20 Years In Automotive Journalism: Jason Cammisa’s Most Insane Assignment 20 Years In Automotive Journalism: Jason Cammisa’s Most Insane Assignment — Carmudgeon Ep. 244
The Carmudgeon Show
20 Years In Automotive Journalism: Jason Cammisa’s Most Insane Assignment 20 Years In Automotive Journalism: Jason Cammisa’s Most Insane Assignment — Carmudgeon Ep. 244The Carmudgeon Show · Jul 13, 2026
It’s an insurance type where you and the insurer agree on the car’s value up front. If something happens, the payout is based on that agreed number instead of arguing about the value later.
Car
1983 Cadillac limousine
They’re talking about a 1983 Cadillac limousine—an extra-long, luxury version of a Cadillac. In the story, it’s the kind of car you’d expect to be comfortable, but the assignment still turned into a disaster.
The Babe Rally is a long road trip-style event—over 1,000 miles—from New York to New Orleans. The hosts are using it as the background for a story where lots of things went wrong.
A Boxster is a Porsche roadster—basically a sporty open-top car. Here it’s just the specific car Derek was driving when a police officer got angry and took his key.
Term
org chart
An “org chart” is a workplace diagram that shows the chain of command. It helps explain who manages whom.
Person
Gene
Gene is a person the speaker mentions as part of their workplace hierarchy. The speaker uses Gene to explain who was above whom in the organization.
Term
dotted line
A “dotted line” means you’re not directly managed by that person day-to-day, but you still have some responsibility to them. Think of it like a secondary reporting relationship.
The Volkswagen Golf is a compact car that people use for everyday driving. In the podcast, they talk about driving a GTI version, which is a more performance-focused trim. It’s mentioned because it can feel sporty while still being a normal car to live with.
“Road rage” means getting really angry at other people on the road and acting aggressively. Here, the speaker says it’s not exactly that because the person was riding a bicycle.
A recumbent bicycle is a bike where the rider sits back in a reclined position instead of upright. From a car, it can be harder to tell how fast they’re going.
A press fleet is a group of cars a company lends to journalists so they can review them. Instead of buying the cars, the media gets access to the same models for testing.
The BMW E30 is an older BMW 3 Series from the 1980s/early 1990s. People love it because it’s fun to drive and easy to modify, with lots of parts available.
Term
Facebook marketplace machine
He’s joking about using Facebook Marketplace to find cars quickly. The idea is: if you need more cars to review, you can hunt for them there.
“OTS” here sounds like a shorthand for cars that are already at the dealership and ready to be driven. The host is saying he’d just go drive whatever they have available.
Consigned cars are vehicles provided to a dealer or outlet by an owner, where the owner retains ownership until the car is sold. In journalism/testing contexts, “consigned cars” implies the cars aren’t the reviewer’s personal property and may have different handling, timelines, or return logistics.
The Volkswagen Scirocco is a sporty-looking Volkswagen from Europe. The host is describing taking his Scirocco to Germany so he could actually drive it there, like a vacation for the car.
“R129” is Mercedes’ internal code for a specific generation of the SL roadster. The hosts are describing how popular that SL was and how they tracked down matching cars for their article.
They’re talking about a Chrysler LeBaron convertible that someone modified to look like a Mercedes SL (R129). It’s an example of how desirable the Mercedes styling was—people tried to copy it on a different car.
A body kit is a set of aftermarket parts that changes how a car’s outside looks. In this case, the LeBaron was modified to resemble the Mercedes SL’s body shape.
“Sticker price” is the price printed by the manufacturer. “Double sticker price” means people were paying way more than that—because the car was extremely hard to get.
“Pent-up demand” describes consumer desire that builds up when a product is scarce or unavailable, then releases when it finally arrives. The host argues that because the predecessor stayed in production for a long time, interest in the new R129 built up strongly.
The Ford Mustang is a sporty car made by Ford. People often modify Mustangs with different parts to change how they look and how they drive. That’s why it can come up in conversations about building or customizing cars.
The Mazda Miata is a small two-seat roadster designed to be fun to drive. Some owners add body kits to change its appearance to match a different style. It’s mentioned because it’s easy to customize and has a big enthusiast community.
The Mercedes-Benz 300 SL is an old-school Mercedes sports car that’s famous for its cool gullwing doors. Here, the host talks about doing a burnout in it, meaning he intentionally made the tires spin to create smoke and dramatic photos.
A burnout is when you intentionally make the tires spin to create smoke and show off. It’s basically the car losing grip on purpose for a dramatic effect.
That’s a Chevrolet Corvette from around 2001. They’re mentioning it because they drove it on a fun, off-the-wall automotive assignment rather than doing a normal car review.
“24 Hours of Le Mans” is a world-famous race where cars run for a full 24 hours. He’s using it as a comparison to explain that this rally felt like a long, endurance-style event with lots going on.
“Lemons” racing is about using really cheap, imperfect cars and embracing the chaos. He’s saying the rally felt like that—fun, unpredictable, and full of problems.
The Ford GT is a high-performance supercar from Ford. In this segment it’s brought up as an example of a very expensive car that was involved in an incident.
The Lotus Exige is a more track-focused version of the Elise. The hosts aren’t 100% sure of the exact model, but it’s another performance Lotus mentioned in the same “things went wrong” story.
The Toyota Camry is a regular, everyday car meant for commuting and family use. In the podcast, it’s mentioned in a long-term ownership context where problems happened. That’s why it comes up—because it’s a common car and real-life ownership details matter.
Car
1983 Cadillac Stretch Limo
This is a 1983 Cadillac limousine that’s been stretched longer than a normal car. The hosts are basically trying to see if an old, modified limo can still be driven every day without falling apart.
Rust-Oleum is a type of paint you can buy for DIY projects. In this story they used it to cover up ugly paint and scratches because they couldn’t get the spray version.
The brake pedal is what you press to slow the car down. If it goes all the way to the floor, it usually means the brakes aren’t working properly, often because brake fluid leaked out or a brake line failed.
A Ford F-350 is a big, heavy-duty pickup truck. It’s the kind of truck you use when you need to tow something really heavy, like a large car on a trailer.
Brake hoses are the tubes that move brake fluid to the brakes. If one bursts, the fluid can leak out and the brakes may fail, which is why the pedal can feel like it goes to the floor.
Brake calipers are the parts that squeeze the brake pads against the spinning brake disc. If something fails at the caliper’s brake line, you can lose braking quickly.
Trailer ramps are the boards you use to roll a car on and off a trailer. If they’re not tied down properly, they can fall off while you’re driving and create a dangerous situation.
A stretch limo is a limo that’s been made longer than normal. That extra length usually means more room inside, and in this story it’s part of why the car drew so much attention.
Wheelbase is the length of a vehicle measured from the front wheels to the rear wheels. If that distance is longer, the car is physically bigger and usually feels more spacious inside.
Seatbelts are what keep you from flying forward in a crash or sudden stop. The speaker is saying the limo didn’t have them, which made it feel unsafe.
Term
K-walls
“K-walls” are the concrete guard walls along some roads and bridges. They’re there to stop cars from crossing into other lanes or leaving the road, and they make the driving space feel tighter and more stressful.
The throttle is basically the accelerator’s control over how much the engine is allowed to “breathe” and make power. If the car won’t accept throttle, it means pressing the gas doesn’t make it respond like it should.
Backfire is when the engine makes a sudden popping sound because fuel ignites at the wrong time. If it happens when starting or when you press the gas, it usually means the engine isn’t running correctly.
Idling is when the engine is running but the car isn’t moving yet. “Barely idling” means it’s running rough or at too-low power, and in this story it’s followed by a sudden lurch.
Term
lurches forward
A “lurch” is when the car suddenly jerks forward instead of moving smoothly. That kind of behavior often happens when the engine or drivetrain isn’t behaving normally.
HT4100 is the name of a particular Cadillac engine. It’s a 4.1-liter V8, and the “all aluminum” part means the engine block and/or major parts were made from aluminum instead of heavier iron.
They expected a Cadillac engine, but the car actually had an Oldsmobile 307 engine. That means the car’s powerplant was swapped, so the parts and setup aren’t what you’d expect.
The fuel line is the tube that brings gas from the tank to the engine. If it’s not working right, the engine may not get the right amount of fuel.
Concept
taxi company mechanic network
The host describes a practical “mechanic network” concept: big-city taxi fleets rely on a small number of specialized shops that can get many cars back on the road quickly. It’s an example of how fleet operations create fast-response maintenance infrastructure.
A “quadrijet” is an older-style fuel system part: a carburetor. It mixes air and gas for the engine, and if it’s rebuilt or replaced, the car can suddenly run much better.
A “fuel pump” is the part that moves gas from the tank to the engine. If it’s not working, the engine won’t get fuel, so the car won’t run—exactly what they’re troubleshooting here.
“Body on frame” means the car has a real metal frame underneath, and the body is bolted to it. If that frame section isn’t there, the car can flex and feel unsafe, which is why the host says you can’t drive it.
A fuel filter is like a screen that keeps junk out of the gas before it reaches the engine. If it gets clogged, the engine doesn’t get enough clean fuel, and it can start running badly.
A rubber hose is a flexible tube used to move fluids. Here it sounds like someone used it as a makeshift fuel line setup, which can cause problems like clogging.
Second gear is a lower transmission ratio used for acceleration or climbing, where the engine needs more torque at lower speeds. The mention suggests the car was working hard on a mountain climb, which can correlate with high heat buildup.
The heater core is a little part that uses hot engine fluid to warm the air inside the car. If it’s bypassed, the car may feel cooler, but the cabin heat won’t work normally.
The steering wheel is what you turn to control the direction of the car. Here, the speaker says turning it didn’t actually connect to steering, which is a big safety problem.
