162. @foldin, @as1automotive, @tonygrimmel, @alissa.grimmel and @johnvanek
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Car
Volkswagen Rabbit
The Volkswagen Rabbit is a small car with a hatchback design, which means it has a lot of space in the back for cargo. It's popular because it's easy to drive and has a sporty feel.
Term
wheelbase
The wheelbase is how far apart the front and back wheels are on a car. A smaller wheelbase usually means the car is smaller and may handle differently than larger cars.
Car
Volkswagen TDI
TDI stands for Turbocharged Direct Injection, which is a type of diesel engine from Volkswagen. These cars are known for being fuel-efficient and having good power.
Car
Toyota Starlet
The Toyota Starlet is a small car made by Toyota. The 1981 version is one of the earlier models, and it was known for being economical and easy to drive.
Term
stick shift
A stick shift is a type of car transmission that you control with a gear stick. You have to change gears yourself, which is different from automatic cars that do it for you.
Term
burnout
A burnout is when you make the car's tires spin really fast while the car is not moving. It creates smoke and noise, and it's often done for fun or to show off the car's power.
Term
clutch
The clutch is a part of a car that helps you change gears when driving a stick shift. It lets you disconnect the engine from the wheels so you can switch gears without stalling the car.
Term
long block
A long block is a type of engine that comes mostly complete, but it might not have all the parts needed to run. It usually includes the main parts like the block and heads, but you might need to add other parts to make it work in a car.
Brand
MG
MG is a car brand from Britain that makes sporty cars. They were very popular a long time ago and are known for being fun to drive.
Term
ignition issue
An ignition issue means there's a problem with the part of the car that helps start the engine. This can make it hard to get the car running properly.
Part
oil cooler
An oil cooler is like a small radiator for your engine oil. It helps keep the oil from getting too hot, which is important for keeping the engine running smoothly.
Part
solenoid
A solenoid is a small device that helps move parts in a car when electricity is applied to it. For example, it can help start the engine by pushing a lever.
Part
distributor
A distributor is a part of the ignition system in some cars that helps send electricity to the engine's cylinders at the right time to make them fire. It's important for the engine to run smoothly.
Term
aftermarket
Aftermarket means parts or products that are made by different companies instead of the car's original maker. They can be used to fix or upgrade your car.
Term
fuel lines
Fuel lines are pipes that carry gasoline or diesel from the fuel tank to the engine. If they're connected the wrong way, the engine might not work at all.
Part
coil packs
Coil packs help start the engine by creating a strong spark that ignites the fuel. If they're not working properly, the engine may have trouble starting or running smoothly.
Part
Bosch Motorsports coil
An ignition coil is a part of the car's engine that helps create the spark needed to ignite the fuel. The Bosch Motorsports coil is a special type made for racing and powerful engines, helping them run better.
Car
Chevrolet Caprice
The Chevrolet Caprice is a large car that was popular in the 1990s. The 1992 version is known for being roomy and comfortable, often used by police and as taxis.
Car
Mark III
The Mark III is a version of the Volkswagen Golf, a small car that many people like for its reliability and good use of space. It was made in the 1990s and is often remembered fondly by fans.
Term
radiator
The radiator helps keep the engine cool by removing heat from the engine coolant. If it gets damaged, the engine can overheat, which is very bad for the car.
Term
lowered
When a car is lowered, it means the body sits closer to the ground than it normally would. This can make the car look sportier and can help it handle better, but it might also make the ride bumpier.
Term
front bumper
The front bumper is the piece at the front of the car that helps protect it in case of a crash. If it's damaged, it can make the car look bad and might not protect it as well.
Term
AC condenser
The AC condenser helps keep your car's air conditioning working by cooling down the refrigerant. If it's damaged, your AC might not work properly.
Part
axle
An axle is a metal rod that connects the wheels of a car. It helps the wheels turn and supports the car's weight.
Car
Toyota Tacoma
The Toyota Tacoma is a small truck that people use for work and play. It's known for being tough and can handle rough roads, making it a popular choice for those who need a reliable vehicle.
Car
Toyota Corolla
The Toyota Corolla is a small car that many people drive because it's easy to use and saves on gas. It's known for being dependable, which is why a lot of families choose it.
Term
supercharger
A supercharger helps an engine produce more power by pushing extra air into it, which lets the engine burn more fuel. This makes the car go faster.
Car
Audi TTRS
The Audi TTRS is a sporty car that offers great performance. The 2009 version is known for its strong engine and stylish looks, making it fun to drive.
Car
Holden Caprice
The Holden Caprice is a large car that was made for comfort and has lots of room inside. It's not as common outside of Australia, but it's known for being a nice ride.
Car
Dodge Viper
The Dodge Viper is a super-fast sports car that looks really cool and has a loud engine. It's made for people who love speed and driving fast on the track.
Car
Chevrolet Bel Air
The Chevrolet Bel Air is an old-fashioned car that many people love because it looks really cool and represents a fun time in American history. It's a favorite among collectors.
Car
Volkswagen Jetta
The Volkswagen Jetta is a small car that is comfortable to drive and has a nice design. It's a good choice for people who want a reliable car for everyday use.
Car
BMW Z4
The BMW Z4 M Coupe is a sporty car made by BMW. It's known for being fast and fun to drive, with a powerful engine that gives it a lot of excitement on the road.
Part
wastegate
A wastegate is a part of a turbo engine that controls how much air goes into the engine. It helps keep the engine running safely by making sure it doesn't get too much air, which can cause problems.
Car
Cadillac Escalade
The Cadillac Escalade is a big, fancy SUV that has a lot of room inside for people and stuff. It's popular for those who want a luxurious ride with lots of features.
Car
Chevrolet Spin
The Chevrolet Spin is a small van that can fit a lot of people and stuff inside. It's great for families who need extra space for trips or everyday use.
Car
Honda Civics
The Honda Civic is a small car that many people like because it looks cool and drives well. Some people even change its parts to make it faster or look different.
Car
Pontiac Sunfires
The Pontiac Sunfire is a small, affordable car that many people used to drive. It's known for being fun to drive and is often a good choice for new drivers.
Car
Audi Quattro
The Audi Quattro is a car known for being really good at handling in all kinds of weather because it can send power to all four wheels. It's famous for its racing success and technology.
Car
Nissan R32
The Nissan Skyline is a fast car that many people love because it can be made to go even faster with upgrades. It's popular in racing and has a cool reputation.
LIVE
Oh, what's up? Welcome to the people's car podcast. My name is Ryan Bielman.
It's sitting right next to me.
Dan Mercado. What's up?
Yo, Danny, where are we at?
Dude, we're at the grimmels in, um, I would say the sea Strasburg area.
We're in the Berg, right?
We're in Berg.
We're in the Berg. So who else do we have here?
Pat Holden.
What's up, Pat?
What's going on, man?
Good to see you guys.
See, we got to be quicker with that mic down there.
All right. Adam Strunk.
Adam, what's up, man?
Happening, dude. What's happening?
Again, we have
Turn Ferguson.
Thanks, Ferguson. Thanks for coming.
And also I'm Tony Grimmel.
Tony Grimmel.
The Tony Grimmel.
Goitis.
So, guys, let's just start.
I don't know. I mean, you're going to look at me for like we're we're I'm driving
the boat, but I really have no idea what we're talking about today.
The lake is frozen.
The boat is sinking.
Well, this is the People's Podcast.
The People's Car Podcast.
People's Car Podcast starring.
Starring.
Ryan Bielman and Danny Mercado.
So we're going to look for you for guidance on this champ.
We're just the degenerates that happen to be here.
Well, we could start with right when we first got here.
We came in a snowy winter wonderland and then we got we were never at the
Grimmels before. So we got a little tour.
We went downstairs.
Yes, there's half a truck downstairs.
There is right against the wall.
How'd you mount that puppy up?
This is why I love the Internet.
Yeah, I threw a question out and said, how can I mount this on the wall?
And I found a person that has an obsession with stiletto heels.
Not going to tell you male or female, by the way.
OK. And she had an idea.
And then I landed at somebody told me I could use TV mounts.
No shit. Yes.
So we'll retract from the wall and everything.
Yep. I get bored.
Sometimes I get down there and sit and sit in it. You know what I mean?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So he's got a whole rabbit pickup right against the wall.
And we went over a train set and nicely set up train set down there.
Pretty sure everybody at this table is on the spectrum of some sort.
It only makes sense, dude.
It was very specter me now.
Different colors.
Can you make the horn go?
Yeah. And then we stuffed Danny into a car.
Yes. So we went out and we got into the garage and Danny, how was that?
I was stuffed into a car and no six shoe horn.
I didn't think I was going to be able to get in and or out.
Luckily, I was able to get out of it on my own.
You did offer an existence.
And I appreciate that now.
It's wild how small it is.
And like, you don't appreciate it because of like you see in pictures or whatever.
It's like, OK, it's kind of small.
No, it's small.
It's the smallest car ever been in.
Well, it's got the wheelbase of a golf cart.
Does it really? I'm not kidding.
And I have golf carts that work.
Yeah. I mean, the engine's a whopping point six.
So that's pretty turbo with the turbo.
Capuchus turbo noises.
Yeah. So you had you had that pole barn.
You gave us a little tour of the pole barn out back.
You got a slew of it's like a it's like an automatic
cesspool of all different kinds of cars.
But half of them are auto, right?
Yes. Here's the deal with this.
Let's hear about. All right.
I have a question.
I'm a firm believer of happy wife, happy life.
Yes, I agree with that.
And it must be nice falls into.
Go ahead, keep going.
That was where this falls into line is that I before I purchase a car,
I have to do a few things to make sure it's a proper decision.
The first thing on the list is making sure that the wife green lights it.
Of course.
So that is first and foremost, number one.
And the easiest way I can sell her on purchase is if she can drive it.
Right. So if it's an auto, it's a 95 percent chance
she's going to let me get it.
So I find cars that I like that are auto because what I can also do
is play the poor little husband and she'll offer to help finance it.
Right. Right.
So if it's auto and she can drive it, it's all I'm good for.
But but a serious question.
Have you ever driven a stick shift or is it just like I know we're not going there?
I'd rather just not.
OK, there's too many other things going on.
Sure, I'm driving a car.
Sure. I think some people out there that may agree and lots.
I will disagree.
I believe everyone on this planet should be able to drive a stick shift.
Yeah, I think it is.
And it was I wanted it to be your New Year's resolution last year.
I tried to teach her once.
She didn't get a first.
She broke down.
She started crying.
She jumped out the car and said, I'm never doing that again.
That's not true. That's absolutely true.
Not all of it is true. Not all of it.
The tears weren't coming out of the eyes.
It was just right.
But she does not want me to teach her.
I think that is true.
I think that's thinking it was a teacher problem.
And that's just like a student.
Yeah, thank you, Pat, the teacher person.
Yeah, I can't teach my kids how to play guitar, man.
I want to, but they will not listen.
And it's very much like that.
Like, if you know the teacher too well, it just doesn't fall like that.
OK, so does everybody here, except for John,
significant others know how to drive stick shift?
Go to hell. Yes.
Yes, I'd say Heather knows how to drive sticks.
But it's been like forever.
And she isn't like she doesn't take initiative to relearn it.
OK, talk right in that mic, man.
He's in the way.
Yeah, my wife bought a TDI wagon
without knowing how to actually drive stick.
And then she just did it on her own.
She I was like, listen, you know the basics, right?
Go for it. And she did.
And she just learned.
And maybe that's something you could do.
Maybe you just go, fuck it, I'll just, you know,
get on a nice flat plane somewhere and then just try it, I guess.
I don't know.
We'll see. As long as it's not my husband trying to teach me,
I'd be open to it. Yeah.
I think if you have to know, if you know the basics,
you probably can just go and wing it yourself.
Because if you do whatever, you stall out and, you know,
mess something up, you're doing it on your own.
It's like you don't have someone there like right next to you,
giving you more pressure, you know, on you up, yelling, whatever the case is.
Because my wife was very much similar in fashion.
She did not want to learn how to do it.
And she pretty much kind of did it on her own because of the fact
that like I would be like, I don't know,
just giving her more pressure to learn.
And like she was more apprehensive about that.
So I think it is easier just to do on your own and just go ahead and, you know, wing it.
The rollback to me is the most intimidating part.
It's for everybody. That's the word.
That's the hump you got to get over, right?
My mom always tells a story.
Her and my dad lived in Colorado when they were like before we were born.
They bought an 81 Toyota Starlet in Colorado.
And my mom had to drive it back from the dealership,
but she didn't know how to drive stick.
It's Colorado, so it's like hills.
So she tells the story of like getting stuck on the top of a hill
with a line of traffic behind you and just having to figure it out.
Because otherwise you're going backwards, you know, and she still drives stick.
She'll take my cars from time to time.
Really? Yeah. That's awesome.
I always I taught Jace my stepson how to drive stick just in the past couple of years.
And I always told him, like, if you stall or you're scared, roll back.
Do a burnout. Just like exactly all the gas, none of the clutch and just go.
It'll make some noise.
People might look at you, but you'll be moving.
And then the stress of that moment of when you're stopped
and you're like, what the hell?
It'll be over and you're down the road.
You know, it's like, right, whatever, clutches are replaceable.
Yeah, that's for sure.
See, I think Pat, you would be a great teacher.
I'm pretty sure I can.
I'm almost positive.
Well, the reason I know Pat be good, though, because he's really slow,
his cars are always slower than mine.
So therefore, I think it's like a really slow.
