News – Page 3 of 67 – Gran Touring Motorsports

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July 23, 2026

A Car Portraitist’s Favorite – The Shah’s Bugatti SC

An artist looks at cars different than say a mechanic or race driver. We, as I speak as a relatively new artist from 2009, I only look at the aesthetics. It may have a rotten engine or trans design but we like it because it’s so damn beautiful.

I’m nominating this one as my perennial favorite. Its gestation is a bit odd. It is a 1937 Bugatti SC chassis but is often listed as a 1939 car because it was given to the Shah of Iran as a wedding present by the country of France in 1939.

The Shah had just taken over the throne, Europe was on the downslide toward WW II and each country wanted to kiss up to the Shah so they would have oil during the war.

Actually the Shah wanted a Delahaye 165 he had seen at the Paris Auto Show but by the time he conveyed that to the French government, that car had been sold. You think they would go to the owner and say “Your country wants that car back” but no they told the Shah, “Not to worry, we will replicate that body on another chassis.”

And so they built it at Van Vooren (the Delahaye had Figoni et Falaschi coachwork), with the front “spat” (skirts) and a retractable windscreen.

I’d like to say the Shah and his wife lived happily ever after, enjoying their wedding car but he divorced her because she couldn’t produce a male heir and that’s a serious impediment to someone starting a “Royal family.”

Out the door she went.

You can bet the next wife didn’t want that wedding car from the first wife’s wedding anywhere in town.

So sometime in the 1950s the car, which had become shabby, and insultingly been retrofitted with a Cadillac engine, was bought by a Dutch car trader who paid the Shah’s Royal Hunting Department (the Shah had his own hunting preserve) for “a car with a long hood” something like $275.

It came to America and was reunited with a Bugatti engine. And eventually was restored and bought at auction by Mr. Robert E. Petersen, the famous car publisher (and founder of the Petersen Museum) as the pride of his collection.

It’s still in the museum bearing his name.

EDITORS NOTE: Author/Artist Wallace A. Wyss painted the car portrait shown here. He is offering galleries the opportunity to reach out to him for a sample to see if there are collectors of car art in their communities. He can be reached at mendoart7@gmail.com

Vince Finaldi: Guiding Pebble Beach Into Its Next Era

Don W

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July 21, 2026

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Vince Finaldi: Guiding Pebble Beach Into Its Next Era

For more than seven decades, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance has stood as the pinnacle of automotive celebration — a place where craftsmanship, history, and passion converge on one of the most iconic stretches of coastline in the world. Now, after forty years of Sandra Button’s leadership, the Concours enters a new chapter under the stewardship of Vince Finaldi, a lifelong enthusiast whose journey to the lawn is anything but conventional.

Finaldi’s story begins long before his own career took shape. Born into an Italian automotive family, he grew up surrounded by the rhythm of restoration work — Ferraris, Miuras, Alfa Romeos, and the European machinery his father and uncles specialized in. That early exposure shaped not only his mechanical instincts but also his appreciation for the stories behind the cars.

Photo courtesy of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance

After serving in the U.S. Marines and putting himself through college and law school, Finaldi spent more than two decades as a trial attorney handling emotionally demanding civil litigation. Through it all, cars remained his outlet, his grounding force, and eventually, his second life.

Synopsis

Break/Fix Podcast returns with an interview with Vince Finaldi, who is taking over leadership of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance after Sandra Button’s 40-year tenure. Finaldi shares his Italian-American automotive family history, early exposure to imported exotics, and a lifelong buy-fix-sell approach that funded his education after four years as a Marine infantryman, alongside a 22-year career as a trial lawyer handling high-stakes civil cases for sexual abuse victims. He recounts chasing and restoring Lamborghini Miuras, including buying one in 2015 with help from Valentino Balboni and sourcing rare parts through industry contacts. Vince explains how Pebble Beach must evolve carefully by welcoming important newer cars while preserving rigorous judging standards, emphasizing the concours as a “classroom,” its charity mission, youth-access programs, and upcoming celebrations including the 75th anniversary and a major Miura gathering for its 60th anniversary.

Image courtesy of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance

Growing up around European machinery, what aspects of restoration or mechanical work still give you the most satisfaction today?
You’ve described cars as the outlet that kept you sane during an incredibly stressful legal career; what did that balance teach you about yourself?
You’ve said your collection is always evolving—what guides your choices, and what draws you to a car at this stage in your life?
When you moved to the Monterey Peninsula and opened your shop, what changed for you personally and professionally?
How did you personally process the moment when it became clear that you might be the one stepping into leadership after Sandra Button’s forty‑year tenure?
You’ve emphasized that Pebble Beach is a “living, breathing event.” How do you define the right pace and tone for its evolution?
What do you see as the biggest opportunities—and the biggest risks—when it comes to attracting younger enthusiasts to Pebble Beach?
With ticket prices being a real barrier for younger fans, how do you think about accessibility while maintaining the standard Pebble Beach is known for?
As you look ahead a few years, what kinds of changes or additions do you imagine might appear on the lawn, especially as newer apex cars enter the conversation?

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrol heads that wonder, how did they get that job or become that person?

The road to success is paved by all of us, because everyone has a story.

Crew Chief Eric: The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is entering a new era. After 40 years of constant leadership, the world’s most prestigious concours turns to Vince Finaldi this fall, a third-generation car guy whose life has swung between high-stakes courtroom battles and the calming precision of restoration work.

From his family’s Italian-born automotive lineage to the shop he built on the Monterey Peninsula, Vince has always returned to the garage as a place that keeps him grounded.

Don Weberg: Now, he’s stepping into one of the most influential roles in the collector car [00:01:00] world, tasked with guiding a living institution as it evolves for a new generation, without losing the soul that made Pebble Beach iconic.

In this episode, we dig into his journey, his philosophy, and the vision he’ll bring to the lawn.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, and joining me tonight is returning co-host Don Wieberg from Garage Style Magazine, one of the many personalities on the Motoring Podcast Network. So welcome back to the studio, Don.

Don Weberg: Thank you, Eric.

Good to be here.

Crew Chief Eric: And with that, let’s officially welcome Vince to BreakFix.

Don Weberg: Welcome, Vince.

Vince Finaldi: Thanks for having me, folks.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Vince, like all good BreakFix stories, there’s a superhero origin story out there. So as we said in the intro, your family’s automotive roots go all the way back to Italy and, I’ve come to understand, the early General Motors days.

So let’s talk about how that heritage has shaped the way you see craftsmanship, restoration, and all-around car culture.

Vince Finaldi: Sure. So I mean, I guess it started with my grandfather, who’s from Italy. When he was very young, his father died at a young age, so his mother would [00:02:00] bring him and the kids out to the US.

This is the early, early 1900s. So he spoke the language and eventually started working in, in the automotive world here in the US. You know, this is before the ’20s for GM, uh, in the R&D. They would have an engine, engine would break down, he’d take it apart, figure out why it broke, and discuss with the engineers how to kind of re-engineer or fix things.

’20s happened, uh, you know, Depression, layoffs. You know, he was obviously a foreigner, one of the first ones to be laid off. Went back to Italy, opened other, you know, automotive related businesses, and that’s, you know, when my father was born and his brothers. And so they kind of grew up in the car world there in Italy, emigrated here to the US in the ’60s to Chicago, opened up their own shops, uh, and then eventually moved to Southern California and opened their own shops as well.

Types of shops were mechanic shops, body shops, and also shops involving tractors, earth movers. So from a very young age, I grew up [00:03:00] in shops. Um, that’s kind of all I knew. That’s what all my family did is- You know, a automotive. They also imported and exported Italian sports cars, ’cause back then there were not a lot of dealers that you can go and buy and sell them from, so that was kind of another avenue for, of business for them.

So I always had cars coming in and out of the house and the shop. I always wanted to be at the shop. I didn’t want to be at home. Any time I could be anywhere, I, I didn’t want to be playing sports, I didn’t want to be at home, I wanted to be at the shop playing with cars, as were a lot of kids, you know, in, in my generation.

Yeah, so that’s kind of the genesis of my entry into the car world, if you will.

Crew Chief Eric: So was there any one particular car or cars that rolled in or out of the shop that you went, “I want one of those when I grow up”?

Vince Finaldi: Yeah, pretty much all the cars that he would import and, uh, and then sell. You know, the way it would work is, you know, I’d, I’d come from home from school, you know, I’m five, six years old, and, and I’d go look in the garage and there’d be a Ferrari in there.

I’m like, “Wow, this is cool.” And you know, I’d sit in it and I’d play with the buttons and I’d look [00:04:00] at it, and I had like, “This is my car. This one’s not going anywhere.” And then, you know, a couple days later I’d come home from school and I’d look and the car is gone, and it’s like, “Where did it go?” And my mom’s like, “Well, he sold it.

That’s the way it works.” So I’d cry and I’d be upset and, you know, for another couple weeks until another car would show up, and this time it’d be, you know, a Lamborghini Miura. And I’m like, “Wow, this one’s even better,” and I’d fall in love with that one, and then, uh, same thing would happen. And so wash, rinse, repeat, I fell in love with many cars as a youngster, but I also got steeled to the process of buying and selling and cars as a business, if you will.

Whatever that attachment is that some collectors have where they buy a car and they never get rid of it and they can never imagine selling it, that got weaned out of my system at a young age, if you will. So which car was the ultimate? I mean, the, the Miura was the one that, you know, really, really imprinted on me very heavily.

Kind of a double-edged sword because that’s one car of the many that we had in the shop through the years, Ferraris, and [00:05:00] Alfa Romeos, and you know, you name it, US sports cars, and Corvettes, and that’s one car that always kind of just went up in price throughout the decades, and went up and up. I would say it’s an elevator that, that only goes up, and it’s continuing.

You know? It’s, it’s a car that’s really broken a lot of molds, widely recognized as the first supercar. And you know, so the double-edged sword side is that I always wanted one, but prices were always outpacing me and outpacing me. And so anything I was doing to try and get my hands on one, it was just a really difficult car to chase.

So I don’t know if the reason why that one imprinted on me so much is just because of the car itself or if it’s also because that was the really elusive one that I couldn’t catch until much later on in my restoring, playing with, collecting, chasing journey.

Crew Chief Eric: And when we look back over your career, obviously you went into law, but you also stayed in the car world at the same time- Yeah

with your own restoration shop. So you know, [00:06:00] as they say, the apple does not fall far from the tree. When you look back on all those years, you know, hanging out with your dad, and his brothers, and grandpa, and all that kind of thing, was there something that you carried forward with you? Were there family traditions that you carried into your restoration business?

And if so, what were those?

Vince Finaldi: Yeah, I don’t know if it’s traditions or if it’s business practices, you know? ‘Cause it, kind of what they would do is they’d supplement the core business, you know, whether it’s the body shop or the mechanic shop, with buying and selling cars. And they’d buy and sell cars that they were into and they liked, and they knew that they could make a profit on.

Sometime they’d buy cars that were in a collision or something, and they’d repair them and sell them. What I learned is that, you know, you, you know, you really make your money on a car when you buy it. If you buy it right, that’s really the way to do it. And um, you can improve a car, and then get it into a condition where when you’re ready to move it on to the next collector or owner, you can take that fund, if you will, and then use it to buy another car, and kind of, you know, wash, rinse, repeat.

That’s something that I learned at a young age. And I, and I started with skateboards, [00:07:00] and then bicycles, and then I moved to mopeds, and then I moved to go-karts, and then I moved to cars at 15 years old. Cheapest car I can get, and then, you know, moving up to a little more expensive one, and a little more expensive ones.

You know, by the time I was out of high school, you know, I went into the Marine Corps, and I served as an infantryman for four years, but I was still doing this on the side. You know, I’d buy a Jeep or something, and fix it up, and sell it, and squirrel away some of the money. So when I got out, you know, I used the GI Bill and I went to college.

And you know, my dad said, “Look, I know you’d love to open a shop and do that for a living, but I don’t think this is the path for you. You know, you’re, you do really well in school, you always have, and you have an opportunity to do things, uh, with higher education and maybe with a career that I didn’t really have a chance to do.”

So why don’t you just see where, you know, your higher education takes you, and you can always do cars on the side And so I said, “All right, let’s do that.” And so I, I continued in, in higher education and, you know, I ended up having a friend who was, you know, in law school, and I never knew a lawyer growing up.

I never [00:08:00] encountered a lawyer in my life. But, you know, I was looking at his homework and I’m like, “Wow, this is pretty interesting, you know, and this doesn’t even seem like it’s work.” And so I decided to take some law classes and, you know, ended up going to law school and becoming a lawyer. But on the side, partially to get myself through college, I was waiting tables, I was using the GI Bill, and I was also buying and fixing cars and selling them.

So that’s kinda how I was able to put myself through undergraduate work and then through law school with barely any debt. And so this has been a lifelong thing. And then, you know, once I became a lawyer, I had more money with which to kind of play with cars. So, you know, it’s a chicken or the egg thing, you know?

Are, are you, are you, are you working so you can get the cars, or are you us- you getting the cars so that you can, you can work and get a better job and do education? They’re kind of both intertwined. It, you can’t separate them.

Crew Chief Eric: So has a Miura ever graced your shop after all these years?

Vince Finaldi: Yeah. Yeah. So I finally, finally caught up to the Miura elevator in 2015.

Took me that long. So I was, you know, almost, what, 40 [00:09:00] years old almost by the time I finally caught one. And it wasn’t the best one, it was in Belgium. It’s kind of a funny story. I, I met through some people Valentino Balboni, who was the legendary test driver for Lamborghini for 30 years, and he test drove almost every single Countach that came off the line, many of the Miuras.

And, uh, now he does consulting work, and you can hire him to go meet with you and to inspect a car, drive it, you know, kind of give you the thumbs up if it’s a car you’re looking to buy. And at the time I bought it, it was really expensive. I w- it was uncomfortably expensive, let me say that. But I knew it’s the car that I always wanted.

And so he met me there in Belgium, looked over the car and he said, “Look, it’s good. The numbers are good. The engine’s matching. You know, let’s go drive it.” He hops in, I get in the passenger seat. We’re driving through the fields and farms in Belgium, right? I had driven a lot of cars in my life, but I had never driven a Miura.

He pulls over and he gets out of the car, and I’m like, “What’s going on? Is there something wrong with the car?” You know, and he goes, “No, it’s your turn.” And I’m like, I’m like, “Oh, great.” So I [00:10:00] gotta drive this thing for the first time in my life with Valentino Balboni sitting in the passenger seat, and I’m thinking, you know, “I’m gonna stall this thing or…”

Yeah, that was my introduction to actually driving one. Yeah, I, I, I owned it. We restored it. I ended up selling it. I took that money and bought two Miuras. You know, one that was better, one that was in major need of restoration. I sold the better one, used some of that money to restore the other one, and I kind of did that a few different times.

So I’ve owned about five Miuras, uh, various parts and collection of parts and all kinds of stuff. So y- I got pretty deep in the, in the Miura world, if you will.

Crew Chief Eric: So you are the opposite of the saying that I usually throw out there, which is never drive your heroes. So you’ve expanded upon the love and the passion, and you actually adore these cars.

Vince Finaldi: Yeah, yeah. As part of the, the gig, I mean, it’s really hard to come across Miura parts- parts. They’re just not there. You know, the factory doesn’t even have them. So in order to restore some of these cars, I had to find parts, you know. So I actually got introduced to Claudio Zampolli, who used, he [00:11:00] was the first person actually sent by the factory here to the US to work on these cars, ’cause so many were having issues.

So they supplied him with parts and, you know, the know-how and, and so he was working on cars for years and years. As he got towards the later part of his life, you know, I found out that he still had a bunch of parts and things, so I was able to buy his collection of Lamborghini parts and manuals and tools that he’d had for 40 years.

Yeah, the Lamborghini journey kind of took me down many different paths, but it all started because my dad had bought that first one back in, what, 1978 maybe? He would take me and my two brothers out for drives together in it. So the three of us would be in the passenger seat, and this is a P400, and he would go at a spirited pace, let’s say that.

You know, through the farms in, in Southern California when it was all, a lot of farmland and dairy land and, you know, you’d hear the sounds of the motor and, you know, the carburetors and the gears, and it was just… It’s a car that if you ever have a chance to drive in one, do it, because you [00:12:00] won’t forget it.

Don Weberg: I need to make sure that you know how many people out there are listening right now to you, Vince, and saying- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. His first Miura, he took a ride with Balboni, and then when he wanted parts, he called that other guy. Yeah. Do you know how many, not just Lamborghini guys, but car enthusiasts in general are listening right now, their mind is blown.

You’ve literally blown their mind. I mean, that’s incredible. I think that’s one thing I love about the car community is some of the people you meet, I mean, just through serendipity of having some of these cars, and then you find out, and correct me if I’m wrong, but those guys you’ve met, they’re pretty much just normal guys, aren’t they?

Vince Finaldi: Yeah. I mean, that’s one of the things about me is that I have an intellectual curiosity in the cars. I want to learn about them. I want to learn about how they work, who made them, how they made them, the whole history of the car, and that’s kind of what I do. Whenever I get into a car, I, I do a deep, deep dive.

Up my OCD side of my personality, I, I just do a, a deep dive on it. I learn everything I can about the car and just digest every single manual and, and piece [00:13:00] of video. Yeah, so that leads me sometimes to people who helped to make the cars, and yeah, pick up the phone and call them, and they’re normal people, and most of them are car guys, and yeah.

So this is not something that’s special to me, like, oh, special, and I was able to meet these– Anyone can do it. All you have to do is just find them and pick up the phone and ask them the question, you know, and, uh, if you get the yes, then you’re in there. But that’s part of the joy of the car hobby for me, you know, not just owning a car and, you know, I, I, I like all facets of it.

I, I like the maintenance of cars. I like the, you know, re- preparing the cars. I like modifying cars. I like concourse restorations. I like the history of– I like all of it, the automobilia. I think it’s the joy of this whole car hobby, you know. It’s, it’s not just limited to one thing.

Don Weberg: One of our last conversations, you went on the California Mille, if I remember correctly.

Vince Finaldi: Yes, I did go.

Don Weberg: But you were in search of a closed classic car, and I’m kind of wondering, did you ever find it?

Vince Finaldi: Not yet. Still looking, still kind of narrowing down exactly what I want to buy.

Don Weberg: Okay.

Vince Finaldi: As you know, this is [00:14:00] an interesting time period in the collector car world. You know, the last, let’s say, three decades, we saw a, a monumental increase in the value of these cars, many of them.

It was a pretty steady pace with a couple blips. You know, 2008 there was a blip, in late ’80s, early ’90s there was a blip as well. But generally, it was a pretty good curve. So what we’re seeing now is a change in the, some collectors aging out, some ’50s, ’60s collector cars that have generally been blue chip investment cars are kind of flattening out or even going down a little bit.

So, you know, if you’re someone who plans to hold a car and kind of stay in this market for a while, that’s something you gotta look at. People generally don’t wanna spend a bunch of money on a car and then have it, you know, lose half its value or something. So that’s, that’s all part of this game, you know?

It’s, it’s an interesting part of it. So yeah, I’m still kind of looking and, and thinking and deciding.

Don Weberg: Any particular brands catching your attention?

Vince Finaldi: I don’t know. I’d like to get something pre-war.

Don Weberg: Yeah.

Vince Finaldi: I love the pre-war [00:15:00] Bugattis, you know? Mm-hmm. I really like them. But, you know, once again, that’s a, that’s an elevator.

That’s a big one, and, and you can also get in rabbit holes on those cars. I mean, you know, there’s really, really great ones out there, and there are some that have been kind of pieced together from parts and cobbled together and, you know, they’re great for someone that can’t afford the best car. So that’s another thing that, you know, when you’re looking at getting a car like this, you have to go through your decision tree and see what you’re gonna use it for and what it can qualify to get into and, um, see if, if that’s gonna be something that’s good for you.

Don Weberg: For those events, do they have to be top level concours style cars, or can they be the cobblestone type cars you’re talking

Vince Finaldi: about? No, no, a- and it depends on the event. So the California Mille, for example, it, it mimics the, the Mille Miglia.

Don Weberg: Right.

Vince Finaldi: The Mille Miglia has opened cars 1957 and prior that would have actually run in the Mille Miglia.

Okay. Porsche 356 you can run, ’cause one of those ran in the Mille Miglia. Most Ferraris, um, you know, would be eligible You know, generally it’s gotta be a [00:16:00] real car, but if it’s got pieces from other cars or it’s been, uh, you know, repaired or something, then you’re still gonna be good, generally speaking.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Vince, to use some legal jargon, you’ve established your credibility- … as a car guy in conversation. So let’s pivot and talk about your road to Monterey. So you’ve had all these things going on, you know, the California Amelia preparations, all your restorations, all the Miuras, everything we’ve covered so far.

How did we get from there to becoming the president of the Concours?

Vince Finaldi: It really wasn’t something that was planned. I was a trial lawyer. I was litigating really, really difficult civil cases for 22 years. I worked for the same firm for the entire time, became a partner rather quickly. Just really had a knack for this type of litigation, hardcore litigation and trial work.

We represented sexual abuse victims, so this is, you know, gut-wrenching stuff, you know, very emotional, tough cases to do all around. You’re usually litigating against these very well-funded institutions that hire [00:17:00] teams of attorneys, dozens of attorneys, and, and you’re litigating against them with a very, very slim team, sometimes just yourself.

So it’s really difficult, high-stakes litigation where if you’re not successful in the case, you don’t get paid and your client doesn’t get any recovery whatsoever. And sometimes for these clients, you’re kind of their last resort. Their abuser might be passed away or they, you know, were never held accountable.

They were never arrested because of political reasons or whatever. So there’s a lot of reasons why these are difficult cases. After 22 years of it- I was ready to kind of get out while I still had my health and, you know, had a great family and figured that I can, I can have a second career. I was young enough to be able to do that.

I was fortunate. I wanted to lean more into the car business and actually open my own shop and kind of figure things out from there. I, I knew I also wanted to do something where I’m giving back. I, I always felt fortunate. I was able to use my GI Bill and, you know, the jobs I worked to go to school and, you know, I had some people along the way that really helped me, great mentors and, you know, I was lucky that, you know, I just fell into a, you know, a line of work that I happened to [00:18:00] be really good at.

I think anyone who’s had any measure of success in life, they have to contribute a, a portion of it to luck. Not everyone in life gets that same luck, so I think giving back is, is really important for anyone. So, um, yeah, we moved up to Carmel, which we had been coming to for years, and I opened a shop and started restoring cars.

I just met some people within the Pebble Beach Company and the community and car people, and we became friends and, you know, they started saying, “Look, we’re looking for someone to kind of carry on the torch in the Concourse, and maybe you’d be a good choice for it.” Yeah, so first I, I just kept saying, “No, that’s, that’s not me.”

You know, I’m not looking to be the Concourse person. I, you know, I, I like cars, but I like driving them, repairing them. I like– I can do paintwork, I can do metalwork, I can do mechanical work myself. That’s me. They said, “Well, you know, you, you’ve done well in business. You know how to run a business. You know cars.

It’s really hard to find someone who straddles both of those.” You know, you find a lot of car people out there who are not really good at business, a lot of business people who don’t know anything about [00:19:00] cars, but it’s really hard to find someone that straddles both and is also young enough that they can kind of carry the torch on something like this for a number of years.

But what really got me was learning that All the money that the Pebble Beach Concourse raises for charity and gives away to charity every year, which is, you know, a huge focus of it. And that’s what really got me interested more. So I took some meetings, just realized that our interests align. You know, we kind of have the same passion for the collector car hobby and the community, and continuing this passion that’s really given so much to mine and other people’s lives.

And that’s when I decided to pursue it and, and to go forward with it, you know? So it, it kind of is something that fell into my lap, if you will. It’s not something I pursued or even saw myself doing, but now that I’m here, I can see that, you know, it probably happened for a reason, you know? My wife, you know, earlier on in the process was like, “Why are you so hesitant to this?”

You know? “You know a lot of these people anyways. You go to most of these events. You’re gonna deal with cars until you die. They give back to charity. You wanna [00:20:00] do something where you’re giving back. What’s the hold up?” And, you know, I was like, “Well, that’s why I married someone who’s smarter than me.” She gives good advice.

Yeah, so that’s kinda how I got here. It’s, it’s, it’s weird.

Crew Chief Eric: Could that hesitation also have been because you’re stepping into the shadow of Sandra Button’s 40-year tenure? I mean, those are some pretty big shoes to fill.

Vince Finaldi: Yeah, I don’t think it was that, you know? In, in my career, you know, I’ve done a lot of things.

We really were trailblazers that paved the path for a lot of people to be able to finally hold their users accountable and get recoveries. We changed the laws in order to allow a wide swath of people to actually do these types of cases across the US. In, in doing this type of work, you’re standing up against large corporations, large insurance companies, and you’re, you’re getting beaten up from, from the left and from the right.

So I’ve never been a person, just out of my, my nature and character, to kind of back down from a fight or a challenge, you know? I’m, I’m the one that, that runs into the fire, if you will. It wasn’t that. It was [00:21:00] more that I didn’t think I was someone who’s solely a Concourse person. And, and I figured they’re looking for someone who’s a hardcore Concourse person, who’s all about the Concourse and nothing else.

And it turns out that that’s not what they were looking for, and that’s not what they felt was best for the Concourse. And when I talked to other people, including Sandra, in this whole Concourse world- I learned that that’s really not what, you know, you want. You want someone who’s kind of a car person, who understands the whole hobby.

Because in order to have a successful concourse, you need to be able to see where this whole hobby’s going, to kind of portend what’s gonna happen before it happens so that you can keep the concourse alive and living, and is something that’s, that’s a leader in the field.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you opened a very special door to a conversation that we could probably do a whole episode on.

Vince Finaldi: Your door unlocked.

Crew Chief Eric: It, it, yes. And Don is chomping at the bit here, but it hit the nail on the head. It’s the evolution of the- Yeah … concourse as we know it.

Don Weberg: It’s double-barreled for me. [00:22:00] I, I only have one mouth, and there are so many questions trying to come out. I, I’m gonna let you lead the charge, and I’ll follow up behind you, ’cause, eh, Vince, you did, you opened up not a door, man, you opened up a whole, you know.

Vince Finaldi: Well, it’s the million-dollar question. I mean, you know, when I was going through the interview process and when I was talking to some of these bigger collectors and, you know, in, in, in my due diligence process, first question I get, and I still get, is, “Well, what are you gonna change? Why are you gonna change things?”

And, you know, “I hope you don’t change things.” And it’s all, all the questions revolve around change. And first thing I told the people that I spoke to during this process is I said, “Look, if, you know, whoever you choose, whoever you choose, if someone comes in there and starts telling you about all these things they’re gonna change and they’re gonna tweak and they’re gonna change, wrong person.

That’s just, that’s absolutely the wrong build. So choose whoever you want, but please take that as a, as a really important consideration. What you need to do is get into the role and figure it out.” Figure out what makes it tick and kind of see where, you [00:23:00] know, where it is, the temperature, if you will. And yeah, adjustments will need to be made.

That’s the case with any business. But it’s the pinnacle concourse in the world. Most people say it’s the most important. Winning another concourse is winning that concourse, but winning Pebble Beach is winning Pebble Beach, and everyone in the car world knows what that is, right? So yeah, it’s an important thing that I’ll have to deal with, change, but it’s a necessary part of this car world, and it’s something that Pebble Beach has been doing for 75 years now.

It’s a, it’s a living, breathing event.

Don Weberg: Y- you mentioned that, you know, you gotta change it slowly. You gotta be careful. You gotta- Yeah … it’s almost totally organic how this thing is going to evolve, and that it is always inorganic in its evolution. Just so some of our listeners cue in on this, what have been some of those changes that you’ve seen-

Vince Finaldi: Sure

Don Weberg: and that the Concours went through? Sure. What are some of the genres of automobiles that have been welcomed to the Concours that maybe 20 years ago or 30 years ago, there’s no way we would have had that car on the field, [00:24:00] but now-

Vince Finaldi: A, a Concours d’Elegance is nothing more than a contest of elegance. You know, if you go back to the, you know, the early 1900s, these started in Europe, where, you know, someone would have this fantastic one-off car that costs more than 1,000 people’s salaries, and they would take it to a park, along with some other people who had cars of similar nature.

I mean, they’d have a, their wife or something dress in a, in, in some amazing gown, and they would have a contest of which car and which gown is the most luxurious and, and elegant. You know, after cars came here to the US, we started having those events as well. The first Pebble Beach Concours was in 1950.

And it was something that was tagged onto the Pebble Beach road races, which started that year as well. Early years of the Pebble Beach Concourse, a lot of cars were just, some of them were just brand new, like Jaguars, and MGs, and Austin Healeys, and some were some really great cars from the ’20s, and the ’30s, and the ’40s.

But in order to stay alive, and to stay relevant, [00:25:00] and to grow, the Concourse, you know, has gone through many different changes. You know, we added something that, which is the Tour of Elegance, which is Thursdays, where these cars go and they do a drive, and you can actually see them being used and exercised.

And that was done because that’s the way you bring people into the, into the community. It’s, seeing a car static is one thing. Seeing it on the road and being used is a, an entirely different thing, you know? So that’s something that’s gained in popularity. For many people, it’s their favorite part of Car Week, is watching the tour and watching these cars go down to, you know, drive down to Big Sur and back.

But there have been oth- other things as well. The introduction of more post-war cars and different classes of cars, newer cars. This is something that the Concourse has been doing for years, and years, and years in order to remain relevant, to bring in new collectors, to keep young people interested in the, in the hobby.

Crew Chief Eric: And you alluded to this earlier about the shift in the car culture, and investments, and things like that. And so as I read between the lines, it [00:26:00] harkens back to a project that I was working on with some fellow creators here on the NPN at the tail end of last year, beginning of this year, where we were doing some research into Dolce Vita era Ferraris.

Where they sit in the market, is that a type of car people wanna buy anymore? You know, there’s all these arguments that, let’s say a 250 GTO, it’s a bygone era. People are more interested investing in McLaren F1s. That’s gonna be the new GTO of 2026, let’s just say. And so there’s this cultural shift because, as you said, collectors are aging out, and folks at their peak earning potential are moving into the space.

Yeah. But it’s always the car that was on your wall as a kid is the car that you wanna see on the lawn. So how does Pebble embrace that in the future as you begin to see more F40s, and 959s, and Diablos, and things like that, instead of SSK Mercedes, and 1920s Bugattis, and things like that?

Vince Finaldi: So there’s two parts of that.

The first part is the whole financial element of it. Back 30, 40 years ago, the mantra was buy [00:27:00] what you love and, you know, worst case scenario, if the value goes down a little bit, if it goes up a little bit, you’re gonna be fine because you’re gonna have a car you love. And that mantra worked really well, it was great advice when the cars are worth $3,000, $5,000, $10,000, $15,000, right?

Now, it’s, it’s a bit of a different world, and that mantra still holds true, you know, if you plan on keeping the car. But eventually, you know, you’re gonna have an exit strategy for the car. And if, and if you’re spending a considerable amount of money on the car, you can’t just ignore that, right? Most people don’t just ignore that element.

You’ve got to take into consideration what’s gonna happen with the value of the car. And so it’s just looked at in a different way. You know, you, you talk about the popularity of these new cars and, you know, what some of them are selling for now. I think part of it is fueled by that, by the whole investment and the business side of the car collecting hobby.

You kind of have to look at both. As far as the show field, the show field has always been kind of changing. And so what I tell [00:28:00] people is that a great car is always gonna be a great car, right? A Type 35 Bugatti is a great car. It’s a car that was so ahead of its time, at least a decade ahead of all the other cars it was racing.

That’s why it won every single race. Privateers would take the car right out of the box, and they’d go and they’d win races. And when they won races, it was printed that the Bugatti won and the Bugatti brand kind of gained by people who weren’t even these famous race car drivers. It’s always gonna be an important car.

It’s always gonna be a great car. Same thing with the Gullwing. And, and there’s other cars that are kind of like that. You know, the, the Lamborghini Miura is one of mine. You know, I’ve got a soft spot for it I think what’s important is to make sure you’re bringing in new cars that are important cars. You know, a, a McLaren F1, very important car.

Definitely a collector car. That’s a car that broke many barriers. It was way ahead of its time. And so, yeah, it’s got a place on the show field. And what you can do is, you know, a lot of these kids go straight for the McLaren [00:29:00] F1. That’s what they wanna look at. But when they’re on the show field, then they see that, you know, hey, there’s another car, a Ferrari from the ’60s that, that has three seating position as well, you know, which is, “Wow, I, I didn’t know there was another car like that.”

And then they look and they see a, a Bugatti Type 35, and they start learning more. You know, the concours field becomes a classroom where they learn about cars and they get interested in these cars, and that’s how you keep some of the older cars alive. You use the newer cars as a tool to educate and help, you know, new collectors understand the old stuff.

Crew Chief Eric: And I think it’s funny, having walked the show field myself, Pebble is full of different classes of cars that are out there. I often chuckle when I see, let’s say, something like an F40 that is already 40 years old at this point, and it’s considered modern. And it’s like, no it’s not.

Vince Finaldi: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s been so many Ferraris after that.

