154. Autokrieg in the House

Hey, everybody, what's up?

Welcome to the People's Car Podcast.

My name is Ryan Bealman, and sitting right next to me laughing is...

Danny Mercado, what's up?

Man, you get me every time with that.

We got a couple other people in the house, literally in our house.

A couple's too.

We have a few.

Yeah, you're right.

We got a...

Triplex of people.

That's great.

Who we got over here?

First things up.

Dude, you're talking like you know how to use a mic, and then you just...

You got to bring it over your face.

I thought you knew the clockwise.

No.

My name is Datsun Datsun, also known as German Injury, AK member.

Nice.

Greg Tansarito, also AK member and vice president.

Okay.

I am Steve McGurdy.

On Instagram, it's at German Bomber, and I'm the president of Auto Creek.

Shameless plug.

So, yeah, for sure.

Let's talk about that a little bit.

I guess we could start...

I mean, we don't have to go super deep into all three of you and where your passion

for cars started, but I guess we could start a little bit on like, how did you

guys know that, you know, like volkswaggons are cool, volkswaggons are a thing.

You guys wanted to kind of get into the scene, quote unquote.

Where did that start?

So my first introduction into volkswaggons was I was working at a bike shop, and my

boss owned a 87-16 valve GTI.

Nice.

And when he pulled up to the bike shop with that car, I was like, that thing is

cool as shit.

I want one, and I ended up buying it from him.

It was like a 300-plus-thousand-mile 87 GTI in 1999.

So it wasn't pristine or anything.

It was really in good shape until I drove it the first night, and it got stuck

in third gear, and that was a new transmission.

And then once that got fixed, it turned into the timing belt snapped.

So that needed your head.

So it did start out very quick.

You didn't get your toes in.

You jumped right into the pool.

Yeah, this is expensive.

But from that point on, there was another customer that always had a 92-16 valve red

GTI, big bumpers, dual rounds, and I was like, these cars are so cool.

I grew up with American muscle.

My dad was all into that kind of stuff.

But once I saw those two cars, that was it.

I was hooked.

I always find that interesting when people say they grew up

with American muscle.

And then was it a divergence?

And you were like, man, I don't know if I should be doing this,

or was it a separation between, oh, that's what my dad did.

I want to do something different.

Yeah, no.

Because Danny had all that stuff.

But he's a muscle car guy, you know what I mean?

And it's funny, but you also ended up in Volkswagen.

Yeah, because my point of view was like, wow, I

can't believe how well that thing handles.

Because you just fall off the road with a muscle car.

Me, I think it was just the styling

was so different from the muscle cars.

And it caught my eye.

And I was like, that's something new to me.

It's cool.

Right, because I wasn't brought up,

look checking out anything, European, import, anything.

You know, it was like to the point where

we had to work on the first car.

And my dad's like, these effing metric sockets.

I don't have any of that crap.

You know, so hey.

Thanks, dad.

Yeah, so no less was everything breaking right away,

but he didn't even have the tools to help me fix it.

So, you know, but I still have the love for American muscle.

Sure.

I currently have an 87 Grand National as well.

Nice, I didn't know that.

So I picked that up last year after my dad passed away.

Actually, my dad passed away one year ago today.

Wow, really?

Yeah, that's why.

So at Dub and Grubb last year.

Wow.

Yeah, in the middle of Dub and Grubb last year.

Did you know that when you were there?

When it started in the morning, I got a call from my stepmother

that he was going south quickly.

But he's up in New Hampshire, which is four hours

from me on the island.

In the middle of the day on Friday,

it would have been a 12-hour trip for me to get up there.

So it was no chance of me leaving.

So I stayed and got a phone call like an hour and a half later.

And I kind of just walked away.

And honestly, I sat next to Ted.

Yeah.

You know, like Ted was the guy.

Like I just, hey, I need to just sit and chill

and get away from him.

And Ted, you know, Ted being Ted, you know,

be a huge hug, you know, like.

Ted's Ted.

So yeah, you know, like Ted really got me

through the next couple of hours really good.

But yeah, so I got, I ended up picking up his 87 Grand National.

He really technically left it to my son.

So who's he's nine now.

He was eight at the time.

Yeah, that's cool.

So but it's it's sitting up in my house.

So I got that.

I have a I have a one car garage with a lift,

but it's a big one car.

It's 15 by 15 by 25.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So it's almost like it's a two car.

Yeah.

So I can I think I'm going to find out this winter.

I think I can fit the 91 Jetta and the 98 Golf.

I think I can fit them both underneath the Grand National.

Oh, OK.

So once I get the Jetta back from Matt, I'll try it.

Yeah.

So we'll see.

It's awesome.

If you look at like so like my garage is 30 deep

and I can put my Syncro and my wife's

each have a convertible in there with her bumpers

off the car and they fit in there.

So I think you might be all right.

Yeah.

Comfortably.

No, no, no.

It's against the wall.

I kind of but to get the shots a big car.

So then when you got your Plymouth in there,

there's no question.

No, no, let's see if the whole side is all Plymouth.

That's the funny part is is that my house

I had bought from my father 15 years ago.

Yeah.

And he built the garage in the backyard.

So he initially had the garage because he had his he

had the Grand National and his 69 Road Runner.

Yeah.

So getting that 69 Road Runner, huge monster

into my tight space.

You had like three point turning to get it in.

Yeah, right.

And it just barely fit, you know, but you know,

that the Volkswagen is like four Volkswagen.

Right.

I swing it right in.

I got plenty of space, you know, and I'm like, oh, man,

maybe I'm like, I might be like I'm out there

with a measuring tape trying to figure out.

I'm like, it's going to reach by an inch

or it's going to miss by an inch.

That's at the point.

That's where I'm at right now.

They pull bumper off and you're good.

Yeah.

They need bumpers.

Correct.

Detachable bumpers.

Yeah.

Did you when you had that first Volkswagen,

has it been just Volkswagen, Volkswagen ever since?

Was that like, did that start the whole process

or did you take a break or two?

No, that that started the whole process.

From that, I picked up an 89 GLI 16 valve, blew the clutch

on that, and I didn't have any.

I didn't know what I was doing at the time.

So I got rid of that.

And then I picked up the car that a lot of the guys know me

for was a 89 16 valve GTI black on black.

And I had that for a while.

And then just Volkswagen after Volkswagen

after Volkswagen.

And then around like 07, I had a four door,

mark 3, 94 teal golf with a 2.0 with a Bonn

runner charger in it.

And then that car blew up.

It really wasn't the car that blew up.

It was the compressor that blew up.

But I swapped out the motor thinking that it was the motor.

Because I checked it, but we never pulled the belt off

when we checked to see if it was locked up.

And the compressor was so tight that it kept us

from turning the motor over.

So we swapped out a perfectly good motor

for a junkyard motor that was bad oil pressure

and everything else.

And I just I threw my hands up in the air

and I sold everything.

I said, I'm done.

I sold everything dirt cheap.

I think I let that at an 07.

I think I left the entire cargo for like 1,500 bucks.

Wheels, suspension, everything else, yard sale.

And then I was out of Volkswagen's

until right before COVID.

I picked up my current 911 GL, Jetta GL on like

whatnot or one of those weird for sale apps.

Found it for like 1,200 bucks, two towns over.

I went and I looked at it.

No rust, no nothing.

Thing was so clean.

I opened up the hood.

It had a rapid parts valve cover on it.

I said, oh, this car's been around.

But the guy, the kid that had it, didn't know.

No idea.

No clue what he had.

So I'm like, all right, this has been around.

So I'm like, will you take it?

I said, will you take 800 bucks for it?

He's like, sure.

Wow.

I got it for 800 bucks.

2020.

Yeah.

Right.

It was November 2019.

Yeah.

So that's awesome.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

All right, great.

So we're there at that point before we get into everything

else.

What about you guys?

All right.

So I got to talk right into that thing.

