Cool Cars with Chris: Car Talk, Driving Tips & Auto Life Dec 29, 2025

014 | LA Auto Show 2025: EV Test Drives, Movie Cars & JDM Icons

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This coming up weekend, it is the San Diego International Auto Show happening at the Convention Center this weekend.

But before we get to that, Courage decided to go up to LA and check out the Los Angeles Auto Show.

So on this episode, you'll hear all about his trip to Los Angeles to check out what it was like to be at the massive LA Auto Show.

You'll hear all the cool things, what he did, what it was like, all of that and more on this episode. Let's go.

Okay, we are back with Courage.

Courage the amazing, wonderful YouTuber of himself, big time in the car of space.

Big time went all the way to Los Angeles to see the Los Angeles.

Is it international car show? How do you say it over there?

I don't know. Although they have a lot of cars that are companies that come out.

But I think they just call it the LA Auto Show, I believe.

Yeah, I've been to the one in San Diego every single year. It's been down here.

And so the one in Los Angeles just happened to record this episode right now.

And you decided just out of a whim just to head over there?

So yeah, like similarly to you, I've gone as a San Diego one pretty much every year since I've been out here.

And I would talk to a few people about the LA Auto Show, but it was spurred particularly by some folks in the in community.

It was like, oh, you should go and like we actually got a discount.

We got like a 10% discount through the SoCal in club.

What does it cost for tickets? Is there expenses?

There were like 20, 20. Well, with the discount, it was 21 bucks. So I think it was $25.

That's not bad.

Yeah, for an adult. Not bad at all. Yeah, I definitely worth it.

Okay. Yeah, man. So I know the one in San Diego is about the same price, but it's much, much smaller.

I heard the one in LA is like, is like massive.

Oh yeah. Yeah. And if you talk about costs, because they're about the same cost, but it totally different scales.

I mean, you know, San Diego's, I enjoyed it.

And it was always kind of like this sort of tradition around like New Year's time to go to the San Diego Auto Show.

But, you know, being that I had never gone to the LA Auto Show, I was kind of blown away at just the scale of the show overall.

So where do they have the thing physically at in Los Angeles?

Yeah. So it's at the LA Convention Center, which is right across from the crypto arena in LA.

That's where the Lakers play, right?

I think so. Yeah.

Yeah, I see. I stayed there. I mean, I stayed across from there, but yeah, I know exactly where that is.

And the LA Convention Center, I'm not too familiar with exactly where that. I've probably seen it.

I've probably driven by it.

Yeah.

And now is it bigger than the San Diego Convention Center about the same size?

That's an interesting question.

I'm not sure because San Diego's Convention Center is like, it spans like a couple of blocks in terms of like from the start.

Because if you're familiar with San Diego, I know you are.

But just people listening is, you know, it sort of overlooks a little bit of like the coastal area.

There's like a little bay area there.

And it's a really long convention center that spans like a couple of blocks near like the gas lamp area.

But it has only has two levels and it's not very, I guess it's not very wide.

Like there's two levels and a lot of times really the auto show is only in like one part of that.

So with the LA auto show, I felt like it was a lot larger of a space because they had totally different sections.

They had like a West Wing, a South Wing.

There was another part that I don't even think we made it to.

And there's just a lot of different.

Maybe Chevy and like that's it.

So did this one have like all that kind of stuff too?

Or is it just purely like a SEMA show?

Yeah, no.

And I apologize.

My neighbor just this part, but if you can hear that, that's him leaving with his loud motorcycle right now.

So I apologize if you can hear that.

But yeah, it was, it was about it.

Definitely.

I've noticed the drop off as well, you know, even with the San Diego, a San Diego auto show.

I remember when BMW and Mercedes came out and, you know, to the point where they had stopped

and it was like a lot of like Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, you know, that, that realm.

And I think it was really the same.

I heard, I talked to a couple of people there at the LA auto show and they said the same thing

that, you know, there was a year where it was, you know, just flooded with brands, all kinds of brands.

And that was really, you know, you just, you, you couldn't make it to everything in one day

because there were just so many brands to the point now where it's, it's definitely condensed a bit.

Although, you know, I think that now it's sort of worked a little bit more in the favor of the show

because the ones that are still there really invest a lot into their boots or their,

I guess you can say they're displaced.

Now, did they even give out paperwork anymore?

Because I remember they used to be like, for years, I'd go over there with a little,

like a little baggie they give you, like Toyota, a little baggie out.

And like you fill your bag, fill off all of like the cool like swag.

It was stickers, it was decals.

And I think Sion was there to give out keychains and stuff like that,

and they have all these like big pamphlet manuals.

But over the last how many years, everything's gone digital where it's like to scan the website

or look at the website or whatever.

Is it like that they're two at the LA show?

That's it.

And I do think that their biggest goal a lot of times is just to be totally honest,

they really just want to get your information so that they can follow up with you.

Oh yeah.

Do a test drive.

What do you test drive?

Yeah, sure.

Fill us out.

That's your email.

Exactly.

Every single time.

Yeah.

Toilet dealers, Alexis dealers, Jeep dealers, they all got my email from all the different

test drives, all the different things.

And I get it, you know, from that perspective that, you know, again,

what they invest in these displays and putting this all together, it's a lot of money.

Like some of the things that they had, like Volkswagen had this one like thing that was totally,

it was totally tailored to kids, which is really interesting.

But they had them, they like had guys that were giving kids out, like when we got there,

they would, even if you had like three kids, like they give each individual kid this little box

that had this car that you could just kind of put together.

And it was just like one screw that you could kind of screw in with a hex bolt.

Oh, I think I've seen that.

Yeah.

They give you, they give all the kids the cars, they let them like sit there and

actually color it and like design it and do little things to it.

And then they just let them like, you know, race on this little racetrack,

this little downhill racetrack that they have.

And, you know, even that, you know, just the fact that like every time I was watching them,

because we were there for probably an hour, because the kids just did not want to leave.

But you saw them like when they started running out of like these cars,

they'd like had this huge box full of like more cars that they would then like get out

and get ready for more kids to come.

And just like all the things that they're investing in this sort of experience

that they're trying to build to make the brand more memorable.

I sort of understand why they want to find a way to convert that into

interested buyers at the end of the day.

Yeah.

I think a lot of them do that.

I mean, one year there was a rock climbing wall.

One year I was here, the kids did that.

Yeah.

They had these little electric like, like, I don't know what you call them,

like little babies, you know, electric, you know, Jeep cars.

They were like going around a track.

My kids did that when they were really little.

And, you know, of course the test tracks.

I remember one year I did the two years.

I did the actual off road with the Toyota where they had to you drive.

Not they drove.

I got the drive.

Oh, wow.

It was a dirt off road track at the back of the convention center,

the back parking lot is being dirt off road course.

I did the Toyota truck and I did the FJ cruiser on the on the course.

And ever since then they started doing the Jeep track inside and

they would, you would be a ride along.

They would actually drive.

And then they took that out and made it as hunt this electric like,

you know, cone course kind of a thing.

Yeah.

But so how long did it take you to get over there?

What time of day do you leave?

They're really early or what?

That's a great question.

They're late or something?

We did.

We didn't leave Sandy or Temecula area until like around 1130.

I believe 1145.

Yeah.

You got kids.

You got to get in the car.

It's hard.

I get kids in the car.

My oldest, I know we texted about this a little bit.

My oldest was just live it.

Like he did not want to go.

He knew it was going to be a long car ride.

And he was just, he was like, leave me home.

