Car Krush Oct 8, 2025

126. The Pile Up EP14: Automotive Grade Crystals

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58:55

Car

Volkswagen Beetles

The Volkswagen Beetle is a small car that looks very unique with its round shape. It became really popular in the 1960s and is loved by many people for its fun design and history.

Car

Ford Model T

The Model T is a famous car made by Ford over a hundred years ago. It was important because it was the first car that many people could afford.

Concept

hot rod

A hot rod is a car that has been changed to go faster and look cooler. People usually take old cars and add powerful engines and special designs to make them unique.

Car

Nissan Quests

The Nissan Quest is a family minivan that was made for many years to help families travel comfortably. It has a lot of space for kids and their things.

Concept

Dune Buggy

A Dune Buggy is a fun, small car built for driving on sand and off-road. They usually have big tires and are made to be light so they can easily go over bumps and dunes.

Part

Slot Mags

Slot Mags are a type of car wheel that has slots cut into them. They're usually made of aluminum and are popular because they look good and are lighter than steel wheels.

Part

steel wheels

Steel wheels are car wheels made from steel. They are heavier than aluminum wheels but are very strong and often used for cheaper cars or winter tires.

Car

Chrysler Pacifica

The Chrysler Pacifica is a family minivan that has lots of room for kids and their stuff. It's designed to be comfortable and has many features to help families on the go.

Car

Huawei Maestro S800

The Huawei Maestro S800 is a car made by Huawei, a company better known for phones and technology. It's part of their effort to create cars that use advanced technology.

Car

All right, all right, all right, Alistair 2.

Kyla, Kyla, Kyla, Kyla.

Presenting by Codd, Russ.

Everyone.

Dup?

Should we start?

Yeah, sure.

I was already going.

Oh, OK.

I was just rippin'.

Well, that was Alist material right there.

You've been piled up.

That's all I got.

It's at the end of our show already.

That's it.

That's all I've got.

Thanks, everybody.

It's good ballastin'.

How should we say hi?

I think it's done.

The intro of the show?

Mm-hmm.

I said you've been piled up.

Oh, well, hi.

Welcome, everyone.

No, they're not welcome.

This time you're listening in.

You're cupped to door.

Sneaking.

Sneaking while you're hearing us.

Isn't that more fun?

You're going to get busted.

This is illegal.

You're going to get busted.

Speaking of illegal, we did have some technical issues

from last week's episode.

You definitely didn't hear us.

You didn't hear us.

At this point, I've got it out,

but I'm going back and forth with the platform and whatever.

You didn't hear us.

The end of Steam really got cut off.

Nobody knows what it was about.

I said it was secret.

Now you just gave spoiler.

I didn't know it was a deep secret episode.

So secretly we won't even play it for you.

That's why this episode's illegal.

First it was secret, now it's illegal.

Oh, every secret's illegal.

As far as I know.

I thought that was one of the rules

that a secret had to be illegal.

I'd have to think on that a little bit,

but I feel like

I'm undecided.

Fine.

We'll chop it up later on that.

I did have something I wanted to talk to you about though.

Not right now.

Sorry.

I'm not taking questions until three.

Okay, we can pause it and then we'll come back.

Okay.

Okay, it's three o'clock. Are you ready?

Hang on a second.

I'll pull the shade here.

And we're open. Welcome to the Department of Questions.

How may I help you today, ma'am?

Miss Brooks.

In episode 12,

Odd Rods 4,

you said that Michael Leibborn

found Orbitron.

Is that correct?

I believe I said something of that nature.

It takes a big drink of water.

That is a big drink of water. Oh my goodness.

It's the microphone stand.

What I was wondering is how did he find it?

Did he like know?

Was he just walking down the street?

Had he been looking for it?

Did he know the rumors?

Did he know somebody that knew somebody?

Somebody called him? Like what happened?

Michael Leibborn is also known as

the scout

for his ability in finding lost

cars.

It's his specialty.

Oh, okay.

Give us a little background. Specialty.

That's it. It's all I know.

It's all I know.

I just, you know, a quick search back into the topic

and it's all, I assumed

this is,

and perhaps I picked this up in reading

or I made it up in my mind.

Because I can't exactly take you down

the history of URLs I visited

for this very light research I've done.

I want footnotes. Damn it.

You guys have to understand

these perspectives are never as expertise,

but purely as a fan only.

About as good a resource

as overhearing someone

at a museum. Exactly.

That's what I would describe this.

So it's all true.

Yeah, you should consider it all true.

Okay, so I was giggling earlier.

Sorry, that was a cough.

My throat's a little... Wow, are you okay over there?

Smokers cough, you know.

Yeah, she just...

So, I was laughing at this hot rod article.

Something that made me laugh that you were like

what are you laughing about? What's so funny?

This first paragraph I think is just...

I think this first paragraph is really well written.

Ed Roth seemed to care

little about his show cars

after he was done with them,

which I immediately

imagined MegaCycle

as a doghouse.

Okay, yeah, there we go.

So yeah, we have evidence.

Yeah, Ed doesn't care.

So to the extent he once told me he wanted to cut one

into little pieces to sell as key chains.

That's a brilliant idea.

Isn't that funny?

Because like I had for a while

I lugged around on my keys this

Jesse James Inget that he had stamped as key chains.

What's an Inget? I don't know what that is.

It was just like a little hunk of steel,

a little punk of billet really,

that he just like hot stamped them.

They were just big enough for the stamp.

And they're just a big chunk.

And he drove the hole through them.

He smithed it. They're all at least

in his black smithing

focus.

I just thought, cool.

What a cool thing to have that the real guy made.

But it's a heavy thing to carry around on keys

all the time.

You know, that could have been

Ed would have sold the shit out of him, I'm sure.

And I would carry one of those.

Okay, he dismissed the Orbitron

saying it was a failure because

one, the engine was covered.

Two, it was designed by a professional designer

Ed Newton.

Friend of the pod.

Friend of the pod, very regular

on the pod here.

And you know, we did, we reached out to Coop

for the last one and Coop has lunch once a year

with Newt. So that's a few

degrees of separation.

