Car Krush Nov 19, 2025

132. The Pile Up EP20: GTO, Cocaine, and Back to the Future

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53:38

Car

Delorean DMC-12

The DeLorean is a famous car known for its unusual look and gullwing doors. It became popular because it was featured in a popular movie about time travel.

Car

Pontiac GTO

The GTO is a classic car made by Pontiac that is known for being fast and powerful. It was one of the first muscle cars and is still popular among car enthusiasts today.

Company

Chrysler

Chrysler is a car company from the United States that makes different types of vehicles like cars and SUVs.

Company

Packard

Packard was a famous American car brand that made luxury cars, especially popular in the early 1900s.

Part

Ultramatic transmission

The Ultramatic transmission is a type of automatic gearbox that helps cars change gears without the driver needing to do it manually.

Term

automatic transmission

An automatic transmission is a system in a car that changes gears for you, so you don't have to do it yourself like in a manual car.

Brand

Oldsmobile

Oldsmobile was a car brand that made cars in the U.S. for many years before it stopped making them.

Brand

Studebaker

Studebaker was a car company in the U.S. that made cars and was known for being innovative.

Concept

Big Three

The 'Big Three' are the three biggest car companies in America: General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. They are very important in making and selling cars in the U.S.

Brand

GM

GM stands for General Motors, a big company that makes cars like Chevrolet and Cadillac.

Car

Packard Custom 8 Victoria

The Packard Custom 8 Victoria is an old luxury car made by the Packard company. It's known for being stylish and powerful, popular in the 1930s.

Term

389

The 389 is a type of engine made by Pontiac. It's known for being powerful and was used in many of their cars, especially in the 1960s.

Car

Pontiac Le Mans

The Pontiac Le Mans is a car made by the Pontiac brand. It was popular in the 1960s and 1970s and is known for being sporty and fun to drive.

Concept

Le Mans

Le Mans is a famous car race that lasts for 24 hours. It's known for testing how well cars can perform over a long time, and many car manufacturers participate to show off their technology.

Term

tri-power

Tri-power is a system that uses three carburetors on an engine to help it run better and faster. It was used in some classic cars to improve their performance.

Term

four-barrel carburetor

A four-barrel carburetor is a part of an engine that helps mix air and fuel for combustion. It has four openings to let in more air and fuel, which can make the engine more powerful.

Company

DeLorean Motor Company

DeLorean Motor Company is a car manufacturer known for making a unique car called the DMC-12. This car is famous for its unusual doors that open upwards and its shiny stainless steel body.

Car

Chevrolet Corvettes

The Chevrolet Corvette is a fast and stylish sports car that many people love. It's important because it's been around for a long time and represents American car-making at its best.

Car

DMC DeLorean

The DMC DeLorean is a unique car known for its shiny metal body and doors that open upwards. It became famous because it was featured in the 'Back to the Future' movies.

Car

Hi-Lup!

You know what today is?

Sunday?

It's Sunday, so that means it's Wednesday.

Oh, yes!

That means we're recording!

Here we are!

Hi!

Hi-Lup!

Here we are!

The Industrial Arts Tool Library.

That's right, we're on location.

Portland, Oregon.

Oregon.

Capital K, Porkland.

There is a magazine called

Porkland, I think.

No, it's just called Pork, yes.

I've advertised in Pork before.

Oh, okay, you would.

Yeah, I did.

Is my mic close enough to my face?

Your mic could be a little

closer per half.

Oh, you're stuck?

How's that?

It's good.

Be pointing at your mouth.

Is it not?

At your forehead.

Is it pointing at my mouth?

Twist it down some.

That's pretty good.

Sorry, I thought it was pointed at my mouth.

The thing about microphones is you want to be intentional.

You really want to speak into them.

Well, I apparently wanted at my forehead.

Holly, a lot of people don't.

I can't tell you how many times you go somewhere

and people get a chance to speak that don't normally

do that and then they hold the mic

like a foot from their face

thinking that it's the

hottest thing ever.

Yeah, I think that's what I do

sometimes.

Hi, what are you doing?

Here we are. What am I doing?

Right now, I'm sitting here recording with you.

Really? That's cool.

I've been working on a movie.

A big Hollywood blockbuster?

Yeah, it's called Are We Cool.

It's a very small, very poor indie film.

And it's called Are We Cool?

Yeah, it's called Are We Cool.

It's set in 1994.

I'm really excited for it to come out.

1994?

I was 7.

So it was before your time.

It is my time.

Okay, I guess. Does that count?

Yeah, totally.

I remember Kurt Cobain dying.

Yeah, I do because my dad

took my Nirvana necklace and said

he's not a hero and threw it in the garbage

in front of my face.

Yeah, your dad's a real piece of work.

Yeah, it's definitely my time.

As much as I'd probably be like

oh yeah, 7, I don't remember any of that.

I remember that.

Definitely some powerful to remember.

I mean, it's funny to think of your younger self,

your child self.

Have you ever read something that you wrote

in that age and you're like, I wrote that?

Occasionally I found a notebook

from school or something.

And it was cool? No, but I was just surprised

at how much thought I had

sometimes. Yeah, I guess you do have

a lot of thought at that age.

This movie, I'm in the art department

for the first time.

Really? I'm an art department

PA and I

That sounds like a production assistant.

Yes, art production assistant.

And it is

so dang fun.