A Chevrolet Caprice is a big American car. Here, they’re using a Caprice wagon as a base to cut the roof off and turn it into a convertible, basically doing a wild custom build in a parking lot.
The Holden Caprice is a large car designed for comfort and practical everyday use. The podcast mentions a Caprice wagon being used for errands, which shows it can carry people and stuff. It comes up because it’s the kind of vehicle people rely on for normal tasks.
eBay is a website where people buy and sell things, sometimes through auctions that end at a set time. They’re using it here to sell the car based on when the auction finishes.
An auction is when multiple people place bids, and the highest bid wins when the auction ends. They’re timing it so the sale wraps up at the right moment.
Car
1983 Cadillac stretch limo
A “stretch limo” is a limousine that’s been lengthened so the back seats have more room. They’re saying that if the eBay auction timing worked out, the winner would get a properly checked 1983 Cadillac stretch limo that had been driven a lot—about 1,500 miles.
A driveshaft is a spinning metal rod that sends power from the gearbox to the wheels. If it sags too low, it can hit the ground and make scary noises or stop the car.
The chassis is the main frame that the rest of the car is built on. If a vehicle lacks a proper frame, heavy loads can make the body sag and cause parts to hit or break.
The Chrysler Town & Country is a minivan, meaning it’s designed to carry several people comfortably. The podcast mentions it in a travel-style context where the vehicle is part of how people get around. Minivans like this are commonly used for group trips and moving around together.
Wheel lock-up is when the tires stop rolling and start sliding. That usually means the car loses grip and becomes harder to control.
Term
stick on mirror
A stick-on mirror is a small extra mirror you attach to your car to help you see better. The host mentions it as a quick fix for visibility while driving.
Term
no frame
Some cars have a separate metal “skeleton” underneath (a frame). Others use the body itself as the structure. If you put too many people in a car that doesn’t have that extra skeleton, it can flex or crack, which is why the host is telling them not to overload it.
Term
weld a frame in it
The host is talking about adding a strong metal support structure to a car that didn’t originally have one. That kind of change can help the car handle loads better, but it’s not a simple DIY job—it needs the right engineering and welding so it’s actually safe.
Term
tow to the border
A tow is when a car is pulled by a truck because it can’t drive itself. Here, they had to tow it to get to the border, since it wasn’t safe to continue driving.
A contingency plan is a backup plan you prepare ahead of time. In a road trip, it could mean knowing what to do if the car breaks down—like who to call or how to get a replacement rental.
The Ford F-150 is a large pickup truck. It’s often used for towing and carrying things, and it’s common enough that you can rent one if you need to. The podcast mentions it because it was used to tow a trailer for travel.
An exhaust leak is when exhaust gases escape from a crack, gasket failure, or loose connection in the exhaust system. It can reduce performance, increase cabin fumes/noise, and sometimes indicates a more serious exhaust or mounting issue.
LIVE
Hello. Hello. I thought we're just going to keep saying hello back and forth.
No, this episode has much more than that in it. This episode of The Car Margin Show,
which is driven by Hagerty. Yes. And if you have a special car that you don't drive every day,
you should consider going to JasonSentMe.com for a free quote on ensuring that car, because
Hagerty offers a guaranteed value insurance policy, which allows you to determine and agree to the
car's value before some shmuck in an Ultima hits you. And I know I'm not supposed to say that,
but it's too funny. Are you not? No. It's mean to Ultima drivers. You can't
be prejudice against Ultima drivers. I mean, we know it's a thing, but insurance companies
probably don't want to feel like they're single. Do you think Hagerty insures any Ultimae?
That's a really good question. And I will find out. Look, a 94 Ultima would be a classic
and collectible car at this point. Classic. Yes. Collectible. Why not? Okay. On this episode,
we talk not about Ultima. As we talk about the 1983 Cadillac limousine and also Jason's
20 years in industry, initially at automobile, working alongside the inimitable Jean Jennings
and the Babe Rally. This is the 1,000 plus mile rally from New York to New Orleans and a $250
Cadillac limo and all that can go wrong and did go wrong. Sure it did. As you describe it,
what is this? You had some superlatives for this story. Worst five days of my life,
best, highest stress level I've ever encountered, the most breakdowns of all time,
the single most stressful work event. Did I describe it in some other better way?
Maybe your favorite story you've done or something like that. No, at the end of the day,
this was when Derek and I were talking that this coming week is my 20th anniversary of having
started automobile. We decided maybe we could look back and think about what are the most memorable
stories that I've ever done or been involved with. And so that is kind of a hard one to beat.
Peaked early was only a year into my career. I promise you'll get a chuckle out of this.
Several. Well, I can't promise several, but at least one.
I think it'll happen. In any case, I will now attempt to clap.
What's July 10th? Good question, Derek. July 10th. July 10th is a date. It's the 10th.
No, it is the July 10th, 2026 is 20 years from the day I first walked into the offices
of automobile magazine in Ann Arbor, Michigan for my first day of work.
Congratulations. Happy birthday. I've been doing this for 20 years.
So if that's July 10th, July 11th would be the first time I got pulled over in Ann Arbor, Michigan,
and it was in a boxster pulling into the parking garage with a cop who ran over,
ripped the key out of the ignition and threw it across the street in a fit of rage because
he said, I'm so sick of you assholes driving like fucking lunatics in this town. And I'm like,
I don't know what you're talking about because I've literally been there for a couple of days.
It was a wonderful welcome. Thanks to probably all of my co-workers plus
car and driver, which was across town, and we all drove like assholes.
So my start at automobile magazine was a little bit less than auspicious. It was a little auspicious,
but a little bit inauspicious. It was a little bit less than pleasant.
Welcome to Ann Arbor here. I've never had a cop do that. I mean, the keys on the left side,
unfortunately, he just reached in the window, took it and fucking chucked it across the street,
and I had to go get it afterwards. But of course, it was pulling into the parking garage at work,
so everyone who was coming in got to see the new guy getting a ticket and thought it was so funny.
And what had I been doing? I accelerated. And that was it. I mean, I wasn't speaking.
You didn't provide any specific details about the nature or duration or intensity of this
acceleration? The light turned green and I probably hit the gas hard. I didn't remember.
I didn't get a ticket. There was nothing ticketable. It was a stock car and he was just mad that I
accelerated. And I'm like, you know, I pushed back and I'm like, dude, I literally moved here
three days ago. You can go fuck yourself. I don't know what you're talking about.
Calm down. Go get my key. And let's talk about it. He was like, don't you fucking talk back to me.
I'm like, we'll see you in court. Like, sorry, this is not okay. It was a not wonderful experience.
My whole experience in Ann Arbor was not a wonderful experience, if I'm totally honest.
It was not my favorite of all the places I've ever lived, which is a number of them. It was my
least favorite. That's why you don't live there right now. It's correct. I ran screaming. I bounced
all around the Midwest and sort of East coast and then ran screaming. That was the one that
broke me. But yeah, 20 years. What did you find deficient about it in a nutshell?
Ann Arbor, actually, it was my coworker, Sam Smith, who said it best.
Who has been on this podcast? He said that Ann Arbor had all of the
all of the drawbacks of a big city with none of the benefits. So there was just traffic and
congestion and parking was a premium and everything was really expensive.
It's because it's a very large university that overpowers the small town infrastructure.
I was 30, oh my God, whatever, 30 years old when I moved there. Don't do that math.
I was like the oldest guy in every bar. I tried to have a social life.
Oh, because it's a college town.
I was too old to do anything social and I wasn't married with kids,
all the natives were, and it just was a bad match for me. The Ann Arborites,
one of whom I worked with, who I still work with actually at Agarty, was in Ann Arbor,
he's the crown jewel of the Midwest. That's the same thing as putting a plastic Ruby in
a pile of dog shit. Sorry, just because it's shiny and she got so offended because she's
from there. No, everyone's favorite part of Ann Arbor was that Chicago was only four hours away.
And I was like, well, then move to Chicago.
Which for Midwestern there's not very many hours. Everyone else on the planet is like,
that's a very long drive. That's a long drive.
And then they'll be like, oh yeah, I would do that for dinner.
To be very clear, it's not a bad place. It was just not a match for me. It's flat.
I love hills. I love geographical interests. Good roads.
Because those are related, obviously. It just wasn't a match for me, but it started my career.
And so I'm incredibly appreciative to Jean Jennings, who's now gone.
But Jean, you know her as either Jennings or Linda Mood, depending on when you started
reading car magazines. Linda Mood being her, not maiden name, but her first married name and
then Jennings being her second. She was amazing. She was a force. And she believed in me and
gave me a shot. So here I am. Oh, thank you, Jean Jennings. We should all thank Jean Jennings.
Yeah. Well, unless you're miserable listening to the podcast, in which case you're like,
fuck you, Jean Jennings. You should reexamine your decisions if you feel that way and are
still listening. And some people, you know, use this as rage-batoms. Yes, that's true. Okay.
You're right. I'm forgetting the other utility of this podcast, which is an excuse for yelling.
It's very car-mudgeonly, honestly. You are like the original car-mudgeon. That's what you're doing.
Okay. So you were at automobile for six years. And so I made it about a year and a half before
I finally just couldn't hack an harbor anymore. And it was a combination of not loving living there,
but also I was actually not hired by automobile. I was hired by automotive.com.
I think I've said this once before. Automotive.com was a wholly owned subsidiary. So Primedia was
the company that owned us, a publishing company. And some moron with an MBA somewhere in Primedia
was like, oh, the world is going internet. So we need to have an internet company. And they
bought a bunch of companies, one of which was called automotive.com. And automotive.com's business
model was to be a cyber squatter. Cyber squatting was the practice of buying domain names and
holding onto them and then trying to charge extortionate. Trying to sell the domain.
And then at one point, so there was these two guys, if I understand correctly, that were in
college and started buying up domain names and selling them. Anti-cyber squatting laws were
passed and they were forced to either use them or sell them or give them away effectively.
