, basically the toilet is swirling and the turds are going down the tube, right? The Scout requires a special factory to be built, unique tooling. It doesn’t share anything with anything else, and they’re gonna move forward with this project? And they gotta pay for Formula 1. Let’s not forget that. They have to pay for Formula 1 somehow.

They’re gonna build these, and this is not something anybody is jumping up and down about. Because look at it. There’s nothing about it that stands out. I could go get a Rivian that looks like this.

Executive Producer Tania: No, the Traveler, the SUV. It looks like an old-school Bronco.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but that’s my point. You substitute this for any other SUV that’s currently available, nobody’s gonna wait till 2030.

It’s gonna be like the Cybertruck. We’re gonna be waiting for 10 years for these things. Nobody’s gonna wait that long for one of these. And then when they get them, they’re gonna be disappointed because they’re gonna be based on technology from five years ago because it took them 20 years to make them.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m gonna double down on what I was saying about Maserati. So- … I think Maserati, Maserati’s a [01:04:00] company that doesn’t really need to exist anymore, and I’m surprised that it still does. I would say Mitsubishi is in that list as well.

Crew Chief Eric: Right.

Crew Chief Brad: There are also a slew of car manufacturers that have already died out that don’t need to come back.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: And personally, I think Scout is- Yes … one of them. International, I guess, when they were, they were owned by International, the International Scout. I also think, uh, I’m gonna get a lot of hate mail from our three listeners for this, the, uh, DeLorean does not need to come back.

Crew Chief Eric: I think that is a pipe dream.

I don’t think that’s happening anymore. That was already three, four years ago, so.

Crew Chief Brad: No, but I think you get my point. Like, there are thing- Yeah … there are things that die, and they die for a reason, and they need to stay dead.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, it’s like saying we’re gonna bring back the Bricklin. It’s like no, we don’t need to do that.

There’s no point.

Crew Chief Brad: No.

Crew Chief Eric: Talking about things that need to die and stay dead, as we switch into lost and found, Brad, your favorite section. I got some good lost and found for you guys this time. We sent one to the lost. Yet again, it has returned to the deep. I just wanted to share with our audience, share with you, I don’t [01:05:00] know if you saw the pictures or not, but pumpkin spice latte, may it rest in peace, is gone.

Bye-bye, Norma Jean. Do you wanna sing Candle in the Wind? How good’s your Elton John?

Crew Chief Brad: Bye-bye, Norma Jean. Da, da, da, da. We’ll have to talk

offline, ’cause I, I’m wondering where my exhaust and my turbo and, like, w- where’s all my stuff? In

Executive Producer Tania: my shed.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s OEM minus. This is the definition of OEM minus right here.

Crew Chief Brad: OEM negative Ghost Rider.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, we have all that stuff, Brad. Don’t worry. We didn’t leave you hanging.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, okay. I, yeah, it’s, wow.

Crew Chief Eric: Anything that didn’t have mold on it got kept.

Crew Chief Brad: Okay, okay.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s that. Goodbye. Ciao, ciao.

Crew Chief Brad: What was the other picture? The gas tank? Was that-

Crew Chief Eric: We’re gonna get, we’re gonna get to that … the piece? We’re gonna get to

Crew Chief Brad: that.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay. We’re gonna get… All right, so I got one for Tanya, lost and found. I don’t know if she looked at this yet. Find of the day, one-of-a-kind Audi A4 Ute.

Sells at no reserve. Look at [01:06:00] this thing. Look at this. Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: The Audi Ranchero.

Crew Chief Eric: Look at it. Yeah, look at that. Look at that. Look at that. Look how much mulch you could put in this thing.

Executive Producer Tania: I do need a mulch hauler. I

Crew Chief Brad: thought you were gonna buy the Amazon truck.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s a two-liter turbo though, so you gotta deal with that.

So you might not be able to haul that much mulch. But it is a manual though. It is a manual. Look at that.

Executive Producer Tania: How much did this sell for?

Crew Chief Brad: Bidding ended July 29th.

Crew Chief Eric: Sold for $7,300.

Executive Producer Tania: What?

Crew Chief Brad: That’s it? That is more than I thought it would.

Crew Chief Eric: Six-speed manual, all-wheel drive, Sonoma Green. Mm, yummy. This angle is the best though.

Look at this butt on this thing.

Executive Producer Tania: It is. Yeah. No.

Crew Chief Eric: Had this been in Australia, it would’ve sold for 7,300 Australian

Executive Producer Tania: dollars. Well, the problem is this wasn’t made by Audi. This is somebody who took an A4 and then- It’s

Crew Chief Eric: a myth conversion, like all the other ones are

Executive Producer Tania: The back is terrible. It has no shape that goes with the rest of it.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, what shape is a pickup [01:07:00] truck supposed to have?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know. More than

Crew Chief Eric: that. Look, it’s even got a slidey-out back window so you can get air, just like a Chevy S-10. Look at that.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, that’s great. It’s, unfortunately, there’s a reason why Audi never made a pickup truck.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, they claimed they were going to, remember.

Let’s not forget, it couldn’t even fit a pair of golf clubs. You get all the best things here, except for the two-liter turbo. You get all-wheel drive, you get a manual, and you get a pickup truck. And it’s an Audi. It’s got the German engineering with American refinement. That was completely

Crew Chief Brad: ruined when they removed the back half of the car.

Crew Chief Eric: Is this OEM plus or minus? Like-

Crew Chief Brad: Mm. This is OEM’s special school bus.

Crew Chief Eric: All right, Brad, I found one for you. I’m j- gonna try to convince you. I don’t think you’re gonna take the bait. Look at that.

Executive Producer Tania: Probably not for sale anymore.

Crew Chief Eric: 2003 GTI VR6 in reflex silver with a six speed, [01:08:00] 4,500 bucks, with a n- fresher engine, 120,000 miles on the engine and drivetrain.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m sure this car is gonna make somebody very mildly happy for a time.

Crew Chief Eric: You wouldn’t go back? It’s

Crew Chief Brad: not for me.

Crew Chief Eric: GTI, especially with a VR6 in silver like Eddie, you’d stick with the Beetle?

Crew Chief Brad: I 100% would if I didn’t already have the Beetle, but as I told you before, I actually have grown very fond of the Beetle. I actually really enjoy driving it. I like the way it makes me feel, you know, and people can come at me in the comments, I don’t give a shit.

I really like the Beetle. I think GTIs for me, they have a special place in my heart, but I’m onto something different.

Crew Chief Eric: Would you put a VR6 in the Beetle?

Crew Chief Brad: I would not put a VR6 in my current Beetle unless the motor blew up, because that’s what I would… I could potentially buy a, a junked two liter Beetle and put a VR6 in that.

Crew Chief Eric: Nice. I mean, I love me some VR6, don’t get me wrong. I know. That was, that is a super clean car. With fat fives and e- I mean, that’s a [01:09:00] nice ride right there.

Crew Chief Brad: I, I’m sure it made somebody very happy.

Crew Chief Eric: Nice ride. And speaking of good deals, we missed out. We could’ve gone to Mecum Harrisburg this month and picked up this beauty, a 1964 Studebaker Hawk GT for the low, low price of $2,200.

And I got a quote from Andy Beckmann from the Studebaker National Museum, ’cause I sent him this post, and he said, “That’s a hellacious bargain. I knew the guy whose estate that was from.” I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, $2,200 is, like, nothing. I don’t know anything about those.

Crew Chief Eric: Is that a convertible? What is that top? W- what is going on there?

Is that, like, a skullet? Shaved in the front and party in the back? Like, what is going on with this roof?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, that two-tone effect.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s wild. Like, the door doesn’t align properly with… That roof has to come off.

Crew Chief Brad: Nope. I don’t think

Crew Chief Eric: so. I like the reverse rake, too. It sits down, like the back shocks are totally busted on it.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s squatting.

Crew Chief Eric: Got the same nose as that Bugatti we talked about earlier. I mean, look at that thing. [01:10:00] Studebaker. ’64 Studebaker. Mm. Whopping 170 horsepower on a good day. Well, let’s talk about seriously what could go wrong, formerly known as Lowered Expectations

Crew Chief Brad: Lowered Expectations. Ah I’m

Crew Chief Eric: gonna read the headline here. I can’t believe this is actually a thing, but then again, I’m always suspicious of the dealerships. Dealer allegedly cannibalized customer’s Kia to fix another.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s wild.

Crew Chief Eric: Right?

Executive Producer Tania: Wild.

Crew Chief Eric: I wonder how many times that has actually happened at a dealership. Why is it taking so long for my car to get fixed?

Did they take a bunch of sh- stuff off of it and put it on somebody else car? You know what I mean? Like, or is this just a fluke?

Executive Producer Tania: That would incense me.

Crew Chief Eric: To never go to the dealership?

Crew Chief Brad: So I’ve always wondered why they couldn’t do this with a car that was on their lot.

Crew Chief Eric: That makes more sense.

Crew Chief Brad: Doing it to somebody’s, somebody else’s car, that’s [01:11:00] theft.

Crew Chief Eric: But is it also indicative of the fact that there’s a supply chain problem? Like, if you have to cannibalize another car off the lot, that means you can’t get the parts in a reasonable amount of time, right?

Executive Producer Tania: But I’m sorry, is it a supply chain issue or is it a shitty sequencing issue of your dealership?

This woman came in for a tire blowout, had nothing to do with her engine. That should’ve been, like, an hour fix. Also, why she took it to a dealer, sh- should’ve taken it to a tire shop to have a tire replaced, but we’ll leave that aside. She should’ve been in and out. If you had some other car there that you’re backed up and you have that person bitching at you that their car’s not done, that’s not this lady’s problem.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: This is theft. I think she can s- file not just a lawsuit, but she can call the police and file a police report for this, ’cause it’s, it’s theft.

Crew Chief Eric: Vandalism, right?

Crew Chief Brad: No, it’s theft, that they took something off her car to give to somebody else. They took her property- But then

Crew Chief Eric: they replaced it, didn’t they, later?

Crew Chief Brad: Did they? I don’t know. But here’s the

Executive Producer Tania: problem. They’re dismantling her engine. God knows what other things they took off of it, and the next thing you [01:12:00] know, she’s driving down the road, has some other issue. Who does she get to go blame? W- if you don’t know that somebody messed-

Crew Chief Eric: Right, and then they’re like, “Oh, you’re out of warranty-” Yeah

“so we can’t cover it,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, even though they’re the ones that broke the part in the first place.

Executive Producer Tania: Even worse, you go in for the tire change. They do all this tomfoolery. They do fuck something up, so you have to come back for a bigger repair. Fraud.

Crew Chief Eric: This next one.

Do you guys watch this? This goes back to what we were talking about car culture, and this sort of just bookended it for me. First of all, I wanna know what the word jawn means, and I’m not talking J-O-H-N or J-O-N. What is J-A-W-N? And I assume it’s pronounced like yawn, because Hooked on Phonics worked for me. So what is jawn?

Executive Producer Tania: I had to l- I had to wait to see how the, what the spelling of jawn was.

Crew Chief Eric: J-A-W-N.

Executive Producer Tania: So according to Urban Dictionary

Crew Chief Eric: We’ve had to use that a [01:13:00] lot today …

Executive Producer Tania: there’s a definition that goes all the way back to 2003, “A word used by Philly cats to describe anything and everything.”

Crew Chief Eric: So nothing and everything at the same time.

Executive Producer Tania: Mm-hmm. And in a, a more recent 2012 definition, also terms as a Philly slang for a person, place, or thing. “I can’t find that jawn anywhere.” “Do you see that movie? That jawn was horrible.” “Yeah, I got that same jawn from Macy’s.”

Crew Chief Eric: So it’s like joint or junk and all that stuff from back in the ’90s, right? It’s like

Executive Producer Tania: the same thing.

Yes, because the other definition does say that the New York cats, ooh, we’re talking cats, the New York folk interject with the word joint.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: But it doesn’t quite, it doesn’t quite convey the same feeling as jawn.

Crew Chief Brad: And I wouldn’t be surprised if because it’s social media, you know that there are words that they can’t say because- Yeah

they’ll get flagged by the algorithm. Right. So they can’t say suicide, you can’t say killing. They probably can’t say joint because of drug affiliation. Right,

Crew Chief Eric: right, right.

Crew Chief Brad: And now that I’ve said those words, they’ll probably get us canceled, so.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that’s okay. Doesn’t matter.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. Who cares?

Crew Chief Eric: I [01:14:00] saw jawn anywhere.

Crew Chief Brad: I’ma go down to VIR and watch all that jawn going on.

Crew Chief Eric: Did you guys see this video? This is OEM Plus right here, and Brad, I also found this and I put it in here because you were going to do a wiper delete on Pumpkin Spice.

Crew Chief Brad: I did one on the Mark5.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but you didn’t do it like these guys did it.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I did. I did it on my R32. I mean, I haven’t watched this

Crew Chief Eric: whole thing yet. Yeah, but you didn’t do it like these guys did it with some Home Depot stuff that they had to put on a grinding wheel.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, I actually bought the correct part. So he shatters his rear glass?

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Nice.

Crew Chief Eric: I think my favorite line, despite all the jawn, was he grinds this part to go put it on there to put on the delete, which probably wasn’t even for this car, and he’s like, “Flush as a toilet.”

And I’m like, “Skibidi.” I mean, he just shatters that glass.

Executive Producer Tania: But also, I’m sorry, don’t they sell rear wiper delete kits?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, from ECS for, like, [01:15:00] 20 bucks. Like, come on, I mean- They

Executive Producer Tania: probably are super easy to install and don’t have this happen?

Crew Chief Eric: Designed for the car, for the glass.

Executive Producer Tania: Okay. All right.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, this is literally the definition of square peg, round hole.

Executive Producer Tania: I like the one guy comments, “I used a black smooth plastic plug from Lowe’s. Little bit of silicone and it was flush and black like the tint.”

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, and he probably spent the same amount as had he ordered the part from ECS, but that’s neither here to there.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh my God. It’s because you used the John to tighten the John onto the John.

Next time use a John instead of the John that you want John Johned.

Crew Chief Eric: There it is. This is why the comments are the best.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s like Smurf.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. Well, we basically covered rich people things earlier, but we do have two extra value meal options here, and I wanna bring up something that’s definitely going to end up on our Christmas list because, you know, i- it kind of is rich people things in the sense that if you have enough of these that you need a special storage unit for them- Then you might be doing some rich [01:16:00] people things.

I stumbled across, if this isn’t fake, Tex Racks, T-E-X Racks, and they’re specifically these, like, racks designed for your 1/64 scale Hot Wheels, Matchbox, et cetera. I think these are super cool. They might be a little janky. I wanna get one, but I, I don’t know if I trust the website. This is where I’ve reached in my life.

If I can’t buy it on Amazon, then it’s not legitimate. Or if the manufacturer doesn’t have a store on Amazon, they’re not legit, ’cause Amazon legitimizes all of their sellers, or at least they try to. Same with Walmart. So I’m like, “I don’t know.” But if somebody is willing to buy a Tex Rack and then let me know.

Crew Chief Brad: These jaws be janky.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s what I’m thinking. But I like the idea.

Crew Chief Brad: Why are they so expensive, too? They’re cloth. Did you watch the video of the woman putting the stuff in

Crew Chief Eric: place? I did. I did, and that’s why I’m like, how janky are these? But here’s the other thing. You look at this plastic, and you know this plastic.

This is the plastic that is like a Oreo [01:17:00] container. You know how thin the Oreo containers are? They almost crumple like a paper bag. Like, I’m feeling like this is the type of plastic that they’re using here.

Crew Chief Brad: I feel like you go to Target, you buy one of those fabric closet hanger wardrobes-

Crew Chief Eric: Yes …

Crew Chief Brad: and you make one yourself.

Why pay $200 for one?

Crew Chief Eric: For the plastic shelves, that’s what you’re paying for. If they don’t

Crew Chief Brad: fall out of- Just, just eat a bunch of Oreos-

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah, 100%, right … and then

Crew Chief Brad: use that.

Crew Chief Eric: Speaking of Subaru earlier, you know, Lego has its Icons series, and they have a bunch of different stuff that is actually created by people that are, like, over on Rebrickable, and they’ll post them up on Lego’s website.

And if it gets enough interest and enough votes, then Lego will take the design, look it over, Lego-fy it to make it easier and all that kind of stuff, you know, less rare parts and less unsanctioned building techniques, those kinds of things. But up on the docket, along with, you know, we’ve seen in the past the Ayrton Senna, the Nigel Mansell, and the Michael Schumacher racing set, somebody put together a [01:18:00] Colin McRae Subaru rally set.

This opens a door for a lot of things, ’cause they had, did already have the Audi rally car a while ago, but I think this is super cool. Like, I’d like to see this get made. So go out to lego.com and go vote for it. Right, Tanya?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: I love the rally stage pit stop thing where you can take the car apart and set it up that way.