I love it so much that I am

scrapping my dreams

of becoming an actual producer

and I am going to pursue the art department

now. When we were having

the block parties

it was a lot of work to put together

and making trophies was my favorite part

and I really didn't get to make

very many trophies because

I was always doing the spreadsheets and managing

the volunteers and like

For those of you that don't know Emily had

a blockbuster party three years in a row

from CardFresh and

they shut down a block and

really they did block this.

We only shut down a block once but that's where the name

came from and then we had it in parking lots.

But it was an art show,

car show, proper

cocktails like we had a friend that owned

a bar that made this really great cocktail

menu for us

and then we also had automotive classes.

More than one we had quite a few

automotive classes.

So they were a lot to manage

Anyway, long story short

I was always the one not being able to

do the fun art stuff and then I thought

I would go into a career

not being able to do the fun art stuff

and now that I've worked in the art department

I'm like, no, this is what I want to do

what am I, yeah, so. Fantastic

Yeah, I'm really happy. You're honing in on

what you would like to do and that's good

That's great. Thank you.

I feel good about it. I've worked in the art department

I just wasn't told it was the art department

I was told I would be the lead fabricator

and then that was like some

leader of the art department

then later everybody was like, oh art department

and then I was like, you guys sold me this job

quite wrong

It's not what you said it was

I thought we were doing fabrication, no

I thought I was just doing the fabrication on the cars

and then I was like building the set

and I was like, what?

Oh, okay, you didn't know that you were

because people kept saying no to it

so they fibbed to me to get me to do it

Oh yeah, I guess they did, huh?

Yeah, they did a couple sets, didn't you?

Sure, I don't know

We made a show and that was what they got paid for

and so we did it and it was done

That's it, that's like all you can really say

You didn't get continued, if you get a second season

you could get ten seasons and we didn't get a second season

Yeah, I know, I wonder why

Huh

No rumors swirling around?

Nothing you can talk about on air

Sure, I could

I mean, nobody from that likes me

so it doesn't really make any difference

I mean, like

they didn't like me but I didn't like

most of the production company

because they

sort of go out of their way to insult the people

doing the physical work to be like

oh, you're expendable and I'm like

well, not really, we're specialists

like if you don't have people to do the physical work

you don't have a show and then they were like

why do you keep reminding us of that?

