“Horseless carriage” was an old way of saying “early car.” Back then, people weren’t sure what counted as a real car yet, because the first motor vehicles still looked a lot like horse carts.
The Dacia Duster is a small SUV meant for regular driving and light off-road capability. The podcast mentions it in a joking way about the name, but it’s still a practical vehicle. It’s typically discussed as an affordable SUV option.
They’re talking about the Ford Model T, which helped cars become affordable for more people. That’s why cars went from being mostly for the wealthy to something regular people could actually buy.
“Red flagging” was an old rule where someone had to warn people ahead of an early car. The goal was to make it safer and less scary for pedestrians and horses when cars were new.
Term
outlaw bodies
In California, “outlaw bodies” is slang for older cars that can sometimes avoid stricter inspections. The speaker is saying that if you buy a sufficiently old vehicle, it may not be checked as closely as newer cars.
The Ford Model T was one of the first cars that many regular people could actually buy. Here it’s mentioned because early cars looked a lot like horse-drawn carriages, even in how they were designed and marketed.
The bell housing is the part that connects the engine to the transmission. The “bell housing pattern” is basically the bolt-and-alignment layout, so it determines what transmissions or adapters can fit.
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car built for strong performance. The podcast mentions a “torque tube,” which is a part that helps transfer power from the engine to the wheels. That’s the kind of detail people talk about when explaining how the car is engineered.
Torque is the “twist” that makes the wheels turn. When people talk about a torque tube, they mean a part built to carry that twisting force to the rear wheels.
The Honda Element is a Honda vehicle with a very square, box-like shape. It’s designed to be practical, with an interior that’s easy to use for carrying things. The podcast is referring to its distinctive look and how it’s built around everyday usefulness.
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Emily EP49: Well, I wanted to talk about how I found that George Barris book that his son wrote that you were recommending.
Rose EP49: Twisting my words Emily EP49: Oh, okay. But you think that Mystery Science Theater probably, they probably set that up I
Emily EP49: and I'm already so sweaty that my arms are coming off Rose EP49: It is. It is. Uh, it's such heights that we've ascended to this morning. Yeah. Now, speaking of Georgie B, the Gene Winfield Memorial Museum is getting underway, and it is gonna, uh...
You should use this attorney, and he will make this happen." And, um, they had talked about it at Gene's memorial. Yeah. And they were like, "We are gonna do it. It's just taking some time and figuring it out." And so here we are. This is, uh, another part of it, is it's, uh, yeah, it's happening, which is cool. Uh, Bob was always a really good customer of Gene's and a really good friend to Gene, supporter, patron, all of those things.
Rose EP49: Yeah, if it's, uh, if it's a, if, yeah, if it's okay to do that, I'll do that. Yeah.
We complain all winter 'cause it's dark and it's cold and we have to build a fire, but then, like, now we're gonna be, oh my God, Rose EP49: Emily brought up a topic over the brain buster, that's with a G at the end. Um, and she got all fixated on horseless carriages and the fact that cars to-- horseless carriage to car is a very fuzzy line, and there is, there's not a lot of... There is no hard line
Rose EP49: Pretend you didn't hear that, folks. Keep going
Emily EP49: Well, yeah, they could shoot guns on the, at the farms. So yeah, I'm sure that they had gunshot desensitizing
Emily EP49: I think a lot of people. I think they actually, don't they call, uh, a duster a demon? There
Rose EP49: I've seen a couple, but I guess I just don't remember that well. But anyway, um, uh, Caroline, uh, that we follow on Instagram, her and her dad bought one. Real Caroline, I don't know if you follow her. Uh, you do. You definitely do. But her and her dad have been working on a denim machine, but I've seen one or two at Metavan Nationals, and they are neat.
Rose EP49: Help me out here. Help me out. What's the word I'm looking for? A psi
Emily EP49: Um, no. People were doing all sorts of crazy shit back then. I don't think people are ever more pious or less pious because it's human nature to be animals
Emily EP49: uh, a lot of people, one of the other reasons why people were uprising against this is because they were, um, they were- cars were considered the playthings of the wealthy. And that was true because only people with money could afford them. This is before 1908 when the Model T came out, when that, that changed the game quite a bit.