He's jumped the light before, you know,
operates in that gray area, you know, he's like one, two, three.
I go on to that kind of guy.
You know what I mean?
So when you're the gentleman waiting for three, when you dropped your car off
to Adams, I think there was a directive when he was building it.
Wasn't it? What was that directive?
He just wanted to be faster than Tony.
When was the last time you raced?
You beat me again.
That's cool.
No, you guys go on with like a chase is a race or is just like a light drop?
Sounds like he's got to chase.
I was really just.
Oh, wait, no, I'm like, bamboozled Pat to like follow.
Nice.
The same way I got Kyle Walensky a few weeks ago.
Oh, driving, driving, taking drives with Tony is a lot like taking drives with
your like your 16 year old self in a sports car because like if you end up
next to him on the highway, he's going to try to race you.
It really doesn't matter what vehicle you're in, but if he knows you
and you're next to him, it's game on.
Yeah, and he'll try anybody.
It doesn't matter.
We drove. What was it?
We drove to New York and this dude's racing Porsches and me and like anybody
he could get his hands on.
Oh, the Porsche walk to you, man.
It was a good run, though, man.
He gave him that was not supposed to go over 140 miles an hour.
It's not geared for Tony's cars.
Like another one of these zombie VRs that has been alive for way too long.
And it's somehow like way faster than it should be all the time.
It's like almost six pounds of boost and it'll blow some of these doors off.
Like it shouldn't be that fast, but I guess it runs good, man.
The IP knew what they were doing that one time that one time.
The IP knew what they were doing.
And the car didn't blow up.
You leave that out of your mouth.
The shadiest Volkswagen in history.
The original engine was no win in races stolen.
I paid for it, but the person that gave it to me still speaking of fences.
Current engine came off the floor of NLS before it moved with no answers
of where it came from. Oh, my gosh, really?
Interesting. Yeah, it was.
I blew the engine up deck.
Now, wasn't it supposed to be like a three liter shimmel motor
that was like sitting somewhere?
No, that was the engine that Josh sold, I think.
And this long block came out of something.
They stripped it apart and it was a long box sitting in the corner to shop.
That thing.
And then Ray thing runs like that.
And Ray got mad at me because when I blew the engine up
and I got the long block for, I think, a hundred bucks,
I'm like, just put it in the car.
He's like, but it's out of the car.
Let's do chains and stuff.
So just put it in the car.
This is usually why me and Ray get in a lot of fights.
Yeah. He's like, yeah, dude, but it's out of the car.
Why don't we? I don't want to spend the money.
Yeah. He's like, you're an idiot.
Anyway, still put the motor in the car.
And then a year later, I'm like, dude, it's making a ton of noise.
He's like, yeah, the chains are slapping around.
So now you're going to pay me to take it out and do the changing job.
I'm like, yeah, but now I need it. I didn't need it before.
It's like the starter won't work.
I'm like, I'll get one on Amazon and mail it to your house.
You're such an idiot.
Cheapest thing.
That's why I'm not allowed to do stuff around cars, man.
People do not trust me.
That is the epitome of let future Tony deal with it.
Like I try to justify a lot of my decisions with it.
Let let future John worry about that.
And then future John gets really pissed off at like past John.
Past John's an asshole.
All right, he keeps doing it to me.
So this guy's out to get me.
I broke last year.
There's a car in the pole barn that literally broke me last year.
I rarely call people and I called you a couple times.
I almost threw it all away, like gave it up over all of this.
Fucking MGs, man.
Well, a lot of people say that.
Oh, my God, you know, it's bad when Tony sends you a picture of himself
with like grease on his forehead and like his hands dirty, right?
Because, you know, like nothing got fixed by trying to fix it.
I broke three more things.
It's true. I was there.
Seated and then three months into this, I've now have a starting problem.
I have an ignition issue.
I have oil cooler, pissing oil, as soon as I try to crank it.
And it won't hold a charge all because I tried to fix it.
Yeah, because all it was was a solenoid.
What it became is distributor issues.
Well, Tony, you have to stick to what you know, which is don't work on cars.
You know that you shouldn't be doing that.
I think you almost had it.
I can't justify.
You know, it's really sad.
What a friend I had a mental breakdown in Helen last year.
I know nothing about cars, but you know, who else knows nothing about cars?
Pattern.
I can't get the car started.
I diagnosed it.
I diagnosed it correctly.
What was the problem? It was a battery issue.
I told you it was a battery issue.
I'm not a fixie, but I knew what it was.
Wrap around part of the story is that the problem was caused by Tony.
Pick it on me stick to what you know.
Here we go. All right.
Yes, it's caused by me, but me and Pat are both looking at it.
I'm scratching my head.
He's like, huh?
And then we landed at.
Did you guys know this?
I don't know that the Porsche broke down in Helen.
Yeah, I think.
But we and him are looking at it in a parking lot.
Like, you know, those monkeys that are trying to, like, put sticks in things?
No, a list is laughing at us.
And essentially, Pat just looks at me and goes, dude,
there's like a hundred mechanics right down the street.
Just go find one of them.
So that's what we did.
Yeah.
That was actually.
I told you, Danny, when I saw you and your son rolling down the road,
they were sitting shotgun.
It was actually in that parking lot.
I just gave up.
They were guys, you know, more than me.
So I just was watching Danny go down this.
I mean, ultimately, not a better place to break down in, though,
because you're right. Absolutely.
I was saying.
The whole park.
Design the stupid battery cable that has a screwy thing on the top.
They didn't design that.
That's aftermarket.
Somebody put that on.
Whoever designed that.
Whatever asshole, but didn't put instructions on it.
What it was for.
Fuck that person.
Fuck that person drastically.
Yeah, man.
We have a funny story about that.
Oh, so we were trying to get his white 78 diesel rabbit started,
and we couldn't do it for some reason.
Wouldn't start.
And we were like trying to pop starters.
Me, friend Bill, Brian at his dad's house
and we're just trying to get this car started pushing it down the road
like three, four times.
Yeah. Going to Chunk.
Batteries disconnected.
One of those.
Well, I had a kill switch on it.
Yes. And it was like halfway.
Dude, we fucked with this thing for like three hours.
And then I just go in and I was like.
Fucking thing starts right up.
Feel that connection.
Yeah. Yeah.
I had a buddy back in the day who had like a whole VR project
that he put together and the thing wouldn't run for like ever.
It ended up that he had the fuel lines on backwards.
The real like me and the one other
VW dude end up looking at it the one night when we're having a party
and we're like, that looks wrong.
We switched the lines, fires right up.
He was running like coil packs.
Adam, right?
Yeah.
Like chasing this fight.
Well, like Danny, Danny's, Danny's corporate too, man.
He he brought his cabbie down to the shop
because it wouldn't run fuel lines back.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, stupid shit.
You know, it's always the color one, too.
So I chased I chased.
When we did the can't be a bomb technician.
No, I did not cut the red one when we did the most recent upgrades
on Pat's car and did the did the standalone on it.
I chased a misfire on that once we converted to standalone for like,
I don't know, four months and they ended up being the Bosch Motorsports coil
that he had installed in the car.
And I did. It was like, like, it was that one I got from Ray,
like in the summertime, some mystery.
It was in the out of a 92 carato.
It's all the car would run great.
And as soon as you plugged in the micro square, it would run on two cylinders.
And I overlaid everything and redid the harness six ways from Sunday
and swapped all kinds of parts out of cars.
The one thing I never did was take that coil and put it on another car
and see if it right because I didn't want to like ruin other people's parts.
And that would have like got me to the.
But I mean, really, like as you work on so many cars,
what do you think the percentage is of it just being something that like
because you always think the problem is probably bigger than the solution is.
It's usually everybody says, keep it simple, stupid for a reason, right?
Because like most of the time, yeah, it's something. Yeah.
Yeah. And I'm sure once you learn that so many times, you know,
then you start going to the simple.
Well, how many times, how many times do you sit there and like
spend hours chasing a ghost that doesn't exist?
You know what I mean?
Before you the next time you come into it, you go, maybe I should check the fuse
as well.
Vanneke is getting uncomfortable about that dealership life.
Like, yeah, I can only imagine.
Vanneke is a ghost hunter.
Well, that too. Yeah.
I mean, he's literally chasing.
Yeah, he hasn't caught any, though.
Hey, Vanneke, have you have you caught it?
You want to talk about any ghost stories lately? No. OK.
Thanks for keeping the podcast.
I mean, what what haven't we talked about?
Well, I don't know.
Honestly, I don't remember what we have and have not talked about on the podcast.
Me either. Yeah.
It's usually just like bullshit.
I mean, the last podcast is like cookies to do the Halloween thing.
So we probably had a lot of like
like movies and like Halloween spirit type stuff.
We had Lindsay talking about movies and stuff.
I think we we talked about some ghost stuff
and we talked about Montauk a little bit and some, you know, UFO stuff.
Did we talk about in Warwick that the
the penitentiary that I that I went to don't think so.
So, yeah, we did a ghost hunt up in Warwick at Orange Mills Correctional
Facility. Excuse my voice.
I have no way to breathe out of my nose.
He's like, yeah, yeah.
I need like I need to wear like a scuba diving outfit with like oxygen.
But no, it'll be fixed next time you get on.
Yeah. Next time I get on the podcast, it'll sound.
I'll sound really, I'll sound like Elvis.
What? Yeah.
So, yeah, we went to Orange Mills Correctional Facility for a ghost
on who's funny, a friend of mine, Adam, not this Adam.
It's it's partially a youth center now, like there's a big soccer field
and like some areas for like kids, softball and stuff like that.
But it's just in the middle of an abandoned prison.
So this guy, Adam, that I know, contacted the I guess the groundskeeper of this area.
It was like, hey, if we give you a donation to the youth center,
can we have access to the building?
And the guy was like, yeah.
So he just unlocked everything. Wow.
And it was just like, you know, sign this waiver.
If you know, as long as you don't die, you know, you'll be you'll be OK.
He just scratches out on it.
Yeah, I signed. I think I signed like Ronald.
Yeah, yeah, sure.
You have an ID? No.
So we we went around this area and it was pretty uneventful for most of it
because the the actual the main penitentiary building was like converted
to like be a haunted house.
So it was like just corny like there was like fake spiders and, you know,
fake blood, you know, covered sheets everywhere.
But then there was a couple of buildings that were kind of off campus
that were completely overgrown with poison ivy.
And so you can tell like people aren't in there.
And what's cool about this area is that since it's like active,
there's not a lot of graffiti.
There's not a lot of vandalism.
So it's like you go into one of these places and it's just it's just empty.
But there's no it's all like natural, you know, decay and stuff.
But the building that we were in,
there was a story that somebody was hung or or strangled in a shower.
And the guy, Adam, that I went with who we all make jokes
and I'm like a ghost hunter or a ghostbuster or whatever.
But that's more like, you know, campiness and being funny.
This guy's like a legitimate ghost hunter.
He like goes around the country and goes to these places.
So he had all like the legitimate gear, like not my cartoon bullshit
that I walk around with.
And he had a we were taking EVPs and we actually caught an EVP of something
screaming into a digital recorder and we had an analog recorder next to it,
which was just a cassette tape with, you know, a microphone attached to it.
His digital recorder picked it up and my analog recorder didn't pick it up.
And it's terrifying. Yeah, the sound.
I played it for you guys.
I can pull it up in a little bit and play it for the audience.
But yeah, no, like that kind of shit, like that was actually scary
just because we couldn't explain it.
You know, and I think the point of doing a lot of these, you know,
explorations and stuff is almost to debunk everything.
Like that's what you try.
Like you try to explain it away. Right.
And when you can't explain it away, you're like, huh, like is it paranormal?
Is it, you know, is it something environmental?
Is it a frequency thing?
But it was it was really strange and still can't explain it.
And apparently like they do ghost tours at this place.
Like they do them like every six months. Right.
And everybody has different experiences in different places.
But this was it was really.
Yeah, I mean, we heard what you had.
It's awful. It's not fun.
Like it's not like anybody that I play it to, they start off joking.
Like, oh, yeah. And then they hear it like never go there again.
Like, don't ever do that.
That shit's wild.
She's going to be going to play it.
OK, all right.
Yeah, all right, fine.
All right, so we'll go outside and we'll listen to it.
That's crazy.
Maybe I could play that like like while I'm driving.
So maybe Deer gets scared of it.
Yeah, play it out of like a mega fire.
Sixteen, eleven, eight.
Do you kill in in February?
Most of them, yeah.
Of last year. No, seriously, it's just 16.
We're just at 16.
Just that's unbelievable.
Have you hit one in the new year yet?
No, not going to.
You're not going to know what is going to happen.
Yeah, it's just true.
Nothing yet.
Pat, have you ever hit a deer one one time?
It just like skimmed a front quarter panel of X three.
OK, nothing like in severe.
Yeah, thankfully, yeah.
Do you guys ever worry about that?
Like in your cool cars, I mean, we know how it is around here, right?
Especially like you guys know about this and you drive your cars
and you know, you get around, especially when you're in one of the cool cars.
And it's like, holy shit, you see him coming sometimes.
Sometimes they come out so fast.
If not, you can do about blasted a deer coming back from a snowboarding
trip in my mark three, which was a pretty nice way back in the day.
And like it was I think it was already dead in the in the one lane
coming around a corner.
Didn't see it look down for a second.
Look back up. It's in the middle of my lane.
I can't do anything about it.
I hit it square on straight.
I'm pretty sure all four wheels came off the ground, bent the radiator.
You know, cars lowered, had a VR lip on it.