because you're jerks to us

but some people love that, they're fine with that

in that industry

it wasn't something I wanted to do

but why we didn't get a second season

I guess is the question

and that's hard to say

I was somewhat on screen

and I had just started to go through my transition

I had just started

so people hated me

people commented and said

you could tell some of these were English comments

because they were like just what petrol heads want

like nobody in America says petrol

they were like just what petrol heads want

or people would say

here comes the mental illness

or like I checked on the comments

that they'd put up on YouTube

of when we chopped that dodge van

and people were like talking about me

and they said I wonder if it chopped itself

and it's like

so yeah, people didn't like me

then we had Faye on there

so that's another one

it is progressive that they had you and Faye

so there's another woman, people probably didn't like Faye

I mean some people love Faye and that's a who knows

because like I think they have Faye on another show

and that goes great

I think that show does well

it's still going

so hard to say on that front

I think maybe people didn't like BC

because BC is black

but I mean BC is an immigrant

from Africa

so it's like

I don't know like BC is popular in drag racing

but then like other people told me personally

they were like I don't like that guy

and then I was like

I didn't really give them a window to tell me why

in that one instance where that person was like

not I like him and then I was like

I just kind of left it

maybe he's too pedantic, some people do say that

they think he's too pedantic so like I don't know

and then Tori, I mean what's wrong with Tori

Tori is the original myth buster

but I think that it

I think some of it is that it wasn't

in my opinion it wasn't like in the shop

DIY we're making stuff enough

like let's say you're starting an episode

and they're like okay how does this episode start

and then you're like oh

so and so

got a dozen eggs and they dropped them

and then they had this idea about why do eggs break

like that would be the kind of stuff they'd want to do

and I'd be like why don't you just be direct

and just say we're just going to do this because we're doing this to do this

and they're like no you can't do that

and I'm like why not just be real

and just be like we had a thought

we wondered and in myth busters

you have to create a question

and they talk about this in no such thing as a fish

they call it remote fish

where they will come up with the

in result first and work backwards

so we wanted to chop the

chop that van 12 inches

and so then we were like okay so what is the question

then you work on the question in the sense of

does

lowering the roof on your car

increase your overall top

speed

you know that's the kind of like

that's the myth you have to set up

you know lowering what is the myth

the roof on your car reduces your overall

top speed

well we did it we chopped it 12 inches

and the car went like 5 or 6 miles

an hour faster within a 1 mile distance

that's a big deal

that's a big deal and it only lost

like 50 pounds right so that one

we proved and that was good and that was factual

there were a couple others that were inconclusive

but anyway

I don't know or maybe people didn't

like me they were like nobody had any control

over you and it's like well I told

you I worked for myself for the last 9 years it might be

a little difficult for you all to work with me

like I'm not used to people

nobody had any control over you

yeah I'm not used to being managed

yeah I'm not surprised by that quote

me either I mean in hindsight

I could have behaved

differently in a lot of different ways and it probably

would have been a lot easier on my life

and everybody else I'll say that out loud

well alright

that's a mature thing to say

whether I go back and would do it again

you know what I mean differently

would I actually act? Probably yeah definitely

even though I had worked on other

TV shows I just wasn't

I just didn't know what I know now

yeah good learning experience

yeah but yeah I mean

to answer your question why didn't you get a second season

I don't know I think people don't like science

and they were just like

science show without Adam and Jamie

we don't care I mean yeah

how do you take like myth busters and then be like

I had silly myth busters with just Tori

I thought it was such a good idea

I did too but again

I just don't think that

you know people would make

I said this to the executive producer

like people would make comments on set and they'd be like

for science and I was like

you know when you guys say that you're like

you're making fun of science

I was like you're not doing it for science

you're just saying it's for science and in that way

like you're laughing in the face of what we're doing

and I was like it's counter

counterproductive to like

the overall mission

and I mean not BC BC's a chemist I don't know

personally as a science fan

I thought what we were doing on the day to day was really

good and as someone who loves cars

and the fabrication and everything it was

good but it's like

once the sausage is made it must have not

tasted very good because people didn't like it

so you sent me an image

on set you guys built

a faux wall that I was pretty shocked

that you were like no we just built this whole thing

because it fooled me

I'll say that you all like is a brick wall

and it had electrical panels on it and a window

that was boarded up with plywood

and a green metal window frame

and like it was

and the leaves at the bottom sold it

there was a big conduit drain like it was coming down from a roof

but it's not it's just fake

it's movie magic

it was for like a for real set

set it looked great

and all I did as far as the building was I held the walls

while they were screwing them together

because they had like the art director

and the construction guy had already painted them

and put them all up on the wooden armature

my big contribution

was I painted

every single staple

on the wall

I've worked with that brick board we used that on the

on the myth buster set and same thing we had like go back

and cover all the screws and paint moss

and the bricks and you know all kinds

like sponge the bricks a little bit

and you guys did that

and graffiti on it

they had already done all the sponging and stuff and then they did the graffiti

or they had already painted the bricks were already like

ready to go

and then we added graffiti and we had

everybody like almost all the actors

and like a bunch of the people that

we work like the workers everybody that's

the crew is what they're called

we gave them markers and had them go out on graffiti

itch everybody did kind of their own thing

but I yeah

because the staples are shiny

as you know

up to me I had the responsibility

of unshining everything and it was

took me like quite a while

and it was very tedious

but it was really fun

even though like

it was kind of meditative

you know just going around and there was two

I was either painting them a cream color or a red color

depending on where they were

Roger Corman would have left the

just left the staples

a movie champion Roger

I only say that because there's a scene

and

because they do a bunch of Roger Corman movies in

Mystery Science Theater 3000

and there's one that like there's a shot that is

so dark

I mean it's just like it's just a black screen

and they sort of do this like