There you go.

I got my start in cars with muscle car, American muscle.

I had an 84 Trans Am.

It was a ratty as shit.

But I learned how to drive stick on it.

And actually, it was a pretty fun car

to learn how to drive stick on.

Hurst shifter, fun.

Greg, just so you know, we don't have four hours.

So you can't name the 300 cars you've owned?

I've had quite a few.

300 would be more like 50.

50 is probably close to that.

You were probably in the 30s.

I think I'm 40 now.

Yeah, you might be.

We might be, actually.

I would say only about maybe two thirds have seen them.

You're in a house.

All B3 and B5 Passats.

Which I'm with you on that.

I've had a couple of B3s.

I love me and Passat.

There you go.

So my first take into Volkswagen world

would be my cousin's boyfriend had a 95 VR

GTI that came from England.

That's what he said.

And it was pretty rad.

It was 1997.

And I had never seen one before, never really

paid attention before.

So he took me for a ride.

And I was sold.

I needed to have.

What is this thing?

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

And of course, at that time, I had no money.

And I had this freaking horrible eight mile per gallon

trans-am.

And I had a job where I was driving around for work.

So I was like, all right.

Found a 1998 valve GTI.

And that was my first Volkswagen.

So I drove that around for a while.

It was fun.

Then I found a 79 tan rabbit diesel.

1.5 liter four speed.

That was a fun car.

That's a car that I wish I never sold.

Because it was a round headlight car.

Round headlight, I bought it for 700 bucks.

700 bucks.

Today, it would probably be like, oh, yeah, maybe 7,000.

You know what's funny about the 79s?

That's a round headlight when it was diesel.

But if it was gas and it was a 79,

you would have gotten an early Westie.

Like, there was that weird crossover time.

And yeah, 79s were, if it was diesel, it was still.

Yeah, because they were made in Germany.

They were a WVW.

Yes, yeah.

That was a fun car.

It smelled like burnt horse hair because of the seats.

And there's nothing you could have done, that and diesel.

So you had the smell of diesel and burnt horse hair.

But it was such a fun car to go extremely slow

down the road.

Oh, yeah.

That's a good way of pointing it.

A fun car to go extremely slow.

1.5 liter diesel.

The best was when the exhaust fell off

while driving down the road in the middle of the night.

That was also fun.

My name is Lublin.

On the island, where were you at?

Yeah, I grew up in North Massa Piqua.

OK, yes, that's a great site.

If I could ask a quick question.

When it comes to diesel, if it doesn't have a third one,

do you call it just DI?

Or is it like?

Some people just call it, like, say D.

Like, they'll say like a 1.6 D, you know what I mean?

Is it a 1.5 D?

I got corrected today by a friend of mine named Sam.

And he was like, it's not a TDI.

It's just a DI.

So I was like, OK, sorry, I apologize.

I mean, when people are getting into, like, diesels,

they get, you know, people know they're diesels, man.

And they want to talk specifics.

But that's cool, man.

So when you guys talk and you're talking about, like,

are you guys all on the island?

I mean, not all.

No, we haven't passed in half an hour.

So I've always been on the island.

I've always been out in Suffolk County.

Deshaun was a Queens boy.

I was always a Queens boy.

I'm originally from Farsales.

Look at me.

Even though they don't realize that that's still on the island.

It is.

It's the original Long Island.

It is.

All the time.

It is Queens and Brooklyn, Long Island.

If you're from Queens and Brooklyn, absolutely not.

If you're from Long Island, absolutely.

It's the same piece of land.

Why not?

Scotto's going to kill me right now.

Dude, when I think of these cars,

like these little slam Volkswagen's

like running around like in New York City.

And I mean, to me, Long Island's like a totally

different world that I never approach.

It's just for the people that live there.

I don't go there.

I've been there just a handful of times.

And we're not even that far.

But it's like maybe for a wedding or something

that's all the way on the end of it

that takes six hours to get to or whatever.

It's chaos in my mind.

Like it's just literally you guys are in a different world

that's only an hour and a half away from us.

It should be an hour and a half,

except it's about seven hours

because of our horrible Long Island.

That's just, and it's so wild.

You know, we talked to Vanick about that stuff

a lot too, because he's out there.

But it's just like, it's so crazy.

And then to go over like these bridges and stuff

and some of the stuff I've seen in an SUV

where it looks like World War III.

And I'm like, how do people with cool cars navigate this?

It's insane.

Honestly, it's the same exact way

that everybody's navigating Wildwood.

Right, right.

You know, like, once you cross that Nassau-Queens border,

you drive the same way that you're driving

here in Wildwood.

Yeah.

You learn to start dodging things.

Right, yeah.

Eyes open, watching the car in front of you

to see when they dip.

It's all about the car.

It's all about the car in front of you, yeah.

And you also memorize the highway.

Oh, sure.

You memorize the highway.

You know where the piles are.

You know where the digits are.

You know where that dunk is at, the plates are.

You memorize it in New York.

Even that, coming here on Thursday morning,

I was routing out a way for James to get here

with his Arteon that he just lowered.

The white one?

Yeah, the white one that was at Dublin Grove.

So, because he just got that all done.

So I'm like, I'll find a way.

And I said, all right.

So when you get on the Bell Parkway,

I said left lane, left lane the entire way

because there's some interchanges over the bridges

that you're gonna destroy something.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's really what we have to do is like,

hey, I went first, I checked it out,

stay this way or stay that way.

Don't go out to GW because the cross Bronx

is a mess for lowered cars.

So it just.

Without getting like too crazy into,

I guess even it could be political or whatever,

as far as the roads go, doesn't it?

Like, you know, Pennsylvania,

we have some of the highest cast taxes.

We have, you know, this is supposed to pay for our roads

and we have some of the worst roads in the whole country.

Doesn't it make you so angry

when you have to deal with that stuff?

And this is like, we're talking New York, dude.

Like the cash flow that should be coming into fix

what you guys have to go over all the time.

It furiates me.

Yeah, we're from Long Island.

Long Islanders pay the most taxes for New York.

So maybe the city.

The Island roads, Suffolk and Nassau roads,

they're not that bad.

Some of them are bad, you know, like out East

on sunrise right now,

they're repaving a lot of the concrete,

but they're not doing the whole thing.

They're patching it.

So what happens is they patch the whole thing

and now it's like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Then they come through with a grader

and grade the concrete down to smooth.

So everything's level.

But that takes a couple of months before

they decide to bring out the grader.

So, but yeah, the just leaving the Island

and getting here on Thursday was $38 in tolls.

That's crazy. $38 in tolls.

Get into like the movie End Time.

End Time is getting there.

And I got to drive on the shittiest roads.

It's like $38 to leave your area.

It's like, okay, I get it if you're driving into the city.

Why is it leaving the city?

Right.

It makes no sense.

Right, and that's a big thing that I talked to,

to Sean with a lot.

He's always like, you got to come out,

you got to come out to this,

you got to come out to that.

And I'm busy with my side business that I have.

But I'm also like, I don't have the money

to leave the Island all the time.

It's $38 to get out, $38 to get in,

and then whatever gas I use,

and then whatever else we do for that day.

Of course, that adds up.

Which is also why to hold events on the Island.

Nobody wants to come across those bridges.

It's too scary.

And now you guys know where you got to go.

These people don't know.

I mean, you're going to have.

You're going to have to go to Mark I going down these roads.

You're going to lose to Mark I.

Yeah.

Dude.

The Mark I becomes a speed bump for the next guy.

The flattens it out real nice.

He to the warning.

Two warnings I give you.

Watch the plates on the road.

Yeah.

And if you have to, slow down, throw your hazard turn.

Right.

I teach my wife all the time,

because that car is lowered also.

I'm like, listen, if you have to throw the hazard turn,

slow down.

What car is that?

She has to be five and a half.

And it's lowered.

Got some nice suspension work on it.

It's a second one.

She loves it.