So there has to be this shift in the classes too, where what was a modern is now a classic, cult classic type of car, is now just a classic car [00:30:00] along with- Yeah … all these other vintage cars that are out there. So again, how is Pebble going to embrace what I call these mid-period cars now? Because they’re from the late ’70s, you know, the malaise era, the ’80s and the ’90s, and even the early 2000s, there’s a lot of great cars in there.

But they’re not the same in terms of luxury, right? Yeah. Luxury cars sort of disappeared. Yeah, there were Maybachs and still Rolls-Royces and Bentleys and things like that, but the attention focused to what became the hypercar now, which was the supercar then, right?

Vince Finaldi: Yeah. So that’s something that, that the concours has already been doing.

I mean, we’ve had McLaren F1s on the show field. We’ve had Ferrari F40s on the show field. We’ve had all types of different newer supercars, if you will. And that’s something that, you know, in order to stay relevant, in order to kinda lead the pack, that’s something we had to do. That’s just something that’s gonna continue.

There’s a place for many of these cars, you know? The real trick is to figure out which ones are the great ones and which ones are not, because you still have to have room on the show field for [00:31:00] all your greats from the past, right? The Rolls-Royces, the Packards, the Duesenbergs, the Bugattis. Those are never going anywhere from the show field at, at Pebble, right?

What we’re doing is we’re making room for the newer greats. And so that comes in doing exactly what I was talking about earlier with my own collecting car hobby, is learning everything you can about the car and what makes it great. Why, why is the McLaren F1 great? Because it was a clean sheet car that was built and developed by, you know, a team that was led by the, one of the best engineers and designers of our generation.

Using what he learned in Formula 1.

Crew Chief Eric: Mm-hmm.

Vince Finaldi: And, and they took it to Le Mans and they won. They, they cleaned house with that car. And, and to do that is just so rare and is so incredible that, you know, for someone to say that that car does not have a place on the show field just doesn’t understand the history of the car.

If you understand the history of that car and how important it is and how ahead of its time it was, everyone would welcome it, right? Yeah, I, I think our [00:32:00] job is to kind of delve into that history and figure out which ones are the best ones of their marks and their makes to have there. You know, we’ve had a wedge class, for example, where it was all the wedge cars of the ’70s that kind of, you know, were the precursors, were the grandfathers to these hypercars and supercars you see now.

So it’s something that Pebble’s been doing for years, and my job is to continue that process with some of this newer stuff. Now, are we gonna see a Ferrari Luce on the show field? I don’t know. We’ll have to see. There’s a lot of opinions on it right now, and it’s probably a topic for another podcast, but this is part of the whole collector car hobby, you know?

Um, it’s part of what makes it great.

Don Weberg: Not to go down the Luce trail, but is there, has there been, and I missed it, I don’t know, but is there a place for EVs at this point? I mean, the EV, that’s not a new concept. You know, so many people look at the, the Prius and the, the Tesla.

Vince Finaldi: We’ve had EVs on the, on the show field many, many, many years ago because, you know, some of the earliest cars were electric.[00:33:00]

Don Weberg: Tell us about some of those cars that you had on the field. What were they?

Vince Finaldi: Oh, man, so I, I can’t get into the, the exact details, but I can tell you that, you know, in the, in the early 1900s, I think we had 2,000 car manufacturers in the US, and a lot of them were making electric vehicles. A lot of these electric vehicles were actually, they were catering towards females because they’re easier to drive.

You, they’re not dirty. They wouldn’t get their dresses all dirty. So they were used as these clean cars that got around and, you know, for some reason, the combustion engine cars are the ones that really grab hold, and there’s many different reasons why. There are many different industries that lobbied to push forward the combustion engine and to, to kind of kill the EV, if you will.

Uh, electric vehicles have, have been around for quite a long time. You know, the question is, which ones are the right ones? Are, are you just gonna take a standard Tesla and put it on the show field and say that that’s elegant and that belongs there? I’d say no, that’s not gonna happen, right? But are there some EVs that might make their way in?

We’ll just have to see.

Crew Chief Eric: [00:34:00] Earlier, you talked about how the show field becomes a classroom. Mm-hmm. And, and that’s for car enthusiasts of all ages. But let’s hone in on the younger crowd that, you know, you wanna bring into the fold. You wanna mold them and become part of the Pebble Beach Concours culture.

But let’s face the hard facts. Ticket prices are not cheap. Yeah. And so these younger kids wanna see these more modern cars. Well, I can go to Cars and Coffee, or I can go here, and I can go there, and I don’t have to spend the same, right? ‘Cause we make those budgetary decisions. How are you trying to embrace the younger folks?

How are you trying to make accommodations for them to come in?

Vince Finaldi: Yeah, so, um, we’ve, we’ve got special programs that we can use in order to get tickets for youngsters to come in, and there’s a lot of things you can see Without actually going to the Concours itself. You can go to the tour, and the tour’s free.

So you can see all these cars on the tour. You can see them being used, see them being displayed. You can go to Concours Village and see all the manufacturers’ displays and all, all the [00:35:00] different things we have there and the vendors. You can go and, and look at all the Ferraris on the lawn on the, on the first tee with Casa Ferrari, and you can go on the Concept Lawn to see all the concept cars, and this is all, all free.

So, um, it’s, it’s not the case that, um, it costs, you know, an incredible amount of money to come and see and enjoy and witness these cars. But on the other side of the coin, Car Week is not what it used to be. You know, it’s grown into a, you know, a very, very, very big-

Crew Chief Eric: Feels like Car Month.

Vince Finaldi: Yeah, I mean, I mean, it’s Car Christmas.

People come from all over the world and, and for a lot of people in our community, it’s more important than Christmas, you know? Probably sacrilegious to say that, but you know, they, they look forward to Car Week more than they look forward to certain holidays. Let me put it that way. I’ll try and be diplomatic, right?

And so as a, as a company, you, you have to deal with things like security. You have to deal with traffic. You have to deal with all the things that go into the infrastructure of Car Week, and those things are expensive. You, [00:36:00] you have to deal with those on the business side of it, if you will, which we’re, you know, we’re talking about the whole business side of the Concours and the whole fun side and the show become a complicated thing.

And you add on another layer, which is we used to have auto shows. Remember those? What happened to the auto show, you know? We used to be able to go to New York Auto Show and Chicago Auto Show and Los Angeles Auto Show and, you know, you’d see a lot of the cars that we loved as kids, and that’s where they were unveiled.

You know, they had the Geneva Auto Show, where some of the best cars in the world were unveiled on the stand. Come collectors are, “You know, I’ve got this car, and this was actually the car from the Geneva Auto Show. You know, this is the one that was the car We don’t have those anymore

Don Weberg: And how many cars literally got their start there?

Y- you know, you with the love of Lamborghini- Yep … we all know the history of that first show.

Vince Finaldi: Exactly.

Don Weberg: First show, and if I remember correctly, and correct me if I’m wrong, I remember the story that, uh, Lamborghini forgot to sign up for the show, and when he did, they had one space left [00:37:00] and it was right next to the bar.

And it was a small space, but Lamborghini was like, “I’ll take it. That is a great place to be.” Why? Everybody’s going to the bar.

Vince Finaldi: Yep.

Don Weberg: And how many orders were filled right there? I mean, how many car company, it doesn’t matter we’re talking Lamborghini or Chrysler, it doesn’t matter. You show the latest, greatest, people come up with a checkbook, they wanna sign up.

I miss those days.

Vince Finaldi: So now a lot of that’s done, you know, here during Car Week. All the manufacturers are here, and this is where they unveil their new products. It’s become a, a, a behemoth, if you will, of business and fun all mixed into one.

Crew Chief Eric: And you keep mentioning the business side of this, and I don’t think a lot of people realize, you know, the business of a concours, but that also entails having competitors.

So when you think about how massive Car Week has become, when Don and I were there together a couple years ago, we attended 38 events in 10 days. W- that was just the middle of the iceberg, right? Yeah. There were so many things we couldn’t go to just because scheduling conflicts and everything else. [00:38:00] But to that end, when you look at Pebble Beach Concours top three rivals, who are those?

And how are you guys trying to play nice in the sandbox, let’s just

Vince Finaldi: say? Yeah, I, I don’t, I don’t, I wouldn’t call it rivals, actually. Each concours has its own kind of place in the concours world, if you will. And maybe it’s just feels like that way for me because we’re Pebble Beach, and we’re one of the leaders in the field.

I mean, we’re the pinnacle concours in the world and, you know, it’s kind of always been that way or been that way for quite a long time And, you know, we’re in an iconic location. It’s a mecca of golf, and it’s, you know, you’re on the 18th fairway, which is famous for many, many different reasons, and going all the way back to Bing Crosby playing there with the clambake.

And what, what I’ve seen is that the leaders of these concourses actually are, are friendly with one another. We go to one another’s events. I just got back from Villa d’Este. I helped to give out a trophy there and to select a car for the President’s Trophy, and I, I get along with all of them, and we’re all friend, ’cause we’re all part of the same [00:39:00] community.

And there’s room for all these events. People go to the ones they want to go to for the reasons they wanna go to ’em. We have more people that wanna come to our event year after year than can actually go here. It’s not something where, where, you know, you have to be territorially, if you will.

Crew Chief Eric: And I know where you’re going with that, right?

In, in simple terms, I like cars, you like cars, we all like cars together. Yeah. That, that makes total sense. With so many other, let’s say, top-tier concourses that have grown up through the years in the shadow of Pebble, wanting to be like Pebble- Yeah … doesn’t that give you license then to redefine what Pebble is or even maybe put up some guardrails and say, “You know what?

We do elegance really well, and elegance is defined as X,” which unfortunately pushes out, maybe alienates some of the newer cars that we were talking about earlier. But in your vision, your future vision, what does Pebble Beach Concours look like?

Vince Finaldi: Yeah, I, I think it just continues to kinda grow on and to be what it’s always been.

Pebble’s always been an event that accepts the best of the best cars. You [00:40:00] make it on the lawn at Pebble Beach- You know, you’ve made it. You, you don’t need to win a trophy. If you get your car on the lawn at Pebble Beach, you’ve already done something that most collectors in the world have never done and, and, and most will never even get a chance to do.

Just getting your car on the lawn means that your car is grouped with anywhere from 8 to 12 of the best cars in that class in the entire world. We’ve always been able to curate the best examples of each class year after year after year, and that’s because we have a great reputation, great history, and also some of the best people working on the Concours.

The best judges out there, the best experts, and the best people on the selection committee that are out helping to find these cars and to get them here. That’s something that we’re gonna continue to do and, and continue to be a leader in the field. That’s something that I think other Concours have kind of seen as, as a good thing.

We wanna get the best cars as well, and we wanna have rigorous, [00:41:00] disciplined, strict judging with real rules so that when you win Pebble Beach, everyone knows that that’s the best car in that class without a doubt. Some Concours out there, they’re not like that. You know, they have different types of judging.

They have popular judging or what you will, so you, you might win a, an award, top award from another Concours, but it doesn’t mean it was the best car there because they don’t have the same judging standards. That’s something that’s very important to me. It’s important to the Concours to, to adhere to those strict standards and to continue that.

Don Weberg: Then for some people who want to try to get their car on the lawn, I mean, do they pick up the phone and say, “Hey, I got a great Duesenberg”? How do they do that?

Vince Finaldi: Yeah, they go to the website. That’s where they can get the application. Anyone can apply. Anyone with any car can apply.

Don Weberg: Mm-hmm.

Vince Finaldi: And a lot do Application form talks about the different classes and the special classes that’ll be there that year.

And, um, you know, you can figure out which class that your car fits into, and, you know, you write down all the reasons why it’s a special car, and it’s a great car, and [00:42:00] you include photos, and you submit it. And if you’re selected, then you get to bring it here and, uh, be part of the show.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, you mentioned something about the special classes, or what I like to call the featured marque, and I really was impressed at how that changes every year.

Especially last year, Shelby was the featured marque, right? And so that was super cool as we had worked with Aaron Shelby on a project together and things like that. And so I was wondering, is it sort of like the Olympic Committee? You already know, like, years in advance what the featured marque is? Or is it, how do you guys organize, how do you figure that out?

Vince Finaldi: Yeah, kind of. You know, certain classes are very, very, very difficult to put together. And, and, and I’ll, I’ll go back 40 years into what I think was the most difficult class ever, which was the Bugatti Royales. Bugatti Royales were incredibly expensive, and I think it was 1985, Pebble Beach was able to assemble every single Bugatti Royale that was made, and it was on the lawn at the 18th Pebble Beach.

Happened one time, the only time they’ve been together, and it’s probably gonna be the only time it [00:43:00] ever happens in the world, because now they’re scattered at different collections, most of them in Europe. And the prices of those cars is so astronomical- That shipping them, it’s another world how expensive it is because of the insurance mainly.

But to get all those Bugattis together on the field, one of the cars was actually in, I think, Germany. Person who owned the car, I, I think the government had kind of seized the cars because, you know, there was an allegation that there was some tax issues or some, uh, nefarious activity in, in, in, with money, right?

So the car was seized by the government. So this is one of the Bugattis that came in for the Concourse. But in order to get it in, once it left the country, that person could potentially make a claim against the car saying, “Hey, this was improperly seized, and it shouldn’t have been seized and, and therefore should be given back to me,” right?

So they had to get basically diplomatic rights for the car to bring it in here so that it was immune from that type of thing, and that [00:44:00] was done through the federal government. So y- the amount that had to be done in order to bring those cars… And this was 1985 when the world was a lot less complicated, I would argue, than it is now.

And so to put that class together took years of work, negotiation, preparation, funding, and that’s something that, you know, Pebble’s been doing for years and years. So yeah, there’s classes that we’re prepping for 2028, 2029, 2030. Can I tell you what those ones are? No. You’re gonna have to find out like everyone else.

But I can tell you they’re gonna be great.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you are gonna be king for a day. If Vince could have his own class, would it be a Lamborghini Miura class, or is there something else you personally, and I know it’s decided by committee, but that you personally want to see on the lawn at some point at Pebble?

Vince Finaldi: Yeah, there have been Miura classes. I’ve seen, you know, Miuras on the lawn for years. That’s something that’s not… Actually, for the first time, we’re actually gonna have cars on the third fairway. We’re opening up the entire third fairway to [00:45:00] Lamborghini because it’s the 60th anniversary of the Lamborghini Miura.

So we’re gonna have a huge gathering of Miuras all on the third lawn this year, and we’re hoping to have the largest gathering ever of Miuras. I think the largest one before this was 30 cars, and we’re looking to beat that, and I think we have a very good chance of doing it. But to say, you know, which other class, I, I just wanna have interesting classes of cars that people are gonna love and that maybe have never been together and may never be together again for various different reasons.

As long as we continue to do that, I’ll be happy and, and I’ll think that’s a good thing.

Don Weberg: Eric, I just wanna say, I, I think- Nope … you know, Vince, I speak for a lot of us when I bring this up.

Crew Chief Eric: Nope.

Don Weberg: At some point, I think you need to have a Chrysler TC by Maserati class. I just do.

Vince Finaldi: T by Maserati.

Don Weberg: That’s it. Best car ever made right there

Vince Finaldi: You gotta get it through the selection committee, right?

So the way it works is people submit their applications. The applications [00:46:00] all go to the selection committee. Selection committee is made up of members of the car community. They’re some of the most renowned experts in all these different marks, and we meet together one time at the beginning of the year, and we go through all the applications, and we decide which cars are gonna be accepted and which cars are not gonna be accepted.

And then at the end of the selection committee, we talk about the classes that we’re gonna maybe wanna have for the next year. So someone in the, in the selection committee s- could say, “Hey, Chrysler TC is the best car ever made, you know, they should have stopped in 1989 because they won. We could just focus on airplanes or something because the car was won back then.”

And if, you know, a lot of people on the selection committee agree, yeah, then, then you’ll see a Chrysler TC class. If you were to ask me the odds of that, I’d probably be wagering against it.

Don Weberg: For my Chrysler TC people out there, what Vince is trying to say is that, for lack of a better word, bribery goes a long way.

Crew Chief Eric: Uh, yeah, okay.

Don Weberg: A lot of [00:47:00] bribery.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So Vince, as we begin to close this out, I wanna pose the question that goes kind of contrary to what you said earlier, right, especially during your interview process, which is, don’t talk to the guy that’s all about change, change, change. Yeah. But as you take over Pebble Beach Concours, what are some of the things, if you can share, that you do want to change, that you’re actively looking to make better for everybody at Pebble Beach?

Vince Finaldi: Nothing huge. You know, nothing huge. I mean, there’s not, you know, you’re, you’re not gonna have this big groundbreaking, you know, we’re gonna completely upend it and, and, and retool the whole thing and … Just small things. Figuring out h- how to bring in some of the newer cars because, you know, the focus is big concentration on these newer cars right now, and so to figure out a way to do that so that you don’t have 40 red F40s on the show field, you know, which is not interesting.

It’s not fun. It’s, it’s not what we do. So how to, how to tweak the classes and how to bring in classes so that you’re accepting these new [00:48:00] cars, finding a place for them, bringing in new collectors while still respecting all the other classes and, and having a place for those.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Vince, with that, we’ve reached the part of the episode where I like to invite our guests to share any shout-outs, thank yous, promotions, or anything else that we haven’t covered thus far.

Vince Finaldi: So it’s the 75th anniversary this year of the Concourse. It’s the longest continual Concourse, uh, if you will. There are some other Concourses that may have started earlier, but they had huge 10, 20, 30 year breaks. Me doing this for 75 years is a real special thing. We’ve got a great class of cars. If you’ve never been to the Concourse in Pebble Beach, it’s something that should be on every car guy’s bucket list, and gals.

Don Weberg: In a world where the collector car landscape is always shifting, conversations like this remind us why stewardship matters. Vince Finaldi steps into Pebble Beach not as a disruptor, but as a caretaker, someone shaped by lineage, sharpened by experience, and grounded by the belief that the Concours is a living tradition.

[00:49:00] His vision isn’t about reinvention. It’s about thoughtful evolution, the kind that keeps history alive while opening the door for the next generation of enthusiasts.

Crew Chief Eric: And as we look ahead to what Pebble Beach Concours becomes under Vince’s leadership, one thing is clear. The passion that brought him into the garage all those years ago is the same passion guiding him now, and that’s exactly the kind of energy that keeps this community vibrant.

And if you want to explore more about the Concours culture, automotive preservation, or the future of car collecting, be sure to visit pebblebeachconcours.com. So with that, Vince, I can’t thank you enough for joining us on BreakFix and sharing the story behind this new chapter at Pebble Beach. It’s not every day you get to hear directly from the person stepping into one of the most influential roles in the collector car world.

And your openness about its lineage, your leadership in the future of the Concours is gonna make Pebble truly something special to see, and I’m happy we’re here to see it happen. So thank you.

Vince Finaldi: Thanks. Thanks for having me. I look forward to [00:50:00] coming back and talking with you guys with new updates in the future.

Crew Chief Eric: Any time. You’re welcome back any time.

Vince Finaldi: All righty.

Don Weberg: The following episode is brought to us in part by Garage Style Magazine. Since 2007, Garage Style Magazine has been the definitive source for car collectors, continually delivering information about automobilia, petroliana, events, and more. To learn more about the annual publication and its new website, be sure to follow them on social media @garagestylemagazine or log on to www.garagestylemagazine.com.

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

Crew Chief Eric: We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Break Fix Podcast, brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports. If you’d like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure to follow us on all social media platforms @grandtouringmotorsports. And if you’d like to learn more about the [00:51:00] content of this episode, be sure to check out the follow-on article at gtmotorsports.org.

We remain a commercial-free and no annual fees organization through our sponsors, but also through the generous support of our fans, families, and friends through Patreon. For as little as $2.50 a month, you can get access to more behind-the-scenes action, additional Pit Stop minisodes, and other VIP goodies, as well as keeping our team of creators fed on their strict diet of Fig Newtons, Gummi Bears, and Monster.

So, consider signing up for Patreon today at www.patreon.com/gtmotorsports. And remember, without you, none of this would be possible.

Highlights

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 Pebble Beach Concours New Era
01:15 Vince’s Family Roots in Cars
03:37 Falling for the Miura
06:15 Flipping Cars to Fund Dreams
12:37 Deep Dive Car Obsession & Hunting the Next Classic
16:14 From Courtroom to Carmel
20:11 Taking the Pebble Torch
22:13 How Concours Evolves
23:51 Concours Origins and the Tour d’Elegance
25:57 Market Shift in Collecting
27:52 Concours as Classroom and Making Room for New Greats
32:39 Do EVs Belong Here?
33:59 Youth Access and Free Events
35:20 Car Week Business Reality
39:21 Pebble Vision and Standards
41:30 How to Apply and Get In
42:05 Building Future Featured Classes
44:32 Miura Anniversary and Dream Classes
47:01 Small Changes Ahead
48:06 75th Anniversary Wrap Up
50:10 Sponsor and Show Outro

Learn More

If you’re thinking about attending the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance for the first time, you’re stepping into one of the most extraordinary automotive experiences in the world. It’s more than a car show — it’s a week‑long celebration of history, craftsmanship, and community on the Monterey Peninsula.

Here are a few essentials to help you make the most of it:

Tour d’Elegance — Held a few days before the Concours, this free event lets you see many of the show cars in motion as they drive along the coast. It’s one of the best ways to experience the machinery up close without a ticket.
Concours Village — Open to the public, this area features manufacturer displays, ride‑and‑drive opportunities, expert forums, and the always‑popular RetroAuto marketplace.
The Sunday Concours — The main event on the 18th fairway. Tickets are pricey, but the experience is unmatched: the world’s finest cars, judged to the highest standards, with the Pacific as the backdrop.
Plan ahead — Hotels book up early, traffic can be intense, and weather on the peninsula changes quickly. Comfortable shoes and layers are your best friends.
Explore the week — Pebble Beach is the anchor, but the surrounding events — auctions, rallies, shows, and gatherings — create a full ecosystem of automotive culture.
Remember the mission — At its core, the Concours is a major fundraiser for local charities. Every ticket, every entry, and every moment on the lawn supports community programs across the region.

Whether you’re there for the history, the craftsmanship, the spectacle, or the people, Pebble Beach is an experience that stays with you. And as Vince Finaldi reminds us, it’s a living tradition — one that welcomes newcomers just as warmly as it honors decades‑long participants.

Bonus Content

There's more to this story!

Be sure to check out the behind the scenes for this episode, filled with extras, bloopers, and other great moments not found in the final version. Become a Break/Fix VIP today by joining our Patreon.

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.

That second life took root on the Monterey Peninsula, where Finaldi opened his own restoration shop and immersed himself in the local car community. His hands‑on approach and deep historical curiosity led him into the world of Lamborghini Miuras — restoring them, sourcing rare parts, and even driving his first Miura with legendary test driver Valentino Balboni riding shotgun. His work reflects a philosophy inherited from his family: buy right, improve condition, and reinvest in the next project. Restoration, for Finaldi, is as much detective work and relationship‑building as it is mechanical skill.

When the Pebble Beach Concours began quietly preparing for leadership transition, Finaldi initially hesitated. But the event’s philanthropic mission — raising significant funds for local charities — ultimately convinced him. Today, he sees Pebble Beach as a living, breathing institution that evolves carefully and deliberately. Under his guidance, the Concours will continue its tradition of incremental change: welcoming important post‑war and modern supercars, curating special classes, and using contemporary icons like the McLaren F1 or Ferrari F40 to draw younger enthusiasts toward the pre‑war Bugattis and Duesenbergs that define the event’s heritage.

Photo Kimball Studios, Courtesy of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance

Finaldi views the Pebble lawn as both a celebration and a classroom. He’s committed to maintaining the rigorous judging standards that make Pebble Beach the benchmark for concours events worldwide, while also expanding access through the week’s free public offerings — the Tour d’Elegance, Concours Village, manufacturer displays, and more. He understands the realities of modern collecting, the rising costs of participation, and the need to balance accessibility with the logistical demands of a global event.

Photo by Sheman Chu; Courtesy of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance

Looking ahead, Finaldi is already shaping future moments on the lawn. For 2026, he’s planning a major Lamborghini Miura gathering to honor the marque’s 60th anniversary, with more special classes in development. But true to his philosophy, he’s not rushing change. His role, as he describes it, is that of a caretaker — someone entrusted with preserving Pebble Beach’s soul while thoughtfully opening doors for the next generation.

In Vince Finaldi, the Concours has found a leader who understands its past, respects its present, and is ready to guide its future with steady hands and a historian’s heart.

Other episodes you might enjoy

All your favorite episodes starring Don Weberg from Garage Style Magazine! ... Because after all, what doesn't belong in your garage?

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The Story of a Painting: Porsche 550 Spyder

History of Motorsports

Wallace Wyss

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July 16, 2026

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The Story of a Painting: Porsche 550 Spyder

In SoCal, blessed by good weather, there are dozens of car events each weekend. As a fine artist portraying cars of the past, I like to pick one event to go to each weekend.

Sometimes it is the cars that draw me. Other times it’s the setting and the cars. The setting this time was a Cars & Coffee held monthly at Trancas, a shopping center in Malibu, near Zuma Beach, one of the last beaches before you enter Ventura County.

It was generally newer sports car owners who attended but occasionally there was an old classic. Now winter is a hard time to shoot because the sun comes up Godawful early. I actually went even before the sun was up, which was scheduled to take place at 5:30am. It was a horrible drive from 40 miles inland–once I hit Pacific Coast Highway it was so dark and foggy it was like driving through black cotton candy,

A few cars were there when I arrived in pitch dark conditions. Then I saw the silver 550 Spyder. I didn’t know much history on the model, but will take a minute to cover it.

Porsche needed a race car to compete in the roadster class, and that’s just why the 550 Spyder was created when the production cars weren’t competitive.. They went into racing almost immediately. The third 550 prototype and first 550 to race won its first event at the Nürburgring Eifel Race in 1953.They racked up many more wins, 95 victories and 75 class wins in a long list of 370 races.

Ironically Porsche didn’t think the design up. After Porsche won some races with Gmund coupes, a local mechanic named Walter Glockler won some with his Eigenbau (homemade) specials. Porsche imitated him but made sure it was street legal so you could drive to and from the track.

A Porsche engineer, Ernst Fuhrmann, made a special engine — a flat DOHC engine, similar to engines in Formula 1. It was far more complex than the production 1500 cc engine in the 356, which after all was derived from the humble VW.

Porsche went to an outside contractor, Weidenhausen of Frankfurt , for the alloy bodies for the two cars being raced in the 1953 season. Victory first time out, but the model’s glory is forever tarnished by it being the model driven by actor James Dean, when he fatally crashed on the way to a race Dean was killed when he got bored towing the 550 Spyder he had entered in a race up in Northern California so he took it off the trailer and drove with his mechanic.

He collided with a Ford Tudor sedan along then-U.S. Route 446 near Cholame, California. The Ford, was piloted by then 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, who was turning at an intersection when the two cars hit almost head-on. Dean’s car, easily a ton lighter, was reduced to a total wreck. Dean died. His mechanic survived.

In Malibu, 70 plus years later, I was in front of a silver car that looked like Dean’s ride, the sun burning through the fog and the glossy silver of the car caught the light but the crowd was still emerging from darkness, the sun lighting their hair but their faces were still suffused in the fog. I began shooting and only caught five shots before-BAM–I realized it was no use to shoot any further–the sun was up and it was already too bright. I made a painting later based on the best shot in the fog, gratified that the car had emerged as the main player–the crowds’ faces were still fighting to emerge from the fog and darkness, only their hair had caught the sun,

I don’t know when I will have another such opportunity–a historic car, the right color, a fog-cloaked darkness rapidly disappearing like a stage curtain and a car I remember well, if only for the saddest reason. I remember the day it happened, and the subsequent special staging of a tribute to James Dean at a local theatre which I was too squeamish to attend….

EDITOR’S NOTE: This print, a 20″x 30″ on canvas, is being offered by Wallace Wyss to galleries, sports car emporiums, and museums on a consignment basis. Interested parties can reach Mr. Wyss as photojournalistpro2@gmail.com

Tommy Kendall: A Full‑Circle Journey Through Le Mans

Gran T

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July 14, 2026

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Tommy Kendall: A Full‑Circle Journey Through Le Mans

Few American racers embody versatility, resilience, and longevity quite like Tommy Kendall. Known for his dominance in Trans Am and his unmistakable presence in American motorsport, Kendall’s relationship with the 24 Hours of Le Mans is a story of timing, opportunity, and unfinished business. His two appearances — in 2000 and 2013 — bookend a career defined by both triumph and introspection.

In a recent Evening With a Legend session, Kendall opened up about his path to Le Mans, the culture shock of racing in France, and the emotional weight of endurance racing’s greatest stage.

Kendall’s early racing years were shaped by the American scene — IMSA, Trans Am, and the factory‑backed programs that defined the 1980s and ’90s. Le Mans, by contrast, felt distant: “It was on my radar as one of the great races, but it was… so foreign. I couldn’t really even imagine what it was like.” The U.S. and European racing worlds were largely disconnected then. Different platforms, different priorities, and few crossover opportunities meant that even top American drivers rarely found themselves on the grid at La Sarthe.

Synopsis

This Evening With A Legend welcomes road racing standout Tommy Kendall tracing his long path to the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Tommy recounts early racing beginnings, limited U.S.-Europe crossover in his prime, and how a secret pre-Saleen S7 plan led to his 2000 Le Mans debut in a Franz Konrad Porsche, including a spoof “Fumfour” story published during the race.

He describes Le Mans’ unmatched speed, endurance-race sleep discipline, international pageantry, and the shift to relentless modern pace. Kendall then details his 2013 return with the factory SRT Viper GTS-R amid heavy rain, long cautions, a fatal early accident, a risky slick-tire stint without traction control, and a right-rear failure that made it his worst stint. He also discusses Corvette-Viper rivalry, broadcasting Le Mans remotely, Daytona vs. Le Mans demands, dream cars, and possible Le Mans Classic interest.

You got started in racing at a very young age, your debut after Karting, was in IMSA – 1985 in an RX-7 (at the age of 18), was it always a dream to race at Le Mans?
What do you remember most vividly about your first experience at Le Mans in 2000.
What happened between 2000 and 2013 – why such a long break between LeMans attempts?
How did it feel to return to Le Mans nearly a decade and a half later in 2013, and how had the race—and you as a driver—changed in that time?
Can you describe the atmosphere and energy of the Le Mans paddock during your first appearance compared to your second?
Let’s talk about the SRT Viper GTS-R in 2013 at LeMans, what was it like to drive? Let’s say compared to other Trans-AM cars you’d campaigned, was it similar in a way (big power, big torque) – both in technology and race strategy?
In the mid 2010s you found yourself commentating on a bunch of the long format races; what about LeMans?
What lessons did you take from your early Le Mans experience that helped you throughout your career in Trans-Am, IMSA, and beyond?
What moments from your two Le Mans races stand out as defining or personally meaningful to you? What did LM teach you?

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Evening With a Legend is a series of presentations exclusive to legends of the famous 24 hours of lamont giving us an opportunity to bring a piece of LAMA to you. By sharing stories and highlights of the big event, you get a chance to become part of the Legend of Lama with guests from different eras of over 100 years of racing.

Crew Chief Eric: Tonight we have an opportunity to bring a piece of LAMA to you sharing in the Legend of Lama with guests from different eras of over 100 years of racing. And as your host, I’m delighted to introduce Tommy Kendall, one of America’s most versatile and accomplished road racers who first attempted to take on the 24 hours of LAMA in 2000, driving a Franz Conrad GT two Porsche.

Nearly a decade and a half later, Tommy made a celebrated return to LAMA in [00:01:00] 2013 driving the SRT Viper GTSR with the factory backed team in GTE Pro. Together, Tommy’s two Lama’s appearances illustrate a remarkable full circle journey defined by skill, resilience, and a genuine love for racing at the highest level.

And with that, I’m your host crew chief Eric from the Motor Inc Podcast Network. Welcoming everyone to this evening with the legend. So Tommy, welcome to the show.

Tommy Kendall: Wow, thank you. That was quite the intro. I appreciate that. And then actually, I, I gotta show you my t-shirt, which is, I won’t butcher it in French, but it basically says open 24 hours.

Clever t-shirt. This was the next t-shirt on my stack in the closet today. So it was, uh, lined up well, I said, or nearly, I’d put a, maybe a collared shirt on. I said, you know what, this is appropriate, so. Wearing a little Lamar merch.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we’re gonna crank up the way back machine, which is eventually gonna get us to how you got that shirt.

But you got started in racing at a very young age. Your debut after carting was in IMSA in 1985 and an RX seven, which if I recall, your dad got you into at the ripe [00:02:00] young age of 18. So at that time, was it on your mind? Was it a dream to race at Lama?

Tommy Kendall: Well, actually it goes even before that I found a loophole.

Back then you couldn’t get an SCCA or an EMS a license until you’re 18, but I found out that the Jim Russell School series would let you in if you were 16 as long as you’d been through their school. So I ran the Jim Russell school series. The year before when I was 17, but on some level I had these grandiose dreams that included everything, formula One, et cetera.