PA type voice they're like

it looks pretty dark Mr. Corman

and they're like keep shooting

that's really funny

well I just think of that all the time

but like I think of that because the

Roger Corman movies are very like

how many movies he's done

they've had to just like

blaze through you know like

get this movie done but he is good

I mean right there is a direct correlation between

experience and skill

and now you got some more experience

now I got more experience

I also painted a room with splatter paint

that was really cool and then also

did a night where I did some set

dressing and that was

a lot of schlepping furniture

and we had to go like around like halfway around a block

because there wasn't any weird park

that was in front and upstairs

and I was

toughing so hard

towards the end of it I almost told him that I had

diminished lung capacity because I had pneumonia

you know what's funny is I saw this

video of this indie car driver

trying to push his car to finish the race

or a formula car not indie

a formula car and he like falls down

from exhaustion and somebody

in the comments was like cry baby

or like something like that

and like I hope the guy pushes car out of the road

a jeep like two weeks ago

and I like wanted to fall down

I was like God I need to do cardio

pushing a car is a lot yeah I thought the same thing

I went on a very fast

walk the next day

we got him to the curve

because he was stopped in the road and I stopped to help

and I just wanted to fall down

when I was done just like the formula

driver and it's funny that

people are cry baby and then it's like

it's hard I will say

some of my favorite parts though are like

one of the my favorite maybe

not the favorite thing but something that I also really appreciate

is that I don't have to do lockups

and lockups for those of you that

don't know are where you just guard

a door if they're filming

that you can't let anybody inside or you guard

a street or you guard

someone's driveway and you're just standing

there for hours

with a walkie with a walkie

yeah but you can't really use I mean you can't

the walkie they're like filming

so what are you up to yeah no you can't be talking

on the walkie yeah you can't go to

a different channel and talk you just are sitting

out there by yourself sometimes

in the cold sometimes in the rain for

hours okay so it totally sucks

it's real boring and

I don't have to slept tables around I'd rather

slept furniture than tables I guess

table is a furniture but tables for lunch

so anyway totally love it favorite I think

you should leave skits into it table oh

yeah what is

her job yeah my

job is no longer tables thank god

I know wow that's cool

that's great moving on up

that's good so if anybody out there

needs an art PA yeah so I

have a bunch of stuff on Johnny Z yeah I'm

excited to hear I want to go deeper into

DeLorean mm-hmm I was focusing

on the GTO but my notes are not

GTO focused I have this all the way

back to like DeLorean's born in 1925

wow is he

still alive too right I don't think so

no well he'd be really old

well he'd be really old I did mean to check

he'd be a hundred if he was

and I yeah I think yeah I think

that I think that was

mmm yeah oh five

so he's been dead for 20 years oh okay

so he made it to 80 yeah that's right

that's right I was watching the video and said he passed away at 80

like I didn't I remember that

silly me okay

DeLorean was born in 25 and

was drafted into World War two and

served for three years and was discharged

in 46 honorably at age

21 oh wow

he was such a little baby when he went in

yeah I mean there were people that lied

because they were like 14 and said they were

16 or whatever so they could go and fight

yeah that was a real

it was a real doozy

it was a very patriotic war

yeah it was a real doozy

things were a lot different back then I mean yeah

I like imagine being 17 and you're like

I'm gonna drive this B 21

yeah you know 17 or

25 or whatever

I'm gonna go somewhere where I probably

will die yeah I'm gonna go in a plane

because I love my country so much

you know leather jacket

yeah yeah different different time

definitely those are I mean

those are you know those people were

Faye Butler's mentors you know and that's one of my

mentors and like that was such a huge thing I mean

the World War two is how the GI bill

came to be you know because it couldn't pay

all those people and so then they like protested

on the White House lawn and eventually they were like okay

here's what we're gonna do you can go to college

we'll pay for it and that's where what developed the college system

and so hiring a World War

two or wasn't about

hiring somebody

because of necessarily the experience they

had it was because they would show up you knew they would

show up they had already showed up

to World War two and they did the damn job

right so you can hire a World War two

or back then you know you can hire a vet

and they would get shit done yeah but it is

a shame that we don't have those people

those minds because it wow craftsman

now

Delorean's dad was

he said he was a labor organizer

he said he was a union organizer

wow okay but he was a pretty mean guy

yeah nice to his mom

for him

so not a lot of good on that front

so what's interesting is that

when he got home from the war and like help out

his mom and stuff he did work at the local

public lighting commission as a draftsman

then he became a body man for Chrysler

like I don't know

he was in Detroit he was born in

Detroit okay so

it was funny in an interview that like

they asked them they were like was your

your dad was in the industry so were you just

gonna get in he's like well he's like my dad just worked

at the factory like my dad was a factory

worker he's like it's Detroit it's a one

industry town you either get in the industry

or you move

so very succinct statement you know what I mean

yeah them to be like well your dad

was in the industry and he's like my dad just worked

through the factory you know yeah well like

he was a designer so

anyway he was a draftsman but somebody

at Chrysler was like hey you should get into

our postgraduate system

in 1952 he got

a master's degree in automotive

engineering oh nice

okay yeah how little

I know that makes sense yeah yeah

and engineering's a big it's a lot

of schooling yeah

and a master's as well yeah so

he did a year at

Chrysler then

got poached by Packard

back to Packard back to your favorite

car company exactly I was doing

a little I was doing a little

I was trying to search Packard DeLorean

connection and see more about

it I do want to say that they hired him

in 53

and he was making

14,000 a year in 53

which was pretty high salary yeah

cause like

jeez we know people like

you know making 20 now

right yeah think about that

is he 27 or 28

at that point well okay

let's see so 46

he was 21

right and so then we fast forward

seven more years here so he's 28

28 and he's got himself

a job at Packard which is pretty cool

very cool to me he improved

the ultramatic transmission

and that became the twin ultramatic

transmission I think this is cool we did talk

about this in an earlier episode

but like Packard was one of the first

to have an automatic transmission next

to Buick and Oldsmobile so this ties

back into my statement when I was like

you know instead of it being BPO

Buick Pontiac Olds you get a Buick

Packard Olds

just taking Pontiac on the equation

period huh yeah and like Packard was doing

okay but like

Studebaker I guess