You know, I mean, bent the radiator, took the whole bottom of the front bumper off,
bent the radiator, bent the AC condenser, ended up like limping at home,
come back out the next morning, go to take it to like my brother's shop
to take a look at it, go back and down the driveway.
My dad comes running down the driveway, like flailing his arms.
And what happened was when I hit the deer, it tore its whole leg off
from the shoulder and wrapped it around the axle.
So when I put it in reverse, the leg came flopping out the front of the car.
So I drive the car like two, three miles to my brother's shop at the time,
put the car up on the lift and I have pictures somewhere,
but there's like a three foot deer leg hanging down underneath the car.
And we had to like, it was wrapped up around the axle.
The axle started like cooking it. It smelled horrendous.
You know, like we're breaking it off of there with pry bars.
Do you guys remember that old school? It was like an RC truck.
I don't know if you guys remember this.
It was like in the nineties and stuff, but out of the tires.
Tires, yeah, the claws.
There was claws.
He's got a hooves hit the hoof button.
Yeah. Yeah. That was my experience.
Tony, you almost hit one. You almost slam a good one. Oh yeah.
But I mean, like I'm in a cool car. Oh, you hit one with that recently.
Oh yeah. He did. Well, I've had a couple of years with the jet.
The messed up thing about this one was like, I've actually had to replace the
front, not replace, but fix the front bumper the day like five or six times
because we drive our cars. Yeah.
Which I can't believe she puts up with it because three hours in a car,
this loud as shit, bouncy as hell with no radio and smells like gas fumes.
Like a lot of people really wouldn't be into that.
But I hit a deer right around the corner from here a couple of years ago.
And it was baby deer because it was all the adult.
I know. It was awful.
It was going after it. It was awful.
So I clipped it. It anyway, it got away safe.
Yeah. Just taught it a lesson. Yeah.
But it, but it, but it did it properly messed up the bumper.
But this is my, this is the story of my life.
So I think some of you guys probably know, like for the longest time,
I didn't have a truck or a trailer, which plays a part in Hawaii and Tony were.
But my dad has a truck and my dad has a trailer.
So like whenever I need something trailer, my dad, even though it's far away,
it's more than one of them. So, so anyway,
because he has a four cylinder Toyota Tacoma. So it's like a little, like,
it's a, it's a, it's a car. It's a Corolla with a bed.
But because you have, and you got to put the car on the trailer backwards,
because if you put it on forwards,
it'll push on the tailgate and it'll lift the front of the truck up because the
truck doesn't weigh anything. Right. So very precise when you load it on the trailer
itself is for little British cars. So it's a very small trailer.
Small trailer, tiny truck, no way backing it on. This is where it gets fun.
Three of the times I've had to have the front in replaced because I ripped the
front end off getting the car trailer. So once I hit the deer,
took the car down to Danny's to get painted because he was like,
I got to paint a bunch of stuff. Took the car down there. This is where it gets
good. Danny's house has like a ring camera at it right in front of it.
So my dad's like, you need to go pick up your car. I'll help you.
I'll go pick up the car. So I just paid Danny all this money to paint the front
end, take the truck and the trailer down to Danny's house.
And Danny's like at work,
but he's watching the ring camera and then he watches me just absolutely lose my
shit. So my dad's helping me put the car on the trailer.
And then in this process, we ripped the
the freshly painted front end.
So I lose it. I melt down. Danny calls me because he's watching this.
He's like, what happened, man? He's like, I'm like, I'm fucking behind myself.
I want to kill my dad. Like,
because there's a specific way you got to do it without ripping the front end off
because you're cracking it on. So I can't see anything.
So I'm directly lined up from the person who's telegiving me directives.
And my dad's an idiot. So, um,
but anytime anyone other than me helps you load the car on,
you rip the front end, your car gets hurt.
Anyway, so Danny calls me. What's up? I'm like,
fucking rip the front. No, no, no, no, no. He's like, look,
he's like, I can tell you real chat. He's like, leave the car.
Just leave the car. I'll take care of it. But I was so,
besides myself, I was really upset and I wanted to kill my dad.
But ironically, that was one of those times where you're like,
Danny felt so bad and didn't even charge me. He's like, look,
we didn't even get the car back before he ripped it off again.
But I've, I've damaged the front end of that car quite a lot.
Why didn't you drive it home from Danny since you drive it so much?
I'll tell you why.
Exactly.
We didn't think about that, Pat. We didn't think about that, dude.
And it was freshly painted, you know,
I used to put tape on the front end and stuff. Like, like 06 style.
Is that a thing anymore? It's like, everybody used to do it.
Tony, you put tape on the front end when we went to New York. No.
So you'll get a kick out of this. Um, deflection. No,
no, I deny, deny, deny. No, it wasn't. It was, uh,
it was like race car tape and it's not for,
we said tape in the work. Just hear what I'm saying. It's the clear shit.
I don't put tape on my front end, but I put tape on my front end. I'm done.
Yo, now if you put blue tape on the front of the car, it's just like,
it's like a retro thing.
Like, oh shit. Yeah. Looks like all the cars are in H2O. Exactly. Yeah.
Some rally. Any mark one, mark two, people might get this.
Mark three people don't think will, if I go above like 80,
my hood wants to fly open because the air getting in there.
So I put tape on it right at the top of the headlights.
Speed tape. It's like race car tape. It's like that's race car tape.
You better watch a Pat just out of curiosity.
How many wins you got on your own? Sorry,
racer boy and not as many as you. So Pat,
since the last time you were on, I don't,
I think you just had a naturally aspirated car.
I'm pretty sure.
Yeah, I don't remember. It was a bunch of years ago anyway.
Maybe I'm wrong. No, I think it was like going,
maybe going at him at the time and he was starting to throw it together.
Because you haven't been on since like maybe 22 or something. It's been a while.
I think maybe it had just been done maybe.
But then we've, you know, since
rebuild the whole engine again, well, not again,
we didn't rebuild it for the first time, but yeah, so we,
that's exactly why we were, we got to where we were.
You know, we just kind of threw the supercharger on it.
We did standalone like Adam mentioned before.
And yeah, I just kind of drove the shit out of it and it started smoking.
So it was getting blow by pretty bad.
Yeah, a couple of the front cylinders suffered some, some damage.
I think, you know, it was, it was a kind of an unknown mystery motor a little bit,
but it had like the cast two, nine pistons in it,
which don't fare very well to boost or detonation.
And, you know, the supercharger set ups tend to get pretty hot. So.
Right. Yeah.
But now it makes all the cool noises.
Yeah, no, no, it's so cool. I love it.
It's, yeah, no, it's a ton of fun, a lot faster.
We also did a CAE shifter.
So yeah, oh yeah, and a diff too.
We did a bunch of stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Did the Tech 53 rear brakes.
Yeah, just like some little kind of.
It's like you're putting it all together.
It was like it was like maintenance and revisions.
Yeah, because a lot of it was stuff that had been done X amount of years ago.
And Pat, you know, drives his car.
So little patches up.
You know, I've had body shops that I've just been friendly with
kind of like help me out with things here and there with screws in your front bumper.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, so I don't go investigating underneath, you know,
but sometimes when Adam gets him, he finds some secrets.
I wasn't even, yeah, no, no, no, exactly.
He he unfucks some things for me.
You know what I mean? Yeah.
Just, you know, makes it a better car, which is kind of just like
all I really want to do is just make it cool, better.
We just try to keep it running for Pat because he enjoys using it.
See, that's so awesome.
It's cool to hear that.
Keep it going. You know, a lot of times like someone has a car,
maybe they do it once and then they don't kind of like, you know, refine
and they don't go over things.
And then sometimes they get bored and then, you know, then that's it.
It's kind of like Vanick, what he said.
Like at some point, like he's going to be adding boost to his car.
That's what he said on the last podcast.
So like it's just another whole realm of something you get into.
And then it's like you fall in love with the car again.
You know what I mean?
OK, Vanick needs some oxygen.
We'll just let him alone.
He saw a ghost.
Yo, and then what happened to your wheels last year?
Oh, yeah. So last year
I was out at Lime Rock Park for like an FCP Euro day
and parked the car, walked around the track or whatever and went back there.
And I don't remember was it my front?
I think my front right was just completely flat.
So ran around, got a little, you know,
Corey Sterling helped me out,
set me up with a couple, couple people.
I had an air compressor and I filled it up, hoping it was maybe a slow leak.
But it was a faster leak.
So it's usually like 90 minutes from Lime Rock to my house.
It's like three hours and some change is stopping all.
So I mean, I have like a space saver tire in the back,
but I'd have to take off adapters and all that stuff.
You know, be a whole thing.
So I just I just wanted to limp at home and which I did.
It took a long time, but I got home and the wheel is just
the barrel has bad cracks like around many of the the bolt holes.
So yeah, they just don't hold air like multiple of them are at the point
where they hold air.
So it's not even like there was one specific hit that I took on that ride.
It was just kind of like a straw that that broke the back.
Um, yeah, so I, you know, that's going to be a big rebuild on those,
which I'm thinking about doing.
So but not yet.
Haven't done anything yet.
And then the roots was coming up.
Right.
So I wanted to do something, have wheels, you know,
something other than stocks on there.
So I got a set of
Cup one reps and 17 inch, 17 by seven, 17 by seven.
I'm pretty sure there might be seven and a half, but yeah,
I got those set up on there.
It has a pretty cool look.
You know, kind of like changed up the way the car looks.
Just like fucking run it hard kind of look.
Yeah, I'm nervous with the wheel.
Like I mean, like going up to like 17s, really like really changed
the way the car drives.
Like it feels more rigid.
I like a little bit more ground clearance is fine.
Right.
But yeah, I'm a little bit nervous with less rubber on there.
I just haven't, you know, the old setup, you had some tire on it.
I really wasn't scared of shit.
So those those wheels won't fit with a meteor tire on it.
They they they rub pretty bad right now.
Yeah.
And then not really bad.
The the fronts are OK, but it's close.
Yeah.
And actually they do hit the liner, the fender liner on some turns.
But the backs, like the tires just chewed to shit, you know.
So like, yeah, I'm maxed out on the rears for sure.
I guess I could fuck around with the offset a little bit,
but I got the money into the adapters.
I'm good.
I'm not trying to they fit, you know, they definitely fit.
And yeah, you know, I don't do I don't have as much time
to do a lot of driving like I used to.
You know, I used to be able to take a long weekend
and hit up a show wherever.
But I got to work a little bit more these days.
But yeah, no, I have a last summer I had a good time.
Jase, my stepson, I think most of you guys know at this point.
You know, so he's got his mark one and I just had a blast,
just like cruising with him to some shows. Yeah, driving.
Like, even just like Sunday evening, just like drive around the area.
You know, Danny knows the area I live in pretty well.
It's it's pretty beautiful, you know what I mean?
Like rolling hills and just some cool old farm roads.
Like that's been like a whole new thing.
Like rolling, rolling around with him.
Sure. Fucking cool.
Resurgence of the passion from someone younger,
bringing something to the to the equation.
Right. No, no, sharing it with him has been been super cool.
And just totally like reinvigorated.
No, yeah, I wasn't like low on enthusiasm or passion for it.
But it's like something a little new, you know, as well.
So yeah, that's when we all used to be able to ride around with our friends and shit,
you know, and now everybody has, you know, if they have kids or they got
house or they got jobs or whatever.
And you just can't do that anymore.
So if somehow that works out, you know, I got someone at home.
Yeah, you want to go for a ride.
Yeah, fuck. Yeah, that's cool.
Heather and I do that all the time.
We just go for rides because there's not always something to do or something like
she drives something else or she goes with you all the time.
She probably do either, but she loves riding alone.
Like she likes riding with me.
She's like an excellent shotgun.
So like if we're taking the car, she's there and she she's happy with wherever we're going.
Yeah, for sure.
You have you have a new car that you could talk about a little bit.
That had a bit of an interesting story.
Yeah, that was pretty cool.
How that played out. Yeah.
You're a five cylinder kind of guy.
Yeah, yeah. I've been doing five cylinder things for a little bit.
I definitely like that power plant and kind of kind of stuck on it.
But I ended up in March last year.
I ended up taking possession of a crate that had a fully built
CPA to five turbo from a European 2009 TTRS
that that had been sent to IRAS in 2017 had had been gone through
and had a turbo put on it and it was literally sitting in a crate.
Probably, I don't know, 15 feet from where I worked for the last 10 years,
but never made it into a car.
The guy ended up bailing on on the projects and wanted to sell it
because he was paying storage on everything.
So when I heard he was selling it, I hit him up real quick
and I was like, you still got that crate with the motor in it.
I'd like to I'd like to have that.
And he was kind enough to make me a killer deal on it and sell it to me.
And I didn't have really plans for it.
But I'm like, this is this is like one of those things you don't really pass up,
you know, right, whether I put it in another project.
I bought that Blue Mark one and I was like, maybe it ends up in that thing.
Or maybe I flip it to buy the thing I want or whatever.
I wasn't really sure started just kind of daydreaming one day,
looking around at cars and found found a low mileage TTRS,
kind of local to the shop, ended up talking to the guy who owned the car
and lo and behold, the car needed a motor.
It had a bad cylinder. That's wild.
So yeah, it was pretty, pretty great.
And this all happened in 22 days.
Yeah. So end up talking with the guy, basically said to Heather,
I said, Hey, if this car is like an 80% car, I'm going to buy it.
And I'm going to put that motor in it.
And she's like, yes, definitely.
So go down and look at the car.