And the one that created the most native traffic that just got the most people to visit was
automotive.com. And so they invented the business model of basically repurposing and regurgitating
press releases and putting them up as quote reviews. And so they paid a bunch of very
cheap labor to sort of retype these things as reviews and threw in some poorly compiled
specs and automotive.com became a thing. And because it said automotive on it and .com,
the MBAs at Primedia were like, oh, buy them and put them in charge of all of the websites for
our magazines, which included Motor Trend and Automobile. And so technically, while I was a
Primedia employee, I answered to the automotive.com org chart. So came in and Gene was not really my
boss. I had a dotted line to her for brand, but I was in a different org chart based on
because you were the online editor. And it was effectively a business position to try to figure
out how to increase traffic on the website. But I obviously took the job, not I was qualified for
the business side of it, but I didn't want to. I took it so I can play with cars and write about
them. And so very quickly started writing for the print magazine. I think I made it two months
before I was on my first press trip, which was mark seven, sorry, mark five GTI four door.
Some marks earlier, some marks earlier in Berlin. So I flew to Berlin and, you know,
like the pictures are funny because I'm in like a, you know, like a sport coat. Like,
well, I don't exactly, I'm not exactly a dressy person, but I was like, that's what one does.
11 is a photographer. So I drove the four door GTI and I thought that was really cool. And
they apparently liked what I wrote. And so then it went on from there. And I started writing
a bulk of the over, you know, I wanted to eventually becoming West Coast editor when I
decided that Ann Arbor was no longer suited to your needs. I got fired for, I think it was the
fourth time because my boss and automotive.com, who I've mentioned before on this podcast,
hated me because I did everything I was told not to do and succeeded dramatically in spite of
that because I was doing what was right for automobile mag.com, not what, what they wanted.
And he kept firing me and finally fired me on my birthday at the same time that the
Shirok was. And Gene would hire you back. Gene was Gene's boss who was my boss's boss. So they,
the org chart converged above Gene. I would get a phone call from his, this guy's name was Steve
from Steve Parr's secretary going, don't answer the phone. And I was like, what? She would just say,
don't answer the phone. I'm like, oh, again, just don't answer the phone. And then 10 minutes later,
Gene would call me and, you know, on the, on the phones in her office and do not engage,
do not engage the most real Michigan boys. And Gene like, what, don't answer the fucking phone.
And it would be, Josh, my boss calling over and again to fire me,
but it had already been undone by HR, by his boss. It was, it was a complete power struggle
disaster, but he, my boss's incentive was to rip all the drywalls, drywall off the building,
so to speak, and sell it as a shell because his earn out was based on short-term profit numbers.
And my goal was to make the best automotive site we could with the budget we had,
which shrank to zero right after I was hired. And I, the first time I got fired was the budget
shrank to zero. The budget, sorry. I was fired the first time for a $4 and 24 cent cup of coffee
because it was cappuccino and a quote, a 50 cent cup of coffee would have quote,
accomplished the same, which he put in writing. So I sent to HR and I was like,
I'm allowed $25 or whatever it was, 10, 15 and $25, $10 for breakfast,
15 for lunch and 25 for dinner, whatever it's pretty. And this is, I'm, I'm following company
procedures. You can't fire me for this. And so I was on fired and he got in trouble for that,
which then set the stage for quite a colorful relationship between the two of us. And I hoped
to never hear his name ever again. We are not friends. We have not spoken. No, never. I mean,
I haven't spoken to him since I quit online. So I got fired on my birthday. It didn't stick.
The Characo block cracked and that's another story. And I got into a bit of a,
road rage is the wrong word because he was on a bicycle. There,
Ann Arbor has one good road and it's along the river. It's not good. It's like a three out of
10 when all the other ones are zero because they're straight and flat. And I was trying to get down
the road and this guy was on a recumbent bicycle all the time. He was always there and it was a
perfection. And all I wanted to do is take my car out on my, on my birthday and just take,
go for a bit of a drive. And this guy was in the middle of the road. There were no passing zones
and it's a 25 zone. You could reasonably manage 70 on this road if no one was around.
But he was doing probably eight in the middle of the lane, refusing to let anyone pass. And I
passed him over a double yellow and then encountered him again later on. And he swerved to stop me
from passing. And so I was disapproving of his moves and eventually he wound up in the ditch
because I sort of moved over slightly and he didn't want to get hit by a car,
wound up in a ditch. And I just walked into Joe D'Amatio's house who lives nearby.
Joe D'Amatio being my, he was our senior editor at the time, one of our two senior editors. And I
walked in and I'm like, I'm out. I can't do this anymore. And he was like,
hold tight. He baked me, baked me bread, a cake, made me tea and made me dinner and calm me down.
And I'm like, I can't, I can't do this anymore. And so the next morning that was on my birthday.
And the next morning I woke up and got into the office to all the phone calls, do not engage.
And I'm like, I'm out. done. You're going to get your wish. I quit.
And Gene was like, don't, don't leave me, which was the saddest thing in the world.
Like, don't leave me, babe, was what she said, which was really touching.
And I then really thought about it. I'm like, I just can't live here anymore.
We have a West Coast editor position that's open. How about you consider me for that?
And she was like, West Coast editor is in LA and I'm like, and I'm moving to San Francisco.
And she's like, give me one reason why San Francisco, why you're moving to San Francisco.
I'm like, that's not up for discussion, but I'll give you 10 reasons why
San Francisco is just as good if not better than LA.
Emerging electric car market and the tech industry means the car industry will no
longer be in LA. It will be in San Francisco. We have an international airport and travel is
a huge part of what we did. We have better roads with fewer people on them, very, very geography
and weather. And photography is one of the most important things for car companies.
And there's a huge press fleet and we're not fighting with motor trend and road and track.
So I'm not going to be to access those cars. And I gave her like all the plus a bunch of
others and she's like, okay, do it. So I packed my shit and sold all my cars,
but the Characo and moved back or moved here. And then six months later bought my E30 back.
But that's a different story. Yeah. So 20 years ago minus a year and a half.
Right. Now I'm 25 years old still.
And it's been a very busy negative five years. And I still act like a child, but
20 years of reviewing cars. Well, I'm just about to hit 3000 on the spreadsheet. And so
I thought we'd, I kind of wanted to time it, but I don't think I'm going to be able to time it
for 3000. Close enough. Oh, you mean 3000?
3000 cars on my 20th year. I'm only maybe six away. Maybe I'll go drive
like six new cars from dealerships just so I can hit 3000 cars on the 20th.
I mean, they don't have to be new cars. You could fire up the Facebook marketplace machine.
Actually, I'm just going to come to OTS and drive whatever you have in stock,
whether you like it or not. See how that works.
We'll try and come up with ones that we own rather than consigned cars.
I work for a fucking insurance company. It's fine.
Okay. So highlights of that era for you include.
I mean, I think the most personally enjoyable thing I ever did, and I've talked about this at
Nauseam was for my 15th anniversary shipping my Scirocco to Germany to drive around and go visit.
That was 15th year of owning that car. You bought it in 98 and this happened in 97 and this happened
in 2012. Right. And then I left right thereafter and I wound up going to Road and Track.
But yeah, that was probably personally the highlight of it. It was the most,
I cannot recommend that experience more. Just go take your car on a vacation.
And next year will be 30 years that I've owned that car next June.
So I will do another adventure with it. For the 20th, I drove across country and I didn't do
anything for the 25th. Oh, I did a massive burnout for my 25th anniversary with that car.
And now 30th, I'll go try to take a week off and just take it on a big road trip somewhere.
There's that. But I always think back of the best story we ever did.
I mean, we covered some really cool cars. I did some amazing shit.
I did a Mercedes R129 article, which I don't know if you remember.
Yes. This was the Mercedes LeBaron, right?
LeMur as the owner called it. Oh my God. This was the new, the R231 SL was coming out.
So this is like 2013, 12?
I have to be before it was 11 or 12 because I left in 12.
And we decided to do a retrospective of every generation. And I volunteered myself for 129.
My friend Mike, who's now also gone, he realized that there was a guy who lived directly across
the train tracks from him in South Florida had a Silver R129 body kitted Chrysler LeBaron convertible.
And he had a Silver R129 300 SL. And I'm like, oh my God, they're both three liter six cylinders.
We have to do this. And so the conceit being that the R129 was so unbelievably hot when it
launched that not only were people paying $15,000 and $100,000 over sticker for the double, right,
sticker price, but also it was so, you know, the one, the 107 as predecessor was in production
for 191 years, 18 years, right? 71 to 89, yeah, 18 years, that there was so much pent up demand
that somebody made kits to make it look like you could, you could buy a Mustang or LeBaron and turn
it into a 129. It was that hot. Yeah, which is an absurd notion because now R129s are worth 78 cents.
Well, and also no one is putting a body kit on a whatever anything Miata to make it look like
the current SL, right? Yes. Like the current SL is like, do you even know what it looks like?
Does anyone care? Oh, yes, it took me a minute, but I conjured an image of it in my head.
It's a fucked up looking Porsche 911. So the whole idea was this was a 129 in drag. And so I did
this photo shoot with this fucking lunatic photographer, Andrew Eden, who I've spoken about
in the past. We flew down to Florida and we did Mike's car plus a his friend, Rebecca, who is
this really pretty girl. And then Oscar was the owner of the R129, Oscar's car plus China,
who was a South Beach drag queen. This is like the reels versus the fakes.
Yeah, it was, we had so much fucking fun. The best shot was I did, it was all sort of patched
together, but I did a burnout in the 300 SL, which took quite some doing. And then I did a burnout
in the, in the Lebaron, which was spinning its front wheels. And then we had the two girls
like standing on the seat of the car, making it look like they were like, you know,
standing on top of the cars with one spinning its front wheels and one spinning the rears.