Like I'll stay home and I'll watch TV.

And I'm like, that's not happening.

Like we're going.

And so we, we had a whole deal just leaving the house.

And turns out, I mean, he had an awesome time.

He was the one who was telling us he didn't want to leave.

How ironic is that?

Yeah.

So yeah, it was, it was a fun experience leaving.

But yeah, going there, it took us right about two and a half

hours to get there.

And, you know, we, you know, traffic in it really traffic

and sort of Riverside or well, not Riverside, but in like

Lake Elsinore area going towards like Coronado or

Corona, we get like a little pocket of traffic because

there's a lot of people that are coming from like

San Bernardino and Riverside that are trying to go

like to the coastal cities.

And so you get a real bottleneck there.

And then obviously anywhere near LA is always packed with

traffic.

So yeah, it took us two and a half hours to get there,

which it wasn't bad.

We got there at right around like two o'clock.

It was a Saturday, right?

It was a Saturday.

Yeah.

And what time did they, what time did they close that

Saturday?

Cause sometimes they close earlier or whatever.

I don't know.

I think it was around eight or nine.

We left at like right at like six 30 or something.

So we were there at good four and a half hours.

And you think you saw enough?

No.

Cause I saw posts and things on Instagram and stuff that

we didn't even see.

Man, that sucks.

So you get there around two o'clock, you said?

Yeah.

Okay.

So you get there, is there a parking garage?

Where do you park when you get over there?

That was another thing.

Parking was very confusing.

I, and maybe it's a little better.

Maybe I know the lay of the land a little bit more

with San Diego's auto show, but it was not very clear

where you could park.

There was, there was one parking spot, like a parking

lot area that was sort of directing us to it.

And when we got there, let's just say it was not a

place that I wanted to park my car.

You guys have got like tagging cars and graffiti

or something.

It just did not, it was not conducive to like a

safe environment, like parking lot.

There's no actual parking garage there.

Do you park cars there?

There probably is, but they did.

It just wasn't well marked, especially for people

that don't know the lay of the land there.

Like there's something to go every year.

So they probably know, but we ended up parking in this,

I guess it's like a shared parking structure for like

an apartment complex there.

Like one of those like high end apartment complexes

where they actually have like valet parking for the

people that live at the apartment.

What kind of apartment is that?

Yeah.

If you can tell, like as you're driving by,

like this is one of those like real like upscale

like apartment, you know, types of, I mean,

I imagine it's literally right across the street from,

you know, the crypto arena.

It's fun.

I think it stayed a place over there.

And I remember that when we parked our car in valet down

the bottom, it'll get it or whatever.

I don't know.

We were down there at the basement area and there were

lots of like Ferraris Lamborghinis and a lot of

Range Rover parked down there in like that bottom area.

So I imagine that I think it was like a slash apartment

building slash like, I don't know what it was.

You got the penthouses.

Yeah.

Like that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you parked the car there.

Yeah.

And it was directly across the street.

Oh, it's even better.

It's right there.

Yeah.

Take a little hike in the million miles to get to

find your car to get to the place, you know.

Yeah.

So did you see already about the tickets?

You have them already on you online digitally.

You had to buy them in person.

We did digital.

And as I mentioned, we actually got a 10% discount

and we partnered with Hyundai, which was pretty cool.

They gave us a 10% discount.

So, you know, just a couple of bucks off,

four or five bucks off the ticket, but, you know,

it was definitely pretty cool and to do that.

Did the kids get it free or like that?

Yeah.

So kids were free.

Oh, even better.

I think it's, it's under six, I believe.

Oh, nice.

She has something like that.

Yeah.

The San Diego one, I think it was like Sundays was

the kids.

Yeah.

That's right.

And that's usually the days we end up going is because of

maybe I should go Sundays too, just because it's like,

it's like, what do you want to do this weekend?

You know, kind of a thing.

You know, it's not a lot.

Usually it's like a lot.

I always wanted to go, but it's kind of been a last minute

thing sometime.

So I was like, let's go on Sunday.

Let's make a Sunday day out of it.

But so you go down there or up there, I guess,

and then you park the car and you get into the place.

Now, when you get into the building,

is it, is it kind of what it's in the ego where it's

like, you're kind of hit it off.

Like, where do you want to go?

Or is it like, it's kind of like set up in a way where

we have to kind of follow this path.

No, you, I, this is one where if you're going,

I would recommend having a map to know where things are.

Because when we, so there's actually two different,

I believe two different entrances that you can come in.

There's one, I don't know if the one we came in

is the main entrance, but it would be sort of weird

if that was the only entrance because to get

to the other side where we were,

we saw a lot of the like Hyundai and Toyota

and some of the other brands.

It's a pretty long walk to get over this like sort of bridge

that takes you from the west lot or the west room

to the south room of the convention center.

But it's, there's a lot to it.

Like the, the moment we walked in GMC and,

and Hummer and Chevy had sort of a display

and we got kind of distracted there.

We spent a good like 20, 25 minutes just like,

were you checking out the truck you drove?

Yeah, they had one. Yeah.

They had the GMC version, but yeah, it was there.

You're like, I drove this, check this out.

I don't know where these buttons are.

I know I was driving this thing.

100%. Yeah.

I was taking a look at that.

We looked at the Escalade IQ and the Hummer EV in person

was pretty cool to see.

That thing's just a monster of an SUV or of a truck.

It's ridiculously overpriced too.

It is. 100%.

I mean, it is a flex.

It is like, look at me.

I guess the first one was to think about it.

It was.

It totally was.

They didn't depart from that, from that characteristic,

I would say.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

But they're saying, well, at least we're green now.

So suck it, you know, because there was like a point

of gas on the thing was, but, but that's cool.

The kids got to play with that stuff.

Get the driver seat and like push buttons

and pretend they're driving and all that kind of stuff too.

Yeah. No, they, they enjoyed that.

The, the cool, the cool part, honestly,

when we first got there, though,

before we even made it into any of like the main rooms,

though, was we, we actually had to take a restroom break.

Funny enough.

The long car drive. I would too.

Yeah. Yeah.

We got in and we got distracted with all that stuff.

And they were like, yeah, we should,

everybody's got to go to the restroom. Let's go.

And so we start walking towards the restrooms on this

like West end of the building.

And they, there's this one room where they had converted

it into almost like, it looks like it's a parking garage

because they actually had like the flooring,

like as if like there were park,

like, you know, parking spots and things like that.

And it was a whole JDM style,

like kind of car show type thing that they,

they had kind of built in this little section,

right? Where the bathrooms were.

But then as you, there's, there's two little sections.

And this is where I say,

we spent literally an hour in this area

before we even made it into like the main displays

was like, they had the little JDM car show area

on the, on like a far side away from all of it,

not even clearly directed.

They had this,

this area where they had the original Supra

from the Fast and the Furious.

They had the,

I'm not sure if you're familiar with like the Need for Speed

game series and things like that,

but they, they had the M,

the M3 GTR from the most wanted series

with the big wing, the blue and silver M3,

they had that on display.

And then they had like Alex Choi is like a big YouTuber.

He has this really crazy built Huracan with like,

with like these glass panels in the front along

like the headlights and like all this,

this just totally over the top designed Huracan,

but they had that all in display on this little section.

That's like, you could easily miss it.

It wasn't defined at all.

Did they have the,

I thought I saw Hans like Sylvia S15 with the,

with the orange and blue livery.

And then they had some other just,

they, I don't know if they're movie cars,

but they were just, you know, kind of just, you know,

very modified, you know, Japanese JD cars.