So they were going from the city out into exploring the country, and that's, and then they were scaring horses out the, you know. They were scaring everybody. Horses, like, farmers wouldn't let their daughters and wives out without accompaniment around these motor cars. They
Rose EP49: okay, but let's not get away from the horse's ass for a second. One of the problems is that people were like, "These cars pollute more than horses." And I was like, I'd think about that, and I was like, "Sorry, what?" Horse shit everywhere does lead to illness and disease. So that is a problem, is that the horse shit would build up in the streets.
Rose EP49: How am I supposed to cross reference that to buying a car? I don't
sure. Yeah. And just, like, the plaything of the rich and a fad. Um, also-
Rose EP49: Yeah, that's really sad. It's pretty sad, but people were overall like, "Yeah, well, fuck you and your money," and that's how they feel about Richard Branson going to space.
Emily EP49: I mean, that's the exact kind of stuff you should care about. Yeah, what an asshole. Um, one of the laws that I thought was hilarious was the red flagging. Now, tell me, like, what did you think? Like, this one just tickled me. It was so insane.
Emily EP49: She works hard for the money, folks a point that's being metered as an intersection. Is that not-
Rose EP49: I don't know. Do you think people wanna take him home?
Emily EP49: And then you also had somebody that was your guy or girl. I didn't see very many photos of women doing it. There really
Rose EP49: What do you think? I think they were probably just like, "That's too fast."
Rose EP49: Yeah, it's hard. Um- I mean, yeah, they can, but you're...
He won at Van Nationals, and when Coop gave out the trophy, he was like, "Some people say he still hasn't crossed the finish line." It was, it was good.
Rose EP49: But that was, that was... Yeah, I believe that was the Car Club of America specifically that was, that was doing this, and they became basically automobile lobbyists. And then fast-forward to today, and all of everyday life is lobbying.
protected area.
Rose EP49: Montana's loaded with libertarians, and libertarians, people like to describe are like cats, that they hate and disparage a system that upholds them every day.
And about 90% of the people on the island were not for cars, but they still passed it. And so what they would do to, like, um, give these people solace is some of the places voted in that you couldn't have cars, and some voted that you could.
Rose EP49: And people hated cars because they were used to trains. 'Cause trains were big and they seemed, quote-unquote, "safe," and they were sturdy. Yeah. And cars were small and light.
Rose EP49: All you have to do is pick a certain year and buy that fucking car, and then you don't ever have to have your car looked at. I, I-- In California, they call them outlaw bodies. Just buy one older than '75 and nobody's ever gonna take a peek at it. You get a license plate for it, it just stays on there, done.
So like for me, I started in 2009 learning how to work on cars, and as old cars got older, I also learned about a bigger range of older cars, and other people could do this too.
Yeah. But, you know, you pick one. I mean, my, my van is, you know, looks like an absolute piece of shit, and I have all the skills in the world that I could make it fancy, and it just doesn't really bother me, 'cause, you know, I just enjoy it. I mean, yeah, it could be nicer. I can envision that. I've done that to other cars.
Rose EP49: And then the radiator leaked, and you know what I did? I just kept dumping more water in it, and I drove it four hours to Paducah, where I was living. I mean, what... We learned all this stuff, so this should be an inspiration. Get your old hunk of shit. You don't have to get a Flivver. You don't have to get a Model T, but, you know. Uh, yeah, they are kind of expensive. I mean, it is, it, it... Everything does cost a lot, and it sucks. And I mean that. I for real mean that.
Like, but there is a point where it's like, yeah, the, the car is the thing draining you that is miles away from being, uh, reasonable. It's definitely s- Do you
You get air conditioning, and you get good brakes so that you can ride people's asses and stop Emily EP49: those are three, four things that we always say about electric cars.
Emily EP49: I mean, I just didn't see... In the videos, I felt like I didn't see. I didn't see. I saw open air. I saw people just sitting in like, you know, the horseless carriages are really funny 'cause there's nothing in front of, you know, they're just sitting in like a sled basically-
Rose EP49: Yeah. It is in- it is interesting. It was a good brain buster with no definite answer of yours that sort of brought this whole like, where is this line? So what they talk about in Century of Style is that, like, carriage builders were including, like, drawings of automobiles in their presentations for customers, and they were like, "These may be, like, the earliest dream cars because we don't know if any of this stuff ever got built." They're like, "But it's obviously a styled automobile," so, like, styling was a part of it
Emily EP49: what do you think? Do you-- Did the car make it?