The car is 50,000 mile California car, limited color, limited production.
All there like 100% dude has the motor out of it,
just kind of sitting in front of the car and he was going to fix it up and and sell it.
So strike up a deal with him, ask him to put the motor,
just kind of hang it back in the car, hang everything on the car and I'll come pick it up.
And then so so we ended up picking up the motor.
I think on Monday, picking up the car on Wednesday started swapping it.
Friday drove it Sunday and then put like 4500 miles on it between July.
And when I took it off, like when I took it off the road,
just recently when the when they started putting salt down, right?
So it was fun to get back out there and cruise around and like get some drives in.
We got to take some cruises with with Tony.
We got to I got to go to Pat off for me a place to stay at roots for the whole weekend.
So I ended up going to roots for the whole weekend and hanging out with them,
which was awesome, took the car down.
We went to Euro Summit and had some like,
do we put what I don't know, 700 miles on the cars that weekend and drove all over the place.
We didn't take any highways.
We took all back roads.
It was awesome the whole time.
So yeah, so majestic through state parks and everything.
It really showed me what like a quality car could do.
I thought I was on the razor's edge and was going to die the whole time.
I was drinking coffee with on a cruise control.
We were like, I'm going to die.
You know, we're we're two lanes down not down like this little highway at one point.
We're just cruising and I I'm not really paying. You're just cruising.
I'm just cruising.
And Tony, well, like I said earlier, Tony's an instigator,
so he's not like hanging behind here.
He's running up on my door repeatedly.
You know what I mean?
But then we get to the place and he's like, man, I was like sweaty after that.
And I'm like, really?
We're like, oh, we were doing one hundred and three.
I'm like, really?
We were in a turn doing one hundred and thirty.
Really?
No one was not supposed to do one hundred and thirty do it.
We had a good time. Nobody died.
Let's put it that way.
We were close.
You weren't. But I know.
But isn't that wild when we do like, you know, you might all of us might get into
an old car, you drive it hard for the old car, right?
But then you get into a newer car
and you don't really even think about how much better.
I mean, you think it's like, yeah, you get in, it's solid.
It doesn't sound like anything you take off.
You can take, you know, turns hard, whatever.
But when an old car has to hang with the new car, it's fucking wild.
How different they've been.
It was fun, though.
Like we still we still stuck together and ran pretty hard.
We weren't having the same experience.
No, no, no, I don't think so.
No, no, no, we're overheating with the wind, you know, functional windows
and no like gasoline smells inside the car.
It's different.
I love the drama and theatrics.
Yeah, right. I love the sounds.
I love all the things.
The nicest car I have is the one I hate driving.
Yeah, currently, I like to drive.
I totally get both sides of that spectrum, though.
Like you get a spectrum.
I'm on that spectrum, bro.
I'm on that spectrum.
Like there's no there's no denying you get back in a 84 rabbit
and go for a cruise and you're going to feel completely different than.
So look, yeah.
Funnest car has the least horsepower vehicle.
It is a 600cc car that does not go fast, but it is a thrilled drive.
It makes all the right sounds.
And to me, I need that whole experience.
Yeah, I'm not a guy that likes really fast, new stuff.
Top speed is not really all it's cooked up to be.
I'd rather be ripping up curvy back roads
and then just go in as fast as possible.
A slow car fast is fun.
It is so much fun.
And you know what? Do you guys know Ed Sheets?
That name sounds familiar.
He started NGP.
Oh, but he got out of it and he went to Florida.
So both city. Oh, I know both.
So I've been talking to a lot lately
because I had a bunch of questions about nine and sixes.
But if you follow him, my man's got like high dollar or high dollar cars.
And they just keep it up and it's insane.
It's wild.
And do you know the cars he loves?
Because I just talked to him about this last week,
the cars he loves to work on and drive, he loves boxers.
Yeah, no shit.
He's like, because for this, I can tinker with it.
I can have fun and I can drive it hard and it's not that big of a deal.
He's like, if I look at a GT2, it costs me $5,000.
Yeah, look, I just look at it, turn the light on, it's five grand.
And it's kind of like there's a there's a level of insanity
that comes with a level of cars.
Because I think all you guys know the buddy that tons of gas guy, Mark.
So like we go down to his place every time we go to Georgia.
And he's got obviously he has a warehouse of for us,
especially guys like eighties and nineties, shipboxes, like it's the dream.
And because he's got a gated Mercilago and he's got all these crazy cars.
And when we were down there last time, we were tinkering with his Riger
Characo, which is not even in a class, can't hold a candle or anything.
But like, we're out there like taking the headlight bezels off, spray painting them black.
And put you know what I mean?
Like doing the stuff you did in high school and it was very jovial.
I think it's the right word to use where it was just fun
because there was all this crazy exotic stuff around.
But for some reason, it's fun to play with the stuff that was cheaper
that we had when we were younger, that had a little bit more of a nonsense involved with it.
And I've really carried that into everything that I've been doing up here lately.
It's like, I like the little bit more questionable stuff, right?
Stuff that's a little more fun, the stuff that if it breaks, not that big of a deal.
It's just a lot more fun.
There is something to be said for cars that you're not like overly concerned
about damaging when you're using them.
Like that's it does make them a lot more fun.
When I was younger, I never knew when people would say that
because people would be like, oh, it's so much fun to drive the cheap, slow stuff.
Like I totally get it today.
If there's just and I thought of this because I thought of you recently.
The most fun car to drive is the car you have no money in and don't care about.
And it makes me think of that Caprice you had.
Yes. Oh, the Crown Vic.
I daydreamed about like offroading it and jump.
You know what I mean?
Like, yeah, there's something to say for that type of fun to where like,
you'd never do that with your rabbit.
No, like you'd never do it with your green car.
Like you drive your green car.
But like that stays on the road, right?
Like because right now, like I want to take a car to a track.
Like I want to go right.
I want to go run a track somewhere.
And it's like, I want to take the jet of the track.
I don't want to pay five grand to paint the front end again.
You know, like, well, can I buy what?
$3,000 piece of shit can I buy to just get after it somewhere?
And like, that's what I find myself looking up and buying.
Like it's just the $2,000 E 36 or the.
I think the further on in time we get to those, you know, it's 2026 now.
Like an old car now is like a fucking 2014, you know what I mean?
And and like, we're so used to all this new shit where it's like
we knew what it was like with the old stuff.
And to get back to that and to have that fun, just like everyone tries to get back
into their kind of childhood fun or like, you know, you just you're bombarded
with all the new shit and the screens and the electronics and everything else.
And it's like sometimes you just don't want.
You don't want it. You don't want. You don't have time for that.
I think our generation searches for the cars with the knobs and the plastic
and the clicky buttons and all those things, you know, because that's it's like
it's what we experienced.
It was the visceral experience that got us into cars.
You know, sounds that they made.
Yeah, for sure.
The Pioneer Dolphin deck.
Yeah. Yeah.
Didn't Best Buy have the wall of head units back in the day?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Do they still have that there?
No, I don't think so.
Three head units.
So everything's caught play.
I want to know if there's so they had like a mock car in my Best Buy.
It was like a Dodge Viper.
I know you could sit in it and I had this speak.
All right. No, that's crazy.
Bel Air, Maryland had it going on at Best Buy.
Clearly. Yeah.
It's the Upper East Side.
Yeah.
We circuit city was crazy for us.
Like that's where it really was.
Walls. Yeah.
They had that whole room.
They had the room you could go in.
Well, Best Buy also had the installation bay that had glass windows
and you could see the people working on the car.
And yeah, with like no tools, like hammers and shit.
Those were all my friends.
They were smoking weed on their lunch break.
That's crazy.
I don't think they waited for the lunch break.
Most of those guys.
PC Richards also had the sticker they could put on your car.
It's like audio professionally installed by PC Richards Technician.
And it's like the cars on fire in the parking lot.
But the stickers there.
But the stickers.
Yeah. Yeah.
The real question.
What is everybody's favorite car they've ever owned?
Drive.
Not to own.
Not to look at.
But one that we've owned.
One that you've owned.
That is tough.
None.
My TDI wagon.
Yeah, probably.
This is the most comfortable car I have.
Uh, probably the most fun is to be dead serious.
The the GLI I have now.
That's what I was going to say.
I was going to pick that for you.
It's it's just a it's a it's an ABA swap with a new speed charger.
And it's got an basically a Bilstein cup kit with stock wheels and air conditioning.
And it handles awesome.
It it's fast for what it is.
It's comfortable.
It's just a car.
It starts every time.
And it's just it has everything that I need to enjoy.
It could rip around corners.
It could do 120 miles an hour.
And it could just take me to work.
So it's as boring as it looks.
Like it's also still it checks all the boxes for like an 80s boxy like analog looking car.
You know, like if you just drive it, you get the best of both worlds.
You get OK, the car looks like a stock Jetta, like a survivor time capsule.
But it's also modern enough to where it could keep up with a newer car
and operate like a newer car.
Yeah.
We're moving mics around.
How about you, Adam?
I think the most fun I've had with any of the car.
That's tough, man.
It's like, how do you how do you quantify that too?
Because like my Blackmark one, I had a lot of experiences with that car.
And I like don't want to downplay any of that.
You know, I think it probably had a large impact on, you know, where I am today.
But also, like this is not what I asked, though.
Right. But so that's why I'm having a struggle, though, because like that.
Well, I guess it probably wasn't the most fun.
Yeah. And sometimes you look at my point.
Yeah, you look at the most experiences that might have been the most fun.
But the car was the most fun.
That's what I'm trying.
The car that I've had, it's it's it's probably a bit of a toss up
between the Greenmark five and the TTRS, OK, because they're
they're kind of both the same car.
Quick question before we move on to anyone else answering that
now that you have the TTRS, like, does the mark five just kind of fizzle away?
And I know it's sad, like I have intentions on getting back to that car.
The problem with that car was that I took everything off of it.
Right before I started the shop, right.
And in order to put it back together, the way that I want to put it back together
to, you know, complete my vision of that project is is a large requirement of time.
And I haven't been able to figure out how to take that kind of time to set aside
to be able to work on my own.
But isn't it very hard to build a all wheel drive
five cylinder turbo car when you have an all wheel drive five cylinder turbo car?
I think I can see where it.
Yeah, but like they're they're well, one CSG and one's manual.
Oh, OK.
So they're different in that respect.
And I think even even now, which one's manual?
The RS, the TTRS is manual.
The the mark five is CSG.
Got you.
I think they're they they both have like their shining spots, you know what I mean?
But I we drove like when I put that mark five together was like
just pre covid and we spent so much time just driving that car around,
taking it places and going to cars and coffee and hanging out and whatever.
And I had like I had a ton of fun.
I think I think maybe the mileage is indicative of how much fun I have it
because it's probably the only car I put 10,000 miles on, you know?
Yeah, that's everything else gets like I had that black rabbit for 14 years.
And I think I put 7000 miles on 14 years.
Yeah, you know, but the the green rabbit, we put 10,000 miles on in two years.
Yeah. So I think that probably the most fun at this point.
Yeah.
Patrick.
Go ahead.
I mean, it would be my green car, I think.
I mean, I had a I had a 2008 BMW Z4 M coupe.
That was a really cool car, but it was like a two year lease.
So like, I don't know, it was really cool.
It was probably one of the nicest cars, if you will, that I've ever had.
But like green cars, what I've had the most fun in, you know, it's
yeah, and I was definitely like, I think my love taking else.
Yeah, that's what it's all about.
It's the fucking hell.
The fucking hell.
But he takes him so gracefully.
No, he doesn't.
No, he's just not.
He gets rowdy.
Well, you usually blow him up on fun Instagram, too.
So like it's not like you see that show we went to, or I made a big sign
that said he lost in the dropping air.
I don't know why I hang out with this guy.
I have no idea.
Yeah.
That's great.
Danny.
I think my first carado had my first 260 carado because I went from like
a limit, the 75 Plymouth that couldn't handle for shit on anything.
It went straight fast.
You know, it was a straight line car.
And then I got my first carado.
I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe how good this thing handles
and had a cupcake on it and had some bolt-ons and motorist bill and stuff.
So it was such a different car from like a muscle car.
And I think that's why I like I still like these kind of cars because it's like
I like the muscle car stuff.
I enjoy that, but just such a different driving experience and driving a car
that actually can handle and be fast and like has some creature comfort.
You know, like the windows actually go up and go down and sometimes
pin up its carado and up, but it's I think that car.
And that's the first one that I bought that was out of high school.
So for me, the carado is definitely that car because like I still think back
like, what am I doing?
Why don't I have all these other random ship boxes?
Why don't I just try to go get my carado back and like relive those experiences?
Because I know where it is.
I know it's probably the same at this point.
I challenge it.
You know what you think?
It'd be all this nostalgia he's looking for.
I don't know, man.
It's like the sequel sometimes.
Like you revisit something so long later that it doesn't ever live up to them.
Possibly rose color.
Last feature heroes.
No, it'll never.
But but that's not a comparison.
Yeah, but he's like fantasized about it for, you know,
a very long time as he has.
And so that's a tough one because like I thought about buying cars back
because I liked them, but it's the same car back.
Yeah, that car I haven't.
So that car for me was I haven't been.
That car has been driven by me since 2005 or six.
So it was a long time that car has been off the road.
And I bought another carado to try to experience that.
And I did until I hit multiple deer with it.
Number seven or eight.
Then we got rid of that car because I just couldn't do it because
like, oh, this car is a deer magnet.
So I don't think it's a car.
I think it's you.