Two, it was by a professional designer

Newt. Three, it was finished just as

Beetlemania swept the nation, diverting

interests from cars. Yet over the years

as the Beetle's popularity grew,

he would build more cars designed by Newt

with their engines covered.

We kind of came back around

and got me for a laugh there because

it is true. It's just sort of like

Ed's sort of like

I feel like he just folds on this one.

He's just like, nobody liked it.

It's like, I don't know.

I feel like it's now one of the most popular cars he did.

But probably

maybe because it went south of the border and was used

as dumpster in front of a sex shop for so long.

It really speaks to the durability

of Ed's body

that it was used. I mean, I'm assuming

they really meant that. People threw trash in it

till it was full and then they rolled it off somewhere

and emptied it and then

that might be what they mean by used as a dumpster.

Not like

people threw a banana peel in it

and it just had trash on it.

They might have really filled it

all the way.

I just thought of that this morning.

I hadn't really like

I was going to ask you this question.

Well, it could be a really broad definition

of like dumpster.

Because whatever is

tragic is a headline that sells.

Right.

Was it natural dumpster?

Yeah.

How much trash did it take in a year?

It seems to repeat that it's like

it was being filled over and over.

Really nice tough

fiberglass dumpster.

That the car really hung in there.

It was pretty intact.

Let's see if this gets down to Michael.

That's why I searched this article.

I just wanted to see what it had to say about it.

But I thought that paragraph alone was so funny.

It does mention dirty dug

woods with the ice truck.

I was watching an ice truck video

from Dan Woods YouTube channel this morning.

They had a bunch of drawings with dimensions

and stuff in it.

Yeah, it was super neat.

We haven't really divulged

to the listeners that I've got

a Cadillac motor

and a Model T cowl

and I'm starting to marry them together.

So I've been

absorbing all the Model T goodness I can get

and the ice truck technically does have a T cowl.

So it's in there.

It's in there.

Everybody knows Dan Woods is like a T guy.

A lot of collectible cars

have ended up in Mexico.

American collectors use different means

scouring the country to bring them back.

Michael Lightborne is one of those people.

His method is to give disposable cameras

to scouts who take pictures around Juarez

and return them to Michael.

If something looks interesting, he'll travel across the border to buy it.

Wow.

One of his good friends

is El Paso Hot Rodder.

Jorge Zaragoza.

Who for years told stories of seeing the

Beatnik Bandit and Morris.

Jorge has a fleet of

Brizio built hot rods, cool.

Tom McMullins restored Highboy Roadster.

Michael didn't know what

Jorge or George. He couldn't go by George.

I don't know.

The guy I worked with at Jeans went by George.

This is with a J.

I'm not being a jerk.

I just don't know.

He looked into Rothkar histories

and found that the Bandit was alive and well,

but the Mysterion and Orbitron were missing.

There was an outside chance

one of these cars was what George had seen,

but other immediate quests left no time to track it down.

Okay, now.

It's 06

and the strange Dune Buggy

shows up in a Scouts' photos.

When these pictures appeared,

this is a quote, when these pictures appeared,

I knew it was a Rothkar.

It was the one that George kept telling me about all these years.

Says Michael,

I must have passed that car a thousand times,

but it blended in with the cars and the buildings around it.

The Orbitron was an amazingly complete shape.

The nose was missing, as was the bubble,

and one rear wheel.

That's a shame, because they're Astro,

or Appliance Slots, I think.

What does that mean?

They might, I think they're Astro Slots.

They're a little kidney bean type.

They look like a hot dog.

That's just like the slot in the wheel.

It's like, it looks like an otherwise smooth wheel,

but they're not aluminum like my Slot Mags.

They're steel wheels,

and they have little slots in them,

hence the name, but they're the shape of a hot dog.

Oh, huh.

They're long and skinny slots.

So they look like five hot dogs.

And so one's missing, so that sucks,

because they're hard to get.

Anyway, SoCal, you know, you turn them up,

but Gene had them on Pacifica,

and he was always sort of broke up

that he couldn't get more,

and so I think,

I'll go and reverse on Pacifica

and put acrylic in them.

They were popular, but they're not easy to get anymore.

But they're hard to get.

Even Gene thought so.

Gene could get anything.

Really good about finding stuff.

So he kind of was like,

they're just too hard to get.

He just said, fuck it.

I'm surprised he didn't make them.

Gene was having wheels made

around the time of Stripstar.

That's part of what he got in trouble

buying and selling wheels.

So over the next month,

Michael made daily trips offering a little more each time.

Some days he was pissed off that I kept bugging him

and he would get angry, says Michael.

After a month of daily visits,

the weary owner told him...

Hey, I'm back again.

I wonder if he bought anything at the sex store.

Just to be like a good paying customer.

Some gum or something?

After a month of daily visits,

the weary owner told him to bring $5,000.

And if Michael was crazy enough to pay that price,

he said so.

His plans were to restore it,

but after much consideration,

figured it would take more than he wanted to spend.

So in 2007, I sent a few pictures to some people

and within 24 hours, they were all over the internet,

says Michael. That's how he met Dave Shutton,

who ultimately restored the orbit run

and also Beau Bachman.

I don't know why Beau's number was

the only one I kept, says Michael.

We talked on the phone and then met at SEMA show

in 2007, soon after I told him

he was the one that would end up with the car.

Four years after first being conceived by the two eds.

Wow.

Isn't that cool?

Yeah.

That's pretty cool. I mean, you know, Beau and the gang

have such a good collection of big daddy stuff

down there at Galpin.

You can see so much of Ann the Dan Wood stuff.

I've been thinking about taking a trip

to go down just to see

the ice truck.

You should.

Sounds like you can talk about going down there.

I've been thinking about it.

You should do it. I might.

I'll get on it.

Yeah, I don't know. Don't get in your van right now.

No, I don't want to.

I don't feel that strongly about it.

I kind of want to go and then part of me is

just like, just rely on pictures

and work off pictures

and build what you like.

Oh, that's a way to do it too.

I just don't want to go to California.

Yeah.

There's nothing appetizing about that to me.

So, look, you wanted to know more

about Michael Lightbourne. Give me what I want to know.

That's what I want to know. The scouting thing's cool.

Isn't it? It's very cool.

Yeah. I was really curious.