I'm really curious about these movie cars.

What I'd like to know is that are they truly modified

or are they just cosmetically modified?

Oh yeah. That's a good question.

None of them had their hoods open.

It's like a regular engine with like, you know,

it's like modified.

You know, the Z, I would say the 350 and probably the Sylvia,

they probably have to be at least suspension wise because

you could tell with the 350 that it had like,

the way the wheels were turned,

they had to have like upgraded the steering rack

for like one of those like drift rack, you know,

setups where you get a bunch of steering angle.

So I would imagine if they went as far to do that,

that probably there's some other modifications.

The funny thing was that even though like pretty much

everything, they were pretty well cleaned and everything.

Of course they have a guy coming through with a rag

and like some, you know, spray, spray wax

or whatever they got.

And even that same angle one,

that guy is there.

We just constantly,

they just come spraying and wiping, spraying and wiping

because people get their fingerprints all over them.

And just that were those ones behind ropes,

you couldn't get too close enough.

So yeah.

A lot of those cars are kind of, you know,

roped off. They don't want you getting too close.

The other room I was going to say about the 350 though,

they, the 350 had a, had like almost like a plastic bag,

like take over the driver's side window.

And so that, that was a little weird to me.

Like I said, it was immaculately detailed,

but then like it had a plastic bag over the driver window.

It's like, okay, like that's not something that

it's supposed to be that version.

Cause it was in the Japan, you know,

it's supposed to be in Japan.

Should be right side drive.

Right?

That's true too.

Actually. Yeah.

So maybe it was the passenger.

It was, it was on what,

it was on the left side of the car.

But yeah, you're right.

It probably, that probably was the passenger side.

The other side was so tenant that you can't even see in it.

So yeah.

That's a Hollywood secret, you know,

they, they take all the cars, front windshield, everything.

So you can't see the driver who actually is driving the car.

Yeah.

It's behind the wheels.

It kind of like it's a little Hollywood magic.

You know, speaking of right side cars yesterday,

I kid you not yesterday on the freeway,

I was hitting on the up,

I think it was on a 52 freeway.

Anyway, I see this car coming behind me.

It's kind of a lower Toyota.

It looked like a, I wasn't too familiar.

It wasn't like a sports coupe.

It was like a Toyota.

What's that?

I mean the older Celica or something.

I don't know.

It didn't look too old.

It didn't look too new either.

Anyways, the guy was on the right side.

He was driving on the right side of the car.

The guy driving it.

I looked at it twice.

I'm like, what, that guy's on the wrong side.

Oh, will he crap?

Look at that thing.

It's just out of Japan, whatever it was.

And, and he had it on the right side.

So that's very interesting.

But anyways, back to the auto show.

So you're there at the auto show,

walking around from booth to booth, just in awe.

The kids are probably just jumping around from car to car.

Every car you can get their hands on.

They probably jumped in, right?

Yeah.

One, one quick thing I want to add on that little section there,

though, is there was a room there that was sponsored,

I guess, by this company.

I don't, I'm not sure the company and I won't shout them out

because they aren't doing anything.

But they, they, they had this particular room that I think

was tied to like a casino or something of that sort.

They had, there were, I was just super well,

just like with the lighting, perfect and everything.

They had a, they had three cars from the Peterson museum

that they displayed.

They had a, they had a SLR McLaren,

a mick condition NSX, the nineties,

like early 2000s NSX.

Oh nice.

Yeah.

And then I can, I'm blanking on the other car

that they had it on the far left.

I have pictures of it, but I can't remember.

And then they had a couple of race cars kind of here

and there, like actual, like, you know,

Le Mans race cars and things like that.

But this one room, like I said, it's like, you know,

a hundred million dollar room where you just walk in

like unsuspecting of what you're about to behold

in terms of the cars that are in it.

And again, like this was all before we actually made it

to the actual show.

It was, it was pretty cool.

Porsche had actually a little section too

when they had a Carrera GT and a Porsche 918,

just like right as you kind of enter to like the,

the West Wing.

And then they had like a lot of their 911 STs

and things like that.

But yeah, like the, the special rooms,

I think is really what made the LA auto show for me

at least stand out so much more than the SD one.

It's like one big room with like different,

like little, little exhibit.

You kind of like wander through it from exhibit to exhibit.

And you kind of just like wander through

like a big open space.

Like it's all open concepts.

So you're saying there,

they're kind of like apartment,

they have different compartments.

Just little compartments.

Yeah.

Like, you know, even, even on your way to like the,

the West Wing,

which is the first little section that we went in

where Kia was more of like the dominant brand over there.

They were like the moment you walk in the door,

like they had a Kia and a Ford booth.

And so that was their little section there.

And then some other automakers.

If you, if you go to the right,

right before you went into the door,

there's another little room that, you know,

had a guy that I don't know if it was like

Carl Shelby's like, you know, son or like relative

or, or somebody that was tied to, you know,

just Shelby automotive, he was signing pictures

and signing posters for people.

I didn't get one because I just got distracted

by a whole bunch of other things going on.

And, you know, they had some, you know,

Lamborghini Aventadors and, you know,

F12 Berlinetta Ferraris and things on display.

And all those cars are roped off.

I'm assuming we can't get to those.

Yeah.

So any, yeah,

anything in the special rooms were, you know, really,

you know, they have, they have some of those

in San Diego too.

They have a little section of one in where it's like

specialty cars.

You know, usually it's like a few Lamborghinis

and vintage Mustangs and vintage Corvette

things like that.

And they're all behind the rope.

You can't really even like get close to them

or whatever and all that kind of stuff.

And even like the actual automakers,

like, you know, in their displays,

like they have certain cars that they,

you know, they don't want you to actually

like, you know, really interact with or

they're locked.

Like you, especially like pre-production cars

or anything like that, you know,

there were a few of those where they had some

pre-production models of cars that you couldn't

actually get in, but you could get up close

and see some details and things like that.

You know, I didn't even get to Chevy.

I'm not even sure which room Chevy was in,

but I saw that the ZR,

the ZR1X was on display.

That's the electric version of the Corvette.

So that's, yeah, the one with the,

so basically with the ZR1 with the flat

plane crank V8, but then also with

electric motors. Yeah.

Man, they're just stacking too much on there.

It's like, it's like when you go get the

the yogurt, the yogurt place and you get

all the stuff you want to throw on top,

all the sprinkles and cookies.

I instantly knew you were going to say something

about food. I was like, which,

what food references are you going to be?

But, you know, it's like, it's like,

like, hey Mason, they charge you by the

weight. Why, why are you putting like

those rock candies on there?

I mean, they're like so heavy.

You know, it's like a $20 yogurt all of a

sudden, you know.

The interesting thing about that though,

with the, with the ZR1 and the ZR1X

particularly is I remember a long,

a long time ago, not to go on a tangent,

but I remember that when the ZR,

when the, the e-ray first came out,

they, and the Z06,

they, they had talked about the

e-ray in the sense where

like they, they knew that the

construction, like some engineers and

some people had like, you know,

basically talked about how the,

the Corvette chassis, the platform

for them to, to basically

have an all wheel, all wheel

drive solution for

both like the Z06, but then

when the ZR1 came out,

it also had the same construction

like center tunnel design where

they could all, they, they ultimately

could make it all wheel drive if they wanted to.

And it was really interesting

when the ZR1 came out

that people were like, oh well

there, the natural progression is for them to

just use, utilize the same thing they did

with the e-ray from the Z06

and just make an all wheel drive version

with an electric motor. And

that's literally just what they did.