You must like it might just be me.
It must be whistling through your teeth as you're driving on the road
or the traffic or some shit, you know, it's possible.
Yeah, it's possible.
Jesus.
I think I think being that I've had a bunch of Mark ones
and some more twos and everything else, honestly, I think of Mark four,
our 32 just to get in it every day.
And it just drives so well and it's so good.
And if you have one set up, that's not like stupid slammed and it's just right.
Like that is such a good car.
I've had three of them.
The third one I had, I bought and I only had for four months.
And I talked to you about this a little bit when I saw you at the skate park.
And it was a 600 horsepower.
Oh, you got rid of that already?
I did.
I had it for like four months and dude, honestly, it was just like, it just,
it was cool.
It was super fast.
But like, I just felt like it was a party trick.
And I felt like every time I got in or someone was in the car with me,
I'm like, you know, watch this and just and it was never like,
you can't just drive it when you're driving it.
There's no like, so something about like a naturally aspirated,
just a mark for our 32 is such a good car.
And then I've said this before, whenever I'm about to sell a car, if it's get,
there was a couple of Mark ones that were getting shipped other places
and I raise them up, right?
And I put like sensible wheels and tires on them just to get shipped.
But I do that one last drive and I'm like, oh, my God, this is so good.
You know what I mean?
You know, and it's so goofy what we do.
But Anthony and Dave's orange rabbit.
Yeah, it's like a bone stock rabbit with good suspensions, decent brakes
and a one six car.
But like, what a blast to drive that car.
It's so nice to just cruise down the road in that thing and like take some
back roads and whip around a little.
And didn't I just see that he wants to take that engine out and put something else in it?
And yeah, I think he's toying with some ideas.
But he had he Dave had been pretty said fast on keeping that engine in there
for for a long time.
But maybe he just wants a little bit more at this point.
That is such a cool car.
And that's the exact reason.
But you could ruin that with like a 400 horsepower motor real quick.
So fast.
And that's kind of how I felt about the turbocharged R.
It was just kind of like it's just kind of ruined.
Like it takes the essence out of what that car was.
Everybody thinks they want a thousand horsepower.
That's right.
And it's generally not as fun as I've had with cars
that make two, three, four, five hundred horsepower.
Five, five.
Yeah, I mean, it's over here.
You got five hundred.
Oh, I don't have five.
Oh, we'll drive.
Five hundred doesn't feel that crazy.
You got you got.
Yeah, now we might have all together.
You know what I'm saying, though.
Do you work on any cars that we don't really know about that are like stupid,
fast, like big horsepower cars that.
I mean, I've got this two, five project I've been working on for a bit.
That's it's gunning for 14 hundred horsepower.
But that's yet to be seen.
You know what I mean?
So it's like those are the goals, but I don't know if it's going to
succeed in doing that.
But obviously we hope it will come into the coming to the end of that project
here shortly.
But most of the other stuff that I'm doing is like
either a little more show tailored or a little more like moderate performance,
which is nice, because I'd rather I think I'd rather do that.
Like, you know, a guy who comes in and asks for a modestly built four hundred
horsepower VR, it's a lot easier to provide like a good end result
that's got some longevity to it.
Then the guy who comes in and says, I want a thousand horsepower and I want to go this fast.
Yes, like, do you let's talk about have you ever done that?
Exactly.
Have you ever even had anything half right?
That because four hundred horsepower in a front wheel drive, a
corner box from the nineties is wild is a is a lot is a lot.
You know, so yeah.
So like it's nice because not everybody wants the craziest shit.
Right.
So we're doing a Mark three cabbie right now.
That's like modestly built VR turbo got a really nice Mark two.
We're doing a two five turbo into but like stock block unopened RS turbo.
So like low power, you know, driver kind of car.
Yeah.
And a handful of other stuff along those lines.
You know, our 32 turbo with like a smaller older HBA kit that we're going
to refurb here in the next couple of months.
Do you see do you see younger kids come like, no, I guess younger kids,
younger than us, right?
So like, are there 28 year olds that are coming in like with cool shit or not
really, is it kind of all, are we just all growing up at the same, you know,
it's funny, man, because if you, if I like walked you through the shop
and described the owner of each car in the shop right now, I don't think
you could actually draw a picture of what what that person looks like.
Like the the cabbies owned by an older gentleman, you know, an older guy
who's been into this stuff for years and it doesn't look like a car
that an older guy would own, but it's, you know, it's really clean white
cabrio, was a two liter ABA like untouched until I pulled the motor out
the other day. So it's, it's hard, like, but I do think like a lot of
a lot of the bigger projects tend to be people our age a little older
because they're able to put that kind of money aside into something.
But I do have a slew of younger customer base that have newer vehicles,
like, you know, some RS three customers and, you know, some seven customers
and stuff like that. And some of those are like younger, techie dudes.
Sure. I don't really ask, you know what I mean?
I'm not, I'm not a pry, but like physically, they look younger.
You know, what does that type of person look like?
Nerds, you know, nerds, bro.
So it's kind of across the spectrum, but I think as far as like the builds go,
that's more tailored to like people our age.
Yeah, like us, right? Yeah.
Even, even, even a little bit older. Sure. Yeah.
Yeah. Like a 35 to 55 maybe, right?
Like that's kind of the area. Yeah.
Because that's the generation that's passionate about their cars.
So and now, you know, a lot of them have good jobs and can support themselves
and are in positions to spend to get the car they want.
And luckily I'm in the position to build them the car they want.
Yeah. So it's, it's pretty neat.
It's really across the board.
It's really cool. I've heard you say before that, you know,
a lot of times you hear people that open a shop and they're doing like
a cool speed shop kind of thing and you have your niche.
You got older Volkswagen's and people bring your shit.
And then some people kind of start working their way out of that, you know,
because they're like, well, I could do this for more in this faster and everything else.
And it kind of turns into what they never envisioned at first.
Yeah. And then you're like, I don't want that shit. No, I want the cool stuff.
Yeah. The goal is always been to work on the cool, the cool car.
You're still doing it. Yeah. So like that's fucking awesome.
I've I've made a bunch of decisions that might not be the absolute smartest
just to keep my, you know, my passion focused where I want it to be.
The goal is always to to build cool cars and not just work on the, you know,
random stuff. So it's, you know, I feel lucky that I'm able to to do that.
Most days, you know, for sure, it's been pretty cool.
That's awesome. I'm going on year four this year.
Is it? Yeah, already.
Thank you. Yeah, congrats.
Yeah, it's been trucking by, man.
Did you you looked at Tony when you said 400 horsepower?
Is that how much the jet has?
No, because he runs low boost.
It's probably it's probably drastically less than what do you think?
It's a couple less than I have, I think.
Would you say like 320 or something like that?
Honestly, this is the part where I said that Tony's cars is the zombie VR six
because realistically, he should be making like 275.
Right. Right. You know what I mean?
But the car runs way harder than something making 275.
Right. So it's it's tough to say, but like Tony also like doesn't really
pay attention to what it's doing.
He just it's the pedal.
So like, you know, it's like that need to get stock under the hood.
And you don't know because he never opens the hood because he doesn't know.
You know, turns out the waste, the wastegate's been zip tied
shot for like 10 years and it's making 35 pounds boost.
Yeah, exactly. I don't know.
So the tune is for six pounds.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, I got his boost controller in there.
It tells me right on five, six pounds.
That's crazy.
Yeah. I mean, but realistically, Pat's car probably makes equivalent in boost.
So they should be like running in in a similar ballpark.
It's very close.
It's a I'm a better driver.
Because he has less car. I have a trunk. He does.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So he's got the weight advantage, too.
Yeah. Yeah. Plus, I always got to listen with me.
So there's that extra weight, too.
What is my car was billed in a dim lit shed.
Pat, next time we go on a road trip, we're pulling some spark plug wires off
Tony's car before we leave. Thank you.
Yeah, we'll get you.
We'll get you your win.
Somehow we'll get you a win.
We're going to have to cut some zip ties, but we'll get you your win, bro.
That's a.
I was just under there yesterday.
Dude, so many zip ties.
Zip ties are currently holding the intercooler up.
Perfect.
We broke it off going where?
Um, what show we're going to?
No, we were going to visit Tony and Janet.
No, and then Jetta.
Now we're going to a show and then I stopped at the hardware store and both
of us like gigantic zip ties.
So do it.
You ever you ever go into a hardware store and find out they're out of zip ties?
It's because Tony was just there.
No.
I was going to address it, but hey, it's hanging up still, isn't it?
I'm a, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Type of guy roots.
Probably were driving the roots.
That's probably what we're doing.
Roots would be a whole nother beast if the roads weren't terrible.
So as you know, and I'm sure everybody here agrees,
I've been really trying to push like cruises the last couple of years.
Yeah.
Because it just happens to be way more fun than the event.
Especially if you make like an event of going to dinner or something,
because a handful of us went to rabbit on the rocks recently.
And it's the show itself was it was a good show.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of cool, cool people there and things of that nature.
But meeting that Tim's house balling out together, going back on a dinner together.
Like that experience made it just a thousand times better.
And I'm trailing a car somewhere is not going to give you that experience.
It's kind of where I'm going with this.
So therefore, and it was really nice to see Kyle Walensky actually get to enjoy his car for once.
And I think he's he's at the place where he's OK with like if he gets a rock tip finally.
But that is what we missed so much of for too long, man.
Everybody builds and this is kind of why I asked the question.
We spent too much money and time into these cars that we don't want to drive.
And then we've lost the point of building the car.
And it's sad and it's absolutely sad.
That's why I think it's not having a truck and trailer.
It's actually been extremely valuable experience for me because I have had to drive it everywhere.
So therefore, I had to have the experience.
And then the problem is, is now I just knock everybody else down the trailers.
That's shit. The truth isn't just jealous.
But how I'm going to frame it.
How I'm going to frame. Oh, you're going to lose her.
Little bitch, we're going to need to clip that part.
So we can why can't we have a truck in a trailer?
Well, we have an escalade now.
You're a truck now. Yes.
I mean, yes, this is a new six. Oh, this is a new a new thing that has happened.
We have a trailer and truck and the wheel spin.
But like round on the rocks is so much fun.
That was a lot of fun. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Honestly, the drives have been my favorite part for the past, probably.
Five to eight years rather than what I think a lot of people love
is watching and hearing cars, right?
So like that's what or driving them.
So not only do we not have a lot of shows anymore, like obviously,
we all went down age to all that time.
We would sit there and if you weren't driving the crew that's driving the strip,
you're sitting right next to the strip and you're watching and listening to cars go by.
And that was like the best part of it. Yeah.
I mean, when you go to a show, the show is going to be cool.
You're going to hang out with friends or whatever, but everything is static.
Nothing's happening. It's all, you know, standstill.
So like, yeah, if you can if you can incorporate a drive with a bunch of buddies
to some events, I mean, it's like the best of both worlds.
I think that's what this year should be.
I think we should make a conscious effort.
Now, tell you why, because something's happening this year that's really exciting me.
So I don't know if everybody in this room always had like class and taste in cars
with like German cars.
I obviously have terrible taste in cars as evidenced by a lot of the stuff that I own.
But I am a Nopi national kid.
Have any of y'all ever done it? Yeah, yeah.
So they're bringing it back in Atlanta.
No shit. And the Nopi crews would start
where I used to live to go down to Atlanta, but they stopped two times.
It was like a like a cannonball run type thing.
And big body kitted civics, like the whole night, all the junk from it.
I looked at thousands and it was epic.
And they're doing they're they're bringing back Nopi and they're doing the crews
and everything. And the reason I bring this up
is because H2O was about getting with your buddies and going H2O.
So the idea here now is is I think we should all make a conscious effort this year
to at least try to plan something along these lines.
I've been seeing a lot of those rallies, like the overcrest style rally
where you link up somewhere and they do a bunch of.
Yeah, and it's extremely successful.
And there's a reason for it. Yeah, you know.
So that's the goal.
I think it's cool when you do that, too, because you get to not only
do you get to drive your car and hang out with your friends,
but you get new experiences in that, too, because you're going somewhere
you've never been, you're seeing things you've never been.
So it's cumulatively like much more of an experience
than just go into the same car show you've been to 72 times
and sitting there with the same people.
What I will say, though, is sometimes certain shows have, like,
say, an after cruise or something.
And then if you're not getting like on some cool roads where you can kind of
spread out and like kind of move around and see other cars and stuff.
When you just see the ass of the same car for 40 minutes straight,
you know what I mean? You go home and yeah, I'm sorry.
I got to drive home, too. I agree. Yeah.
There's a number of there's a number of cars where like the cruises get.
Cruising is called train suck.
Right. I mean, right.
That's that's a good point.
Every intersection and nobody's waiting for anybody else.
Some of the guy in charge pulls out in front of a line of traffic
and then everybody gets so like there has to be no strategy.
That's so May Day.
The the May Day cruise actually is has gotten difficult over the years.
Too many because I mean, the past couple of years, we've had 40, 50 cars.
But the problem is, is like I'm very conscious of keeping everybody together.
So like just to get on the highway,
I have to wait on the shoulder for two light sequences.
Well, why not like an A and a B, right?
So someone goes and 15 minutes later, group two goes, you know, I mean, FOMO.
Yeah, but if you have two huge groups, like so we used to do huge group
cruises down to like H2O and all that.
And I think what actually ended it was that when you put that many people
together, somebody ends up doing something really stupid.
And we had a couple instances, one in particular,
where somebody did some real dumb shit and almost took out like four or five people.