I was like, why didn't I ask more questions

when we were talking about it?

Because I didn't.

This quote says, the biggest problems we had

were finding the TV

spinners. I had Michael Lightbourne

make four copies of the one intact

spinner we had and we had the rear slicks

made. Okay, so Michael does

something else. Michael made

four copies of the intact spinner.

They had the slicks made. That's so cool.

Wow.

The bubble ended up being the easiest part of the car.

We found a movie studio supplier that made it

in two hours.

That's awesome because it's huge, wasn't it?

It's pretty big.

I think it was 64 by 52

or 54.

All the work was done by Galpin.

So, I mean

with Newt's blessing and scaling from pictures

Nose was recreated and foamed by

Jimmy C, who's a good friend of Coop. Jimmy C

has sculpted a number of Van Nationals

trophies. So if you're a van

or out there and you're like, you can

connect to your trophy you've won at Van Nationals

all the way to the Orbitron

because Jimmy C is a

true artist.

Oh, he's the one that does those Van Nationals.

Yeah, he does the sculpts.

Yeah, those are beautiful.

I guess this happens with a lot of

art in the world

is just that

things get made

and then sometimes they're just kind of left

and things happen to them

and then they're unrecognizable to most people.

And then somebody will come along

and swoop it up and fix it

and like find it again

and make it beautiful again and bring it back to the world.

There is a...

pattern.

Sorry, go ahead.

What were you just saying?

I was just watching you with your finger

make the symbol of a loop and then

decide on the word pattern and I was like

okay

I'm making a loop and you didn't

choose the word loop. I thought for sure that was going to

Well, I just meant the same thing

over and over. They're recycling.

Yeah, and so what you're

what you're doing here is you're connecting like

Da Vinci's

Helicotur to

Ed Roth's Orbitron. Is that what you're saying?

Exactly.

Yeah, same thing.

Right, because we learned that on No Such Thing as a Fish that

Tur is the...

like the etymology of the word is helico

and p-t-e-r

like pterodactyl.

Remember that one?

The Helicotur.

Well anyway, I think Rotar is a descendant

of that idea.

Rotar like floats on a cushion of air

but the fan once came off

and hit somebody.

Is it Ed Rothcar? You know what I'm talking about?

No. Oh, it's Rotar and it floats

on a little cushion of air. Oh, really?

It really does, but once the fan

came off like... And did it kill someone?

No, it just hurt them. Okay.

Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. Seems hazardous.

Probably doesn't have a VIN number.

That one. You know, Ed...

I feel like he's always been popular. I don't think

people held that against him.

I bet he felt really bad.

Oh.

I'm sure that was horrible for him.

And whoever got hurt.

But you know, I feel bad with the Orbitron

that he feels like it was a failure.

You know what I mean?

You just hate to see that for anybody

that's an artist like that to be...

Such a great car.

Yeah, it's really cool. I love the interior so much.

All that fluffy blue.

Yeah, there's just this nice shot of the white

pinch-driping and the buttons.

They must be in the center console, but like...

And we'll put a link to

what Rose is looking at in the show notes.

Yeah, the chrome frame. Just like all the chrome.

I think they rebuilt the frame

because it was rotten, because it was so thin.

Originally, but like, I don't know.

It's pretty cool. I mean, it is really

sterile pinch-driping. Like just

straight lines.

But yeah, anyway.

Cool to revisit that one. It's kind of hard to...

I know we've talked about them so much, but they're just so like...

There's so much to look at.

Yeah. And it is cool seeing

something that totally like went to the

graveyard. And came back to life.

Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah. It's such a cool car.

Okay.

You have had rumblings of

a Chinese car.

The Huawei Maestro

S800.

Is it Maestro or did it have an X in it?

It has an X in it,

but so how do you think I should pronounce it?

Maestro.

And it's Italian word for leader

conductor, which we probably all know, but

this was just in the video that I watched.

Yeah, they used that for the teachers at school.

Like Ro said, it's a Chinese

luxury car, which I never thought of.

I just, when I think of China, I just think of

communism. And I forget that

within communism, there can be a lot of opulence.

And this car...

Yeah, you're just thinking of like the poverty

of the people. Yeah, I'm just thinking of

a Russian car or something.

This Maestro looks pretty loaded because we watched

the video and it was

cushy. It's real cushy.

I definitely started as a skeptic because we're not

like, I mean we're not, we just see stuff

and send it back and forth and so sometimes

we talk about it. So

I was like, okay, show me

this video. And it was pretty impressive.

Like the guy slid his hand across the window

and the shade of the window changed.

And then you slide it back and it goes back

to not being shaded. Yeah. And then it was

like, I forget how you put the window up in the first

place, which was like still a very similar

like just gentle grace across the

armrest or something. And it raised

the window, I feel like. Yeah, there's a lot of actions

that happen. Like the door,

you can open it with the key or you can open

it with the door handle, but it

will open up to 77 degrees.

But it can tell

if there's something in the way of that 77 degrees.

Oh, really? Because 77 degrees is a lot

for a door to open up. Is it? It's huge.

Yeah. Okay. But then you can get in

and you just gesture for the door to come in.

Oh my God. Door shuts.

Oh my God. That's, that's cool.

You just gesture it. Yeah. And then the door.

That's right. I forgot about that. The door shuts.

Because we watched the video last week, but we didn't

actually get to talk about it. So.

Because we were busy talking about stuff that you haven't

heard about yet. Yeah, I'm still impressed.

Yeah, exactly. The hidden episode. The lost

episode. The lost episode. Before we

get all into all the drippings on the inside,

let's talk about what it's like on the outside.

It is 215

0.74 inches long,

which is

17.97 feet long.

And the American car that matches that

How many feet?

17.97. Okay.

Did I do my math wrong there? No, no.

I used to count you later.

No.

The 74 to 76 Cadillac

Fleetwood 75 was

21.1. Ah, thank you. Yeah.

I thought that was pretty short.

I thought that was not epic proportion because I feel

like some cars that were 20 feet.

Well, that was the talent, but it's so pretty.

I usually think in wheelbase, but

there's, there can be a lot of meat

on either side of a wheelbase.

So that usually doesn't very well dictate

about how big a car is going to be in my mind.