They, they just took the same platform

and then just slotted their electric

motor in the front and made the ZR1X.

And, and it was like, you know,

it was pretty, I'd say it's pretty

genius on their part that they,

you know, they knew that this was just

how we were going to progress this forward.

We were going to build this in a way where

like we're going to give the internal

combustion guys what they want.

But we're going to always kind of have that

ability now to add on to it with the

electric, the electric side, the hybrid

side, and then make this

crazy hypercar monster

that the ZR1, the ZR1X

is, which is just an insane thing.

That's crazy. Now

what is the price point for that thing?

You know? It's definitely over

two, for sure. I don't know

exactly, but. I mean people say it's

crazy expensive, but you look at some of these

Ferraris, you know, they're, they're that

like that's a cheap one. If you think about it,

like somebody like that, you know, and

you know, it's

it's like, what do you do with that?

You know, like, I mean,

do you just like put on display

or do you just take it to a track? Like, you know,

and just see how fast you're doing it.

You driving down the street and trying to enjoy it

like you're just going to jail. Like it's

just, it's not a matter of if it's when

like when you're going to push it in the

wrong spot and just go to jail.

I mean, YouTubers probably, you know, jump

with a chance to do that. And sometimes

YouTubers are getting crazy, not you, of

course, but some of the crazy ones are getting

crazy with their, with their cars and the

different stunts they're doing and

and just trying to overtie. It's like

they've almost done everything possible.

Like I don't know what you can do now, you

know, but I just think, I think

electric cars are fine. Listen, they have

a place, but having an engine, like a

real nice sound engine just sounds great.

Yeah. And I would

I love the new Corvette, the new C8

dude, I want to want the engine in the back

and all that. I mean, they don't sound

like an exotic, you know, they sound like a

muscle, you know, like a Corvette.

Yeah. Well, it's

really interesting too. Like, you know, I

actually really, again, I did

a video on this a little while back and

it was spurred off by like this guy

that does a lot of videos

for Hagerty, Jason Kamisa.

And, you know, he did a video on

like on all of the generations

of ZR1 and like the special

Corvettes. And he

talked like briefly about

why the C8

had to become sort of

a mid-engine platform sports car

slash supercar because there

was just a certain point, there's a certain

point where a rear-wheel-drive

front-engine car

just cannot perform at the level

that a mid-engine rear-wheel-drive

car can or all-wheel-drive car can.

And he was

talking basically like if you see

any like any clips of like

a C7 ZR1 which

was, you know, I think it was

like 750 horsepower

manual rear-wheel-drive

supercharged. Supercharged.

Yeah, supercharged car like

trying to put that power

down in any scenario just

leaves you, you're just leaving a cloud

of smoke everywhere. And,

you know, it's sort of known as a bit

of a widowmaker because

it's just to control that on

a track is it takes a really kind

of skilled person to do. But

then they show a clip of the

C8 ZR1

literally just being able to outlaunch

the C7 ZR1

and it literally has

1,000 horsepower to the

C7 700 horsepower.

So like in theory

you're thinking well like a car with

1,000 horsepower is going to have even worse the time

getting off the line. But it was

just really cool to hear his explanation of why

a mid-engine rear-wheel-drive

car was where they

had to go to now kind of

push all of this like platform

forward in terms of performance

and you know

Chevy was willing to do it because it wasn't like

they were trying to hold on to this like

oh the Corvette is this and we can't change

it. They've always wanted to

chase performance and the only

natural way to do it was to do that

with the C8. Yeah, I heard that they were

in designing, trying to design

a rear-engine Corvette

for years. Yeah. And it

was just happened to be the right time I guess

and they put something together and

yeah, that's the

far, I'm not a big fan of Chevy

I mean, but that's a Chevy

but that's a Chevy would buy.

Yes, the Corvette would be the one I buy. Yes.

Yeah, out of all, yeah, I'll take it.

Some people are like, they don't like

certain car brands but it's like the one car

that that brand makes. I get it.

That'd be the one, you know, I think for me

it would be the Corvette. And I'm like that

with the Mustang where I'm like, you know, I'm not

like a huge four guy but I mean, I will

take a Mustang like

any day, almost

any generation except for the Mustang

2 maybe. Yeah, Mustang 2

but I did hear there was a couple of versions

that had like the V8 in those things

I heard. Yeah, they did

some of the later ones. Yeah, but

I had a buddy who had one of those and

it was basically a Pinto. It was basically a Pinto

with a Ford with a Mustang badge on it.

So it was. Well, both of them did that too.

Chevy and Ford had that

era where they like, you know, they were like

yeah, we're going to pull like from some European

like small car routes and I mean

you know, Ford had the Pinto so they had

that ability to do it but

you know, even like the second gen

Camaro, it was the second gen, I believe.

Yeah, second gen Camaro, you know, they had

like the Berlinetta

edition.

There was like, I think it was a four

cylinder or maybe it was a V6 but

it was supposed to be more of like a luxury

car.

It wasn't like they weren't at all really kind

of looking at like the usual like

pony car, muscle car, demographic.

They were like, you know, we want to make like a

really plush like luxury car

out of the Camaro

and they, I feel like

both Ford and Camaro had, or Ford and Chevy

had just kind of a weird time where they

just didn't quite know where they wanted

to take the second generation of their cars

and so they like, they either

borrowed a Pinto chassis and built

something off of that or they tried to turn

a Camaro into a luxury car and

they finally found their way

back a little bit and

you know, again, Ford

ultimately kind of won out the war because

the Mustang's still here and the Camaro's not.

So, you know.

Well, maybe they'll bring it back, you never know.

Dave, we had that point in 2000s.

Yeah, so you're right.

So, cars come and go and

sell a auto show.

Now, was there any car manufacturers

that were not there?

You're like, where's this brand at?

I sort of was surprised

that Tesla

wasn't there. Why would they be there?

They never go there.

I don't think of them as like a car.

It's a car brand. I don't think of them as like

an enthusiast's car brand. I don't know.

The only reason that I say that, and you're

right, like they normally don't do

that kind of stuff because just what their

model is, like, I mean, they technically

make their own auto shows with the way that

they have their sort of

mall-based kind of

displays and things like that.

Right, what if you buy them at a store or something?

They don't even go to a dealer.

Yeah, like that, I get that 100%.

The main reason I feel

like it was surprising was because

again, brands like Lucid

were there, Rivian

was there, Rivian's been there, so that's

not a huge surprise.

Scout was there.

Oh, I want the Scout so bad, dude.

Yeah, Scout had a really cool display

outside of the whole thing as you're coming

in that we kind of wish we would have had

a chance to spend a little bit more time

in, but yeah, Scout was there.

And then obviously just the automakers,

the main automakers, and now

have their EV lines, like the Silverado

EV, the, you know, the,

I know Ford is thinking about getting

rid of the lightning, surprisingly,

but, you know, they were still

at the same location and

I feel like

it was sort of a missed opportunity

mainly for Lucid to be there

and Tesla not to be there.

Because they're both EV companies, you're saying?

They're both EV companies, they're both, you know,

US based EV companies

and, you know, now for people

to start to really kind of, you know,

learn more about Lucid and, you know,

now they have this electric

EV minivan

quote-unquote SUV, they want to call

it an SUV, but it's basically a minivan

but they go zero to 60

in like 3.5 seconds.