My connection to everything back then was basically Autoweek and On Track Magazine. It’s hard for people, even people that lived through it, to really remember what it was like then. There was no cable tv, there was no internet. And so the coverage was so much different. You had three channels, network channels that had maybe two races a year on Daytona and Indie tape delayed, and the magazines came out with a huge lag from what was live or you know, so they weren’t even really news related.

They’d have a little blurb on LA Mall three months later [00:03:00] on Track and Auto Week were my connection. Once my dad started doing some racing, I was. 13, 14 years old and I was just a sponge, and so I literally read those cover to cover. So that was my only exposure to the European scene. But I remember, you know, when Mario went with, uh, with Harley Clarkston and that garage and, uh, or Mirage, and they got sent away at the last second.

And so all the drama. So it was on my radar as, you know, one of the greater races. But it was, pardon the pun, it was so foreign. I mean, I, I couldn’t really even imagine or, or grasp what it was like.

Crew Chief Eric: So what’s fun about your story is started in 85 and we have 15 years until your first attempt at Lamont, and then we got almost 15 years, your second attempt at Lamont.

So in that gap in the first 15 years, a lot of folks know Tommy Kendall. It’s a name that is. Synonymous with Trans Am racing in the United States, and then unfortunately there was the crash at the Glen in 91. We don’t have to go there if you don’t want to, but let’s talk about your road to Lama from 85 [00:04:00] to 2000.

How did you put the deal together? Why did it take so long to get there As such a superstar in American racing

Tommy Kendall: now things are so good in terms of the US and Europe and Lamar all being well integrated. And commonality of platforms and all that. It was exactly the opposite for basically my whole career.

And so 2000 is really after my career. My career was 86 to 97, the serious part of my career where I was a factory guy and just doing all kinds of stuff. That whole era, there was very little American participation or involvement, either as a team or a driver because they’re just, they didn’t intersect from a tech platform standpoint, any of that stuff.

They diverged virtually completely. It’s sort of, I don’t know if regrets, I guess it is a regret. I don’t like to have regrets, so I think things work out for a reason. But you know, if things were different, you know, I was one of the main factory guys here, so if there was any factory programs, I’d have been over there.

And so, you know, when I was with Chevrolet, that was always on her. [00:05:00] Officials radar. He was trying to figure out how to get to Lamont ’cause he held it in the highest regard, uh, right there up with all the big races of the world. And so he was trying to figure it out when I was there. And it eventually turned into the Cadillac program with, uh, Riley did, and then the Corvette program also herb’s doing so for me, it literally just wasn’t really an option.

You could always say it’s on my list and I’m gonna. Go outside of my sphere of influence and try to make something happen over there. You had guys racing at Bering when it wasn’t on anyone’s radar, so you can do whatever you want, but my focus was here. All my opportunities were here, so, and that’s kind of how it was.

So kind of a bummer in that regard. It underscores how good things are right now, and I know it took a long time to get there, but I remember. Ironically, I was at Baltimore racing the Viper in 2012 when they first announced that top class at IMSA and Lamar Europe were gonna converge. And Robin Miller came up to me and said, what do you think?

I said, this is so great because it’s [00:06:00] like we race in parallel and uh, everyone wants to see everybody the best go at it and full representation. And so what’s happened since then has been. Been really awesome to watch. So my career basically ended in 97. I won my fourth, I guess, TransAm championship. That was the year we won 11 races in a row, almost swept the table.

And then Ford was getting out of TransAm. So that wasn’t really an option anymore. I was being pushed towards nascar. I wasn’t. Uh, I, I, I actually had agreed to a deal to go to NASCAR racing with Roush, and then they changed their mind at the last second, right before it got signed, and ironically signed Greg Biffle.

And so, uh, worked out well for him and, and it worked out well for me, even though it was the end of my serious race days. So the 2000 thing, there’s a really interesting story about how I ended up there. I guess it was in 19 end of 99, maybe. I had signed a deal with Celine to drive the new S seven, and the deal hadn’t been announced yet.

They said, we want you to get some LAMA experience before we go back with the S [00:07:00] seven, but it hasn’t been announced, so you can’t tell anyone why. So they actually arranged the ride in the Conrad Porsche. So I showed up there four years after retiring, just in a plain white suit. I couldn’t tell anyone why I was there, so it was like, uh.

Well, I just thought I’d come rent a ride at LA Mall, and so it’s really, it was really unusual. There were a few people that know there was a dinner the night before with Mark Coghlan who was with Valvoline, and then he was the one that kind of broker the deal to get me into that Celine car. He went on to.

Big things, brokering the sprint deal for NASCAR and so forth. And then Paul fan from Racer also was there, and he knew, but they were sworn to secrecy. And so that night they each indulged in plenty of wine. I didn’t the night before the race, but I crafted this story. I said, you know what? I’ve always wanted to do this story about, uh, an imaginary persona and adopt that and go racing and just totally off the wall.

And it, we just kept spitballing and it turned into. That I was gonna change my name to Fum [00:08:00] four, who was this Salvadorian racer that used to race at ims. And I always thought it was so funny that his name showed up as one name, like Madonna, on all the grid sheets. It was Fum four. I said, I’m gonna relaunch as FM four, and I’m not gonna speak a word, I’m never gonna talk to anyone, and it’s gonna be called the Falmour Silent, that Deadly Tour.

And I’m gonna have beautiful girls on either side of me, and whenever I’m interviewed, I’m just gonna make a hand motion, one of four hand motions, and they’re gonna answer the question for me. So this whole spitball thing happened. Paul fan wrote this up into a story and released it on the Racer website as real in the middle of the Laval race.

It was up for a handful of hours, so just idol minds do fun things.

Crew Chief Eric: How do you feel being the inspiration for Franz Herman?

Tommy Kendall: There you go. And I mean, John Winter is a great story. Lou Krauss, who I raced with in GTP, his family didn’t want him racing and he couldn’t tell. So he entered under the nom to drive, I guess you would say.

Crew Chief Eric: So let’s talk a little bit more about 2000. We’ll get deeper into the details of the race [00:09:00] itself. But up until that point, you really hadn’t done too much long format racing, especially 24 hours at a track like lama, which is a whole nother level of endurance racing out there. So when you got there and you, you’re turning your first laps, you’re learning the track, obviously there was a probably a ton of preparation or maybe there wasn’t.

How did it compare to what you were used to here? Stateside?

Tommy Kendall: Well, you said. I hadn’t raced on a track like Lamar. Let me stop, stop you right there. There is no track like Lamar, it’s, it’s its own league. And that was the biggest impression. And the way I explain it to people is obviously racing is speed and it’s fast.

So we’ve got some fast tracks, but it’s like Lamont, everything is just. That much faster. Everything is a gear higher, and so the medium speed corners are are just faster medium speed corners. The fast corners are faster than the fast corners, and so it’s really impressive and daunting. Now, I’d been out of a car for four years, three years I guess.

I wasn’t razor sharp. I never drove the car before I showed up and never got a chance to. I never raced a [00:10:00] Porsche, never raced a range. It was not ideal. It’s not how I like to go about those kinds of things. You know, my whole career was kind of a study in the opposite, total preparation, giving myself every advantage and so forth.

So, I mean, that was my first takeaway was just how fast the track was and how daunting now. If I had been there when I was super, super sharp, like in 97 and in a car I knew and it was the only variable, it probably wouldn’t have been as daunting, but to be not as sharp as I was used to being in a car that I had never driven before in a configuration rear engine that I’d never driven before.

Obviously I was still only. 30 something years old, young, and you know, I hadn’t forgotten a lot, but just wasn’t as practice. So I felt good, but I didn’t feel, I was used to feeling like in full command of everything and the guy to beat. I didn’t feel that way there. It turns out that year, the, the vets and the vipers had sort of proceeded beyond where that Porsche was.

It was a little longer [00:11:00] than the tooth, but it was, it was the perfect way to learn. The car ran well. We had a little bit of an overheating problem. Had to back the revs down at one point. But we really had pretty much a trouble free run and I think we fin, we finished either seventh or eighth in class.

And so that was a shock too because, uh, the last time I had run at Daytona in the big V eight cars, I mean a decade, yeah, not quite even a decade, but either was still a very much an element of pacing. And saving the equipment somewhat. And so that was the transition into the era where the cars were really getting bulletproof and you could really drive ’em hard the whole time to have a trouble free run and not be on the podium, I thought.

And that was a, that was an eyeopener to me. And we were, we were seventh or eight. Those were the main takeaways that year.

Crew Chief Eric: Coming from TransAm, which is considered sprint racing, even though it’s probably maybe the longest sprint race format that there is almost, you know, nowadays it’s almost a two hour race.

What was the physical demands like coming from that type of format or even from NASCAR into lama where you, [00:12:00] you’re doing two, three hour stints, but it drags on for the whole day and you gotta be up and be in the team and get the notes and be in sync with the other drivers. What was that like?

Tommy Kendall: Fortunately, that aspect wasn’t that foreign to me because 85, I did several showroom stock, 24 hour races, and I did Daytona, the Rolex. I did that I guess five times, and so that element wasn’t that foreign. One thing I learned early on after my first. Uh, Rolex was you don’t want to miss anything and you wanna keep track of everything.

And, and as the driver, you don’t have to do that. That’s not your job. And so to learn to leave that to other people and go get your rest and go do everything you need to do, I learned thankfully early in my career. And so that’s, that’s a really important part that maybe a lot of people don’t fully appreciate.

There’s like this part where you’re like, if I close my eyes, the world’s gonna fall apart. You know, I need to watch to make sure nothing happens. You can’t do anything about it, and you’re not the guy that works on the car anyways, but it’s just get really good at the mental discipline of shutting down.

Getting your rest so that [00:13:00] you’re sharp. That’s what’s so cool about those types of races. Even if you do all that stuff, you’re still short on sleep because you know, with three drivers in Lamont, you’re limited to three drivers. At Diona, you can have four. What you don’t realize is say you’re out of the car.

If everyone’s doing two hour stints, that means you’re gonna be out of the car for four. Well, of that four, there’s 30 minutes. You get out, you’re cooling down, you’re debriefing a little bit, you’re going to get something to eat. You’re getting outta your wet stuff, and then you can’t just show up right when the car comes in.

You’ve gotta be there ahead of time because if a yellow comes out, might put them into too long. So the reality is. Even if you do it perfectly in that situation, you might be getting an hour and a half of sleep sometimes. I had some teammates before at Im SA, like Mark Martin was my favorite teammate.

Even people say, well, he’s a NASCAR guy. I said, yeah, but that guy has no problem driving three and a half hours. I would drive three and a half hours. The limit was four. If you could get one more guy like that, now you’re talking seven hours out of the car. So you clip an hour or two on either end. You get some real sleep.

That’s a, [00:14:00] an element that I don’t think people fully appreciate how hard that is and why you’re so drained. And then Lamar also one thing because it started later in the day. You kind of have almost a full day before the race starts when it had a 3:00 PM start. And so you’re tired and so forth. So it really is like a day and a half deal, which just exacerbates it, you know, it, it really is an amazing challenge and that’s why.

Even finishing there ordinarily, it’s all about winning. Even finishing there really, really does have a sense of accomplishment. You really feel like you’ve been through the wars and you’ve done something special, and there’s a sense of bonding whenever you go some through something really, really hard with a group of people.

It’s, it’s unlike anything else.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s funny you say that, you know, talking about the war aspect of it. One of our previous legends referred to LAMA as a British race on French soil and kept referred to as a battle at LAMA between all the different teams. And so what was that like for you coming over? I mean, there’s been Americans that have gone to lama, but it’s.

Always sprinkled over its history. You were fortunate on the, [00:15:00] the France Conrad team to be partnered with Charles Slatter, who’s also an American, and then you had a German co-driver as well. So how were you guys received? You know, had you met each other beforehand? How did the team dynamics and chemistry work?

Tommy Kendall: We hadn’t met each other before, so you have to form that rapport. And that’s one of the funny things is you, once the race starts, you don’t. Get a lot of time to hang out ’cause everyone’s focused on getting their your sleep. And so you have this quick exchange when you’re getting into that car. There was no weirdness at all about being foreign.

It’s such an international thing. And I do remember explicitly that 2000 drivers meeting. I sat by McKay Reto and I remember just looking around at this incredible gathering of veterans like him that have been through Formula One and now we’re running. Lama youngsters, guys like me that were somewhere in the middle and you have a lot of drivers.

That many 54 cars with three drivers. What’s that? 162 drivers. So it really is pretty cool in in that regard and it’s my favorite part of LAMA has to do [00:16:00] with that. They play the full national anthem, not a stiff, the full national anthem of every country where there’s a driver from. And so, needless to say, this takes an hour, at least before in the runup.

And obviously the French anthem is the last one. And uh, it’s just, it’s so cool. It pageantry. And that’s the kind of thing, maybe when they did it, at first people thought, oh, this is hokey. I don’t know. When, whenever someone starts new things, you’re like, what’s the point of this? Well, that’s, those are the things that become.

Such a part of the fabric, whether it’s, you know, the seventh inning stretch in a baseball game, or you know, all these things with a hundred years, a hundred plus years of history now. At LA Mall. All those things are just really cherished rituals, and so the parade is unlike anything else, and you can explain it to people that they can’t understand what it’s like the parade through the town of Lamar.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I’m glad you bring up the patriotism part of this, and I keep going back to the year 2000. Because it’s important. A lot of things happened that year. Those are the years of the big reigns. You had Audi coming on the scene and [00:17:00] kind of dominating and taking over, but at the same time, we had a previous legend on here name that is familiar to a lot of people running for Team Corvette.

We had Andy Pilgrim up on the podium representing the United States representing gm. How did that make you feel to see that you’re out there in a nine 11 watching Andy, you know, in the Corvette

Tommy Kendall: and that team was also comprised the guys when I retired and left Roush. The bulk of those guys. They did Craftsman Truck for a little while, but by 2000 they were overrunning The Corvette team from Doug Feehan, Dan Binks, Brian Hoy, Jim Durbin, Ross Jeffries, on and on and on.

All those guys. And I’ve always been really patriotic. My dad was that way and uh, passed it along to me. And so that aspect of it. I like healthy, patriotic rivalry, you know, and so I have an appreciation for all the different ones. But there, there is an element A, the American stuff, the cars were just different, you know, the big thunder and so forth and so on.

And I remember when my dad was racing, uh, Billy Hagen took the strata craft Camaro over there. [00:18:00] And it was just, it seemed like it was unlike anything they’d seen before. Obviously if I’d thought about it at the time, I would’ve realized there had been other big ground pounding cars before, but just the American V eight aspect and it, it’s sort of unapologetically American for better or worse.

And it’s funny. So there seems to be mostly good natured, but a little bit of a love hate with American stuff, you know? Parodies of Americans, I’m, I’m kind of that, you know, Ricky, Bobby, big hairy, American winning machine, you know? Um, and so, but that just adds to the cool part of it. And Americans were definitely underrepresented, very well represented now.

Very well represented now. And that’s a function of, like I said, how they’ve gotten, everything’s worked out where the. Technical specs are well aligned, the classes, and it just really supercharges the involvement for everyone. It just makes it a lot easier to be involved.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you said Cabra, which opens the door for a one word or maybe two word question.

Garage 56.

Tommy Kendall: Oh, yeah. Uh, you know what, I have to [00:19:00] say, I was, uh, very pleasantly surprised. I know the Hendrick, a lot of the Hendrick guys, especially the special project guys that, that fell under. Jimmy Johnson’s a, a very old good friend of mine as well. So I have to admit, when they first started down that road and I said they’re gonna use a a cup chassis and weight is the enemy in cup racing, everyone weighs the same.

So no one notices. And it’s kind of an element of why the racing, I think is as different as it is, is is that weight. But I said if they go over there and they don’t really do some work to get a big chunk of that weight out, everything else could be the same. I said it, it could turn out really not like they.

Think it will, you can always pour power to it and get lap time, but if all the time was coming on the straightaway and you’re just like a jam car in the corners, I said, you’re not gonna make any friends and you’re not gonna also have the effect from, but they nailed it because, I mean, has there ever been a more popular program?

I mean, the reaction to that and they, they did a great [00:20:00] job in terms of how, how they, the guys that drove it was a big piece of it. So it really was. A flawlessly executed from a marketing standpoint and from a product and technical standpoint, it was pretty damn cool.

Crew Chief Eric: So you mentioned before the nine 11 was uncharted territory.

You were basically building the airplane while you were in flight when it comes to experience with that car, and you had mentioned. Would’ve been more comfortable if it was something that you knew. So if you could have taken any one of your TransAm cars, the Beretta, the Ford, whatever it is, and gone to Lamont, if they could have made the full 24 hours, which one would you have chosen?

Tommy Kendall: I mean, the all sport TransAm car, that was the longest I was in in one place. Ever in my career. Whenever you get to do that, you kind of get a level of refinement where you just understand what you’re doing better. Everybody knows their role and you just get better and better at optimizing, you know, that car and the beauty of the TransAm one, when you don’t share a seat with anyone, being a big guy tall like me.

It supported me really well. There were [00:21:00] never any aches and pains after races, which always happened for me when I shared a seat with anyone. So, and that would be the one, and that car was literally like an extension of me. I didn’t have to think about controlling it at all. I had to think about what are we trying to do here, uh, what technique and what, what’s gonna try to optimize and what can do to adjust the car to the track?

So that would, that’d be the one without a doubt.

Crew Chief Eric: So sticking with 2000. Before we move on, what was the big maybe oops, moment or eye-opening experience or something that happened that left a lasting impression on you after you came away from Lamont?

Tommy Kendall: Well, there wasn’t a, anything huge in that one that’s been that same question after the 20 th 2013 race, because there was, I will, I’ll, I’ll tease it a little bit.

The worst stint of my life. So other than the one where I had my big crash in the GTP car. But the, yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, let’s sort of fast forward our audience there. So you were retired in 97. [00:22:00] You come back and make this all star cameo appearance at LAMA in the Conrad Porsche. And then the year 2001 happens in 2002 and 2003.

So what happened between 2000 and your next return to Lamont? Yeah, 2013. Did you go back into retirement? Did you do some more racing? How’d you get the itch? How’d you get the call?

Tommy Kendall: Interesting thing. Well, let’s talk about 2001. ’cause that’s sort of the, you know, I buried the lead there. I, you know, I was supposed to drive the factory saline, S seven.

And I didn’t. I drove it in its debut race at Laguna Seka at the end of 2000 after it had been announced and so forth. But then the deal fell apart before Sebring. You know, I won’t get into all the details on that, but basically there ended up not being a full factory car. It ended up being a privateer factory assisted privateer car with Franz would’ve been fun in certain ways, but it was not what was sold to me on the front end.

And so. I did that to prepare for 2001, and then 2001 [00:23:00] never happened back into retirement. I got coaxed to drive. I drove the JAG in TransAm in oh four, so a full season, but all my racing post 97 kind of fell in my lap. I didn’t pursue anything the Celine program did, and that was supposed to be a proper.

Double throw down, go for it. Program, the TransAm one. TransAm. There was not a lot of factory support by 2004, but I enjoyed it a lot. It was fun to, in that, in my natural habitat, if you will, that I knew so well, but, so I was basically retired. And then two th the way the Viper deal came about is Brian Vickers, who’s a good friend of mine, was racing in nascar and he’d had a series of issues.

First it was a health scare where he had, he had blood clots and then open heart surgery as a result of that. Then he came back and then he was driving for the Red Bull team and Red Bull shut their operation down last minute and all the seats were taken. Everyone was pushing him to get into a, not a great car in nascar, ’cause that’s all that was available.

And he asked me what I thought. I said, I wouldn’t do it. He said, well, you’re the [00:24:00] only person telling me that. I said, well. I said, you’ve won in both cars, you’ve raced. I said, it’s not like you’re trying to prove you can do it. I said, if you were still trying to prove that, knock yourself out. But I said, chances are you’ll only look worse, and if you’re committed to this, when the good cars come available, you’ll be committed to the bad one.

And so he’s like, oh, well that makes a lot. He said, well, what do I do? I said, you should do what? Every NASCAR friend of mine always says they wish they could do, which is race, all the other stuff that they never have time to race. I said, you could do a cool program. I’m gonna try to run indie. I’m gonna try to run Baja.

I’m gonna do road racing. I’m gonna run Daytona. I’m gonna run Lamont. He said, oh my God, that sounds awesome. He started working on all this stuff, and so I had heard that the Viper program was coming. I was in New York with him. I said, let’s go to the New York Auto Show. I’ll introduce you to all the executives.

And so I took him there, introduced him around to all the Dodge executives, to Bill Riley and so forth, and he ended up doing a deal with Rob Kaufman to race in a, in a Ferrari. And then three, four weeks later, bill Riley called, he says, what about you? I said, what do you mean? He said, you. I said, what do you mean me?

He says, [00:25:00] you wanna drive? I said, me. I said, I’m 46 years old. I’m outta shape. I haven’t driven in, you know what? I guess that was eight years since Strand Am. He says, yeah. I said, well, it’s funny you say that, ’cause I never said I would never do it again, but my conditions for doing it were always such that it was not likely to happen.

Proper team, proper funding, all this stuff. And that was all that I said, well, I can give it a shot. And so he says, well, everyone has to test for this program. That was kind of an interesting deal that they did at SRT, I won’t say the name, there was a Formula one world Champion that called, his agent called and said, Hey.

So-and-so would like to do this, and they said, great. Have him come test. And they said, well, what do you mean test? He does, he won’t test. They said, well, everyone’s testing. And he says he won’t test. They said, well, then he’s not driving. It was kind of a Bill Riley filter for, is this person gonna be a team player?

And, and so maybe it’s not a perfect deal, but for him it was a go no go thing. So Ryan, hunter Ray, who was in that car, 8,500 winner, he had no problem testing. I said, I’ll go to the test. And so I went to the test. And long story [00:26:00] short got offered the deal and away we went.

Crew Chief Eric: You returned to Lama nearly a decade and a half later.

What was the first thing you noticed? What had changed since you had been there in 2000?

Tommy Kendall: Everything was getting bigger. I mean, this was an era of, it had been around for a long time, but I mean, it was now that you were getting American participation, it was much bigger in America. You had good TV coverage in America.

And it was just as big everywhere else and bigger, you know, because this, you had the guys, the Audi run was going on, which was getting so much attention and it just, there was a lot of focus. So it’s just how much bigger everything was, all the efforts, you know, to go behind the garage area and see the setups, you know, that primarily Audi at the time, the number of people, the, all the spares, the semis, the sleeping pods, the hospitality, the chefs, you know, it was just, it was, it was.

You know, it become not just big racing events as big a sporting event as you could have.

Crew Chief Eric: So when you left Lama the first time, you were a mid [00:27:00] Corvette’s journey to dominance, right? The C five Rs were kicking butt and taking names. You jump back in, the C six Rs are kicking butt and taking names. So it’s sort of interesting because there was a Viper Corvette rivalry for a very long time and it, it seemed very real on tv, whether it was placated by the broadcasters or otherwise, you were there battling with them.

Was the Corvette Viper rivalry still a thing at that time, or were they just running away with it?

Tommy Kendall: We weren’t really on their level yet. So, I mean there there was, there was a lot of talk about it, you know, just because it’s a natural rivalry, cross town stuff. My experience, you know, Detroit is a small town and they’re all there.

So when I was with Chevy Racing Ford, that was the most important thing, was beating the Fords. And when I was with Ford racing Chevy, same thing. Viper Corvette. So it’s, it’s just sort of the cross town rivalry, the bragging rights, literally I think executives that would run in each other around town. It was as simple as that.

They’re human and they, they wanted to be able to [00:28:00] brag. But Corvette was kinda like we were in TransAm. They were a finely oiled machine. You know, even the best, you don’t win all the time, but you’re always in the hunt. And again, my crew Chief Danny was now firmly ensconced. I, at that point, I don’t know how many wins they’d had, but they’d had a bunch of wins in all the big races.

And so they were really the benchmark that particular year. Ended up being Porsche’s year in gt. You know, it’s, it’s funny, I’m not a huge fan of BOP. You’re not allowed to talk about it now. I think you’re in, you’re literally not allowed to talk about it, but I’m not there. So I can talk about it a little bit.

I get why you have it, and everyone’s doing the best job they can, and it’s still really, really hard to win. But it’s almost like. The thing rotates and they never get it perfect, and so you just want to be ready when it’s in your favor. When I got there, I saw the back of all the grandstands had these huge Porsche banners and I think it was the 50th year anniversary of the nine 11, and I’m like, oh, this is the big Porsche year.

I said, [00:29:00] I’m pretty sure al one of those guys have been working overtime to make sure that they’re at least. Even on the BOP. And so the reality is, as a team, we weren’t ready to win the race yet. So even if we had gotten the ideal BOP, I don’t know if we could have executed every single aspect of it perfectly.

’cause even when you have that in your favor, you’re either a little bit ahead of everyone or you’re. Dead even with someone else. And then it, it comes down to all the things that win races and the margins have just gotten smaller and smaller and smaller in that regard. It used to be, like I said, if you did everything perfect in the s bell days, you’d win by five laps.

And that just doesn’t, it’s just a different era. ’cause you’re not babying anything. There’s pressure. Every single aspect of it, stretching stints on tires, the fuel windows, the pit stops of course are, are incredible now. So that, that’s the framing. And so we weren’t as strong as we would’ve liked to have been.

Both our side of it and the VOP side. [00:30:00] We, we also, or a little bit, but I mean, racers are racers. Even if you’re the only person out there, you’re racing really against yourselves and we all have pride in what we do. And so you’re all trying to figure out how can I get more outta myself? How can we get more out of this and so forth.

So that, that challenge remained, you know, again, after that race, the relief and the excitement and the celebration of Viper returning and being part of that. Him across some pictures the other day of all of us up on the wall. Here’s a bunch of guys that have been racing for a long time, myself, done kind of it all.

You’re jaded about a lot of things, but uh, Lamar is just, is just different and it’s special and so unfinished business would be getting on the podium there. It’s the best podium in sports, period. Monza, F1 and Lama are the two greatest podiums in sports. I never got to see the view from up there. There aren’t too many places I raced where I didn’t win, or at least get on the podium.

And safe to say, on the driver’s side, that’s, [00:31:00] I never say never. That’s probably not happening.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I promise I won’t tell Mark Roff anything you said about BOP. All right. Let’s talk about the Viper a little bit more. Compared to your TransAm cars and other cars that you’ve campaigned, is the Viper similar in a way?

Is it still a little too much production car? I mean, it is much like the benzes of that era, big torque. And at that time they had big torque numbers in the Viper compared to everything else. Now by today’s hypercar standards, maybe not so much, but was it similar to what you were used to or just a leap away?

Tommy Kendall: Nothing like it. Nothing like it for a number of reasons. I mean, the, the TransAm cars on my ear were not actually production based at all. They were pure silhouette cars, full tube frame, little piece, a joke. It was the windshield and the taillights were the parts. Those were, and so the Viper. GT racing TransAm as well.

I mean, for a lot of these, originally they were production based, and then it got to where [00:32:00] so much was being thrown away. They’re like, well, why don’t we just make ’em look like it? And then sports, car racing has gone back big time where obviously, you know, the homologation and everything, you know, has to be, they’re allowed to move certain things with waivers.

But that’s one of the hard things is you, you don’t get to go clean sheet of paper with stuff and you gotta optimize every single piece that way. So it, it didn’t drive anything like it. Uh, like the TransAm car, the tire technology also totally different. You know, Michelin, uh, has, uh, become, they’ve kind of, I mean, there’s other people that still nibble around, but Michelin has done such a good job.

They’ve literally run everybody else out of town, and it’s, it’s not only do they grip, they rarely puncture. They don’t fall off. I mean, and now they keep challenging themselves. Again, they’re racing against themselves, but they’re still challenging themselves. How can we make it so. The teams use less tires, there’s less waste, they’re more sustainable, all, literally all the things that matter to the consumer as well and and so forth.

So whereas TransAm, you know, a [00:33:00] hundred mile race, if you tried to, you could cook the tires in 40 miles. Easy yet, you had to make a blast a hundred. Whereas the Michelins, within few exceptions, you could run the Michelins as hard as you wanted the whole time, and it would eventually start to fall off some, but it was just, that was the nature, the life.

It wasn’t anything that you were doing. They would just work.

Crew Chief Eric: So, did you like driving the Viper?

Tommy Kendall: I did. You know, it’s a different, totally. It was a totally different challenge. I never got, I, I shouldn’t say I, when I did well enough to shoot out, to get off the deal, I said to Bill Riley, I said, even though it looks like I’m super sharp, I said, I’m not.

The shootout kind of played to my strengths, where I was always a really good qualifier, especially when there wasn’t a lot of practice. I could ramp up fast. I said, I’m, I’m gonna need some time to get in race shape and racecraft. And he nodded. And the reality was in a multi driver setup and so forth, I never got the full rep.

So I did four races in [00:34:00] 2012. And I guess if we’re telling the full story, I actually wasn’t gonna drive in 2013. And then Ralph Gill said, you know, I, I went to Detroit. I thought I was gonna craft my separation agreement and what we were gonna announce. And he took me to dinner and he begged me. He said, please.

Come on, how bad can it be? We’re taking a Viper to Lamont. We really want you to part of this program. I said, oh, okay. And so, but part of that was because I wasn’t, as, you know, bottom line, I wasn’t as quick as I needed to be or wanted to be. And so they promoted Baer to the full-time slot and I was in the endurance slot.

And so exactly what I needed was more lapse. I was getting less, ’cause I was only doing the four endurance races for the year. I, uh, went to ‘EM mall that way, so I wasn’t, I was getting few laps leading up to it, and so it wasn’t my favorite memory because I just, I like being on top of things. I like having everything exactly how I want it.

I mean, I guess I’m kind of spoiled, but. Never in my career wa was I not with that. You know? And a lot [00:35:00] of probably really accomplished. Guys are probably li would listen to this and say, Ugh, that’s part of the deal. But I was, I was lucky that I had always been. In the right deals, at the right timing, with the right support and so forth.

And then I’d like to think I did my job well too, which helped put me in those positions. But the Viper program wasn’t really that. It was a big ask, and we might as well, I don’t know if you want to go into the, the stint that I’m talking about

Crew Chief Eric: and you teased us earlier, so might as well.

Tommy Kendall: Yeah. So, uh, that was the year.

Well. Oof. I mean that, this is intense because my wife wasn’t happy I was coming back. She also knew that I thought Lama is just next level fast and hairy. And so she wasn’t super stoked. But you know, once I was committed, we, we were doing it. So we’re there. That was the year Alan Simonson was killed on lap four.

And in our class we all heard about it. And so sucking it up there and my wife was, we didn’t even talk about it, but she looked at me and I just gave her a [00:36:00] look like, we’ll talk about this when it’s over. I said, I need. I, I’m not happy about it. So it was really intense in that regard. So now, so that’s the setup they got.

We had tons of rain in 13 tons of rain, uh, lots of guardrail, repairs, crashes that were knock on the, and they were long yellows and so forth. I got in the car in the middle of the night. It was probably 2:00 AM It was under one of these long yellows, which is actually kind of nice that you get in and you’re not having to go 10 tenths right now.

So your eyes are getting adjusted. You’re waking up, you’re doing all this, and you have a little bit of time. So we’re behind the pace car and they’re fixing a guardrail, and it had kind of dried out. Now it starts to sprinkle. And so I sat on the radio, I said, Hey, it’s starting to rain. And the answer came back everywhere.

I said, no, no, not everywhere. And they said, okay, let us know. Keep us posted. So pretty soon it’s, I said, eh. It’s raining everywhere now, and they’re like, hard. I’m like, [00:37:00] no, not hard. It’s not. No, no. They said, well, let us know if it starts raining harder. And so meanwhile, everyone in front of me and behind me is pitting for rains, including my teammate.

I said, it’s raining hard everywhere now. They’re like, okay. I said, are we gonna stop for rains? They’re like, well, do you think you can do it on slicks? And I’m like. You could do anything. I said, it’s a question of how fast you want to go and how much risk you want to take. And so I, I’m, I’m kind of like, what, what is, they say, well, we don’t have enough rain tires.

If it rains hard the rest of the way, that’s not the answer you want to hear. But it’s also, if you think about it, I mean, you could, you could blow your top. There aren’t enough tires on the property if it rains the whole race. For everyone. You just, logistically, you can’t bring enough tires for both wet and dry, all the compounds, all this stuff.

So part of me is thinking in my head, I [00:38:00] said, I don’t, I’m guessing this conversation has never happened with Alan McNich,

but now’s not the time to litigate that So. Anyways, I said, yeah. And so basically they said, well, you know, if you can. And then it kind of petered off a little bit and it was, but it was, it was wet, it was proper wet. And so at Lamar you’ve got the three pace cars because it lapsed so long. And so you’ve got three pack ups.

Well, now that everyone has stopped for rains, I’m at the front of my pack. I’m the car behind the thing. And then we had also been having some drive line vibration issues. And so they had made the decision going into the race to not run traction control. So we had no traction control. So I’m sitting here with a third of the field behind me on reigns.