Like, and the, the funny thing is the, the full circle with electric cars. Uh, okay, and I took a picture of an ad the other day. Speaking of the Model T, okay Okay.
It's on the cover, and there's no article about the car in it. There is a... There is an article, but it's in a section that is a feature of other wild builds that are just, like, in builds. There's photos. No, there's photos of it, but they're not the photos I thought they were. Okay. But you know what's interesting?
Like, we've got a door opening that you step in like a stagecoach. Yeah. You know, there's a dash to keep the horse poop from hitting you, you
Rose EP49: They are. They're, they're cool for sure, but it makes me wonder what else is out there.
Oh, and then I reached out to, uh... There was a woman following me named Verna, and she works on Formula, like, vintage Formula stuff. Ooh, nice. Uh, and I was like, "Hey, do you know where to get, like, tires for these?" And she was like, "Yeah, duh." And I was like, "We, we kinda wanna get some used tires for this show rod that we're working on, and, like, I don't even know how that happens."
Emily EP49: Yeah, they are really wide. Yeah. Damn.
Emily EP49: Cool.
Rose EP49: So you would take everything- They just make... You-- GM made one that mates with their transmissions. I mean, it was way too expensive, but they made one that would mate up with their bell housing pattern. Oh, wow.
Well, you were like, "Where would they go?" Well, they go in the back, not on the roof. There's not a, a, it's, a van's one compartment, so where, where do you think they're gonna go?
If it's what, if it's, depends on the driven axle, right? There might be a hump for a drive shaft or a torque tube or something, like the new Corvette has a torque tube. So I mean, that's it. You know what I mean? The, but in the van, it's just one flat plane. So the difference is a piece of sheet metal. And so in my mind, yeah, they'd be inside.
There's no new electric car outside of the Slate truck, which I'm not buying because the incentives are gone, that I would buy, 'cause they're pieces of shit in my opinion. They're still loaded with all kinds of, like... I... Somebody s- somebody's put a meme on, on, uh, Instagram that was, like, somebody designing the dash of a new car and just, like, they took, like, dropped in an iPad element, and then the guy, like, s- stretched it and made it ginormous and was like, "Yeah, that's it."
Emily EP49: do cranks, I'm gonna be in an older... That's where I draw the line. Corvette's got, uh, electric windows, and
Emily EP49: how would you... Uh, the thing about that is, like, would you still try to keep... Like, would you kinda hide it so you could still leave the roll-up part handle to make it look old? Or you would just- Oh ... have a switch?
Put a speaker or like inner door trim or something like that. Yeah. Some kinda, you know, the door card can have a different design if you get rid of that element. 'Cause it's a thing you're working around. Like concept cars don't have door handles on the exterior. They don't have mirrors or door handles usually
But they have all of the same parts of, like, a car, and it's, it's the same, uh, principle. So it totally translates over. Um, and then you come back and you switch what carb you're working on, and you put the other one back somebody else is taking apart, one back together. Oh. Yeah. It was very, um- How'd you do?
Emily EP49: never... I don't think it was a working... I don't, I mean, it could've been working I guess, if it would've been put back together properly and fixed.
Emily EP49: Residence. Yes. Thank you. Tool Library. Thank you. Uh, but I'll put a link to their Instagram page in the show notes, and then you can keep up with their classes because they also do a fiberglass class, which I took, and now I am building the nose on the, um, mo- Model T and, uh, just after one class.
Rose EP49: It'll be fine Begrudgingly Mm-hmm. Yeah, but very cool.
Rose EP49: One out of two Canadians disagree. You heard it here, folks. Hard statistics
Emily EP49: Oh. Is it?
Emily EP49: Free to disagree Agree to disagree. Leaving at like 5:00 PM. That's the move.
Emily EP49: tickets are $20 to $40, and they're playing at a, uh, sold-out stadium near you. Favorite band.
Rose EP49: It is an unauthorized van tour, but it is an illegal van show
About this episode
The hosts kick off with a horseless-carriage comparison that turns into a discussion of “red flagging” laws and why some people treat older vehicles differently—especially in California. They also trade hands-on DIY stories, including a radiator leak solved with constant water top-offs during a long drive. Later, the conversation shifts to modern electric-car incentives and design choices, then lands on practical interior work like door-card/dash design. The episode closes with a quick mention of an Instagram fiberglass class and a Model T build update.