Studebaker had money and Studebaker went to

buy Packard but things were going bad at

Studebaker at the time I guess they were making

their way or whatever and it just like it

dragged both companies down and they're both

gone I feel like I saw

one video that said that Packard bought

Studebaker to save Studebaker but then I

heard it the other way around that Studebaker had made a

lot of money and was buying Packard

and Packard was like apparently

they were just rich and Packard was like you could buy us

it would help us out so I might have that

backwards which okay Packard

might have been failing and Studebaker tried

to save them and it took Studebaker down

because they didn't know

maybe how bad things were

it just sounds like neither were doing that

awesome yeah and then

all together it was a bad move

like if they'd left him alone what would have happened

I don't know

sounds like they would have gone down anyway

yeah I think they were going down

a bunch of money couldn't keep them up

so that some of that I got from this video

from DeLorean Tech I just want to like give credit

like some of that some

it was like a couple of guys from a DeLorean

club went down to a Packard

museum in Santa Ana, California

which is near

Orange County they went down to visit the

Packard's International Motor Car Club

in Santa Ana so in

54 Packard bought Studebaker

in an attempt to save the brand

see that's where this is where I'm a little mixed up

but they made them the fourth

largest automaker in America

wow so I'm

assuming you had the big three I'm assuming

we're talking about generically GM

as one automaker

and then Chrysler

Ford

and then Packard, Studebaker

wow

and it says that like when even when he came into

Packard like he dressed like a movie star

and people thought he was cool so apparently that far back

he was destined for greatness

yeah he was a big baller

I like that I like that he dressed like a

stud

yeah apparently he was an idea guy

I think that's very proven

idea guy yeah I mean that totally bore

out in the evidence

now it does talk about in

this is a good link

okay and maybe I'm bringing this up too early

oh my gosh

just created a new note

not a new note so Doc Brown

has a Packard

Custom 8 Victoria and loans it

to McFly for the enchantment under the

sea dance and back to the future

so there's another DeLorean

Packard connection

oh wow okay yeah

that kind of jumps the timeline

here a little bit but

I'm just kind of going through my notes

sorry this isn't like super fluid

but in 56

okay in 56

56 he was offered a job at GM

in any of their five divisions

I think Pete asked this call

oh he got to pick what division he wanted

to be in wow look at him

they approached him they really wanted him

they wanted him so he just

he never had to go out and look for a job he just got poached

yep he got poached in 56

he was offered a job at GM in any of their

five divisions his choice

with a salary of 16,000

he was making 14 at Packard

yep so this is 2k more

which is quite a bit you know

when your salary for a high up job like

that I think a good little cherry on top

to get you to move so yeah it gets poached

some of what's kind of missing in my notes

here are about how

basically the

GTO I feel like made DeLorean

because

they he would have sessions

with his crew at the tech center

like GM's got this big tech center

which was designed by the same guy that

designed

gosh I just read about a cool building

a piece of architecture maybe a bridge

that was designed in a

contest and the chosen one

was the same guy that did the GM

tech center

I think it was a bridge that I was reading about

anyway GM has a big tech center

and that's where Fay Butler would be employed

they would hire him every winter for eight years

to come in and talk to their employees about material science

just walk around and talk to people about

what they were doing so

DeLorean

is like messing around with all these cars

and then he's like

I wonder if we could take the 389

and put it

in the Le Mans

and so he gets his crew together

on a weekend as a team building

exercise and they put a 389

in the Le Mans

at the tech center and

GM didn't want this to happen

a little team building exercise

GM was already getting in trouble from racing

and like people getting hurt

and people getting killed in racing

they didn't want to get in trouble with Washington

and like have Washington make a bunch of laws

and be like

no more fast cars

finger wagging

a lot of finger wagging

they were like no motors over 330 cubes

in mid-sized cars

but they didn't say anything about small cars

and so like what they did

what I read

in that book engine that changed was that

if DeLorean had wanted to do this

as a new car

that it would have had to have been approved

and it would have gone across executive's

desks and they would have said no

you can't do that

so instead

it was a package

of the Le Mans

so the GTO was just an available

upgrade for like another $250

yeah not get right in there

nobody had to approve it

it was within the rules so

he was playing by the book

but actually

he was being sneaky

he was pulling a little smoky eunuch

much like what you brought to us in the last episode

about how they

gave you more than what you paid for

fudged on the horsepower

and so they put this 389

in there

and eventually the 389 made it to 400 cubes

the tri-power GTOs and stuff

I think what did we find in that last episode

that the tri-power made just a little bit less power

than the four-barrel

or the two four-barrels

I think we heard that note

anyway side fact

so let me get back into the things that I wrote down

but I just wanted to include that

also I did watch another GTO commercial

and

here's a quote from it

Pontiac didn't intend for GTO to stand for girls take over

but some GTO owners

have to guard against this

so it showed a couple of young ladies

getting into the GTO

and then it's like ladies like to go on shopping

and luncheons and whatever

in the GTOs but you know that you like it

for speed and handling

so it was

they were marketing to women and men

they were very much marketing to women as people that don't care

about driving cars

but just care about like

but I don't know the jungle one wasn't that two women

I watched a couple jungle ones

and one of them was

two women like going on a

safari or vacation or something

it's surprising because for all the talk

about cars that are advertised to women

I kind of don't remember the goat being in that

right but those commercials

did really speak to that

and it surprised me a little bit

because women couldn't even have their own

checking account yet

yeah that is interesting because that means they could

not really hardly buy a car

on their own

go take a hobby down

boy those times

it's fucked up

it's fucking stupid

it's really hard for us to imagine

but just as like modern women it's very hard

to imagine

what it would be like and I know things are still

messed up but yeah not that long ago

70 years

when did it when could you get a checking account

I think that started in the 70s

when you could

oh okay like in your own name

yeah in the 70s

like early 70s maybe

yeah so in my mom's

lifetime and like I think credit cards

are a little bit behind that

isn't that crazy

it's nuts it's crazy

it is it's really crazy

how do they even live

it's just fucked up

yeah

because if you have a job they assume you live at home

and you have a dad

what if you live with a single mom