Yeah. And that was kind of the end of it, because after that,
nobody wanted to cruise with any more than, you know, five or six cars.
Right. Which, OK, I mean, five or six cars is a good number.
Yeah. But 35 is too many.
It's a lot. Yeah.
You know, there's something to be said about what you said about the Nopi Nationals.
Look, but at the beginning, girls, the reason why I say that is because
many trucking posters, scandals, you know, we tend to stay in our lanes
of like doing a lot of like the same shows with the same people.
And like it'll be cool to go to like a Nopi Nationals and like show force
and with the same friends, same people.
But like it's cool just to go to something that you've never gone to.
Yeah, many truck shows and many truck shows are awesome.
Oh, they are like Carlisle back in the day.
It was fun to go to.
So there was that grassroots show out.
Yeah, you went to that one.
And it was a very different world from what we're used to here at this table.
But the drive, the drive was really nice.
And the atmosphere was good.
You know, so like it was a great.
It was a great way to spend, you know, the day or whatever.
Yeah, you just don't see like a like a big Volkswagen
gathering or following at like a non-Volkswagen show.
So like, especially like, yeah, they all do it to us.
Motherfuckers. No.
I took Pat's car to the local hot rod show when I had it the one year
because I got a bunch of a bunch of buddies that are local to the shop
and they all do hot rod stuff.
So I had Pat's car in the shop and they were down at the park
right down the street hanging out doing hot rod stuff.
I took Pat's car down there and I just parked up diagonal
like right behind them in a sea of hot rods.
And Pat's car was the one with the most people around it.
No, you want to know why?
Because green because flashy.
You want to talk about that?
I mean, Pat's car is flashy.
And Pat, you're a butthole.
The last week was it's not flashy.
Right. I see the pole kind of showed me.
Like in my mind, I think I have like an explanation.
Sure. Sure. It's just that Mr.
Thumbs, come on, give me some bullshit.
No, it's not bullshit in my in my mind.
Like bright didn't equal flash.
But I guess to like most people, it does.
I accept that.
I mean, you know, you don't have to make it a bigger fucking joke than it is.
No, I mean, it's yeah, I didn't see it as flashy.
And like one of my points was like,
if you took my car and like put it in a black and white.
Right. What's what's going on with it?
Not a lot of flashy.
But that's so again, I just like in my mind is just like,
you know, when you turn the brightness off, it's a it's just a kind of
it's a bright scale of gray.
And don't let me wire any fuel pumps.
Yes, but go back to like the the Volkswagen,
the shows like Nopi Nationals and stuff like that.
I guess I'm in like a minority here, but like I just do not give a shit about
shows that aren't basically Volkswagen focused.
Like I just I don't give a shit about your BMW.
I don't give a shit about your Honda.
Yeah. I mean, look, clean ones.
I've got I've got time for them.
You know what I mean? But like most of my Sunday,
I would rather just be around like my friends
who primarily drive Volkswagen's and like that's what I want to do.
Like I don't like have fun at Nopi.
Like I wouldn't I wouldn't do it.
I wouldn't take the.
So that's the whole point.
It wouldn't be the show.
It'd be the whole experience of the cruise down to the show.
To Adam's point, I don't want to cruise with seventy five strangers.
Like it'd be like the last thing I'm going to cruise with me, Pat.
And I thought we were cruising with this whole Nopi National cruise or whatever
you're telling me, all you're going to see is my tail lights, though.
But. Oh, my God.
Damn.
I know he's brutal.
He is so brutal.
It's unfair.
I'm glad a couple other people showed up because I couldn't.
I couldn't have done this for two hours.
I'd have left.
We'll give you the opportunity soon.
You can leave, Pat.
Um, so what are you guys looking forward to coming up?
I mean, I know we're kind of we kind of do a lot of the same circuit.
Sunshine and warm weather.
Oh, 100 percent.
To that point, forties in the bag is back.
Yes, I saw that.
That's same location.
Same location.
Aaron is doing it again.
It's like that's a beautiful spot.
It's going to be forties in a bag like all the way.
So that's off the top of my head.
I want to say it's September 26. Don't do them dirty.
I don't know. It's a Saturday.
It's 20 something.
I remember that much.
OK. September 20 something is a Saturday.
Forties in a bag.
Check that if you don't know about it, camping and everything,
camping and everything. Yeah, you set up like it seems as though
exactly the way it used to be.
I'm sure he'll make some tweaks.
It is going to be, I think, kind of like
a sign up or invite only kind of thing.
So like, I guess like, check whatever his Instagram or Facebook page
to get more information on that.
But it's coming back.
So that's that's the thing I'm really looking forward to.
The normal stuff, of course, but that coming back is is a big one.
Be cool if everyone checked it out.
My home show, too, is close to me. Nice.
Does anybody have any favorites throughout the years?
Roots has been a blast, but we.
Interesting enough with, yeah, anyway.
Yeah, Wildwood is is a lot of fun.
So.
What do you want me to say?
Hey, shit, Helen is always a blast.
I'd like to make it to Helen.
What do you mean?
Yes, never been to go.
Can you talk in that front, please?
Is this better?
It's just not so.
Yeah, it gets in the way.
I'll show no go.
I've never been to Helen.
Wow, dude, it's on the bucket list.
But everything is every year, something gets fucked up.
Yeah.
Like we planned it out the one year and then like everyone we got the house
with was like having surgery or got sick and then everybody bailed.
Yeah, so I was like, OK, well, and I'm sure you're some old people.
And he had and then your shop is like,
yo, just so we can get the hell and that's all I care about.
Right? Yeah.
Well, you got nine people telling me their cars need to go to Helen.
I did that twice.
It happens. He's lucky.
I like him. I know.
It's like, thanks for having your car there, but I'm not going to be gone.
Yeah. Yeah, it was a sacrifice.
My own ride. Exactly. Pat.
But yeah, one of these years, Pat won't be up my ass.
And I'll be able to go. Yeah.
Pat takes you down there.
Dude, it's fucking great down here.
That's exactly what happens.
You should really be here.
Yeah, you should really get here sometime.
Why not? What happened?
Oh, dude, it's a it's a must.
It's it's such a good show. It looks cool.
It is. It looks cool.
I'm into it's my favorite scenic things at this point.
My that that too, man.
So I love I love Paul too.
And you guys pause great because.
It's been a long time since I've seen like event organizers
that do a lot of work with really not expecting much return.
And that's why I like Paul because, you know, it's a lot of work.
He he doesn't make anything.
Right.
And someone like Becca that runs a show and then doing it's all the money.
Yeah.
It's it's a far cry between the people that do it because they're passionate about it
and then the people that do it because they're looking to make a quick buck.
But I like Paul like the way he runs it because it's more so he's trying to make
it the worth see thing, right?
All the get together.
That's kind of what it's supposed.
And it's just about the bunch of people getting together to have common interest.
Hundred percent.
And he's doing a great job of keeping the bullshit and the riffraff out.
And it's really like it is a lot of work.
Yeah, it's a lot.
And dude, and he he's like strategically thinks about how to do that every year.
And he's got a lot of thought.
It's not he's not just putting it on and then letting people know.
And then, you know, some people bitch about, well, we don't know the dates and stuff.
Well, that's kind of by design, you know, and it's like you'll figure it out.
Yeah.
And if you're if you know, you know, exactly pretty much, you know, because it really
has the guy when you want to know dates, just text Pat Holden.
I know that not to be a fact, but I'm not a snitch like Tony.
I won't.
I won't tell who told me dates.
You don't even have the dates.
She's sitting right here.
Well, you're right.
Like people are posting on like, I think it's a Facebook page or something and saying,
hey, you know, what's going on with X, Y and Z.
And he's like, this is a dead thread.
Yeah.
This is 2025 thread.
So it's just that thread.
And people are like, what do you mean?
They're trying to find out if you know, you know, so.
And I love that.
Yeah.
Clearly had a lot of issues with people not acting accordingly.
So you've got if you want to keep going, you got to do something about it.
Those cuts run deep down there.
Those people don't forget.
And there's like, I mean, just from an outside perspective of someone who watches,
you know, watches the proceedings on the internet.
Sure.
Doesn't actually go to hell.
It seems like he puts up a hell of a fight every year to make it happen.
Dude, you know, the fact that he got that show back basically from,
it was absolute chaos and whatever, maybe 14 or whatever that was 15.
And then he gets it back.
And then how we've basically showed the people and the,
and the, um, the business owners and everybody that like, we're not bad people
and we were going down there and really most people are very respectful.
And a lot of those guys are like happy to have us.
And they're good, like just nice people.
But you see, you see how many, how much he had to thin it out to get that.
And he's writing that fine line every year just to make it actually,
it makes me want to just shut the fuck up right now and not even talk about it anymore.
You know what I mean?
Looking forward to it.
Don't go.
Yeah.
But you're right.
Cause like every year it might be the last year.
You don't know when to stop because of whatever the outside forces are.
So what was your favorite car show experience of your whole life then?
And what show?
You're getting some deep ones, man, which is great.
I love talking about that.
What is your fondest event memory and what event?
I can answer that.
Please.
What the hell was the name of the show?
John Hanna show and Kip Love.
They put a show on Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The name is escaping me.
I'm sorry about that, John.
But I drove down there for that show.
I think it was 2014 or 15, 14, I think.
And I got, the green car got best of show, but then I also got,
and it was the same weekend I got to meet him, the Bynum Choice Award.
So Jeff Bynum gave me that award there that day, you know,
and then I think he passed away that fall.
Oh no, no, no, I'm sorry.
He passed away the fall of 2015, I believe.
But either way, it was like, you know, more in hindsight, it had a more meaningful day,
you know, after he passed and we didn't get to be, you know, closer friends then I would have guessed.
But yeah, that's kind of one of the most meaningful, memorable car show experiences I've had.
Sorry for the down there.
No, it's cool.
That's a tough one, man.
Is it?
It is.
I think it's a lot of car shows, man.
There are moments that always like, I can't say like a specific...
Yeah, is that based off like awards you won?
No.
Or friendships we made?
Look, it doesn't need to be that deep.
Like if you have, okay, so for instance, 2003, Performance Volkswagen came to H2O
and they brought the whole team, Elliott brought everybody.
Somehow I was running the torque video magazine stuff back in the day.
I don't know if any of you remember that.
But I rented out an entire floor of the hotel.
And they came over and I bought Kristal because I wanted to be a pimp.
But anyway.
You say it, right?
Huh?
You say it, right?
Yeah, anyway, so I had the whole PVW crew, my whole crew, the cars are everywhere.
And that was when like, yeah, we were doing some reckless burnout shit, but not really, you know what I mean?
And I got to light Elliott from PVW's head on fire.
Has anybody seen that photo?
I send it to him every year on his birthday.
But like, because in the moment, I was young, we were all young, it was a lot of fun and it was harmless.
There was nothing about awards at that time.
It was more so, how can 50 of us get together to now, because PVW was the gold standard of the magazine.
And how did I, this punk ass kid from Bel Air, end up lighting the editor's head on fire?
You know what I'm saying?
Like, and then he re ran that photo like five or six times.
Every time I showed on PVW, I giggled like a schoolgirl.
Oh, sure.
And, you know, so that is on memory.
Yeah, for sure.
There's so, yeah, so there's so many.
I think there's just so many of those though, like just from years of going to H2O.
Because every year of early H2O was a blast.
Like we always had so much fun down there before it got ridiculous.
Yeah, I don't know.
There's a lot of reckless shit from back back in the day.
Like, I don't know.
You all do remember?
We wrote toilet paper on fire.
Yeah, you know, I don't know.
I've been arrested in open city around a multiple time.
And my car impounded a lot of bad memories there too.
Yeah, I think a lot of times it's like the moments that like we'll never forget.
And I may not know what year it is or something else, but like honestly,
it's sometimes something as easy as you're walking out of like a donut shop
and you just see like a mark to VR turbo just fucking it's just the right moment
and you walk out and you just see it rip by just burning the fuck out of the fucking tires.
You know, and you're like, holy shit.
And it's like the perfect sound.
Maybe you're younger at the time and you're just jaw dropped and those kind of things
like stick out.
I could tell you, you know, 200 certain things where I'm like,
you just remember that like it was yesterday because it was such a big deal,
you know, as a kid as a younger guy, I guess.
But those singular kind of moments.
I know what you mean.
I'm thinking more and more like about H2O.
Like just certain just literally moments that's just in the second season.
You know, like the group of cars, the group of people that were just there in a moment.
It's just like, holy shit, this is this is cool.
I have memories of H2O where it's like we just remembering all the different people
that were in the same hotel room together.
Like it's like, holy shit.
That was pretty, you know, people I looked up to when I was first getting into cars,
we ended up partying with them at the hotels and stuff like that.
It was pretty wild, but there's a lot of like really fond memories from early on.
And can you accept the fact that maybe you're that person to somebody else nowadays?
It could be. Yeah.
Yeah, it's super important. You got to think about that.
That's crazy. That's a crazy thought.
No, think about it for a second.
Yeah, but I don't, yeah.
Because we all have all of our stuff.
We don't think much deep of it, but like I'm really quick to talk to people in social media,
like really quick, especially when it comes to recovery stuff.
Like I get a shockingly amount of people questioning about recovery and stuff,
but like I just posted a picture of the pole barn two days ago yesterday, whatever.
And I got like five kids, like younger kids, and they're like, they make a statement.
Oh, that's really awesome. It's the dream.
And so I started chit-chatting with them. You know what I mean?
This is pretty cool.