I’m on slicks, I’m in the front of the deal. Talk about suboptimal. I’m just like, every time the, you know, wheels would spin up, you know, on the re, your heart just jumps. And so it was just not. A lot of fun. I mean, I don’t know how I was slow. I, I [00:39:00] expected to be slow. I don’t know if I was slower than I should have been, you know, but so huge chunks of time, but I didn’t go off, I didn’t wreck, I didn’t do any of these things, which you see a lot of, a lot of good guys and, and none of us are immune to it.

And the rain, all that stuff happens. So now it’s starting to get dry, dry line, so forth. And finally, so I’m starting to get in a rhythm, get going, lap time’s coming down. I’m feeling pretty good about things getting to the end of my stint. I think it’s literally. It’s a lap or two from when I’m getting called in, so I’m finally getting into the brake zones and so forth, and basically I lose a right rear, right as I touch the brakes heading into the Olson hairpin.

And so it’s doing a big tank slapper, and I’m thinking I’m crashing. No, I’m not. I’m going in the sand. No, I’m not. I got it. Yes. No, yes, no. Got into the sand, but not hard. Didn’t hit anything. I’m pulled out. There’s a yellow, I’m getting pulled out. Oh no, there was just a local yellow, they drug me out because I was out of the way and now I have to limp on a flat tire at night through the Porsche curves.

And so I’m going, and I, I feel like I’m going as slow as I [00:40:00] can go, but it was probably 40 miles an hour. And they’re like, you gotta go slow or you’re gonna rip the thing apart. The tire’s gonna, you gotta slow down. You gotta slow down. So now you’re going, whatever it is, it’s 20 miles an hour and I’m having to go through the Porsche curves.

It’s green. Just not what you want to do. And so thankfully I made it through. No one hit me, handed the car off, but that was the worst stint of my life. I, I’m bitching, I’m venting, whatever. These are the things with a little perspective, things like this underscore how hard it is. Yeah, how hairy it is, how many things have to go right.

All the stuff that you’re managing, and even when you’re in the middle of it, sometimes you don’t realize. How much you’re doing and how good you are at managing all this stuff. And that’s why you see grown men crying when they win that race, or it slips away at the end and so forth.

Crew Chief Eric: So would you say that’s a defining moment for you as a driver?

Because every legend that’s been on, we sort of ask them the variant of the same question. Lama, [00:41:00] is an education, it taught you something at that moment? Or was there a bigger takeaway for you?

Tommy Kendall: Well, I mean that whole race, the emotional rollercoaster literally, of a colleague dying. It’s the only sport that not only do they not stop it, they keep going and nobody questions that.

Or like, this is what we do, this is what we do. It’s why it matters. It’s why Hemingway said, you know, it’s one of the only three real sports. The rest are games. So I mean, that whole, that race is kind of everything in a microcosm. It’s, it’s like your whole life in a microcosm, you know, it’s just not exclusively a man thing, but men.

Live for testing themselves against each other and against themselves. And it’s one of these things everyone says, I don’t, you know, if I’m up by myself and there’s the rock, and I wanna see how close I can get to the edge of it. Like, well, that’s not smart. You’re like, no, it’s not. But that’s part of what makes you feel, you know, alive and, and you want to pursue mastery and all the, so it’s, it’s literally, you know, Laman McQueen movie talks about [00:42:00] it, and it, it’s real.

I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a microcosm for life. It’s as intense and experience as you can have. And so consequently. The lows are literally life and death and heartbreak, and the highs are the opposite, you know?

Crew Chief Eric: So after you finally stepped away from the steering wheel and behind the microphone, just like tonight, you found yourself commentating on a bunch of different racing series out there and some long format races as well.

Was there ever an opportunity, or was Lama on your radar to go into the booth and do commentating and return another time?

Tommy Kendall: Well, I did call, I don’t know how many I’d called with speed channel, but this was un this seems to be a, a trend. I get there right after the best days racing. I don’t feel that way racing.

I feel like I lived in one of the great eras, but in my TV stuff, when I did IndyCar, it was the year after. The huge budgets and the a thousand dollars bottle of wine dinners and the Four Seasons. I was there right after the cutbacks. [00:43:00] And so Laal was a little bit like that with Speed Channel, where I think the year I did it was the first year they didn’t send announcers to Laal.

So the only people on site were the pit reporters, which is why Justin, who everyone would rather work the booth. It’s usually a better gig, but Justin says the booth’s gonna be in Charlotte. I want to be in France, so I’m gonna be the pit lane guy here. Kind of a cool experience. They set up, it was almost like our own race.

We had this tent with chefs and so forth outside of the Fox Studios in Charlotte. You know, you had guys, literally one guy brought a little tent into his cubicle. One of the production guys, it was like a race team. Everyone was trying to figure out their snacks and their food and so forth. And so I did.

I did get to call the race, but it was. A little bit dissociated. In some ways that is actually better. You hate to admit it ’cause you want the executives to think they should always send you to the races, but in terms of everything being in one spot, logistics were a hell of a lot better. Everything was better in [00:44:00] terms of the conditions for doing it, but you weren’t there.

So it was to get your information. You know, you’re texting people on the other side of the world in the pits, you know guys that you know to get, you know, insight. But that, that’s no different than at Daytona. You’re detecting from the tower down to the pit lane. So I, you know, I’ve gotten to be a part of, I wanna say probably four or five Lamar broadcasts.

Crew Chief Eric: Kind of back to front, Tommy, when you, you’ve been following lamas since you were a kid, like you said, at the top of the conversation, and you’ve seen it evolve just like I have watching the movies and looking back even further than our time. What does that say about the popularity of endurance racing with lamont still going on after a hundred plus years with the 24 hours of Rolex going 24 hours of spa, all these big race endurance races around the world, what does that say?

Tommy Kendall: It, it says it matters. It says it has meaning, basically. Because if this world’s tough and if things are become sort of redundant or not special, they don’t last. And there’s a commonality with the ones you mentioned, spa, indie, Pikes Peak, [00:45:00] Lamar, I la Man, they’re, they’re all hairy. And you know, one of my sort of filters is when everybody in the stands says.

I could do that. You’ve lost some of the specialists. Now. There’s always people in every stance that say they, I could do that. But when a bunch of people, then the allure and the mystique and the aspiration of, man, those people are doing something I wouldn’t do. I think that’s a key part of it. In racing, I explains the appeal of UFC fights.

I mean, I watch those fights and I’m like, I mean, I’ve been hit in the face a couple times in my life. And so, you know, they might think I’m crazy for doing what I do. I think they’re crazy. So the fact that it’s been around for so long means that it, it has meaning and it, and it matters for all the reasons I talked about before.

Then also, when it’s existed for a long time, the layers of meaning get stacked on top of each other. You know, there’s the tradition which adds to it. All these, uh, generational things with fathers and sons, and then grandfathers and so forth. That it gets passed down like you have with Derek Bell and [00:46:00] Justin, all the rituals and so forth.

So I think it just means there’s a lot of meaning and the, and the longer it goes, the more layers of meaning there are. You gotta be careful because you know, marketing people get involved and marketing’s important, but if they start tweaking what the formula too much or they cut out. The reason for it, then it can disappear in a heartbeat.

So I feel glad that things seem to be in a really good spot in that regard. Um, they can always be better and, and you like racing every, you’re always tweaking the setup to try to make it better, and some work and some don’t. But generally speaking, you, you zigzag your way forward.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Tommy, it looks like we do have a crowd question here.

Neil Smith writes, Daytona is coming up, and drivers who have done both Lama and Daytona have often said, Daytona is harder. What’s your opinion about that? And let’s throw Sebring into the mix. Is that harder than both of them?

Tommy Kendall: They’re different, they’re harder. I, I would say they’re harder physically, both of ’em.

Well. Sebring is comparable, but you know, the, the sleep deprivation adds an element at [00:47:00] Daytona and Lama that Sebring doesn’t have. That is the one thing about Lama because of the length of straightaway, there’s more rest, less time under load. You hear in workout time under load or strain is, and so that’s kind of the thing you deal with at Daytona.

Your body’s just under strained for longer, so even the banking. Because of the G load diagonally, it’s part vertical and part horizontal. It comes in lower back, hips, all that kind of stuff, uh, work on you more so physically, Daytona is, is harder, I think, but the other side of that, mentally because of the speed and because you’re threading the needle that much more in the really high risk spots, I would say the mental load at LAMA is higher than, than any of them, and it’s high everywhere.

But I would say a little bit higher at Lama.

Crew Chief Eric: Looking to the future, you said there will always be unfinished business for you at Lama, so if you could go back today behind the wheel of any of the cars of the last [00:48:00] couple years, what would you pick to drive?

Tommy Kendall: Oh boy. I would say dream, dream scenario, you know, the Audi 9 1 9 era is the pinnacle for me.

The 9 6 2 9 5 5 6 is, but knowing what I know now. I wouldn’t get in one of those. Just, uh, from a safety standpoint, we have it better safety wise now, for sure. Still risk, but we have it better. So I would, I would say that that would be an incredible challenge. You ride on board, and I remember the year, I think the first year, the 9 1 9 or the first year, they won one of those stints with Nick Tandy, uh, riding on board with him and just the commitment and the closing speed and all that stuff.

Challenging as it gets. And so that’s probably why it has the most appeal to me.

Crew Chief Eric: Would you consider a LAMA Classic Drive? Would you go back and do a vintage version of lama?

Tommy Kendall: I would. I would, yes. And there’s, there’s certain cars, I think one of my GTP cars. Was eligible even though it never raced there. It was the spice, but it was [00:49:00] of that era.

Yeah, I would, I wouldn’t drive everything there again, because of the risk, whenever there’s risk on the table, it’s like, okay, you can’t be totally safe or you’d never leave your house, but. I’m at the point where I’m in a different phase now, so generally speaking, I try to de-risk everything I do, whether it’s investing or not charging down the hill on a mountain bike, I tend to do more uphill stuff on a mountain bike for the fitness side of things.

So I’m long-winded here. So I, I would definitely, uh, consider a Lamont Classic ride

Crew Chief Eric: because that makes me wonder. So is that in the cards or is there something else? What’s next for Tommy Kendall?

Tommy Kendall: I, you know, it’s funny, I don’t know what’s next. Ever since I retired from driving my life has kind of been an exercise in serendipity.

Even my TV work, all of the TV stuff literally found me. There’s probably a middle ground there where you, but I, I find enjoyment, literally doing. Almost anything these days, and so, which is a nice place to be. I kind of say, let’s see what the [00:50:00] universe offers up. So I really don’t know what’s next.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Tommy, before we sign off, I wanna pass the microphone to our A-C-O-U-S-A representative David Lowe for some parting thoughts.

David Lowe: Tommy, on behalf of the A CO. Endurance racing fans everywhere. And drivers. We’ve got Margie on tonight. I wanna thank you for a wonderful evening.

Tommy Kendall: Thank you. It was fun. Super fun. Cool thing you have going here.

Crew Chief Eric: And that wraps up this evening with a legend where we explored Tommy Kendall’s remarkable connection to the 24 hours of Lama, a story that began in 2000 and came full circle with his celebrated return in 2013.

From the raucous TransAm cars he piloted to victory to the thunderous roar of the SRT Viper GTSR. Tommy’s journey reflects not only his evolution as a driver, but also the enduring spirit of American endurance racing on the world stage. His perspective reminds us that passion, perseverance, and adaptability are timeless qualities that define true racers.

To keep up with Tommy Kendall, follow him on social [00:51:00] media. On Twitter or X and Instagram at Tommy Kendall 11 for news appearances and more. And with that, we hope you enjoyed this presentation and look forward to more evening with a legend throughout the season. And on behalf of everyone here, Tommy and those listening at home, thank you for sharing your evening with us.

Tommy Kendall: My.

Crew Chief Eric: This episode has been brought to you by the Automobile Club of the West and the A-C-O-U-S-A from the awe-inspiring speed demons that have graced the track to the courageous drivers who have pushed the limits of endurance. The 24 hours of the LAMA is an automotive spectacle like no other. For over a century the 24 hours LAMA has urged manufacturers to innovate for the benefit of future motorists, and it’s a celebration of the relentless pursuit of speed and excellence in the world of motorsports.

To learn more about or to become a member of the ACO USA, look [00:52:00] no further than www.laman.org, click on English in the upper right corner and then click on the a CO members tab for club offers. Once you’ve become a member, you can follow all the action on the Facebook group, A-C-O-U-S-A Members Club, and become part of the Legend with Future Evening with the legend meetups.

This episode has been brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports as part of our Motoring Podcast network. For more episodes like this, tune in each week for more exciting and educational content from organizations like The Exotic Car Marketplace, the Motoring Historian, break Fix, and many others. If you’d like to support Grand Touring Motorsport and the Motoring Podcast Network, sign up for one of our many sponsorship tiers at www.patreon.com/gt Motorsports.

Please note that the content, opinions and materials presented and expressed in this episode are [00:53:00] those of its creator, and this episode has been published with their consent. If you have any inquiries about this program, please contact the creators of this episode via email or social media as mentioned in the episode.

Highlights

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 Meet Tommy Kendall
01:49 Early Racing Dreams
03:54 Why Le Mans Took Time and His Secret 2000 Entry
08:55 First Laps Reality Check
11:44 Endurance Sleep Strategy
14:51 Team Chemistry & Pageantry
16:49 American Pride in 2000 and Garage 56 Reaction
20:14 Dream TransAm Choice for Le Mans
21:54 Road Back to 2013 … the Viper Deal Comes Together
27:10 Viper Corvette Rivalry
30:15 Chasing Le Mans Podium
31:08 Viper versus TransAm?
35:27 The Worst Stint of Tommy’s Life: The Night Rain Tire Gamble
42:16 Calling Races From Afar
44:19 Why Endurance Matters
47:50 Dream Cars And Le Mans Classic
49:33 Whats Next? And Farewell

Bonus Content

There's more to this story!

Be sure to check out the behind the scenes for this episode, filled with extras, bloopers, and other great moments not found in the final version. Become a Break/Fix VIP today by joining our Patreon.

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.

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Other episodes you might enjoy

Evening With A Legend is a series of presentations exclusive to Legends of the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans giving us an opportunity to bring a piece of Le Mans to you. By sharing stories and highlights of the big event, you get a chance to become part of the Legend of Le Mans with guests from different eras of over 100 years of racing.

We hope you enjoyed this presentation and look forward to more Evening With A Legend throughout this season. Sign up for the next EWAL TODAY!

Remember to subscribe to Break/Fix using your favorite Podcast App.

Kendall’s first Le Mans appearance came in 2000, years after his “serious” career had ended. The backstory is almost unbelievable: he had quietly signed with Saleen to drive the upcoming S7R, but the deal wasn’t public yet. To prepare him for Le Mans, Saleen arranged a covert ride with Franz Konrad’s Porsche team. “I showed up there four years after retiring, just in a plain white suit. I couldn’t tell anyone why I was there.”

The car was unfamiliar. The track was overwhelming. And Kendall hadn’t raced in years. “There is no track like Le Mans… everything is a gear higher.”

Despite the steep learning curve, the team ran a clean race and finished 7th or 8th in class, a result that surprised him — not because it was bad, but because the era of “pacing” was gone. Modern Le Mans required flat‑out speed for 24 hours.

The Saleen program dissolved before it ever reached Le Mans, and Kendall returned to retirement. He made a brief Trans Am comeback in 2004, but Le Mans didn’t re‑enter the picture until a chance conversation with NASCAR driver Brian Vickers years later.

That conversation led to an introduction, which led to a test, which led to a phone call from Bill Riley: “He said, ‘What about you?’ I said, ‘Me? I’m 46 years old, out of shape…’” But Kendall tested. And he earned the seat.

Kendall’s return to Le Mans in 2013 with the factory‑backed SRT Viper GTS‑R was emotional from the start. Early in the race, driver Allan Simonsen was killed — a moment that shook the paddock. “It was really intense… my wife wasn’t happy I was coming back.”

Then came the stint Kendall calls the worst of his career. Rain began falling under a long safety car. Other teams pitted for wets. Kendall’s team didn’t — they didn’t have enough rain tires. “I’m on slicks, in the front of the pack, with a third of the field behind me on rains… suboptimal.” He tiptoed through the night, wrestling a car with no traction control, until a right‑rear tire failed at the Porsche Curves. He limped the car back at 20 mph in the dark, praying not to be hit. “That was the worst stint of my life.”

And yet — he brought the car home.

Why Le Mans Still Matters

For Kendall, Le Mans is more than a race. It’s a crucible. “It’s a microcosm of life… the highs are the highest, the lows are life and death.” He speaks reverently about the pageantry, the international driver roster, and the emotional weight of simply finishing. He also admits one thing openly: he still wishes he’d stood on the podium. “It’s the best podium in sports… I never got to see the view from up there.”

Kendall says he’s in a different phase of life now — more cautious, more reflective. But he hasn’t ruled out a Le Mans Classic drive. “I would definitely consider a Le Mans Classic ride.” For a man who has lived multiple racing lives, the door never fully closes.

Tommy Kendall’s Le Mans journey isn’t defined by trophies. It’s defined by grit, humor, humility, and a deep appreciation for the sport’s most demanding stage. From a secret Porsche drive in 2000 to a rain‑soaked battle in 2013, Kendall’s story is a reminder of why Le Mans endures: because it tests everything — machinery, teams, and the human spirit. And sometimes, simply surviving the night is its own kind of victory.

Greg Stanley: Mapping the Modern Collector‑Car Journey

William Ross

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July 9, 2026

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Greg Stanley: Mapping the Modern Collector‑Car Journey

For years, Greg Stanley has been one of the most recognizable voices helping enthusiasts navigate the fast‑moving, often unpredictable world of collector cars. As host of The Collector Car Podcast and author of The Enthusiast’s Guide to Collector Cars, Greg has built a reputation for blending deep market knowledge with genuine curiosity — and for reminding people that behind every machine is a story worth telling.

Photo courtesy Greg Stanley, The Collector Car Podcast

In this episode of Break/Fix, Greg sits down to talk about his unlikely path into the automotive world, the emotional side of collecting, and why the future of the hobby may look very different from its past.

Greg’s automotive journey didn’t begin with concours lawns or million‑dollar Ferraris. Like many enthusiasts, it started with Hot Wheels, childhood sketches, and a fascination that simmered quietly for years. His first podcast wasn’t even about cars — it was a career‑advice show for high‑school students. But at the end of every episode, Greg found himself assigning a “car recommendation” to each guest.

Eventually, someone asked him the question that changed everything: “If people describe you as ‘the car guy,’ why don’t you have a car podcast?” That nudge led to The Collector Car Podcast, a passion project that opened unexpected doors — including one that led to RM Sotheby’s, where Greg became a consultant and specialist.

His work eventually connected him to one of the most significant cars ever sold: the Ferrari 330 LM / 250 GTO, which hammered for a staggering $51.7 million.

Spotlight

Synopsis

Break/Fix Podcast welcomes Greg Stanley, host of The Collector Car Podcast and author of The Enthusiast’s Guide to Collector Cars, to discuss his path into the collector-car world and how a passion project podcast led to consulting as a car specialist with RM/Sotheby’s, including sourcing cars such as the Ferrari 330 LM/250 GTO that sold for $51.7 million. Greg shares the story behind his rare, unrestored, family-owned Pontiac GTO in Tiger Gold and his multi-year effort to get it featured on Jay Leno’s Garage, including an on-site interview with Leno. He reflects on interview insights, shifting focus away from pure valuations toward stories and experience, and explains why he wrote an entry-level guide to help newcomers and even non-enthusiast partners understand the hobby. We also discuss generational trends, engaging kids at events, the “last analog” era, future collectibles, and Greg’s upcoming Porsche enthusiast guide and book tour schedule.

One of the major threads in your writing, newsletter, etc is a fondness for a certain Pontiac GTO – Why?
You’ve interviewed so many voices in the automotive world — what conversations or insights have surprised you the most along the way?
How has your perspective on the collector‑car market evolved since you began hosting The Collector Car Podcast?
In your new book The Enthusiast’s Guide to Collector Cars, you break down the hobby for newcomers. Tell us about your inspiration for writing it, and what its all about?
In the book you talk about the emotional side of collecting. What do you think drives people to connect so deeply with certain cars?
Connecting the dots between your show and the book – How do you balance the analytical side of market data with the more personal, subjective side of automotive enthusiasm?
Looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of the collector‑car world — whether it’s technology, culture, or the next generation of enthusiasts?
When you look at today’s market, what trends or emerging segments do you think enthusiasts should be paying closer attention to?

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrol heads that wonder, “How did they get that job or become that person?”

The road to success is paved by all of us, because everyone has a story.

Crew Chief Eric: For years, Greg Stanley has been the voice guiding enthusiasts through the fast-moving, often unpredictable world of collector cars. As the host of the Collector Car Podcast, he’s interviewed industry leaders, decoded market trends, and helped listeners understand not just what cars are worth, but why they matter.

But he’s also the author of The Enthusiast’s Guide to Collector Cars, a book that distills decades of passion, research, and real-world experience into a roadmap for anyone who loves automotive history and wants to navigate the collector landscape. From blue chip classics to [00:01:00] emerging icons, Greg brings clarity, curiosity, and a genuine love for the hobby.

And today, he joins us to talk about the stories behind the cars, the people who collect them, and the evolving culture that keeps this world so endlessly fascinating. And with that, let’s welcome Greg to Break Fix.

Gren Stanley: Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it so much.

Crew Chief Eric: Greg, like all good Break Fix stories, there’s always a superhero origin.

So let’s talk about yours. What first pulled you into the world of collector cars, and when did you realize this passion was going to then shape your career?

Gren Stanley: Like everybody else, started when I was a young kid, Hot Wheels. My mom used to draw, you know, little stick figure versions of cars when I was a little kid.

That probably ingrained in me somehow. But honestly, it wasn’t until I started my own podcast. You know, I, I always tell people, “If you’re interested in something or if you have your own business, you should always have your own podcast. And never worry about downloads, don’t worry about views. It’s about the people you meet, what you learn, and the subjects, you know, that you discuss.”

And so years ago, I started a podcast that wasn’t about cars, strangely enough. It was [00:02:00] called Learn From Others, and it was a career podcast sharing career journeys with high school kids. And it was really, really cool. I interviewed everybody from, like, the director of Hamilton, who was the speech writer for Ronald Reagan.

But it never really got legs of its own. And at the end of each episode, I wanted a car aspect. And so I would always say, “Well, if you’re a surgeon, here’s the kind of car I think you should own.” So it was always a fun way to work in classic collectible cars at the end. And finally, one of the guys, when we weren’t recording, it was the speech writer for Ronald Reagan, he’s like, “If people could describe you in two or three words, what would it be?”

And I said, “Well, that’s easy. I’m the car guy, you know?” He’s like, “Well, you should probably have a car podcast.” And so I started that up, The Collector Car Podcast. That was just a passion project, you know, as I know you know what that’s like. It’s a grind. People don’t realize what a grind it is to do a weekly podcast.

But I found I had an unlimited curiosity for cars, and so it was either learning about cars from an expert or it was me [00:03:00] exploring a subject about cars I was always curious about or it was talking about valuation trends, you know? So I just kept on plugging along. And I just happened to be scrolling on LinkedIn one day and I saw RM Sotheby’s had a car specialist position posted open, available.

What I learned out later is they always had that that posting on there just to see who would apply. And I applied and, as you would expect, I didn’t hear anything back. And I don’t know, fast-forward six months or so, I had never been to an auction before in my life. I’d never been to an RM Sotheby’s auction.

I’m in Cincinnati. They had an auction up in Dayton, Ohio. It was the John Dixon collection. He had passed away, and he had some really cool Porsches. And so they were doing a one-off on-site auction, and I said, “You know what? I’m gonna run up there just to see what this auction thing is all about,” right?

And so I get up there. Just from, like, TV, I recognized Donnie Gold, car specialist. He’s with Broad Arrow now. Been in the business for 40 years, great guy. I don’t know why, I was like, “Donnie.” I submit a resume. I never heard from anyone. And he pointed to this president at the [00:04:00] time, Kenneth Ahn, he said, “Go talk to that guy I’m like, “Okay.”

Because of that, Donnie now takes full credit for my career in the car business. So I owe him a drink every time I see him. Talked to Kenneth, and he’s like, “Ah, probably some HR filters kicked out your resume, you know?” Gave me his business card, and he said, “Send me your resume directly, you know, I’ll, I’ll take a look at it.”

And I didn’t hear anything for, like, three months, and I got a call. And the call was basically, “We’re not gonna offer you a job, but we like the connections you’re making in the, uh, podcast. So we’re gonna pick up your podcast as our official podcast, and you can be a car specialist consultant, where you can submit cars to auction as you’re able to.”

And so I started bringing some cars to auction and stuff like that. And, uh, in the meantime, I ended up bringing the Ferrari 330 LM 250 GTO that sold for a world record price of $51.7 million. That had a lot to do with our reputation. It was relationships, obviously, but it was RM Sotheby’s selling the Uhlenhaut Coupe that really caught their [00:05:00] attention.

Anyways, long story short, I thought, “Well, you know what? That’s, through a part-time deal.” Not that I could get another GTO, but why don’t I explore this in a little bit more of a full-time fashion? And so while I still consult with RM Sotheby’s, I’m pretty much doing it freelance at this point, so it’s been an incredible journey.

Crew Chief Eric: So what you’re saying is that job o- opening still exists on LinkedIn right now?

Gren Stanley: Probably, probably. They’re always looking, always looking. And some… People ask me, “Well, what is it like to be a car specialist?” I’m like, “It is probably the hardest job I know of,” mostly because it’s built on relationships and network, your personal network.

Crew Chief Eric: Right.

Gren Stanley: And even if you’re the most connected person in the world, that doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful, because, you know, you might know Joe Blow with this great collection, he wants to sell with RM Sotheby’s. But if he’s had a relationship with RM Sotheby’s for 20 years, he can’t be your client, you know?

And so it is really, really a tough job. So the guys that do it, they do it every day. They’re ingrained. It’s really, really hard to start out as your dream job, ’cause it’s a really, really tough job.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we’re gonna come back to that in a second, but I want to dive a little bit more into your past, because [00:06:00] there’s a major thread that you can pull throughout your writing, your newsletters, your photos, your videos, et cetera.

You have a certain fondness for a Pontiac GTO. Do you want to explain what that’s all about?

Gren Stanley: That was really weird. That was really cool and really special. And this is a scenario where I had a buddy of mine, and he just had some friends that needed help selling a car. You get those all the time. I just got one today, and it’s, like, a 2011 Ford Mustang, you know, with 16,000 miles.

Right. And I’m like, “All right, well, Carvana or whatever,” you know? Like, it’s a very common car. And, uh, this was a scenario where- He’s like, “Yeah, they want help selling their dad’s Pontiac.” And I’m like, “All right. You know, that could be cool. Probably not, but that could be cool.” And this is through text message, so everything kind of came dripping in.

He’s like, “Oh, apparently it’s a GTO.” I’m like, “Well, that’s cool.” “Apparently his dad bought it new.” “Well, that’s really cool.” “Apparently it’s unrestored. He got all the performance stuff on it.” So, you know, it kept getting better. Anyways, as these pictures came in, and [00:07:00] it’s unrestored, it’s special paint, it’s special ordered, it’s AC on a 389 tri-carb, four-speed car, which is extremely rare.

It kept getting better and better and better. And so, ironically, it was only an hour and a half from my house. And any place in the entire country, uh, my friend was in Atlanta that called me, it was an hour and a half from my house. And so by the time that I went to go look at it, I was like, “I gotta buy this car.

There’s just no way.” You don’t come across original family-owned, unrestored, special spec, crazy documentation ever So when I went out there, I had, in my mind, I was like, “All right, if I can, I need to buy this car.” And I did. I also saw that as my ticket to being on Jay Leno’s Garage, which is a whole nother story, so that worked out well, too.

Crew Chief Eric: What would you describe that color as?

Gren Stanley: So, like, a medium metallic gold. It’s called Tiger Gold. So they offered five special paint colors for that year, and this was one of the five. And, uh, what’s interesting about it is it only came with a white or a black pinstripe, but this owner had custom ordered a red [00:08:00] pinstripe.

And what’s really weird is, in Pontiac world, they have the Pontiac Historical Society or whatever, it’s the documentation you can order up that tells you about your car, and even with that documentation, it says it’s a special color, but it doesn’t tell you what the color is. Even on the VIN tag, it says it’s a special color, but it doesn’t say what the color is.

Now, this was fortunate, ’cause it’s an unrestored car, so we knew it had Tiger Gold, we knew it had the red pinstripe. But when they pulled the car out of 40 years of slumber, they pulled the gas tank and they found the build sheet, which is really crazy that it was still there, and it said, “Tiger Gold, red stripe.”

You just can’t ask for a better documentation than the original build sheet. So yeah, it’s a beautiful car. I’ve never been a gold… You know, it’s like anything else. If there’s a color of a car you don’t like, after you own one for a little while, you’ll then love that color. So I really love gold cars right now.

Crew Chief Eric: With Pontiac celebrating its centennial, any special feels for you, being a Pontiac owner?

Gren Stanley: You know, not really, only because this car has been [00:09:00] such a rollercoaster ride ever since the day we bought it. Took it to Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals, it was on the Red Carpet Invitational, had it on The Jay Leno Show, took it to Cincinnati Concours, won the Preservation Award.

And so, it’s like anything else. When you buy a car, it’s a whole journey with that car. So I almost feel like, you know, it’s great that it’s the 100 years, and I’m not sure what’s gonna happen with the car r- right now as far as it relates to the celebration, but I’ve had so much fun with it, it almost seems like, oh, this is cool.

But man, we’ve had such a ride so far.

Crew Chief Eric: So let’s address the 900-pound gorilla in the room, because other people are probably thinking, “I’ve got a numbers-matching, factory original GTO. How come I can’t go on Jay Leno’s Garage?” How did you make that happen?

Gren Stanley: Yeah, this is a crazy story, because I’m very tenacious, I guess, you know?

I just don’t give up, I guess, is the biggest thing. Through the car world, I figured out who a person was in Jay Leno’s garage that I could email, ’cause I wanted him on my podcast. I thought that’d be great, Jay Leno on my podcast, that’d be [00:10:00] fantastic. And so I emailed, and it was always a polite response, but it was more of a, “Well, let’s see what happens.”

And nothing ever happened. I even did some episodes where I dug into his collection, you know, like here’s all his pre-war cars, here’s his whatever cars, and I had like four or five episodes where I dug into his collection, which was a lot of fun to do, and I thought, “Well, maybe that would get me to have Jay Leno on.”

My pitch was is there’s, like, 10 cars that are not in Jay Leno’s garage, like, why are these cars not in his garage? Now, obviously, the famous one is Ferraris, but he doesn’t have a BMW, he doesn’t have a V16, he doesn’t have X and Y cars. And I thought, “Well, that’d be a very interesting podcast episode,” like, “Why don’t you have these cars?”

And it never happened. At, at one point, my contact actually responded saying, “Well, I’m booking him for stand-up events. He’d probably rather do your podcast, so let’s see who wins.” And I never heard anything back. And then a couple years later, I was asked to podcast from the Wynn at the Las Vegas Concours in the lobby, they have a podcast studio, and Jay Leno was [00:11:00] the Grand Marshal.

And so I said, “Well, this is my big chance. I can finally meet Jay Leno in person.” And so he was the Grand Marshal. Outside, he’s swamped all the time, right? I saw him outside, and I ran up to him, and I had like two seconds, and I said, “I’d love for you to be on my podcast so I can tell you the cars that should be in your collection,” which was, like, the worst way to do it, right?

And he just looked at me like, “What?” And that was it, and I got a, a poor selfie done with him, and that was it. And then, like, a year later, between that time and a year later when I was at the podcast studio again at the Wynn, I bought the GTO. And I thought, “All right, well, this is my chance to get my car on his show, and maybe I’ll get him on my show.”

And so I did this huge email with pictures and explanations, how special this car was, and all sorts of stuff, and I sent it to my same contact, and I never heard back. And I was like, “Well, that’s kind of disappointing,” you know? I thought there might be a chance I would see him again in Vegas. And so what I did was is, like, printed off that email- And it had in my back pocket.

I couldn’t meet, catch up with them, and then we got kicked out of our [00:12:00] hotel room at 11:00 AM ’cause we’re, we had the midnight or whatever, the red-eye flight back. So we had this time to burn, and I remember the podcast studio, the guy said, we, he knew we were getting kicked out. He’s like, “Hey, if you wanna hang out in the studio, you can.

Just come by. There’s like a little lobby area.” So no sooner than my wife arrived there with our luggage that Jay and his wife and his small crew of like two other people walk in, ’cause he had to do a, a podcast episode right then. And so we just sat, waited patiently, and he did his interview, and we have our five minutes with him afterwards.

And I pull out my printed off email, and I said, “I think this car would be great for your show.” And he looked at the email. He’s like, “Oh, I know this car. I know this story. This is a great story. Yeah, let’s have it on the show.” And so he gave me his producer’s phone number, and we wrote it down wrong ’cause it was like, you know, here’s his name, here’s his number, and we wrote it down wrong Anyways, after that, I reached out to my contact.