She's cool with it.

Oh, she loves this thing.

Die hard.

Nice.

But right now, she won't even take it to the city,

just because of those reasons.

Yeah.

That's wild.

I mean, you guys like, it's funny

because you have your own world in there

and you don't have to leave unless you have to leave

for something.

Right.

So like, there's that too.

Unless you want to go to a VW event.

There's none by us.

Right.

Yeah.

Gives you a reason why I moved out of New York

and permanently I'm not going back.

Yeah.

I've done those days of off-roading with my vehicles.

Isn't that funny?

You can have a place that you can love

because you've been there, you were raised there.

You could, you know, it's like part of you, your being.

And then you could get into something stupid like Volkswagen.

And then you don't want to even be a part of that.

You don't even want to be there

because just the traveling alone

for something stupid like that, you know?

I mean, damn, my wife calls me,

hey, my shock just fell out of my freaking willow

because I hit a, no.

Yeah, right.

Imagine me having to go and pick her up.

So on my, stress is me out thinking about it.

On my way on Thursday morning,

I was taking my, my ABF Mark III Golf and my coil.

I'm thinking my, I have a coil issue,

but the car just shut off.

And I had to come pick it up, turn around.

I picked up my Toreg, right?

My Toreg, I can't drive really

because I've got a rear coil that's snapped.

But I had no other way to get down here.

So I drove my Toreg down with a snapped rear coil.

Yeah.

You know, like I've just been,

I've been driving it like two miles to work.

It's not a big deal

because I'm trying to get everything else ready.

And I was going to replace the suspension

within the next couple of weeks,

but now I had to drive that thing down here.

Driving a broken Volkswagen?

Yeah, yeah.

You never heard of that before.

Surprised, surprised.

The hell you say.

Yeah.

So like you're back to your like 300 cars that you've had.

So you've got...

Wasn't quite 300.

Then it's close now.

Probably about 50.

Legitimately 50.

Volkswagen's I would say 40.

Yeah, 40.

So I'm mostly a Mark 1 guy.

Currently I have an 83.

Scirocco, I'm doing a ABA swap on.

Oh, so you want that side?

You want to do the other side now?

It's like the dark side.

Yeah.

Scirocco side.

Yeah, I like oddballs.

Always have the oddball stuff.

100%.

I had the last year here,

I had the 93 red Eurovan.

Oh yeah.

That wouldn't go over 45 miles per hour

because it was an automatic and it was broken, of course,

because it was...

No overdrive?

Yeah, no overdrive.

Autorack broken, rusted.

Yeah, anybody who has ever had one

that was automatic knows that that cable,

that the electric cable that goes

to the automatic transmission just melts together.

So you open the cable up

and it looks like a box of melted crayons

because of all the different colored wires

and it's just a greasy ball of mess.

Sully of all time.

That was a cool truck.

It was more like Swiss cheese than an actual car,

so I rotted more than any kind of.

First New York, so past inspection,

one was mechanically sound.

Right.

I didn't get it inspected, so I don't know.

I just drove it down and that was that.

That van did good, right?

Last year it got us around as like departures family,

we all gathered around inside this van

and we went to go to any get together,

we hopped in the van.

Yeah, man.

Until we realized there was smoke coming from the hood

and we're like, why is there smoke coming from the hood?

And we realized that the compressor,

the AC compressor seized on the thing.

So we was heading to, was it mark two

or mark three, one or two?

Yeah.

And it seized on us.

It was going to the Corrado meat in the zoo

and yeah, it was on fire basically.

So we just cut the belt off and it was great.

It was fun.

Yeah.

So good.

It was fun.

But yeah, mostly aside from the B three's,

I had a B three sedan 16 valve that was slammed.

That thing was awesome.

Love to have that back in it.

I agree, those are great cars.

My wife had a VR B three wagon

that was cool until it went on fire.

It seems like a theme here.

Yeah, yeah.

I think my, my Volkswagen's like to go on fire

and try to get away from me.

You'd never guess Greg is also a fireman.

Retired, retired.

That's fantastic.

That is priceless right there.

Yes.

So are you, are you?

I was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was volunteer.

Yeah.

As most firemen will say, not a real fireman.

Volunteer, but you know, it was fun.

Dude, you put out fires.

Except for the ones in your cars.

Yeah, except for the cars.

Those I just watched.

I was like, all right.

So did now, did you have any fire extinguishers

in these cars?

Being a fireman, did you?

Why are you looking at me like that?

So I also really liked Mark once.

I, no, no, when the station wagon went on fire,

I literally, the first thing I did after getting out

and looking at it and saying, oh, shit

was I didn't even call the fire department first.

Somebody else was already doing that.

So I got out.

I called my wife at the time and I said,

hey, honey, I got good news and bad news.

Good news is you never have to drive the wagon again.

She kind of hated it.

And I said, bad news is it's on fire right now.

So I guess you're getting a new car.

Sure.

My wife had a similar experience with a B3.

So like she's in there with not wanting to,

like didn't care for that car very much

because she put a head gasket on my 16 valve

and got stranded between like two areas

that there was no cell phone service there at all.

So like luckily, like someone else behind her was going,

she was cleaning the college at the time

and I was going to college, so I picked her up

and brought her back, brought her to school.

So yeah, that was fun times.

That's the worst.

I mean, if it's you and you get stuck on the side

of the road, who cares?

You know, I'll walk out or whatever.

You feel like an asshole.

It's like, you're like the biggest piece of crap there is.

It's like, I just had her stranded in this car.

I thought it was good.

And it's like, yeah.

Yeah.

It was definitely your fault.

Oh, absolutely.

So were you always, so did you like have a lull

or just always had Volkswagen's then?

You know, I kind of here and there

would have something else, you know,

cheap Cherokees kind of digs those, you know.

But for the most part, there was always a Volkswagen.

You know, my favorite was an 81 Cheraco S, you know.

That thing was, it was a 1.7 liter

five-speed, nothing special, but I loved it.

It was, it was like, you know, cream of the crap.

Crop.

Oh, crap.

It was crap too.

Freudian slip.

You know, I only got rid of it because at the time

I had like a baby, you know, my daughter.

And then it was kind of rusting away.

And I had to make a decision.

And instead I drove a 16 valve cabriolet.

Got it.

And that was fun.

Awesome car.

That car was an absolute blast.

Greg sold it to a friend of ours.

And we used to, they used to do,

HBO used to do a Super Bowl get together on the island.

Right?

So my buddy's, he wasn't going and he's like,

you know, I didn't have a car at the time.

So he's like, yo, if you want to take the cabriolet,

feel free.

The only, the only thing is,

you're not allowed to put the top up.

Okay.

He's like, that was, that was it.

If you want, if you want to borrow it, it's top down.

And again, this is Super Bowl.

This is February.

It was like 15 degrees outside.

All right, we did it.

Let's do this.

We made the best of it.

Me and my buddy made the best of it.

We had a blast.

Those are the times you always remember.

Oh yeah.

Absolutely.

And it's always, it always comes with a little bit

of suffering.

That's when you remember.

Pulling into the get together,

people looking at us like we're crazy.

20 degrees tops down.

We got beanies on.

Tops down, fingers up.

The day I picked that car up,

I picked it up out East in like Riverhead.

And my buddy actually dropped it off to us.

And my wife at the time and I were like, all right.

It was January.

We're driving it home with the top down.

Because it was our first convertible.

Yeah. Nice.

It was, it was awesome.

You know, a 16 valve and a mark one.

That car was fun.

You know.

Yeah.

A 16 valve and a mark one is fun.

It is.

You know, we used to beat up on, on, you know,

civics all the time.

You know, like the couple of times I got to drive it.

I pull up next to the guy.

I'd be like, yeah, you just got beat by two Fs.

Right.

You know, in a convertible.

How's that feel?

Yeah.

In a convertible.

It's just another kick right in the pants.

Yeah.

All right.