Right. Right. Well, this is

78.74 inches wide.

You think about my van, like the

Econoline, it's got a 90 inch

wheelbase, but then you can get the one

with two more feet on it. It's just tacked on the back.

So then the overall length

of the vehicle grows by two feet.

Only in one direction. Yeah.

Out the back. Yeah.

Okay.

Goes out the back and then it's 60.23

inches tall. Okay.

Those probably aren't that exciting, I guess, but

it's got a

88.18 pounds of sound

deadening material.

Yeah, I don't know what to think of that.

I'd rather have it than not, I guess.

I'd say it's fucking quiet

inside because it's a luxury car

and you're not going to hear any of those

horrendous road noises. Yeah, unlike the cars

we discussed on the last episode,

that doesn't exist. Yep.

How noisy cheap cars can be.

Yeah. Just a

callback to, again, the episode that we can't

seem to get on the air. So

just, eventually you'll know.

It'll be on the air every time this puts out.

Eventually you'll get it in. Yeah, I hope it will be.

Yeah, so it's real quiet inside there.

You can hear a pin drop, I would say probably,

but probably not because it's all carpeted.

You can't hear a pin drop on the carpet.

As an executive. This sounds like an executive class

car. So, you know, you need the silence

for your phone calls. It's just bad that

if you have a guest in the car, then they'll

definitely hear you for it.

think the seats have sound

muffling for that exact reason.

Like that key appeal, like the guy's trying

to be the hard ass substitute teacher and then

he, like, drops the chalk and bends over to

pick it up and farts and just

immediately grabs his suitcase and goes right

to the door. That's how it would be.

Like you're in a business deal and you're haggling

and then you know.

You just get up and get out of your own car.

That should be the ad, right? The ad is like

the car's so quiet and then you know.

You can run a business deal with a fart?

We did that on Mythbusters.

We rented a Bentley and we were trying

to see if you could clear fart smell

out of a car because

we'd read this New York Times article

about clearing COVID out of a car but

opening cat-eye-corner windows and then

there was a car flow in a car.

So I was like, let's do it with fart smell.

Let's get hydrogen sulfide.

Somebody didn't actually fart though.

It wasn't a real fart. No, they got

they got hydrogen sulfide.

Smells like rotten eggs. It does, yeah.

I don't know maybe somebody actually

as far as I know it didn't work.

I wasn't very involved in that one because

there wasn't much to it.

The producer built

the diaphragm or the intake

if you will

for the dispensing

the fart. That was pretty much it.

Oh.

It was cool. I took a photo of myself

on the side of it because it was a really straight car.

Yeah. It was mirror like

for sure. What was

what year of Rolls Royce was it? It was a Bentley.

Or Bentley. Sorry, what year was it?

I don't know. It was close. Five years.

It was a very new.

I wonder if they got charged for a fart smell when they bought it back.

Yeah, that's a good question.

You think they rolled down the windows on the way back?

It was on the way back.

The driver was like, is this a ham salad I had earlier?

That wasn't going to rental off like Toro.

I don't think it was off Toro.

I think it was from a luxury car. We were in Ventura.

Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. You can rent all sorts of stuff there.

Okay. All right.

My bad. I got a lift to work

and I was like, this is nice. Not driving.

And I was like, I should do this like once a month.

Get a lift black, like show up to work and a lift.

You know, because they have that like feature

you could spend a little more money like

$20 rides, a $40 ride.

And you get pulled up in like a black SUV or whatever.

And I saw something on Instagram

that was like, they better stop sending black Teslas.

That is not a

premium car.

No, it's not. They do that.

Oh, that's a ripoff.

Teslas pick you up all the time.

All lift drivers are Teslas, I think.

Exactly. Like a Saturn.

Like the Saturn in the lift world.

Yeah.

Okay. I'm going to get back to this.

Huawei.

Huawei. Huawei.

Huawei. Huawei. Huawei.

Dual layer crystal headlights.

Which I just put what?

Dual layered crystal headlights.

Dual layer dual layer crystal headlights.

They follow the vehicle's movements.

Like a talker.

So they're extra blinding.

Yeah.

Are they an obnoxious blue

or punishing yellow?

They're just a blinding white.

They're end of life white.

Like you think God's coming.

Yeah, end of life white.

And these are automotive grade crystals.

In case you're wondering.

Just pick some of those up on the way here.

You don't just get these

from your damn crystal shop down the street.

These are automotive grade crystals people.

Don't think you're going to get your hands on them

anytime soon.

And something that's cute about that

with their crystals is the

crystal and gems shapes run throughout the design of the car.

Do the crystals run the car?

You know what? I didn't get into the drive train.

You plugged your crystal into the drive train.

I did not actually get into the drive train.

There was so many like Goo Goo Gaga stuff

on the inside that I sort of like

skipped over the outside and just went to the inside.

So they carry the diamond motif throughout?

They'd have all of these like

crystal decorations

like on the rings around the knobs.

Have these like diamond cut shapes on them.

It's kind of cool.

So this is a real luxury car.

Oh, it's very well thought out.

Like every little detail.

They have like the crystal theme running throughout.

What about driving? Do you actually hold on to the steering wheel?

Or do you just gesture?

Well, you don't have to care about driving because you have a chauffeur.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Is a chauffeur a living or a robot?

A person.

It is a person. Yeah, you have to have a person for now.

For now. You deal with those messy ass people.

Yeah. And the materials are all natural.

All the crystal and chrome trims.

I'm rich. I don't care about that.

No rich people do care about that stuff.

Because that's what you have to pay for now.

We're getting into a Blade Runner situation here.

I need the seeds made out of people.

Well.

Is it like that?

They are made out of calf skin.

Not cow skin.

Lady, you make me sick.

They're real.

Skin.

What if they do use calf skin as veal as well?

I don't know.

I don't know if that's like a thing.

So all the crystals and chrome trims are exactly that.

There's no fake shit in the car.

Okay. No fake shit.

No chrome plastic.

High grade wood.

Not low grade wood.

Some really hard wood.

Really hard wood.

So everything throughout is like the pattern will be

you know, if it goes from the door panel

to your

dashboard, it'll be the same.

The patterns will match up.

So if you want to own a car and not drive a car,

this is you.