I said, “Hey, Jay wants the car to be on the show,” but I wrote the number down and she put us in contact. It took [00:13:00] off from there, and, uh, it was just a great experience. But it was four or five years of me trying to get on his show. And then when I got there, this is another fun story, I don’t know why, but in my head I thought, “Well, I’ll do an interview with Jay.

We’ll just use his equipment.” California union shops, you know, that kind of stuff. I should have known better. And so we get there, if, if you watch the Jay Leno video, I say, “Hey, Jay, thanks for being on my podcast.” But we hadn’t recorded it yet. They had agreed to do it. And so after our ride for his video, he’s like, “Hey, you want to do that interview?”

I’m like, “Yeah, sure.” And I just happened to have my camcorder with me, but I didn’t have a stand or anything. And the producer was even saying, “Well, I can do it with my cell phone if you want.” I’m like, “No, let’s not do it with your cell phone.” And so we go into this, his motorcycle room, full of Vincent Black Shadows, that kind of stuff, and there’s a coffee table sitting there with a bunch of books on it and stuff.

And I said, “Well, let’s just put it right here.” And the camcorder was a little crooked, and for some reason there’s two black combs on this coffee table. And so we grabbed the black combs and we even out the camera so they can record. So if you go to my YouTube channel, The Collector [00:14:00] Car Podcast, the first video that shows up automatically is that interview with Jay.

The lighting’s horrible. It’s only like a 10-minute interview, but I was able to ask the questions about this or that. Which car would you have if it’s a V16? Would you have a, a Marmon or a Cadillac? For a Ferrari, would it be an F40 or a, I think I said a, a Lusso, maybe something like that. But anyway, so it was a heck of an experience.

I’m hoping to get back there with the book, but so far I haven’t had a chance to get back out there.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, congratulations. That’s like reaching the top of Mount Everest, so good job on that.

Gren Stanley: Yeah. It’s a lot of effort. So don’t ask me, “Can you get me on Jay Leno’s Garage?” ‘Cause it’s very, very difficult.

Crew Chief Eric: And he’s always at the top of every automotive podcaster’s whiteboard.

Like, “We gotta get an interview with Jay Leno,” and then it’s Jerry Seinfeld, and then there’s a couple other people in the collector space that, you know, those are the unicorns that you’re trying to interview. So good job. E- excellent. Excellent. Yeah.

Gren Stanley: Thanks. Appreciate that.

Crew Chief Eric: That does segue us into talking more about the interviews that you’ve done over the years.

You’ve gotten to hear from the [00:15:00] voices all over the automotive world. Of those conversations, what kinds of insights or surprises have emerged when you’ve been interviewing somebody all along the way that you’ve been doing the Collector Car Podcast?

Gren Stanley: You know, it’s interesting, ’cause I, I think what comes across is everybody’s passionate, but then they’re very specific about what they’re passionate about.

And so I’ll give a couple examples here. I used to do a, a version of my podcast called The Ultimate Garage. I’d ask Wayne Carini what’s his top 10 cars, or I asked Ken Gross, who’s, you know, automotive historian, great guy- What I found interesting is the responses were very surprising. For example, for Ken Gross, he is such a student and judge.

You know, he judges all over the world. But it’s not just collector cars, he knows the very specific, very special, very rare cars, you know? And so what was interesting about that podcast, if I asked him his 10 cars, it wasn’t like a Ferrari 275 GTB. It was like, “Here’s the one, here’s the VIN, here’s why it’s special, and here’s who owns it today,” you know?

It [00:16:00] was really one-off Delahaye or whatever it was. It was very cool, very special in the fact that his knowledge base was so deep that it wasn’t like, “Well, here’s the make and model and version I want.” It’s like, “This is the exact car.” And then it was also surprising with Donald Osborne, who used to run Enjay, he surprised me quite a bit because the first nine cars, like, I don’t want to say I could have guessed, but I could have guessed the genre.

French, Alfa Romeo, Italian, you know, very Art Deco or very classic, you know. He’s a classically trained opera performer, you know, like just a classy guy. But his 10th car caught me off guard. It was a 1965 Mustang Fastback with the K-Code engine. I’m like, “Really? That’s great. Like, that’s cool.” Like, I’ve got my…

I’m a big K-Code fan. I’ve got my HYPO book right here. And anyway, so I had a dark blue K-Code I found during Amelia Island Car Week under a tarp that was not for sale and not running, and I bought it, drove it around Amelia Island a year later. And then when I sold it, I put it on [00:17:00] my News Blast. Donald never responds to any of my emails, but this one he did.

He said, “All right, I’ll bite. How much?” And I told him, and I never heard back from him, and it sold in 17 hours, so I, apparently I had a good price on it. So I, you know, it’s that kind of stuff I find very interesting. I also love interviewing original owners whenever possible. Sometimes it’s a guy that has a not that rare of a car, like an ’87 Pontiac Firebird, but he bought it new and then he lost it for 26 years, and then he found it in a barn in basically barn-fine condition, and then he restored it, and now he’s at car shows.

You know, those are just really cool. Obviously, the original owner stories where they’ve had it since 1963 are really, really cool, but it just depends on what the story is. It, it could be a car worth 10 grand if the story’s cool enough, you know?

Crew Chief Eric: So when you look back over the long history of The Collector Car Podcast, what are some of the things that you’ve seen trend or evolve from your very first episode to where you are now?

Is there anything that really stands out about the community as you’ve been diving deeper and deeper into [00:18:00] it?

Gren Stanley: You know, I probably put a little too much emphasis on values at some point. Now that I’ve been doing it for long enough, you know, not all values continue to go up, right? I don’t like the aspect of investing.

Like, it’s fun to spitball and ballpark and forecast and that kind of stuff, and yes, I would prefer to buy a car that I think is gonna appreciate, where at least I get my money out of it or I don’t lose too much money. But I don’t think that’s as much fun as I used to think it was, because as you’re in it for a number of years, you realize, yeah, there are different trends that happen.

Some of them you can see coming, others you cannot. And right now we’re in a really weird timeframe where it doesn’t make a lot of sense with some of the stuff that’s happening. One example I’ll give is the Ferrari Daytonas. You know, they’re classic front engine, V12, manual, analog, all the stuff you want.

Beautiful. Not the most fun car to drive at slow speeds but, you know, once you get it up and running. Those were approaching 800, $900,000 at one point. We’ll never forget, I, I never did a podcast about it, but I wanted [00:19:00] to. There was a yellow, I won’t say the right, you know, Italian phrase for that, giallo, whatever, but it went to 14 different auctions.

The first auction it was a no sale at 700 grand. The second auction it was a no sale at 800 grand. The third auction, 850. And then after that it just kept on declining until a hammer sold for, like, 550. 14 auctions, and what was interesting is it kind of mirrored, at that time, the collector car market as a whole was going through a little bit of a, of a recession, right?

And then we have the time in which the Dinos, doesn’t say Ferrari anywhere on it, you know, rear engine, six cylinder, handles really well, a beautiful little car. But those were trading for more than Daytonas, and they sometimes still are today. I think as so much has equalized, but you still have examples.

Daytonas are back up, I mean, one sold recently for a million dollars. It’s just interesting, you know? So it, it’s hard to predict where some cars are going to go. It’s fun to, but I think I’d much rather focus on the passion and the love for [00:20:00] whatever the car is, and the history, not worrying about the value so much.

Crew Chief Eric: And it’s funny you bring that up, because my mind immediately goes to what’s the next closest underdog of the modern era? And you say the Daytona, and I go, “Eh, it’s okay.” The whole Miami Vice thing, and, you know, all that stuff that goes along with the Daytona. But I go 456. Front engine, V12, manual or automatic.

Very handsome car, but it’s understated because it was overshadowed by the 550 Maranello and the 575 that came after that, and things like that. So there, to me, that’s like the bargain front engine V12. Why spend half a million bucks on a GTB when you could buy a 456 and it’s way more modern? You know what I mean?

Like, I have these debates and these struggles, and I wonder if other- Yeah … collectors out there are doing the same thing when they’re hearing about these classic cars, going, “I can get a much newer car for less money. Maybe it doesn’t have the same provenance, but what about the driving experience?” So how do you handle those sort of maybe misconceptions about the market or, you know, how people are trending and where they’re putting their money?[00:21:00]

Gren Stanley: I think cars from the ’50s and ’60s, I don’t think they’re gonna continue to appreciate the way they ever have in the past. Mostly ’cause it’s a generational shift. If you see someone that’s under 50 pursuing a new Ferrari, they’re not pursuing- Let me just say a Ferrari, it’s typically not an old Ferrari.

That’s part of the challenge is, is getting them engaged. Part of the reason, we can talk about it in a minute, but about my book. It’s like, don’t always look at the new stuff. Have appreciation for the eras that came before it, ’cause there’s a lot of really cool stuff there. I would probably be right with you.

I mean, I’d love to have a Daytona. Now, I’m, I’m not saying I’d want a 456. They are handsome, but they’re not everybody’s cup of tea, right?

Crew Chief Eric: Right.

Gren Stanley: They are handsome. But, you know, like a 550 Maranello, I’d love to have one of those. Manual front engine V12. I’ve always loved those. They’re really sweet. So there are a lot of cars under the Daytona price point I would buy-

Crew Chief Eric: First.

Gren Stanley: Yeah, first. That would be much newer cars. You know, a 458, you know, last of the natural aspirated V8s. You know, there’s a lot of stuff on that list I would buy be- I think we’re in the same ballpark. And I think a lot of folks are like that as [00:22:00] well, ’cause it’s comfort, convenience. You gotta buy right though, because, you know, after a certain while, 456 is probably a good example, probably quite a few parts on that car are very hard to source, and that’s where you gotta buy the best possible car you can when you get it.

I mean, what, servicing’s one thing, but when you start losing, like, some trim pieces or some interior knobs or whatever, who wants to go down the 3D printing route, right, to get the car functioning? Yeah, that becomes interesting. That becomes a challenge. I bought my wife a ’05 Porsche Boxster S that’s 1,900 miles on it, in a collection since new.

Thing’s perfect. It’s like bulletproof. Absolutely love the car. Now, would I love to find a Ferrari version of that? Yeah, sure I would, you know? But there’s different expectations and different cost implications as well.

Crew Chief Eric: For sure. Even the cheapest Ferrari’s gonna be expensive. You mentioned your book earlier, so let’s segue into that, The Enthusiast’s Guide to Collector Cars.

You break down the hobby for newcomers, and I felt that as I read it, and I wanted to dive [00:23:00] a little bit more into your inspiration after all this time. Writing a book is sometimes a mammoth undertaking, especially for a lot of people. You know, some people say, “Hey, how hard could it be?” Famous last words on Top Gear.

But to write a book is something of a journey. So what brought you to that?

Gren Stanley: Yeah, there’s quite a few things. First off, my wife has become quite a car girl. She’s always asking me, like, “Well, what’s that generation of Porsche? What’s that generation of Corvette?” She picks up stuff really quick. I tell people, the other day she was like, “Was that a ’62 Buick?”

And I’m like, “Wait a minute. What? Yeah, that was a…” You know, like, it wasn’t like, “Was that a ’63 Corvette?” You know, something real mainstream. It was, like, totally random and she totally nailed it. I’m like, “Wait a minute.” But I realize there’s not really that one access point in which to dip your toe in the collector car pool, so to speak.

There’s a lot of books out there, and they’re usually like, “Here’s the top 100 cars,” or they’re talking about the collector car hobby as a whole. It’s not necessarily by someone that is so top level, it’s [00:24:00] almost useless. And then you have the flip side of that, which it’s the deep dives are amazing, but it’s just too much of an obstacle for someone new.

I mean, I’ve got- The History of Brumos over here. I’ve got Japan’s Most Astonishing Automobiles by Myron Vernis and Mark Brinker. Incredible anthologies, but it’s not what you buy where, you know, it’s a new enthusiast. And I also have some nieces and nephews that are in their teens that are really loving cars, and I’m like, “Well, what would be a good access point?”

So that was probably the trigger point. Before that, I’d have to say it was my 400 episodes of research. And so, yes, it is very hard to write a book. I tell people this one’s a little different ’cause it’s a guide, so it’s not like War and Peace. There’s not a lot of creative writing involved. It’s more of me as a narrator walking you down the different eras, the timelines of the automotive world.

So I, I plan to have more. I’ve almost done with the Porsche book, which hopefully will come out in October Yes, it is a, it is a big elephant to eat, I guess, is the best way to put [00:25:00] it. But meant to be entry level. It’s meant to be snippets. It’s meant to be somewhat formulaic. You know, you have the same outline for each chapter.

You’re just kind of diving into it differently. So I’m trying to make it where it’s easy to enjoy. Even though it’s 400 pages, there’s a lot of pictures. And, uh, I, I mean, you can read a 400 page book in probably three hours or so. So it’s not overwhelming, which was the biggest goal, and it’s meant to be to inspire people to get excited about cars, which I did when I researched the, uh, classic era, 1928 to 1948, I believe.

I was just like, “Wow, I never appreciated these cars like this,” once I researched it. So I have a much better appreciation for that era of cars than I ever thought I would.

Crew Chief Eric: So somewhere in between the forward and where the guide really hits its stride, you talk a bit about the emotional side of collecting cars.

You make some connections there. You tell some of your own stories. Talk about what you think drives people to stay so deeply connected with cars, even in the modern era [00:26:00] where things are changing. Ferrari just revealed the Luce, and we’re all kind of scratching our head going, “Is this the future of mobility?”

You know, it’s no longer cars. We call it mobility. So how do collectors, especially young collectors like you were talking about, get connected with old cars?

Gren Stanley: Yeah, you know, I think that really has, it’s all about experience really, and knowledge. I was at a show the other day, local car show, and all the different clubs showed up, and I was impressed how many people asked the little kids to sit in their cars, whether it was a Ferrari or it was a Hummer or whatever.

And so it was really getting them involved by, uh, having them sit in the cars. I can remember me growing up, that would never have happened, which might’ve worked in the opposite way. It was all forbidden fruit. You’re not allowed to touch this, so it made me want it more. So I guess you can’t really lose on that front.

But I think it’s just a matter of getting them involved in the experience. As this posts, I will have gone to Velocity Invitational out at Sonoma Raceway, and that is really incredible, ’cause you have the cars screaming on the track. You know, you got [00:27:00] 250 GTOs. You got McLaren F1s. You got Mini Coopers running with their class.

And that is meant to be much more as a cultural event where there’s stuff for spouses and children to do as well. You can camp. You know, you can do all sorts of stuff, and I think that’s really the key to get them involved and engaged. Because at some point they’re gonna connect with something over that weekend, you know, and it might be something totally unexpected.

Uh, it was funny because when I interviewed the founder, Jeff O’Neill, he mentioned he gave, I think it was a media reporter, a spin in his Boss Mustang, but it was one of the factory Parnelli Jones race cars, around the track. The media reporter only wanted to do one lap ’cause he said, “That’s the most violent thing I’ve ever had experienced in my life.”

And I told him, I said, “You know what? He might not have liked it, but he’ll never forget it, you know?” And so if you put a little kid in a scenario like that- As long as you don’t traumatize them, they’ll probably, 10 years down the road, they might wanna relive something like that, ’cause it really sticks in your mind so much.

And it, it doesn’t have to be something like that, but it could [00:28:00] be… My first thing that connected with me is my dad’s friend came over when I was, like, 15. His somewhat shady friend who I didn’t know if I could trust him or not, but he showed up with a ’66 Mustang convertible, and it was so gorgeous in our driveway.

I offered to wash it so I could touch it. And never sat in it, never washed it. Like, an hour later it was gone, and I never saw it again, and that was my forbidden fruit. I just could not stop thinking about that Mustang. I even took pictures of it, but I never sat in it or anything. You know, it’s just trying to get those kids involved.

I think we’re in a good spot though, because I remember there was someone at one of the car shows, elderly gentleman who’s been around forever. I think it was a 80-year-old Ferrari judge, and he said something to the effect of, “I have no concern about the future of our hobby. I’ve never seen so many kids at a car show, you know, with their phones, sharing it on social media, than I have today.”

And I thought that was a re- really good point. You know, you think about probably 40 years ago at these Ferrari shows, there probably wasn’t one kid, you know, and now there’s 40 or whatever it is. So I [00:29:00] think we’re probably engaging them more than we think. I think the motivation might be a little different though.

Some of it is to get likes, to get views, to flex, so to speak, uh, which I don’t think is necessarily healthy. But if that gets them involved in the hobby Let’s go with it.

Crew Chief Eric: Throughout your journey, whether it be putting together the book, your show, interviewing folks, judging at concourse, going to different car shows, you know, reporting on things and whatnot, is there sort of an underdog story or a, you know, your own personal barn find where you were introduced to a car where not just the way it looked, but its story changed your perception of maybe the car or the brand or, or everything that went with it?

Is there something that really resonates with you?

Gren Stanley: There is. I need to keep it somewhat vague, ’cause I don’t wanna give up any confidentialities here. But I was in a collection, and it’s a really hard collection to get into, and the reason being is person’s private, but has some really cool old European cars.

And I just remember one of the cars he had [00:30:00] bought new, call it 1958 or so, something like that, and it was European sports car, and his wife would take his son to school in it. And really cool, really unique. About a, I don’t know, year or two later, he sold the car to get another European sports car that was very extreme, like basically a factory race car that he had on the streets.

It was ’cause it was his dream car, right? And it was just too much for his wife to take the kid to school in, ’cause it was like a factory race car. And they figured out a way, they couldn’t really afford both cars, but they went back and they bought the first car, which they affectionately called the school bus.

So, you know, this is in the late ’50s, early ’60s. And so when I go to this collection, they still own those cars. I was so impressed by the school bus story that I’d like to do some fun pen and ink drawing. So I thanked them for the visit by doing a pen and ink drawing. So I drew the European sports car, behind it I put, “Of era, uh, school bus.”

And I just, you know, say, “Hey, the [00:31:00] school bus”, or whatever. And they sent me a picture back. They framed it, and they put it in front of the car, and they sent me a picture of the two back to me as, “Hey, this is really cool. We appreciate it. Here it is.” Well, fast forward like two years later, I ran into the grandson who I never met.

I said, “Oh, I, I’d visited and I did this pen and ink drawing.” Well, he had had that picture of the drawing in front of the car as his screensaver for like two or three years. Wow. So it was really cool to see it all kind of connect. And as far as I know, those cars are still in that family’s garage.

Crew Chief Eric: All right, Greg, let’s take a quick pit stop and let’s settle a debate, an ongoing debate on this show.

And you being a collector car enthusiast with the new Enthusiast Guide to Collector Cars, you’re at the head of the boardroom table and you cast the deciding vote to build either the space age, highly sophisticated Porsche 959 or the Ferrari F40. Which do you [00:32:00] choose?

Gren Stanley: F40 Yeah, no

Crew Chief Eric: doubt Why? Why?

Gren Stanley: Well, it’s funny you said that, ’cause between the two, I’ve never fallen in love with the 959.

I mean, it’s cool. Technologically, it’s amazing. It has such an incredible story. I had the chance to drive one. Today’s standard, it feels underpowered, which is why Canepa is doing his SC version with, like, 700 horsepower, whatever, which probably feels just about right. I just never gravitated towards those cars, mostly because if you look at the profile view, you can kind of see the 911 in there.

You know, you can see, well, here’s the hood, here’s the windows, and they added the … You know. They’re cool, but I just never gravitated towards those. I’ve always loved the F40. Pop-up headlights are a thing now. Back in the day, they, they weren’t. Everybody hated them. But, you know, that V8, so raw, so incredible, such a cool, angular car.

You know, if they were to make one of those two again, I mean, there was rumors last year of, you know, like, the SP4 was gonna be the modern interpretation of the F40 but with a manual. I’m [00:33:00] like, “That’s the ticket. That’s what they need to do. Do it now.” I mean, I even had people that said they were in the factory, and they said they saw the car.

And I’m like, “Well, that hasn’t happened yet, so I don’t think they really saw the car.” But yeah, there’s no doubt which one I would choose.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. Since you chose the red card and not the gray card- … if you take the F40 versus the F50, which one goes in your garage?

Gren Stanley: Ah, that’s a tough one. So here’s why it’s tough.

The F50 came out, I lived in Atlanta at the time, and so the new Ferrari store up in Roswell, I was sticking my face against the glass windows when the F50 was launched. I did not think it was an attractive car at all. Uh, I remember seeing one go down Georgia 400 South to the toll plaza, and I thought, “Man, that thing is not that good-looking.”

So I was in love with the F40. Now, however, it has aged very well. I have not driven either of those cars, and it’s my understanding based on people who either own both or have owned both, the F50 is a much more enjoyable car [00:34:00] to live with versus the F40. And you look at the back of the F50, you know, you got that grate between the brake lights, you know, it’s basically open air, V12, you know, F1 inspired.

I would probably lean towards the F50, believe it or not, despite all that, even though I love the F40. I don’t know. That’s a really tough question. But if I had to go between a V12 and a V8, both incredible, iconic cars, obviously the F50 much rarer, I would probably go with the F50, non-red.

Crew Chief Eric: Non-red. See, and that’s where the motorsports enthusiasts come to the table and say, “You chose wrong, Greg, because the F40’s a better track car than the F50.”

And that’s why, to your point, the F50 is livable in the street, ’cause the F40 was never really supposed to be a street car.

Gren Stanley: And I would never take it on the track, honestly. I’m just driving it at Cars and Coffee and local concours events.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, let’s go back and let’s connect the dots between your show and the book.

When you’re putting it all together, how do you balance the analytical side of the market data that you are [00:35:00] constantly bombarded with, with the more personal, subjective side of automotive enthusiasm? And I mean, that comes through in the book, so that was part of your writing experience. How did you find a way to strike a balance there?

Gren Stanley: I purposely did not wanna lead people in any direction as far as what they should pursue. Whether it was type of car, era of car, or price point of car. And so in order to do that, I felt like I needed to cover as much of everything as I could. So that’s why there’s, you know, the obvious stuff, you know, the pre-war stuff, the brass era stuff, the muscle cars, the 1950s American, the British cars.

But then I also felt like I had to cover movie cars, ’cause those are culturally so big. I had to cover the restomod movement. I had to cover trucks and SUVs, you know, and that’s not my bread and butter. You know, that’s not what I pursue. But I wanted to present it because that’s where collectors are.

That’s where the enthusiasts are, especially like in the truck and SUV. Those have just exploded recently. And then I also wanted to touch on modern [00:36:00] stuff, like the modern collectibles, like my wife’s Boxster S. I mean, that is the definition of a future collectible if there ever was one. You know, last of the analog.

That made it a little bit easier because I wasn’t focusing on the values, I wasn’t focusing on valuation trends. Now, I still wanted a piece of that in there, and so when you look at the book as an entry point, you know, people might aspire to have a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing, you know, $1 to $10 million car, depending if it’s alloy or not, or Rudge wheels or not.

That’s out of reach of basically all new enthusiasts. Well, I put in a collector’s ladder. So what’s the entry level for that era, make, mark, possibly? What’s a mid-level, and then what’s blue chip? So maybe you can’t afford that today, but maybe you can get a, you know, early ’50s Mercedes Fintail or something, you know, to get into that world somewhat.

Because I’ve been in the auction world for a little while, I also thought it would be fun to show at the end of each chapter, like, what are some auction highlights and record sales, because, you know, I’ve mentioned before flexing or showing off or whatever. I think when people [00:37:00] go to these car shows and they videotape these cars that, you know, maybe they’re out there to show, like, the new Pagani or the new Huayra, whatever.

But there’s some older stuff that is really worth a lot of money, that is really cool, and it ties it to, usually to provenance and rarity and performance. So at the end of each chapter, you know, I highlight what are the top sales for, like, brass era, which, you know, is interesting, or, you know, what’s a Lamborghini Miura worth, you know, or whatever.

So I have it in there. It’s not the driving focus obviously. It’s more of a sharing the broad strokes of this hobby of ours and letting the reader decide, you know, what they do or do not like and why.

Crew Chief Eric: And I think you’re faced with the challenge that all of us are faced with as enthusiasts when we try to espouse what makes this so exciting, is falling victim to all the technical jargon.

And if you remember the parody video that was circulating the internet a while ago, remember the old guy giving the demonstration of the Chrysler Turbo Rotambulator transmission? Oh, right. And it’s all this jargon and science and [00:38:00] math, and you’re like, half of it’s made up. Feel like that’s how new collectors feel when we’re talking to them.

And we’re not trying to be that way. The book brings it down to a level that I think everybody can understand, which is really good. But how do we, as enthusiasts, you know, even talking about, “You should read Greg’s book, and here’s why,” and then we go off on this tangent about, you know, this specific Marmon or whatever it is.

How do you rein yourself in? How do you find a way to focus and say, “This is how I can communicate to someone new to bring them into the fold and make them feel like they’re not getting overwhelmed with engineering jargon”?

Gren Stanley: You know, I think I just try to keep it as simple as possible. I like to write, and I do a, a newsletter every Monday.

I guess it comes down to I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. So I think part of that is also making it too technical. There’s probably a couple points in the book I should have put a little bit more of an exclamation, like, “What is a V8?” Part of it, you have to make the assumption that there’s a certain level of knowledge base to even pick the book up.

And so you, you start with, like, well, I’m going to assume they know [00:39:00] these things. Like, what’s a manual transmission? But then beyond that, I really didn’t want to get into it, honestly. You know, I didn’t go into, you know, any sorts of crazy technology we have in the cars today. I maybe touched on it from a factor of if you’re looking to restore one of these cars because of these technological advancements, it might be really hard to, but I don’t go into what are those, right?

You know? It’s just more of a, “If you wanted to buy one of these, here are some considerations you might want to factor in,” and that could even go back to the older cars. You know, maybe it’s a rarity of parts for a pre-war car or whatever, you know, there’s not as much of an aftermarket supply built in. So yeah, it’s just, it’s kind of a fine line, you know, trying to figure out what can I communicate so they keep their interest without losing their interest by going a little bit too deep.

And I also have to say, I was also talking to maybe it’s the spouse or partner that’s in this car relationship, because typically in a household, there’s a car person. If you’re lucky, there’s someone who enjoys it. Typically, it’s someone who tolerates it, right? [00:40:00] I’m fortunate my wife enjoys it. But I also thought, you know, this would be a great book for that other person in the household as a way maybe they could read it and kind of get a little bit of an understanding of what their significant other finds so appealing about the collector car world.

It’d be great if they said, “Oh, I understand why you like the Mustang.” That’s why I also put in, like, cultural significance. Like, why did this happen at this point in time? Like the post-war of 1950s American cars, you know, celebrating after, uh, World War II. You know, trying to make it where it’s accessible, not a little bit too much, but a way to engage someone new for whatever that reason is.

Crew Chief Eric: One of the things that you mentioned earlier was that you’re still working on finishing the Porsche book, and that should be out in the fall. I’m assuming that that’s gonna be in a similar vein and style to this book. As you described it, you basically drew a line in the sand saying there’s a difference between a collector car guide and a buyer’s guide.

So in your Porsche book, do you recommend a buyer’s guide that would go [00:41:00] into deeper detail about, “Hey, I wanna buy a G-Series 911. This is the complimentary book that goes with it to tell you all the nitnoid things about buying one of those, restoring one of those,” you know, really looking at it with a fine-tooth comb when you go to make that investment.

You know, Greg said you should get one, but what happens next? Are you doing that in tandem?

Gren Stanley: No. I’m trying to keep it strictly to an enthusiast guide. My goal is to have, like, you know, you see these youth judging programs, you know? I’d love to see every youth judge to have a book in their backpack that is beat up, dog-eared.

They’re enjoying it as a read. They’re not, “I need to buy this book so I can figure out what the next Porsche is gonna be.” No, I want it to be for that kid who likes Porsches but know n- nothing about Porsches. So yeah, there’s gonna be a chapter on 996 or transactional cars, but it’s gonna say, “Why were they built?

What’s special about them? What’s the performance like? What are some watch outs?” You know, that kind of stuff. So the same vein as this book, you know, so this first [00:42:00] book’s 400 pages. I do not expect the Porsche book to be 400 pages. I would assume it’s gonna be half that, or 250 or something like that.

Maybe there’s more pictures or whatever, but, you know, yeah, it will go into some fun facts. You know, it’ll go into Gemünd or maybe why is the ignition on the left, by era. Why is a, you know, a 930 called a widow maker? You know, the stuff that we all know, but maybe to a, a slightly deeper level. But I also think it would be fun to have a focus on a collector who is noted for 356s or whatever.

I have a, a local guy here, Dick Weiss. He bought his 356 Carrera Speedster, it’s a 1960 model, and he bought it in ’61, and he still drives it. And so I thought, do a little collector focus of these people that have been so passionate about these cars for so long and why, and maybe they’ll share some fun insight about that.

Crew Chief Eric: So I feel like the Porsche book could be bigger than the collector car book in some ways. Where do you draw the line and say, “We’re only gonna cover maybe the street cars. We’re not gonna deal with the motor sports [00:43:00] derivatives, you know, the special cars,” because those exist in the collector world, too. I mean, h- 917Ks and 935 Longtails and 914/6 GTs.

You know, you name the list. There’s a lot of, uh, motor sports-winning Porsches out there. So where did you say, “Enough’s enough. I’m only gonna deal with 356, 911, 944,” you know, that kind of stuff? Where did you strike a balance with the Porsche book?

Gren Stanley: I’m still struggling with that. ‘Cause even Macans and Cayennes, you know, and Taycans and that kind of stuff- So I think that’s where it becomes almost, like, uh, in, in the Enthusiast Guide, I have a chapter on motorsport derived cars that talks about the Alfa 8C, it talks about the 250 GTO, but it’s not comprehensive.

It’s an overview, right? And so you’re right. I mean, I’ve got two things here on the Porsche 917, you know, like two volumes, and it’s super crazy. You’re right. So I haven’t quite figured that part out. You know, I don’t know if it’s a chapter where it just kinda is a brief overview of the top five cars that everybody knows about and [00:44:00] connects it back to the, uh, motorsport history.

I haven’t quite figured that out, but that’s a great question, and I, I am struggling even with, I think I probably need to cut it off at what would be considered a future collectible. You know, like a 2014 Cayenne GTS could be considered a future collectible. Maybe really have to handpick some of those, you know?

Crew Chief Eric: See, I’d argue the diesel Cayennes are rarer, and they’d be more collectible.

Gren Stanley: No, you’re right. Yeah, no, let’s not go down a whole diesel thing. That’s, that, that is true. So I, I have to look at it, like, all right, what would a 15-year-old or just a new enthusiast, what would they find valuable? At some point, you’re going down the rabbit trail a little too far.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly, and I think you’ll probably find that with Ferrari and then the other brands you sort of hone in on, is you have to say, “Okay, enough’s enough.” Or maybe there’s a volume two to the Porsche book which is motorsport related or something like that, you know?

Gren Stanley: That’s the thing, is it, the series can go forever, it’s just as long as I feel like doing it, you know?

And so far, I mean, I have 420 podcast episodes in, and I [00:45:00] have no lack of desire and curiosity to keep going. So I think it will be the same with the books, honestly.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, since we’re talking about the future, let’s talk a little bit about the future of the collector car world. Whether it’s technology, culture, the next generation of enthusiasts, which we’ve been talking about quite a bit, what excites you about the future of the collector car world?

Gren Stanley: I think it’s in a really weird spot, which I find very interesting. The whole market’s kinda weird right now. You know, you’ve seen the Ferrari prices go crazy. The era I’m most excited about right now is the last of the analog cars. Now, you say that, well, all cars are analog for 100 years, right? So it’s the last without the electric motors, without all the computer nannies, all that kind of stuff.

So you might call it 2000 to 2015. I’m not quite sure. It really hasn’t been defined yet, but I truly think that that is, like, the best of the best, and it’s gonna be that way for a very long time. You look at some of these new Ferraris. Let’s just pick on Ferrari. Jay Leno said it best, “Mechanical stuff breaks.

Electronic stuff degrades.” Like, we might be coming to [00:46:00] a point here where these cars are not future collectibles because you cannot rebuild them, or it’s cost-prohibitive, or there’s not an aftermarket industry that wants to take on this challenge. And so when you look at the last of the last, I’m thinking maybe it’s, like, the analog era there.

Crew Chief Eric: My only counterpoint to that, Greg, is that there’s an LS swap there for everything. So don’t worry about the future of these cars. Man, you’re telling me. So that being said, you’re famous for asking folks about their top cars of whatever genre or whatever the episode is that you’re talking about. So top five future collectibles, looking 2026, cars that are coming out right now that you think are gonna be collectible in the future, what are they?

Gren Stanley: Oh, that’s tough. You know, Porsche has done a really good job of making a lot of desirable variants. I mean, you could pick five right there, but I won’t. Obviously, I would say the ST I think is a really good one.

Crew Chief Eric: Is that the Ford Focus ST? What are we talking about, the ST?

Gren Stanley: 911 ST. Thank you [00:47:00] very much. Um, you know, this new, uh, SC they came out with, Porsche has said themselves, “This is out now because we can’t do it in the future.”

Because of the rules and regulations and everything that’s coming down the pike, they couldn’t redo the ST into a Cabriolet version. They had to come out with something different, and this is the answer. So I think that’s gonna be really interesting. The, uh, Cayman GT4- That’s incredible. Whatever variant, R- whatever you want.