But the, I mean, some of the photos were just hilarious. Like we got, we took Oscar's Cuban,
like he was probably. And as Andrew, like this is, fuck yeah, this is awesome. Or he's like,
I can't believe you're making me do this nonsense. Andrew had come from the adult
photography world. Oh, really? And so he worked really well with China,
especially to get some of these great, like China knew her body language really well.
And so Andrew was like, raw, I need you to lean over the car with a fag and a coffee.
And I need you to lean over the car, right, right. Tits out. Oh, great. Whatever. No,
Rebecca was just a person, a person. And she was a little bit more uncomfortable. And she
shirt that was this dress that was like falling off of her. And so he's like, right,
she's really difficult. I'm like, no, she's human. Right. Like China is a character.
She knows how to move and act. Right. It's all curated and done intentionally in design.
It was fucking hilarious. But Oscar was like 60 year old Cuban guy with the hairiest hands
I've ever seen. And so we had Rebecca put, I think it was red nail polish on his hands.
And so we did a close up photo of Rebecca holding the Mercedes key
and Oscar holding the Chrysler key with a view of the key chains dangling. We just,
we had a lot of fun with the idea that this was, you know, one 29 drag.
I've never stopped laughing. And that's all these years later. I've never stopped laughing.
So we did have a lot of fun and automobile was online someplace such that people might be able
to consume it. I can I will confirm it exists and Mike is presenting to us. Okay, great. So
we can include a link. We can include links. We just, we just had so much stupid fun and
automobile was less serious. It was more about like, it wasn't, we often didn't test cars.
We had, you know, it was about the experience. We would do stuff like I did the Texas mile
together with Don Sherman, who's our technical editor who hated probably still does hates my
guts. And the two of us flew down to Texas. He was in a Corvette 01 and I was in a 488
for 58 excuse me. And so we do stuff like that, but it was really about let's like
experience these cars and go do wacky shit with it, which separated it a bit from the other car
magazines. So wacky shit you did. Yeah. Yeah. And the, and by far, I think I peaked early
because so if I started in July of 06 in Memorial Day weekend of 07 was the highlight of my career,
which was the absolute unequivocal highlight of your career so far.
The stupidest, most stressful, funniest thing we ever did. And I don't remember how this whole
process started. I think I found out about this thing called the babe rally, B A B E standing
for big apple, big easy. And it was a bunch of British guys put this together. Oh, my friend
Felix put this together. So Felix told me about it or didn't put it together, but introduced me
to the idea. You have to buy a car for $250 or less show up in New York, i.e. big apple,
and make it over, I think four days, four or five days to New Orleans. So big apple to the big easy.
And there were scavenger hunts and challenges and costume challenges and stuff to keep it
kind of like a rolling 24 hours of lemons. It's like a of lemons in motion. It was a
traveling circus. There were a lot of breakdowns. Yeah, it was a traveling circus and we didn't
know what to expect. I mean, so we found, so I said to Jean that I was going to do Sam Smith
and I were going to do this. And she was like, no, we are doing this. And we were like, what?
And she's like, I'm coming with you because you need a fucking chaperone, the two of you children.
You guys, do you have a reputation in the office you and Sam?
Sam had wrecked a lot of cars by that point. We've talked about his Ford GT incident.
There was a Ford GT. There was a Lotus Elise. There was a, or it might have been an exige.
There were just a bunch of unfortunate, our Camry Longtermer, a bunch of unfortunate shit
happened. And he just was like in trouble all the time. But we were kids. We were young. And Sam
was a very rambunctious 20-something year old. And she just knew that put together we were just
going to be up to trouble. Plus, I think she also knew that... Did you intend this to be a business
trip? Or were you just like, oh, we're going to do this for giggles? And she's like, no,
we're going to turn this into content. And so it's a notion that's obvious now,
but was probably somewhat less conventional than then compared to now.
Yeah, it was shocked. I mean, automobile was the wine and cheese.
Yeah, it's like a high brow, civilized, sophisticated, a shit box rally. Like,
what are you talking about? But she was a hundred percent right. And so we bought,
I don't remember how Sam found it, a 1983 Cadillac... No, I found it, 1983 Cadillac Stretch
Limo. And I think they wanted 400 bucks. And we talked them down to 250 so we can get it under
the limit. And we brought it home. And I was on a business trip. And so I was constantly traveling.
And I said to Sam, you have to go to a shop and make sure this car is reliable. And also,
I need you to daily drive it for the next week. Like, if we're going to do a couple of thousand
miles and jeans going to be in the car, we need to make sure nothing breaks. So just do a shake
down stuff. And before I left, I saw it in person and it was just truly disgusting. Like, it was,
it had, at some point had had black paint on it, but it was just scratched. It looks like somebody
had washed it with a Brillo pad repeatedly. And I just was like, what if black is just not going
to show well on in pictures, let's Rust-Oleum at white. So we couldn't get spray. So we bought
Rust-Oleum paint and rolled it on. And then I left with Sam and I left Sam with explicit
instructions to go have it, to just drive it every day. The emphasis on this part of the story,
it indicates to me that perhaps he did not do that. Never so much as started it. The day before
we went to go leave, he went to go start it. It didn't start and the brake pedal was on the floor.
So panicked. Of course, we have flights booked. We had, we, Ford gave us like an F 350, had some
huge truck to tow it and a huge trailer to tow this fucking thing. It was, the car was enormous.
So it didn't fit on a regular trailer. It was, there was a lot that went into this,
plus outfits, plus, you know, all kinds of other prep. Plus we had a photographer there. We had to
make it there. And so Gene pulled some magic trick and got it into a local shop. And they went,
and they did brake hoses on it. And they just did a bunch of, because one of the hoses popped
while I was sitting, one of the calipers popped a hose. It was a disaster, but got it running.
And we, Sam drove it maybe a quarter mile and put it on the trailer and ta-da. And
trailer it to Staten Island. All good things in Staten Island. All good things in Staten Island,
including a lot of my family. So, you know, watch what you fucking say. But Staten Island is a
literal dump. Like it's actually partially a landfill, which was the perfect place to start
this shit-box rally. And I think I flew in, I think I might have flown in, but either way, Sam
drove overnight, drove the Ford with the thing on the back, only to realize upon arrival that he
had failed to secure the ramps. One of them flew off on the interstate somewhere. And the other
probably killed a bunch of people, family of nuns. And so we didn't know how the hell we were
going to get this limo off this trailer. So we went to Home Depot. I mean, my family lived
all right by there. So I knew where everything was. Go to Home Depot. We got a bunch of like two by
eights and tried to back the limo off and it made it about a third of the way down and snapped.
So on the ground now, he was moving fast. I said, floor it, because I saw it was about to go and
he just floored it and the thing broke, but the whole limo slammed on the ground and we're like,
all right, problem solved. And then one of somebody, oh, Regis, Regis Liffabur was our
photographer who was with us and he had a cousin who was like a total stoner. And he painted in
pink lettering off like a prom dress on the back and all because Jean had found a pink tutu.
And I was like, why? And she's like, wow, it'll be fun to be in a costume. So I found
Sam and me matching pink polyester wide lapel tuxedos in a thrift shop in Pittsburgh and a big
like BG's wig for me for no reason other than stupid. And so we showed up for the rally in the
morning coming down and like as soon as we walked out of the elevator, we actually have a picture
of this, like just arm in arm, the three of us idiots, it just turned into just photos everywhere.
People recognized Jean, obviously. And she was just this larger than life five foot 10 woman with
just towering voice. And so everyone was crowded around taking pictures of us. And they were,
I don't know. What was the line you wrote about rolling in in this thing? It was very funny.
Oh, the limo wouldn't have gotten more attention if it were on fire or if Jean's breasts were on fire.
Was what you originally wrote. It caught modified slightly. A lot of what we wrote got modified
for print. But yeah, if Jean's tits were on fire, it wouldn't have gotten less attention than we
rolled into this fucking shit box because a $250 car is a challenge. A $250 stretch limo.
Do you have any idea how shitty that has to be? Yeah, price per pound basis. It's an impressive
achievement per inch. Yeah. I mean, it was 160 inch wheelbase on that car. I don't know of anything
over 130. Right. So 160, that's five feet more than a Range Rover, which is the 100 inch station
wagon for reference. It was huge. And so the off like a prom dress matched our pink outfits.
And yeah, we were so jovial. We thought this was going to be so much fun. However, it was about
140 degrees outside, which sucked, card no air conditioning. And I realized very quickly,
oh, the other thing was Jean wouldn't let Sam drive because of the aforementioned bad luck
streak, but also Sam's a bit ADD. And she's like, I'm not sitting in the back of this death trap
with no fucking seatbelts with him driving because he's going to like not be paying attention. We're
going to go off cliff and we're all going to die. You drive. And I was like, yeah, yeah, sure about
that. So she made me drive. It was me and Sam upfront and Regis and Jean in the back. And we
packed all of our shit in the car with coolers and whatnot. And we made it from, I think it was
a Marriott or something right in Staten Island onto, must have been the outer bridge crossing.
So the first bridge off the island to New Jersey and it died the middle of the bridge.
Perfect. New Yorkers are not patient to people. What? And when you're on a two-lane bridge,
two lanes with K-walls on either side, two lanes in each direction, K-wall on either side,
and you're coming to stop on the way up the bridge, people were not nice. And I was like,
oh, fucking Jesus Christ. All right. And it was just, it wouldn't accept any throttle. As soon as
I touched the gas, it would die. So we got down to effectively walking speed and that was what we
could do up the arc of the bridge. Meanwhile, the heat was stuck on and I didn't, we didn't know
this and it was blasting my right ankle with heat out of the vent and it was, it was hurting.