Yeah. You don't, you're not driving this.

You just own it. You sit in it.

You own it and some other monkey.

You're gonna round it.

Some subhuman drives my car.

I don't know if he ever leaves it.

No, they're not allowed to.

Supposedly the air system creates an air like a forest.

I didn't get too much into this

because it was going around words like

ions this and ions that

and it had all of this mathematical shit.

There's actually just a little tree in the trunk

turning carbon dioxide in the air.

Two little trees.

It's like a bonsai, you know like

a small bonsai garden in the trunk.

I think you fit about two.

Yeah.

So I would say when you're, I know they have a lot of

pollution in China, so I would imagine

also there'd be a sick van interior.

Just little bonsai trees everywhere.

Oh, that would be cute.

You'd have to have little rocks and glue them

in place like epoxy them in place

like a little water feature.

That'd be fun. Sounds very peaceful.

I like it. Sleep on stones.

I don't know about the city on the stones bar

but he had me with a water feature.

Let's back it up there.

Let's back it up.

The windshield is tripper.

Tripper.

The windshield is triple silver coated.

And that

is triple silver coated.

It's

triple.

That's one, two, three times

silver coated.

Tripper silver coated.

Did I really say that bad?

No.

It's just funny to say.

It just seems natural.

Once you're in that line of words and you say

triple is tripper, then silver you might as well just

slivers.

It blocks out 99% of the UV.

So you don't have to wear sunscreen inside

if you don't want to.

That's not even a big deal everybody.

UV rays

the bigger the

sign wave the easier it is to break it up.

Plastic naturally does it.

Wow guys.

Big brag.

You broke up UV rays.

And I'm paying for that.

We've known how to do that for decades.

You can get it for $5 on glasses.

Come on.

Yeah but do our car window?

Keep selling it.

I just reject that.

Do you want to distract a cockpit with three screens?

I love that my car has a cockpit.

And more screens.

More screens.

I hate driving.

I hate driving if I could look at anything but the road.

Please.

So you have a

dashboard in front of you as the driver.

And then you have that middle screen which is like your infotainment.

Infotainment.

And then the passenger has their own separate screen

because why would they want to have a conversation with you the driver.

They're going to be on the screen the whole time.

You don't want to distract the driver.

No except with the screen.

There is a coffee maker.

We're still in the front here.

Calm down.

Calm down up there.

The driver side has two sun visors.

I think the passenger

might also have two sun visors.

All cars have sun visors.

Not a car that we talked about

in last week's episode.

Which we will not mention here.

What a great point.

The secret episode is really going to

you know this all you might wonder

where is this all going.

It all comes together at the end.

It's all coming back together.

Hopefully you've heard by now and then you'll know what we're talking about.

There's an end that we're headed to

but you have to find the secret episode to get there.

First yeah.

But I think this means it's got two.

So the driver side has

a big visor that pulls out

and then also it's like

they've got a windshield area and a driver's

door area.

Telescopes.

I'm glad we're finally acknowledging

passenger has that as well.

What did you call it?

A windshield area and a door area.

Yes.

And then it also has a vanity mirror

with triple soft lighting levels.

Love that.

No hard lighting levels in there though I noticed.

Just the soft ones but hey it's okay.

It's fancy.

Triple soft.

I think it's a triple soft idea so you don't over scrutinize

the makeup you've done in the car.

Yeah.

No you mean that you're makeup artist in the car.

Come on you're not doing your makeup at this level.

This is passenger compartment.

Oh right yeah.

Do you think they're friends with the driver?

Yeah that's what I was going to say.

They're for the white gloves experience.

They open your door

but she might have to do her eyeliner.

You look exquisite all the time for the white glove experience.

I had saved a screenshot from a Ford.

I was getting Ford job listings.

And there was like a white gloves experience

and I was like this sounds gross.

What's a white gloves experience?

Executives come in

and you are sort of like their host

for a little bit.

You take them around and like hi you're going to go here

and we're going to take you to eat here

and we're going to get you to the hotel.

The whole thing was like making their experience better.

Oh wow.

It's like being a hostess kind of.

Yeah.

Okay wow.

Do you think you wear white gloves when you're doing this?

Yeah.

It seemed like that.

Maybe at one time at least.

I wonder what the rest outfit looks like.

Well what were you wearing?

Yeah what were you wearing to bring that about?

Alright one last thing I'm going to bring up the calf skin again.

The interior is hand stitched calf skin

and then the roof is suede.

Hand stitched calf skin.

The rear cabin is 7.21 inches long.

Feet.

What?

I was like waiting for you to be so excited because you're tall

and he gave me nothing.

I was like where's the other inches?

You're kidding me.

Seven inch interior.

Sounds like you're describing the ice truck all over again.

You're sitting against the rear end.

You can stretch out and relax.

How big is it?

The car in general.

You said the back end of the car is like 7 inches and 21.

What are you targeting?

Seven feet wide.

Seven feet 21 inches long.

Wide or long?

Because that makes a difference too.

Seven feet wide?

No it's the length of it.

Sorry the length that you can stretch out.

Where the drivers from the where the seats up front are.

Is there a partition?

You can put a partition up yes.

Thank God.

Well you need to.

Gross.

Told him to take care of that scalp.

Get tired of looking at his shoulders.

That's pretty big.

You could almost lay down and do sit ups in the back of this car.

Especially if you took one of the seats out.

Then you just would have one seat down.

You would be driving by yourself.

Over the transmission tunnel.

I don't know if there is a transmission tunnel.

It's front wheel drive isn't it?

I think so.

That would be great.

That would make sense.

You would have a flat floor in the back.

Get into the drive train.

Except for one of them was like a hybrid.

One of them was all electric.

Anyway that's what I did.

I didn't get into the drive train.

Luxurious splendor inside.

That's what we're examining.

Luxurious splendor seats have active side bolster.

And they can shift by 30 degrees quickly.

For comfort during aggressive maneuvers.

So the car gives you a little hug?

Yeah.

If it's being driven aggressively.

Oh it gives you a little squeeze.

I like that.

I'll hold you.

Aggressive maneuvers.

Your car gives you a little snuggle.

Quickly too.

I wonder what that feels like.

Sounds kind of fun.