So let's move on to you.

So because we want to like kind of keep this timely.

So we're still talking about how you got into cars.

Oh, wow.

So my story is not elaborate as theirs, but.

That's all good.

I was originally never really into cars.

Okay.

I started as a hairstylist.

I was a hairstylist for many, many years.

I also was a DJ for many years, probably about 13 years.

Yeah.

Then of course of while I'm generating new clientele,

I ran to a good friend of mine's name is Bob.

I was cutting his hair.

He was into the cars.

He got into a Volkswagen.

I was into Hondas at getting into Hondas at the time.

I wanted to see our racks.

That's what I really didn't want.

Got ya.

But when you go to Honda shows, you know what happens.

You get the registration check.

You got boots on the wheels.

Darren was completely missing.

It was like nobody trusted anybody to.

What is up with that?

So I didn't trust that culture.

I was like, that was not cool.

My friend was taking me.

He was going to Fountain Ave.

He was going to Zarego.

We were going to Alphabet City.

It was just Hondas, Hondas, Hondas.

And once in a while you'll see a Volkswagen.

And I kept seeing this one rabbit.

No one to cool it, just a turbo.

And he was smoked these Eclipse all the time.

Three Eclipse run side by side.

Rabbit's already gone.

I'm like, what the heck is that?

And then my friend Bob, he had a golf as well.

So then I was just venturing out a little bit

and to buy my first golf, which was an ABA,

white, I called the pearl, last name, white.

There you go.

And then he had a purple one.

And then we ran into Brian.

He introduced me to Brian at the time.

And we just started rolling around.

And Brian introduced me to Otto Craig.

He's like, hey, you should come out to Deep Deer Park Ave.

I'm like, what's going to happen to Deep Park Ave?

He told me about the full moon, full throttle events

that we actually would have out there.

It was actually cool.

I ran into a couple of people that was more into Volkswagen.

So I was like, you know what?

How deep can this really go?

So I decided to put myself to school

because I was like, how am I going to afford

to pay for these things?

I was like, you know what?

I might as well teach myself.

Got the Bentley magazine, learned a little bit,

almost killed myself, trying to change brakes

on the front of a car on the side of the road.

Learned that very quick.

But instantly I got into that world.

At the same time, I got introduced to BMW.

So I took a job at BMW and it expanded things

tremendously for me.

I really started learning the intricate information

about how these cars actually work.

So got really much fun.

So my first one was a golf.

After that, got much into it.

Started working for BMW.

I actually was able to afford my dream car.

My dream car was a Corrado.

At the time, Corrado was set like 10 grand, 15 grand,

back in what, 98, 96, somewhere around there.

But I waited.

Then I boosted my two-liter A-valve.

Put a T3 T4 turbo on it.

That was the best thing ever.

Roundup on VRs, it was like, what?

This is game changer right now, right?

So my friend Bob went and bought a VR at that time.

He's like, it was always that competing back

and forth.

But you grow with that, right?

So we had a lot of fun.

And I started rolling with these guys a little bit.

Got more into the cars.

Ran to another friend of ours who had a yellow Corrado.

Got me more into Corados.

So I ended up buying a Corrado at the time.

It was blown modes, a G60, of course.

I couldn't do the VRs.

You know why?

Because the hood's a little bit too puffy.

Too puffy?

A little bit too puffy.

I am in there with you.

I'm the second one of my fenders.

I like the flair of the fenders,

but the hood was just like,

I went a little bit more sleek.

So I was like, you know what?

I like the G60.

But when I got my G60, the engine was blown.

I fixed the engine, put the charger in there.

I blew the charger.

Surprise, surprise.

So I rebuilt the charger.

I put the charger back in.

I blew the charger again.

Then I did the charger with the turbo.

So I put the T3 with the turbo on the charger.

It was great until there was another problem.

I'm gonna leave that alone.

G60, it's gonna have a problem.

So I got rid of the charger.

I left the turbo on it,

but I knew what the 2.0 ABA felt like with the boost.

And the 1.8 with the boost, the lag was too much.

I couldn't deal with it.

So I ripped everything out.

And I realized why people have a problem

with Volkswagen wiring.

Because why they do things and wind things together

and put a cluster of winding with the engine harness

and like, why would you do such things?

Yeah, you definitely figure that out

when you try to split a harness

and take something small out when you're doing a,

you know, you're putting a VR swap in.

I'm like, well, I don't need this.

Let me just pull this wire out.

Oh, this is connected to that.

And this is wrapped around,

and I'm like, are you kidding me?

Why would somebody do that?

You don't understand.

I'll tell you this one thing that I learned really good.

If you learn how to wire a Volkswagen,

you can wire anything.

You could wire it literally.

You could wire anything.

And I built that car up.

I still have that car to this day,

but you know what happens?

Life comes into place.

Family, kids.

Now I'm thinking about college now.

So I was like, all right,

one of my cars started coming out.

They're slowly starting to progress a little bit,

but I'm like, I got other things a little bit more important.

So the kids are looking at it now

and now they're coming to the events.

I got them drilled in there like,

we need to finish the car.

I was like, I know, I know.

It's cool when you bring them into it, you know?

It's cool when they can be part of it

and you can bring them out to shows

and they kind of see like what they're,

even if they don't like totally share,

like, I mean, both the girls,

I don't know if they're gonna be like into these cars,

but like they enjoy coming out.

It's a memory.

It's a staple that's right there.

Like I remember my dad.

They know it's important to their dad.

So it's important to them, you know what I mean?

Just the same way things were for me and my dad and stuff.

So yeah, that's cool, man.

And I'll say because of you guys is the reason,

like you guys meeting with these guys over here,

like and Brian pulling us back together.

And I have to mention Garrett Doss

and introduced me to the people podcast.

He was like, you gotta listen to him.

Once I started, I started getting drilled right back in.

As I speak to Danny before I ran to him in the zoo,

I was like, thank you.

Like, thank you.

I was like, I know your voice.

I didn't know exactly who it was,

but I was like, thank you.

Cause that's what it's about, you know?

Like forget the cars.

Like I noticed today when we was at Mark on Madness,

like it wasn't just the cars,

but I watched the conversations

and normally I took pictures of the cars, right?

But I started taking pictures of the people

cause I was like, holy crap.

Like really look at this.

And yesterday set it off for us, right?

Where I looked at all the people just getting together.

It was nothing crazy.

It was just a barbecue.

It was like a family barbecue.

Everybody just come and build up same commodity.

Sorry, I speak passion, right?

No, it's good.

No, it's cool.

But it was amazing to see all of us come together

and make that happen for us, right?

And I really enjoyed like,

I didn't go around like look at the cars and everything,

but I was like, what can all the cars come in?

I really enjoyed like, yo, I saw that guy.

I was like, I saw you last year.

This looks even better this year.

I was like, keep coming.

Keep coming back, keep coming back.

I wanna see you keep building.

Cause sometimes I feel like I'm in the car industry

and I feel like it's a dying breed

of watching that old passionate mechanics,

last technician build those cars.

Cause now these days all they wanna do is just tune,

drop the car and go.

Dude, we are like this group of people

and everything you guys are about

and we're about and everything else.

Like we are the people that are left.

And I'm proud of that.

Right, right, right.

You know what I mean?

Like and we will attract the same people

because that's what we are all,

that's, we are just like all of the same kind of people

in a way.

Now we're all super different,

but like we're also so similar.

Yeah.

You were hanging on the head too

when you said about like when you started getting

into Hondas and you saw the culture

of how the Honda culture is

and then you come across this other side

where like just hanging out, having a good time

and doing people's company.

And here we are like 25 years later, 30 years later

doing the same thing.

Imagine that, right?

Right, it's amazing.

So that was always the whole vibe

with Dub and Grubb back in the day.

Nice transition.

Yeah.

That was, that was all about hanging out.

It was cars and coffee before cars and coffee was a thing.

I like that.