Like it really hurt. And I'm like, we're five minutes into this trip and we're fucked. So
we made it up to the top of the thing, coasted down. By the time I was at 30 miles an hour,
I had a genuine hard time keeping it in its lane. And at 45 was the, indicated was the absolute max,
like no faster than that. Or it was, you know, it was this, it had like 90 degrees of play,
but then it didn't respond afterwards. It was shit was all over the place. So we pulled over
in New Jersey, first rest stop we could, it died completely. The cop came over, he thought it was
the coolest fucking thing in the world and said so. It was like, we thought we were getting arrested
already. And Jean was like, God damn it, you fucking idiots. You know,
Sam, you didn't drive the car. What the fuck? Yeah. It started off with a whimper.
And a bunch of bangs as it would backfire when we tried to start it, or if you hit the gas pedal.
And I think we broke down, I think it was 48 times, 43 or 48 times that first day.
And you made it hundreds of miles, eventually?
We made it, I think it was 300 miles the first day. We did make it, but we had a,
so I remember Baltimore, somehow we wound up, we tried to take surface streets because the
thing just wouldn't go fast enough. It would run for a while and then die and then run for a while
and then die. And they were in this ghetto neighborhood in Baltimore and we're sitting
in a red light and it's just barely idling. And all of a sudden just bam and it just lurches forward
like six feet into the intersection. And Jean's like, what the fuck? Like, you know,
they're big boys. And I'm like, I don't know. I think it just dropped itself in a first gear.
I don't know what the fuck is going on. We find out, I think it was two days later,
that our, my friend Felix, who was in a Chevy Astro van or some van behind us pushed us. Like,
he thought it would be funny to hit us, but I didn't have any rear-view mirrors. So I didn't know.
So we thought, I'm like, oh no, and it is the engine breaking. We're losing a tranny.
It was, it was so stressful. I can't, I can't tell you, but the Northeast is incredibly well
populated. No, it was horrible. I wound up with severe burns on my left, on my right leg and then
my left foot because I went to go touch the brake pedal at one point on the highway to slow down
because I probably hit 46. And the rubber on the pedal was so super heated that it was melted
and my foot went right into the rubber. And when I pulled my foot off of it, screaming in pain,
the smoldering. You were not wearing shoes. I was not wearing shoes. I would, I would wear
all half naked because it was so hot in the fucking car, like shorts and a t-shirt, obviously.
But my, the rubber stuck to my foot. And so I had to now, while trying to keep this car in its
lane, pick my foot up and get all this rubber off. I fucking really hurt. So yeah. And this is
recreational activity. This is something you signed up for on purpose.
I specifically asked Sam to, to, to suss out the car and make sure it was fine because I didn't
want this, right? I don't like breaking down. And there were genuinely times, once it was dark,
that like, thank God we had the van behind us because we, they would put their flashers on.
And there were times when we're on the side of the interstate and we could do 12 or 10 miles an
hour. And that's it. Sometimes 30, sometimes 45. It was, it was all over the map, but like,
we don't know if the turn signals work. We don't know if any of the rear lights work.
Like none of this had been looked at. And all, not, not like we have like,
you know, great cell service at this point. Like we just didn't know if we were going to die,
but like some semi was going to hit us. It was genuinely terrifying.
Yeah. This doesn't sound fun.
And we rolled into the, we got to our final destination. I don't remember where the hell it
was. By the way, this, this, we'll link a PDF to the story because it was not online anymore.
It's online in a poorly laid out form on Motor Trend, but we'll have a PDF of the original
magazine layout. But when we finally got there, it was hours after everyone else did.
Probably not everyone. I'm sure there was someone else who got stuck.
Oh, I'm sure there were people who broke down. But the parking lot scene was like insane.
Yeah, exactly. As you imagine with this type of person who embarks on this type of adventure.
Everyone is, you know, they're all adventure seekers. So everyone's drunk and they're all,
you know, partying in the parking lot and, or wrenching or wrenching. And I went around and
asked everyone I could find, do you know anything about it? So this 83 Caddo,
Caddy was supposed to have an HT4100 in it, which was the all aluminum 4.1 that are V8,
that Cadillac had at the time. It didn't. It had an Oldsmobile 307 in it with a QuadraJet
carb on it. I knew nothing about this. I didn't know this was the case. So I'm asking everyone
around, like who can help us work on this stuff? We had no tools. We had, and so people are coming
over with tools and we're like, all right, pull the fuel line off and it's delivering fuel. We
don't know what's going on. And rust and rust. Jean had worked as a taxi driver for years. And so
she knew a trick that was fucking brilliant. Every big city has one mechanic that services
all the taxis and they have to be up early to get. So if everything, anything broke overnight,
they would be open at six or seven in the morning to get all those cars back on the road by nine
or by, you know, rush out effectively. So I think it was, I reading the story recently,
I thought, I think we said seven o'clock, but I could have swore it was like 530 in the
morning. But Jean started to call every taxi company in town and one of them was like, oh,
so and so opens and they'll get you in. So they got us in at seven a.m. apparently.
And they went to go put the thing on the lift and there was this guy who looked like
Paul Rubens when he got arrested, P.B. Herman, when he got arrested for jerking off in an adult
theater, like long hair. He just looked like he was going to kill us all. And he goes to put it
on the lift and he was like, and we're like, what do you mean? He's like, it's flexing a lot.
And we're like, and, and he's like, it's going to crack in half. And Jean was like, I don't give a
fuck, like get it on the lift. So he puts it up and he won't take it off the ground at all. Like
he would just like, no. So on the ground, he crawls into this engine is like, oh, it's a 307
with a quadrijet, whatever. And they have a rebuild kit. They throw the, the quadrijet on it and
running fine for 10 minutes. And we're like, oh my God, finally it's never on this good.
And we're just all rejoicing and celebrating. And it's, you know,
and dies, pulls fuel line off. No fuel. He's like, what the fuck?
What's a fuel pump on it? Same thing. What's another fuel pump on it? Same thing. And so now
we're there for 10 minutes each time. A couple minutes. No, barely even that.
Finally, he's like, I got to put it up in the air. So we all stand back and you see the whole
thing bow as it goes up on the lift. And the first thing out of his mouth is you can't drive this
car. And Jean's like, we're driving into New Orleans. He's like, I'm, I wouldn't drive this
cross town. There's no frame. And we were like, what? He wouldn't let us under the thing,
but we looked next to it and whoever had stretched this limo didn't weld in a new frame section.
Oh. Yeah. So it's a body on frame car without a frame. And that explains why it was a wayward
on the highway. And it was four feet of body with no frame. So the only thing holding this
together was the carpet, which was so disgusting. You didn't touch, you couldn't touch it.
This car is burgundy inside. It was burgundy. It was the color of a casket inside appropriately.
But there were, there were live bullets in the ashtray. I mean, this was a true Detroit,
Detroit like shit box limo. But it was, it was terrifying. So we're like, oh my God.
So it's being held together by the vinyl roof and the shag carpet.
Well, the vinyl roof had fallen apart. So we used duct tape to make a new one.
Oh, that has good structural integrity. But the glass and the rust was, and the drive shaft
was the only thing holding it together. So he, but he was looking underneath and saw a wet spot
and then underneath the car. When we finally got it on the lift and he sort of punched away
with a screwdriver and found somebody had added when they put the stretch in, cut the fuel lines
and put a rubber hose with a filter in it. And that was clogged. That fuel filter was clogged.
But a new fuel filter in it ran perfectly. For entire minutes.
No, I think from that point until, so this was date, it must have been day two, morning of day
two. I don't think it ever had any engine problems. There were other problems that crept up, but it
mostly made it running fine. There was one, we got to the top of one mountain and I was floored for
30 miles. I mean, it just felt, I was a second gear and it was just doing 45 and it was the
heat coming off this thing. I'm like, we need to stop and, and just let this thing cool off.
And so I remember pulling over the parking lot and of course, everyone, like all of
normal people are like, what in the fuck are these people doing? And I think it might have been
Elvis. Just lying in there where Sam Smith says a woman in a minivan looks at me like I am Hitler.
I mean, everyone on the road was staring at us like we were idiots because we were.
But I'll never, we pulled this parking lot and we all jumped out of the car and I opened the hood
and there was a, you know, East Coast swarm of mosquitoes everywhere. And I opened the hood
and all of a sudden there were no mosquitoes. And we had such a laugh about this because we're like,
Oh my God, there's so much heat coming off of this that they all just evaporated vaporized.
No idea how hot the engine was. There was no temp gauge. And if there was it wouldn't work
to anyway. Well, this is really just an homage to the old 307, I guess, whatever that is.
Yeah. And then we got pulled over in Virginia. This was fun. So it was Elvis day that we got
pulled over in Virginia. Obviously, this event has an Elvis day. Is this for everyone or just
for you guys? For everyone. So everyone has to come back. I think the scavenger hunt for the day
was you had to come back with three pictures or this is 19 years ago, three pictures of you
with as many people in the picture as possible, dressed up as Elvis, right? So you have to be
dressed as Elvis and gather as much of a group as possible. So we are driving on the road,
jeans and Elvis gear. We're in shorts because we're dying of heat up front because the heat,
the guy bypassed the heat, the heater core. So thank God it was cooler in the car,
but the heat coming off the engine was crazy. And I'm driving along. I'm doing my 45 miles
an hour in the right lane and all of a sudden whoop whoop and jumped out of my skin because I
had no idea there was a cop behind me because I had no mirrors. So we pull over and I'm like,
fuck, fuck. And Jean is like, Oh, don't worry about it. Stop
worrying about it. I'm like melting down. Like at this point I'm done. It's been a day and a
half of this and I just, I think I'm going to die. And the cop comes to the window and he's
the Urius. And I'm like, hi there. You know, and he was like, don't you lie there at me,
blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I, I'm really sorry. And do you know how long I've been following you?