Like what if, what if I'm that guy now?
You are to somebody.
But that's, but we also have a responsibility now of being that guy.
Yeah.
To like shoot up and show up with that guy.
If we want the next generation of quarantine.
Right.
We all have to be that person.
So there's this guy, I don't know if you guys know about this.
This guy building this crazy rally.
Why buddy?
I don't know what country because he's messaging me not in English.
I've been talking to him for months.
It's awesome.
So do you, I guess dank is a word like cool.
Does anyone know the language?
What language?
I don't know.
Anyway, no, no, no, not dank like slang.
Like anyway, so he's building this car and I saw it on like a German page.
So I'm like, yo, I mentioned, like this is rad.
It's so stoked.
I'm so happy.
He's like, I've been daydreaming of your car since you put it together.
I'm just trying to make something as close as cool to yours.
That's fucking cool.
I'm like, dude, you're cool.
My man's, he's making it out of metal though.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
And like just how much work he did for the gas door was profound.
Um, but so like I'm talking to him in this different language, but I'm like, dude, how
old is this guy at this point in time?
But it's cool because I reached out to him thinking his stuff was really cool and he's
really responding to me going, wait a minute, you're the one that I'm trying to emulate.
So it's just, it's a neat experience to be able to do that.
If you don't get lost in the clout chasing in the nonsense in the bullshit and just
make sure that we take the time to do that kind of stuff.
Yeah.
Talk to the kid at the gas station, you know, whatever, do the burnout in front of the
dudes, you know, going like this, you know what I mean?
Whatever we take the cappuccino out, we're stuck talking absolutely everywhere we go.
I believe it.
We have this rule now.
I don't have to talk.
She will answer everything.
And then little kids want to sit in it.
You know what I mean?
The parents want to take photos of it.
Like I don't want to be everybody the asshole that's like get away from me.
You know what I mean?
The problem is if we take the car out, it's adding 10 minutes to every stop.
My mark one was like that.
I don't know if you've had a similar experience at all, Ryan, but like my mark one was the
same way.
Every time I went to the gas station, some old roll up.
Oh, I had one of those when I was 16.
I have one.
That was my first car, blah, blah, blah, blah, every time.
I love that though.
I love talking to like older guys and stuff that gets super stoked on just seeing something
like that.
They're like, you're just fucking driving that around and still look.
Oh my God.
You know, that's that's cool.
My wife picks on me because when we go to car shows, I always end up talking to the
old guys.
They're like, it's the flip of the conversation right now.
I've been gay in the car.
My old dudes that have all the secrets and all the tips and have been doing this for 65
years.
And if you find one who's willing to like chat with you and share all that you can learn
so much from this.
So I always end up talking to my wife.
Yeah.
So like just trying to get as much of the information before it disappears, you know,
it's funny.
You said that about like, you know, now other people are younger generations looking up to
possibly awesome cars and stuff.
And like every time I see my son, he's six.
That's exactly how I feel with them.
Because well, given the fact that he's already like learned how to break down and how you
run out of gas and like all those.
He's a good dad.
You taught him how to wire people backwards.
Yeah.
Something like that.
But like, honestly, because like, I see him looking up at me, like he's literally looking
up at me, you know, like over here, you punk.
So it's like, I got to get my shit together.
Yeah.
Did he say something like that?
We're breaking down again.
He's like a fucking shot right in the heart.
He was like, dad, why are we always break down?
He came to me with his head down.
He was like, dude, the kid knows already.
It's all part of the experience.
I just got my stepdaughter her first car and it's a mark five rabbit.
And of course, like, I bought it because I know, like, I know the car.
So like if it breaks, I'm, you know, obviously I'm going to be the one fixing it.
Sure.
Get me a car that I know how to fix.
Lifetime warranty through AS one.
But of course it breaks on day three of owning it.
She hasn't even driven this car yet.
You know what I mean?
Like I've driven it more than she has.
She just got her permit the other day and it's broke.
You know, it broke the filter housing, shit the bed and started leaking oil all over the place.
So I'm spending time fixing the car, but I'm like, I'm enjoying it.
Like I was enjoying fixing it because I knew she was excited to drive it.
You know what I mean?
So like it had more, more meaning to it.
You know, I mean, it wasn't just another mindless repair.
Right.
The kid wants to drive.
She's so excited about the thing.
She loves the thing and she's so excited to rip it around.
Yeah.
And like, because that's like a present to her.
It's like, you know what, you're getting this and then you can enjoy watching her drive it.
And I think the part I enjoy is that she seems excited about it.
Yeah.
That's very cool because Heather and I are both car people.
So for the kid to be into that stuff too is, is great because that's, that's so much of our lives.
Yeah.
Do you, do you foresee just a little sidetrack?
Do you foresee ever going somewhere else or getting closer to your house with the shop?
Or is it one of those things where like, you know, you don't want the shop at your house
because you don't want the problems just fucking waiting for you.
Yeah.
I think to some extent that's probably right.
So my house is right down the street from NLS.
So for 10 years, my commute to work was a minute and 30 seconds.
Hard and warm up.
There was no buffer zone between whatever happened at work and getting home.
Now the shop is 23 minutes away from my house.
And honestly, that's kind of perfect.
It's all back roads.
Yeah.
There's no traffic because I'm usually doing it late at night and I can just kind of zing through the back roads
and get home.
It takes 20 minutes and it's plenty of time to like clear my head.
Yeah.
Re-center myself or whatever you need to do so that the day can be the day and home can be, can be home.
When I first opened the shop, I said to Heather, I was like, are you sure you want to let me do this
because I'm going to be there all the time.
And she says, you're already in the garage all the time anyway.
So what's the difference?
And I'm like, to some extent, you're right.
I'm just 20 minutes away now instead of right outside the door.
Yeah.
So, but I think I don't want to be any closer.
I think I like that distance.
It's the only bit of separation I get from it with how easy it is to get a hold of somebody now
with social media and email and whatever.
Yeah.
Having some
Separation.
Define separation is really nice.
Yep.
Some boundaries.
Yeah.
And I hear horror stories all the time of the dude who has the shop that was out behind his house.
People showing up Sunday night.
Three in the morning coming from a state away.
And it's like, I don't, I'm there enough.
I don't need, I don't need any more of that.
So.
Want to hear something scary?
People at my work think I know how to work on cars.
So when their stuff breaks, they ask me to help them out.
That's it.
That's the scariest thing.
Horrifying.
Little did they know.
He's just got zip ties.
All the time.
Can we fix it with zip ties?
Can you, yeah.
That's a drive shaft.
Yeah, take it to the shop.
Vanick, there's, you used to always see like when you drive by a Volkswagen dealership
and then like you knew where the cool cars were when you saw out back,
because it's where all the technicians were and stuff.
I feel like that doesn't really happen much anymore.
Cause it's like just a bunch of normal dudes.
So it's, it's funny.
Like, it's actually kind of the opposite.
Okay.
At least, you know, my dealership, we, we have a,
and I'm not trying to like insult the people that I work with,
but as far as like a mechanic technician standpoint,
we, we have more enthusiasts than.
Relations.
Yeah.
We have a lot of people who want to like cosplay technician and like,
you know, it's funny.
It's like, you always know when the,
when the mechanics are leaving cause like the parking lot sounds like,
you know, lawn equipment, you know, we have a lot of, you know,
we have a lot of like Honda kids and BMW kids.
Not a lot of people are like Volkswagen people.
And it's funny.
Like a friend, Tony, who has a one four swapped rabbit pickup.
I was asking them, like, when you bring this in, like to,
like to the kids or like,
Oh, I was right next to you when you're saying that.
And he's like, no, they don't give a shit about this car.
They don't care.
Like when I bring the GTI to work, like other than it being red,
that's the only thing that people know about.
And they're like, oh, it's, oh, you brought your red car.
Like, yeah, like it's, what year is it?
It's 85.
Oh, it's really old.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, that's, it's like, you know, like some of the salesman will come out
and they'll take pictures of it.
They're like, oh, I seen this car on a video game.
It's like, no, you didn't, but whatever.
But, um, yeah, like there's not back when I started like working on cars,
like, you know, in the, in the early to mid 2000s,
like that's when it was like peak fast and nefarious.
Like everybody wanted to modify something.
You know, like I worked in the independence.
So like we had a lot of like, you know, cavaliers and sunfires and,
you know, tiberons, like those were like, and, and, you know,
your, your mark three and mark four would come in.
But now it's just like, you know, I just, I just want a car, you know,
nobody, it's, it's funny.
Like, so the enthusiast comment that I make also can be on the opposite side of
people just looking at it as a job.
Like, oh, this is my job.
Like I work with people who are my age who don't care about cars.
They just look at it as, okay, this is just a job where I like tighten and
loosen bolts all right, you know, like they don't care about a car that comes in.
That's modified.
Like there's a guy that I work next to that, you know,
a completely modified mark seven golf arc had come in and he could not tell the
difference if it's tuned or not.
That's why I was like, no, he'd be like, why is the air filter out of the box?
Right.
Like that kind of like, is this car like, like, why is the car so low?
Like stuff like that.
And it's, it's just weird.
It's like, how did you get into this industry?
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
You know, like, did you not know, like, like, did you just come in thinking that you
were just going to be fixing, like, you know, broken cars and like not see
anything other than what a factory car is supposed to be?
Yeah, it's, it's weird, you know, but I'm sure other dealerships are different.
You know, Volkswagen is weird, you know, Volkswagen, Volkswagen is a very weird
company and Volkswagen people are weird.
And there's not a lot of, I think, dealer texts that are also dabbling into, you know,
modified cars, especially older modified cars.
At least that's, you know, where I'm from.
Yeah.
Well, I guess from where we are and stuff when we still like drive around with
fancy places, and maybe it was, you know, years back, but like, that's where you see,
like, there'd be a chrono.
Yeah, you would see, like, cool.
There's a pickup.
That's me.
Right.
That's you.
And again, this is where we go back to the, oh, where that guy now.
Right.
Is now I'm the guy who brings like this crazy Mark two VR GTI with a body kit and people
are like, this guy's from fucking Mars, you know, like, you know, or actually, that's
the coolest guy.
I also get like, Oh, I want this guy to work on my car because he owns all these old cars.
Right.
You know, and it's like, well, that doesn't really translate to, you know, newer shit,
but okay, whatever.
Sure.
Right.
Interesting.
I always thought it was kind of weird.
The alternative perspective there is like, I always thought it was kind of weird when
people walk into the shop and they don't look at anything that's in the shop like, I'm a
car guy, but they don't pay attention to anything that's going on.
And I'm always like, I'm always like, if I walked in here and I was 16 to current age
car guy, I'd be like, I'd be asking questions.
I'd be sticking my nose in everything, trying to see what's going on.
Like when I walk into your shop, you got to do like the tour.
You got to be like, Holy shit, what's going on over here?
So many people who walk in and don't give a like, I've had people come for job interviews
and go, I don't care.
I just need a job.
Like this is not the place for you.
Man.
This is not the place.
You're going to hate this.
Yeah.
Because if you're not passionate about this stuff, you're going to have a bad day.
Sure.
You know?
Yeah.
It's like, poof.
It's funny because we just had an experience in an Audi dealership in Jersey and we were
going to bar Q7 and you walk in, there's an RS6 on the short floor.
So we're like, you know, the salesman's like, okay, come on in.
And like, you know, my desk is over there in the corner.
And we like stopped like, they're like looking at the RS6.
And then like, there's just all this random cool stuff around.
And he can see that he's like, come on, like, you know, keep walking with me.
Like, let's go to my desk.
Whatever.
We're just like fixated on everything else.
Then you want to look at, let you look at the cool stuff.
Right.
Right.
And we're like, and we go look at the Q7.
It's up on a lift because the dealership's pretty small.
And there's an Audi Quattro sitting next to the car on a lift.
And it's like, what do you mean?
Like paying attention to car we're buying and everything else.
Where did that come from?
And it's like, yeah, if you're an enthusiast, like that's where you're looking at your
gravitate towards that stuff.
And it's funny.
Like if you have someone that's in that kind of professional line of work, it's like
you said, how do you, how do you get into it?
Like was like someone like in your family saying, like kicking you out of the house
and go get a job.
So you stumbled upon a dealership.
Like it's weird.
That's a weird thing.
Yeah.
Go walk to the nearest dealership and just get a job.
It's strange.
Yeah.
Especially like when dealerships, they don't like promote their specialty cars.
Like my dealership in particular is like, like we have like seven golf hours and none
of them are in the showroom.
Like they're all like in the parking lot.
They're all getting shit all over.
And it's like, again, the people who I work with, like other technicians, like, you know,
a golf or will come in.
Like we had a, we have a 2000, we have an R32 that comes in the shop.
Guys from Connecticut.
He only brings the car there for me to work on.
Why?
I don't know.
But the car has 308,000 miles off.
That's crazy.
And I think it's incredible because it's like he, this guy will die with this car.
Everybody else in the shop is like, Oh, what is this piece of shit here for?
Like, like you don't even fucking know what you're working for.
Yeah, exactly.
Like you, do you not get it?
Like, like all you guys like, you know, and then like, I'll start the car.
I'm like, what engines in this?
It sounds good.
Like, do you guys not know anything?
Like, like you all.
And it's funny because like, these are some of like the, the senior texts there too.
I mean, there's, there's like two other people that are older than me.
They work there and they just like, they just don't know what they're looking at.
Right.
You know, it's like 300,000 things to be in the fucking junkyard.
Like, okay.
Like the car was made for one year.