Yeah, don't worry.

You're right, you're right.

Everybody getting together and Scotto had a rule,

do not get caught cleaning your car in that parking lot.

That's not what this is about.

Bring your cars.

We were giving awards for everybody,

but this was not about spit shining your wheels.

This is about bringing food and having a barbecue

and everybody hanging out and having a good time.

We had all sorts of clubs, you know,

cool water, I think dirty Jersey, German squad,

like all those guys would come out with trays of food

because we did it like a potluck, you know, like

we were 19, 20, 23, 24 at the time,

but we didn't have the money

to do what we're doing now, you know?

Because even today Dub and Grubb is paid for

strictly by the members of Auto Creek.

We do a little bit of fundraising,

but it really comes out of our own pockets

to put that event on,

but it was just about hanging and being the community.

The cars were out in the parking lot

and we all hung out out by the barbecues and, you know?

Yeah, it was making connections.

We all had a common love

and it was great looking at the cars,

always great looking at the cars,

but getting to know who the people behind the cars were,

that was everything, you know?

You know what's funny?

You said something about just watching them come in

and you see the cars,

as they're literally pulling in,

you see, oh wow, like, you know,

you might've done this beat,

and I see a couple of tweaks here and there,

like there's progression being made,

but I think the best part

about any of these get-togethers

that, you know, we're a part of

or that you guys do or anything,

it's one, seeing and hearing a car moving, right?

Because they're supposed to be moving.

Exactly, exactly.

When you see that,

it's like good for you that looks awesome,

it sounds awesome, that's some of the best part.

Then when everyone parks,

it's not about them anymore.

So now everyone gets out and they talk to each other.

So then that's like stage two of a get-together.

And then, right?

And then after that,

stage three is watching everybody go

and being part of that too.

And like, that all is literally, it's that simple.

Like, we're so simple,

but it can be also like, it's pretty complex

because, you know, it's about human relationships and stuff,

but it's so good.

And if we're all doing things for like the right reasons,

then that's what makes everybody happy.

Yeah, 100, 100%.

Like that fills up my cup, you know what I mean?

And that's it.

And you go home from something like you guys put on earlier

when the dubbing grub like meat,

and it's just, you feel good when you're leaving.

Right.

Because it started the weekend right there.

Yeah, we were on a high last night.

Dude, it was so good, just like the last,

it was so good last year.

And you know, that's just like,

I mean, people can really feel those,

those like emotions and vibes and stuff, you know?

And it's just like, it's something special

because everyone has their everyday mundane stuff

and they got to go to work and they got to come home

and they got to sleep and they got to eat and whatever.

But you get that, that one weekend,

you know it's coming up and something like that happens.

And it goes off without a hitch again.

And it was just such a good time.

So, you know,

This is just, you just don't know.

No, of course not.

They're always are, but, but for everybody else,

nobody gives a shit about any of that stuff

because they had a fantastic time.

They're saying like, good job, guys.

That was awesome.

Thank you guys.

Thank you.

Pull it off and do what you do

because it's not easy for one.

It's not easy to get everyone together too.

And then if you look at like, you know,

there's competition for everything,

but it's a healthy competition.

It's like, like I said,

Oh, you know, try and make your car better

for the next one or for the next year.

We're like, were you sailing with the Honda scene

or, you know, other, whatever you want to call it.

It's like, oh, nice car.

You want to race?

Right.

Race.

How fast your car?

Oh, that's not, that's not fast.

Don't worry about them following you home afterwards.

Right?

Yeah, it's like, we're like,

it's like there's healthy competition.

You do have people that like to race

and that's their thing too.

But it's not like, you're not ragging on anybody.

You're not being like, oh,

cause like from the outs,

people that are on the outside looking in

and you see like a Mark one that's like patina,

they're like, man, that car is busted.

Right.

You know, we're like, oh, this is the shit.

This is the coolest car I've ever seen in my life.

Right, exactly.

We just don't understand

because yeah, it's about the cars,

but it's about the people.

Well, that was, you know, teaching my little guy,

you know, at first three, four years ago,

coming down here and see the rusty car.

It's like, ugh, what garbage is that?

And then like, as he's gotten into it,

he's like, that's what he loves.

His favorite car is Becker's yellow pickup.

Oh, that's awesome.

He calls it rusty banana.

Yeah.

It's my favorite car too.

Rusty banana.

He loves that truck.

Becker that.

There's no longer that yellow truck,

it is the rusty banana.

Rusty banana, yeah.

It's funny that you mention that, right?

Cause me come from my world,

I work with nothing but BMWs, right?

I work with nothing but high-end guys.

And they looked at like,

what do you mean you like Volkswagen?

Yeah.

Yeah, I like Volkswagen.

Well, how long you been working with them?

26 years.

Have you ever owned a BMW with them?

No, I have nothing but Volkswagen.

That's great.

I got a mark, I got a mark three in a chrono.

It was like, you don't have like an E30,

you don't have an M3.

Like, no, I have a rabbit.

I have an E2 rabbit.

Some of them, some of them actually,

you'd be surprised that some of the engineers

that I work with, right,

they used to work with Volkswagen.

Sure.

I have one engineer, he knows the engineer,

a designer for the G60 Supercharged.

He worked directly with him.

It's wild.

And that's how me and him kind of clicky.

So my screen savers,

and I have my carado sitting on the screen.

One, I'm not supposed to have a carado on my screen,

but yeah.

But he's like, that's your car.

I'm like, yeah.

He's like, what else do you have?

And it's a 45-minute conversation.

Of course, yeah.

You know, so it's pretty cool.

He actually knows cast.

He knows cast.

That's good.

That's why I end up meeting cast.

It's like Garrett, because Garrett,

like you were talking about before,

he worked for many.

Yeah, that's how I know Garrett.

Yeah, exactly.

But he was huge in the Volkswagen.

Garrett worked for many of Ramsey, I think,

at one point.

He came into the training facility.

It's funny how you brought that up,

but Garrett comes to training.

I'm training for many,

and I think I was doing like engine,

electronic, something like that.

And I see Dawson, and my last name's Dawson.

Yeah.

A relative freaking show and guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And there's some Caucasian.

I was like, dude, we're brothers, right?

Yeah.

We're cousins or something.

And we introduce ourselves,

and I think I introduce myself.

And depending on the crowd I have, like,

yeah, I'm into Volkswagen.

That's what I always share.

I don't mind.

And Garrett's like, really?

So he's like, let me talk to you.

During break we start yapping.

He shows me the motor trends

that he did, the Beetle on top of the S2000.

I'm like, oh yeah.

I was like, whoa.

I was like, that's intense.

I was like, what else are you into?

And slowly we just started kicking it.

That's why I ended up hearing about you guys.

That's awesome.

Thank you, Garrett.

Appreciate you.

So let's do a little bit of history on like,

where did the idea of, I guess,

Dub and Grubbs happen?

Whose were they?

AK, everything.

Like, what?

So a quick history,

Brian Scotto and Jay Slack started

Otto Krieg back in 99.

They met up at a Starbucks.

26 years.

Yeah.

It's not that long ago.

So you're a graduate.

They met up at a Starbucks

out on Long Island.

And the funny joke is that Jay Slack

always looked like he was 12 years old.

At the time, Brian and Jay met up.

Jay went up to grab a cup of coffee.

He got I.D. at the counter for coffee.

Yeah.

So like, that's the only reason I remember

that that meeting was at Starbucks back in 99.

But, you know, and they started recruiting guys.

You know?

So did they know each other?

Like have been running to each other

that had Volkswagen company?

No.

So Brian did the whole thing on,

well, we just talked about the mailing list.

V06.com or something like that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Or like the 16 valve mailing list.

Or like that's how that all started.

And then I think through Vortex

is where I probably six or seven months later

is when I came across Otto Krieg.

I was in a different Volkswagen car club at the time.

We put on these like Monday night get-togethers

at a place out on the island.