I think that’s really slick. It’s got a couple different ways you can position the car. Well, we have reached that part of the episode where we’re gonna go down south Florida.

Executive Producer Tania: We’re really gonna go north to New Jersey.

Crew Chief Eric: So I found this first one.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s brilliant.

Crew Chief Eric: Dad used to always say, “You gotta watch out for Roscoe and Buford hanging out in the bushes.” I mean, this takes it to a whole new level. Cop dressed as a shrub.[01:19:00]

Just looking at him, I mean, he looks like something out of Sesame Street.

Executive Producer Tania: He looks like Swamp Thing.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but it’s the binoculars. It makes him… But he’s scruffy like Snuffleupagus. Maybe it’s George Russell in that suit. But anyway, cop dressed as a shrub wrote 74 tickets in six hours.

Executive Producer Tania: And this wasn’t for speeding people, this was to catch people distracted driving on their cell phone.

Oh. Doom scrolling while they’re driving. So I do not feel sorry for any of these 74 people.

Crew Chief Eric: But in order to catch these folks, you’re dressed as a bush. Do you walk out into the middle

Executive Producer Tania: of the road? No. So, so this was a coordinated effort amongst many officers. Oh. So he would radio down to somebody else, and then further down the road there was a group of officers that then were pulling the cars over.

Crew Chief Eric: ‘Cause I was gonna say, if you’re trying to catch distracted drivers and you’re dressed as a bush, there’s a high probability you’re gonna get hit. But that is clever. He blends in. I mean, if you are not paying attention, you will not see him, despite the fact that that is not a color [01:20:00] found in nature.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, some places in nature, but not in New Jersey.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. What’s this one about, Tanya?

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, this is pretty bad. You just gotta take the, the time to watch the video.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s only a minute.

Executive Producer Tania: But observe what’s happened.

Crew Chief Eric: Did he just stop in the middle of the road?

Executive Producer Tania: This person just stopped-

Crew Chief Eric: Why? …

Executive Producer Tania: on a highway. Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: oh, oh-

Executive Producer Tania: On an interstate …

Crew Chief Eric: oh, oh, oh. That semi-truck almost took the three of them out.

Geez Louise, nobody’s paying attention. There it is. Boom. There it is.

Executive Producer Tania: And then watch, just leaves.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow.

Executive Producer Tania: That was a close call, too.

Crew Chief Eric: And now they’ve got a car legitimately in the middle of the road, ’cause he got clobbered by the van.

Executive Producer Tania: Dead in the water.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, the tow truck’s right there, but he’s like, “Nah, dog.” He’s like, “Nah, John.

I ain’t picking you up.”

Executive Producer Tania: I ain’t got time for that, John.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s terrible.

Executive Producer Tania: This happened in Ohio, Columbus, Ohio, and apparently they’re asking people to stop doing this. So this is not the first [01:21:00] time apparently. Kind of- What? It’s in the Ohio area. There were two other incidents on a different interstate where people apparently were just stopping.

Begs the question, are you trying to cause an accident?

Crew Chief Eric: I think they are. Uh, they have to be.

Executive Producer Tania: Like, is this the new TikTok game, that I’m just gonna stop on a highway and see what carnage can happen?

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, if Tide PODs won’t kill you, this definitely will.

Executive Producer Tania: Like, what excuse do you have if you’re lost? You pull over.

You don’t stop on a highway where presumably the speed limit, at a minimum, was 55. So you know people are going more than that.

Crew Chief Brad: Somebody did this to me earlier today on my way home from the grocery store. Speed limit’s 45, and they came to a complete stop at a green light.

Crew Chief Eric: What?

Crew Chief Brad: It d- it wasn’t like the light had just turned green.

The light was literally green the whole time I could see it from, like, way back, and the car literally was just driving up and came to a complete stop in the lane I was in.

Crew Chief Eric: Are you sure it was green? Because, you know, green and red, colorblind, it might’ve been red.

Crew Chief Brad: [01:22:00] You know, it was green to me, and I’m not colorblind.

It wasn’t like the gold and white or the blue and black dress. It was green. The fricking light was green.

Crew Chief Eric: So you say, allegedly. You could- What color is the stop sign again?

Crew Chief Brad: The stop sign is purple.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, okay. That makes a lot of sense.

Crew Chief Brad: Like your face after I hit you with one.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. Well, we are going to Florida now, aren’t we, Tanya?

Executive Producer Tania: We do have a Florida one, and this one’s, not that you should be doing illegal street racing, but check your mirrors before you do so, so that the cop isn’t filming you from behind.

Crew Chief Eric: No. Oh my God.

Executive Producer Tania: So that when you go buck 20, he’s not already right there ready to pull you over ’cause he was behind you.

Crew Chief Eric: And then they all drive Ford Explorers now too, so it’s not like they’re super obvious or whatever.

Executive Producer Tania: The drivers didn’t recognize the SUV as a police vehicle.

Crew Chief Eric: Was he dressed as a bush or a shrub? I mean,

Executive Producer Tania: maybe.

Crew Chief Brad: How about you just don’t do [01:23:00] this, like, street race?

Executive Producer Tania: Also-

Crew Chief Brad: Or don’t do it when there’s cars around at least …

Crew Chief Eric: because it’s the excitement of the street racing glorified by Fast and the Furious. If you, see if you have to make the time to go to the drag strip, it’s not as exciting.

It’s not as, as impulsive as it is when you do it on the road and basically endanger all the civilians around you. Because it’s not like when we were growing up and there was a lot less traffic on the road. But still, go to the track, then you can really show off how OEM negative you are. No video, though.

That sucks.

Executive Producer Tania: No.

Crew Chief Eric: Also, I’m just gonna say #roofrails. You want to spot a police interceptor Explorer? They don’t have roof rails. Dun, dun, dun. Let’s go behind the pig ball to talk about America’s News I have an update, NASCAR Jason next time. Ready for this? Oh my

Executive Producer Tania: God, you’re following this more than I am.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like Formula 1.

If I don’t stay in lockstep with this, then you’re just gonna give me a bunch of flack [01:24:00] that, you know, I didn’t know because I wasn’t paying attention or whatever. So I’m paying attention. Days of Thunder 2, I’m gonna put alleged, in air quotes, alleged plot points according to the Instagrams. I read that Cole Trickle is now a team owner, and he is facing the most challenging season yet for his team because his rival team is using AI and analytics to win with perfect race, and he doesn’t believe in that, and he’s gotta drive by feel.

So rather than supporting his younger drivers that drive for him on his NASCAR team, oh no, Tom Cruise, Mr. Mission Impossible, Cole Trickle, gonna jump back in to a NASCAR and show all these young whippersnappers how it’s done old school and win a championship. That is allegedly the plot of Days of Thunder 2.

Are you still gonna watch it?

Executive Producer Tania: Yes.

Crew Chief Brad: Can I just say?

Crew Chief Eric: Go for it.

Crew Chief Brad: I’ve seen this movie before.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, really?

Crew Chief Brad: With this exact plot. It’s called-

Executive Producer Tania: F1?

Crew Chief Brad: It’s called Cars [01:25:00] 3.

Executive Producer Tania: I was gonna… That was the first thing I thought of actually.

Crew Chief Brad: Where Lightning McQueen is out there having a good old time with his buddies, and then the new Jackson Storm comes up with all the analytics and checking his tire pressures and, and everything, and he’s so much faster.

He’s going 201, 202, 203 miles an hour, and Lightning McQueen doubles down on the boomerness. He goes back to Doc’s Roots and starts trying to race on the street, on, uh, on the sand, on the dirt, and he goes to the beach, and he go- goes to the hollow and w- and loses a destruction derby, and he finds Smokey, Doc’s old coach.

Crew Chief Eric: Got it.

Executive Producer Tania: So if it’s going to follow the plot of Cars 3, then Cole Trickle is not gonna be successful in his endeavors, and he is gonna have to mentor a junior driver to win.

Crew Chief Eric: This is Tom Cruise. He doesn’t lose at anything. Tom Cruise doesn’t lose anything.

Crew Chief Brad: Tanya [01:26:00] brings up a great point. So yes, if they follow the Cars 3 formula, then she’s right.

Tom Cruise/Lightning McQueen finds out that he’s not fast enough even with the old tricks, so he tags in his new female driver, ’cause Cruise was played by a female character, a, a female voiceover, so I’m ass- I’m, I’m making the assumption that she’s female. She’s non-binary ’cause she’s a car, but I’m making the assumption that she’s female.

Have to tag in a female driver to, to win it all, and they’re gonna beat Jackson Storm.

Crew Chief Eric: There you go. Boom. Days of

Executive Producer Tania: Thunder 2. But this is also the plot of the F1 movie where- Yes … ancient 100-year-old Brad Pitt comes to show the young ones how it’s really done. And drive it old school.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. It’s Formula 1 with NASCARs.

It’s gonna be terrible, and you’re still gonna watch it.

Crew Chief Brad: Because old culture is always better than new culture. Right, Eric?

Crew Chief Eric: Is that like the previous Subaru [01:27:00] is less ugly than the current Subaru when you compare them? Is that, is it, we’re going back to that?

Crew Chief Brad: This is old car culture is better than new car culture.

Crew Chief Eric: I guess so. Yeah, I mean, that’s was the theme of the episode, right? Is- Exactly … that’s exactly where we were.

Crew Chief Brad: And it all comes together.

Executive Producer Tania: Way to pull that thread.

Crew Chief Eric: Well done, sir. Well done. In other news, there is allegedly a America250 race.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s this weekend. Ah. You have not missed it yet. It’s on Sunday. I think practice, qualifying, whatever is probably Saturday.

But please do watch this video with the sound so you can hear Alex Palou taking a virtual ride around, or at least read what he’s saying. This is going to be the lamest- race where every corner is second gear, which we already know from the track map, because it’s straight, 90-degree turn, straight, 90-degree turn, straight, 90-degree turn, we’re done.

But wait till the end, because if this is truly what that looks like, there’s gonna be a massive wreck.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: At pit lane.

Crew Chief Eric: Terrible.

Executive Producer Tania: You come into a 90-degree turn, and then, boom, there’s a wall that you have to [01:28:00] split. Immediately go into pit or don’t go into pit. I’m like, “That’s wild.”

Crew Chief Eric: Aside from the fact that this is obviously on iRacing and it’s, you know, a simulation, see, this is what iRacing gets wrong.

You know what’s missing here?

Crew Chief Brad: Pedestrians.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, all the blown water mains, the potholes, the metro buses abandoned on the side of the road. Like, this doesn’t look like DC. This could be anywhere. This road is too smooth. This is not what they’re gonna actually be racing on, ’cause they’re not gonna pave anything.

They haven’t spent any time doing… This looks like garbage. This is worse than Long Beach. This is worse than St. Pete. This is worse than any… Look at that thing at the end.

Executive Producer Tania: That turn is so dangerous to me. I’ll be interested to see how that actually looks- That’s awful … in real life.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m glad I’m going in the opposite direction that weekend.

Me

Crew Chief Brad: too.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s all I gotta say. All right. Well, our motorsports news is brought to you in part by Enduraverse, powered by Hyperdev, America’s premier endurance racing community. And be sure to check it out online where you can now join as a free member under the Explorer program, and that’s [01:29:00] free forever.

So be sure to check it out online and become a member at enduraverse.com. Well, let’s wrap up this episode with a quick trackside report. You asked Brad about that gas tank earlier. We found the problem.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s a Ford.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, yeah, that, yes, is part number one. But we might actually have a running car now. Long story short, after diagnosing all this stuff, replace this, change the sensor, do the thing, all the things we talked about the last time, we got down to the point where we traced it to two remaining sensors that were tied to the ECU that were giving this electrical fault that we had.

But where, oh where, would Ford put the sensors? Above the gas tank, up against the bulkhead, which requires you to drop the gas tank to replace said sensors. Took us a little bit to get the sensors, ’cause they had to be ordered and shipped and came from Lord knows where, because nobody has anything anymore.

It’s all just-in-time inventory. So put the sensors in, put it all back together, put the [01:30:00] gas tank back up, make sure it didn’t leak, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then what happened, Tanya?

Executive Producer Tania: But it ran

Crew Chief Eric: And how did it run?

Executive Producer Tania: As it should.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, amazing. Amazing, after all that time and all that.

Crew Chief Brad: Yay.

Crew Chief Eric: And that was the first time Tanya drove it more than, I don’t know, like, 10 feet.

So what do we think?

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, it’s not gonna win any land speed records, but it’ll be a perfectly good momentum car.

Crew Chief Eric: She did a one wheel peel.

Crew Chief Brad: Compare it to a Mark 4 Volkswagen, the driving experience.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know, ’cause- ‘Cause

Crew Chief Brad: you’ve driven a f- almost fully track prepared Mark 4, and you’ve driven, now, a track prepared Focus.

Executive Producer Tania: Arguably, this isn’t a track prepared-

Crew Chief Eric: No …

Executive Producer Tania: car, right?

Crew Chief Eric: This is like a stage one

Executive Producer Tania: car. Suspension-wise, like, they’re gonna be night and day.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, true.

Executive Producer Tania: And, I mean, just driving it up the street, accelerating it, I don’t know.

Crew Chief Eric: It makes a whole bunch of noise. Especially from the air box.

Crew Chief Brad: I like noise.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I’m excited.

So that means we just gotta hurry up and [01:31:00] wait now. There’s really nothing left to do other than just get our registration intact, get our tech forms. We were at the starting line the last time we tried to do this, so what’s next for the car? It’s sitting, it’s waiting, it’s, you know, we go out and start it and move it a little bit just to make sure it’s okay.

And Summit Point October, and then if we can survive Summit Point, I’m gonna s- try to stretch my wings a little bit and I wanna go to Road Atlanta in December. So hopefully we’ll get two races out of it this year. If not, we’ll get one race out of it next year, and we plan for starting next season in Mid-Ohio and then trying to do some of the races we didn’t get to do this year.

But we’re back on target, and unfortunately, after all these false starts, we’ll be celebrating a year of this project from when we said we were gonna do it by starting at Summit Point, because that’s when we went last year to kind of scope things out and do recon. Sucks that we didn’t get a little bit more experience, and then I am on the reserve list with the Studebaker team for the Gingerman race, but all of their drivers are committed, so they said unless somebody bows out, they don’t wanna do the penalty thing where you take an [01:32:00] extra driver and then, like, the max is four or something they were saying.

So I was like, “That’s fine.” So they got me on standby, and then they were talking about potentially doing Road America, which not everybody wants to do. And even in a slow car, I think Road America would be a blast. I’d be able to check that off my list. So hopefully some more endurance racing action. This year’s sort of a meh, but maybe next year we can really get into it.

Looking forward to it. And then you’re out of commission too, right, Brad?

Crew Chief Brad: Uh, yep. September 9th I’ll have my surgery, and then I will come out to support the team on, in October at Summit Point, but I won’t, I will be virtually useless, uh, with the broken wing, so.

Crew Chief Eric: What’s the heal time on that?

Crew Chief Brad: I’ll be in a, a sling for six weeks- Oh, wow

and then I can resume somewhat normal activity without any lifting or anything like that. And then four months-

Crew Chief Eric: Oh …

Crew Chief Brad: and then four months to kind of start doing light lifting, and then six months I should be kind of almost back to normal.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow. So New Jersey next year, right?

Crew Chief Brad: I, I’m definitely planning on racing next year.[01:33:00]

Crew Chief Eric: Very good. Very good.

Crew Chief Brad: You know, speaking about the track now, if you’re not quite ready to hit the track, don’t forget that you can find tons of upcoming local shows and events at the ultimate reference for car enthusiasts, carcollectorguy.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, Automotive History Live, The Racers Roundtable, Formula Fanatics, Brake Fix, and of course, The Drive Thru.

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

And as always, thank you to our co-host and executive producer, mechanic and driver, and-

Crew Chief Eric: Team [01:34:00] principal …

Crew Chief Brad: team principal, yes, Tanya, and to all the fans, friends, and family who support Granturing Motorsports, as well as the Motoring Podcast Network. Without you, none of this would be possible. Outro. ‘

Crew Chief Eric: Cause we’re old now.

Crew Chief Brad: Sorry

Crew Chief Eric: Sorry. So wha- what is this sorry stuff?

Crew Chief Brad: I didn’t realize you guys were on time waiting for me. Tanya’s usually got technical issues. You don’t have a life, so you’re just sitting there doing a whole bunch of nothing.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey now. Hey now. Hey now.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, remember, we don’t do the intro anymore. We don’t, we don’t do the welcome to the drive-through, this is number blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Where we talk about all car adjacent automotive news. Drive-through window number one, number 71. Anyway. I

Crew Chief Eric: do things for the betterment of the automotive enthusiast community. That’s what I do.