I don't want to drive it at all.

I would definitely take a hard corner to feel the squeeze.

Yeah I would too.

Does this slowly get people to fall in love with robots?

It used to your car squeezing you.

Maybe.

Do you need to hold you tight?

This is an AI built car.

That's what it is.

Trying to bridge the gap.

The armrest and the seats of course are heated.

And there is a remote.

There's still more details?

I still have

a whole other page.

And part of another page.

To get through details.

So you told me to read up.

Okay.

I'll start going quickly here.

She's giving me a look people.

I'm sorry I didn't mean to take too long on this.

Armrest and seats are heated.

We want to get to the prices right part where we guess how much it costs.

There's a remote on the armrest for cabin control.

It's a 20 way seat adjustment.

Including zero gravity mode.

Just pretty tight.

Zero gravity mode.

Zero gravity mode is where...

We blast the normits.

Astronomical price of the car.

The aggressive maneuvers of the driver's doing.

And then there's a privacy mode.

And that's what drops down a screen in between you and the driver.

Finally.

And it turns into S4.

Asking me about my dick.

Dick.

That screen turned into 40 inch screen.

And the projector is a laser projector.

Laser projector 2.0

with 200% resolution improvement.

What does that mean?

I don't know what that means.

Yeah, exactly. I have no idea.

But just know that it's 200% resolution improvement.

Yeah, okay.

They're really preying on the people who don't know

projector who's here buying in the car market.

You bought a great car

but they really got you on the projector.

It's got 200% improvement.

Donald Trump projector.

We're going to increase

price by

negative 1000%.

Exactly.

There's a fingerprint safe located on the center console

and it slides into the rear for access.

And then that also locks

every time you lock the car.

I did better.

You have to put your finger on it every time.

There's heated and cooled

cup holders.

Yeah.

And you're on that one.

Yeah, I mean, I see that with coffee.

And or cold drinks.

I've never had one.

I'm a fan of cold drinks.

I've seen you with a root beer.

Is that what you would put in there?

I guess if somebody's driving you

you can have whatever you want.

Oh, I'm in.

Whatever you want.

Being an executive is just slight drinking all day.

Haven't you seen Mad Men?

Well, I was going to ask if it's like that.

I know there's a lot of drinking in that.

In every movie or TV show

I've not seen any.

I haven't seen a lick of television.

They've got like bars inside their offices and stuff.

That's like a prerequisite

of being an executive.

Do you have a bar that you can bring into

this office?

House painters do.

It's weird.

It goes across all socioeconomic

demographics.

Do you have a bar?

House painters have to drive.

That's the difference.

There's a metal tray that pulls out

with two magnetic champagne glass mounts.

I think it comes with magnetic champagne glasses as well.

This I thought was hilarious.

Each seat has an aluminum fold out table

wrapped in vegan leather.

Like the Honda CR-V.

Isn't that the one where everybody always checks for the table?

That's in the back.

That's in the trunk of that thing.

I just thought that was funny

because hand stitched calf skin and suede

but the aluminum fold out tables

are vegan leather.

They haven't got their ethics in a bind here yet.

What are they doing there?

The tables have a vanity mirror.

They haven't examined their standpoint on the matter yet.

Soft lighting.

They just thought more of everything is better.

There's a temp fridge between the rear seats

and it also offers

offices, offers UV sterilization.

You may be wondering

what is a temp fridge?

Well, it can go between 21.2

to 50 degrees cold

and 95 to

122 degrees hot.

That's what a temp fridge is.

Different temps.

This I swear to God

this was in the video.

There's a smaller compartment

for private items

and the guy in the video

said for drugs.

He said for your medications

and then made a gesture

as if he was snorting cocaine off of his finger.

Definitely thought they meant vibrator.

Or a vibrator

or a vibrator and drugs.

Who knows?

The interior detects when passengers

are asleep and dims the lights

and quiets the media.

Kind of tucks you in a little bit.

There's 43 speakers total

and an auto sound field separation

within all of the

every single seat

has its own little

microcosm of speakers

and an algorithm.

Basically they're saying somebody in the front

without the privacy

stuff down.

Someone in the front could be watching a movie

and you could be listening to music

in the background.

You could be watching a movie

and you could be listening to music

in the background.

You could be watching a movie

and you could be listening to music in the back

and never the tween shall pass between each other.

I like it but it's making me tired

all these features.

That's it. There was other features

but I didn't write them down.

That was just so many.

What do you think this car runs?

In US dollars.

To me it sounds like it should be above $200,000.

It's sort of a no-name

brand in a way.

It's not a household name

but it might be in China.

That's what I mean.

But in our market it's not something

that somebody is like, you know what, when I grow up

I'm going to own a...

A Huawei. I don't even know if you can actually get them.

Yeah, way or no way.

Nobody who grows up and they're going to have

a Huawei.

The video again, it was super fancy

and it's a cool car

but I don't see how you could fetch

more than a couple hundred grand

because it's just not

it's not there. The name.

Was it the crystals?

Yeah.

I also think the way that Americans

regard Chinese stuff that they wouldn't be like

I'm going to buy a Chinese car.

It's a luxury car. I know.

It's a tough market but the luxury car market

is the fastest growing

car market in America.

Oh wow, I didn't realize people were making money right now.

Yeah.

It's been a decade trend.

Oh, okay.

For between 98,000

and 140,000.

I'm pretty surprised that 140,000.

Yeah.

Because that's a very attainable car.

Yeah, that's what I thought too.

Especially because the Rolls Royce Phantom

goes from 500,000 to 660,000.

Again, also like living here

makes you wonder about parts.

Yeah, that's what I thought too with the Huawei.

Especially with how are you going to get...

He started with China.

Yeah.

In China that's probably won a bargain buy

for such a nice car

and probably can get parts easily.

Oh yeah, because it's made in China.

It's a Chinese car, yeah.

The video that I watched though, which I'll put in the show notes

I think the guy was selling to

US customers.

I mean everything was in English and he was like

you should buy this car for your wife.

We buy tons of Chinese stuff here.

It's a cool car. They'll give me wrong.

I would love to see one on the streets.

We're giving a shit about a new car.

Sometimes I do.