And that became like a really big thing out there.

It was like the sports plus get-together.

Yeah.

And, you know, the Otto Krieg guys would end up coming out.

And then, you know, one thing led to another.

The club that I was in went downhill

and I joined in with AK.

And then we started to build

and we had a decent amount of members

and we wanted to do some sort of show.

And I don't think we had the,

not the knowledge, but the ability or maturity

to put on something like show and go.

Right.

You know, like it just, we weren't organized enough

to be able to do that.

We were.

Slackers.

Right.

1920 year old kids.

Right.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Normal kids.

Right.

At that time we'd have like maybe like one random guy

that was like 25, 26.

But so we started Dub and Grub and that has,

how that whole thing got put together.

And that was typically Memorial Day

and Labor Day weekend every year.

We tried to do it twice a year.

That was in Forest Park in Queens.

And my memory is not the best.

And I read something last night

that kind of made me think different.

And I don't know if it was correct or not.

But I always remember Dub and Grub being first

and Full Moon Full Throttle being second.

But I could be wrong.

Yeah.

I think it was Full Moon Full Throttle first.

But either way, they were around the same time.

Yeah.

They were very close in time.

And even Full Moon Full Throttle

for the guys that don't know.

That was a cruise where we met up

at a parking ride out on the island.

During Full Moon.

Yeah.

Full Moon every month.

And we would take a spirited drive

along the North Shore.

Yo, that's awesome.

Yeah.

Most people were like, oh, Long Island roads.

Yeah, that sounds like a blast until they got out there.

And they was like, oh my God, that was a blast.

Yeah.

And they were like, I don't have these roads upstate

or in PA or because each month we would add

another section onto it.

Brian, honestly, Brian would go out,

scout another route and be like,

yo, we're adding this.

We're adding that.

And then it turned out to be,

we went from the exit 53 parking ride

on the Expressway to the North Shore

and all the way out to Riverhead,

which on the Expressway, that's like a 45 minute drive.

And taking those back roads would be

like a good hour and a half, two hours.

We would make one pit stop in the middle,

but that was the run.

So we had both of those events going on all the time.

And we had this one guy scene.

We all called him scene.

He was Euro styles on Vortex.

And he was our events coordinator.

And he really put a lot of effort into making

all those events happen on time.

He was very regimented.

And then once he left,

things slowly started falling apart

and not falling apart, but like everybody grew up.

You know, everybody grew up,

and also moved away.

Brian ended up working for zero to 60 and rides.

And Brian became a grown up

and became doing grown up things.

So the car club was not, again, not falling apart,

but just not priority to the guys anymore.

Everybody started getting families

and around 0708 is kind of when it just drifted away.

You know, and then COVID came

and Brian had some sort of meat at the Hoonigan garage.

And it was Brian, he's gonna kill me, Edgar.

And Renzo all met up at that event

that Brian had out there.

They took like a group shot through it in a,

I think on the Facebook page.

We had a group Facebook page.

And like that was really the start of it.

And then Renzo made an auto-creak group chat on Instagram.

And we just started inviting guys,

finding them on Instagram and inviting them,

inviting them, inviting them.

And it became, you know, again, it's COVID.

So it went crazy.

Everyone's looking for something.

Some connection.

The guys are sitting at work in the bathroom stall

because they don't wanna miss anything

that's going on because we're talking about history.

And everyone's like, aren't you guys working?

Yeah, we're all working, but we're pooping.

Yeah, you know?

So that was me

because I didn't understand how you guys were taxing so much.

I'm like, do you guys work?

And honestly, it went crazy from there.

And then I went to the first low show at the mall.

Yeah.

I was like, that was my first show back into the scene.

And I was like, this is amazing.

You know?

And I saw, were you guys in the store,

the Volkscrack store with Teddy with PBW?

Yeah, we were right on the storefront.

So as soon as you walked past the store,

you saw the podcast set up right there.

I had no idea who anybody was at the time.

I'm like, what's Volkscrack?

Like I had no clue.

And I saw Teddy was the only person

that I had recognized from back in the day.

But I was like, this is amazing.

I took a ton of photos and I came back the next day

and I sent everything into the Instagram.

I'm like, yo, you guys have to come to the show.

I said, this is absolutely amazing.

And the following year, I went to low.

And again, I don't know anything that's going on.

I'm like, wait, where's this?

Where's that?

Where's this?

And I was like, all right.

And then I found out about Roots the next weekend.

So I was like, all right, let me go to that.

And I ran into everybody and I was like, oh, this is,

now this is cool, you know?

So, and that's when I told everybody,

I'm like, you guys have to come out to this.

I think that we could do something.

And then that was like the week after, I think I,

it was either, I think I messaged Johnny and was like,

hey, what would you guys think about us doing a barbecue

dub and grub barbecue on Friday before the Saturday events.

And he's like, oh, it sounds like a good idea.

We'll talk about it.

And then the stuff happened in Wildwood

with the golf cart accident.

And it was like, pause, hold on.

We don't know what's going on.

We don't even know what's happening.

Right, right, right, right, right.

And then, you know, obviously you guys were,

you know, all involved in time and know what's going on,

but we ended up being able to do it.

And the first year we had, I think, 40 cars there.

Yeah, so from a picture that was taken,

a random picture, it basically sparked a memory

for most of you or a lot of your all of you

to be like, wow, huh, maybe we can do something again.

Right, 100%.

Crazy, you know, it's cool because like,

that's all it takes because you can be away

from something for so long

and then just hit that memory

and it's like, it brings you right back.

Right.

It brings you right back to what you were doing, you know.

Especially if you're like, physically, like you said,

you go somewhere and the sights and the smells

and everything are actually there

and you're just like, damn,

it brings you right back to a certain time in your life.

I had gone to, again, like I said before,

everything kind of died off 07, 08,

I sold all my stuff, but.

To even experience any of the H2O stuff.

Well, so YouTube got pretty crazy

and I don't remember the media company

that did a video on H2O.

Wagonworks.

I think that was it, yeah.

And I saw that and I was like,

oh, I said, I gotta go back down to H2O.

This looks cool as shit.

So I was one of those jerk offs.

I packed up my, I packed up the motorcycles

and four of us took our bikes down there

and we were running around H2O with our crotch rockets.

And I was like, this is a blast.

So I think I did 11, 12, 13.

Okay.

With the bikes.

Yeah.

So I kind of knew, but I was like, the show sucks.

You know, like it's a bunch of

F boys all over the place.

With motorcycles.

Yeah.

You really, it's your fault.

100% your fault.

I was 100% one of them.

Yeah, yeah.

Steve is a cause of that falling.

Steve broke H2O.

He was there for the superstar climb.

He cut them off.

Yeah.

But um, so then when I went, when I went to Lowe at the mall,

I was like, wait, this is like back when it was in 020304.

I said, this is, if this is what the scene's like now,

we need, we need back into this.

You guys got to, you know, and that's really,

that's really what it was.

And it's, and I think like,

you got to do something about it.

Right.

So like you guys did something about it.

And I feel like we did something about it.

And people that are into this stuff, like it's so cool.

If you, if you're into it, like give back,

do something about it.

Like get off your ass and do something about it.

And there are so many people that have something to offer.

And I praise anybody that offers anything to this scene

and what we do because like there are people like,

I mean, Errol just walked in and walked out.

Like he's physically making parts for these cars

to like survive.

Right.

And like you guys are doing your thing.

I think we're doing our thing.

There's so many people that do their parts.

But also, you know, if you want this to continue,

get your buddy that used to be into it back,

bring him back, start building a car

with somebody else in the garage,

like do something, you know what I mean?

Yeah, if I can add to that.

One thing we all need to recognize is that

we have a lot more years behind us

than we have ahead of us.

Sure.

So enjoy that time.

Right.

Enjoy that ride.

That's a good point.

Yeah, you have to enjoy that.

Way to bring us down, man.