Crew Chief Brad: Yep, yep, yep. AKA nothing.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, we could only all be so fortunate. [01:35:00] I

Executive Producer Tania: gotta look at it again. I don’t think I have access to it anymore, actually.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I gotta subscribe, which I’m not gonna do.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, can’t get to the rest of the article either, so you’re gonna have to jog it from memory here. You just got, you got bamboozled by the Mazdas on the screen. That’s what it was. Um-

Crew Chief Brad: I swear I thought she had a sound machine, and she pushed a button and it was like-

like, um, apartment or something. I was like, what the… Everybody say hi to Catherine.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah. Brad has a, has

Crew Chief Brad: a guest. Can’t really see you.

Executive Producer Tania: Hi.

Crew Chief Eric: Hello. Sorry about that. No

Crew Chief Brad: worries. That’s Louie too. Nice. Whoops.

Crew Chief Eric: Go for it.

Executive Producer Tania: I have other stuff in there that’s really good. What, what,

Crew Chief Eric: what

Executive Producer Tania: you got? Uh- What you got? No, no, not, not for, not for this podcast.

Not

Crew Chief Eric: safe for podcast. NSFP.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s our next segment, the more politically, you know, focused segment. Yeah, yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah, yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Where I put my tinfoil hat on and talk about the governments trying to control us all, and Tanya makes fun of Trump.

Executive Producer Tania: There

Crew Chief Eric: you go.[01:36:00]

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 Is Car Culture Dead?
• 00:04:11 The “Flip Phone” Epiphany and the Collector Market Wealth Shift
• 00:10:07 Low Tech Sweet Spot, 2008?
• 00:15:16 Mustang Mach-4 Debate
• 00:17:42 More Manuals On The Chopping Block
• 00:21:13 Ferrari Luce $40 million sale?
• 00:25:49 Luxury Market Confusion
• 00:27:49 What Is OEM Plus?
• 00:34:49 Oh Volkswagen…
• 00:39:14 Bugatti Bolide on Steroids, aka Destrier
• 00:41:16 Dodge Charger Sixpack?
• 00:46:02 Maserati Wants a V8 Back
• 00:51:33 GM vs Kei Cars
• 00:53:12 GR Corolla Price Shock
• 00:55:04 Subaru Remote Start Fees
• 00:59:21 2026-2030: The Cars Worth Waiting For?
• 01:02:43 Scout Skepticism
• 01:04:43 Lost And Found
• 01:10:05 Dealer Parts Cannibalism
• 01:12:29 Rear Wiper Delete Fail, Jawn
• 01:15:39 Hot Wheels Storage Racks
• 01:17:25 Lego Subaru Rally Car
• 01:18:23 Florida Man!
• 01:23:42 Days Of Thunder 2 Rumors
• 01:27:17 DC “American 250” Street Race Preview
• 01:29:05 Trackside Report: The Focus Fix!
• 01:33:01 Wrap Up, Sponsor Plugs and Post Outro Banter

• View Exterior Photos of the 2027 Lotus Emira 420 Sport -- See the exterior of the 2027 Lotus Emira 420 Sport from every angle.

• Mercedes won't contest Kimi Antonelli's British GP track limits penalty -- Mercedes has ruled out taking any steps against Kimi Antonelli's British Grand Prix track limits penalty
• Formula 1 Pool Floaty Available at Costco!
• Old Spice Deodorant for Men F1 Collection Scent of Deep Waters & Downforce Aluminum Free -- Great F1 Stocking Stuffer - While Supplies Last!
• More Old Spice F1

Aston Martin in talks with Christian Horner (again!)

• The Nissan Altima Isn't Dead Yet (Update) -- Nissan is reshuffling its lineup in the United States, and some cars could be on the chopping block.
• Honda and Nissan Near Partnership Despite Failed Merger: TDS -- Nissan got cold feet when it realized Honda essentially wanted to acquire it years back. Still, the two companies got past that and are close to a tech alliance.
• Gotcha: Toyota's New Mid-Engine Sports Car Possibly Caught Testing On Video -- Is this the long-awaited return of the Celica in action? We’ll have to wait and see.
• Toyota MR2 Development Car Spied Testing at Fuji Speedway -- A new video shows what appears to be a Toyota MR2 test mule wearing motley bodywork and turning laps at Fuji Speedway.

• Would you buy this Gen-1 Nissan Altima? -- 1995 Nissan Altima XE - Brad says YES!

• BMW Recalls 29,000 Hybrid Sedans, Warns Owners To Park Outside -- An engine starter that could overheat and lead to a fire has affected a trio of BMW luxury sedans.

• What is the fascination with this TDI and stacks?

• Goodwood Road Racing Club, hits California?

Days of Thunder SEQUEL Confirmed!

• Something else we'll never get in the US -- Meet the Alfa Romeo Brutale

• Elon Musk hints at Tesla (TSLA)-SpaceX merger on earnings call

For Sale: 1998 CyberTruck 😉

• Here's all the models VW is allegedly killing off...
• Last episode we said “it would be like a 4-door beetle” well China said, hold my Tsingtao!
• The HSR Manufaktur 859 Brings the Audi Sport Quattro Back to Life
• Find of the Day: 31-Mile Audi RS6 Avant GT Seeks a Real Enthusiast Owner -- Talk about Rich People Thangs!

After months of chasing gremlins, the Break/Fix Lemons team finally coaxed their Ford Focus back to life — sort of. A new wiring harness and ECU brought the car from “found on road dead” to “idles beautifully,” but acceleration remains a cruel joke. Limp‑mode launches and emissions‑sensor mysteries have turned every test drive into a slow‑motion thriller. Still, the crew’s persistence paid off: the Focus now starts, runs, and occasionally revs like it remembers its glory days.

CHECK OUT THE BUILD UPDATE ON THE GTM CLUBHOUSE SITE.

With Summit Point looming in October, the team’s mantra is “two steps forward, four steps back.” Between battery swaps, sensor hunts, and Mountain Man Dan’s cameo repair, the Focus saga has become a masterclass in Lemons‑grade resilience. If the next fix sticks, this blue‑oval underdog might just make it to the grid — duct tape, optimism, and all.

There's more to this story!

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: What’s up, Bradley?

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, you know, just dealing with pink eye, having my kids having pink eye.

Crew Chief Eric: Wait, your eye is pink?

Crew Chief Brad: Yes. One of them.

Crew Chief Eric: I can’t tell. It must be the quality of our cameras. They’re just not that good.

Crew Chief Brad: Hm.

Crew Chief Eric: Just don’t look too deeply.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m a good, I’m a good, like, foot and a half, two feet from my camera, so it works out that way.

Crew Chief Eric: There you go. What, uh,

Crew Chief Brad: what, what do [00:01:00] they say about a ba- uh, like some paint jobs are like a five-foot paint job?

Crew Chief Eric: The paint job on my station wagon is like a 25-yard paint job at this point.

Crew Chief Brad: Hm.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s okay.

Crew Chief Brad: The paint job on the Beetle is a doggy style paint job. It only looks good from behind.

Crew Chief Eric: Have you seen those products on Instagram where you can pour some Mervin’s magical mystery oil on there, and suddenly all your clear coat problems will go away?

Executive Producer Tania: The one where you’re just wiping something on it, and suddenly all the scratches are gone?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah. There’s that one. You know, that’s sort of like the … What was that stuff in the ’80s, New Finish? Remember the guy would go to the junkyard and he would just start buffing a car? I’m like, “Come on, man.” Like, really?

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t think I’ve seen that.

Executive Producer Tania: They still sell that, I thought.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, yeah, yeah. I saw one today where a guy was like, I don’t know what he was doing. He wasn’t really sanding the car, but he had that same clear coat peel that you had. It was on a Mercedes, one of those, like, cinnamon colored Mercedes. He does all this rubbed up scrub thing, and then he pours on two bottles of, [00:02:00] I don’t know what it was.

It was magic in a, in a vial, one on one side, one on the other. Maybe it was some J-B Weld or UV sealant or something. Anyway, next thing you know, they must have driven in another car, ’cause you’re like, “Wow, that is not the same paint that I saw five minutes ago as we accelerated that five-month process that it took you to get that car repainted.”

Crew Chief Brad: It sounds to me like that spray that they used to sell late at night for bald men. And you basically just painted your bald spot whatever your hair color was, and poof, it’s gone. No more bald spot.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s the same thing that, um, Trade and Paints guy, John Travolta got hair out of a can, remember?

Crew Chief Brad: It was literally just spray paint.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we should probably get serious and start talking about drive-through news kind of stuff. You know, we talked about it the last bunch of episodes that we were gonna go to the Midwest. We were gonna be in South Bend, Indiana for Automotive History Live. Well, we went a little bit further than that. We went to the great state of Wisconsin.

We put over [00:03:00] 2,000 miles on my wife’s space shuttle.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s why it’s throwing an engine code.

Crew Chief Eric: Uh, yeah, right? It did not like that at all.

Crew Chief Brad: You surpassed its, uh, useful life.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, it’s a Chrysler product, so what can you say? Yeah. I’d never been to Wisconsin. It was one of the few states I have not visited in the United States.

And I have to say I was left going, “Huh, looks exactly like everything I’ve ever seen on TV or on the postcards.” It’s like, here’s a farm, barn and a silo. Here’s a whole bunch of green for a bunch of miles, and here’s another barn and a silo and a bunch of green, and a barn and a silo and a bunch of green.

It’s very flat. It’s very much dairy land. I mean, obviously until you get up to, like, the northwest corner- You get closer to Minnesota or whatever, and you start to get into the Canadian shelf and all that kind of stuff. It’s really flat. It’s very green. It put into perspective what Road America must be like.

I haven’t been yet. It’s on my bucket list.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s, that’s what I was gonna ask, like, did you get a chance to [00:04:00] stop by Road America? I wanted to. And then the last turn and then the, the straight, the start and finish-

Crew Chief Eric: It’s uphill …

Crew Chief Brad: that giant hill.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. I was like, “There is some elevation in Wisconsin.”

Crew Chief Brad: It’s all at Road America.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. We made it all the way to Madison, so the capital of Wisconsin, so that was cool. Their capitol building is beautiful. It’s sort of like a miniature version of the Capitol Building in DC, but you can go inside. You can go all the way up in the cupola and all this kind of thing. It’s very, very cool.

Neat little city. I mean, most of the city is the University of Wisconsin, so, you know, neither here nor there. We didn’t get to Milwaukee. We didn’t get to Green Bay, you know, some of the other bigger cities. We had a bigger loop that we were doing Chicago and… Have you been to Wisconsin, Tanya?

Executive Producer Tania: No. We’ve not

Crew Chief Eric: had any interest in going to Wisconsin.

Executive Producer Tania: Sure, why not? We’ll get some cheese.

Crew Chief Eric: We went to the place that apparently is rated the original best place to get Wisconsin cheese curds. They live up to the hype. It is the cheesiest. And then I sort of got burnt out on cheese curds, ’cause everybody has them. I’m

Executive Producer Tania: sure they [00:05:00] do.

Crew Chief Eric: So then you’re sort of like, do you compare them? Like, do you keep eating cheese curds until you’re saturated and you can’t… I don’t wanna see another cheese curd. ‘

Executive Producer Tania: Til your intestines clog.

Crew Chief Brad: I’ve really only had cheese curds at Buffalo Wild Wings. Are they really that much better in Wisconsin?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, they are, they are the cheesiest, just like the commercials say.

They

Crew Chief Brad: are the cheesiest.

Crew Chief Eric: So continuing on our way back, we closed the loop on an episode that we had recorded four years ago, season two of BreakFix. We hooked up with Jim Woidilla from Volo, and he gave us a virtual tour of the museum because it was during COVID and they were under construction and a bunch of other stuff.

Crew Chief Brad: Next time I’m out that way I’ll do it. How far is it from Chicago? 45

Crew Chief Eric: minutes to an hour, depending on how you drive. It’s not really out of the way. For us it was just a slight detour, ’cause it’s the way we were, we were headed anyway, so it didn’t really matter.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, it’s north of Chicago.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like northwest.

Okay, northwest.

Crew Chief Brad: Okay.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Because it wasn’t that big of a detour [00:06:00] as we were, you know, on our way through Chicago both ways, we were like, “Let’s stop off at Volo and go check it out.” And the weather wasn’t too great. It was kinda rainy anyway, so we’re like, “What’s a day at a car museum, right?” My kids are dragging their heels.

They’re like, “Ugh, ugh.” Of course. “We’re bored.” Ugh. Yeah. Whatever. I wrote an article about it. It’s on the club website. But I wanted to share some pictures with you guys if you hadn’t had a chance to see it yet. This is why I say all of a sudden we walk in the door and their attitudes changed completely.

Crew Chief Brad: Wow.

Crew Chief Eric: Huge Batman diorama as soon as you come in. ’89 Keaton Batmobile and the Batcycle and the sidecar, and you keep going around and there’s more stuff, and the life-size Joker, and the Joker mo- it, like, is absolutely bonkers awesome. This place is unlike any other museum I have ever been to. So check this out.

This is as soon as you come in you see Batman. So you can see down here you’ve got the Transformers Camaro in the [00:07:00] back. That’s Eleanor. Here’s the Falcon XB GT from Mad Max with a wax recreation of Mel Gibson. It doesn’t really look like Mel Gibson.

Crew Chief Brad: I think it’s too tall. Isn’t he, like, four feet tall?

Crew Chief Eric: But the Falcon is so, that is a mean looking car.

I love that thing. I fell in love with that as a kid. I think it’s absolutely amazing. So check this out. So we got the Interceptor from Mad Max. You can also see the Michael Andretti Indy car over there, which my daughter sat in. You can actually, the kids can climb inside that and take pictures and stuff like that.

Crew Chief Brad: Whoa.

Crew Chief Eric: Here’s one of the Ferraris from Ford versus Ferrari with the sister car to Max Kaiserman’s GT40 that was at Simeone back for the Le Mans event. So they, it has its own room. It’s all Ford versus Ferrari stuff. I thought this was super cool, although the cutouts are a little weird. Check this out.

’66 Lincoln Futura Batmobile signed by George Barris. This is a legit Batmobile, and it is a, it’s monstrously [00:08:00] big. It is absolutely huge, but it’s also awesome. And the bat computer in the background, that William Shakespeare head thing that they would pop open to go into the bat cave, that’s legitimate.

That’s from the show. There’s like all these props and stuff like all over the place with all these dioramas. Look at this. Look at this. Hot Pursuit Jump Mode Kit. Knight Industries 2000 from Knight Rider. Wow. Yeah, th- I mean, this stuff, this stuff is awesome, right? One of the coolest things, we’re at Volo, and they don’t do this all the time.

I don’t know if you guys heard about this. They have the world’s fastest outhouse. You seen the videos of this thing? It’s posted in the article about the Volo Museum trip. My wife took a video of it. I’m not gonna play it here. I’m just gonna show you picture of this rocket powered toilet. Look at this thing.

Crew Chief Brad: I feel like I’ve seen something like that on the mountain.

Executive Producer Tania: Too many ques- too many questions here.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but it’s a square body on fire at the mountain. You know what I’m saying?

Executive Producer Tania: And that’s a square body practically on fire, too.

Crew Chief Eric: You like that?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. [00:09:00] In s- instead of emptying the tank when it’s full, they just burn it.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s an incinerator toilet. That’s what this

Crew Chief Brad: is. Yep, exactly.

Crew Chief Eric: Hilarious part is Jess took the video in like three pieces, and the third part, unfortunately, I, I couldn’t stitch it back in. It wasn’t that great, ’cause she kind of almost dropped her camera as she was doing it. She was trying to get closer, ’cause there was a guy at the fence.

I don’t know where he got it or where he was hiding it. He literally busted out this telescoping forked marshmallow thing, and he’s, he was holding marshmallows out trying to roast them in, as the flame was going. But I mean, this thing shot flames well beyond the edge of the picture. It was bonkers.

Absolutely nuts. Absolutely.

Crew Chief Brad: It seems unnecessary.

Crew Chief Eric: But awesome at the same time. Like, come on.

Crew Chief Brad: Is it, though?

Crew Chief Eric: I think it is. I think it is. I thought overall the experience was pretty cool. Now, they have buildings full of cars, like muscle cars and classic cars that are for sale. They’ve got three different antique malls.

They’ve got a [00:10:00] dinosaur park. They’ve got a Titanic exhibit full of cars from like 1912 that were on the ship or cousins of the ones that were on the ship, you know, the same era, same model, all that kind of thing. They’ve got the train from Inception. They’ve got the train from Wild Wild West with Will Smith and Kevin Kline.

They’ve got an RV museum in there going back to like 1920s, like campers. They’ve got a tractor museum. They’ve got a Coney Island- carousel inside of a building and it still works, with, like, all the penny arcades and all that ki- it’s super cool. So it’s very eclectic, it’s very different, it’s very interactive, like, and it’s very family-friendly.

So highly recommend if you happen to be in that neck of the woods or if you’re listening to this and you’re in the Chicago area and you’ve never been to Volo, I mean, it’s, like, 45 minutes outside of downtown Chicago. It’s like why not go, check it out, see some of the superstars from TV and movies and all that kind of thing.