what if you are a single mom and you're an orphan

I think that's the point

yeah it is oppression

yeah it's bullshit

it is bullshit

there's a chance to say that

neither we're saying it right now

it's bullshit

okay more

DeLorean

I kind of want to like roll backwards

into a few things here

okay so here's

because some of this is specifically about DeLorean Motor Company

so eventually

he got pushed up to the head

of Chevrolet

right okay and

that was after the GTO right

yeah but he like helped develop the Firebird

the Grand Prix and the GTO at Pontiac

all of which were wildly successful

yeah so eventually he's made the head

of Chevrolet which is like

kind of surprising because

you know he like

loved Pontiac

he was very big about Pontiac

and then he just abandoned it on the porch steps

at a firehouse

after that

he became

he would probably hate it if you said that

sounds like he seems like what he did

no he got promoted

he didn't say goodbye Pontiac

he could have fought and been like I want to be the head of Pontiac

I don't think so

I think in that engine to change

it had a little bit about why that didn't happen

they've twisted his arm

yeah with a hundred thousand

extra

so then he was a VP of

GM's car and truck production

and doing that

job he made about

two hundred thousand dollars a year with

annual bonuses of up to

four hundred thousand dollars a year

which basically comes to a salary of around

three hundred million today

three hundred million

I'm sorry three mil

oh okay

we'll never mind it's not that much

yeah sorry

a little bit of a flub there

that's a lot though

yeah three mil

damn

also

when he got married Lee Iacocca

president of Ford

was the best man at his wedding

how do you like that

that's hilarious

Iacocca was another one of these

he was like a rock and roller

he's a little more

he's very much a salesman

I feel like

other than like because like

Delorean is an engineer

you know oh right yeah yeah

he sees himself as such

Iacocca is a little more is a business guy

they're both idea guys but yeah I think he's a little more

business guy a little bit yeah okay

I do think both are cool

I personally

I don't get mad for people to be like

because okay

I guess I just don't get mad

there was a guy from Chrysler

in more recent times it got in trouble

something and I forget what it was

but people didn't like it

and that one of the guys from GM

I forget his name now one of the

higher ups one of the maybe the president

or like had just been a post president of GM

he said in an interview

he said all excellent people

have their quirks we just hope

they're not too illegal

you know like

it's all priced in my opinion

when you're dealing with these kinds of people

and I think some of that's because like

some of these people are sociopathic

right and like so sociopaths

their whole life is about their agenda

and nothing else and that's how they get to these places

so to some extent yeah I think some of this stuff

is priced in so here's some of the

wackiness so he left GM

in 72 he became

the VP of GM car and truck production

and he was passed up to be the president

because people got sick of his playboy

lifestyle they were like no

you're too unpredictable

you like to party too much

yeah 73 he left to create DMC

and

so then they wind up in Ireland with this plant

it took like 8 years for them to start getting cars made

and the sports car market

cooled off and there were a lot of

cost overruns on the car

Corvettes were cheaper than their car

so it kind of came out and people said meh

and so by 82

DMC was 175 million

in debt oh wow

and

you know so he got busted

moving coke it was like 50

pounds of coke for 24 mil so that wouldn't even

have solved his problems I saw this

interviewer where Jay

Leno was like nah I never own a

DeLorean he's like

he was like I saw the movie and he's like

him doing the thing with coke he's like he's just greedy

he's like he didn't have to do that

he could have financed his farm or something

he was like nah I don't he's like

he could have financed a farm

I guess he had his own farm

Jay wants a squeaky clean hero

he's like I did like the GTO when I was a kid

when I saw the movie about him and some other things

he's like I just was like nah it's a little

so he doesn't have a GTO either

I don't know

but yeah Jay Leno doesn't like that

like Jay Leno has never done some cocaine

I know right

I thought it was very interesting that he needed

DeLorean to be squeaky clean

shut up

they are so well known for not

doing drugs and drinking

yeah not they're just they

don't do any of that stuff

they play it so straight

definitely Jay Leno

all chin no drugs

the whole thing with the coke deal

was that he had a neighbor that

he had told him that he was doing poorly

and this guy Tim Hoffman

he was a criminal and an FBI informant

with the idea of helping him move the cocaine

and so DeLorean

DeLorean didn't have cocaine he offered it to him

so DeLorean

got off the charges because he'd been

entrapped by an FBI informant

because like basically his lawyer argued

DeLorean was vulnerable told this guy

he needed money and then the guy set him up

to get busted so it was entrapment

he was just sort of like oh here's a desperate guy

here let me create this ploy

so we can arrest you

we did get him out of it

that's kind of the part where I'm sort of like

I guess I would want to see the movie I'm surprised that Jay

was like I saw the movie

and then I learned some more about it

like movies aren't always very accurate

no yeah wait till somebody makes a movie about you dude

yeah exactly

probably somebody has already

I mean I've seen he's like

a little bit canceled sometimes because he made

a lot of Asian jokes in the 80s

yeah so nobody's squeaky

clean man

let's go down to Burbank

and tell him about it let's go catch him at

Aero Books and put him on

put him on coals

I kind of had some thoughts about

what DeLorean

had said about this

which was that like basically

he said an FBI agent was like

they're never going to stop coming after you

because then they tried to hit him

then they tried to hit him with like

investor fraud

because there was like money that was supposed to go to Lotus

that was a part of the parts

and then the guy that was with Lotus

he was like an engine guy at Lotus

he had a heart attack and died

one video said died mysteriously

and then I saw another video that said he had a heart attack and died

well mysterious heart attack

mysterious heart attack

sometimes you're mysterious

maybe heart attacks

didn't run in his family at all

and he was like a marathon runner

maybe he had a family history of surviving heart attacks

that might have been it

I can't believe this guy

I think it's the surviving part

it does seem mysterious

so in this interview that I saw

they were like oh there's charges being brought up in Geneva

about you or whatever and he was like

I don't know anything about that

in Switzerland?

is in Switzerland one of those countries that you can

hide your money and stuff?

I guess I don't know

I mean sure you know like yeah

that's where criminals go to hang out in Switzerland

yeah Deutsche Bank and stuff like that

Deutsche Bank is one that's really bad about it

that gets hit with the suspicious things

okay so eventually

he has to sell his house in Bedminster

to help pay off debt

guess who bought it

what's his face the Ford guy?

nope not Ayakoka

Jay-Z

no I'm just joking

Donald Trump

do you know what his house in Bedminster became?