Yeah.

That's a real, that's a realization check.

Right. Enjoy the time now.

We don't know how much longer we're going to be doing this.

And I don't mean to sound like morbid about it,

but it's like, like he said, you know,

are we going to do it for four more years,

eight more years, 20 more years?

We don't know because like,

I've said on the, it's just like, we've talked about it.

Like we could be, you know,

there was definitely a couple of years ago,

2020 happened and we had a resurgence.

And that's why we're all literally sitting

around this table right now.

Right, exactly.

And we did that because it was,

we needed to and we all had to get back together.

And then we realized like, wow, this can actually happen.

But there are only like a small number of people

that if they were to just fall off the face of the earth,

the few things that we are doing

could also just go away again.

Like Danny's saying, it could be four years

and then there's literally nothing again, you know?

So like, I don't know.

I don't even know what my point is.

But I do, I do.

Take the reins, take the reins and do something.

Right, do something.

Do what you love.

Just do something with what you love.

Yeah, that's a new sticker right there.

Do something.

Yeah, just like you were talking about the mark,

we'll get together and how you're just looking at people,

conversation with people,

like everyone's just enjoying themselves.

And the group of us now,

where we four, you're on four-textures,

thousands of people all over the world,

we probably all know each other either directly

or indirectly for somebody else.

Like everyone at that get together knew each other.

And it's like, that's it.

Those are, that's what's left.

Yeah, you got some pockets here and there,

but if no one's doing anything, nothing's happening.

Yeah, you hear like, you'll hear somebody say something like,

well, I don't need to go to that meet.

I'm just gonna see the same 40 cars

that I just saw last year.

It's like, yeah dude, but if you don't go,

there's gonna be 18 cars next time.

You know what I mean?

Right.

And so, like just keep it going.

Right.

Because we all love it.

And you know, we're still here.

Yeah.

That's bad ass, man.

Right, it is.

Decades later, we're still here.

Like, what are we doing?

Maybe we're fucked up.

Right, can other groups of car enthusiasts

can really say that?

I don't think so.

Not many.

Let's do like, you know,

take a muscle cars and twin,

you're probably in your 60s or 70s.

Maybe that was your first car or whatever.

Yeah, but we all get so much inspiration

from those guys.

Yes.

Because they are doing it.

Like they're 60, 70 years old.

They're still putting on shows

and they're doing their thing,

you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Cars, I mean, these are just throwaway cars.

They rusted back into the earth.

Like these weren't meant to survive

and be around still today in these cars.

No, no, not at all.

I mean, some of them are, you know,

worse off than others.

But like, it's crazy

because these stupid cars

that we like bring so many people together.

Yeah.

It's wild.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Just imagine a car, right?

Yeah.

Bringing people together.

I went to a Mark II Mayday

that Ted was doing last season

and I met two guys,

both of them owned Jettys, Red Jettys.

They were like in their 60s.

They were like, yeah, we've been the best of friends

for like 20 years.

And I was like, I want to be like you guys.

Right.

I want to be with my dudes.

We're all in our 60s, going into our 70s

and we still all got our cars going on.

Yeah, I mean, I plan on doing this

as long as I can.

Yeah.

Do it as much as,

my son's already claiming a car out.

He's like, look.

That's awesome.

He's like, when you're going, car out is mine.

So I'm like, all right, who's getting a rabbit?

But then my, right?

So that's what we're here for, right?

Enjoy those times.

Pass it on if they want to take it on.

Yeah.

But set those legacies.

Yeah, for sure.

So is there anything else that you guys think,

we've been keeping the last couple of episodes

to right about an hour.

So we're right about there.

Is there anything that you guys want to touch on

that we haven't touched on yet?

Or I mean, I know we are kind of like

breezing through a lot of stuff pretty quick.

We can go for another six or seven hours

with all the cars that I've had, the 300.

Yeah.

About 90% of them went on fire.

So I mean, the end of them is easy, but.

You know me, I'm always messaging you on the side

saying, can we get these a little bit longer?

A little bit longer?

Yeah, I know.

I know.

Ryan's like, shut up.

Enough.

I make them as long as I can, all right?

Calm down.

Yeah.

We're not bringing them up with the two episodes.

And that's what happens.

Yeah, we've only had a couple like that

that have been broken up in the two episodes.

And it's like, ah.

So, but even at that, right?

This podcast alone, I think, does a ton for the community.

Agree.

A ton.

Agree.

The amount of stuff that I personally

learn from the guests that you have on this podcast

is phenomenal.

That's information that I would never get anywhere else.

Because I started listening right

before the first roots is when I started listening.

And I was like, oh, this is really cool.

And then I would start to go back and kind of pick one or two

like, oh, oh, oh, they're talking to this guy.

You know what?

Let me listen to that.

Oh, they're talking to this guy.

Let me listen to that.

And then I'm like, you know what?

No, F this.

I'm going back to the beginning.

And I'm starting from episode one.

I can't believe how many people still do that.

I can see her statistics.

It's like how many would say within the last month

what were the most popular episodes of the whole catalog

or whatever.

And number one just keeps popping up because new people

come on and they just go all the way back.

It's wild.

But yeah, I appreciate that.

It does so much.

Listening to, I'm terrible with names,

but listening to the owner of Tectonic's tuning.

Listening to the guy from Bon Brenner.

Just so many, Errol, listening to his stuff.

So many things.

And then putting faces to the people on the podcast.

And then meeting them in person.

And even Mark James, I listened to the podcast.

I'm like, talking about the Polo.

I was like, oh my god, that's cool.

I have to find this guy on Instagram

because I want to see this car.

And I'm like, oh, that's cool.

Then I start looking at some of the stuff that he's doing.

And then coming across some of the cars

that he has that were old cars from the scene.

And then I recently came across probably six hours

of old high eight footage that I had.

And I digitized all of it.

So awesome.

And I started watching through stuff.

And knowing that Mark had a couple of cars,

I found those cars on the footage.

Crazy.

And I'm like, I hit him.

I'm like, yo, check this out.

And I sent it to him.

He's like, oh my god, I've never seen that.

I said, well, I've definitely never seen it

because it's been hiding.

The footage has been hiding for 20 years.

I said, but, and then I just kept on finding it.

As I was watching through it, I would screen record it

and send it to him.

And he's like, oh my god, it was just something cool.

And it's now footage that he has of that car

that he would never know.

And it was finding that stuff was phenomenal.

Yeah.

You know, like going back through and being able to.

We were just watching it the other day

and looking about how we were like little kids.

Yeah.

It's ridiculous seeing ourselves at early 20s.

Of course.

It's embarrassing.

Very embarrassing.

Right now we've got a plan and we're

hoping to actually do something with that footage.

Right.

And trying to get it out to everybody.

Cool.

It might not be any time soon.

It's called Quatro Nova, is that what we're calling it?

Working title.

But we'd like to get it out for everybody to see.

Even I came across a video.

And I didn't realize how old, like how new it was

until I came across and realized

that the 1552 Coupe, Mark IV Coupe was in it.

And I was like, oh, so then I researched when that car

debuted and it was like 06.

And I was like, oh, I didn't think I was still

shooting video at H20 on 06.

You know, so I was like, all right.

So that kind of, nothing was dated.

And it was all just like batched on different.

Yeah, like I would just grab a tape and be like,

you know what, I could probably record over this.

Right.

Put it in the camera.

But so I realized I have footage from like 02 to 07.

Wow.

You know, it's choppy.

It's awesome.

It's an old fish eye lens, some of it.

And a lot of it's at night and you can't really see anything.

But we'll see.

We're going to try to get as much of it out to everybody

as we can.

It's information, man.

It's like cataloging it.

And that's really like why I wanted to do this so bad.

And that's why, you know, Danny says,

like when we were talking, we were saying,

we bullshit about this and we talk about these people.

And I think what happened a lot before stuff like podcast

is, you know, you go back in earlier H20 days

and people would see a car.