I think it’s super cool. It’s, uh, well worth the trip.

Crew Chief Brad: Good to know.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, very much so. All right. Let’s [00:11:00] talk about South Bend, Indiana, another place I’ve never been. It’s a cute little town, also a college town. Notre Dame is right there. There’s a lot of history, especially in the automotive industry. It’s like a mini Detroit, right?

You had Studebaker there and you had other companies, that some of them still survive to this day, that augment and supplement Detroit’s automotive industry. And it’s not that far from Michigan, to be honest with you. It’s in that upper, upper, upper part of Indiana. So cute little town, very welcoming.

Everybody’s super nice. The weather was good. The concours was beautiful. You know, they did the Concours of Lemons and they also did the big fancy concours as well. But I wanted to point out, Concours of Lemons, you know, we have a lemons car. We’re gonna talk about that as we go along. Yeah, we

Crew Chief Brad: do.

Crew Chief Eric: This must be a lemons thing with Ford Focuses.

Check this out. Does this look familiar to anybody?

Executive Producer Tania: They didn’t put a bandaid on there

Crew Chief Eric: They didn’t put a bandaid on it. We put a bandaid on ours. It’s much cuter. But so holding the car together, we have the same thing on our Focus that we had to do to hold the rear bumper onto the fender. Well, I was like, man, if this car [00:12:00] was at Concours d’Lemons, we could have certainly taken ours there.

I mean, it doesn’t run anyway, so might as well, you could just park it there. It’d be great. Perfect. So anyway, Automotive History Live, how can I sum it up? I think I’ll just sum it up by saying this, my favorite picture. Tanya, you watched some of it. What did you think?

Executive Producer Tania: I watched some of it. I watched, watched it on mute.

Ah, geez. Unfortunately, I had a busy day at work, but I was working from home, so in between meetings I tried to catch a couple minutes here and there, but it seemed like it was a nice event, a little differently organized.

Crew Chief Eric: Was this you? Was this you?

Executive Producer Tania: That was, uh, indicative of maybe how it really was.

Crew Chief Eric: Still my favorite.

Shout out to Bob Casey. It wasn’t boring at all. It was actually a lot of fun. I think the keynote speaker, if you haven’t heard of him before, we had Tom Cotter. He presented twice. He presented both days. Now got absorbed by Hagerty. He’s the Barne fine guy. He goes all over the country [00:13:00] looking for cars. He drove across the United States with Coleman, who lives outside of Summit Point.

Well, he, remember that Model T that would run around Summit Point, the yellow one? And you’re just like, “Oh, it’s all chitty chitty bang bang,” and whatever, and you c- you show up in the paddock one day, an older guy. They took that car cross country following the Lincoln Highway, and it took ’em like, I don’t know, 17 or 20 days or something like that, and he wrote a book about it.

So that was super cool, and he’s done some other cross-country trips and all this kind of stuff. So Tom Cotter was a super interesting guy. And then, you know, all the other speakers that were there talking about stuff. But then, as promised, we delivered. We were on stage, the whole Bianco Speciale thing. I think it went over really well.

Our slide deck was very visually appealing, we were told. Very picture heavy. The car’s gorgeous, too. But one of the other things William surprised us with when we were there, and now I am the proud owner of one of these, I, too, can say I own a Bianco Speciale because did you know Hot Wheels put them out in their vintage [00:14:00] racing series?

Look at that. Right. So I haven’t been able to find these anywhere. They were teased that they were gonna be made, and these are very specific to the car that we were talking about. What does William do? He buys up as many of these as he can. I think he found like 35 or 37 of them, and then gave ’em all away.

It was like the coolest thing. So people are like, “What?” I’m like, “Yeah, you’re not gonna see these anywhere bec- I don’t know how he got ahold of ’em. I don’t know who he called or what deal he made, but it was super cool. So I’m, I’m really excited to have one of these. So Brad, if you spot one, you better nab one of these.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, good, good, good luck, I guess.

Crew Chief Eric: And I will say, I posted a link in the show notes to all of the presentations, so if you didn’t get a chance to listen to it the first time around, or if you’re like Tanya and the signal dropped midway through some of the presentations, don’t know why, uh, you can watch the fully recorded versions up on our YouTube channel.

You can actually access it from our YouTube, the Society of Automotive Historians YouTube, or Studebaker National Museum. It’s been simulcast across all of them, so you can get access [00:15:00] to those files. All right. Let’s talk about the Focus a little bit, shall we? ‘Cause I … You know, we don’t ha- we don’t wanna wait till the end of the episode.

Everybody’s been waiting to, you know, what’s been going on with the car? Obviously, we know the car is dead. So before we went on our Midwest tour, the wiring harness that took weeks and weeks and weeks to find for the Focus actually showed up, like, right before we left. So a lot of people were bugging me, “Hey, did you get it done?

Did you get it done?” And I’m like, “No, because I haven’t been home, so I will work on it as soon as I get back.” That’s exactly what we did, right, Tanya?

Executive Producer Tania: Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: And how was the experience? Did it live up to the YouTube video that you found?

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, it did. It was as simple.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s amazing the amount of thought they put into making that part of it really, really easy.

Everything lays on top of the engine.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, I mean, unlike other manufacturers, where it would’ve been a spaghetti western mess or tied together and running behind really difficult places and you gotta disassemble half the front of the motor to fish it out, there really [00:16:00] was nothing other than taking the air box out, which is, like, two bolts.

Nothing in the way. It was very simple.

Crew Chief Eric: And the result was?

Executive Producer Tania: Car’s still not running, but-

Now, the result was that wiring harness coupled with our new ECU- ‘

Crew Chief Eric: Cause the old one doesn’t work …

Executive Producer Tania: because the old one definitely is dead and does not function. So we, we slowly started ticking off one issue at a time. So now we have an electrically functioning car.

Crew Chief Eric: It starts up, it idles. Although it idled

Executive Producer Tania: poorly at first.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. Yes.

Executive Producer Tania: And then we had some weird battery gremlins that were making it flash and do weird things, but we fixed that.

Crew Chief Eric: Uh-huh. ‘

Executive Producer Tania: Cause you re-grounded it, but then then we were still having battery issues, and then we think we realized the battery actually had a internal issue, ’cause we put a different battery in.

It was basically brand [00:17:00] new, and everything was gold. Thank you,

Crew Chief Eric: Brad. Thank you, Brad. Pumpkin spice, the donor vibes.

Executive Producer Tania: But I took it for, quote, “the test drive” up and down the street, and you might have out-accelerated it on a bicycle. I mean, it goes, but it goes slowly.

Crew Chief Eric: And it doesn’t go past 5,000

Executive Producer Tania: RPM. At best. At best.

Because from your house to two houses down, completely floored, it took, like-

Crew Chief Eric: Forever …

Executive Producer Tania: those two, three houses to get to 4,000 RPM. Oh. In first gear.

Crew Chief Eric: Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.

Executive Producer Tania: Needless to say, hmm, I think there’s still a problem here. Y-

Crew Chief Eric: you think?

Executive Producer Tania: Let’s read some codes.

Crew Chief Eric: So we discovered it’s, what’s holding it back at the moment from learning the throttle

Crew Chief Brad: Is that it’s a Ford.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, there’s that. Found on Road Dead, right?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, we are [00:18:00] fixing and repairing it daily right now.

Crew Chief Eric: We, we are. It’s, yes, we 100% are. It’s all emissions stuff that’s getting in our way. If we could get rid of the emissions stuff, ’cause the car’s not road legal anymore anyway, it would run fine. But we can’t, because it’s completely integrated into the system.

And what Ford has done, unlike the German stuff that we’re accustomed to, if anything in that chain fails, it has no redundancy where it’ll continue to run. The car literally turns into a brick. I’m surprised we don’t drive down the road and just see shoals of Ford Focuses lining the shoulders and the medians.

No.

Executive Producer Tania: No. When was the last time you saw a Ford Focus on the road? ‘

Crew Chief Eric: Cause they’re all dead.

Executive Producer Tania: Exactly.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s unreal. These gen threes have… Like, and then every time we turn around, “Well, this is a known fail part on these models. Oh, this is a known fail part on… Oh, and this one had a recall.” Like, oh great, wonderful.

Like, everything’s wrong with [00:19:00] these gen threes. Needless to say, as we were going through the wiring, things got better, and we’re like, “Oh.” So suddenly the error became very much more clear what it was. It’s emissions-related. We thought it was this emissions purge solenoid thing at the engine, and we looked at it.

It had the original date of July of 2015 when the car was built, so we’re like, “Oh man, that’s got 237,000 miles on it and it’s just giving up the ghost.” So we order a new one on Amazon, because that’s where you order car parts these days, ’cause you can’t find them anywhere else. Put the part on. It was like a five-minute fix, and the car idles, like, beautifully.

All the problems it had with idle and stuff, gone, right Tanya?

Executive Producer Tania: Yes.

Crew Chief Brad: For how

Executive Producer Tania: long? Still not accelerating. It throw an engine code.

Crew Chief Eric: Goes into limp mode.

Executive Producer Tania: And if you try too hard, then the pedal just dies.

Crew Chief Eric: So here we are. We’re literally rewinding the clock to Memorial Day. We’re like, “Oh, shit, we’re back in the same boat we were in, like, two months ago, [00:20:00] and what do we do now?”

We’ve replaced the pedal cluster, the throttle body, the engine loom, this EVAP thing.

Executive Producer Tania: ECU. The ECU’s new. Like,

Crew Chief Eric: what is there left to change? Turns out, what, what is there left to change that we haven’t changed yet, Tanya, other than the mass airflow?

Crew Chief Brad: The car.

Executive Producer Tania: Two other emission sensors.

Crew Chief Eric: Uh-huh. And where’s the other one located that’s connected to the ECU?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, they both are, according to that-

Crew Chief Eric: Uh-huh …

Executive Producer Tania: that wiring diagram. Uh-huh, uh-huh. The one, I have no idea where it is, because I’ve yet to find out where this charcoal canister is.

Crew Chief Eric: Uh-huh.

Executive Producer Tania: The other one is on the fuel tank.

Crew Chief Eric: Uh, oh, yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: But there is, unlike German cars, or at least Volkswagens, or at least Volkswagens of certain eras, there’s no access panel from inside the car to the fuel tank, so we have to drop the fuel tank- Yep

to be able to find the sensor. But- According to a 54-second YouTube video, it’s three bolts and that’s it. Three screws.

Crew Chief Eric: This is the scary part about [00:21:00] this car. When you realize how it’s assembled, you’re like, “Wow, that’s super easy.” And then you take a breath, and you go, “Wow, it’s a piece of crap.” Like, it’s held together by nothing, like Scotch tape, and, like, push pins is what holds this car together.

Talk about penny-pinching auto manufacturers.

Executive Producer Tania: Hey, but it’s actually easy to work on.

Crew Chief Eric: It is. But the stuff that’s breaking shouldn’t break. I got 25-year-old emission stuff on VWs that still works, but you can also delete it after a certain point, so it’s like, who cares? The next step, to Tanya’s point, we have to drop the fuel tank.

Executive Producer Tania: It would be nice to read a part number off of it so we know what we’re ordering.

Crew Chief Eric: And why is that? Why is that exactly? Because no two Focuses are…

Executive Producer Tania: The same, apparently. I have no idea. ‘Cause some things say they have this charcoal canister, and other things say they don’t have the charcoal canister. I have yet to see it.

Maybe it’s hidden somewhere we haven’t seen. I don’t know.

Crew Chief Eric: Even that solenoid in the front, [00:22:00] Brad, I kid you not, there was, like, 12 different part numbers for it, and it was, like, different variations. S-

Crew Chief Brad: so we, thinking about the fuel tank stuff or whatever, and the, the, you need the part and everything, we ran into that with Pumpkin Spice, where it was like, does it have the plastic O-ring or does it have the metal- Yeah

O-ring? Like, which one do you get? You gotta take it apart to know. But at least you could get to it from inside the car.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. And Volkswagen’s notorious for a midyear split. Like, we’re all- Yeah … sort of used to that. We’re like, “Well, were you built in the early part of 2001 or the late part of 2001? ‘Cause, you know, they decided to change this, that, and the other.”

This is just like, well, if it was built in Canada, they put it together this way, and if it was built in Mexico, it was built upside down and sideways, and half the stuff’s in the front and the other stuff’s in the back. And those Gen 3s, there’s, like, three different front ends. The motor can be oriented differently in the sense that the intake can be on the back and not on the front.

And the ones they built in the UK are completely different, even though it’s the same car. You’re like, “Oh, this is unreal.” So there’s [00:23:00] too many variations. And then you got the, the nuances between the automatic, and the manual, and the sedan, and the hatchback, and the turbo, and the non-tur- It’s like, oh, God, forget it, right?

And it’s like, ugh. So anyway, a little bit at a time. Two steps forward, four steps backwards, but, you know, it is what it is. We’ve got time. Summit Point is in October, you know? So.

Crew Chief Brad: And I, you all are aware, obviously, but I will not be driving for Lemons, unfortunately. Not with my arm being in a sling.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that’s not gonna be good.

Crew Chief Brad: No.

Crew Chief Eric: I’ll have your suit and Simpson on backup just in case they have a, they have a conniption about anything, right?

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, I’ll bring it with me, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Just in case somebody’s like, “Ah, I, I, uh, my suit’s out of spec.” Or Dan just comes in Dickies. You know, that’s, ’cause that’s what he’s gonna… Tractor Supply.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, because my suit will definitely fit Dan.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, baggy is as baggy does.

Crew Chief Brad: S- I mean, y- yeah. It, it is, the, he’ll have a lot of extra material in the leg [00:24:00] department.

Crew Chief Eric: So by the way, we did have a groundbreaking moment. I was messing around with the car, and I did something that probably wasn’t supposed to do, but I’ve done it on VWs, so I figured why not do it on the Ford and see what happens.

We know that these emission systems, a lot of them, they do continuity checks when, like, the car first fires up and whatever, and so if it finds a fault, then you’re hosed. So what I did was I did an in-flight check engine code clear. Like, I went into modules and I started, like, just wiping stuff out while the car was running, and at that point it hadn’t recycled through checking, like, continuity of, like, sensors and stuff yet.

Dude, it suddenly woke up and ran like a scalded cat. And Tanya’s like, “What happened? Huh? Was that red line?” I’m like, “Yes, multiple times.” Zero to red line it was there, and then suddenly it caught up with itself, and it was like, “Ugh, I don’t like you.” It was over. It was done. Ugh.

Crew Chief Brad: I love how your voice, your voice is like the, the AI from Resident Evil.[00:25:00]

“You’re all going to die down here.” No,

Crew Chief Eric: no. It’s, remember Droopy Dog? “I don’t like you.”

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn’t, I di- “Come on, Gripple.” I, I didn’t, I didn’t get that.

Crew Chief Eric: So that ruled out the pedal, the ECU, the throttle body, the master, because suddenly everything worked the way it was supposed to. So if we can solve this sensor problem, I think we’re gonna be golden, and then we can button up, like, three remaining things we need to do, like put the wiring back in for the radio and stuff like that, the radio headset for the paddock and stuff like that, for the helmets and whatnot.

But yeah, that’s all that’s left, so crossing our fingers we’ll have this thing figured out here shortly.

Crew Chief Brad: Just for my own education-

Crew Chief Eric: Uh-huh …

Crew Chief Brad: a standalone ECU would eliminate all of this bullshit, right?

Crew Chief Eric: It would.

Crew Chief Brad: I understand that it, it costs a lot of money and everything like that, but, but just, just if we had a standalone ECU, it would eliminate all of these issues.

Crew Chief Eric: It would, but it would also require us to stand in front of Walmart like the Salvation Army people and just, like, start ringing bells. Pocket [00:26:00] change, because it is a five-figure investment to put a standalone ECU on this motor, so.

Crew Chief Brad: Got it. Okay. Yeah, well, that’s stupid.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. We’re trying everything we can.

Plus, if we can pinpoint, hey, this is a known fail part, we can have extra known fail parts on the truck and then know the procedure of switching it out. But cross our fingers. Maybe these sensors haven’t been changed in 10 years, 237,000 miles. I have to keep reminding folks of that. Maybe it won’t happen again.

So be it. So we’ll figure it out. But luckily none of the stuff is super expensive, other than the fiasco we went through with the computer. But in the end, we needed a new computer, because something’s wrong with the old one. So to that end, we had a surprise visit. Mountain Man Dan showed up.

Crew Chief Brad: Ooh.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. So we gave the old engine loom to Mountain Man Dan with the computer and said, “Here, take it to your Amish magicians in Pennsylvania and see if they can figure out what’s wrong with it.”

So maybe we’ll have a spare engine loom just in case something goes wrong there. But he [00:27:00] did work on the car, Tanya. What is it that he did? So you could say he worked on it.

Executive Producer Tania: It was part of the, I think it was the cable, the pull cable for the hood latch. He put it back in the-

Crew Chief Eric: In the slot. And he says, “See, now I worked on it.”