Sometimes I do and I want to know all the fancy features.

Yeah, it's neat to see stuff like that.

It's not like I'm going to own it.

I don't have to deal with it.

I like that clip that we talked about

where the guy's like, you know, I've got raggedy cars.

He's like, let me help you out.

Because he's like, oh no, just me.

If you have to roll the window up

with your other hand on the outside of the window,

that's a raggedy car.

Yeah, I do wonder

will this tech be run in the mill in 20 years?

In 20 years will Honda Civic come

with crystals?

Automotive great crystals.

Well, that's part of the question.

Automotive great crystals.

Yeah, I don't think Honda will ever get into the crystal craze.

They're just too...

More working class than that.

I'm just wondering if in 20 years it'll

leech down.

Leech down.

Drill down.

4 of 2029.

So the Phantom is so much more expensive.

What do you think is in it? Like a hot tub?

Massaging seats?

Is that a Rolls or is that a Bentley?

The Rolls.

What is in it? A hot tub?

Yeah, I was just wondering, I'm going to look

and see what kind of features the Phantom has.

Yeah.

What's a Phantom cost?

500,000 to 660,000.

But it's a Rolls Royce, so...

Yeah, and that comes with some name.

Yeah, but...

Anyway, that's all I have about that.

Oh, I do want to talk about one of these times too.

There's a $13 million bespoke

times 12 Rolls Royce.

It's a one-off that they made for some guy.

13 mil.

It's cool. His dad's a billionaire.

Seems like a waste of money. Well, his dad's a billionaire, he could afford it.

Seems like a waste of money.

In things that I do

find interesting.

Yeah, she almost fell asleep

during my part, people.

I started making some defrost vents for my van.

Yay!

Because, like I said, I came to find

I think mine are a little bit nicer than Ford's.

They're nice.

One of them stuck to the mold.

The piece did pop back off

that was stuck to the mold, thank God

without breaking the gel coat off the mold.

That is the one that's breaking down.

It is losing a little gel coat in a couple spots, but...

I can have to get some wax

and maybe get some PVA, but

I will get a part, it was outside the trim zone

so it's okay.

I cracked another big piece of it, so

I might, you know

there's one good piece in there, but I might go get a different

like an orange gel coat, like I was talking about

and just do an orange.

It did come out good though. I've been using

like Chopstrand, like sprinkling the Chopstrand in

because there's so many tiny shapes and details

in those in such close proximity.

And I bolted my Model T cal

onto my Cadillac motor.

I also bid on a blower on eBay last night.

Like I was like, oh, you shouldn't open eBay.

It's really late.

And then he did. I was like, ah, you don't have anything you want to buy.

Why not? And then I like made an offer on a blower.

Oops.

Yeah.

I don't think they accepted it, and I don't think they're going to.

Okay, did you go?

Cause like I woke up and was like, oh, shit.

I made that offer on that blower.

And then, I mean I was like a bargain buy, but then it was like turned out

it was off like a four cylinder diesel

which then I was looking at Dan Wood's

YouTube channel and like the

blower on that thing.

They'll be like a 6V, you know, whatever motor

they come off of, they'll be like a 6V91

Detroit diesel blower or

an 8V91 or 8V71

or whatever.

And this is a four off the 53 series.

And they made like inline fours

and straight sixes.

But the motors are called naturally aspirated

because they're two stroke diesels.

So they don't have like a four.

They don't have an intake compression

power exhaust stroke.

They've just got two strokes to work with.

So you've got to do all of that somehow.

So the blower

is just to force air into the cylinder

because it has no point at which it's sucking

air into the cylinder.

So it's just a blower mounted on its side

with an air filter on it.

And then the fuel, it's diesel.

So the fuel injector handles atomizing the fuel.

And that's what you made a bid on?

Yeah.

It helps the compression.

They're like a 17 to 1 compression ratio.

Honestly, I don't

I want to put it on there for aesthetics

because I like how it looks

but that motor is 10.5 to 1.

And I think

if I wanted to put a blower on it, I'd want to

whittle it down to like 8.

So I'd have to probably get a piston

with a much lower centerline

to open the chamber up

and really like

reduce the compression. Like it's kind of not worth it.

I'd be better probably to go with like

Rizzo sent me

a picture of single Weber's

or personally I would maybe want to run Stromberg's

like just run 8's, 8 single

carbs or like I thought about 3

deuces.

It needs something up there.

It's got a cool intake.

But I was thinking about building an intake

and putting like 3 2 barrels on it.

I don't know.

So maybe

they won't take my offer on the blower.

I mean if they do.

Like I said it's small but it's brand new.

So I don't know.

Could turn around and sell it.

Again the offer I made was like 275.

But it says it's new in the box.

It looked good.

I don't know.

But anyway

I'm going to mess with where the cowl goes

because like

comparing it to like the ice truck

and like the ice truck the valve covers are over the cowl

but it's got a Buick nail head.

Those valve covers like sit flat like you've set them

on a bench you know. Yeah. They're not

canted. Right. And they're not

at the same angle as the head.

I think these Cadillac valve covers should

just be just a touch over the cowl. Like I was

trying to hint like it kind of like it had

a hood you know.

Like the engine could fit under a hood.

I don't think that's going to be the deal. I think

it needs to be

a little bit lower.

Defendant. No. You're not going to put a hood on it.

No. I was going to give a hood.

I don't think I don't think it's going to.

But yeah. I was like looking at like I said

Danwood's YouTube and saw some drawings that have

like the width of the frame and

how the wheel bases laid out and stuff.

I'm still toying with like

wheel and tire ideas.

Like I found that you can buy

good

gear indie tires through Carol Shelby.

Oh.

He's the dealer. Yeah. All right.

And like the. That's pretty rad.

That sounds radder. Is it. Yeah. I think it's

the F1 Eagle tire that's like

500 a piece.

So I have to buy one and like

see if it looks good

and try to put it on a

it says they're good for a 10 inch wheel.

Tens are easy to get.

So like put tens all the way around.

So it looks like the ice truck or like I

was thinking about like I was kind of like

toyed with like motorcycle wheels up front.

Like a couple other Danwood's builds.

But.

I don't know.

It's not obvious what the hubs

are for what spindles.