You know, those are really cool, amazing cars. Ferrari’s interesting. I do think the F80 is cool looking. I know a lot of people hate that. They hate the powertrain. The Cilindro, I don’t know what they call it, the spider version, I think that’s a very interesting car, ’cause I don’t like the rear end on the coupe.

But, you know, front engine V12 Ferrari, are they gonna continue making that? You know, I don’t know. I think the Mustang GTD is absolutely stunning, amazing. That’s immediate collectible. I, I think that’s a slam dunk. And if we went back a few years, I think the last year [00:48:00] of the Dodge Viper ACR, even though they’re brutal cars to drive, those have already shown their worth.

I mean, they’re rare. They didn’t make many of them. They’re high performance. They have some racing pedigree, if you go back far enough. Yeah, new cars, that’s a really, really tough one, for sure.

Crew Chief Eric: So you’re saying there’s not a collectible EV in the bunch, not even of the Chinese manufacturers?

Gren Stanley: Tesla Roadster first year, maybe.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s going back a ways. I’m thinking, like, even the new one that just set the r- the speed record. The BYDs, you know, all those kinds that are, like, electric hypercars now. Like, do you think those are gonna be collectible?

Gren Stanley: I mean, they, they are, you know? But they’re more collectible as a museum piece for the historical importance of that.

I think Zinger, that car’s unbelievable. Now, will you ever get your $3.5 million back? I don’t know. I think that’s an incredible car. I mean, of all the c- all the s- if I had $3.5 million to spend, let’s just say I couldn’t get a Pagani, ’cause I’d probably g- get a Pagani first, it would be that Zinger. That thing is unbelievable.

You can’t go wrong with the new [00:49:00] ZR1, X, ZR1, Z06. I mean, they’re all incredible, great cars. I think that Zinger is really something special.

Crew Chief Eric: If you’re looking to invest in the market, do you see a dip? Do you see a cavity, a place where people should be spending their money right now?

Gren Stanley: Um, it’s really tough right now.

I think people are gonna kill me, but I think the Ferraris, because of the Bachman sale, they’re overblown right now. Now, with a couple exceptions. Like I said, it’s a really weird time. The Bachman cars were, people say once in a lifetime. These truly were, as far as I can tell, once in a lifetime, because Phil Bachman, he custom ordered luggage before they had a program.

Like, he had the relationships to make that happen. He custom ordered paint and, you know, different little things, maybe not to everyone’s taste, but he did it before they had a program. And so, yes, you can do both of those things today, but it’s not special. It was special back then. And he didn’t drive the cars, and he kept them in immaculate shape, kept them up.

So can that be repeated? I suppose so, I just don’t know how. Uh, one example I would give is I met someone who’s a Porsche fan, [00:50:00] and, you know, they would custom do, like, the trim and, like, that bronzey look, but they would not do it in a brushed nickel look. And so he asked them if they would do it, and their response was, “Well, we don’t do that, but if you’ll pay to see if we can do it, and we can do it, we’ll do it.”

So he paid for them to do, do the study to see if they could do it, and now he has the only one that has that. So there could be a version of the Buckman sale that is happening now, but you won’t know for 40 years. But I feel like, you know what? Because their 308 sold for 300 grand doesn’t mean all 308s are worth 300 grand And yet the price markup has happened, not to that level, but it’s gone up on all Ferraris after that sale.

So I don’t wanna say there’s a bubble. I think there will be one, but it won’t happen for three to five years, honestly. I think we’re on a tear right now. There are some exceptions, like the Enzo. Take the F50, you know, rare colors, one-off colors. That was seen at Broad Arrow with that Carrera GT in that really cool blue color.

I forgot what it was called, Oslo Blue or something. And so I think paint the sample, which has typically been reserved for Porsches, [00:51:00] has truly expanded to other makes and models. Any Dodge Hellcat or 170 is probably not gonna make what you paid for it, even with a lot of these people paid these premiums.

But there’s 3,300 of those cars out there, the 170s. Those are not gonna bring a premium unless it’s a rare color, and we already saw that with the Panther Pink one. The one of one Panther Pink sold for, like, $400,000 six months ago. So I think there’s an outlier color impacting with rarity, like the orange Enzo that sold at Mecum for crazy money.

I think that’s happening right now as well. So as far as deals, that’s a little difficult. I think going back to the analog era, you find a low mileage 2000 to 2015, something that’s cool and is a high performance spec in a cool color, manual, I think that’s a great investment right now, and there’s too many of those out there to really call out.

I want a 2012 911 Carrera S, the 997.2 and manual, last of the small body style, not turbo. I think that’s a really special car that is not on a [00:52:00] lot of people’s radars right now. So any 997.2 would be, uh, one I would jump all over if I had all the money in the world.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Greg, we talked about the future of the book series.

What’s next for you?

Gren Stanley: Traveling to a lot of places to share the book. So I think as this posts, you can find me at the Keeneland Concours in Lexington, Kentucky. I’ll be at the hangar party, and then I’ll be at the Concours event. But then, uh, I’m also gonna be all over the place. I’ll be at Monterey. I’m actually doing a speech at Muscle Car & Corvette Nationals in November.

What were the muscle cars before muscle cars? You know, kind of like, what were some of the big horsepower cars before we actually had a term for it? If you go to the collectorcarpodcast.com, I have a calendar there where you can see all the fun places I’ll be hopping around, enjoying cars and sharing The Enthusiast’s Guide and hopefully meeting everybody and having fun.

Crew Chief Eric: So with that, Greg, we’ve reached that part of the episode where I like to invite our guests to share any shout-outs, thank yous, promotions, or anything else that we haven’t covered thus far.

Gren Stanley: I think it would be really great if people would share their stories with me. You know, if there’s some cool thing that you have [00:53:00] out, out there, I always love barn finds.

I heard about a, a Maserati, like 1960s Maserati, in this garage not far from me that’s been here for 40 years. I’m hoping to uncover that on the YouTube channel. Um, if you have just a cool s- original owner stories, barn finds are always great, feel free to reach out any way you can.

Crew Chief Eric: Any details on where to pick up the book?

Gren Stanley: Yes. You can pick it up on Amazon, uh, as you can everything that’s, like, four to six days shipping. But if you would like an autographed copy, just go to collectorcarpodcast.com, click on the book, and you can buy it there at a reduced price, and I will get it out to you as quickly as I can. And it will be in some bookstores.

I’m working on that now, but right now, Amazon and on the website.

Crew Chief Eric: Every collector has a journey, but few people help map that journey the way Greg Stanley has. Whether it’s through the Collector Car Podcast or through the pages of The Enthusiast Guide to Collector Cars, Greg reminds us that this hobby isn’t just about machines.

It’s about memories, meaning, and the stories we choose to preserve. And conversations like this show [00:54:00] how much richer the automotive world becomes when someone takes the time to decode it with curiosity and heart. So as we wrap up today’s episode, let’s let Greg’s perspective linger a little bit longer.

He says, “The cars we chase say something about who we are, where we’ve been, and what we hope to pass on.” So with that, Greg, I can’t thank you enough for coming on Break Fix. I really feel like I could pass your book on to my eldest daughter and say, “Here, read this,” and they would suddenly have an idea of where I’m coming from, where you’re coming from, where we are coming from as collectors, why we love cars, why they get us excited.

And so I say all that to say that this book is an excellent gateway for the newcomer coming into the hobby, and I’m really excited and looking forward to the expansion of the Collector Car series books.

Gren Stanley: Well, thanks so much for having me on, Eric. I really do appreciate it. It was great to catch up a year or two years ago.

We’ll have to make sure it happens sooner than that.

Crew Chief Eric: We hope you [00:55:00] enjoyed another awesome episode of Break Fix Podcast, brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports. If you’d like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure to follow us on all social media platforms at GrandTouringMotorsports. And if you’d like to learn more about the content of this episode, be sure to check out the follow-on article at gtmotorsports.org.

We remain a commercial-free and no annual fees organization through our sponsors, but also through the generous support of our fans, families, and friends through Patreon. For as little as $2.50 a month, you can get access to more behind-the-scenes action, additional Pit Stop minisodes, and other VIP goodies, as well as keeping our team of creators fed on their strict diet of Fig Newtons, Gummi Bears, and Monster.

So consider signing up for Patreon today at www.patreon.com/gtmotorsports. And remember, without you, none of this would be [00:56:00] possible.

Highlights

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 Meet Greg Stanley!
01:17 Origin Story: Starting a Car Podcast and Breaking Into RM/Sothebys
05:21 Life as Car Specialist
05:55 The Tiger Gold GTO & Getting on Jay Leno
14:53 Interview Surprises
17:45 Market Trends and Values
21:00 Generational Shift in Collecting
22:47 Why Write the Guide?
25:41 Getting Kids Into Classics
29:15 The School Bus Story
31:35 Pitstop: Porsche 959 vs F40?
34:50 Writing the Enthusiast Guide and avoiding Jargon for Newbies
40:37 Inside the new Porsche Book
45:06 Future of Collecting, Top Future Collectibles?
52:06 What’s Next for Greg?
52:45 Where to Buy the Book and Farewell

Learn More

Greg is constantly traveling to concours events, speaking engagements, and book signings. His calendar is available at collectorcarpodcast.com, where fans can also purchase signed copies of The Enthusiast’s Guide to Collector Cars.

And if you have a barn find, an original‑owner story, or a hidden gem with a great backstory, Greg wants to hear from you. Join him at these future events:

July 11, 2026 – Autobooks-Aerobooks, Burbank, CA (11-3)
July 17, 2026 – Keeneland Concours Hanger Bash, Lexington, KY
July 18, 2026 – Keeneland Concours d’Elegance
Sept 26, 2026 – The Nethercutt Collection, Slymar, CA

More dates will be added soon as the tour continues to grow.

Bonus Content

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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.

One of the most compelling stories Greg shares is the discovery of his own Pontiac GTO, a car that began as a casual favor for a friend and quickly turned into a once‑in‑a‑lifetime find. Unrestored. Family‑owned. Special‑order paint. Tri‑power. Four‑speed. A build sheet still taped to the gas tank after 40 years. It was the kind of car that doesn’t just enter your garage — it changes your trajectory.

That GTO eventually became Greg’s ticket onto Jay Leno’s Garage, but not without years of persistence, misfires, and one hilariously crooked camcorder interview propped up by two black combs.

Across hundreds of interviews, Greg has noticed a pattern: Collectors aren’t just passionate — they’re specific.

Whether it’s Ken Gross naming exact VINs of historically significant cars or Donald Osborne surprising Greg with a love for a ’65 Mustang K‑Code, the stories reveal how personal and idiosyncratic automotive passion can be.

Greg also loves original‑owner stories — not because the cars are always rare, but because the stories are. A humble ’87 Firebird can be just as compelling as a multi‑million‑dollar Ferrari if the history is rich enough.

Greg admits he once put too much emphasis on values and investment forecasting. Today, he’s more interested in the emotional and cultural side of collecting. Still, he’s watched the market long enough to see patterns:

Ferrari Daytonas once climbed toward $900k, then fell to the mid‑$500s before rising again.
Dinos — once dismissed for lacking a Ferrari badge — have outpaced Daytonas at times.
Younger buyers aren’t chasing ’50s and ’60s cars the way previous generations did.
Analog-era cars (2000–2015) may become the next major collectible wave.

Greg’s advice? Buy what you love — and buy the best example you can.

Connecting the Next Generation

Greg’s wife and teenage relatives kept asking him the same questions: “What generation is that Porsche?” “Why is this car important?” “What makes this era special?” – He realized there wasn’t a single, accessible entry point for newcomers — something between “Top 100 Cars” coffee‑table books and dense historical encyclopedias.

So he wrote one.

The book walks readers through eras, cultures, and categories — from brass‑era icons to movie cars, restomods, and future collectibles — with the goal of sparking curiosity rather than overwhelming readers with jargon.

It’s also the first in a growing series, with a Porsche‑focused volume on the way.

Greg believes the future of the hobby depends on experience — letting kids sit in cars, hear them run, and feel the energy of events like Velocity Invitational. Whether it’s a 250 GTO screaming down a straight or a Mini Cooper battling in its class, the sensory impact is unforgettable.

He’s optimistic: More kids are at car shows today than ever before, phones in hand, sharing what they see. The motivation may be different, but the spark is still there.

Greg sees the collector‑car world entering a strange but fascinating era. Technology is advancing rapidly, but not always in ways that support long‑term collectability. As Jay Leno famously said: “Mechanical stuff breaks. Electronic stuff degrades.”

That’s why Greg believes the last analog cars — the final generation before digital complexity took over — may become the most important collectibles of the future. He also sees enormous potential in storytelling, community, and the emotional connections that keep the hobby alive.

Greg Stanley’s journey is a reminder that the collector‑car world isn’t just about rarity, horsepower, or market charts. It’s about people — their memories, their passions, and the stories that shape their lives. As Greg puts it: “The cars we chase say something about who we are, where we’ve been, and what we hope to pass on.”

His work — whether through his podcast, his writing, or his adventures in the field — helps map that journey for the next generation of enthusiasts.

Reading List

Don't miss out on great book like this one, or other titles we've read and covered as part of the GTM Bookclub on Break/Fix Podcast.

My Travels On Racer Road: Can-Am and Formula 1 in their golden age

DeLorean: The Rise, Fall and Second Acts of the DeLorean Motor Company

Driving to the Future: Living life following Formula One racing

Geared for Life: Making the Shift Into Your Full Potential

Fenders, Fins & Friends: Confessions of a Car Guy

Racing While Black: How an African-American Stock Car Team Made Its Mark on NASCAR

The Last Lap: The Mysterious Demise of Pete Kreis at The Indianapolis 500

Performance Thinking: Mental Skills for the Competitive World...and for Life!

The Other Side of the Fence: Six Decades of Motorsport Photography

Little Anton: A Historical Novel Complete Series

Lone Rider: The First British Woman to Motorcycle Around the World

Colin Chapman: The Man and His Cars: The Authorized Biography by Gerard Crombac

Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World

Shipwrecked and Rescued: Cars and Crew: The

Gran Touring Motorsports's favorite books »

Goodreads

Automotive History Live: Preserving the Past, Driving the Future

Society of Automotive Historians

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July 7, 2026

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Automotive history isn’t just about machines — it’s about people, communities, innovation, and the stories that shaped the world we drive through today. In the inaugural episode of Automotive History Live, presented by the Studebaker National Museum and sponsored by the Society of Automotive Historians, archivist Andrew Beckman takes listeners on a journey through South Bend’s industrial legacy, the rise and fall of Studebaker, and the museum’s expanding mission to bring history out of the archives and into the public eye.

The Studebaker story begins long before the automobile. In the late 1840s, brothers Clement and Henry Studebaker arrived in South Bend, Indiana, opening a small blacksmith shop that earned just 25 cents on its first day. By the 1880s, the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company had become the world’s largest producer of wagons and buggies — a testament to craftsmanship, persistence, and a keen sense of market evolution.

As the 20th century dawned, Studebaker pivoted toward the automobile, first with electrics in 1902 and later gasoline-powered cars. Their entry into the automotive world wasn’t the typical “inventor in a garage” story. Instead, Studebaker leveraged its national sales network, partnering with early automakers like Garford and EMF before taking full control and launching its own vehicles.

1951 Studebaker Commander Land Cruiser, Photo courtesy Studebaker National Museum, Concours at Copshaholm

For decades, Studebaker was the beating heart of South Bend. At its peak in the 1950s, the company employed nearly 25,000 workers — a quarter of the city’s population. Generations of families built careers there, and the company’s civic contributions still echo through the region: hospitals, churches, parks, and neighborhoods all bear the Studebaker imprint.

Bio

Andrew Beckman has been with the Studebaker National Museum since 1999 and currently serves as Archivist. He previously worked at the Sheboygan County Historical Society in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and the Wade House State Historic Site in Greenbush, Wisconsin. Mr. Beckman hails from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and holds a BA in History from the University of Wisconsin- Green Bay. In 2004, he completed the Modern Archives Institute at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C. In 2009, he earned his mid-level certificate in Collections Preservation from the Campbell Center for Historic Preservation Studies in Mount Carroll, Illinois. Mr. Beckman is the author of The Studebaker National Museum: Over a Century on Wheels, and Studebaker’s Last Dance: The Avanti, and is a columnist for the Studebaker Drivers Club magazine, Turning Wheels.

Listen to the whole story!

In addition to his duties at the Studebaker National Museum, Mr. Beckman is a member and Past President of the Society of Automotive Historians. He also serves as a commentator for The Henry Ford Museum’s Motor Muster and Old Car Fest.

Synopsis

The inaugural episode of Automotive History Live! introduces a new show presented by the Studebaker National Museum and sponsored by the Society of Automotive Historians, with hosts joined by Studebaker archivist Andrew Beckman.

Beckman traces Studebaker’s origins from an 1840s South Bend blacksmith shop to the world’s largest wagon builder, its early electric (1902) and gasoline (1904) automobile efforts via partnerships, and its lasting civic and industrial impact on South Bend. He explains the museum’s evolution from Studebaker’s corporate collection to today’s 2005 facility, its archives access and research services, and notable holdings including presidential carriages and the screen-used 1951 “Fozzie Bear” Studebaker. The conversation highlights regional museum collaborations, details the boutique Concours d’Elegance at Copshaholm and its rotating classes, and previews the Automotive History Live conference programming and preservation mission.

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Welcome to Automotive History Live, where the stories drive us. From the grand lawns of Concours to the icons that shape the road ahead, we celebrate the machines, the makers, and the moments that define automotive history.

Crew Chief Eric: For more than a century, the automobile has been shaping our culture, our communities, and the way we tell our stories. And now, one of the nation’s most important custodians of that history is stepping into a brand new spotlight. And today we’re thrilled to introduce Automotive History Live, a new show presented by the Studebaker National Museum, and proudly sponsored by the Society of Automotive Historians.

This series brings scholarship, the archives, and the living legacy of the automobile out of the stacks and onto the airwaves, where enthusiasts, researchers, and the curious minds can experience history in motion.

William Ross: And to help us kick off this inaugural episode, we’re joined by someone who knows the museum’s collection, [00:01:00] its stories, and its mission better than anyone, Andrew Beckman, archivist at the Studebaker National Museum.

Andrew has spent years preserving the documents, designs, photographs, and artifacts that define not just Studebaker’s legacy, but America’s automotive evolution as a whole. We’ll talk about the museum’s role as a guardian of transportation history, the annual concourse at Copseholm, one of the Midwest’s most elegant celebrations of automotive heritage, and the museum’s newest endeavor, Automotive History Live, a conference dedicated to research, preservation, and storytelling.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right. And joining me tonight is returning co-host William Ross from the Exotic Car Marketplace, one of the many personalities on the Motoring Podcast Network. So welcome back to the studio, William.

William Ross: Hey, great to be here. This is gonna be a lot of fun. I’m excited.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, with that, let’s officially welcome Andy to- Break Fix?

Wait, Automotive History Live.

Andrew Beckman: Well, thanks for having me, guys.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Andy, as a fan of the show, you know most Break Fix episodes we take a deep dive into the personal [00:02:00] superhero origin story of our guest, but this is a special episode. We’re gonna talk about the museum, the concourse, and the conference. So let’s begin at the beginning and talk about Studebaker and its link to South Bend, Indiana.

Andrew Beckman: Well, you’ve got to go back quite a ways for that initial linkage. In fact, you go back to the late 1840s when Clement and Henry Studebaker made their way to the South Bend of the St. Joseph River in a town coincidentally named South Bend, where their sister Sally had moved a couple years earlier with her husband.

And the brothers were trained blacksmiths and wagon makers. They opened up a, uh, small blacksmith shop at the corner of Michigan and Jefferson Streets in downtown South Bend, Indiana. When I say downtown South Bend, Indiana, it’s probably, you know, smaller than a Walmart parking lot was at the time. But, uh, they opened up a, a blacksmith shop, and their first day in business they shod one horse for a whopping total of 25 cents daily receipts, and their first year in business they built a grand total of three wagons.

But eventually, uh, the rest of their brothers [00:03:00] joined the firm, and by the 1880s the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company is the world’s largest builder of wagons and buggies, headquartered still not far from that original blacksmith shop in downtown South Bend, Indiana.

Crew Chief Eric: After many, many years in that business, they turn to the automobile.

Why?

Andrew Beckman: Certainly they were solid businessmen. You don’t get to be the world’s biggest and best without keeping an eye on the market and, you know, learning the whims of your consumers, but also keeping an eye on the industry as a whole. And by the turn of the 20th century, the second generation of Studebakers are starting to take control of the company, and they are taking a more active interest in, in the automobile.

Studebaker actually entered the market with a line of electric automobiles in 1902 before entering the gasoline market in 1904, and the company’s entry into automobiles wasn’t the traditional one you hear about, you know, Henry Ford making a gasoline-powered car in his garage and realizing he has to pound out the doorframe to get it out the door, or, you know, like the Hames brothers down in Kokomo, Indiana, you know, a similar path with probably different architectural constraints to [00:04:00] get theirs out the door.

What the Studebakers did was essentially they marketed automobiles produced by the upstart companies, as Studebaker had the sales network, they had the name recognition, they had a lot to bring to the table. They just didn’t really have a ready-made product. So they partnered initially with the Garford Company of Elyria, Ohio, and later with the Everett-Metzger-Flanders Company of Detroit, Michigan.

And when Studebaker was satisfied that the automobile was here to stay, they, uh, bought a controlling share of EMF, and boom, Studebaker was in the automobile business. Although they kept building their horse-drawn equipment as well up until 1920. If you can imagine, you know, Eric and William, you’re walking into a Studebaker showroom, say around 1910, you could have your choice of an electric automobile, a gasoline-powered car, or if you were kind of an old-fashioned fellow who still loved your horse, you could buy a full line of carriages or wagons or buggies to whatever you felt would suit your needs.

Crew Chief Eric: And Andy, you’ve graced us with stories about Studebaker’s past at many symposium and conferences in the past. A lot of them interesting stories about Studebaker’s adventures into the world of motorsport. The [00:05:00] most recent one I heard you give, you were talking about sort of the tail end of the Studebaker line in the late ’60s with the Avanti right before they closed their doors officially after more than 70 years of being in business.

Studebaker left a mark on the town of South Bend. A lot of other companies did, too. There’s other famous companies in South Bend, Indiana. But now that you are the custodian of all this history, specifically Studebaker, and how do you see that lasting impression as you look back 100-plus years of Studebaker history?

What does it mean to the town of South Bend? What does it mean to Americana in general?

Andrew Beckman: They were in, in a big sense, the company town, if you will. At Studebaker’s peak during the 1950s, they employed almost 25,000 workers at their South Bend plants. At that time, that was probably quarter to a third of the area population in South Bend.

There was families, generations worked for Studebaker. That, in fact, they touted this father and son craftsmanship where fathers would teach their sons the trades that they had learned at Studebaker. [00:06:00] Even during wartime, they touted it with a little more of a patriotic bent, where the fathers are in the factory while the sons are going off to fight for America’s freedom.

Studebaker was very proud of this relationship, and they called themselves America’s Friendliest Factory, and for generations that’s all towns knew. I mean, there were people who literally, they got out of high school, went to work for Studebaker. That’s the only career they ever had, and suddenly in the early 1960s, that’s all coming to a grinding, screeching halt.

But you look around the community, here we are today, 63 years after the plant closed in South Bend, but there’s still Studebaker just layered throughout our community. Every baby born at Memorial Hospital in downtown South Bend owes a debt of gratitude to J.M. Studebaker’s wife, Mary, for providing the initial donation that started Memorial Hospital back in the day when it was Ep- Epworth Hospital.

I drive past no fewer than three different churches on my way home that were founded with Studebaker money, any number of parks. The Studebaker’s family was very active in, in civic affairs. The southern part of town, you have the Erskine Golf Club, Erskine Hills, named for Albert Erskine, [00:07:00] ’cause that was his land that he bought for his mansion and later was developed as part of the city.

Still with us today, it’s just the Studebaker layers are evident throughout our community, and certainly, you know, other companies in other, uh, Midwestern industrial cities as well can claim similar legacies, but it’s really evident and on the forefront here in South Bend.

Crew Chief Eric: And I’m glad you bring that up, because South Bend is sort of this mini Motown.

If you think about it, Studebaker spawned, maybe influenced other people to come there, but also maybe getting parts supplied to them. Think about companies like Bendix-

Andrew Beckman: Mm-hmm …

Crew Chief Eric: from South Bend, AM Generals from there, EVS, you know, Standard Parts. But also some of us in the European community or even in the JDM world might be familiar with South Bend clutches.

They come from- Mm-hmm … South Bend, Indiana. So you guys have this mini Motown there in South Bend, and it’s never really left, even though Studebaker is more of a historical presence.

Andrew Beckman: So many companies in this town that are still with us today- Got their start in part or, you know, kind of off the coattails of Studebaker.

Uh, there’s a sheet metal firm in town, General Sheet Metal, just north [00:08:00] of downtown, and they mentioned, yes, they got their start supplying Studebaker. There were so many tool and die shops in, peppered around the f- the Studebaker plant for little things like that, and even, uh, one of the body shops and the iron workshops who got tremendous work out of Studebaker.

William Ross: And you gotta think, ’cause y- you see this quite a bit, like with factories and a company of that size and scope, that because all your ancillary suppliers, other entities pop up. Saying before, like the clutches, you know, your stamp Mm-hmm Studebaker had been behind quite a few companies that got created and started there, I would assume, because you had all the resources, metal fab, stamping, everything like that.

I mean, everything had to have been, “Hey, I’m gonna start it there because I have everything I need.”

Andrew Beckman: Yeah, and, and, you know, s- that just develops organically. Of course, you know, with some of that stuff, too, it, it costs money to ship stuff somewhere. So if you can have someone close by, that’s great. And like you mentioned Bendix, I mean, Studebaker used Bendix brakes, and we have…

Actually, we have in our archives the actual vendor engineering files with all the drawings of every part that Studebaker used on [00:09:00] the parts. So you go to the Bendix file and, you know, there’s a full drawer showing every master cylinder and everything else. And you, you know, even other companies around South Bend that you may not have think of, I think I mentioned Edwards Iron Works.

They did a lot of the custom truck bodies and truck bed work, they did. You would see on a production record, it says, “Send over to Iron Works to add, to Edwards to add a nine-foot stake bed body.” And even, you know, South Bend Tent and Awning. That might seem like an odd crossover, but they actually made the-

bed covers, the canvas covers for the Studebaker’s, uh, optional caravan top that you could buy on the trucks. And so many things go into producing an automobile that, you know, it boggles the mind, but, you know, they had to get it from somewhere. And, you know, so many companies just sprang up around the plant as a result of that.

And even after Studebaker closed, some of their plants then were picked up by other companies. Like, their foundry was picked up by Cummins and operated until the early 1970s. Their stamping plant, actually, was under the auspices, I believe it was Allied Stamping towards the end, but they were still using the same old Studebaker presses but stamping out fenders for F-Body, [00:10:00] or I’m sorry, the, uh, Mustangs and, uh, other Ford, uh, Ford Fairmont rear fenders they were cranking out over there.

And the plant only closed because their parent company had financial problems and the Big Three got a little nervous and started pulling all the materials out of there. Now they might still be pounding things out today. But the Studebaker workers, some, especially in the design department I heard, were really sought after by the Big Three, as they had experienced clay modelers.

They had people who really knew what they were doing. In part, Studebaker being a much smaller firm, people were called on to do a lot more, and this experience, uh, proved valuable. We were up at EyesOn Design show, this was probably about 20 years ago, going through the GM Tech Center Design department, and they were going like, “Well, where are you guys from?”

“Oh, we’re from the Studebaker Museum.” He said, “Oh, yeah, we have a guy in our shop here who’s actually…” You know, he was in his 80s then, but he would come in a couple days a, a week and do some fine-tuning on the clay models that they were working on up there. It just absolutely amazed me that good for them.

Glad the legacy’s living on.

Crew Chief Eric: Andy, you and I could probably geek out on Studebaker history and South Bend all night, but I also don’t wanna steal from your [00:11:00] upcoming symposia presentations. So let’s switch gears and talk about the- Sure … museum, right, the custodian of South Bend history. So William, w- what are you thinking?

William Ross: It’s always interesting in regards to a museum starting. There had to have been motivation, reason for it. Obviously, the good reason would because of the Studebaker history and the brand, but what was the exact motivation in regards to why was this museum all of a sudden started, created? And who was the person to actually say, “Hey, we need to have a museum”?

Andrew Beckman: Well, it’s kind of a roundabout way to get there, but Studebaker started its corporate collection back in the late teens, 1918. They had renovated their administration building. They had a few vehicles which the company had collected, but they actually formalized it into an actual museum around that time.

When the company closed, they gave their vehicle collection and the company archives to the city of South Bend, Indiana, and the agreement was, and we have a copy of the statute that governed that gift from Studebaker Corporation to city of South Bend, Indiana, that the collection must be displayed in perpetuity [00:12:00] and it must be in a suitable home.

That was the legalese they put in there. So the city received this gift of 37 vehicles and the company archives. Well, the company archives was, like, three semi-trailers full of stuff. The city had no way to do anything with that at that time Syracuse University was establishing a, uh, industrial history collection, so they said, “Great.”

Off it went to Syracuse, and that was 1966 or so. The collection was housed and displayed in the former Studebaker administration building for a while, but then, uh, the city was having a little tough time getting traction to get something together for that. I mean, the wounds of Studebaker closing were still pretty fresh in the early 1970s.

Eventually a n- a home was found in the new Century Center, convention center in downtown South Bend. They quickly outgrew that. They ended up in a former Studebaker dealership building in South Bend. But eventually we moved into our new home, current site of the Concord Elegance at Copco Home, as well as the Automotive History Live, History Forum in our West Washington Historic District in just west of downtown South Bend.

We are, uh, in brand-new facility, opened in [00:13:00] 2005. Just celebrated our 20th anniversary of that home, and, uh, great partnership with our neighbors at the Northern Indiana Historical Society, namesake of Copco Home, which our concourse named after, the Concord El- Elegance at Copco Home. One of the top house museums in the company courtesy of the Oliver family.

I don’t know if you guys have an agricultural background at all, but Oliver chilled plows were, you know, the finest plows in all the land, and they were made right across the street from Studebaker, and they had a lovely mansion and a lovely home, and now it’s a great museum.

William Ross: You’ve mentioned documents, archive that it went to Syracuse.

Now obviously it’s back in South Bend. How is that, I- I guess you say for a visitor coming in, is there a way for them to peruse it or kinda look up stuff, or is it just something on display? I mean, ’cause obviously there was quite a bit that went to Syracuse and obviously came back.

Andrew Beckman: Well, it’s kind of a crazy story how that stuff ended up back in South Bend.

Turned out one of our trustees had written a letter to Syracuse saying, “Hey, I know these three things are out there in these boxes. We would love to have them back,” ’cause then the, uh, Discovery Hall Museum and [00:14:00] the convention center was just opening. And someone at Syracuse wrote back and said, “Well, you want everything back?”

And then the three semis came back- There you go. … from Syracuse, and the, uh, company archives went through a couple of different homes, and now we have a dedicated archive center. But we are open to researchers. People reach out to me all the time actually looking for various related parts of Studebaker history, from some people looking for some information on perhaps a family member who worked there.

Unfortunately, we do not have employee records, but sometimes you can find a note in the company, uh, employee magazine, and we’ve had some luck with that. These two guys came into the archives one day, and they were- quite clearly identical twins. And he said, “Yeah, we were told that when we were born, our picture appeared in the company magazine.”

It’s like, “Okay, well this was pretty easy. When were you born?” And they’re, and I think he said, “Well, we’re September, 1943.” Okay, we got out the 1943, 1944 issues, and 15 minutes later, yep, there was a picture of these two guys on their dad’s, uh, knee published in the Studebaker Spotlight magazine. And, uh, they were th- and it was such, and that’s-

William Ross: Oh, that’s cool.

Andrew Beckman: Yeah, that was s- such a neat thing. It’s like, “Oh my [00:15:00] God, we didn’t know this was a thing.” But we do a big business actually supplying, uh, technical drawings, engineering drawings to people reproducing Studebaker parts. In fact, weather strips of all things. Guys have been reproducing these things for years.

Well, they’re finding their tooling’s getting worn out, and some of it was just reverse engineered from a new old stock part in the first place back in the early ’70s. Well, now they’re having to change suppliers. Well, they want, suppliers want new tooling. They call us and say, “Hey, can you get me this for a, a Novanti rear door weather strip, this part number?”

It’s like, “Sure.” Send it off to them and they’re happy. We get some cash in the process here. And, uh, yeah, we’re happy to help people however we can. They can check out the museum website. I have an archive section on there. We have an online photo library through Photo Shelter You just hunt for Studebaker archives at Photo Shelter, we’re on there as well, and, uh, so many ways that, uh, you can get ahold of us.

William Ross: ‘Cause you hear quite a bit on, I would say, extinct car companies or even current ones, they were not very good in regards to documenting history and holding onto it. Now, you hear us saying trying to research something. Yeah. I mean, who was behind [00:16:00] that in the beginning? Did they, like, have it in their head, “Hey, we need to preserve all this because of history”?