You know, the fact that they have

these sort of game-changing

EVs now

makes me wonder why Tesla

is so confident

in the way they've already been doing things

that they wouldn't step

into the mix now and start to,

you know, bring themselves back

in so that people can get acclimated

with their cars.

I think Tesla doesn't care.

Honestly, they're like above it.

They're like, would you go for that?

We are so above your little

pathetic little auto show.

That's cute, kids.

We're Tesla, okay.

We've done our things to do.

And I 100% can see it.

Like, me personally,

I think it's a mistake, but again,

I'm not Tesla,

I'm not the guys that are running the show

and so maybe they, I know

there's a different outlook on it.

People are going to buy Tesla

no matter what.

If Tesla is at the auto show,

it's not going to convince anybody to buy Tesla.

I think if somebody sees a Tesla,

knows a Tesla, Tesla is so well known

and the brand,

the car company, the cars are everywhere.

This is here in Southern California, it seems everywhere.

I don't think

and I'm sure you can,

I think you can order from their website.

I don't think you need to go into the store.

It's convenient to buy it all.

I personally like to test drive a car

before I buy one.

Maybe I'll just old-fashioned that way.

I don't know if I can do the whole vending machine

with a caravan experience.

I don't know if I can do that.

I want to physically drive the thing,

pop the hood, see what I got in the engine,

that kind of stuff.

But some people don't.

Some people just want to buy whatever, order.

Same thing with phones and stuff too.

If you go to the phone store,

you figure it's good, it's good, whatever.

I mean, that's a good point

because I mean, there's people,

if you just take the phone,

the phone sector for example,

there's certain people that it doesn't matter

what's going on with Apple,

they're going to get the new iPhone.

They're not even thinking about

what another phone

brand is doing.

It's not even on their radar.

I guess you can say, yeah, like Tesla's

in a spot where there's people

they are even thinking about

like what the

comparable EV is going to be.

It's like, if I was going to get a Tesla,

I'm just going to get a Tesla.

Oh, totally.

I don't think that might be the laurels

they're resting on.

Right, until their

market share gets eaten up by Lucid

or Rivian or

whoever else or whatever else.

But there are so many

EV cars you can choose from.

Not just Tesla,

but like you say like Hyundai's got a bunch,

Kia's got a bunch, Ford's got a bunch,

Chevy's got a bunch, I think Volvo

and they all got a bunch of their EV

versions of stuff.

So even with all that,

Tesla's like, nah, we're good, we don't need them.

Man, that's a good

place to be, man.

It's good to be at the top, you know,

I mean, I'd say I've never owned a Tesla,

you know, I've driven one, you've driven one.

They're nice cars.

They're not nice, I'm sure.

They're great, they've got a great network,

they've got the great charging network,

they've got the great updates doing the thing.

They're probably

really, really great customer service,

I'm sure, where you can like, you know,

text them out of the app and get it fixed

immediately, I don't know.

So they have this whole ecosystem.

So I think, another thing too is I think

it's kind of cool, it's a cool vibe

to say you drive a Tesla.

And it's like, remember when Starbucks

cup, it was like a status symbol.

Yeah.

And the same thing for like an Apple, like a MacBook

computer, like, you know.

I don't think that hasn't faded yet.

I mean, you know, Apple

products in general just have this

like, you know, just think about them

versus like anything else where like,

yeah, like there's a standout product

here and there, but you know,

they haven't quite garnered

that like loyalty factor,

I feel like as Apple has,

you know, I will say with Starbucks though,

they got a real fierce competitor

coming down there, coming down their side

of things right now in the coffee space.

Oh, definitely. Yeah.

A lot of them are dead now. I'm not saying dead.

A lot of them are not as busy as they once were.

And so they're closed in places.

I mean, they were on every corner for a while.

There was this one, if you're familiar

with Mission Gorge Road in San Diego,

I'll think freeway.

I remember a while ago, there was literally like

three Starbucks within like walking distance

over there. I kid you, you know,

that whole block section over there.

I was like, yeah, be crazy. There's one here, one there, one there.

I think they closed most of them down.

There might be one left, but it was like four or whatever.

Then one little section, that's crazy.

But anyways, back to the auto show.

So you're walking around, checking different things out.

Do you guys have anything to eat while you're there?

Was there anything to eat or anything?

Yeah. The food select, they had, you know,

chicken tenders, fries for the kids,

whole little pizza set. Yeah.

And again, this was just the food court we went to.

The other side, there was another whole food court.

No way. That's great. So yeah.

You're dialed in with food there.

And they had the bathrooms where they, in the convention center,

had to leave to get to the bathroom.

No, no. They had an overabundance

of bathrooms as well. Like each main entrance

had a bathroom.

And then like when we first came in,

there was a bathroom. Again,

the bathroom was leading us to this

multi-million dollar, you know, car collection,

which was pretty cool. But yeah,

they super set with like bathrooms.

And I'd say, you know, overall

the facility was just, you know,

was pretty top notch.

Like the only slight downside,

I guess you can say is that

the west side where we first got in

is there's a pretty long walk

to get to the south side.

Like a big long, like, you know,

just kind of one of those like

almost like airport corridors kind of thing.

Oh, right. Like a walkway.

They kind of just keep walking forever kind of thing.

And it's up, it's uphill if you're going from

the south side as well. So

we weren't allowed to bring our like wagon.

Like they don't let you bring like

big wagons and things, which I can totally

understand why. But when you got a

two and a half year old

and a six year old is lazy

a little bit, like

you're either going to carry them

or you're going to hear them complaining about walking

a lot. But you know that, again,

that's just a small downside.

Those strollers roll out either?

They do. Like you can bring a small

stroller and like if you have a double stroller

like I think they would let that slide

but they were specifically

discriminant in their directions

about wagons. Like

where they consider a wagon like, yeah,

like, you know, wagging with the four wheels on each side.

Like they said that you couldn't bring

that. That was like, they were pretty

like, don't do that. The strollers

you could bring. So I don't know if they

had a particular incident in the past

and they just, you know, have wrote those

off completely. But San Diego Auto Show

lets us do that all the time. So

I was a little surprised by that.

Huh. Interesting.

But fascinating.

Yeah. So I'm sure the kids are tired

of walking around. No, but

I mean, they, you know, again, they

enjoyed themselves. Like there was enough

there was a lot to entertain both

like, you know, the adults and

the kids, which again is a huge

shout out to them because, you know,

the San Diego Auto Show was

maybe like a, you know, yes, they could

get in the cars and kind of check them out.

And there was maybe like some little things

here and there that the kids could do. But,

you know, they they could get bored pretty

quick because there wasn't a lot tailored to

that. Or someone who's not really

into cars or that you get bored

really, really quick. Cause we brought

yeah, we brought somebody that was

really into cars the last time it went

a couple of years ago. And literally

we we were checking out like we were

under our second exhibit and he was already

bored when I go home. Yeah, like already

bored. And like, we haven't like

we haven't like, like

surface. Yeah. Right.

We haven't seen anything. We just got here.

We just got here, you know, like so

we I guess it depends

on anything. Like if someone drag me

something, I don't want to go see or be at

I might get bored with it too. So I

get I get that, I guess. But

so you saw as much as you

could. Now, did you go for any of the

cool ride alongs like at all?

I did. What you got? What did you do?