Trump's golf course in Bedminster

he just tore it down?

oh oh

I mean I don't know maybe the house is the country club

yeah

crazy Trump bought it

oh it was like 434 acres

oh it was huge okay so that's why it became

434 acres

wow

so Trump buys it turns into this golf course

that Irish

were protesting it when he was just over there earlier this year

yeah

and I think people were like tearing up the grounds

and stuff on purpose

yeah that's too bad that his

story arc was so

then what happened?

well okay so there's more

and it's all

very interesting to me

but again I sympathize

with DeLorean

because it sounds like GM was pissed

that he split with their money

that they'd paid him all these years

for him they'd spent 20 years

making him and then he was like

I'm gonna go build a competing car

and then they were like

really does seem like they had it out for him

because he was like

he did say that when he was in prison

that somebody brought him a Bible and he's like I just read it

I just read it all the time

yeah because he came out super Christian

wait so he did spend some time in prison?

yeah in the interview

like they were asking him

about himself or whatever

and then they were like about his past

and he dated and stuff and he said

I've been reformed I like ugly women

slow cars and bad food

oh wow so

his interview is good

here's the thing you should keep in mind about this

right? okay

let's say sociopaths

and psychopaths

the difference is psychopaths have

dead people buried in the backyard

they're just expert manipulators

they're both expert manipulators but

psychopaths kill people

when you listen to this interview he's like

I've never done cocaine I've never been around

cocaine the people I hung out with

were like cocktails

and dinner parties

hard to believe

based on the way they portray the way he dresses

and stuff you'd expect him to be

also usually at rich people's

houses with cocktails and

stuff there's usually some cocaine floating around somewhere

he's never even been around somebody doing it

right so then you have the question you have to be like

okay is this guy manipulating all of us

and is he just really good at it

well he's a schmoozer

he's a lifetime schmoozer

but I still sympathize with him

yeah I think the cocaine thing is lame

in this interview that I watched

they were bugging him about having plastic surgery

and stuff like this and he's like I had my nose

straightened because I got it broken playing basketball

at times and he said that he had

a piece of impacted bone in his jaw

and he's like I had it removed but he's like it wasn't

that great you know whatever

so he kind of like

he kind of fought

this you know back

and forth

okay now I want to move on

because

not move on but like in this story

itself right so he's been busted

he's ruined right he's lost

his because he had a super

model wife okay right so he like

loses her

gosh

Cara Kathy Hera maybe

or something okay I didn't

sorry he was 24 years

older than her so he was getting grilled in this interview

about that

but then he was like yeah Pete Estes was

that was one of the guys that hired him

or was over him at Pontiac or with him at Pontiac

and he was like his wife was

he was 25 years older than his wife

and he's like the other guy

the head Ed Cole the head of

GM at the time he's like

he was 24 years older than his wife

that's what these guys do this with these super rich guys

do yeah yeah of course

well that's not shocking I mean

she was they were like how old was she when you met her

as 17 18 he was like

so she was legal

that's I mean four years past 18

like that's her choice

and he was cool and loaded

yeah why not

I'm not I just I'm just saying I'm not

I don't want to put any judgment

on her or DeLorean

and again like people and money

just sort of what they do

that's what happens yeah I mean

who's that

Leonardo DiCaprio won't date

girls that are over 25

really oh is that like an urban legend

though I think he finally broke his rule

but yeah he was known for breaking up with

girls on their 25th birthday I think

that messed up

what a douchebag

that's messed up yeah

so the thing is

that back to the future sort of saved his

legacy or the DeLorean

legacy for DMC

and him but he didn't get paid

anything for having his car in the movie

really yeah wow

zero didn't make any money off of that

so they were like we'll make your car

at least look kind of cool

I think that he loaned them cars

I think that they had cars

unsold from the factory

in Ireland

and that he still had some way

some sort of possession of them

because he didn't sell the company

he just went down with the ship

one of the things he said in the interview

he goes you know he's like a logical person

would have just said this isn't working

we just give up and we're out of business

he's like but my ego I was so far in

that I was not going to give this up

he was like I didn't want it to fail

to win he's like I hadn't fought all this

time and worked to get all this and to be

here to give up

you know especially in the competitive car

market that's admirable

it is and I get it because that's me

like that's like I was talking about earlier

in the show about about like when I worked

on the TV show and I was like well now

I would do it all differently

because I have the knowledge right

and so like for him he's like I'm different

he's like after having been through all

of this and

he's like yeah I would have just said

okay we're just done it just isn't going to work

and just give up on it and you just close it

wow

yeah I mean that part

well that is admirable that you just stuck it out

like a pit bull

I mean I feel bad I think that something

like I saw a thing people talking about

Kanye like people were talking about like

this guy's obviously having a mental episode or whatever

and I saw somebody else that

like I think Cat Williams was like you know y'all

cheered him on while he was doing all this crazy stuff

and you're like oh look at this poor guy

you know like he's like

maybe we shouldn't do that to people

when they look like things aren't going good

don't keep encouraging them to do bad things

right just for

your entertainment so that later you can be like

oh that poor guy

so that sort of feels

like that where like

to some extent where they're just sort of like

oh poor DeLorean

but like I don't know maybe nobody

could have helped him or stopped him at the time

let me see let me dig through my notes a little bit more here

because there is a little more

oh let's see

cocaine back to the

future

now it does say in it

that was really funny

cocaine back to the

future gto

supermodel wife

in 94 he filed a patent for a raised monorail

support that apparently never got used

so that's interesting because that speaks like

he was doing something