I mean, what was the motivation or was it just, hey, they were very, very diligent in regards to keeping everything?

Andrew Beckman: They kept a lot of important things, and then it, it, it’s … I’m continually amazed what we have, and then I’m also, you know, banging my head against the wall saying, why did they get rid of that in the process?

But case in point is the horse-drawn era technical drawings. We know they were there during World War II. A Studebaker employee told a story of s- a farmer wrote to the company, like, right after he started in, like, the early ’40s, and says, “Hey, I have a Studebaker wagon. I broke my wheel hub. Is there any way I can get a new one?”

So he found out all the horse-drawn equipment drawings were in the top floor of one of the buildings in one part of the property. So he said he went over there, hunted, he found the drawing for the wheel hub, he took it to the guys in the wood shop, and they’re like, “Can you make this?” “Yeah, we can make that.”

So they made him a new hub, and he says, “I boxed it up, sent it off to the guy, didn’t even send him a bill.” He says, “I always wondered what he thought when he opened the box and saw a brand-new hub freshly made for his Studebaker [00:17:00] wagon.”

William Ross: Well, that’s cool.

Andrew Beckman: That stuff didn’t survive past the 1950s. So that was tossed at some time when it was determined, you know, what would we ever need, you know?

William Ross: Yeah.

Andrew Beckman: Are we gonna wait for another guy who needs a wheel hub for a Studebaker farm wagon? The engineering department’s files were destroyed after they closed the South Bend plant in World War II. The head of the engineering department described that as, you know, the most distasteful task he e- ever had to undertake, as they were literally just incinerating engineering files.

He kept a handful of things, and that was all. So every test, every experimental vehicle, everything behind the scenes that was done was tossed and destroyed, presumably from a liability standpoint. But by the same token, this was a couple years ago, someone wrote in s- you know, wrote an email saying, “Hey, I have a 1908 Packard.

Is there any chance you have the drawings for the tool bag?” You know, the little canvas tool bag that goes in with the spare parts and everything. And he sent me the part numbers, and sure enough, we had it. You know, this little drawing saying, you know, “Use this material,” you know, something pound grade canvas with this stitching here, [00:18:00] use this cotton thread.

And it’s like, goodness, you know? That stuff’s still there, and we are far better off as Studebaker owners and Packard owners for what’s still there than a- any number of companies I could name where that stuff just got tossed wholesale.

William Ross: Well, you know what’s cool with that, too, is, you know, with the museum itself, you can kind of go through almost the whole history, starting with the horse-drawn carriages and the buggies.

Mm-hmm. And then you’re going into the teens of the cars and stuff like that, and how they just progressed. It’s always interesting to me to see how, like, the jumps happened. You know, there’s always those, like, increments- Yeah … where it’s like a 10 year or five, 10 years, and you’re like, “Wow, they took a big leap here.”

I think it’s really cool to see, and you could walk that, do this whole thing, do the museum, the show field, everything. The walking tour and the architectural tour, too. I mean, you can take it all in. South Bend’s a really cool town in regards to that, you know, and the style they had there. They’re gorgeous houses.

Andrew Beckman: Well, uh, kind of on that line, uh, there’s a Frank Lloyd Wright house just down, uh, about three houses down from the museum. It’s an Airbnb. People are coming in for the concour. I, I don’t think anyone’s booked it yet, but you could stay at a Frank Lloyd Wright house, and how perfect would [00:19:00] that would be for a celebration of, uh, design and, uh, innovation?

William Ross: Yeah, I was just at a show over the weekend. Incredible selection of cars, ’cause it was the, uh, Classic Car America… You know, it’s got a long name. But anyways, they had- Yeah … a bunch of Packards there to s- I mean, it was just incredible seeing what those cars were and the detail. You know, back then, no CAD, no computers.

Nope. Everything’s hand-drawn on a board, your slide ru- everything like that, and just, it’s just impressive. You know, being able to access that stuff’s just incredible. I mean, that’s just awesome to see.

Andrew Beckman: Yeah. As Studebaker owners and Packard owners too, we have the Packard materials because Studebaker and Packard merged in the early ’50s.

All that stuff came down from Detroit, you know, the surviving Packard technical materials. A lot of it just kind of sat around. I don’t think anyone really worried about it too much, and yeah, still there.

Crew Chief Eric: So I’m glad you bring that up. And then you hear stories about famous people that have walked the halls of Studebaker/Packard, you know, when they were merged- Mm-hmm

and things like that. There is a distinctly separate Packard Museum from the Studebaker Museum. Why are [00:20:00] they separated, or is there reciprocity between the two of you?

Andrew Beckman: There’s actually three Packard museums, depending how you wanna define your terms. So there’s the Packard Proving Ground, kind of in northwestern Metro Detroit area.

You know, great folks up there. They occupy the former Packard test facility up there and with a little vehicle collection. They have some Packard archives as well. Fine folks up there. There’s also a Packard Museum in Warren, Ohio.

William Ross: Mm-hmm.

Andrew Beckman: It’s the National Packard Museum. And then you have the Citizens Motor Car Company, America’s Packard Museum, in Dayton, Ohio.

So I can’t give you the rhyme or reasons for where it is, and certainly out of preservation efforts, uh, Warren was kind of the ancestral home of the Packard Motor Car Company before they got their start there, before moving on to Detroit. The one in Dayton, Ohio was a Packard dealership back in the day, and really started more as, I don’t wanna say private collection, more of a gentleman’s collection who sought to really make a true Packard fan, and that’s a wonderful s- We just had our auto museums conference for the National Association of Automobile Museums there this past April.

A couple years ago before that, we were actually [00:21:00] at the Henry Ford Museum in, in Dearborn, and we did a day up at the Packard Proving Grounds up there. You know, it’s great that all the preservation work is going on. You know, so many companies, defunct company fans wish they had, you know, just one collection, but to have a great resource like that.

And yeah, great people at each place. We work with them all the time and can’t say enough good things about them.

Crew Chief Eric: So does that mean that Studebaker National Museum holds at least the paper archives for Packard, or did that get shipped to Warren, Ohio?

Andrew Beckman: I haven’t gone too far down that rabbit hole, but some of the engineering drawings are up at Proving Grounds in Detroit area.

Some other materials are over in Warren, and the one in Dayton, they actually have, like, one of the big lintels that says Packard from above the Packard factory, one of the main entry doors. They have that down there, and it’s… You know, the stuff was going somewhere and, you know, people were in the right place at the right time.

And, you know, and again, I’m just thrilled that as much of it got preserved as it did.

Crew Chief Eric: But there’s only one Studebaker Museum, as far as you know.

Andrew Beckman: There is only one Studebaker Museum. [00:22:00] Yeah. There are a couple other private collections adopt the land, and actually there’s a, there’s a tremendous collection of Studebakers down in, uh, Osorno, Chile, in South America too.

Auto Museum Monchampulli in Osorno, Chile. But yeah, as far as, you know, we, we are kind of the home base, the central repository for all things Studebaker in North America.

Crew Chief Eric: So William started this off talking about what people would expect to see the first time they pay a visit to the Studebaker Museum.

From your perspective as the, the head archivist, what’s something in the collection that always sparks a conversation, gets people to go, “Well, I didn’t know that was a thing,” or a story that you really like telling even though you’ve told it, like, a thousand times?

Andrew Beckman: It, it’s so much of discovery. I wish I could say there’s kind of one typical story.

Probably the biggest thing we hear is people who walk in- And maybe only vaguely familiar with Studebaker from fathers or grandfathers, you know, it was the family car back in the day, or they heard the name somewhere, or they’re new to the community and they see Studebaker School and Studebaker Street, and we have a bakery in

[00:23:00] town, Studebakels. Seriously. We’ll maybe get, get some to-go there, uh, when you guys come to town in a few weeks here. But usually it’s like they had no idea that Studebaker was in the horse-drawn vehicle business, ’cause they walk in our… Most of our main floor is horse-drawn vehicles. And then once they find that, and then to realize the scope of Studebaker in its horse-drawn era.

We have the world’s largest collection of presidential carriages. We have the carriage Abraham Lincoln took to Ford’s Theatre the night of his assassination. We have a carriage the Marquis de Lafayette used on his tour of the United States from back in 1824. We have Studebaker carriages that belonged to Presidents Harrison and Presidents McKinley.

We have another carriage used by President Grant during his term in office. We have a pony cart used by Dwight Eisenhower on his, uh, farm near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. And you look at it, you know, through the eyes of history, going back to the pre-Civil War era, there was Studebaker was there the entire time.

They were, supplied wagons for the Union Army during the, the Civil War. One of their divisions was making, uh, the heat shields for the, uh, Mercury spacecrafts during the Space Race of the 1960s. It’s just a [00:24:00] fantastic scope of history.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, but do you have Fozzie Bear’s 1951 Bulletnose?

Andrew Beckman: Yes, we do.

William Ross: Ah, nice.

Andrew Beckman: Yes, we do. Yeah, we have the screen-used, one of the screen-used 1951 Studebaker Commanders from The Muppet Movie. In fact, we just completed the restoration of that vehicle to its screen-used appearance, and shout out to the guys at Razorfly Studios down in North Carolina who really shepherded that project along for us.

But, uh, yeah, you know, it’s nice to have a touchstone with something that’s still kind of actively in the pop culture, uh, you know, arena. And, uh, yeah, who doesn’t love Muppets? It’s, it… We, we debuted the car at our concour last year, and when we opened up the curtains, it’s like you could hear a smile come over the entire room.

It’s just so many good vibes that exude off that car.

Crew Chief Eric: I believe the quote is waka waka, but we’ll leave that where it is. So we talked about some other museums earlier, Andy. For those of us that are sort of in the know on how museums work, and this is even art galleries are like this and other types of museums, who’s in your [00:25:00] network?

Who do you partner with? Who do you exchange ideas with or meet with? Is it all Midwestern automotive museums, or do you work with places like the Revs Institute? Tell us about your extended network.

Andrew Beckman: In the nonprofit world, it’s all about the partnerships. It’s all around collaborations. We have a wonderful museum organization, as I mentioned, the National Association of Automobile Museums.

I know, Eric, you’re on the board of Society of Automotive Historians. I’m a past board member and past president. I’ve leaned on people from there. You know, made some great friends through that group. We’ll be leaning on those guys some more for the, uh, upcoming Automotive History Live Conference. We have a vehicle on loan to us from the Classic Car Club of America up in Gilmore.

Right now, we have a- our current exhibit, feature exhibit, is called Five Driven Women, and it focuses on the stories behind these five female-owned and driven classic era cars from the teens up through the 1930s. And the Singleton Collection out in Los Angeles, uh, loaned us, uh, I believe it was a 1911 Simplex for that exhibit, and- It’s amazing just, I don’t wanna say the unlikely partnerships, but just you may not think of a certain path to get [00:26:00] somewhere until you pick up the phone and give someone a call and say, “Hey, we’re doing this.

Would you be interested in talking some more about X, Y, Z?” By and large, you know, people usually pretty happy to at least talk about it, and y- you would get some great things that come out of that.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you do anything with ACD? And that’s Auburn Cord Duesenberg.

Andrew Beckman: Brandon Anderson, the director at ACD, used to work at the History Museum in South Bend.

In fact, he and I were neighbors in South Bend. We’ll be seeing Brandon, uh, for our, the Concor in a few weeks here. You know, great relationship with them. They’re good friends and good people and, uh, yeah, we work together all the time, you know? It’s … And we’re blessed in the upper Midwest here with kind of the convenience of geography.

We’re pretty easy to get to whether you, you know, you can fly into Chicago or Detroit or Indianapolis, but you can go see within the span of a couple days Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum in Indianapolis. About 100 miles away is Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum north of there in Auburn, Indiana. We’re about 100 miles away from Auburn over here in South Bend.

Then you can head up to Hickory Corners, take advantage of Classic Car Club of America [00:27:00] Museum, the Gilmore Museum, and all their ancillary brand museums they have up there, and there’s even some smaller collection there. And frankly, once you get to Kalamazoo and Gilmore, you’re not that far away from the Henry Ford Museum.

And in turn, once you’re in Hen- Dearborn, you can go up and see Packard Proving Yards. You can go see the Stahls Auto Collection. Now, we’ve literally had guys that’s like, they’ll be cruising through and say, “Oh, we’re heading up here next. Yeah, we took a week and we just flew in here and we’re, we’re making the trip.”

Overseas people as well, they, they’ll come and spend a, a ton of time and all the car guys heading their way. You know, sometimes people will bookend it on a trip making a loop from Hershey even around the time of the Hershey Car Show.

William Ross: Yeah, it’s incredible how many different museums are in that sphere or triangle, however you might wanna do it, from basically Detroit over and down to you guys, and it’s incredible.

And a lot of people aren’t aware of it. They like know a couple, then you say, “Well, you can go here, too.” And, and, you know, Jonathan Summers is, he’s driving whenever- Yeah … you’re participating. Same thing ’cause he was right off a couple, saying, “Well, you could go here, too.” And here, he’s like, “Wait, what?” He wasn’t aware of quite a few of these that he could also stop on the way.

It’s like Disneyland for the [00:28:00] automotive people, in essence. Just, just it’s a little bit more spread out, but I mean, you could touch and hit everything. It’s awesome.

Crew Chief Eric: Disneyland, it feels like a wine tour on a bachelorette party. It’s like, you know, or like- … what, what is it? The whiskey trail in Kentucky? Yeah.

Are you just gonna hit one distillery after the next?

Andrew Beckman: Yeah, we, it’s a hydrocarbon trail for us, I guess. A petroleum trail or something. There you go. But, and I just kind of hit the highlights there but, you know, when you’re in Auburn, you’ve got the Early Ford V8 Museum over there, the National Auto and Truck Museum.

Over in Elkhart, Indiana, the RV capital of the world, the RV Museum and Hall of Fame over there as well. I mean, it’s, you know, how far does your, your wheeled vehicle vice take you? And, you know, there, there’s something for everyone.

Crew Chief Eric: I stopped listening when you said Elkhart, ’cause I thought you were gonna say Road America.

So you lo- you lost me on the RV thing. Nah. But I get your point. It’s

Andrew Beckman: there, really. I swear.

William Ross: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, let’s switch gears to one of William’s favorite topics, and that’s car shows and concours. He goes to more of them than anybody I know, so this is his area of expertise. Let’s talk about the [00:29:00] concours at Copse Home.

Andrew Beckman: Yeah.

William Ross: Tell us about the name, history behind that. A- as I said before, I should know how to pronounce it ’cause I am a majority, my bloodline is Scottish. But tell us about the name and how it came about, and what was the thought behind it. ‘Cause obviously there’s usually a mission behind when you do concours and what they wanna showcase.

Andrew Beckman: Yeah, this, this came about kind of on the heels of, there was the Concours on the Bluff up in St. Joseph, Michigan, and they’d been going for a while. St. Joe, if people aren’t familiar, it’s a town on Lake Michigan about,

Studebaker/SAH Promo: yeah,

Andrew Beckman: 30, 45 miles north of South Bend. Just a wonderful little kind of touristy town, but they have a wonderful art museum up there.

And they, in conjunction with that is actually former director of one of the other museums up there, started this little concours on the bluff, and they have this wonderful road out in front looking over Lake Michigan. Well, eventually they were getting some pushback from the city saying, “Yeah, we’d really not rather have you blocking off the bluff for, you know, an entire weekend at this time of year.”

And they decided to fold up the concours, but came to us and said, “We have the resources here. You know, your grounds around the museum and the Copse Home mansion would be [00:30:00] an ideal spot for a car show.” Well, we’d been thinking the same thing for some time, but we didn’t really know much about how do you get this going from off the ground.

And well, we were able to come to a agreement there to, you know, share some of the info, and we kicked off the Concours d’Elegance at Copse Home in 2018. And Kopach Home is the ancestral home of the Oliver family. We mentioned the Oliver plow just a bit ago, and the Olivers built this palatial mansion, I think it’s 36 rooms or something like that, just west of downtown South Bend.

And they gave it to the Northern Indiana Historical Society back in the late ’80s, early ’90s. When I say they gave it, it wasn’t like the house was standing empty. It’s like they left everything in the house, handed the keys over, and said, “See you.” Mr. Oliver’s shaving brushes are still in the bathroom.

There’s all the silver, all, you know, the summer furniture was in the basement. This is one of the top house museums in the country, as far as you walk in there and you actually can believe people lived here. It’s not like it was turned into a restaurant or a hotel or a law office. It was always a residence until they handed the keys [00:31:00] over to the Northern Indiana Historical Society.

And they opened their adjoining museum in the early ’90s. We joined the campus in 2005, and that was one of the things we were looking to really expand, you know, kind of develop a signature program for the museum, signature automotive thing, and going to different shows like St. Johns and, uh, Glenmore Gathering near Canton, Ohio.

We’re like, “This is something we’d love to do.” The opportunity presented itself, and we took it off. As I said, 2018 was our first year. We’re blessed with great weather and a great show field, and we’ve just been trying to build off it ever since then.

William Ross: Yeah, it’s great to see. I mean, it, from starting in 2018 till now, I mean, it’s still a relatively young concourse.

Andrew Beckman: Yeah.

William Ross: But you wouldn’t know that looking at it, ’cause it, it see- you know, the history is already established, which is fantastic. ‘Cause that’s the one thing you see, some of these ones that just start up, is trying to get their identity. Who are we trying to draw? But you guys nailed it right out of the gate.

Andrew Beckman: Well, thank you. Appreciate that. You know, some of it was, the first year you don’t know what you don’t know yet. I always point to things you think will be pressure points, but [00:32:00] you never know until it actually comes to pass. And we, we had some tremendous advisors. Matt Short, who’s a friend of mine, really my mentor in this business.

He’s been at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum for a lot of years. He was director at the Ariels Transportation Museum, director at the Packard Museum in Dayton. He cut his teeth at the Henry Ford Museum, uh, many moons ago. Actually, Matt and our fellow, uh, SH board member, Mary Seelhorst, actually shared an office up at Henry Ford Museum many years ago.

And he’s been our chief judge from day one. I mean, the man has forgotten more about classic automobiles and old cars than I will ever know, and he’s really helped us along there. Uh, David Schultz, who was, um, the head honcho behind the, uh, Glenmore Gathering in Canton, Ohio, just became a real good friend to the museum.

Tremendously respected that man and how he put together a show, and he freely shared his time and knowledge with us, saying, “Now, here’s what to do, here’s, you know, what we did,” you know. And he was never like, “You have to do this.” He was always, you know, very willing to share his experiences and, and eventually he graced us, uh, as a judge in our second year there, and he kept coming [00:33:00] back.

Uh, we lost David just a couple years ago, but his name lives on and, uh, we have the David Schultz Award for the most outstanding full classic as part of our concours in recognition of his contributions to our event. Our show field is such that we’re limited in our size by our physical footprint, and, uh, we started coining the term boutique concours.

That’s how we describe ourselves. You know, we only have 85 to 90 cars max. You know, Pebble’s got a couple hundred, probably pushing 300 in Amelia. And we, we realize that. We’re not trying to be that, but we’re just trying to be an, as David and I were talking, you know, trying to be the little jewel box of a concours where you’re gonna see something you’re not gonna see at the cruise-in at Culver’s on a Wednesday night or anything like that.

But really, really bring some unique automobiles to the show field and show the, you know, the visitor something they haven’t seen before

William Ross: Yeah, I think that’s critical. You don’t wanna go to one and you’re seeing everything over and over again, you know, week in, week out, going to different events and everything like that.

And having, you know, the unique and say the best of the best, and people wanna see that because, you know, one, it’s just eye candy, especially those cars from back then. They’re just so [00:34:00] elegant. They’re so gorgeous. I mean, the minute detail, I mean, everything. Just, like, the bolts, I mean, it’s just, it’s incredible.

It’s awesome to see that ’cause the other thing, too, is, you know, you can take your time looking at the vehicles. You know, you go to Amelia, Pebble, that kind of stuff, I don’t wanna say you gotta rush yourself, but you wanna have that fear of missing out type of situations. “I, I gotta see everything. You know, I gotta

Let’s hurry up. I gotta get the next car.” There, you can take your time and really soak it in. The owners are so generous and gracious in regards to, one, sharing their vehicles, but two, talking about them, you know, and giving you the history behind it. So I mean, it’s excellent.

Andrew Beckman: I can’t say enough good things either about our, our exhibitors over the years who ultimately they are what make the show.

You can have the nicest grounds and everything in the world, but if you don’t have owners willing to come out and, you know, certainly take time out of their busy schedules and a fair amount of personal expense to come out and show their cars, you- you’re nowhere. We’ve been absolutely, uh, overwhelmed with the response we’ve gotten since we’ve started doing this.

And sometimes it’ll be just a casual conversation with someone, you know, not even related to the show itself. It’s like, “Oh, you know, well, I’ve got a Lincoln [00:35:00] Continental Mark II as part of my collection. You know, I’d love to come out and show that sometime.” Great, we’d love to have you. You know, it, it’s things like that that come about and, you know, having the smaller, and also having the, the location with the museums are on site.

Both museums are open all day. Your show admission gets you into both facilities. You know, we got plenty of shade trees. The bathrooms and creature comforts are nearby, so it’s, uh, it’s worked pretty well for us, and we’re just hoping to really build on the event and, uh, and keep it going.

William Ross: How do you handle that delicate, “Nah, we don’t need your car”?

Andrew Beckman: Well, it’s-

William Ross: That’s delicate.

Andrew Beckman: Yeah, sh- it’s not a pleasant conversation to have. No. But usually we have limited space. We can only fit so many vehicles on the field, and, uh, short of stacking cars on end, you know, we’re not gonna pack much more on there. And, you know, at times, you know, I’ll, I’ve made more than one call to say, “Thank you so much for submitting your car.

We’d absolutely love to have you. We only have room for eight vehicles in this class, and we had 25 applicants, and I’m sorry. We hate to say no to really nice cars, and please consider applying next year [00:36:00] when, or the year after when we have classes that’ll fit for you.” And most people understand that.

Anyone who we do say no to, we always, in the letter letting them know that unfortunately we cannot accept them, we’ll put in a couple of passes for that year’s event, too. So if they wanna come out and check things out, that’s on us.

William Ross: People are attending the concours, how would you say, “Here’s my recommendation how to,” say, “approach it or attack it”?

Like, where would you say, “Hey, go here, then go here, then go here”? I mean, what would you recommend to someone that’s attending the concours for the first time?

Andrew Beckman: I’d recommend get there early. Gates open at 10:00. You can even buy your tickets ahead of time through the concours website. Get there right away in the morning.

That’s when things are still getting, uh, settled in. You c- that way you can take advantage of any of the programming we have during the day. If you don’t wanna look at cars for the entire time of the show, we’re also offering some, uh, historic walking tours of the neighboring historic, uh, West Washington Street District.

Studebaker/SAH Promo: Oh, cool.

Andrew Beckman: Yeah. We’ve got the programs going on. Second day of the Automotive History Live forum going on during the Concours are the ones that are mostly related to the brands on display. We’re featuring Pontiac and Auburn this year. You can come and, uh, check out our, our [00:37:00] old pal Tom Cotter, the Barn Find Hunter.

He’ll be on-hand as well, and he’ll be doing a book signing during the day. But there’s so many things. There are g- you know, if it’s a warm day, go into the museum. We’re air-conditioned and you can see our latest exhibits. Just allow yourself plenty of time. Don’t feel rushed. There’s plenty of stuff to do.

You just make the big circle around the mansion and you’re gonna take in everything and maybe even go back again and catch something you missed.

Crew Chief Eric: I come from the motor sports world. When I was first taken under the wing of some of the guys from the classic car space, they were like, “So let me teach you how this all works.”

And the one word that stuck was classes and classing, ’cause that’s something I knew from autocross and club racing and stuff like that, is I gotta put a car in its class to compete with other cars in its class. But the same is true of collector cars and car shows and Concours.

Andrew Beckman: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So I’ve come to terms with that, but I’ve also come to realize that some Concours are very strict in their classing.

They run these classes every year. To your point, we only accept, you said eight cars in that class, and we got 25, we have to turn some [00:38:00] away. But I come to find out that the Concours at Copps Home changed the classes. There are some static classes, but you change them up every year. What does the classing look like this year compared to previous years?

Andrew Beckman: We generally have, you know, a couple featured marks. Just about every Concours does that something, and this year we’re featuring Auburns and Cords. Uh, again, talk about the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum. They’ll be on-hand featuring Duesenbergs this year, celebrating the Pontiac centennial. So we actually have a class for Pontiacs and a class for GTOs.

Everything’s shaping up pretty nicely. But then we also like to have some fun, too. We want, we love the diversity and well, like we’re doing a class of vintage motorcycles this year, and that, uh, we have some wonderful bikes, even going a Mead Aerothrust bike from the teens. You’ll see it when, well, you’ll see it when you guys come out here.

You know, up to a, we got a late ’60s Triumph, a couple Harleys, an Indian mixed in. You know, a little bit of everything. But, you know, ultimately we wanna show the variety of the automotive spectrum. We’re always gonna have classes of like a, you know, something from the full classic area. We like to have something from overseas.

We’re doing a [00:39:00] European economy class this year. So, you know, not necessarily bargain basement, but something cheaper than a Ferrari, a Lambo, or a Jaguar on the field. So we have, I think, everything from a Alfa Romeo Giulia little sedan from 1968 to a Volvo 1800 to, uh, an Amphicar to, uh, it’s a little bit of everything.

We want everyone to have a good time, first and foremost.

William Ross: That economy, the European thing is awesome. You know, obviously that’s gonna attract a younger demographic and attendee, but how much does that play a role and say, “Hey, you know, we wanna try and draw this crowd. Uh, what, what should we go after?”

Crew Chief Eric: Well, and William, you’re 100% right, because when he set that up, I wasn’t thinking Alfa Julias and Volvo P1800s.

I was thinking Volkswagen GTIs and Sciroccos- Yeah, me too … and stuff like that. And I’m like, “That’s a European economy car. Like, what are we talking about here?”

William Ross: That’s right up your alley, Eric.

Andrew Beckman: By the way, if, if anyone wants to send an email to me with a Mark 1 GTI, you’re still there, ’cause I owned one of those when I was in college, and, uh, yeah, that’s on the very short list of cars I really, really loved and wish I still had.

But yeah, you just gotta, you [00:40:00] know, invariably you’re implying if someone goes to the effort to buy the ticket, we’re thinking they must have some interest in automobiles. And, you know, with the diversity on the show field, you’re gonna hopefully find something you like, and hopefully that might lead you to something else that you either didn’t know anything about or maybe you didn’t fully appreciate until you see it sitting there.

And, uh, you know, you can take a little something home with you from something you learned that day.

Crew Chief Eric: And I think one other thing that’s unique to your concours is imitation is a sincere form of flattery, as we know. I think you guys pulled a page out of Amelia’s playbook. You do a fun class every year, and this year’s fun class is exceptionally entertaining.

Andrew Beckman: Well, we try, we try and do some fun things. I mean, it’s, it, you kind of have the loose categories. I mean, we’re the Studebaker Museum. We have to do a Studebaker class every year, and, uh, you know, certainly that’s always gonna be a part of it. We’re always gonna have- You know, something with the full classics.

We want to do something with the very early stuff. But yeah, something more contemporary, too. One of the most fun classes we’ve done in recent memories was the Disco Decade rides, where it was Luxo barges from the [00:41:00] 1970s by and large, and, uh, I grew up in the ’70s, and, you know, even in my mind’s eye I’m like, “Gosh, I didn’t realize how massive these things were,” until we put them on the show field.

Crew Chief Eric: That decreased the amount of cars you could have on the field at that point. What I meant to get at was the Concours de Lemons.

Andrew Beckman: Oh, yes, yes, yes. Well, the, as we mentioned, you know, we’re trying to expand our footprint of the, uh, Concours. I am a proud, uh, co-owner of a 24 Hours of Lemons racing team. Proud winners of the Index of Effluence at GingerIn back in 2024.

But, you know, just, uh, tremendous, we’ve had a wonderful time. And again, uh, we can either thank or blame our pal Mary Sealhurst for introducing me to Lemons. Yeah, we say, “Well, what about, you know, what about doing, like, a Concours de Lemons?” Reached out to Alan. Yeah, managed to put it together, so that’ll be part of Friday’s activities concurrent with the Automotive History Live showcase, and then, you know, that’ll segue right into Saturday.

So, hopefully people can come in and, uh, check out the whole weekend with us. Lot, lot of fun stuff going on.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, since you went there, let’s segue into your latest addition in [00:42:00] this Studebaker layer cake. As we’ve been building up here, it seems like one thing begets the next. This has actually been in the making for several years.

Let’s talk about the birth, finally, of Automotive History Live and what that’s all about.

Andrew Beckman: Well, yeah, and it, you know, as we’ve mentioned, the, we’re all kind of tied into the Society of Automotive Historians, and they’ve been doing their automotive history conferences, oh gosh, going back to when I first joined the organization back in the early 2000s.

And I was always fascinated by, obviously I’m in automotive history, I, I must have some enjoyment factor that goes into that. But you go and you, you hear some of the foremost automotive historians in the land talking about, you know, the subject they’ve sometimes spent their life work researching on. I remember at a very early one listening to Leroy Cole of the Cole Manu- Automobile Manufacturers in Indianapolis talking about his family’s company, and just it’s fascinating to hear kind of that first person account.

I think it was Bill Chapin talking about, uh, his family’s experience with American Motors, and another one, I think that one was in Dayton, Ohio. Of course, the [00:43:00] Arkutsinger Motorsports Symposium, and we were, you know, some talk about taking that on the road possibly. And then it’s like, well, you know, we’d love to do something with that in South Bend, possibly even as part of the Concours, and that really blossomed.

And eventually, I think after we bought Eric enough cocktails, he in a weak moment agreed- … to come and, uh, you know, help us jumpstart our little showcase here. So, uh, yeah, that’s what got us here. Just, uh, looking to add some content and having some willing and interested parties, uh, willing to make it happen.

For that, we very much appreciate it.

Crew Chief Eric: So Andy, what do you hope that listeners, whether they’re listening to it live stream there in the forum, or later as a podcast episode, what do you think they’re gonna get out of Automotive History Live that they can’t get anywhere else?

Andrew Beckman: Well, you’re gonna be hearing some of the nation’s, the top historians in the business talking about subjects they are passionate about.

And hopefully they come away, you know, take away a new take. Even if it’s a subject you’re very familiar with, take away something that you didn’t know before, maybe looking at it in slightly different fashion. I mean, delighted to have Lauren Goodman from the Revs Institute talking about radiator mascots and hood [00:44:00] ornaments as kind of more of an artistic bent on there.

We have a wonderful panel on, uh, America’s roadways. I think we actually call that one Mothers’ Roads. We’re celebrating the 100th anniversary of Route 66. The Lincoln Highway, America’s first coast-to-coast highway, runs about 100 yards from the Studebaker National Museum where it cuts through northern Indiana And of course, the Interstate Highway System, which, uh, I think all of us here will be spending a lot of time on in, in the next few weeks in our various travels.

But, uh, all those is kind of a, you know, a natural look at that, uh, moderated by retired curator of transportation from the Henry Ford Museum, Bob Casey. Bob is g- himself presenting on, uh, three musketeers of Chrysler who also were Studebaker engineers before they went on to really establish Chrysler as the engineering powerhouse it was back in the day.

Of course, Tom Powder, we- we’re working him hard. He’ll be talking Saturday and Friday, so you’ll wanna catch both shows for Tom talking about his coast-to-coast trip in a Model T. He took paralleling a lot of the Lincoln Highways route back pre-COVID. I think that was 2018 or so that Tom did that. Ruben Verdes, you know, the foremost [00:45:00] experts on Rolls-Royce, again, another SAH alum.

Automatic transmissions, who hasn’t used one of those? Bob Elton, another SAH-er talking about the history of GM’s groundbreaking Hydramatic automatic transmission. And, uh, yeah, then of course the Motor Podcasting Network with the, uh, Bianco Speciale. You know, can’t wait to hear what you guys have to say about that.

And, uh, you know, just a great, great time all around, and we’re, we’re really looking forward to that.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you have one that you’re most excited about in that list?

Andrew Beckman: Y- yes. Actually, I’m d- I’m fascinated to hear Bob’s take on the Hydramatic transmission, because I spend a lot of time working on my own Studebakers, and the one component that is just mystery and, you know, something I’ve never taken apart and never fully understood how they work, I assume it’s witchcraft, is automatic transmissions.

If I can come away with that with a better understanding of how they work, I mean, I can read the shop manual and I see the diagrams, but when you get to the swirling arrows going back and forth in the torque converter diagram, it kind of makes my eyes glaze over. But really looking forward to hear about that.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you’ve never not surprised us when you’ve presented at the Motorsports Symposium in the past about Studebaker’s [00:46:00] involvement in motorsport, and we sort of tease you at the end of every year with yet another project for Studebaker Motorsport stories. But you’re not presenting this year, but if you were, what do you think you’d be talking about?