And I was like, “Oh my God.” But Brad, you’ll be impressed. He showed up in a vehicle, not blue like yours, but blue, metallic blue. I’ve never seen Dan drive a car like this.

Executive Producer Tania: What do you think it was?

Crew Chief Eric: And he makes fun of me, ’cause I was a custodian, I was a caretaker for a Pontiac Aztek, as we know. See, I never took ownership of said Pontiac Aztek.

Would you venture a guess as to what Dan showed up at my house with? It

Executive Producer Tania: was not a truck.

Crew Chief Eric: It, it’s a truckette, you could argue.

Crew Chief Brad: He did not show up in an El Camino.

Crew Chief Eric: No. No, no, no, no. Cruck? No, he wouldn’t do a cruck.

Crew Chief Brad: Then what would be a

Crew Chief Eric: truckette? Like a bread van.

Crew Chief Brad: An HHR?

Crew Chief Eric: Worse. Worse than an HHR.

Executive Producer Tania: No, an HHR would be so good.

They’re so fast.

Crew Chief Brad: BT Cruiser.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. He showed up in an electric blue BT Cruiser. Ah! [00:28:00] I threw up a little in my throat.

Crew Chief Brad: Was it the turbo one at least?

Crew Chief Eric: No. It’s the slug one

Executive Producer Tania: At first I didn’t, I was like, “Who’s in the…” I hadn’t seen your text message, but you were like, “Oh, come here. Move the tires.” And I was like, “Okay.”

But I hadn’t seen your message yet, and so I was looking out, I was like, “Who’s over there?”

Crew Chief Eric: Thought it was the Amazon guy. I mean, who drives a PT Cruiser anymore?

Crew Chief Brad: I can’t remember the last time I’ve actually seen one on the road.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you could look at Dan’s, ’cause it does drive. Apparently it has some issues.

Crew Chief Brad: No surprise there.

Crew Chief Eric: Right? Again, I haven’t seen a PT Cruiser in the wild in forever, but to have one in my driveway is like-

Crew Chief Brad: Why did he get a PT Cruiser?

Crew Chief Eric: Apparently it’s his daughter’s, which I don’t believe it.

Crew Chief Brad: First of all, why doesn’t he just fix that Neon that’s up there and drive that if he needs all these cars?

Crew Chief Eric: Dude, there’s a whole story there about how he money shifted the diesel, and it’s now it’s making noises that it’s not supposed to, and this and that and the other thing.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, man. Well, he talked to me [00:29:00] about the diesel a while ago, and I told him to park it. He didn’t say it was… I didn’t understand that it was a money shift.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. I heard he over-revved it is what he did. ‘

Executive Producer Tania: Cause I was like, “If you’re going down the road I’m going and your cam’s going bad, you need to park it. It’s a ticking time bomb.”

Crew Chief Eric: 100%, yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: But if you did something else…

Crew Chief Brad: It sounds self-inflicted.

Crew Chief Eric: And then his trucks are down, and then this one’s rotted and that one’s falling apart, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

So he’s driving a PT Cruiser. Boom. Mountain Man Dan and the PT Cruiser.

Crew Chief Brad: I’ve never seen someone have so many vehicles and so few of them work. I think if you take all 30 of his vehicles, you may be able to put together three-

Crew Chief Eric: That actually

Crew Chief Brad: run … good vehicles. Yes, three actually running, driving vehicles.

Crew Chief Eric: I have to add to this, because you know Dan’s modus operandi is always spend as little as possible, try to get stuff for free, or get it negotiated down to where it’s, like, next to nothing.

So he’s got, like, 900 square bodies that he all paid $4 [00:30:00] for. He just picked up another square body, and he spent a substantial amount of money on it. It’s an, an amount of money that he said he would never spend on a vehicle like that. It’s actually really nice. I saw pictures of it. No offense, Dan, I don’t like the color.

I don’t like orange. It’s orange and black, and it has a 500 cubic inch built motor in it. So it’s five figures. But does it… It, it runs? When parked. Okay. So I’m coming off the five figure price tag now. No,

Executive Producer Tania: no, no.

Crew Chief Eric: Y-

no, no, you were right. You were right, 100%. Okay. 100%.

Crew Chief Brad: So what’d he pay, 15 for it?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, in that neighborhood. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s nice. It looks very nice. I just, I- he said he’s gonna put it in his garage. You all have been there, so.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I guess if he empties his garage. But

Crew Chief Eric: where is that stuff gonna go?

‘Cause the garage is full.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m really, I really hate to say it’s gonna end up like that white truck that he had. Oh. That white truck was so nice. I mean, I’m not a square body fan, but that white square [00:31:00] body dually-

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah …

Crew Chief Brad: that he destroyed because it just sat and just collected moss and funk and mold and- It’s

Crew Chief Eric: green now, and it wasn’t repainted.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re not hating on Dan. We all love Dan. He’s a great guy. He’ll give you the shirt off his back, literally, whether it has holes in it or not. But the whole thing, it’s… I was baffled. I was like, he’s driving a PT Cruiser and he bought a new square body. I mean, holy smokes. Wow. All right.

Good for you, man.

Crew Chief Brad: So basically what you’re saying is it’s just more of the same.

Crew Chief Eric: I feel like it’s Dan’s midlife crisis. It’s really the PT Cruiser that I’m taking issue with. The square body, it’s like it’s another square body is square body is a square body, right?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, boy. Let’s get onto the meat and potatoes of this episode and talk about other people that have lost their mind. Let’s switch gears and talk about Volkswagen, shall we? First up on [00:32:00] the list, all the cars that Volkswagen is getting rid of. Some of these are European, like the Skoda Fabia, the Cupra, the Q6 e-tron Sportback.

Crew Chief Brad: I’ve never even seen a Q6.

Crew Chief Eric: Right? The Q5 Sportback. Oh, that must be a European one. They don’t sell that in America.

Crew Chief Brad: No.

Crew Chief Eric: Internal combustion engine Porsche Boxster?

Crew Chief Brad: They’ve been going back and forth with that.

Executive Producer Tania: So they’re getting rid of it before it even comes?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. How about the Cayenne Coupe? Didn’t we just talk about this?

And this is from a reputable source. This is from Motor1, so I trust that what they’re posting is probably real. But we just talked about these Cayenne Coupes, like, either the last episode or the one before, how we thought they were funky looking and who would pay $200,000 for a low-roof Cayenne? The Taycan, well, we already knew the Taycan was going away.

The Taos? Really?

Executive Producer Tania: That’s shocking.

Crew Chief Brad: But this also says these are the cars that Volkswagen may kill. So this is, this is all [00:33:00] theorizing. ‘Cause they, they didn’t get any confirmation or denial from Volkswagen about this. We’ve just heard that Volkswagen wants to kill 50% of their lineup by 2030. Mm-hmm. But there’s nothing that actually says that these are the cars that they’re going to kill.

Crew Chief Eric: These might be the only cars in the lineup. Can you mention any other ones? I wanna focus on this Jetta here more in a minute, but the Jetta’s on the list according to Motor1.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, if that’s true, if they got rid of the Jetta and they got rid of the Taos, what’s left? The Golf?

Crew Chief Eric: My point.

Executive Producer Tania: What else is there?

Crew Chief Eric: ‘Cause the ID. Buzz is gone. The Passat’s been gone.

Executive Producer Tania: ID. Buzz allegedly coming back, but the Beetle’s gone. The Passat’s gone. The Taos is now the Tiguan Touareg, so there’s nothing else if they get rid of it.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, and the Touareg might come back as an EV, but it might not, because then you have the Atlas. And then the e-Golf isn’t due back for a bunch of years.

So there’s the GTI and allegedly that five-cylinder Golf R, which we’ll probably never see. So they’ve got two cars?

Executive Producer Tania: Are they just gonna leave the US [00:34:00] market? Nobody’s gonna… I mean, you have the group of people that will buy, quote, “the hot hatch,” but I’m sure the majority of their sales are the bigger cars, right?

Like, families aren’t gonna all crawl into hatchbacks. A

Crew Chief Eric: Golf. Yeah, exactly.

Crew Chief Brad: They’re still selling the Atlas, right?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, yeah, the Atlas.

Crew Chief Brad: And did the Taos replace the- The

Crew Chief Eric: Tiguan. The Tiguan took over the Touareg in terms of size.

Crew Chief Brad: Okay, so they have the Atlas and the Tiguan. So they’re going the way of Mitsubishi.

They’re just gonna sell-

Crew Chief Eric: Three cars at the end …

Crew Chief Brad: crossovers.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. That is still that nobody’s gonna wanna buy.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. And then they’ll have cut some of the Porsches, except for the 911 and the Panamera, and then you’ll be left with the Audis, the A4, the Allroad. And they were talking about getting rid of the A8 already, so that’s gone, so the big luxo boat’s out of the picture.

So you’ll have the A6- And then that’s kind of it. ‘Cause if they don’t bring any of their wagons over, then there’s gonna be a lot of cars. There’s maybe gonna be, like, 10 across the brands?

Crew Chief Brad: Why bother keeping the [00:35:00] A6?

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t know.

Crew Chief Brad: The A6 is like the Buick LeSabre of Audis. Tell me I’m wrong.

Crew Chief Eric: No, and I haven’t seen-

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a new A6 and was like, “Man, that’s a nice car.”

No, it’s-

Crew Chief Eric: You know which A6 was cool? You remember the RS6 with the V8 back in the early 2000s? Yeah,

Crew Chief Brad: they haven’t made that in… They haven’t made that in, yeah, like 2002 or something like that.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, 20 years. It’s

Crew Chief Brad: ridiculous.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Yeah. That was a nice car. You know what else is not a nice car? I mean, I… It could be a nice car.

Tanya, you just rented a Jetta, and that’s why, uh, you know, we got it up here on the screen. Tell us about your recent rental experience with a Jetta.

Executive Producer Tania: It left me- Disappointed. I mean, the car itself was fine, like in terms of, I mean, it went down the road. I felt like sitting in that, that a 20-year-old plus Volkswagen had nicer interior

Crew Chief Eric: I’ve been saying this

Executive Producer Tania: They went backwards and they made it chintzy, and coming off all of the [00:36:00] recent Japanese cars that I also got to test drive, let’s say already almost a year ago now.

But nonetheless, I went through the Altima and, and the, uh, Hyundai and the Elantra, the Kia, and all that, and it’s like, wow. I mean, there’s always been a notion in the past that like the Japanese cars were a little bit inferior in that department, and I’m like, “Well, now I- you guys have switched roles,” and- Yeah

like for the price… And I haven’t sat in a Golf, and this was a Sport, which I didn’t even realize till I saw the little word on the pillar on the outside of the door. That’s all

Crew Chief Eric: it was

Executive Producer Tania: That it was like, it was the Sport jet. I was like, “Oh, I had no idea.” So I’m like, “If this is also what a Golf is like, and you’re gonna charge somebody 50 plus thousand dollars by the time you’ve optioned it out, close to 60 if you got like the Autobahn Golf version, like this is what you’re giving me?”

That’s really disappointing in my opinion. Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: I’ll even take that icky, 20-year-old Plasti Dip [00:37:00] crap soft touch stuff. Well,

Executive Producer Tania: I know how to fix that now, so yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, over the new stuff? Ugh.

Executive Producer Tania: Give me the soft touch back, I’ll deal with it in 20 years.

Crew Chief Brad: I still need to deal with it in my car.

Crew Chief Eric: So we’ll move on from that because Tanya, you said something last month.

We were talking about Volkswagen’s demise at this point, and you said something to the effect of like, “Well, it would be like a four-door Beetle.”

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t even remember saying that.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember. It stuck in my head for some reason. I was like, “Four-door Beetle.” And then we sort of laughed about it and I said, “Oh, you know, call that the Panamera,” right?

‘Cause you smash the Bug and four door, and all that kind of thing. Uh, maybe it’s because Big Brother is always listening. China said, “Hold my Xingtao”

Executive Producer Tania: Xingtao …

Crew Chief Eric: because

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. That’s… What was that thing called? It was called the, uh-

Crew Chief Eric: The Punk Cat is the two-door one …

Executive Producer Tania: Punk Cat. And there was like the Doja something, something else.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. And this is, this is the Ora Ballet Cat.

Executive Producer Tania: Ora. Oh my God, it’s ugly. And they made it a four door. Ugh.

Crew Chief Eric: Look at this [00:38:00] thing. It even has a little tail

Executive Producer Tania: on it. Look. It’s heinous. It’s like pieces of different cars just put together. Screams Doshavo to me.

Crew Chief Eric: A little bit, yes.

Crew Chief Brad: The first thing I thought was Doshavo.

I have to say, this is gonna be a very unpopular opinion.

Executive Producer Tania: You like it?

Crew Chief Brad: If it was a different color, if it was all one color with tinted windows, slammed.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh my God

Crew Chief Brad: I could see it being something somebody would want to buy.

Crew Chief Eric: You have

Crew Chief Brad: lost your mind. Actually, if it was all black, it would be like one of those British cabs.

Crew Chief Eric: The interior’s really nice, though. I’ll give it that.

Crew Chief Brad: I, yeah, I think the interior’s terrible.

Crew Chief Eric: I like the retro-y-ness of it. It’s very Fiat. But here’s the thing. How do we know, because Volkswagen does have factories in China, and they sell the Quantum from the ’80s. They still make it today over in China. How do we know that ORA isn’t like a Cupra or a Skoda, and VW is actually building these Beetles in China, and they’re not [00:39:00] just knockoffs like everybody says they are?

You don’t think Volkswagen would’ve gone after them by now?

Crew Chief Brad: No, Volkswagen does not own ORA. ORA is a dedicated electric vehicle brand owned by Great Wall Motor, a major Chinese automotive manufacturer.

Executive Producer Tania: They probably are going after them, we just don’t know it.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, if they were, outside of losing money in Formula 1, this must be the other way they’re losing it, too.

But you would think that the Beetle’s one of those things, like a Mini Cooper or any of those iconic cars from that time period, like, you wouldn’t be able to make a clone of them. They’re so iconic. It’s like, why would you go there? Why would you try to copy it? And this doesn’t even try to hide the fact that it looks like a Beetle.

Either way, I think VW is missing out, and if they aren’t going after this, they should, and they should just say, “We’ll make it better,” and then start selling it, because a- as we’ve argued… And actually, speaking of argued about this, I saw an Instagram post, and I didn’t have time to go pull it up, but Richard Rawlins, the guy from Gas Monkey Garage, he did a post about [00:40:00] VW.

Normally, I kind of skip over that stuff, ’cause it’s always classic cars and muscle cars, and yeah, yeah, yeah, beat your chest, and motorcycles, and all that kind of thing. But it was specifically about VW, and they got his opinion on it. It was sort of like hot take. He’s on his soapbox, and he lays it out.

And he’s like, “You should’ve kept building the Beetle. If you didn’t build anything else, keep building the Beetle. You could’ve built the Beetle for 1,000 years, and people would’ve continued to buy it, but you took away the one car that everybody wanted.” And the point of his rant at the end was, “VW, you’re a bunch of dummies.

Start building cars that people want.” How long have we been saying that, right? So to hear it from a celebrity, he’s not wrong. But then, to follow that, I actually met MotoMan from MotoMan TV when I was at Revs back in January, and I got to talk to him, and this and that. So you know, I follow him on Instagram, and he posted something.

And again, people are talking about VW. It’s in the news because it’s too big to fail, as we’ve already mentioned. And he’s like, “VW’s solution to their financial [00:41:00] woes is the Tiguan R-Line.” What? “GTI power in an SUV at $45,000.” And I’m like, “What? Who, who’s gonna buy that?”

Executive Producer Tania: That’s so stupid.

Crew Chief Eric: In today’s market, your mom’s minivan makes the same power as a GTI.

Everything makes 300 horsepower these days. For the GTI to still make less than 300 horsepower, it’s actually kind of pathetic. For as heavy as it is, and the amount of power it makes, with an unreliable two liter engine, as we already know, who’s gonna step up and say, “Yeah, I want an even heavier vehicle with the same power as a GTI”?

Crew Chief Brad: Okay, I’m gonna throw, I’m gonna throw a scenario at you.

Crew Chief Eric: Please.

Crew Chief Brad: You know, one, one of the, the classic Brad’s would you rather this or X?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Uh-huh.

Crew Chief Brad: So would you rather a brand new VW Tiguan R-Line-

Crew Chief Eric: No …

Crew Chief Brad: for 45 grand, knowing what you know about VW electronics and all the- Uh-huh … recalls and stuff that they’ve had on these cars and everything, or take that same 45 [00:42:00] grand-

Crew Chief Eric: And burn it

Crew Chief Brad: and buy a used BMW X3M-

Crew Chief Eric: Oof …

Crew Chief Brad: with the three liter twin turbo. Oof. They’re getting monster power out of them. You can have them for the 40, 45, 50K range.

Crew Chief Eric: Is walking an option?