I actually don't. I don't. Why the fuck would I rubble? And I'm, oh, he encouraged, but why
whatever. I'm like, I don't have mirrors. And so I know you might have been there for quite
some time, but I didn't know. I'm sorry. Do you know how fast you're going? I don't for sure,
but the speedometer said 45. And he was like, you were doing 51 into 65. And I'm like,
so I was speeding. He was like, you're going too slow. Are you drunk? You were weaving all over
the road. And I was just like, the car's drunk. I was like, if I were drunk, look at this. And I
just, the car's not even running. And I took the steering wheel and you could just move it through.
I think I've written the story 90, but it was more like 180 degrees. Just like, I was like,
the steering's not even connected. Like if I were drunk, I would have hit a tree long ago. Like,
no, no, no, I'm completely sober. And he was not, I thought that would make him laugh. No,
he got madder and madder and madder. I'm like, listen, we are just trying to make it to New
Orleans. And he was like, why are you? And as soon as he starts to yell at me back, I hear,
and I'm like, oh, fuck, what is that? And I turn around and Jean has jumped out of the car,
dressed as Elvis. And she's like, it's your lucky day. And the cop just cracks a smile.
And he's like, what is this? And she's like, it's a festival of freak. Hi,
my name is Jean. I'm his boss. And he was like, excuse me, what? She's like,
I'm his boss. I'm the editor-in-chief of automobile magazine. And we are trying desperately
to not die. And he was like, you're not doing a very good job. And she's like,
it is my responsibility to make sure that these boys get home safe. I know I look
like Elvis right now. Please understand. So he calms down and she explains the whole thing.
And they take a selfie because of course that gets us points because it's gone.
And we get back in the car and she's like, go get the fuck out of here. Get
Virginia, they're never going to let us get away with this. It was at that point I realized the
speedometer read low. So, you know, so you're making better progress than you realize. 51 miles
in every hour, potentially some hours. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah. So that was day,
that was, oh, and then we decided we're hungry. This didn't make it into the story. It was hilarious.
Yeah. So the story is actually fairly short compared to your initial.
So the way we decided to do this was in vignette form. So we each wrote little tiny paragraphs
of the funniest and sort of most impactful moments throughout the trip. And the deal was we all
handed them in. And I think it was Joe DeMacio who then had to compile them. It was either Joe or
managing editor Amy, compile them and decided who told each story the funniest.
And so, you know, which parts to pick for a clean, cohesive narrative.
Right. So the story reads instead of like, we did this and then we did this and then we did this.
It's like basically a bunch of written reels of particular moments.
And they were all funny. I mean, you know, we left out all the boring shit,
which was a lot of anxiety and a lot of like, if I could have done lines of Xanax off the dashboard,
I would have, but I would have died from what was growing on that. This limo was disgusting.
Sam never cleaned it. Like, why would you do that? You know, but even give it breaks.
It had, no, not initially. It did mostly stop and not in a straight line. I think one or
Well, some corner of it stopped and the rest of it didn't.
Plus when the duct tape let go, which it did fairly early in the whole trip,
it was quite the air break because that whole final top was a parachute.
Plus then it did rain once or twice. And the funny part was the wipers did this.
They just went and stopped. That was it. And they never went back down. They never moved again.
So we had no wipers. So we had to stop and rain exit. But on Elvis Day, we stopped
after the cop incident where she's like, let's just get something to eat. So we found a Chick-fil-A
and we pull into the parking lot in Chick-fil-A and I'm, she's, I'm like,
let's just do a drive-thru. And she's like, get me out of this fucking limo. Right. So
she's like, plus we got to get this scavenger hunt. And I'm like, really scavenger hunt?
I just want to make it out alive. You know, like the scene of airplane where the woman
starts going crazy and everyone's like baseball bats and shit. That was me. I'm like,
I don't care about chicken. I don't want to go home. I don't want to die in this fucking thing.
And she's like, shut up. And so at Redis, she says, shut up. We're walking in. She kicks
in the fucking door. Now, Jean is a, was a big, big bitch, right? And he has a term from,
what was that movie? That's a big bitch. Uh, white, white chicks. Sorry. She's a big woman.
It was a huge voice. She kicks the door open and she goes, dress like Elvis. Right. All of us
are, we changed in the parking lot the rest of us. So we're all dressed like Elvis,
read just the camera and she goes, it's your lucky day at Chick-fil-A. It's top of her boys.
And everyone threw themselves behind the counter. So everyone who worked there just dropped and
everyone else screamed and threw themselves onto the table. And now we're just completely silent.
Like, oh fuck, someone's going to shoot us. And she's like, no, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. She's like, I know I look at this is not a stick up. I promise you,
we come in peace. I just want to Chick-fil-A. And everyone's going to look at it. She's like,
get up, please. No, I swear, I swear to God, I'm not going to kill you. And
comes out from under the thing. She's like, we just want to order lunch and we have to be in
these costumes, whatever. So the whole place had a big laugh over this and we got all of the employees.
We have a picture of this, all the employees plus everyone who had a good sense of humor in the
place. But I've never seen everyone just go right behind the under tables and shit.
And this is why you travel with a photographer when you're crazy.
But I'll never forget the echo. It's your lucky day at Chick-fil-A.
Sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm not going to show you. Oh my God, it was so fucking funny.
Um, so we did have Chick-fil-A and that thus ended day, that must have been day two.
Yeah. All of that happened in day two. And I don't remember-
That's too much living for two days.
My God. I mean, we had another incident. So the, the Ugg truck, which is the ugly truck,
which was a camo painted, I think it was a Chevy Astrovan, they cracked an oil pan and
literally J.B. welded it in the parking lot, which worked to my absolute shock.
Wow. And I had to leave time for it to set up and all that.
Yeah. We sat in the parking lot for a couple of hours. I remember taking a nap in the trunk.
I remember at one point we were so like slap happy from the stress and the,
and the heat and whatever else that Gene, I was teaching Gene how to do the electric slide
in the parking lot. We were playing Bee Gees and singing along and we were just out of our minds.
But they, you know, the other, the other cars were like,
there was, there was a guy who turns out-
How many cars total on this event?
A hundred something?
A hundred.
A lot.
I don't know how many, a lot, but every fucking parking lot was like,
like figure concord of lemons that happens in car week times two.
I mean, but they were all, everyone was in costumes. Everyone was like,
the cars were all dolled up. There was one rubber duck eat up car that was just completely
covered in rubber duckies. There was, there was a Chevy, a big Chevy Caprice wagon
that the guys went to Home Depot and bought sawsalls and circular saws and chopped the
roof off to make a convertible out of it in the parking lot and then did burnouts
while they were doing it. Oh, and then we're setting off fireworks.
I mean, they worked for Mercedes Benz North America too.
We found out after we were hanging out with them and like, what do you do?
Like, oh, I worked for Mercedes in product planning. We're like,
we didn't know that Mercedes was so cool.
They had a sense of humor.
Oh my God.
The shit that happened. I mean, the cars on the road were just complete
festival of idiocy. Oh, and then the best part was we had to figure out how to get rid of this
car, right? So my plan was we'll throw it on eBay and I would time the listing.
I would list it because it was a 10 day or whatever auction, whatever, so that it would end
right the same evening that we got to New Orleans. And I totally forgot about it.
And how did you spread the word about this? No social media.
So it's just people looking on eBay for shit. Right.
And it was like, here's the picture of the wagon. It will be by this time and date in New Orleans.
And if it's not, your, you know, your bid will be invalid.
Like we won't hold you to buying this piece of shit.
But if it makes it, you will be buying a fully vetted 1983 Cadillac stretch limo
because we will have just covered 1500 miles or whatever it was in this car.
So I wrote, I mean, I wrote the ad in all seriousness with a little bit of a tongue
in cheek, but you know, Hey, this will be in whatever blah, blah, blah.
So I don't remember, I don't remember it was four days. I feel like it was four days of driving.
The other, the other thing that we did was we stopped, we stopped somewhere and we had a
like a little Garmin, one of those early like nav units. And on the thing it said,
built more estate and winery. And I'm like, Oh, we're by the built more,
we should go get a picture of this piece of shit in front of the built more estate.
And Jean's like, yeah, I mean, that'll be the cover shot.
Okay, fine. Here we go. So a bunch of us pile into the car. And I think it was like seven or
eight people piled into this fucking limo. And it was groaning and making weird noises.
And I went to, because it didn't have a chassis, right. And I went to go move.
And it didn't, it wouldn't move. It just made a clank and stopped. And I jumped out and the
driveshaft was touching the ground. And it's not because the suspension had collapsed,
which it also had, but because the whole body of the car was so bowed from all the weight.
So I run back over there. I'm like, get out, everyone out, cover your eyes, cover your eyes.
And they're like, why? I'm like, because I think the glass is going to blow out.
The glass had separated from the side glass from, from the seal and was like, you know,
had a gap. And I'm like, the fucking thing is literally going to shatter all the glass.
And who knows if this is laminated glass and this piece of shit, just walk away slowly.
So I think we got down to five people to go to the Biltmore. But the
driveshaft was making the worst, I don't know what the fuck it was hitting.
So I would do like 25, 30 miles an hour. And it was like seven miles away, whatever.
All of a sudden we're in this fucking neighborhood. And when I tell you, like,
not ghetto, but like, incredibly economically challenged, sort of like a town amongst farmland.
I don't know how else to describe like a country town, but all the houses are on wheels.
And it was just the shit everywhere and pigs running around and shit like this in this little
town. And fucking Nav goes, you have arrived at your destination. We were in front of a fucking
trailer. Like it was just this shit. Like it was definitely not the Biltmore. And so of course,
this struck me funny as we're like, we need to get the fuck out of here before the driveshaft
shatters and, you know, we get killed. But also clearly the Garmin knew our socioeconomic status
and was like, this is the Biltmore for you. Yes. Turned out we were only a couple of miles away,
but you couldn't get there from where I moved. The whole, it was just hilarious.