So there's some searching and some

researching and some thinking

going on there.

I don't know.

We've talked pretty heavily about

I want to put a straight axle on it.

Yeah.

Rizzo and I have been bouncing

ideas about it.

He's just good to talk to you about that stuff.

He's usually got thoughtful ideas.

But I think coil over axle

is how it's going to go.

Like the milk trucks like that the milk trucks

got one coil spring in the middle of the axle.

And it does I found in that picture.

It has a limiting piece

of like all thread because I was wondering

how they were doing it like the Chevy

got the shock in the middle.

And I can tell you that from driving the

Econoline with no shock in one of them

that it's like free to kind of bounce

as high as it wants.

In a way you know it's like you use it

it's also like a limiter.

So I did find because like on

I could swear on mega hauler like you

couldn't see a limiter that's like

you know just keeping the spring from falling

over in the car popping off you know

what I mean like the things separating

but I got a really clear picture

of the limiting stop.

You could do chain also

I guess you want to be crazy.

Chain would also look cool.

So you know

enjoying the fun of sort of like

supposing ideas around this

little build up and scheming up.

We didn't really hint towards it

in the other episode that I was getting after

building a T of some kind or did we?

I don't think so

I think you've been keeping it under wraps

because that episode was lost forever in the ether.

Yeah I'm just that's in the last episode.

Yeah.

Goofing off with a real Henry T cow

and start

building some other pieces to it.

Just

I don't want to build something that's like

extremely mechanical.

Like uncertainty.

Economy of pieces.

Yeah.

I think it's going to be great.

Thanks.

You woke up.

Sorry I didn't mean for that to get awkward.

Yeah that's what I've been messing with.

Again like we painted the dash in my van

that looks cool thanks everybody that said nice stuff about that.

People were I think pretty stoked to see it.

I was stoked to see it.

It was nice to look at nice paint.

I have a glove box door finally.

It's gorgeous.

Like you know like we said in the video it's not straight

and it's good.

The glove box door has like a little ding in it.

I'll probably fill it and repaint it but

it's still nice.

And then Rizzo is working on some seats for me.

Oh yeah yep.

And he came up with this little like squiggle

like this cobra type shape.

It sort of looks like a winding road type thing.

To like an inset of orange tweed

and some crushed gold velvet.

It's neat.

Sweet ooh crushed gold velvet.

Wow didn't know about that.

Stuff that he has.

Awesome. That sounds beautiful.

And in the name of all good designs

he was like I must have been smoking crack

when I recommended this.

And I was like yeah that's the kind of thing I used to do

to myself all the time.

Like why did I say I would do this.

Just to come up with something that's just a little

too hard to just get it done.

You know make your life a pain in the ass.

Express a little bit of that.

Yeah unless he's excited about it.

Well it's cool I've never had fancy seats.

Ever.

Yeah your seats have been famously unfancy.

Famously unfancy.

So that's cool.

Pretty exciting really.

But summer really got kicked off the cliff.

you know it just it was sunny and then it was raining.

And I think the rdvc cruise

out at their pumpkin patch.

Which you would have heard about in the last episode

when we talked about it.

So you would have been there.

If that episode would have come out.

We're sorry if you're at home and you were like

damn.

Wanted to get a pumpkin.

Sorry.

I mean that's the deal. I didn't really research any

particular topic. I mean we're like

we got the time. The time's in there.

We're good. This is definitely

a full episode for you.

But you know

we'll just always be thinking about what last episode

could be like.

What was the last episode like we'll never know.

Yeah I mean it was

we talked about it. We advertised it

and then we did everything but put it out.

Sad. Sad day.

Sad and

horrible day.

Technical difficulties day. Do we have any

announcements or anything?

You know I don't know. Just enjoy your damn fall.

Get your pumpkin spice. Yeah I think that's it.

I mean not really. I don't know of anything.

Well there's the

the van gathering up in October 11.

Oh yeah the rolling coffins in October 11.

October 11th in Bellingham, Washington

at a brewery but I don't remember which one.

You could just look up rolling coffins

IG. So if you're a

Pacific Northwest Vanner you might go out

to that. Yeah we will

put a link to that in the show notes to their IG.

And there's a really good commercial that Rose

told me about last time.

That all we'll put it like. Oh yeah there was.

They made a really funny commercial for it. Yeah there was a good commercial.

Oh. So check it out.

Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait.

For four year old Kearney.

What happened with the 83 Corvette? I seen you

great. You told me to wait till the podcast.

What why did they destroy them?

We'll have to wait till the next podcast.

Oh my god.

Deal with it. What?

OMG

I send you this hot goss and you can't even

share it with me.

I'll share it with you next week.

You'll survive. You've got stuff to do.

Don't worry. You're gonna be fine.

Okay coming next week the mystery of the

83.

The year that they didn't produce a Corvette

which was 1983.

Oh my god.

You know I saw an interesting

oh wait no that was

in the hidden the lost episode.

We talked about the only GMC car

to be produced that like that wasn't a

truck and it was in the lost

episode.

Wasn't? I don't remember that. Well

that will be probably coming out today

which is Sunday but not Wednesday. Today's Wednesday.

But on Wednesday. But today's also Sunday.

On Wednesday you'll need to think forward to

Sunday when we're recording. Think of us on

Wednesdays when we're recording on Sunday

and on Sunday when we're recording. We'll think of

you and how much we want you to hear it on Wednesday.

Is that confusing?

No I totally got it. I'm right there

with you. Got it.

Perfect. Superb.

On that note you've been piled up.

Done been piled up.

Thanks for watching.

you

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58:55

126. The Pile Up EP14: Automotive Grade Crystals

Volkswagen Beetles

Ford Model T

hot rod

Nissan Quests

Dune Buggy

Slot Mags

steel wheels

Chrysler Pacifica

Huawei Maestro S800

Cadillac Fleetwood

wheelbase

Econoline

deadening material

Peugeot Ions

infotainment

active side bolster

20 way seat adjustment

zero gravity mode

vegan leather

Honda Crv

Rolls-Royce Phantom

Honda Civic

gel coat

Tesla My Model

blower

naturally aspirated

Shelby Cobra

Chevrolet Corvette

About this episode

Original notes