Crew Chief Brad: That could be walking money. Your 50K walking money. No,

Crew Chief Eric: what I mean is I’m gonna be walking in either case because they’re both gonna be broken down.

Crew Chief Brad: So I’ve, I’ve heard that BMW’s reliability is better now than it was, than it has been in recent history or whatever. So that is the would you rather.

Crew Chief Eric: I wouldn’t touch a BMW with a 10-foot pole

Crew Chief Brad: No?

Crew Chief Eric: Mm-mm.

Crew Chief Brad: Tanya, would you get a Tiguan R or would you do a BMW X3 M?

Crew Chief Eric: I’d ride the bus.

Crew Chief Brad: For the same money.

Crew Chief Eric: I could get a lot of Ubers for $45,000.

Crew Chief Brad: You, you could get at least 10.

Executive Producer Tania: I can still probably afford to repair the Volkswagen.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, because anything with an M badge [00:43:00] is, like, bad news.

Crew Chief Brad: True that, true that, true that.

Crew Chief Eric: God, I cringe. All those X5 M owners. Like, I have a friend that has an X5 M with that inverted V8. Ugh, God, so … No, thank you.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, but the X3 M is just the standard three liter twin turbo that’s in all the other cars.

It’s just got more power and-

Crew Chief Eric: BMW should have never done turbos. That was not their thing.

Crew Chief Brad: Well-

Crew Chief Eric: So BMW plus turbo is bad.

Crew Chief Brad: What about the 2002 turbo?

Crew Chief Eric: That was not good either.

Crew Chief Brad: Okay.

Crew Chief Eric: The, all that to say Volkswagen’s earnings have dropped massively. There was a recent reporting down to 8.9. That is more than 50% decrease.

You’re the money guy, Brad. Is that the sign of a healthy company, they’ve lost over 50% of their earnings?

Executive Producer Tania: Wow. You know, I had not seen that number actually.

Crew Chief Brad: When you see it written out like that, it is actually very sad. I

Crew Chief Eric: mean, they’re in trouble. And $8.9 billion isn’t anything to [00:44:00] sneeze at. You’re like, “Oh, woe is them.”

It’s just shy of 10 billion. But we- if you think about all the operating costs and operating expenses that they have globally, to then suddenly lose half of your profitability-

Crew Chief Brad: Over what length of time? Like, is this a year over year comparison?

Crew Chief Eric: This is a year over year. I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, this, this just happened?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Wow. This was just reported. I saw this, like, last week.

Crew Chief Brad: Wow.

Executive Producer Tania: Are we sure this is true? Volkswagen reported a Q2 2026 operating profit of 3.47 billion euros, down 9.5% year on year, leading the company to slash its full s- year sales revenue outlook by lowering expectations up to a 3% decline. So something’s not adding up.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s still a lot. How much of that is Formula 1? That’s what I wanna know.

Executive Producer Tania: Their net profit plunged 32.9% to 1.54 billion euros, impacted by a 500 million euro charge related to ending ID.4 production in Tennessee and negative mix effects. I mean, they’re on the decline. It’s not good, but I don’t know [00:45:00] that they just lost 50%.

Crew Chief Brad: According to Gemini, Volkswagen Group’s net income for fiscal year 2025 was 6.9 billion euros, approximately 7.55 billion US. This represented a 44% decline compared to their 2024 net profit of 12.4 billion. Sales revenue was 321.9 billion, remaining flat compared to 324.7 billion in 2024. Operating result, 8.9 billion, down 53% from the previous year.

Yep. There

Executive Producer Tania: it is. If you’re on their website, volkswagengroup.com, and you can read their s- profit numbers.

Crew Chief Eric: Everything is fine. It’s glorious.

Executive Producer Tania: They’re down 8.4% in sales. Their sales revenue is 158 billion euros in the first half so far, 2026. But the first half 2025 comparison, they were at the same number, actually.

So they were also at 158. They are down slightly, ’cause it was .4 versus .1.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but how much of that is also jockeying around the [00:46:00] fact that they just sold Bugatti, they got rid of their controlling interest in Rimac. Obviously they’re hemorrhaging money in Formula 1. They’ve gotten rid of other things.

They’ve gotten rid of plants. They’ve shut things down. So-

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, they are down …

Crew Chief Eric: Brad, you work these profit and loss statements. They can maneuver this so it looks like everything’s fine even though it isn’t, right?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, yeah. I mean, you can… Accounting is an art I mean, you can make things look good by, like you’re saying, selling assets and things like that.

Yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: but they have to report their earnings to their stakeholders and yada, yada, yada. They can’t just bullshit numbers.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, of course.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but if you sell Bugatti for $5 billion, isn’t that an earning?

Crew Chief Brad: It is.

Crew Chief Eric: So you can make up the difference of your sales. De-

Crew Chief Brad: depending on how the sale is structured, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Right, yeah. Exa- that’s so my point, right?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, but that’s not a decline then, so their operating profit should be higher, ’cause they have, you took out, if you took out the failing-

Crew Chief Brad: That would not be considered part of operating profit.

Executive Producer Tania: No, it wouldn’t.

Crew Chief Brad: That would be, like, not a retirement, but a, like a d- a sale of an [00:47:00] asset.

Crew Chief Eric: Correct.

Crew Chief Brad: Right. A sale of fixed asset or whatever. They, ’cause operating is strictly, operating should strictly be, like, sales and stuff.

Crew Chief Eric: This is all just rich people things, ’cause it’s well above our pay grade how this is working in a massive conglomerate at Volkswagen. But we can tell, even as innocent bystanders, that things are not good and things are unhealthy.

Sales are down. They’re getting rid of factories. They’re getting rid of brands.

Crew Chief Brad: They’re getting rid of people.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, uh, 100,000 people being laid off? Like, holy smokes.

Crew Chief Brad: Maybe now wasn’t the right time to get into F1.

Crew Chief Eric: I’ve been saying that. Hmm. Hmm. But they’re committed at least for the rest of the year. But let’s talk about happier things.

Let’s talk about, let’s talk about dreams. In a world where Volkswagen is king, we can build stuff like this. ‘Cause this is straight fantasy, folks. I know Tanya sent this to me. These are the recreation HSR Manufacture 851 Audi Sport Quattros, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, allegedly, they’re gonna sell [00:48:00] 84 of them for a mere $570,000.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, they haven’t built a single one of these. These are all renderings.

Executive Producer Tania: You know, when you go to the bottom and they’ve got the orange, purple, green, and red one together, man, that purple is nice.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s exactly… I was just thinking that. Ooh, that purple.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s all renderings.

Crew Chief Brad: Do I wanna buy a house or do I wanna buy one of these?

Executive Producer Tania: I mean-

Crew Chief Eric: It makes for a great screensaver. Like, I wanna put this as my desktop wallpaper, for sure.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, if they actually make these, I mean, I wish I was a milli- multi-million billionaire. I’d have one.

Crew Chief Eric: So first of all, there’s not that many UR Quattros in existence to begin with. So unless we’re doing the roof thing, we’re making chassis from scratch, this means that they’re doing the singer thing, and they’re gonna be buying up chassis at a loss because they’ll be in any old condition.

They’ll-

Executive Producer Tania: That’s why it costs $570,000.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, they’re all 40-plus years old at this point, but here’s the deal. Everybody thinks this is new and revolutionary. Dialynx, a company in the [00:49:00] UK, was doing this in the ’90s where they were taking UR Quattros, at that point which were only 10 years old, and they were shortening them, and they were re-raking the windshield by cutting Audi 4000s and putting…

You know, all the stuff they had to do to build replica Sport Quattros. That whole company died off by the 2000s, right? Because obviously it wasn’t profitable. It took too long. It was super expensive and, you know, it, it was 30 years ago at this point. But here we are trying to reboot that whole idea of the Dialynx Sport Quattros.

I don’t ever see a single one of these ever coming to fruition. I’m sorry. It’s wishful thinking. They’re beautiful. I too, like you, Tanya, have hope. But even if they do make ’em, who’s gonna buy a $500,000 Audi that still handles like a 911 going backwards?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. But I, I digress. You just, just … Thinking about AI renderings kinda got me thinking about that.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you know, I’m glad you brought that up because I found one too, and people are trying to pass this off as legitimate. And I knew this was bullshit from the [00:50:00] word go because it said Passat.

Executive Producer Tania: Never seen it.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s not real. It’s completely rendered. And there’s other pictures, like from the back and all. And people are like, “Nice Audi.

Better looking A5 than the A5. Oh, that’s really a BMW,” blah, blah, blah. Like, the comments were hilarious, but most people were like, “Guys, you know the Passat isn’t being made anymore, right? Like, you know this is fake, right?” And like, oh my God. Oh, yeah, 900,000 likes though, so, you know, good for you. What about this?

This… See, Brad, you said, “Where would I spend my money? What would I buy?” Obviously it’s not $45,000, but how about this? Yes. Find of the day, 31 miles, Audi RS6 Avant GT seeks a real enthusiast owner. Okay, great. Scrolling down, all these wonderful pictures. It’s basically brand new. This is the problem.

Executive Producer Tania: $200,000?

Crew Chief Eric: $202,000 was the original sticker price on this. So what’s it gonna sell for?

Crew Chief Brad: 250,000.

Crew Chief Eric: And then you’re still left with an Audi that has potential [00:51:00] V8 issues, ’cause I’ve heard these cars have had problems with the motors, even the models below these.

Crew Chief Brad: What Audi hasn’t had problems with the motors?

Crew Chief Eric: It is a Volkswagen.

Crew Chief Brad: What modern Audi hasn’t had problems with the motors?

Crew Chief Eric: But it’s, it’s pure awesomeness though. I do not like this interior though. It looks very, very cobbled together, right? Am I wrong? It’s clunky.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s blah. It’s not elegant. For the price that that costs, for $200,000, I wanna feel like I just walked into luxury.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t want it to be a Bentley, but I agree with you. I think it needs to be better than this. I know what this feels like too, this hexagonal center cushion. This is not nice. This is like a step above those beads you put in a taxi cab, you know what I’m talking about? You know exactly what I’m talking about.

Let’s switch gears and talk about a car that we’re never gonna get, but this is way nicer than that RS6- Yeah, we’re good … and probably costs a lot less. This is the Alfa Romeo Brutale. That means brutal.

Crew Chief Brad: And it’s not real. [00:52:00]

Executive Producer Tania: I’m like, that’s AI, right?

Crew Chief Eric: Bullshit, that’s AI. This is at Goodwood. Look at this.

Crew Chief Brad: The Alfa Romeo Brutale is a striking retro modern concept car designed by digital creator Simolue.

Crew Chief Eric: No. No.

Executive Producer Tania: It looks fake. All of that looks fake. It looks like a video game.

Crew Chief Brad: You can tell, like, when he- that turn right there. Like, he’s taking the turn, he’s heading straight off into the wall, and all of a sudden he’s, he’s making the turn It is not an official production model. The viral digital design imagines a two plus two shooting brake coupe featuring the iconic 2.9 liter twin-turbo V6 Quadrifoglio engine, aggressive aerodynamics, and the classic Biscione Alfa grill.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay, AI’s gotten really good, but this is really good-looking. I mean, if they made something like this, would you not salivate over it? I mean, this is hot. This is hot.

Crew Chief Brad: The reason I went to look and see if this car was real is because it looks too good to be true.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Crew Chief Brad: It, it is. It’s too hot. But the, the, the weird thing, the front end with those [00:53:00] two, like, like circular headlights, it’s str- it’s very, like, E30 to me.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s sexy. It’s amazing. Why can’t we make more cars that look good like this? What is wrong with people? They all gotta look like Subaru Foresters now. Bleh. Bleh. We talked about BMW earlier, Brad, and you’re ta- you asked me if I should buy an X3M or that, whatever it was, the Tiguan, or whatever it was. We don’t talk about BMW recalls very often.

We know BMWs have problems, but we don’t hear about recalls, but BMW recalls 29,000 hybrid sedans. First of all, I didn’t know they had a hybrid sedan. Like all other hybrid vehicles, they warn you to park outside because it might melt your house to the ground.

Crew Chief Brad: Awesome.

Crew Chief Eric: Good stuff. ICE cars had, like, I don’t know, 99 problems.

None of them were this. Do you ever have your starter melt your car and then light your house on fire?

Crew Chief Brad: Not on its own.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay. Just checking.

Crew Chief Brad: I’ve seen car fires of ICE engines, but usually not [00:54:00] when parked. Like, not when not running. I did see a square body try to burn down the forest once.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s true. That is very true.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, let’s go across the ocean the other way this time. Let’s talk about Asian domestic cars, you know, Japanese, Koreans, and so on. This article from Motor1 actually got updated ’cause when I originally put it in our show notes, it was talking about Nissan killing off the Altima, and I said, “Man, this is clickbait.”

I said, “First you’re telling me the Jetta’s going away, now the Altima’s going away?” And then it says, “Wait, wait, the Altima is not dead yet.” Nissan is reshuffling their lineup. I was like, “How can you kill the cockroach of cars? Why would Nissan stop producing their best-selling vehicle?”

Executive Producer Tania: Did we decide it’s clickbait, or is this real?

Crew Chief Eric: I decided that it’s clickbait because you know what? Nissan would be stupid because, again, why would you kill off your best-selling car?

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, the Nissan Altima is officially scheduled to be discontinued after the 2026 model year, ending a 34-year run for the popular midsize sedan.

Crew Chief Eric: [00:55:00] 34? Hasn’t been around that long, has it?

Executive Producer Tania: The Nissan Altima’s been, like, forever. Since 1992.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s a long run. Why would you kill off this car?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, you don’t remember the early Nissan Altimas? They looked like the… You never could tell an Altima from a Maxima, but they were like the little round Sentra-looking ones.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, yeah, this one. Like, that, the old Altima.

I know what you’re talking about. Yeah. You never see those on the road anymore, the really bulbous-looking ones.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, they finally all died.

Crew Chief Eric: Why am I looking for Altima pictures? Just go to Wikipedia.

Executive Producer Tania: Go to Wikipedia. I could.

Crew Chief Eric: I could, yes.

Crew Chief Brad: We’ve reached a new low on this show.

Executive Producer Tania: Searching for

Crew Chief Eric: Altimas. We’re, we’re researching Nissan Altimas?

Executive Producer Tania: Here we go. Here we go.

Crew Chief Eric: That takes me back. I forgot about these.

Executive Producer Tania: Why the 2026 model is your last chance to own this midsize icon. If you’ve heard the Nissan Altima is being discontinued, you’re not imagining things, but the story is more complicated than a simple yes or no. The key fact is this: the Altima is officially continuing into the 2026 model year, even after [00:56:00] earlier reports suggested it would end after 2025.

What’s confirmed? The Altima continues for 2026. Car and Driver reports, blah, blah, blah, “The ’26 Altima is reduced to the SV or, and SR trims with S and SL removed,” blah, blah, blah. Why the, quote, “Altima is ending” rumor started. The rumor had real fuel behind it. Major outlets reported that Nissan had indicated 2025 would be the Altima’s final year, then later coverage described Nissan reversing and bringing it back for ’26.

On top of that, Nissan has been actively trimming its sedan lineup in recent years, which makes the discontinuation narrative feel believable to shoppers. So is 2026 truly your, quote, “last chance”? Here’s the honest answer. Nissan has confirmed the Altima for 2026, but there’s no definitive official statement in the sources above that 2026 is the final model year.

What we can say confidently is that the Altima’s long-term future has been uncertain enough that reputable publications have covered potential end-of-line plans and reversals.

Crew Chief Eric: You said a lot of words and said nothing at the same time. I just wanna point that out.

Executive Producer Tania: I [00:57:00] am so frustrated as I was reading that, to be like, “Why are you contradicting?

Why is this even a headline, then?” Mm. Why would you say it’s your last chance, then you go on to say that Nissan has not officially said anything?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that’s terrible.

Executive Producer Tania: And then you have Edmunds going, “No, the Nissan Altima isn’t dead for 2027.”

Crew Chief Brad: Did you see the link I just sent, I just put in the chat? Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: I did.

Crew Chief Brad: That is the, I, the oldest Nissan Altima you can find online right now. That’s sort of- Is a- Let me see … well, this is the next one, a ’95 Nissan Altima.

Executive Producer Tania: Hey.

Crew Chief Eric: $29.99, look at that.

Executive Producer Tania: See, the problem is when you see these, it’s so confusing to know if you’re seeing a Sentra.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. ‘

Executive Producer Tania: Cause the Sentra looked just like that back then.

Crew Chief Eric: Fine quality machine right there.

Executive Producer Tania: $3,000. Wait, hold on, it says low mileage. Let’s investigate this. Holy crap, y’all. Y’all, this is a deal. This is a car that’s gonna live, outlive you. It only has 78,000 [00:58:00] miles on it.

Crew Chief Eric: God.

Executive Producer Tania: This is barely broken in for an Altima. This has so much life left in it. It has so much to give you.