Yeah. So they did have

like the Jeep excursion thing that they

do where you can ride along and

go up the little really steep hill

and metal, metal ramps

and things like that. We didn't

get to do that because, you know, just

with the family didn't allow kids to do

that. But because

they because they had that display where

the kids like spent the whole hour just

like racing their cars down the road and

things like that. My wife kind of hung

back and watched them and it was a good

break for her so you could just kind of chill and

watch them and kind of she did a little

trivia game actually that they were playing

for the Paris while they were there, which

is pretty cool. I got a chance to sneak

away to Hyundai's booth

where they had

the Ioniq 5 in

and the Ioniq 6 in

on basically on ride alongs

within the convention center.

Those are all electric, right? There's no

exhaust, no smoke or like that. Yep. All

electric and yeah. So

and they had like a nice little

course built out and

you know just kind of a little, it's not

really a circle but it was like a path where

they could go like in a circle. They go, they take

your way on twice and then they come back

and they switch out, they switch out folks

from there. And I had a chance

to, I was like looking at some of

the merch and things like that for a while

and I came back and like the

staff there, like their particular marketing

staff was like super, they were super

chill. Like I was one of the ladies was

like yeah, like make sure you go with

this guy because he'll actually

he'll get on it for you

and make sure you get in that car.

And so I came up and I

filled out the waiver which we talked about this before

but the main thing that they

want to do is an email grab

and they do want to know like

what cars you're potentially interested in

like your timeframe of buying. Of course.

And I get it.

They're spending so much money on this

overall display and everything

and the cars out and everything so I get it.

Like they want to kind of translate some of that

into some actual traffic but

the Hyundai

situation they actually had

so they had like the EV9

they had like the big SUV where you could

go for a ride and they have a nice

straight away where they can gun it and you can

feel like the electric acceleration

but with the Ioniq cars

the 6-in and the 5-in

they actually had some guys behind the wheel

that were drifting the cars

at the building.