Everywhere we went, it was a fucking calamity. Sounds very stressful.
So then the last day I finally, we got within a hundred miles of New Orleans and I'm like,
we're in AAA towing distance. I don't give a fuck anymore. And I just laid into it.
And I like, there were times at 40 miles an hour where Jean was screaming at the top of her lungs
in the back. Slow the fuck down. I would be doing 40 or 38 or 39, but the natural frequency of the
undulations in the road would meet, match the frequency of the suspension and no shocks. They
were nothing left, but the problem is the front and rear spring rates were obviously different.
And so it would do this, but bam, bam, boom, bam, boom, boom, boom. And it would just start
bouncing and heaving. And we would keep leaving the ground. And coming down that hill from where
I killed all the mosquitoes with the heat, we were off the ground and I was trying everything
I could to slow this thing down. And it was like the wheels were locking up on
re-contact like with the pavement. And it was, I couldn't stop. I mean, it was everything I had
to just keep this fucking thing straight away. And she's screaming in the back. You're gonna
fucking kill us. You asshole. I'm like, finally I was like, you drive, you fucking bitch.
Like my nerves were fried. I'm like, there's nothing I can do. Slow the fuck down. I'm like,
yeah, do you see the semi? We did buy a stick on mirror. I mean, do you see the fucking semi on
our ass? Like, I don't know what you want me to do. So we all got into it a couple times.
And Jean was like, look, you need to calm the fuck down. See this? She's like, this is a platinum
corporate card. I don't care what happens. We will get home. I will send in a fucking
prime media branded helicopter to take us out of here and get us fucking home.
Stop worrying. We'll be okay. And I'm like, we're gonna break down again.
It was just so stressful. But once something clicked with me, but once we were within 100
miles from New Orleans, I'm like, just get there. Don't care anymore. If I die in this
fucking car, I don't care. So we were doing very many miles per hour in the last stretch,
and she starts screaming. And then we realize suspension softens out, like it just settles
out. And just we were on this fucking highway that was perfectly straight doing 90 or under.
I don't know. Speedo was buried. And it was just perfectly smooth. And then we hit an expansion
joint on the bridge and we're airborne seven or eight times. I mean, it was another one of that.
So I had slowed down after that. She did sustain a couple of injuries at one point.
When the car was breaking down on the first day, I would be laying into the gas and laying
into the gas and laying in the gas and trying to get it to respond. And sometimes it wouldn't,
sometimes it just wouldn't. And then it would be puttering and sputtering and then backfire
through the intake and take off. And she got hit in the leg with like a 40 pound cooler
with all of the beers that Sam and Regis were drinking. And so she'd like her big black and
blue on her leg and whatever. So she was like, I'm going to kill all of you. And she's like,
you're not killing me in this fucking shit box. We pulled into New Orleans and it was like the
most elation I've ever felt in my life. And I just while I'm driving put on my wig and the suit
and the whole thing. And she was like, you're going to fucking kill us. I'm almost at a curb.
We were like doing two miles an hour in traffic down. What's the main urban urban street?
And so Jean sits out the sunroof and she's just waving to everyone. And I'm like, oh,
this is too fucking good. Sam, you drive. So Sam finally gets me on the wheel,
like literally a quarter mile from the hotel. And I jump up on the sunroof on the roof with her.
And we're waving people like waving to everyone. And Jean's got a tiara on because she's in a pink
tutu. So why the fuck wouldn't you? And she's waving and some girl goes, oh my God,
what are you the queen of? And Jean goes fucking everything. It was just so dumb.
But Regis threw himself out of the car and was just chasing us, just getting pictures of what this
idiocy looked like. And we get to the hotel and Sam puts it in park. He stops in the middle of
the street. So I have to go move it. And as I'm moving it, my blackberry buzzes. And it was an
email from eBay that the car had sold. Literally, as we pulled up to the hotel,
couldn't have timed it better on purpose. And some imbecile bought our fucking limo.
Four? $437. I don't remember. $394. $394? Oh, okay. You've done your homework.
I read the article. $400, apparently.
So you made money? No, no, we had a lot more than that invested in there.
Yes, of course. You had rebuilt carburetors and you did something to the brakes.
Brakes. There was a bunch of other shit. I don't even remember.
Tires? Wow, we had fresh tires on this fucking thing? $300 mounted and balanced according to
your ledger that's in the article. Wow. Yeah. $300. That was all done before I got in it.
So that's $75 per tire mounted and balanced. Yeah, that's what my local shop here charges per
tire without the tire. To mount on the balance. Yeah, times have changed. And also geographic.
Geographic wasn't in Arbor. So yeah, we made it the car sold. This kid came to pick it up.
And he shows up and they're all excited. And I'm like, first of all,
they pull up as I'm getting arrested. So we were mouthing off to a security guard.
And Gene is like, you know, Gene said something. I said something back. I'm like,
go just fucking arrest me. And he pulls out handcuffs. And so we fake, like I, you know,
I turn around and do the whole thing and he's putting handcuffs on me and I'm making a fake
face for the camera, mostly just to send to my mother. Who was also inclined to have concerns.
Yes. And while I'm being arrested, this guy pulls up and he's like, is anyone named Jason here?
I'm like, oh yeah, that's me. What's up? He's like, hi. I think his name is Tyler,
which has been a miracle if I remember this after all these years.
And he's like, hi, I just bought the limo. And I'm like, oh, okay, so we got to talk.
And he's like, no, this is the coolest thing. And he's there with a bunch of friends and they
were like, this is a cool thing. We let him check it out. They were 17. They were in high school.
And I, I'm like, look, I pulled the wig off and I'm like, come with me,
sit down. You're going to die in this car. And he was like, we're going to do this.
We're going to have mascots in it and for our football team and we're going to take it for
parades and we're going to just drive it around. And I'm like, you're not in fact going to drive
it around and you're not going to put a lot of people in here. I know I'm old, right?
Compared to him, but I'm like, you need to really listen to me. It has no frame,
which means if you put 20 people in it, it's going to crack in half and not move,
which will be the best possible outcome. You on your way home right now need to not go over 40.
Like pro driver, a lot of experience driving really crazy shit. 45 was as fast as I can go
to keep this thing in the lane until, you know, until it's moved out at 75. But I think he was
like, Oh, okay. No, I'm like, I mean it. I don't want to read that you're dead in this car. And
so I scared the shit out of all of them, which needed to do. And they were like, we promise,
we promise. And they were going to put a Mercedes hood ornament on it. I thought that was really
funny. And they were going to use it for football games. But I was like, just go to the metal
juice school of a metal shop. And they're like, yeah, I'm like, go bring it to your metal shop
and have them weld a frame in it, problem solved. And then you can do anything you want. So
that was that. That was the baby baby rally. It was memorable, funniest,
most stressful, worst, best. Right. This is one of those things that makes a really good story,
but in the moment is unpleasant. This is not unlike, or this is sort of how I feel like you
were experiencing the Rover road trip that we did back from Canada, which was high stress, but
really enjoyable after it's done because of the relief mostly.
I mean, for that road trip, I was so concerned about being in a foreign country.
You know, look, it's Canada, but it's not exactly across the street.
It's not how my, my fear was how the fuck do we get this car home? Right. That was my fear.
And how many thousands of dollars in potential damages will it be for us to get home? So
we break down in the middle of nowhere. It's a thousand dollar tow to the border.
And then how do you get it across the border? And then it's another $2,000 to tow it from there.
And we have to fly home or rent a car and, and, and, and so truck or truck and tow it.
And so we were, you know, if you remember, we, we had all these contingency plans lined up of
like if it breaks down here to here, we'll rent a car from here. And to get a board across the border,
we'll go in one rental and then rent a F 150 with a trailer on the back and go back over to
M to go get it. And it was just that like, we're going to die in this car in the middle of nowhere.
And it's going to cost us $10,000 to get it and us home. Similar sort of the rover didn't break.
I mean, it threatened to, but it did threaten to, but it didn't. But it was a high stress.
Were you stressed on that trip too? No, not really. I think I was of the mind of like,
um, any problem that is a problem that can be solved with money is a good problem.
Cause there's certain problems that can't be solved with money and those are bad problems.
Yeah. Like getting arrested in Mexico or something. Yeah. Or, you know, like, uh,
I don't know. So I was like, we're not in high school anymore. If we need to fix this with
money as a last resort, like that's okay. Why didn't you tell me that? I don't know.
Did you recognize that I was a complete follow-up anxiety? No, I don't think I did.
I was somewhat anxious. I was mostly concerned about the border crossing,
which ended up being an absolute cinch. It was a zero. pleasure.
With the car half broken. Cause remember they had the, had the, um, exhaust leak at that point.
Yeah. And so we, I turned it off.
That's right. You turned it off in motion as you rolled right in and I thought they were
going to send us through and I'm like, and he was like, okay, well come into this parking lot.
And we're like, okay. And it was started it. And then he gave us a dirty look.
Once we were in the States, I feel like I relaxed quite a bit.
Yeah. Which was fortunately just in the middle or towards the end of day two.
If you consider two days, it was day one really. It was day zero.
We got the car at like seven PM or something like that.
In the dark. In the dark and the pouring rain.
Yeah. Uh, but yeah. So it was at the 24 hour mark effectively that we entered the US.
Yeah. That was nothing. And from that point on, I don't think I was all that.
Except for when the fuel pump started making noise when we were in East, nowhere in Oregon.
Yeah. That was, we were in an area. That was the emotional low point of the trip.
Yeah. I thought you guys were going to kill me. And I was, I mean, it was us,
it was two of us plus our French into, and I don't, I, were we all ready to kill everyone?
Or was it only me that I was ready to, I was just, I was like, we'll figure this out.