Crew Chief Brad: I’ve got another would you rather.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, boy, here we go.

Crew Chief Brad: A ’95 Nissan Altima or a ’95 Toyota Corolla. If they were the same price, which one do you think’s gonna last longer? I

Executive Producer Tania: gotta refresh myself what the ’95 Corolla looked like. Oh.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, man, it’s this one. Oh.

Executive Producer Tania: The Altima’s got 50 horsepower on it. I think that Corolla will outlive the Altima.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t think so. These were junk, and they looked terrible. They were cheap.

Executive Producer Tania: I swear to God I just passed one on the road the other day.

Crew Chief Eric: How many other Corollas was it made from to keep it going?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know. The air condition didn’t work ’cause his windows were down, so that’s for sure.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s terrible. So anyway, speaking of the kids and speaking of Japanese cars, my littlest one literally just yesterday, walking through a Walmart parking lot, she takes my hand.

She’s like, “Dad, [00:59:00] we need to go look at this other car over here.” And I’m like, it’s very rare that my littlest one wants to go see a car in person, right? So I walk up. It is a second gen metallic green Hyundai Veloster. And not just whatever Veloster, it’s the one with the three doors. I had forgotten that those second gens, they’re like a AMC Pacer.

It’s got a long driver door, and then it’s got like a short passenger door, and then a rear door. So it has three doors, not counting the hatchback. She walked around it. She was looking at it. She’s like, “Dad, I really like this.” I’m like, “I guess there’s a car for everybody out there.” I was like, “All right.”

Crew Chief Brad: She is the one that didn’t want you to unload the Aztec after all.

Crew Chief Eric: Mm. That is very true. She was upset by that. She thought that thing was really neat Oh There’s something to that

Crew Chief Brad: I feel like the perfect car for her is gonna be that new Honda Element

Crew Chief Eric: That might be true, or an old Honda Element for that

Crew Chief Brad: matter Or an old Honda Element, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: She might like that. Not to get too far away from Nissan, [01:00:00] this partnership thing, uh, they’re still talking about it. I don’t know why.

Executive Producer Tania: They’re dead.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t even know why The Drive is talking about this. And the way this is written, you know, Nissan got cold feet. I thought Honda did their due diligence, and they’re like, “Man, we’re not touching that.”

I thought the deal was, like, until Nissan could show that it was moving in the direction of profitability, that they weren’t gonna invest any money in it. And if you read this, it’s all like, “Ugh, Nissan is the one that backed out.” And I’m like, “I don’t think so,” ’cause they’re in trouble. Any rate, what else we got here?

Oh, I heard this. I was not listening to NPR, Brad, but I heard this on the radio. Japanese neuroscientists have said that manual transmissions are good for your brain.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean-

Crew Chief Brad: I mean, duh …

Crew Chief Eric: let’s let that sink in for a minute.

Executive Producer Tania: Anything where you’re stimulating your mind is good for your brain. The act of having a manual requires you to be able to do more than one thing at once.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like being a drummer, yeah. I, I’m all for it.

Executive Producer Tania: Heard that handwriting stimulates your brain. It’s supposed to help its [01:01:00] development.

Crew Chief Eric: Even at our ripe, old age?

Executive Producer Tania: They say as you get older, playing mind games and sudoku and crossword puzzles and all that is all healthy things for your brain to keep it active.

Basically keeping it moving as opposed to just vegetating and doom scrolling through TikTok, Instagram, and whatever the heck.

Crew Chief Eric: It would make everybody safer, too.

Executive Producer Tania: It would help, because you definitely can’t be as distracted, though there are mofos who would still not pay attention, so it doesn’t really matter.

A mofo is gonna do what a mofo is gonna do.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s an official statement. I love it. And I know that this would normally be classified as Florida Man or Are You Faster Than An Interceptor? But since we’re talking about manual transmissions and we’re talking about Japanese cars, did you guys see this thing on Instagram?

I, I didn’t understand what was happening here. I kinda felt like this was that Jackie Chan movie that we reviewed with Steve and Izzy. The cop is literally gonna impound the car and he’s gonna drive it away, and this is in New York City. So I don’t know [01:02:00] if there was some street racing going on. But he’s, like, confused.

He doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t know how to drive it. And then and then he finally kinda gets it going at one point, and then he just, if you listen to it with the audio, he makes it, like, 10 feet and then stalls out and then it just, like, blah, and that’s, like, the end of it, and it dies. It’s, then he’s done.

Executive Producer Tania: I would’ve been so pissed ’cause I’d been like, “Don’t grind my gears and burn my clutch.”

Crew Chief Eric: Well, that was one of the comments. He was like, “Car got impounded. Needs new clutch.” I was like, “Oh, Jesus.” I was like, “That’s terrible.”

Crew Chief Brad: Does it say why it was being impounded in the first place?

Executive Producer Tania: I think it was, it was illegal street racing, I think- Yeah

or something. The very beginning of the, the video you see, like, tons of cars out, so I think, I’m assuming it had something to do with that. Some Fast and

Crew Chief Eric: the Furious stuff going on. But it’s nice to see a, a wide-body first gen RX-7. That’s what I was excited about. But it wasn’t the illegal street racing. He was parked because that’s what a lot of those peop- they’re just all parked.

He didn’t have a hood on that car. That’s the problem. In New York, that’s probably illegal. It’s unsafe to drive around without a hood on.[01:03:00]

All right, let’s talk about Toyota. I’m really confused. Tanya, it was really funny. I posted something and then you posted something, like, right behind me. Is it the Celica or is it this Yaris MR2 thing? What are they doing? Are- do we have two mid-engine cars coming?

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, technically, but then there’s a whole other rendering that looks like something else completely.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, the black one that was at Fuji, right?

Executive Producer Tania: Mm-hmm. So I don’t understand which one’s which because the one where they’re like, “MR2 development car spot,” I’m like, “I’m sorry, that’s a Corolla.”

Crew Chief Eric: That’s a Yaris right here, whatever this is.

Executive Producer Tania: Why we’re calling that, I have no idea. I’ve seen several different things.

But yes, to that end, they are supposed to be bringing back the Celica, which was something that was mentioned several drive-throughs ago, and then they’re also allegedly trying to bring back this MR2.

Crew Chief Eric: And they debuted something Celica-like during one of the WRC trial stages, too, that Toyota was messing around with this larger car and they were like, [01:04:00] “Oh, it, it might be the Celica, it might not.”

I’m really confused.

Executive Producer Tania: I have no idea.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t know what Toyota’s doing. But why are they doing this? Because I thought all their enthusiast people at the head of the company had sort of checked out and left because they put the bean count. Why would they be doing this? Like, who is their target market? It seems foolish- No idea

unless they’re just trying to keep people’s attention. I

Crew Chief Brad: mean, I hope they make ’em.

Crew Chief Eric: I, I…

Crew Chief Brad: Like, ’cause Volkswagen’s not making cars anybody wants to buy anymore.

Crew Chief Eric: And the Boxster’s going away, so there’s another mid-engine runabout. You gotta shore that up. But then there was talk about that article from PCA where Porsche might get in bed with Toyota to make this mid-engine.

I’m like, what? Whatever. I, I’m sort of over it. But I do wanna talk about other mid-engine cars for a second. The new Lotus Emira 420 Sport was, I guess, leaked or released. I don’t know if these are real or renders. I don’t understand these scoops in the hood. I think they’re terrible looking.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s too McLaren and Ferrari.

Like, the-

Crew Chief Eric: Yes …

Crew Chief Brad: why do all the cars need to look all the same?

Crew Chief Eric: As Matt used to [01:05:00] say, there’s only one design that cheats the wind. I like a lot of Lotuses, and I don’t like this one. Like, I find myself just l- staring at the background in this picture and trying to ignore the car. Awful. I don’t know why this came to mind.

We’re talking about British cars, but really I wanna talk about Swedish cars. Last month we made a comment about Polestar going away because the Chinese ownership. Mercedes is still on the table. We’re not sure what’s going on there. Maybe they’re gonna exit stage right with Volkswagen and all that kind of stuff.

But we were kind of speculating as to why Volvo and not Polestar. It sort of didn’t add up, and it didn’t make sense, and it dawned on me after the episode why Volvo, why they would keep Volvo around. You know what it has to do with? It has nothing to do with the cars. It has 100% to do with the trucking industry.

I had this light bulb moment. Volvo semi trucks, that’s what it is. Because the trucking industry relies on Volvo, and Volvo heavy equipment, you know, big stuff like JCB-sized stuff or earth [01:06:00] movers and stuff like that. Polestar isn’t in that market. It’s easy to get rid of the cars and an EV that isn’t, uh, is underperforming and underselling.

Who cares? But it’s harder to get rid of Volvo because of where they’ve implanted themselves in our infrastructure. Getting rid of Volvo would have a huge impact. And I’m not saying that Freightliner or International or Mack couldn’t step up to the plate, but there’s a lot of Volvo semis. When you start paying attention, there’s a ton of them on the road.

Crew Chief Brad: Are you saying they’re too big to deport?

Crew Chief Eric: Uh, yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Instead of too big to fail?

Crew Chief Eric: We’ll forgive some Chinese ownership to keep Volvo semi trucks on the road. And by the way, they’re extremely popular in the racing paddock. If you were to walk up and down an IMSA paddock, a lot of those race cars are towed by Volvo trucks.

It, it, it affects us deeply on the motorsport side of the house. All right. So Brad, I know your favorite section of the Drive Thru is always lost and found, and you found that Ultima for us. I mean, what a great deal that was. I found something for you this month.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh my [01:07:00] God.

Crew Chief Eric: How about a 1998 Cybertruck? And you might say to yourself, “1998?

Wait, wait, but, but Tesla wasn’t even around in 1998.” This is the Plybertruck- What? … and then some. Look at… This is- Oh, my God … like a Ford van at one point. What? Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Did Daniel build this?

Crew Chief Eric: This thing is awesome. What are you talking about? Look at that craftsmanship. I bet those windshield wipers even work. It looks like it might not leak.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, my God. What is this built on?

Crew Chief Eric: I think it’s a Ford Econoline.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t know. The front end is screaming Dodge Dakota to me, or Mazda B2000 or 200- whatever the truck was.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s gotta be beefier than that because these are six-bolt wheels, so those little trucks weren’t six-bolt.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s true.

Crew Chief Eric: This looks like a Ford ’cause it’s got a short nose, so it’s gotta be a van that they cut, and they took the roof of the van and slammed it down.

Crew Chief Brad: Where’s the- where’s the original post?

Crew Chief Eric: It was on Facebook. 1998 Cybertruck, McDonough, Georgia, [01:08:00] $5,800.

Crew Chief Brad: I have more, more details.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, do you?

Crew Chief Brad: Yes. Again, thanks to Gemini. I’m, I’m just plugging Gemini here and there.

Crew Chief Eric: Uh-huh.

Crew Chief Brad: It is a 1998 Mitsubishi L200.

Crew Chief Eric: I didn’t even know that was a thing.

Crew Chief Brad: And it has 225,000 miles.

Crew Chief Eric: I love it.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t know if I’ve ever seen one of these in the States.

Crew Chief Eric: Every time I try to click on one of these, it tells me it’s, like, a bad site. You know, “You’re gonna get a virus by clicking on this picture,” kind of thing.

Crew Chief Brad: Very ugly truck, but it is a truck.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, there you have it. It’s a funky, funky little truck.

Yeah, okay. It’s like these hard body Mitsubishis from back in the day.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one of these.

Crew Chief Eric: All right.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, there you go. The more you know.

Crew Chief Eric: Do-do-do-do. So would you buy this or a Nissan Altima? See, I think I’d take that $45,000 you, you lent me earlier to buy a Tiguan or a BMW. I’d buy this.

Tanya’s dying.

Executive Producer Tania: No, sorry. I’m watching something and I’m, I’m [01:09:00] trying to decide if, if I’m gonna share this later.

Crew Chief Eric: Please do.

Executive Producer Tania: This is NSFW.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, boy. It’s gonna be a good one. Well, speaking of NSFW, how about this? I love this picture. I kept this only because of the picture. Look at this, Tanya.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, God.

Crew Chief Eric: This is my favorite thing of AI. This is like the Spider-Man meme where they’re all pointing at each other. It’s just Elons hugging each other and handshaking. This is the best thing I’ve ever seen. This is so great. But in all seriousness, Elon hints at Tesla, SpaceX merger. Is that even really a merger?

I mean, to the point of the picture, when it’s all the same owner?

Crew Chief Brad: I know. I

Crew Chief Eric: mean, this is the sort of buffoonery when you have that kind of money that you can do. You know what I mean?

Crew Chief Brad: Yep.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. Well, my expectations are thoroughly lowered, but I also think at the same time I found the cause of global warming.

Just take a look at this [01:10:00] video. What is the fascination, what is the point of running your exhaust through your hood and then blowing smoke-

Executive Producer Tania: So that the rest of us can’t have nice things …

Crew Chief Eric: Is that what it is?

Executive Producer Tania: Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: Just wait, look at th- look at this. Look.

Executive Producer Tania: So the rest of us can’t have nice things.

Crew Chief Eric: It looks like a factory in Gary, Indiana.

Look at this.

Executive Producer Tania: So stupid.

Crew Chief Eric: And when you drive down the road with your exhaust in front of your windshield-

Executive Producer Tania: What the hell do you see? You’re smoke screening yourself …

Crew Chief Eric: and if you happen to open your sunroof or your passenger window, exhaust is meant to exhaust behind the driver, right?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, into somebody else’s mouth, not your own.

Crew Chief Eric: It would be funny, though, if it had one of those little flappers like a tractor, you know? I’m talking with the boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. That’s ridiculous. And that stack is, like, six inches easily. I don’t get it. Well, with that said, I guess it’s time for Florida Man.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, no.

Are we there already?

Crew Chief Eric: We are there already.[01:11:00]

Executive Producer Tania: Here we go

Crew Chief Eric: Tanya, before you take us on a trip around the United States and maybe around the world Big is on the journey … around the world, I brought you one. Found this very interesting.

Executive Producer Tania: Where in the world is Florida man?

Crew Chief Eric: Montana is where we’re going. Ooh. To the most pulled over man in the United States.

He drives a giant banana.

Executive Producer Tania: Ooh.

Crew Chief Brad: Good Lord.

Crew Chief Eric: A 23-foot long banana with the license plate split. Oh. Come on. That’s dad jokes and then some. Look at this thing.

Crew Chief Brad: But why does he keep getting pulled over?

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, wouldn’t you wanna pull over a 23-foot long banana?

Crew Chief Brad: No.

Crew Chief Eric: Why not?

Crew Chief Brad: The last time he was pulled over was for an issue with his license plate.

Crew Chief Eric: Here’s a [01:12:00] quote from the police officer. “We’ve stopped speeders, distracted drivers, and even a few unusual vehicles, but this one definitely stands out. The big banana car was stopped cruising near Billings, Montana today. While it may be appealing,” “traffic laws still apply to fruit. Safe travels, Montana.”

Used to be a Ford F-150. That’s, that’s legit

Executive Producer Tania: But look at the joy that it brings.

Crew Chief Eric: The big banana.

Executive Producer Tania: B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh my God. All right, what do you got for us?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, there’s been some weather down in, uh, in Texas.

Crew Chief Eric: This looks like your old neighborhood.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, every neighborhood looks like… No, it does not. But a Houston area driver gets creative to avoid the floodwaters.

Just wait for it.

I mean, ha. I don’t see a problem.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, Mercedes can’t get wet. I

Executive Producer Tania: mean, good for him.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow. Wow, look [01:13:00] at that.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, eventually he has to get down in it, but you know.

Crew Chief Eric: He avoided a good portion of it.

Executive Producer Tania: There’s enough news that tells you to turn around, don’t drown. But, you know?

Crew Chief Eric: Look at that Altima coming through, or was that a Passat?

Executive Producer Tania: That’s a Volkswagen.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh yeah, it’s a Jetta. Can’t tell the difference, they’re all the same.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, these people should not be driving through that, but hey.

Crew Chief Eric: Where’s the Tesla dead in the middle of this water? That’s what I wanna see.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, God.

Crew Chief Eric: And she’s just standing there like it’s nothing happening.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, it’s another Tuesday in a storm.

Crew Chief Eric: Texas, where are we going next?

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

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, boy.

Executive Producer Tania: And this one, this is, like you gotta get to the video. Boy. You gotta get to the video. Car’s rolling, he’s getting pulled over. He jumps out, the car’s still rolling. Whoop, yes. Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, man. That guy gets a 10. That’s like an Olympic dive. Holy crap.

Wow.

Executive Producer Tania: And his name is Gavin Thor Lundgren.

Crew Chief Eric: And look at [01:14:00] this. Boom. Whoop. He doesn’t even know if there’s water down there. He just- Would you jump off a bridge? Obviously this guy does.

Crew Chief Brad: If everybody else is doing it.

Executive Producer Tania: I’m sure he was on something.