And I like we came in initially

and we were looking at like all of the in-cars

which you know big shout out to them

because they brought out every single in-car

they have including this special edition one

that they're bringing to the states next year

and so we were checking all of those out

and we started hearing like you know

like skid marks like not just like

from cars that are just trying to turn on

like slippery floors but like

you know actually like tire spinning and

we're like what's going on and so we peek

around the wall where all the rest of the in-cars

are and it was just as like

this Ioniq 5-in was

drifting around this corner

and so I went on I got a chance

while the kids were playing and doing their car thing

to take a ride around

and yeah dudes like

you know he put the 5-in

all the way into like rear-wheel-drive bias

and you know they gun it down

the straight away and they make their turn around

and as they're going around this like

you know basically you turn section

he just lets it go

he drifts it around

and he takes you around twice around the course

and each time you're going around this U-turn section

he'll drift it and

I just thought that was the coolest thing

that they're just like at a point where

you know they know the safety factor

and everything is like good enough for them to be able to do it

but you know they're letting you experience

kind of this like fun section

of electric cars

by drifting them indoors

that's great now what kind of like pavement

yeah like the slick like if you

if you've ever been in like yeah like those conference

you know those those convention centers

like they just like leaving skid marks all over those

things or what no it surprisingly

doesn't really like I'm sure like there's probably

like little fine marks maybe they find a way

to like get rid of that or something

it's kind of what if they're doing drifting you know you're

gonna be like leaving tire marks usually you do

so I think it works if it's slippery

enough though like it's it's sort of

like that effect if you were ever when you

were a kid if you ever like took

your RC cars and you take

like the rear tires off

of them and and you

would like you when you take the rear

tires off then you could like by

giving it gap like giving it little throttle

you can actually cause it to drift around

on like a slippery like wooden floor

or something like that okay okay

I feel like it's kind of the same effect is

like if the floor is slippery enough

the tires like even with just a little

bit of input are gonna start to spin

and so they you know you're

able to like get a chance to spin around

without like as much effort as it

takes on like a regular like asphalt

you know situation so

they they seem to have a pretty dialed I

was I was impressed where you know he

would just go in he just kick it in

just swing it around with a tire slick

already though I don't know

I mean they they're they're going

pretty like continuously around like

they're stopping for like

maybe two minutes at most and then

just going back around the circle and

there was no smoke coming off of it was there

no like yeah no it's they don't they

don't it's not like you know you're not

getting a big smoke cloud it's not a real drift

it's not like it's like you know you're burning

you say it's it's a you know over exaggerated

slide maybe I guess yeah okay

but you're but you're getting sideways

which is the important thing nice nice

guys imagine like tires

being just like skid marks and like

smoke you know come out the rear tires

and like everybody get like dusted out

cloud of smoke in the convention center

you go around the corner

yeah well that's pretty cool

man that's pretty awesome I wish I could have gone

I keep seeing the flyers for it on Instagram

and I followed the LA I think it followed them on

Instagram the LA auto show and

I was like yeah that's I'll check out tickets

and I thought I saw like

I thought the tickets were like $100 for tickets

maybe it was like a weekend package or something

I don't know yeah I didn't I only saw

one option it was yeah like around 25

bucks or something like that

maybe it was something like like group like

maybe it was like a big like VIP

experience or something I don't know I mean

I was their websites looking at different things but

so so is it over now like

is record this that the auto shows over this weekend

no so I mean

depending on when this comes out but they

they do they I guess they run

this for two weeks versus

like the San Diego auto show I think is usually

four days yeah about four days so

you know maybe this is

a good little like blur for next year

because they they seem to do it around the same time

but this year they're doing it from

the 21st to the 30th

so you know that's you know they got

all pretty much a full two weeks of

of events and a lot of the people there

are going to be there the whole

size wise we're going to compare

to like how much bigger than San

Diego's is this overall at least

double at least double so take

two of what San Diego puts together two

of those okay

there's a possibility is more and I

would definitely lean towards the side that

it's probably more than that but

at least double is is I think

a safe estimate I wish I said anyone

to just get back into it and get back into

like yeah first I like to have more

variety of cars there and also

like a lot of

I don't know it just seemed like it got became

like a just one end of the convention

standards like all selling you crap and a lot

of the crap they sell you it's not even car related stuff

it's like solar for your house and like

other stuff you know

and unfortunately yeah you know

I think the unfortunate thing

is that LA really has like

a pool with like the car community

in general and

and I think that that's like that's

the reason why you get a lot of

like the again that whole

JDM section that

was you know all fully modified

JDM cars you know from

a lot of the shops that are

in the area like they

they you know have cars that they just kind of donate

for the show you know even

even some of the main

actual like manufacturers like Toyota for example

in their

display they had like an old

like you know Toyota Land Cruiser like

the 80s like the 80

I don't know the series and things

but they had like an old like

mint condition like 80s

Land Cruiser on display

as well as like you know kind of an early

Toyota Celica and

you know for sure that they came from people

like there were probably any area that were like

you know we we want to you know kind

of show people like the history of Toyota

so like do you mind displaying your car

here like I think the

LA kind of

lends a little bit more to you know a

lot of these like you know mod

shops and like you know tuning

shops and you know just this

car culture that's there that allows them

to have these more like specialized

sections versus like

in San Diego you know we have

some but we don't have as much

of those like specialty shops and

things like that where you know

they're just leaning on the manufacturers

to try and bring that experience but

unfortunately the manufacturers got

a limit on how much they really want

to spend and invest in the show

and and so you you know

unfortunately you you you get a

lot more of a watered-down experience

I feel like on the San Diego side

yeah and I still go every

year you know and I still do it

but like I said it's like

where it used to be like you needed

like a full day to see everything in

the San Diego thing now it's like a couple

hours you're good blow through it yeah

yeah and you go through it and you might

sit in the car you want to sit in you

know and you might check out because I used

to go there I kid you know with my digital

camera and burn through two memory cards

taking pictures of everything

I mean everything I mean every single

car was there I took a picture of it

everything that was there and so it's

it everything they pictures everything and I

get all the flyers no brochures for

everything I should it was like a full

on event for me when I were to go and I

loved it I loved it so much every single

year we go there but I said lately it

has been kind of a disappointment it's

been kind of like a yeah

you know I mean it's like I mean some of

the cars you want to sit in maybe

want to check out the new Mustang but

the thing some of the new stuff's I

mean there like the new new whatever's

coming out I mean there they've got

the dealership to check out yourself

yeah no I mean I definitely

agree it's like

you know you you

the experience used to be pretty

pretty top-notch and you know again

that was even before I started like

filming and doing things but like you

really didn't need a whole day

you know really the like experience

you know sometimes you might go back multiple

days just because there was so much to see

the you know but now it's

like yeah you knock it out and you know okay that was great

like you know but I mean

with the LA show like

again like you know I mentioned multiple

times like I saw posts of things that

like I didn't even know like that was

there I didn't

see Chevy I didn't see Chevy while we

were there like you know I I didn't

see the there was like a low rider exhibit

that I didn't see no way you

know there there was just

it just and there was the whole outside

section where we didn't even get to stop

at like the scout the scout

section do what I want to scout I want to

check do that that's like the only EV I really

really want really yeah scout

because it looks that's like the small like

EV truck and they got a truck and they

got an SUV they're not that small they're like

mid-sized I think and they just

look like like the Bronco I was like the

Bronco especially like the the Raptor

Bronco the Sasquatch and all that

so they kind of have that

style going on with the scout

but it's not a Bronco it's

it's just something different it's an EV and all

stuff so I think it's kind of cool

I dig them I've never seen one in

person I'm only on YouTube of course but

so you did see them in person yeah

yeah about I actually saw one

when we went out to moderate car week

this year too they they brought

some out to just some random

coffee shop like cars and coffee that

they did out there they were pre-production

like the lady didn't even really like

let you see too much of the interior

because they were still like pretty early

production but they had a couple out

on display out there at the

show and they had a whole band that

was playing out that they created this whole

like kind of almost beach side

ambiance type thing and you know

a couple little displays so yeah no they

were out there full force

yeah it doesn't come out to like 2027

I heard I'm thinking like it's a cool car

and everything but like it was announced

like two years ago it was announced

or whatever it was announced I'm like by then it comes out

wouldn't forget all about it that's been one of

the biggest like the biggest unanimous

comments is that they just they

announced it so long ago

and the the potential

production is going to be so far out that

when it finally comes out

you know people are just

probably going to be the lost interest or

like something else is going to have come out

in that time frame that just like draws

their attention away from it

right they only got two vehicles are betting the farm

on it they're building a whole factory and everything

so yeah it's it's not like

they can easily pivot to something else like

Ford's trying to do with the lightning you know

they're kind of make a smaller version of the lightning

here right that's going to be like as miniature

a mini lightning I guess or

or a mid-sized lightning or yeah

they want to make like

I think the full-size electric is kind of like

the thing they're like and doesn't we don't like this

so they're going to try and make it like a

like kind of a Rivian size like Rivian competitor

like that size kind of

kind of a car or a truck

so we will see what they do you know whatever

I mean yeah

I mean the cars are cool

I mean EVs seem to work out pretty well I mean

they're pretty reliable from what I heard

I mean I've never owned one but

you're still like our motors

I selected with it

it just depends on the kind of car you're going to do

I mean if you want something just for transportation

point A point B

maybe you know I guess

electric was good to go whatever but

that range anxiety like I said it's a real

thing and I think I think

kind of driving far

like anywhere or anything

I'd probably you know

but also filling up the electric

I'm sorry juicing up the electric

battery like you got to pay for that Chevy wasn't

cheap either yeah no I was I was talking

to a guy today about that that wasn't

that was about the same as

getting gas and I didn't even

fill up all the way so

you know if I filled up all the way I would say

it was pretty apples to apples

comparison in terms of price so

you know you're not again you have

the benefit of charging at your house

you pay for that

for that yeah

convenience factor of being able to charge

your house but you know you're still paying

for that so yeah

but thing is it's just castations everywhere

there's castations everywhere man it's all

like it's all like you live so far away

there's no gas station

it's possible but I mean

but even towns like Victorville gas

stations yeah I guess

you're in that limbo between like when you

if you live in like Gorman or something

out and like going on the five going

like up north or down south like

in that like little area where like the

grapevine is and you get those

sections where you don't get

gas station on the grapevine though there's two there are

yeah mm-hmm yeah so there's no excuse

they're like they're like 30 40 miles

apart or something like that I feel like

but I'm with the prices for those gas

stations you know they gouge you know

what are you gonna do

I've seen some ridiculous stuff on

some of those like

back when gas price like gas prices

I mean they're still like relatively high but

back when they were like high everywhere

like it was like you know they were

high fives and then you would see like

seven dollars a gallon at like

some of those stations it was

just the craziest thing there's this gas

station that I deliver to

that is in Chula Vista area

and it's it's one of

stations where you're coming from like East

Lake area you're getting to the freeway it's the

only gas station before you hit the on-ramp

like only gas station for the on-ramp and

it's got a they're always like way over

price like yeah

and I'm like the only reason why they do

that is because they're like literally

like you're coming from like East Lake to the freeway

it's like the last station

the only gas station before you get on

the on-ramp yeah it's like right there

it's like in and out you can swoop in

and swoop out and it's right there but

the prices are like always like crazy high

that's kind of what it is I guess you know

supply and demand location that kind of

stuff you know so but hey Courage man

this has been so great having you on the show again tonight

and bringing you on by and your cool

trip to the LA at Los Angeles

auto show LA auto show I guess yeah

and all those fun times now

did you find any car you wanted to buy that was there

yeah

good question I

I mean I'm just gonna start sounding

like a like a Hyundai

guy now and I'm

not even doing that intentionally but

there were two cars that they brought out one

actually from Hyundai and then

the other from Genesis actually

which I know you shared

some things from Genesis on your

Instagram page you know

that they brought out they

well the Hyundai had the

the new Hyundai Palisade

but it's the XRT version

that's the SUV version right

yeah it's an SUV but

but it's the off-road version

so they have like an off-road trim

and so it comes with like these big

beefy tires it's got

a bit more ground clearance

got a couple of like you know kind of

off-road kind of bits and pieces

and things like that but then it's a three

row SUV which you know just

kind of fits they did bring out Genesis

brought out some of their like magma

you know cars which there

that's what they're calling like their performance

side of Genesis

and they brought out like their

which I forgot exactly what it's called like

the GV60 magma

I think they're calling it

and that car is basically sort of like

an IONIQ 5 in but

like more like

luxurified but then also some other

crazy features on top of that

and they did a pretty cool job with that too

so I mean those

those are the two on the Hyundai side

I also will say though I really like the Charger EV

I'm just putting it out there

I saw one on display I got a chance

I think it's a cool thing

well you said it here first man

now does it feel any different

than the regular Charger

or Challenger EV or Charger EV?