Andrew Beckman: Oh, gosh. I think the scheduling conflict is just a little much for me this year. We’re actually, we’re the same weekend as the, uh, Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals again. And, uh, and I, I did the, uh, the jet-setting, delivered the car, jet out to Watkins Glen and then back again. And unfortunately, I think we’re displaying two cars this year, so I’m not sure that’s gonna, that’s not gonna work that well.

But, uh, yeah, I’d love to get more into the, we talked about the Avanti racing program at the 24 Hours of Daytona back in the early ’80s, and actually one of our trustees has, can’t remember if it’s the regular car, maybe it was the backup car, but he has one of the racing Avanis from that that they’ve been trying to put back together.

Every time I ask him about it, he kind of gets this look on his eyes and shakes his head. But, uh, you know, they’re still working on that. Another Holman and Moody prepared, I think it was three Studebaker Larks in the early ’60s. And I think they did Sebring and- No, was it Bridgehampton? There’s a couple [00:47:00] other road races and endurance races they had in the early ’60s.

It’s like, what? Studebaker Larks in road racing s- and sure, there’s pictures on the track with them going around, you know, the usual sports car fare of the day. It just … And it’s kind of like when you see the, uh, Galaxies at, at Goodwood. You know, they’re flopping around the track with the Minis and the, and the Mark 2 Jaguars out there.

It’s kind of like that same, uh, automotive dissonance you see when, when you see them on the track at the same time. I’d love to go back and do a, a more in-depth look at the non-Studebaker factory IndyCars at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the straight-8 powered cars. Literally, this was in the last two weeks, I was going through our photo index, and the entry said, “Race car,” and it was, and the date was around 1940.

And I asked our volunteer, you know, “Can you pull this out and scan these?” “Sure.” And I look at the picture, and sure enough, it’s definitely a race car. It’s kind of that late ’30s, early ’40s shape, but it was none that I’d ever seen before. And there’s a picture under the hood, and yeah, there’s a Studebaker straight-8 in there, and it shows it taking a checkered flag somewhere.

I have no idea where the, what this picture is or where this came from, but you know, there’s little things like that I’d love to dig into further. And, uh, yeah, look [00:48:00] forward to doing that again soon.

William Ross: Why is this more important than ever, you feel, in regards to preserving this and finding a way to share it with the world?

‘Cause you get a lot that, like, you know, people have it, they don’t share and that, which, which is great on your guys’ part. But I mean, tell us about that and your thoughts.

Andrew Beckman: Well, our primary sources are dwindling. The people who were there and remember and can testify to what actually happened are disappearing, you know, every day.

You know, really, I kind of see that as the, the Society of Automotive Historians’ role in that as kind, you know, the vanguard of history to preserve and safeguard, uh, what actually took place for the future generations. In the Studebaker realm, the youngest Studebaker employee is about 80. And we’re talking, uh, one of our life trustees.

He started working at Studebaker I think when he was 17 or 18 in the summer of 1963 putting in headliners. And now Ron is just about, yeah, it’d be just about 80. That story disappearing in 20 years, we’re just gonna have to rely on what has been collected and, you know, disseminated. There’s so much disinformation out there with, you [00:49:00] know, one person’s take on what happened with automotive history.

And even a simple thing like someone asking, well, you know, some basic question on the web on a Facebook message board, “I need something basic for my Studebaker,” and you look at the array of answers, it’s like, no, the guy needed a distributor cap. He doesn’t need a small block or an LS motor in it.

Crew Chief Eric: No, the answer is always LS, Andy.

That’s just the answer.

Andrew Beckman: It is always LS? Oh, okay. I told him put in a 2JZ, but anyway. I, I really didn’t. But- … uh, that’s the key. It’s understanding what happened and how to back it up, how to document it, and how important that is as we strive to tell people the truth as best we can approximate it, and accuracy as best as we can get it.

I look at that as that’s our job as automotive historians. Or frankly, just as, as historians.

William Ross: So you hit the Mega Millions.

Andrew Beckman: Mm-hmm.

William Ross: You’re kind-hearted, ’cause like Studebaker museums, you love. You provide the finances for it. Then what would you have… Okay, this is the best thing we can do, ’cause it’s, funds are unlimited, you know, depending how much you win.

What would your dream thing be for [00:50:00] the Studebaker Museum?

Andrew Beckman: At our museums conference, I made this joke to, uh, one of my colleagues one time. It’s like, you know, these, these conferences, you know, once we all agree that we don’t have enough time, space, money, and staff, we can get on to that. And it’s not like we, they were wasting our times anyway, but it’s really the space that every, not just automobile museum, any museum is dealing with.

So to answer the unlimited funds, storage facility and, uh, extra archival staff to help us digitize, make more accessible the holdings that we do have. That would be fantastic to be able to add a significant amount of square footage, and the ability to staff it as well.

William Ross: I like that.

Andrew Beckman: It’s just there’s so much there.

Our, our photo collection is over probably a quarter million images. We’ve got maybe a couple thousand of them on the Photo Shelter site, and even that might be being generous right now. And, you know, every other museum I know of it, you know, thank God RABS has been able to bring the resources to bear that they have.

That is a tremendous resource. But there’s so many other collections out there that are languishing in someone’s attic or someone’s basement. We found a Studebaker film from the ’30s that we [00:51:00] thought was lost forever, you know. And I get a call from a guy saying, “Hey, I just found this film in my attic, and my father was a projectionist at this thing.”

He’s like, “It’s called Wildflowers.” And I’m like, “Really?” This was an original 35 millimeter nitrate stock film that had somehow managed to survive in this guy’s attic. I don’t know for how long it had been up there, and that was an invention in its own right. Eventually we basically shepherded it over to the Library of Congress, their film and, and media division, as they had, you know, the wherewithal to properly store it.

They said, “Just get it to us. We’ll send you a digital copy for that.” But this was something no one had seen since 1931, thought it was lost forever and, and, you know, here we come up with a actual pristine copy of it still hanging around. But there’s stories like that, that let’s get this stuff and, uh, let’s preserve it as best we can and make it accessible for others to, others to use as a resource.

Crew Chief Eric: He always surprises me, William. I thought he was gonna say he was gonna go on a spending spree at Mecum and buy all the Studebaker- … automobilia that comes up at the auctions. No, that’s [00:52:00] really good. That’s really cool. So with that, Andy, we’ve reached the part of the episode where I like to invite our guests to share any shout-outs, thank yous, promotions, or anything else we haven’t covered thus far.

Andrew Beckman: First of all, thank you guys for taking time out of your busy schedules to make this happen here. It takes a village to make anything, you know, come together of this scale. And, uh, I’ve mentioned some of the people already, you know, thank you to, uh, Society of Automotive Historians, of course, the fine folks at Motor Podcasting Network who have been nothing but gracious putting this together.

Of course, our sponsors of the Concours, uh, the JBS Collection, and also Lavine Restorations down in Nappanee, Indiana. Couldn’t happen without them. Our, uh, Chief Judge Matt Short, our entire judging crew. The shout-out to David Schultz earlier. Our concours wouldn’t be what it is without, uh, David’s support and wisdom.

Bob Barr, Chris Lizotte, they’ve been with us every step of the way, and, uh, staff and volunteers at Studebaker National Museum. Folks can find the museum at studebakermuseum.org. Check us out on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. We’re on Twitter as well, and there’s probably one social media [00:53:00] platform, I’m not sure we’re on BlueSky yet, but, uh, I have a feeling we might be.

But check us out there. No, the MySpace page is dead. Sorry, folks, you can’t find us on there. Many, many great ways to please come down to see the concours and the Automotive History Live, the Lemons and everything, and, uh, we’re gonna have a rip-snorting good time. Hope you can be a part of it.

William Ross: Fantastic. Now, as we wrap up this inaugural episode of Automotive History Live, we want to thank our very special guest, Andrew Beckman, for taking us behind the scenes of the Studebaker National Museum, the Concours at Copse Home, and the brand-new Automotive History Live concert.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, William, and if today’s conversation sparked your curiosity, and we hope it did, you can explore even more of the museum’s work, collections, and events online. As Andy said, follow the Studebaker National Museum on social media to stay connected by way of Facebook for event updates, behind-the-scenes posts, and community stories, on Instagram for stunning visuals and archives from the collection, on YouTube for video features, lectures, and digital exhibits, and of course, their website for [00:54:00] hours, tickets, research access, and upcoming programs.

And with that, Andy, I can’t thank you enough for coming on. You’re a familiar voice here on the MPN thanks to all your previous presentations. We’ve been able to live stream and remaster those to the world, and we hope to have you back to talk about some of those things that you didn’t get to talk about this year, some of your own personal history with cars, and we look forward to the continued partnership with Automotive History Live, and we’ll be carrying the season throughout the rest of this year and the future with all the events we have planned together, so thank you, thank you.

Andrew Beckman: My pleasure. Appreciate it. And we’d like everyone to please stay tuned to the Motor Podcasting Network for more episodes throughout the season from the Automotive History Live Conference. I’m sure that I have a good time with it. Thanks, everyone.

Studebaker/SAH Promo: This episode is made possible by the Studebaker National Museum, the home of South Bend, Indiana’s automotive and industrial heritage. The [00:55:00] museum preserves and interprets the legacy of Studebaker through its world-class collection of vehicles, artifacts, and archival materials, including several nationally designated treasures.

As a center for history, design, and innovation, the museum inspires enthusiasts and the community alike through its exhibits, programming, and commitment to safeguarding the stories that shaped American transportation. To learn more or plan your visit, check out www.studebakermuseum.org. This episode is also brought to you by the Society of Automotive Historians.

They encourage research into any aspect of automotive history. The SAH actively supports the compilation and preservation of papers, organizational records, print ephemera, and images to safeguard as well as to broaden and deepen the understanding of motorized wheeled [00:56:00] land transportation through the modern age and into the future.

For more information about the SAH, visit www.autohistory.org.

Crew Chief Eric: I hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Brake Fix Podcast, brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports. If you’d like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure to follow us on all social media platforms at GrandTouringMotorsports, and if you’d like to learn more about the content of this episode, be sure to check out the follow-on article at GTMotorsports.org.

We remain a commercial-free and no annual fees organization through our sponsors, but also through the generous support of our fans, families, and friends through Patreon. For as little as $2.50 a month, you can get access to more behind-the-scenes action, additional Pit Stop minisodes, and other VIP goodies, as well as keeping our team of creators [00:57:00] fed on their strict diet of Fig Newtons, gummy bears, and Monster.

So consider signing up for Patreon today at www.patreon.com/gtmotorsports, and remember, without you, none of this would be possible.

Highlights

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 Show Launch!
02:06 Studebaker Origins: From Wagons to Cars
05:34 South Bend Indiana Legacy
07:17 Supplier Ecosystem
11:02 Museum Founded (2005)
13:27 Archives Return & Preserving Records
19:47 Packard Connections
22:18 A Must See Collection
24:49 Museum Partnerships
28:48 Copshaholm Concours d’Elegance
40:20 Fun Classes and Lemons!
41:55 Automotive History Live Launch
48:01 Preserving Truthful History
49:44 Dream Museum Upgrades
52:01 Thanks and Wrap Up

Bonus Content

There's more to this story!

Be sure to check out the behind the scenes for this episode, filled with extras, bloopers, and other great moments not found in the final version. Become a Break/Fix VIP today by joining our Patreon.

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.

Learn More

When Studebaker closed its doors in the 1960s, the company gifted its vehicle collection and archives to the City of South Bend. The archives — three semi-trailers’ worth — eventually found their way back home after a brief stay at Syracuse University. Today, the Studebaker National Museum houses not only the company’s automotive legacy but also one of the world’s most significant collections of presidential carriages, including:

Abraham Lincoln’s carriage to Ford’s Theatre
A carriage used by the Marquis de Lafayette
Vehicles belonging to Presidents Harrison, McKinley, Grant, and Eisenhower

And yes — even Fozzie Bear’s 1951 Bulletnose Studebaker from The Muppet Movie lives there, fully restored to its screen-used glory.

Photo courtesy Studebaker National Museum

The museum’s archives support researchers, restorers, and enthusiasts worldwide. From technical drawings to rare photographs, the collection helps keep Studebaker and Packard vehicles on the road and in the public imagination.

Photo courtesy Studebaker National Museum, Concours at Copshaholm, photo by Matt Cashore

South Bend’s automotive influence extends far beyond Studebaker. Companies like Bendix, AM General, and countless machine shops and suppliers grew alongside the automaker, creating a “mini Motown” in northern Indiana. Even today, the region remains rich with automotive heritage — and the museum sits at the center of a network of world-class institutions including:

Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum
Gilmore Car Museum
The Henry Ford
Packard Proving Grounds
National Auto & Truck Museum
RV/MH Hall of Fame

For enthusiasts, it’s a “hydrocarbon trail” of museums, events, and historic sites — a pilgrimage waiting to happen.

Concours d’Elegance at Copshaholm: A Boutique Showcase

In 2018, the museum launched the Concours d’Elegance at Copshaholm, held on the grounds of the historic Oliver Mansion. Designed as a “boutique concours,” the event features 85–90 carefully curated vehicles, emphasizing quality, rarity, and storytelling over sheer volume.

Each year brings new classes — from Auburns and Cords to European economy cars, vintage motorcycles, and even whimsical categories inspired by the Concours d’Lemons. Exhibitors travel from across the country, and attendees enjoy access to both the museum and the mansion throughout the day. The concours has quickly become a Midwest favorite, thanks to its intimate scale, exceptional vehicles, and the passion of its organizers and volunteers.

The newest addition to the museum’s programming is Automotive History Live, a multi-day conference bringing together historians, authors, archivists, and enthusiasts. The event features presentations on topics ranging from radiator mascots to the evolution of America’s roadways, the centennial of Route 66, and the engineering breakthroughs behind the Hydramatic transmission.

Photo courtesy Studebaker National Museum, Automotive History Live!

Speakers include experts from the Revs Institute, the Henry Ford Museum, the Society of Automotive Historians, and more — offering attendees a rare opportunity to learn directly from the people preserving and interpreting automotive history.

As Beckman notes, the youngest Studebaker employees are now around 80 years old. Firsthand accounts are fading, and the responsibility to preserve accurate history grows more urgent each year. Whether it’s a rediscovered 1930s Studebaker film found in an attic or a long-lost engineering drawing that helps a restorer recreate a part, every artifact tells a story worth saving.

The museum’s mission — and the mission of Automotive History Live — is to ensure those stories endure.

Photo courtesy Studenbaker National Museum, Concours at Copshaholm

With growing events, expanding archives, and a passionate community behind it, the Studebaker National Museum continues to honor the past while inspiring future generations. Whether you’re a lifelong enthusiast or newly curious, there’s never been a better time to explore South Bend’s automotive heritage.

To learn more, visit studebakermuseum.org or follow the museum on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms for updates, behind-the-scenes content, and upcoming events.

Automotive History Live! at the Copshaholm Concours d'Elegance

The Studebaker National Museum, partnering with the Society of Automotive Historians (SAH), presents Automotive History Live! The Symposium established itself as a unique and respected scholarly forum and has gained a growing audience of students and enthusiasts. It provides an opportunity for scholars, researchers and writers to present their work related to the history of the automobile and the cultural impact of motorsports. Papers are presented by faculty members, graduate students and independent researchers.

This episode is sponsored in part by: The Studebaker National Museum and The Society of Automotive Historians (SAH) and was recorded in front of a live studio audience.

A New Chapter in Motorsport Storytelling

Motorsports

Gran T

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July 1, 2026

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A New Chapter in Motorsport Storytelling

Before launching Enduroverse and Voices of Endurance, David Lowe served as the U.S. Administrator for the ACO, where he helped grow and strengthen the endurance racing community in the United States and created the Evening with the Legends series. Today, through Enduroverse, he continues that mission by bringing together voices from across the entire endurance racing world.

David Lowe is the former U.S. Administrator for the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), where he led the development and expansion of the ACO community within the United States. During his tenure, membership and engagement grew significantly through the creation of fan-focused events, community activations, and direct interaction opportunities between drivers and endurance racing supporters.

David was also the creator of the “Evening with a Legend” series, which brought together notable figures from endurance racing, in particular the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in a relaxed and conversational format designed to strengthen the connection between the sport’s competitors and its passionate fan base.

As the endurance racing landscape continues to evolve, David has now transitioned these efforts into “Voices of Endurance,” a broader initiative under Enduroverse, focused on celebrating the entire endurance racing community — including drivers, teams, engineers, manufacturers, historians, and fans from across the sport.

The mission remains the same: preserving and growing the culture, stories, and community that make endurance racing unique.

Next on Grid…

David Cowart was primarily an IMSA standout, known for GTO championships and the Red Lobster Racing BMW M1 program. His Le Mans appearance came during the era when American IMSA teams frequently brought Porsche 935 variants to France. He competed once at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in 1982, driving a Porsche 935L for Bob Akin Motor Racing. Although his Le Mans run ended early, Cowart’s endurance racing legacy is stronger at Sebring, where he competed 11 times and later became a co‑promoter helping preserve the event during a difficult period.

REGISTER TO BECOME PART OF THE LIVE STUDIO AUDIENCE

Voices of Endurance will be hosted by GTM’s very own Crew Chief Eric. Familiar to many as the host of Evening With a Legend, he has now transitioned to Voices of Endurance — continuing to share stories from the paddock and pit lane while exploring the people and moments that define endurance racing. A lifelong motorsports enthusiast, racer, and coach, he also hosts the acclaimed Break/Fix Podcast and founded the Motoring Podcast Network, which now boasts more than 600 episodes in its catalog.

About Enduroverse

Enduroverse exists to bring the endurance racing world together in one vibrant community built around passion, grit, and long-distance racing. Through immersive experiences, meaningful events, and genuine connections, we celebrate the sport’s rich heritage, honor its legends, and help fuel its future.

B/F: The Drive Thru #69

Drive Thru News

Tania M

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June 30, 2026

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Drive Thru News Episode #69 marks Break/Fix’s six-year anniversary and recaps June’s automotive news, led by a 24 Hours of Le Mans discussion: Toyota’s comeback win, a generally “meh” race, more LMP2 coverage, Corvette’s GT3 win, and a surprising Lexus run amid BOP and marketing criticisms, plus a Simeone Museum viewing-party report with lower attendance due to the race not falling on Father’s Day. The hosts then explain why their Lemons effort never reached the starting line after their Ford Focus entered limp mode, leading to extensive troubleshooting, ECU replacement/programming issues, and plans to replace the engine wiring harness and relocate the ECU. Other topics include rumored Audi TT revival on a Boxster platform, possible US return of the base Golf via Mexico, unusual Audi tech, VW sales via Costco, harsh reactions to Ferrari’s new Luce EV design, Chrysler-Fiat rebadges, Chinese-ownership restrictions affecting Polestar/Volvo, defense-industry tie-ins, Subaru manual rumors, the Slate truck, Toyota’s EV “stall” patent, California tire regulation, book and event plugs, and quirky crime stories.

News from Our Network Partners!

This is your fast lane to the latest in automotive culture, powered by a coalition of passionate publishers and insiders. From the vintage elegance of Garage Style Magazine to the high-octane listings of Exotic Car Marketplace, and the deep historical dives of The Motoring Historian, our coverage is enriched by voices that live and breathe the motoring world. Whether it’s the eclectic archives of Motorcopia, the endurance grit of Enduroverse, or contributions from other trusted partners, each segment delivers sharp, informed perspectives straight from the garages, paddocks, and showrooms that shape the scene.

Recapturing the Feeling: Building from Scratch Made Things Easier

Bob had been looking for a new home when he found a developer that was having difficulty selling some of the homes he’d built. It was 2009, and financially, things were bleak, especially in the home market. The home Bob and his wife chose still needed some work, but after discussing the idea, they decided this parcel would be just perfect for them. ... [READ MORE]

EP58: Consumer Reports: The Most Interesting Episode in the World

Jon Summers, The Motoring Historian, recaps a Consumer Reports session led by Alex Knizek, outlining CR’s nonprofit testing operation (36 cars yearly, 330-acre Connecticut track) and its scoring pillars: road test, reliability, owner satisfaction (380,000 member surveys), and safety, including real-world/track ADAS evaluation. He reads key rankings, including five-to-ten-year reliability led by Lexus, Toyota, Mazda, Honda, and Acura, with Tesla last; he contrasts this with the 2026 brand report card topped by Subaru, BMW, Porsche, Honda, and Toyota, and notes Rivian’s low reliability but high satisfaction. He shares takeaways that hybrids show 15% fewer issues than ICE, while plug-ins have 80% more issues than hybrids, and discusses model-specific drags (Honda Prologue, Mazda CX-90). He explains his wife’s purchase of a 2026 Cadillac Optiq, influenced by pricing, free workplace charging, and Super Cruise. ... [READ MORE]

What Should I Buy? – Future Collector Cars

GTM’s Break/Fix podcast has a sub series called “What Should I Buy?” where panels of knowledgeable enthusiasts get together and debate about the whatever the presented “Shopping Criteria” is, but on this episode it all unravels very quickly when you take into consideration all the different genres and eras of “collector cars” – Are we talking pre-war, post-war, muscle car, malaise era or something more modern? ... [READ MORE]

The Great Collector-Car Inheritance Is Coming – But the Real Problem Isn’t the Cars. It’s the Lack of a Plan.

A major collector-car market shift may begin not at Monterey, Scottsdale, Amelia Island, or Kissimmee, but inside private garages. As longtime owners age, millions of enthusiast vehicles could move to heirs, families, estates, and trusts. The real issue is not just what the cars are worth. It is whether anyone has a plan before the keys change hands. ... [READ MORE]

The Delorean “Time Machine” Market Is Real – And It’s Outrunning Stock DMC-12s

Back to the Future-style Delorean DMC-12 tribute cars are no longer just fun, crowd-generating conversions. Recent auction results suggest they trade as a distinct pop-culture collector sub-market, with credible Time Machine re-creations commanding a major premium over strong stock/original DMC-12s. ... [READ MORE]

Barn Finder's Dream Car

Take a look at that crude lash up race car - might be a purebred underneath? ... [READ MORE]

A Night at the Museum: My Second 24 Hours of Le Mans at the Simeone

My second year attending the 24 Hours of Simeone (Le Mans) viewing party and camp‑out at the Simeone Foundation Museum in Philadelphia, felt both familiar and completely new. ... [READ MORE]

**All photos and articles are dynamically aggregated from the source; click on the image or link to be taken to the original article. GTM makes no claims to this material and is not responsible for any claims made by the original authors, publishers or their sponsoring organizations. All rights to original content remain with authors/publishers.

Show Notes & Supporting Stories

For a list of all the articles and events referenced on this episode check out the show notes below.

EVs & Concepts

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

Formula One

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

Japanese & JDM

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

Lower Saxony

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

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

Lowered Expectations

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

Motorsports

New Book by Preston Lerner – Coming Soon!

Rich People Thangs!

Stellantis

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

Ferrari Stock plummets amid Luce reveal

VAG & Porsche

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

Track Side Report

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

CHECK OUT THE BUILD UPDATE ON THE GTM CLUBHOUSE SITE.

Would you like fries with that?

A Mom’s ... $80K Camaro Gift To Son Was Stolen, Recovered, Then Stolen Again At The Dealer
... Motorized Wheelchair Mayhem in Baltimore
Florida Man ... weaves through traffic in RV while fleeing law enforcement
Florida Man ... leads deputy on chase around car in Arcadia, deputies say
85-year-old Florida man ... accused of hitting triple digits in street race

Behind the Scenes

There's more to this story!

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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.

TRANSCRIPT

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Ayatollah rock and rolla

Crew Chief Eric: Is that how this month goes?

Crew Chief Brad: Sure.

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

Executive Producer Tania: Recognize.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Yes.

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

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: My,

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

I got the music in me.”

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Exactly.

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

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

Crew Chief Brad: Really?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Crew Chief Brad: I did not.

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

Crew Chief Brad: Okay.

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

Executive Producer Tania: Who are you asking?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: No.

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

Was BMW winning the Hypercar?

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Was it Hobo Max?

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: That’s all of us.

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

Basically

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Boring.

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

Is that what makes it that much more interesting?

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. Correct.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: You might have.

Crew Chief Eric: It was embarrassing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next year they’re gonna have the new car.

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

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

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

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

You know how the Ford fanatics are.

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

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

They never run in Le Mans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: I saw Corvette won.

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Crew Chief Brad: I thought Aston came in second.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: So according to the interwebs-

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, boy

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. Exact- exactly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: spec cars, yeah.

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

Crew Chief Eric: Kind of.

They build to a- With-

Crew Chief Brad: within the parameters that they have.

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

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah …

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, yeah

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Did that work out as planned?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Changing parts.

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: you try rebooting it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: That’s that British electronics.

I,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: I did listen to…

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

Crew Chief Eric: Uh-huh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Correct.

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

The ECU.

Crew Chief Eric: Correct.

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: I have cable.

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

Executive Producer Tania: Probably.

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

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

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

Well,

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Almost like a Tesla.

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, God.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, God.

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

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

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

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

Isn’t it terrible? I

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Bingo.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s not TT either.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Who knows?

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: They call that the Panamera.

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

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

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

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

And then boom, you’re done.

Crew Chief Eric: But the

Crew Chief Brad: problem with the Jetta

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Where do you shift the gears?

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: The TTEV? The

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, do tell …

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Right

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, Lord.

Executive Producer Tania: Slate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: What?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: A Euro license plate holder is probably

Crew Chief Eric: an indicator as well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, God …

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

flashers.

Crew Chief Eric: Please mind the gap.

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

Crew Chief Eric: Awful.

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: They’re gonna sell everything.

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

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

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

partnership network.

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Ah.

Executive Producer Tania: Chrysler Voyager

Crew Chief Brad: You can buy Volvos through Costco

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: I would never say Ferrari.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: $640,000.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh.

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: More than you should. Right?

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

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

This even starts to make the Fiat Multipla look good.

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: That’s for sure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Call it a Chrysler, though?

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

Executive Producer Tania: Mm.

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Mm.

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: The wheels are awful.

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Are these electric or actual gas?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: God.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: I did not know this.

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

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, come on …

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Lobbyists …

Executive Producer Tania: which doesn’t make any

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

Executive Producer Tania: No. There

Crew Chief Eric: you go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, pretty much.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like, that doesn’t tell me anything.

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Volvo filed the correct paperwork.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Yep …

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Yep.

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

Crew Chief Eric: It’s old news.

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

Crew Chief Eric: Yep.

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

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

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

That

Executive Producer Tania: goes

Crew Chief Eric: boom. Right?

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Fact or crap?

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

Executive Producer Tania: I believe that is fact.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Eddie Bauer’s gone.

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

Executive Producer Tania: Eh, they-

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Which will never exist.

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Well, STI versions.

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: What’s the price point?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How fast is an RS3?

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Yes. See?

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

Golf Fahrenheit edition, the top of the line regular GTI

Executive Producer Tania: Then you can buy two Mazdas.

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Boom.

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

I’ll wait.[01:03:00]

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: think pretty much all of them.

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: The Japanese Fiat Panda.

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: No.

Crew Chief Brad: Better than an Aztec.

Executive Producer Tania: Better than that Ferrari.

Crew Chief Brad: Better, better than a Luce.

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: people have spoken, so.

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Do you have Copilot up?

Crew Chief Eric: I do. I

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

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah?

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: It would be funny if it just

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can put your order in for the Slate truck.

Crew Chief Eric: In time for Prime Day?

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

Crew Chief Brad: $20,000.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, exactly.

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, yeah.

Of course.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: And it’s cheap.

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: the store.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is this?

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

Crew Chief Eric: You can drill that out.

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: it’s not great.

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

Executive Producer Tania: Might be intentional.

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

Crew Chief Eric: Come o- look at this.

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

Crew Chief Eric: so bad.

Executive Producer Tania: Ah. But

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Cut down on cost.

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: That’s-

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

Crew Chief Brad: is it too late-

Executive Producer Tania: That’s a choice

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

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

What is this?

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

Crew Chief Eric: What? Why?

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Right.

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: It’s only on takeoff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: I have never-

Crew Chief Eric: No

stalled

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: can- Theoretically, yes.

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: The only time that would happen-

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: I guarantee

Executive Producer Tania: you- You clutch in …

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: nobody drives

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

Crew Chief Eric: Okay.

Executive Producer Tania: Theoretically,

Crew Chief Eric: technically,

Executive Producer Tania: yes. Technically,

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

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

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

“Well, technically…” Well, Volkswagens

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: You can stall your Hoover.

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

Crew Chief Brad: Too much sucking?

Executive Producer Tania: Too much-

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: look it up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Right.

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

They’re all turds in every-

Crew Chief Eric: Right …

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: And you got all seasons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: No.

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Oh.

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Don’t say.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Don’t forget, if you’re looking for that extra special automobilia to complete your garage, office, den, or man cave, be sure to check out garagestylemagazine.com for a list of upcoming auctions and events, along with a curated list of items going [01:22:00] up for sale all over the country.

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Ferraris, Luches.

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

Executive Producer Tania: money No.

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

Crew Chief Eric: I know, I know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

They’re mailing it in with those Speed Champions.

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Mm-hmm.

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

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: that- I don’t

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

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know.

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: That’s actually kinda cool.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s missing something.

Crew Chief Eric: What, rust? Rust?

Executive Producer Tania: Fire?

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Lift us up where we belong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Right.

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

Executive Producer Tania: Ah.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, boy.

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

Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: yes.

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

Crew Chief Eric: This is amazing.

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

Crew Chief Eric: This thing is buck wild.

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

Crew Chief Eric: He’s rolling.

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: least three.

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t know what

Executive Producer Tania: that is.

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: They’d

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: He would’ve started naked.

Crew Chief Eric: Probably.

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Mm-hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah …

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

Crew Chief Eric: Yep.

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: This is wild. Wild.

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

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

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

Like, oh my God, like…

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

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

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

So I don’t see it going for too long.

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Yes

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Mark IV Volkswagen?

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: cop’s- Of

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

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

Yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: yeah.

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

Executive Producer Tania: A tax.

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

All right. What do we got next?

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

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, boy.

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

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, boy.

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

Crew Chief Eric: RV. Wait, what?

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

Crew Chief Eric: No, come on.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s the allegation.

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

There’s

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: He said, “None ya.”

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, wow.

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Into a swamp.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Uh-huh …

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

85-year-old

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

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

With a Northstar in it.

Crew Chief Brad: Chevy Lumina and Ford Taurus.

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: In an Altima? He

Crew Chief Brad: had a pair of New Balance.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, he did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s just be nice about the speed limit.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s still reckless driving.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay.

Executive Producer Tania: Especially if it was in Virginia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s what I’m saying.

Crew Chief Brad: Nice, clean fun.

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: You skipped IndyCar.

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: Okay.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s all.

Crew Chief Eric: Thank you.

Crew Chief Brad: IndyCar was at Road America.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: Couple announcements.

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: Well, if you’re not quite ready to hit the track, or your car is not [01:43:00] quite ready to hit the track, don’t forget that you can find tons of upcoming local shows and events at the ultimate reference for car enthusiasts, collectorcarguide.net.

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

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

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: geez.

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

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

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

Crew Chief Brad: seeds? Seeds.

Our 24 Hours of Lemon Seeds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Executive Producer Tania: That’s not the problem.

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

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

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

Highlights

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

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

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Leipert Motorsport Shines at Nürburgring Event

Motorsports

About Liepert Motorsport

Leipert Motorsport was founded in 2002 and became one of Europe’s top GT-Teams in Sprint- and Endurance-Racing. Spreading its GT-Engagement even wider across the continental borders, this step is the logical consequence for the German team after being a front runner and championship winning team in multiple competitions.

Leipert Motorsport Dominates at Spa-Francorchamps

Motorsports

About Liepert Motorsport

Leipert Motorsport was founded in 2002 and became one of Europe’s top GT-Teams in Sprint- and Endurance-Racing. Spreading its GT-Engagement even wider across the continental borders, this step is the logical consequence for the German team after being a front runner and championship winning team in multiple competitions.

<img class="tdb-logo-img" src="https://www.gtmotorsports.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/CROPPED-1.png" alt="Logo" title="" width="2597" height="573" data-eio="l" />GTMSpreading Motorsports Enthusiasm - since 2014

<img class="tdb-logo-img" src="https://www.gtmotorsports.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/CROPPED-1.png" alt="Logo" title="" width="2597" height="573" data-eio="l" />GTMSpreading Motorsports Enthusiasm - since 2014

<img class="tdb-logo-img" src="https://www.gtmotorsports.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/CROPPED-1.png" alt="Logo" title="" width="2597" height="573" data-eio="l" />GTMSpreading Motorsports Enthusiasm - since 2014

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Concours d’Elegance at Copshaholm: A Boutique Showcase

Automotive History Live! at the Copshaholm Concours d'Elegance

This episode is sponsored in part by: The Studebaker National Museum and The Society of Automotive Historians (SAH) and was recorded in front of a live studio audience.

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Formula One

Japanese & JDM

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About Liepert Motorsport

About Liepert Motorsport

GTMSpreading Motorsports Enthusiasm - since 2014

GTMSpreading Motorsports Enthusiasm - since 2014

GTMSpreading Motorsports Enthusiasm - since 2014