there was

a DeLorean alpha 5

concept

and there was some pictures of it

I don't know where that kind of stands but the

images kind of looked like a tesla

DeLorean hybrid

maybe they were just AI

slop I don't think so

this wasn't like

I don't think it was an AI video

oh maybe it was

one of the videos I watched really irked me

because they had clips from

Wolf of Wall Street

Iron Man

they were just using all of these clips to

give the emotions of what the story they were telling

because there wasn't much of DeLorean

and then there were clips from

the movie driven like the DeLorean movie

it was super obnoxious

to like to see the Wolf of Wall

Street clip and it was like this is totally

irrelevant

I think I'm hitting

the end here

and I think it is important

that Back to the Future did kind of save the

legacy of the DMC

because otherwise I don't think people would really remember it

really it's such a cool looking car

yeah

I just don't think I think it would just be like

it would be like the Mercedes

Gullwing car where people are just occasionally

mention that like oh yeah there's a Mercedes

Gullwing car and there's DeLorean

and then there's Lambos and that would sort of be it

what else would you talk about a DeLorean for

you'd be like oh yeah

there's another stainless car aside from the

Cybertruck

yeah you know

or if people talk about crappy v6's

was it a v6 yeah

oh okay yeah

yeah because I covered Doc Brown

having the Packard in there

and then um

yeah that's pretty much it that's what I got okay sorry

that I don't have a neat little bow tie to wrap that up

but I think my wrap

up on that is it like I think DeLorean

was super cool when I read the GTO

story I didn't know that nobody had ever

told me that yeah

and that GTO

story is really what a punk rocker

story about them being at the tech center

and putting the 389 in the car

like that's the kind of thing that I'm like God I wish

I could be the not just a fly

on the wall I'd want to be somebody on his team

that he was like okay come in on Saturday

we're gonna come to the tech center and do this yeah

like I remember I ran into

a Grand National Roadster show I saw Larry Erickson

who's a GM designer

or a Detroit designer in general

that Faye would talk about sometimes

and like he had his Bonneville car there

super cool and I was telling him

like it'd be cool to like

get to work at Detroit and work on like cutting

edge stuff and learn about that and he goes yeah

you know the problem with Detroit though

is all the layers of management it's like it's just so

hard to do anything everything's stuck

and stacked my sort of like wrap up

with DeLorean I'm sorry that like

my story kind of like tapers off there

you know I'm just

that's because it was the end it's the end of the story

yeah you know I mean you know how we do this

we just talk about what's interesting to us

but anyway I think DeLorean rules

the GTO them jamming that motor in there

I mean the GTO stuff

it would have been so cool to have been around

even to be a kid

to work at GM when they had like the tiger

display and the executive came in

and hated the tiger's display and the lobby

the tiger thing was so cool though

oh my god the whole thing is cool

and to be the person that like created that

buzz yeah oh my god

that's I mean that speaks so much

I really think the arc of the story

here is that like

GM didn't like that he left

they cultivated him

Detroit cultivated him and then he was like

no I'm gonna go make cars in Ireland

nobody else would have him

that was one of the things he did talk about

they were like why there and he was like

nobody wanted to have us anywhere else

it wasn't gonna happen

and the UK wanted to give the money

and then he said that they got

he's like we were approved the money

by the Labour Party and then they went out

and the Conservative Party got voted in

and then they didn't want to give us the money

so they shorted us 93 mil right off the bat

that's where part of our problems came from

so that is a little piece of the story

but I think yeah I think GM didn't like it

and he said that the government was just

gonna keep coming after him after the cocaine thing

yeah you know they hit him on the

fraud and I think that didn't work out either

but yeah he became Christian

and that saved his life in a way he thinks

and he talked about

he did say that yeah I have a lot of stress

and I have some worry

he's like but when I go to see my daughters

I am very happy and he's like

when our sheep dog jumps up and licks my face

he's like all of that goes away

for a little bit

oh sheep doggy

yeah I thought that was really sweet

you know I think there's a person there

oh I think so too

I think it's hard to think

about somebody like when you have that much power

and then you become persecuted for

so long or whatever

yeah you rise to the top and then you get

shot down so hard

yeah sure I mean Wesley Snipes went to prison

over tax evasion three years

oh I didn't know that

I know I didn't either I read that a little while back

and I was like what

that's my DeLorean

story I thought that deserved a deeper

dive and like

honestly if I find the engine to change book

I could almost one day later do another dive again

there's more details on the GTO

story in there

that's a great read though again if anybody

like if you want a book to read this winter

engines to change

pick it up it's got the F-150

becoming the best selling vehicle in America

obviously number one truck

it's got GTO and DeLorean

it's got Porsche

and it's got BMW

and this is the last chapter

oh wow it's still good

it's pretty modern

and it's got a great section on Honda

I think it's a really good read

so yeah engines to change

we ordered it in when we were doing our engine class

and I kind of like

peeked through some of it and I was like wow this is sick

and I read it and then who knows

maybe we gave it away in a later class

I don't know

I think you kept it because you read it

I thought so too I thought I was going to keep it

oh it had the Jeep story in it

you know the Jeep being made by

American Bantam in Butler, Pennsylvania

yeah I think it just got

I think it's just lost in the shop

I think it's lost in my bedrooms

that's me that's my problems that's my stories

for the week

you've been piled up

fish chip piled up

thanks for listening

have a great day bye

you

0:00

53:38

132. The Pile Up EP20: GTO, Cocaine, and Back to the Future

Delorean DMC-12

Pontiac GTO

Chrysler

Packard

Ultramatic transmission

automatic transmission

Oldsmobile

Studebaker

Big Three

GM

Packard Custom 8 Victoria

389

Pontiac Le Mans

Le Mans

tri-power

four-barrel carburetor

DeLorean Motor Company

Chevrolet Corvettes

DMC DeLorean

Tesla Cybertruck

Buick Grand National

Ford F150

About this episode

Original notes