They knew maybe from a couple posts on Vortex

that they know whose car it is as far as they kind of see

their face like, oh, that's the.

But they talk to their friend.

That's the dude right there.

Like, you know, that's a guy that just did that polished VR

and that, you know, Mark II or whatever.

And oh, shit, no.

But that's like as far as it ever went.

But that guy's got a whole story about that car.

And he got, he has inspiration for everybody else.

Once you hear it.

And I just felt like if we could do this,

we could open up that book for everybody to read.

You know what I mean?

It's like, and just like you said, man,

like listening to the podcast actually has like

got you back into things.

We've gotten people literally have bought cars

or started projects again.

And they let us know it's because they just listen

to guests that really get them going.

Guilty.

Yeah, man.

And then that's it.

So like that, I mean, it's the same thing

as you bringing out old videos and people that have photos

that people haven't seen for 15 or 20 years,

like bring that shit back out, man.

Cause like we're all starved.

I'm also ready to take a trip to Seb's house.

I've heard.

So I know today I was like, look, I need to stop by.

That place is awesome.

So it was a good dude.

Yeah, for sure.

But yeah.

Can I ask you guys a quick question?

Sure.

Yeah, go ahead.

I wanted to know, why do you guys do this?

Like what is it like, is it like?

Just literally for fun.

It's passion.

Passion, fun, because we just enjoy doing it.

Like I genuinely like it's funny

cause we'll talk about something and we're like, you know,

it's our schedules sometimes aren't easy to get together.

We're like, fuck, we just gotta get one done.

And after we get one done, we feel so good about it.

It's just like, man, that was great to get that done

and talk to this person or talk to that person

or recap on something or whatever the cases

or talk to a group of people like you guys,

it's just fun to do.

Yeah.

I would say just the reasons I just said basically

is just, you know, we just want everyone to hear

what other people's stories are.

And that's like, we have at this time,

this moment in time, we have like the capabilities

and technology to do it.

And everybody's so easy now.

We're so lucky that we just said,

I just hit a send button and it goes out

to most of the podcast platforms all over the place

and people can just listen to that shit.

And it's so awesome, you know?

Like I'm no Howard Stern, but I can just do that now.

I can literally do what he did.

And he had to work his ass off for decades

and get as big as he did and stuff.

I can just a bunch of fucking morons sitting around the table

and recording and press send.

And like, it's that easy, but you know.

Yeah, cause like we've never done it

for any other reasons except for just for fun

because like we joke around about this.

It's like, I'll say we made like $300 in a free sweatshirt.

That's pretty much what we've done.

Oh yeah, I mean, we don't make any money off it.

So we're not, it's like,

we're not trying to do anything else

except for just put it out.

I always said, if it was going to turn in

anything more than a passion,

if it was going to turn in any kind of job,

I didn't want to do it.

So we just try to get together when we can

and people sometimes message us,

dude, when's the next one coming out?

It's like, I don't know, man.

I got my kids at a, you know,

baseball game or something and it is what it is,

but you guys all know how it goes.

Cause we've had the questions of,

oh, how come you don't do YouTube?

How come you don't do TikTok?

Like it's like everything we've done

has just been an organic way of doing it.

Yeah, just let it, let it keep going.

Whenever we can, we'll send one out, you know.

They keep the flow because it's a therapy session

for you guys and it becomes a therapy session

for all of us who are listening.

I think that's good when we hear that.

Yeah.

So because like people do say,

you gotta keep it going, you know.

I get so excited when I'm at work

and I'm scanning through Instagram

and I see the, somebody shared that it's a new episode.

I'm like, oh, yes.

All right.

He immediately announces it to the rest of the club.

Hold on, hold on, my AirPods.

New ones coming on.

That's what I'm doing for the, you know,

for the next hour and a half.

And then it's over and I'm like, oh.

Dude, Mary fuck killed none.

Oh, you have nothing for us, huh?

You can't even think of any off the top of your head, huh?

Some of them are hard.

When you send them through, I think, man,

he really thought about this one.

The last one with the Kuntas and the F-40.

Yeah.

You know, like Kuntas and F-40, I had down.

Right.

I'm like, what's the, what third car

am I gonna put in?

I think the Porsche was perfect.

Porsche was perfect, 100%.

Because that's the next one you would think of.

Yeah.

Because what poster did you have on your wall?

Yeah, exactly.

You were like 13 years old.

That was like one of the three.

100%.

Yeah.

100%.

Yeah.

Shit, shit.

I actually look forward to seeing you.

We got quite, you know, we got,

we got, we're recording tonight.

Any questions?

I'm like, yes, all right.

I got, I got to think, I got to think, I got to think,

you know.

He's fanboying, fanboying.

Oh, 100%.

100%.

As he's shitting on the toilet work.

And then I sit there, listen to the podcast,

and I'm like, when's the questions coming up?

When's the questions coming up?

And I'm like, then he starts reading off names.

And I'm like, where's my name?

Where's my, I saw it at 12 minutes.

I got to be towards the beginning, you know, like.

That's true.

I think you should ban him.

Never, never let him boast again.

And then I'm, I'm not saying that I,

that I then go on the Dub and Grub AK page,

and then the Auto Creek NYC page,

and then ask questions from there also.

I've never noticed that.

That's not me.

Yeah, yeah.

For sure.

Next marriage fuck kill, he's going to come out

with really nice six four.

It's like, all right, RS America singer,

or nine over three, six turbo or something like that.

Well, I'm, I'm going to wrap this one up.

I think I appreciate what you guys did.

This weekend was awesome.

You guys did an awesome job.

Everybody knows it.

Everybody.

It's one of their favorite parts of the weekend.

So you guys did an awesome job.

I thank you guys for coming on.

Really appreciate that.

Yeah.

If you're not able to get down on Dub and Grub,

definitely make your way down

and get there for a double grub on Friday.

It's like, it's like, it's a great experience.

It's just fun.

It really is.

I just want to say a quick thank you

to everybody that came out.

Because I said it at the event.

The event would be nothing

if everybody didn't show up.

And the amount of people that came up to me

and thanked me

and I'm sure the rest of the guys wearing AK shirts,

I'm like, no, no, no, thank you.

Don't thank me.

I thank you guys for showing up

because this would be nothing if you guys weren't here.

Four guys staying in a parking lot, like,

right, right, you know?

So it's like, I,

I try to be as humble as possible about it

because I just, I can't do it

without everybody that shows up.

And I thank everybody that showed up on Friday,

everybody that showed up last year

and everybody that showed up two years ago.

Because if it wasn't for you guys,

this would be nothing.

Yeah.

And I really appreciate it.

Let's add the AK team as well.

Those guys are solid.

Absolutely.

Those guys are solid.

We did that whole event.

We came together like Voltron.

And the AK wives, they did a lot too.

Yeah.

Your kids that are helping out.

We did that whole event yesterday

with 11 members,

a couple of wives and a couple of kids.

And I can't believe we pulled it off.

There was nobody sitting around with death.

I'm up their ass.

Everybody was doing something.

And if I needed somebody,

I just have to find somebody real quick.

Hey, can you go help out?

Walkie talkies.

Yeah.

You know, so the, the crew was amazing.

Everybody that showed up, absolutely amazing.

You know, and for anybody that comes

the next time we do one, the food's free.

Right.

Because we get, we get people to walk up

and they're like, oh, how much?

No, it's, it's all free.

It'll always be free.

That's our event.

That's the way we do it.

So we thank everybody

because guys were giving us donations.

Well, if it's free, let me give you something.

Sure.

You know, a couple of people bought shirts.

But again, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

We really appreciate it.

Cool.

Yeah, thank you.

Yep, thanks guys.

And thank you guys.

Absolutely.

We will talk to you guys soon.

Thanks for coming on.

We'll catch you guys next time.

Peace.

Later.

154. Autokrieg in the House

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