Challenger EV

well because now like

weirdly enough like the Charger EV

like they make a four door

Charger EV

and a two door Charger EV

so they've sort of combined the Challenger

and the Charger as one thing now

and you know they have a two door

and a four door version of it

but the

they are making a six pack

version of the Charger now

with a straight six with a twin

turbo Charger straight six

so it's on 2JZ

exactly yeah

which you know yes it seems weird in a Charger

but I mean it's

it's a pretty powerful engine

and you know and it sounds

pretty cool too I mean it's weird

to see it in something that

you know I say to this day like

say what you want about the EV platform

side of the Charger I think they nailed

the design like

if they would have started with

if they would have just made a gas powered

V8 version of the Charger

and kept the

design that they have now

I think they would have had a winning ticket completely

but you know now

that they've actually put a gasoline

you know even if it is a straight six engine in it

I think that it's a cool package

you know yes it's not the Charger

Challenger that we were used to but

I still think they have the same

presence when they're rolling down the street

like they did a really good job

with the design of it and the interior is really nice

who knows I mean

you know I told you the only reason that I didn't

drive a Charger EV when I rented

the Silverado EV was because

it was in the shop and

why would an EV that's only two years

old be in the shop I don't know

so maybe it's

yeah so maybe we got

the same similar you know Fiat Chrysler

you know Dodge reliability

even in the EV form

but outside of that

like I think it's a pretty cool package

well that's cool man I mean

you can see yourself driving one of those things it's pretty cool

I mean I dig them too I mean I'd probably

I probably I don't know if like well

it depends if I have choices of other cars

I have to think we've got choices

I don't know this one likes the better this one

I think some of us

stick with our brands you know

if you're a Ford guy or a Toyota guy

or Chevy guy whatever guy you are

even though some car might be

slightly better in other ways have different

features in other ways well I'm a Chevy guy

so I'm gonna stick with whatever Chevy makes

you know and things like that so

I get that I think if you go to an auto show

like the LA auto show or San Diego auto show

you kind of like will jump right into your

brand like I did the same thing oh

that's my brand car I'm gonna jump into that

area like your Hyundai area and just be like

love a check on the Hyundai stuff I got

this is my cool people this is my club

you know yeah I'm home

yeah so they made

it feel that way too for sure

but but yeah no I get you

I I think it does you know

the challenge to is again with like a lot

of brands dropping out like you know there's

certain there's certain brands that I would love to see

that I would have loved to see there

they weren't there like I mean I would love to see

some new offerings from BMW from

Mercedes you know

Jaguar doesn't really exist anymore for some weird

reason but you know they got a lot

of things going on car they had

yeah you know seeing the F type

and you know even they had the XF

and you know other you know other

cars like that you know they're they're kind

of out of the scene but you know

with them dropping out you know you sort

of your list stores starts to dwindle

a little bit but you know out

out of just like the cars that were there

the brands that were there and then the brands

that I think really are like really

putting focus on like their

their new cars in a positive

direction you know those were the ones

that really stuck out to me like

you know Dodge is trying to really like establish

itself now kind of a newer

identity but still

you know make something compelling and I

you know I commend them for it

you know Hyundai is is making their name

Hyundai Genesis is making their name

you know from you know from a name

in the past it wasn't maybe

as as

I guess you could say as honorable

like you know people just talk all the time

about old Hyundai's reliability

and things like that but you know

they've really made some shifts and it's just

cool now to kind of see them coming to their

own where they're just super confident

about like the decisions they're making

in the direction of their company so those

were my standouts like I said maybe a little

bit of bias in it but you know they

they stood out to me for sure

well that's great man I would do the exact same

thing too man was there any cool

hack that you got from the auto show

any souvenirs yeah yeah

I actually did get a

in in jacket like a

what like a windbreaker no way

I have been wanting to get one because

they they have them at the dealership

nearby me but I just have been

just putting it off and and they were kind of

weird to where they only sell them through the service

department so I just like

you know that was just never timed

it right but the lady that worked

there that was just super nice and

you know she actually gave me like a free bag

along with it and some other things too

but but yeah stag me a jacket

that jacket over there I wish I would have got

the signed posters that the

the Shelby guy was signing

like I said I'm bummed that I missed out

on that because that would have been a cool

little thing that to kind of collect from that event

but the the main thing

was the jacket the jacket and the experience

I guess you can say oh that's great

man I'm sure lots of photos too

lots of photos a lot a lot of photos

and and maybe just a small plug

is there definitely will be a video coming out

of my channel there you go

look out for that

About this episode

A detailed recount of a visit to the massive LA Auto Show, highlighting the scale difference from the San Diego show, the presence of EV test drives including drifting Ioniq models, and a special JDM and movie car display featuring iconic vehicles like the Fast and Furious Supra and Need for Speed M3 GTR. The hosts discuss the absence of Tesla, the rise of brands like Lucid and Scout, and the evolving auto show experience with more digital engagement and family-friendly activities. They also touch on notable vehicles like the Corvette ZR1X and Charger EV, and share personal impressions and logistical tips for attending.

BMW M3 Cadillac Escalade Chevrolet Camaro Chevrolet Corvette Chevrolet Silverado Chevrolet Silverado EV Dodge Challenger Dodge Charger Ferrari F12 Berlinetta Ford Excursion Ford F-150 Ford F-150 Lightning Ford Mustang Ford Pinto Genesis GV60 Honda NSX Hummer EV SUV Hyundai Genesis Hyundai Ioniq 5 Hyundai Ioniq 6 Hyundai Palisade Kia EV9 Lamborghini Aventador Lamborghini Huracan Land Rover Range Rover Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Nissan GT-R Porsche 911 Porsche 918 Spyder Porsche Carrera GT Toyota Celica Toyota FJ Cruiser Toyota Land Cruiser Toyota Supra

Original notes

This week on Cool Cars with Chris, we’re going full throttle into the LA Auto Show 2025 — and you won’t believe what Courage saw.

From drifting electric Hyundais indoors to spotting movie cars from Fast & Furious and JDM legends, this episode is packed with everything you’d want from one of the biggest auto shows in the U.S.

We also compare it to the San Diego Auto Show, talk about family-friendly features, hidden rooms, million-dollar cars, and why Tesla didn’t show up.

🎟️ Ticket prices, discounts & insider tips
🏙️ LA Convention Center layout vs. San Diego
🚗 Why the LA Auto Show is at least twice the size
🧒 Activities for kids (yes, it’s family-friendly!)
🎬 Fast & Furious Supra, M3 GTR & JDM builds
🔋 Hyundai’s Ioniq 5N indoor drift ride-along
💰 Multi-million dollar exotics: NSX, SLR, Carrera GT
⚡ Lucid, Rivian, Scout EVs — but where’s Tesla?
🏎️ Corvette ZR1X breakdown: hybrid power meets legacy muscle
📸 Behind-the-scenes auto show nostalgia and stories

Get the full breakdown of the LA Auto Show 2025 in this episode of Cool Cars with Chris, where we dive into everything from EV test drives and electric car drift rides to rare JDM icons and movie cars like the Fast and Furious Supra and the M3 GTR from Need for Speed. We explore the all-new Corvette ZR1X hybrid, the powerful Hyundai Ioniq 5N, and emerging electric vehicles from Lucid, Rivian, Scout Motors, and more. Whether you’re into car culture, auto shows, electric sports cars, or comparing the San Diego vs LA Auto Show, this podcast episode has it all. Learn about family-friendly car events, EV performance, and insider tips on auto show parking, ticket discounts, and navigating the LA Convention Center. We also cover the evolution of mid-engine Corvettes, the hype behind electric SUVs, the growing presence of car brands at auto shows, and what it's like attending as a YouTube car content creator. If you're searching for car podcast episodes, EV show coverage, or best cars of 2025, hit play and enjoy the ride.