Yeah.
Like it's a one year only car.
Fucking give it.
Like, don't make fun of the car.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's wild.
Sometimes you guys probably experienced this, but like you were saying, Adam, when, like,
when you stop at a gas station, you got say a mark one or something, people run over to you.
But then there's the opposite.
When you see like a guy in a mark seven R and he's pulling out of the gas station, you
pull in and he literally doesn't even know.
He'll, he'll snub you.
Or he does.
He literally doesn't even know.
Like it's like, dude, get the fuck out of here.
Funny story about with the old Jetta, the Vesta tech Jetta, I was driving that.
I was driving that in town.
And this was like 2013, 2014 and somebody with a brand new GLI pulled up next to me and he's
looking at the car.
And I'm like, I don't like cool guy people.
Like I'll just like, I'll acknowledge you and the guy like rolls the window.
And he's like, what?
I'm like, well, I, I don't know.
Like I saw, he's like, what?
He thought it was BMW.
No shit.
I don't even know what kind of car it was because again, it doesn't look like it had, you know,
had a quad, quad squares in the front, like all this wacky shit.
Like I had the heck blend in the back and like, I'm like, no, this is a Jetta.
He goes, really?
I'm like, yeah, it's actually a GLI.
Like your car is the new version of this.
He goes, oh, whatever.
And just drove away.
Like you get that kind of shit too.
Like even in the red car, like I'll bring it to a gas station.
Like a guy in a golf RL show up and like he'll like look at the car and be like, what's up?
So it's, it's whatever.
It goes both ways.
It does.
It really does.
And sometimes maybe people just get like intimidated even they see a car like that.
And they're like, whoa, like in their mind, come out of it.
There's an idiot.
You don't know how to like, they perceive you or whatever.
That's true.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
Dude, as far as flashy cars go, I think Vanix got the, got the hit on everybody.
No, no, no, no.
Pat's car.
Pat's car is flashes.
Because man, I mean, I love your car.
I think between my car, Tony's, Shirako, and how you use this way flash.
Oh yeah.
Dude, I didn't even think it was your car gets a lot of attention.
Yeah.
You're pretty ridiculous.
You were parked in a showroom.
Yeah.
You set that up.
I know the people and I wasn't putting the showroom.
So I didn't set up.
What showroom was he in?
He was in a BMW showroom.
No, no, no, no.
It was a Middletown Volkswagen.
They did the Bears cars.
They had one.
They put three or four cars in the showroom.
One of which was Tony Grimo.
Whatever happened, what happened to that show, that one that was in that park, is that going
to happen again?
Like, do you remember that?
Yeah.
No, of course.
They did it.
That was cool.
They did it in the showroom, kind of.
Oh, okay.
So they switched it up.
Yeah, they kind of, I think they had ideas to try to continue in that park, but they're
kind of, I don't know, trying different things maybe.
That like worked out surprisingly well.
I was like, wow, this is awesome.
It's a good show.
No, they've put.
It was right in the beginning of the year, so it was really cool like that.
Yeah, I hope they keep going.
Yeah, for sure.
All right.
So I'm just going to ask like maybe one more question because we can't get to two hours
or this will turn into a part two.
And then we'll have to go to fucking four hours.
Let's fucking do it.
It's marathon.
We podcast all night.
Like, where are we going from here?
We're all getting, we're all getting older, right?
Like, does this continue?
Does this like, when we go 10 years down the road, are we all, are we all hanging out?
Are we still like driving these cars?
Are we still doing this?
You got to look at who are the people who are 10 years older than us right now.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
It's a good point.
Everybody in this group and I, you know, people who aren't in this house right now,
we're all between the ages of, I would say 35 and 45.
So who is in their mid fifties right now, early sixties that is still doing this?
My dad.
Okay.
Besides your dad.
Well, I'm like some of the first people I think of because you talked about the two
fives.
So I'm thinking rich, right?
And I'm thinking Scott Norton and I'm thinking like, like,
you know, right?
I think, I think if we all stay, I think we all stay in touch and continue doing things
the way we're doing.
I don't see any reason why the majority of us, I think people will fade, but I think
the majority of us will still be doing this because it's, it's something we're also rooted
in.
What are you going to do otherwise?
What are you going to do?
What are you going to do?
What are you going to do?
What are you going to fucking quit?
I think there's something to be said about that because I think a lot of people that
have faded out already, like, you know, over the years, those are the ones that, you know,
maybe came in and went and whatnot.
But for most part people have been doing this.
We're still doing this.
And the people that faded out of the cloud chasers.
Yeah.
If we haven't faded out yet, we're not fading out.
What am I going to do?
Stop.
It's a good point.
I'm so invested.
But not to get corny, but don't you guys think like, like everybody that keeps doing
this only gets tighter?
You know what I'm saying?
It's like, cause.
Yeah.
But then we got to bring the, we got to bring the younger generation.
No, you're right.
You're right.
There's part of that.
We are.
I agree with what you're saying.
We have to come up with new shows.
The longer we do it, the more we get to know one another.
We become tighter.
We know what each other drive and we like, but to what Adam just said, that's kind of
like the important part is encouraging younger guys to do this.
Yeah.
You know, if we're, cause we ultimately will get smaller, right?
Like not everyone is going to stay.
Adam said majority.
Realistically, it probably is a majority.
10 years from now, 50, 60% of us are still around just because of life for all the reasons
why the guys we hung out with 10 and 20 years ago, who don't still do this.
You know, there's still into cars and different kind of ways.
But if we don't encourage the younger people, the Mark seven kids right now, the guys that
are, you know, whatever, tinking around with a Jetta.
And maybe it's, I don't know, underglow and other stuff we don't necessarily think is
all that cool.
Wait a minute.
Whoa.
Sorry.
Come on, man.
Hit pause right now.
Daggers.
But like it's encouraging those people to have, I don't know, just a good time.
Yeah.
And don't, don't not shun them.
Right.
Like, you know, because if there's going to be less of us for it to exist, there must
be more of them.
And if we don't kind of foster that, you know, listen, we might just be hanging around in
people's living room.
Which is cool too.
But as far as like nothing, but it, but it's not the closing.
Yo, he's knocking.
He's knocking me out at the end of this thing.
Everybody feels that way.
Oh, because you got a flashy car.
To what you said about, you know, not being corny, but you also have to look at it like
15 years ago, we didn't, we weren't hanging out.
Right.
So there's going to be an evolution of, of the next generation of people and who knows
who's like, who's going to be in the circle next because people fade away.
People come back.
You know, we've all been doing this for about the same amount of time, if not longer.
And, you know, we, we slowly kind of get together in this, you know, traveling circus of, of
people.
So you're right.
You know, we do have to, like you said, not, not so much shun them, but like, dude, people
are awkward as fuck.
Like I'm, I'm awkward.
Like people are weird.
And, and some people don't know how to like talk to people.
You know, like when Tony reached out to me, however, like 10 years ago, over 10 years
ago, I saw his white car.
I'm like, holy shit.
Like, oh, it's, it's this guy.
Like I didn't know, I didn't know him from like past H2O's.
We were both there at the same time, but we didn't cross paths.
And now I'm, I'm here.
Now I get text messages.
Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?
You want to drive two and a half hours up to the Poconos?
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Why not?
Fuck yeah.
So yeah, there's going to have to be like, I'm not saying we should go out and start fucking
farming people, but you know, whoever's going to hang out next has to be cool.
Yeah.
What if it just looks different?
You know what I mean?
What if it's just more cruises and less car shows?
It could be.
But it's like, you know, the group, a barbecue, a cruise and not as many.
Smaller get together.
It's the same thing.
But yeah, we're having a group dinner and yeah, stealing VCRs in our spare time.
Well, dude, I mean, like honestly, like even the whole like the Euro, some of the shows
that they have, like they have fucking 20 good cool cars and they're all friends and
they get together and they hang out all night.
You know what I mean?
Like I really, I want to do that at the shop.
Yeah, dude.
Absolutely.
You have a great spot for it.
A great little spot for it.
I really would love to do like, I don't know, like a, I don't want to say curated because
I don't want it to sound like office, but like a select group of good people to hang out
for the day.
You know, you have the people that just heard that want that to happen to.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
But yeah, but no, I'm just saying.
Thanks, your pompous.
Yeah, that's fine.
Fuck him.
So you're wondering out there if you're the part he likes or he doesn't.
Yeah, we're going to post an Instagram poll later.
Yeah.
How flashy is Pat's car and how pompous is Adam?
Thousands of people responded.
A lot.
Really?
A couple thousand.
You got anything?
Yeah.
It's been interesting.
It's, uh, I've been around long enough to see car shows come and go.
And there's a point to all of this, um, because the dapper fam and, and that whole era of
car shows, uh, or car groups, car clubs.
And what I've seen recently is, especially with Pat's group, um, Auto Kreeg, right?
They came out to work and they threw some cool stuff at, in Wildwood, you know what
I mean?
And, uh, I know that, uh, myself and Adam and Alyssa being part of the DCI club, um,
I know that they're trying to make a comeback with what you're talking about and more of
a smaller, tight niche type things going on.
The thing is, is like these people have been around for so long, they're running into the
problem that you're talking about.
All of us are older and then the cast of characters from back in the day, half the people aren't
around anymore.
Right.
So now what are they going to do?
Yeah.
And it's, and it's got to be at some level of an, you know, evolving.
Right.
And what's this going to look like?
Sure.
Um, how do we get younger people that are interested without being too pushy?
Because let's keep it real.
I have no interest to talk about a kid that's got a G 35 with a dildo shift knob, like not
interested in talking about it with you.
So how do you find the weirdo people that are into the stuff that we're into, even like
the Mark seven kids, because the youth of today, like they're not really into the same
stuff we're into.
So why force it to try to make something work?
So when I brought out my dad earlier, my dad and all his old ass MG friends, the reason
I bring this up, the last car event I went to with my dad was a few years back and I
talked to the kid that they just made a member, the kid of the group is 52, yo, and he was
known as the kid and what did I meet him at a funeral for another car club member.
So what I'm saying here is, dude, my dad and his cast and character friends think that
they're the coolest things in the slice bread.
They love Lionel trains, you know what I mean, like the original OG spectrum guys, they realize
that when they want to grow, when they go on a cruise somewhere, it is a guarantee somebody's
breaking down.
Yeah, for sure.
And then if you ask my dad, because we have asked my dad, that's actually part of the
fun.
Who's breaking down this cruise and can we kind of cobble it back together to get it
to where we need to go?
So I think there's a large element of, I agree with Pat, there's going to be all of us,
but one of the elements that Pat brings up too is a lot of us have kids.
I don't have kids.
But like, even if the kids come around because they're hanging out with their dads or moms,
there will be that young blood.
But what's going to happen is we're just going to get tighter and closer.
And it's going to be, it's going to be like the Euro Summit Style show is a good, like
not money driven show where it's just all of us get together.
I mean, Roots was fun because of us getting together.
The problem is, is that, you know, ergo politics.
And that's what messes up a lot of things like with Helen, like Helen is beautiful,
but there's a whole bunch of people that go to Helen that I don't want to affiliate with.
But there's a good bit of people that I do.
So I like this idea of car clubs back, car clubs coming back around, because I think
that'll help support what we were talking about earlier, like with cruises.
And like, actually noble causes them some sort, like say if, like donation or something.
So the one thing that I will give the car club that I'm affiliated with is that like
when anyone, when anyone, anyone's ever struggling, like it's, yo, what can we do to sort this
out?
It's crazy how fast everybody comes together and so cool.
And it's not just financial because financial is easy as an adult.
How much money do you need?
But it's like, so and so needs this, we need to sort this out now because they're dealing
with this.
So let's sort it out for them.
And the one thing I also love too is like Miranda does the, she pays scholarships for
two kids every year.
Any kid that doesn't matter what kind of cars they're into, yo, this kid's about it.
Let's be part of helping this kid do better.
So even though that the kid might not be in our particular circle of friends, it's keeping
the sport hobby, whatever you want to call going.
And so in 10 years, I think it's going to be us old fucks sitting around complaining
about our gingivitis and goiters talking about where the scene go and all the kids are dumb
asses get off my lawn.
I'm all right.
I'm all right with that.
Yeah.
I'm all right with that.
It's fine.
It's fine.
Make it quick.
I was just going to say, like maybe just the down home shows are the way to continue
that along.
You know what I mean?
I think I agree.
Local grass roots, down to earth shows with good people and some nice cars and just open
the invite to whoever's in town and hope to attract some of the younger community other
than that.
Do you have anything?
No.
I think it's a great way to start off 26.
Absolutely.
So can we do either pudding wrestling or midget wrestling at one of these?
Yeah.
After this, let's just shut off the podcast.
All right, everybody, yo guys, thank you all for showing up.
This is awesome.
Thank you very much.
It's just a lot of fun.
And yeah, it's a good start to 2026.
We will catch you all next time.
Peace.
Love.
About this episode
A lively discussion unfolds among a group of automotive enthusiasts as they reminisce about past car shows, share personal stories, and explore the evolution of car culture. They touch on the importance of fostering connections with younger generations, the thrill of driving classic cars, and the camaraderie that comes from shared experiences. Notable moments include humorous anecdotes about car troubles, the significance of community events, and the nostalgia of early car gatherings. The conversation highlights the passion that keeps the automotive spirit alive, regardless of age.
Original notes
We went over to the Grimmel's and met up with a few friends. We talked VW, nostalgia, and the future. Check it!
The People's Car
Ryan Beilman
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119:38