Crew Chief Eric: Boom.

Executive Producer Tania: Bloop, bloop, bloop, like I’m pretending I’m a dolphin. Bloop.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s awesome.

Executive Producer Tania: But they did find him.

Crew Chief Eric: So obviously he survived, ’cause they caught him, right?

Executive Producer Tania: They did catch him. Of course. They did apprehend him. Because they

Crew Chief Brad: always do.

Crew Chief Eric: The French judge only gave him seven points. I gave him an 11 to make up the difference. That was a great dive. That was amazing.

Executive Producer Tania: So this next one is also in, all the rest of these are in Florida.

Quite frankly, it’s been a busy month. So this was 4th of July, and this MFer was going down 95. Yes. And watch, look. Watch. Do woop, woop, boop.

Crew Chief Eric: Looks like a video game.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, it’s not funny Boom. It’s not funny, actually Wow. Can you imagine if you got hit by a firework? Talk [01:15:00] about vehicles catching on fire.

Crew Chief Eric: What is he towing behind him? Is that, like, hay?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t fucking know.

Crew Chief Eric: Is that a boat? It’s a boat.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, it’s Florida. Of course it’s a boat.

Crew Chief Brad: Could’ve been a lawnmower.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow.

Executive Producer Tania: And they were in the helicopter following him for 10 miles. He got arrested and charged, so the passenger in the vehicle was arrested and charged with shooting a deadly missile from a moving v- vehicle.

Crew Chief Eric: A deadly missile

Executive Producer Tania: So when you shoot a firework out of your car, it is now a deadly missile.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s a bit extreme. I mean, it’s not a Tomahawk or a Scud or something like … I mean, come on, deadly missile.

Executive Producer Tania: Hey, people get seriously injured every 4th of July setting off firework.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow.

Executive Producer Tania: They lose body parts. They get third degree burns.

Crew Chief Eric: Do they lose brain cells too?

Crew Chief Brad: They didn’t have many to begin with.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, this is actually a serious thing. I mean, if that hits somebody’s car, can you imagine? You just set something [01:16:00] that’s fire into, like, if it hit somebody’s car, you could, you could explode it.

Crew Chief Eric: Imagine if it hit an EV. Again, a Tesla.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s what I’m saying. Like, bad things could have happened. Okay. Yeah, so this one’s great too. So Florida Man, they pull him over ’cause he’s crashed into the side of a building. Of course, he’s not wearing a shirt because why would you be wearing a shirt?

Crew Chief Eric: Hold, hold on, hold on a sec. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait.

Brad, you gotta be th- why do these two look like they’re posing for a dating app? Like, what is happening in this picture?

Crew Chief Brad: It’s the, it’s the SNL skit, the ambiguously gay duo.

Crew Chief Eric: All right, keep going. ”

Executive Producer Tania: Nah, I, I wasn’t driving. Not my car.”

Crew Chief Brad: That’s, “The, the drugs aren’t mine, officer.” “I’m

Crew Chief Eric: not with them, Superman.”

Executive Producer Tania: And then it’s, “It was the car’s alignment’s fault.”

Crew Chief Eric: What? ”

Executive Producer Tania: The alignment was off, and-” Oh, okay … “and I hit the building.”

Crew Chief Brad: Yep.

Executive Producer Tania: And then it was, “Well, I had two shots that night.” And then, “Well, see, I’m not great at math, so counting drinks isn’t [01:17:00] really my strong suit.”

So it was the car’s alignment and his poor math skills.

Crew Chief Eric: This reminds me of the lady, did you see that article of the lady in New Mexico that drove into the side of a building because it was the mural of, like, a tunnel? Like, kind of like Looney Tunes. So she turned and drove into the building and just, like, crashed into it.

It was pretty hilarious, actually. Maybe her alignment was off too, or maybe her math skills weren’t that great. Good God. This last one. What do we got? Another Fl- man, you’re racking up Florida Man this month.

Executive Producer Tania: This last one, however, I recommend not to sh- please watch it first by yourself. It, there is explicit shit in it.

You kinda gotta watch it the whole way through. It’s gonna, like, catch you off guard the first thing, but if you watch the whole thing through and then he circles back to it at the end, then you’re like, “Oh, my God.”

Crew Chief Eric: So he’s in the cop car.

Executive Producer Tania: You have to be listening to the cop.

Crew Chief Eric: What is he doing? Did he just…

What was that?[01:18:00]

What?

Executive Producer Tania: Apparently, this guy was apprehended for driving on a suspended license, and he was on his way to his court-ordered drug class- Oh, no … um, because of that. Apparently he had something called a Whizzinator.

Which is a fake bladder-

Crew Chief Eric: Oh

Executive Producer Tania: my goodness … with I don’t know what liquid in it, and then it’s wired to a heating pad with a faux pizzle connected to it-

Crew Chief Eric: Wow. Okay … to

Executive Producer Tania: make it convincing.

Crew Chief Eric: Did Snoop Dogg come up with this? The, the, the Wizzle, the Whizzinator and the Wizzle? The

Crew Chief Brad: Wizzle.

Executive Producer Tania: This is this news recording’s polite way of-

Crew Chief Eric: Uh-huh,

Executive Producer Tania: uh-huh

of saying it.

Crew Chief Eric: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Executive Producer Tania: I saw another one where they were more blunt. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So needless to say, the guy’s in the back of the cop car. He pulls something out of his pants discreetly, he’s being videoed by the onboard footage the whole time. [01:19:00] Chucks it across the seat, it falls in between the door and, like, the seat.

The cop comes around, opens the door. He’s like, “What the hell is this?” “I don’t know.” “What do you mean? What’s what?” “I don’t know what that is. I don’t know where it came from.” He’s like, “Bull-fucking-shit.”

Crew Chief Eric: It’s the Whizzinator.

Executive Producer Tania: He’s like, “Bullshit, I clean this car every day. I know what’s in this car. You just threw a pee bag.”

Crew Chief Eric: Wow. Ah. Wow. Florida. Florida. God.

Executive Producer Tania: I hope that person gets the help they need.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, ugh. Well, with that, it’s time we go behind the pit wall to check out your sports

Executive Producer Tania: news. Ooh. I didn’t post about this, but you found it yourself.

Crew Chief Eric: I did. Tom Cruise officially says Days of Thunder sequel moving forward.

Executive Producer Tania: Paramount has- Well- … apparently green-lit it.

Crew Chief Eric: Tom Cruise will reprise the role of Cole Trickle, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you know, all this kind of stuff. Jerry Bruckheimer’s coming back. I mean, they’re gonna try to bring back, I guess, as much of the original cast as [01:20:00] possible.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, okay, hold on. We’re gonna bring back as much of the original cast as possible.

May he rest in peace-

Crew Chief Eric: Yes …

Executive Producer Tania: will not be there. Do we really think Nicole Kidman’s coming back?

Crew Chief Eric: They said as much as possible, you see.

Executive Producer Tania: Because then I wanna be like, “Who’s left of the cast?”

Crew Chief Eric: John C. Reilly, he’ll come back.

Executive Producer Tania: He will, but he wasn’t really huge, so other than if they don’t get Mike Rooker back.

Crew Chief Eric: But wasn’t John C.

Reilly Duval’s son or something like that? So he would take- No … over for the fact that Du- or he was, he was Duval’s, like, second in command, so he would take over for Duval since Duval’s gone.

Executive Producer Tania: I guess he could. They could bring back Carl You- Use, I guess.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: yeah. I don’t know. We’ll see. Anyway, continue.

Crew Chief Eric: Basically, the long and the short is the sequel is in development, reported to include research on the modern NASCAR world, bringing it into t- you know, 2026 and beyond. And Jeff Gordon has expressed interest in being part of the movie, so there you go. Boom. Good.

Executive Producer Tania: I’ll [01:21:00] watch it.

Crew Chief Eric: Moving on from NASCAR- Our, I just wanna point out, we had our first Voices of Endurance episode.

We called it Saving Sebring. It was with Charles Mendez and Dave Cowart, and if you haven’t watched it, check it out. It’s available on Patreon right now. The remastered version will not be out for a while, but it’s super cool. Charles came on and did his Le Mans story when we were still running Evening with a Legend, and Dave Cowart is the guy who won the GTO Championship in the famous red lobster BMW M1 back in the s- late ’70s, early ’80s.

So really cool to hear their take, their part in keeping Sebring alive during one of its darkest times, basically setting it onto the path that it is on today, which is very, very cool. So interesting story there. I do wanna talk about virtual stuff for just a moment, because I bellyached for a long time.

It was Assetto Corsa’s fault. It was Assetto Corsa’s fault. Transmission in the F40 is fragile and blah, blah, blah, all this stuff, remember? I’ve been bellyaching about it for a while, right? Well, it turns out this hunk of junk is the [01:22:00] real problem with my setup My Moza HGP shifter finally gave up the goat.

Once it started to rear its ugly head with the same issues in other software where it had never had the problem before, I decided to put it to the side. I gave David Middleton a call at MIE Racing and said, “What do I do next?” And he said, “You go get yourself a Simagic.” And I was like, “Ooh,” and I did exactly that, which I can buy off the shelf at Micro Center, and Micro Center price-matched with the manufacturer, so shout-out to them.

I saved a bunch of money because the manufacturer was running a promotion. They matched the price. You still had to pay tax, but I didn’t have to worry about the shipping, ’cause the new shifter’s super heavy. But it’s very, very nice. Adjustable feedback as well, and it can be an H pattern or a sequential, so very, very happy with it.

D- different build, because the old one was basically little micro switches, so every time the shifter would hit a micro switch, it would tell it what to do. The new one uses a Hall sensor, so it’s all magnetic, and it’s very, very precise. It’s really, really nice. I’m very [01:23:00] happy with doing that. I should’ve probably switched to it a long time ago.

But I will say, been using the sim more to practice and, you know, sit down for a couple hours at a time, just racing Road Atlanta or Mid-Ohio, whatever it is, kind of getting ready. I mean, it’s not the same as endurance racing, but you gotta get yourself in the mindset of staying focused for a couple hours at a time when you’re behind the wheel.

So I’ve had zero issues, been able to run the sim for hours on end, and it’s been absolutely fantastic, so can’t say enough good things about the Simagic there.

Crew Chief Brad: Your initial complaint was about the programming for the actual F40 race car.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Crew Chief Brad: Do you still have the same problems?

Crew Chief Eric: The F40 is still a little fragile, but can make it to the end of a race without it blowing up.

I haven’t tried to drive the F40 for an hour. I’ve actually been driving the Hyundai i30, which is… it’s not necessarily a Veloster. It’s, like, the one that they didn’t sell here, because I wanted something that was a hot hatch, similar power to a Focus, kind of, you know, to just be more realistic, even though a Focus isn’t [01:24:00] available.

So I haven’t gone back. I’ve done some sprints with the F40, and it’s been fine. You can still hear it every now and again, where it’s like, and you’re like, “Oh, come on,” you know? So there’s a little bit of calibration there that you can still do and can tweak all that stuff, but six of one. So here’s something I found interesting.

The Goodwood Road Racing Club of America. Just feels like an oxymoron saying it. Say it again. The Goodwood Road Racing Club of America. You can become a member starting in January, and it’s based out of California. It’s all about road racing in the style of Goodwood. I get it, but I don’t get it. Pose a que- become a member of the Goodwood Road Racing Club or become a member of Enduroverse?

What do you think?

Crew Chief Brad: I guess it would come down to cost for me, cost and benefits.

Crew Chief Eric: Enduroverse is one of our sponsors, so it’d be, uh, ideal.

Crew Chief Brad: I choose Enduroverse. I

Crew Chief Eric: think that would be a great option. You know, vintage racing isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. I will say this is NSFW, sort of like Tanya’s thing.

I [01:25:00] don’t know if you guys watch this, but check this out. There are some vintage cars I just will not find myself ever in.

Executive Producer Tania: Ooh, did he die?

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t know how he survived.

Executive Producer Tania: I guess he did survive.

Crew Chief Eric: This isn’t a video game. This is Goodwood. This

Crew Chief Brad: is not

Crew Chief Eric: AI. So white helmet, l- it’s this car right here, whatever this Alfa Romeo is or Formula Junior or something like that.

So here he is, white helmet guy. Goes off backwards, hits the wall, and gets flung out of the car like a rag doll. Oh,

Executive Producer Tania: man. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Brutal.

Crew Chief Brad: And sent back almost completely across the track.

Crew Chief Eric: There he is, white helmet, walking around.

Executive Producer Tania: He’s, he’s concussed. He’s dazed. He doesn’t know anything. He’s running off pure adrenaline right there.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m amazed he didn’t snap his neck. Absolutely unreal. But I don’t know about you guys, there are no cars that scare me, but these cars scare me. I don’t think I could run and operate these kinds of cars at speed. I’m sorry. Like, there’s risk and then there’s that. Those are just foolish.

Executive Producer Tania: No, I, I’m good.

Crew Chief Eric: Oof.

No, thank you. [01:26:00] 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.

Crew Chief Brad: So if you’re not quite ready to hit the track, don’t forget that you can find tons of upcoming local shows and events at 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, Automotive History Live, The Racers Roundtable, Formula Fanatics, BreakFix, and of course, The Drive Thru.

Crew Chief Brad: And if you enjoy our various podcasts, there’s a great way for you to support our creators on the MPN. There’s tons of extras and bonuses to explore on our updated Patreon page. Learn more about our bonus and behind-the-scenes content, get early access to upcoming episodes, or support our 24 Hours of Lemons team when you consider becoming a BreakFix VIP [01:27:00] by visiting patreon.com/gtmotorsports.

As always, we would like to thank our co-host and executive producer, Tanya, and all the fans, friends, and family who support Grand Touring Motorsports, as well as the Motoring Podcast Network. Without you, none of this would be possible.

Crew Chief Eric: No outro?

Crew Chief Brad: Outro.

Crew Chief Eric: There it is. Brad, w- you missed an opportunity last month because you no longer announce the episode numbers.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t? You,

Crew Chief Eric: no, you, you don’t, you haven’t done that since, for a while.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you even know what episode this one is?

Crew Chief Brad: I thought, I thought I did last month, though. But

Crew Chief Eric: you didn’t.

Crew Chief Brad: I thought I said, “Welcome to Drive Thru Number 69.”

Crew Chief Eric: No, you missed every opportunity to take a crack.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m pretty sure I actually said that.

Nah, nah, nah, nah. I’m pretty sure you cut it out. You, you, you cut it out.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, wow, we went Dave Coulier on this, wow.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes, we did. Cut it [01:28:00] out. Everywhere you go.

Crew Chief Eric: Number 70. Can you believe we have 70 news episodes? It would actually be 72 if we hadn’t missed two months out of the last six years, but that’s more than some podcasts have by themselves.

We have 70 news

Crew Chief Brad: episodes. This is certainly longer than I thought we would be going.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey. Hey, now. Hey, now. Hey. It’s only up from here, my man. It’s only up from here. If

Executive Producer Tania: only we had 70 listeners.

Crew Chief Eric: We have, we, we actually have a lot more than 70 Arbitron-rated listeners. We’re doing better than- It

Crew Chief Brad: does not count if you listen to it 70 times during editing.

Crew Chief Eric: I gotta do something when I’m on my walks.

Executive Producer Tania: The Drive Thru is our monthly news episode and is sponsored in part by organizations like [01:29:00] 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 Drive Thru News Intro Banter
• 00:02:45 Midwest Road Trip and Wisconsin Cheese Curds
• 00:05:20 Volo Museum Movie Cars and Rocket Outhouse Madness
• 00:10:59 Automotive History Live!
• 00:15:02 24 Hours of Lemons Focus Revival Attempt
• 00:26:39 Mountain Man Dan has a PT Cruiser?
• 00:31:56 VW Lineup” What’s on the Chopping Block
• 00:37:10 China Beetle Clone Debate
• 00:43:30 VW Profits Drop Explained
• 00:47:41 Audi Sport Quattro Restomods
• 00:50:26 RS6 Avant GT Price Shock
• 00:51:47 The Alfa Brutale Viral Concept
• 00:53:18 BMW Hybrid Fire Recall
• 00:54:07 Altima Discontinued? Clickbait!
• 00:59:56 More Nissan/Honda Partnership Rumors?
• 01:00:28 Manual Transmissions are good for your Brain
• 01:01:33 Cop who can’t Drive Stick Impounds an RX-7
• 01:03:04 New Toyota Celica and MR2 Confusion
• 01:04:38 Lotus Emira Design Rant
• 01:05:12 Why Volvo Stays Not Polestar
• 01:06:49 Lost and Found
• 01:09:09 Elon Merger Talk and Exhaust Stacks
• 01:10:50 Florida Man Stories!
• 01:19:31 Days of Thunder Sequel Confirmed
• 01:21:41 Sim Racing Shifter Upgrade
• 01:24:15 Goodwood Club and Vintage Crash
• 01:25:59 Sponsors and Episode Wrap