Something will happen. I was, I was convinced we were going to get stuck.
Oh, that's right. We were 50 miles from the nearest car parts store.
Yes. So we stopped and got hundreds of dollars of gas cans.
Like we bought an inline fuel pump with all kinds of hosts.
Yes. Yes. That's all true. We did all that.
I'm not going out for road trips. I'm too neurotic apparently.
Yeah. Well, at some point you just fix it with money.
The bait. Wow. Yeah. But the Bay Rally one is the one that I think set my anxiety level.
Like that high. So this, everything else is PTSD.
40 something times on the side of the road in one day with your boss in the car.
And this is like, like, what do you do? I think now looking back on it,
I should have just been like, they got me. Like she has a corporate card.
At the end of the day, it'll be fine. It's not short of bodily injury, which was a real concern.
I mean, she did fuck up her leg. I did have some pretty significant burns.
Sam, I think almost lost a finger on something working on the car.
I mean, we, that was it. Like it really wasn't that bad.
Well, now that it's done and it's been 20 years.
Yeah. This is like when people don't,
when women don't remember the pain of childbirth and they're like,
I'd have another kid because 20 years later.
Do you remember what you were saying on that table?
Yeah. I don't think we all spoke to each other on the way home.
I think we were, we were, I remember being in the airport and I just remember being so overheated
for so long that I was in shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt.
And I'm always bundled up because I'm always cold.
And I was just dehydrated, sunburned, so hot, so like cooked through
that I just remember like, I didn't want to talk to anyone.
Gene was so mad at us. Sam and I went and got into it
and we're screaming at each other on the last day at a gas station.
And I don't remember what it was about, but it was just, you know,
heat exhaustion and stress overload for days.
And she had had enough. She was like mama bear.
She was mama bear, but the thing about Gene was that she was not a nurturing mama bear.
She was a tough love, really tough love.
And so she would let us fucking have it.
And she, when she, once she would start laying into Sam especially,
she would just keep going and Sam would just be like beating down.
And then she would start on me and I pushed back and she did not like that.
And so we had a bunch of, I mean, you spent four days in 150 degrees
in some death trap and you're going to start getting at it.
And so this was all voluntary, which is confusing.
But it was a good story.
It was a great story.
And the biggest mistake, Gene said the biggest mistake of her career
was not putting the story on the cover.
And she chickened out at the last second.
So we did this great cover. Our director was great.
And it was the three of us on the trunk in the back of the limo right before we left.
So you see the off like a prom dress and the wigs and the tutu and the whole thing.
And we had the cover mocked up and at the end of the last second,
remember magazines lived or died at the time by newsstand sales.
Like the subscriptions, you either lost money or broke even,
but newsstand was the most sales were the most important.
And so we did this cover was mean versus green.
And I don't even remember the conceit, but it was this orange to green faded image
that made no sense.
And it wound up being one of the worst performers in the history of automobile.
At the time, and because it all went downhill from there with print magazines,
but she just chose said like, I should have listened to you and followed my instinct.
We should have had that as a cover.
It would have, it would have just been the coolest thing to have on the wall.
I still have a print copy of people would have been like,
what the hell is this and picked it up and well, the fear was a,
it doesn't look like a car magazine.
I mean, automobile was effectively a new car magazine.
So what the hell are we doing in this?
You know, I understood her concerns and they were truly valid.
Yeah. Who's to know how it would have actually performed.
Right. We'll never know.
But it was the story won us a bunch of awards, I think.
And it was by far the longest feature ever to run in automobile.
And it was a hellacious task to cut it down to just the 4,000 words or whatever that I want it being.
You were saying every person submitted 5,000,
all three of you submitted 5,000 words.
Each, each.
And that would be the entire word count for the, for the whole magazine for the month,
probably.
I've never done that math, but probably close to it.
So we had to cut it down.
There was a lot of duplication, obviously.
It was Sam's version of a story versus Jean's versus mine.
And so we would combine some of the stuff, you know, that we needed in there narratively.
But it was a fun, I loved Jean's idea that we vignetted the whole thing,
because it just, it's, it's well pages, whatever.
It's very consumable because you can do one thing.
And it's very good for today's short attention span.
And it also allows you to put as much of the story in as possible with as little filler as possible.
So you maximize the amount of content that you convey.
Isn't I think an innovative delivery method.
Plus Jean was just, all she did was make fun of the two of us.
Even in the captions, you know, we did this little graphic of like a road that went across
every two page spread.
And there would be like a car breakdown number, this breakdown,
whatever.
And it would be like, you know, Sam and Jason say they're going to fix this.
Sam and Jason don't know shit.
Sam and Jason say they're going to do this.
Sam and Jason don't know shit.
I mean, there was just, you know, we had a lot of fun with, with it.
But that, I think, I hope I never outdo that in terms of stress level.
But I do in retrospect.
So long as you have the credit card with enough balance on it to get or available credit to get
home, I highly recommend a.
Absurd adventure like that.
As long as you don't have time pressure or some obligations or something like that,
that are going to be adding stress.
And it is so weird to look back and say, what the hell could, what was I worried about?
But the, the, the anxiety really did fuel the comedy.
Yes. Yes.
But again, I think it's one of the, this is, what is it?
Type two fun.
Type one fun is fun while you're having it.
Type two fun is fun after you've had it or something like that.
And you've gotten away with it.
Yes.
And survived or something like that.
But there were, yeah, yeah.
There were a lot of adventures that we did at automobile that were pretty nuts.
But that, I mean, I don't think any car magazine will ever beat the car and driver
Mexico story, you know this?
I've read it.
Oh, we got a link to this.
This was a five, I believe sedan test in Mexico that Jean did together with Don Sherman,
our technical editor.
This is when they were all a car and driver and a bunch of other lunatics.
And Don, don't sue me, Don, is an actual lunatic.
Like the man is just a troublemaker of the highest order, loves to be badly behaved.
And Jean also is, you know, she was a wild spirit.
And, but the voice of reason and spoke Spanish, if I remember correctly,
but they took five press cards from the US and drove them into Mexico and totaled,
I believe, all of them.
One of them hit a cow.
What are these cars?
Are they like just regular like Camry's quantum?
It was like family sedans.
It was like, I think quantum was one of them.
Camry was another one, like Oldsmobile, whatever.
It was just sedans and they were just doing this.
You know, I can't believe you don't know this.
I'm surprised I don't either.
Oh my God, I have a copy of this magazine.
So if it's not available online and I know it will be, it must be.
We'll put a link to it either way.
But everyone got arrested at one point for public,
one of them got arrested for public urination.
Jean bribed some other cop to get him out of that,
but then they killed a cow and left the scene of it.
So they hit a cow, totaled the car and left.
And then they got arrested for that.
And then somebody drove the cars into a lake by mistake.
Like the cars were all fucking destroyed
and they barely made it out.
And what was the rationale for this in the first place?
They were fucking high probably.
Remember in 1983, car and driver, I think it was 83.
79 and 83, if I remember correctly, 79.
They did a test to see what would happen if you kept drinking.
If you, like they would, they wanted to objectively see.
And this was rude.
I feel like I've seen videos of this actually
where they try and get people to-
Get drunk.
To function cars and increasing BACs.
Yeah.
This was what they did with an autocross course and whatever else.
Yes, I've seen this.
And two of them, I believe, wound up in the hospital.
It was bad.
It was bad.
And then a couple of years later,
they decided to do the same thing again with weed, with marijuana.
And I have a copy of that magazine
because I remember finding it so fascinating
that you have to read between the lines on that one,
but a bunch of the guys got faster.
And they, you know, this was highly illegal back then.
It's still illegal to be high and drive,
but it was any pot at all was illegal.
So they were out of their fucking minds
to put this in writing in a magazine.
And so you see how they very cleverly weaved,
left some of the positive out from the narrative,
even though it was plain to see.
The takeaway being, even though some of them
got a little bit faster, they were so easily distracted
that on a cone course, they might have been better,
but in the real world, who's to say
that they would even notice a pedestrian
jumping out in front of them, right?
And that was their, if I remember correctly,
it's been years since I've read it, that was a takeaway.
But Jean, and I don't know if Jean was part of that test,
but she would have been a car and driver at the time, I believe.
All of them were just really adventurous
and they were kind of daredevil-y and just, you know,
like Don Sherman was the ultimate frat boy.
And he was just always up to no good.
He's always up to no good.
In the most mischievous kind of way possible.
Perfect, yeah.
Different times, does that happen?
I guess that happens now on YouTube channels
and it's not like officially sanctioned news.
Have you seen Whistling Diesel?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, we'll be doing the same thing today.
The difference was we were paid a salary to do it.
And I mean, it's all the YouTubers
who do this kind of stuff, R2, but people, you know,
it's so much easier.
They're more self-employed.
Yeah.
And it's much easier to capture, right?
Yes, it's easier to capture.
And there's a virality to things now
that sort of just like positively reinforces
that behavior in real time.
Yeah.
I bet had we had a camera crew with us, for example,
like a video camera crew, this could have been fun
because the arguments would have been hilarious, right?
To watch back.
Maybe, I don't know.
But either way, the best part about writing.
Reality TV.
Right, the best part about writing stuff afterwards
is you get to, first of all, you know what happened.
So you can plant seeds like the whole Baltimore incident
where Felix Miranda and me was hilarious
because, you know, when we put it in the story,
because I didn't know, but then I knew later.
So I knew to make sure that I mentioned
the red light situation.
And you wouldn't necessarily know that
if you were doing reality TV.
You wouldn't have like, we wouldn't have caught that shunt.
He did it a couple of times actually.
And every time I thought the transmission
was dropping in the first gear, you know.
So, but in writing, you can then just play tricks with that.
And then Jean's sort of like, you know,
when you read through her pieces,
she's like, she vacillates between these guys
know what they're doing and I trust them
to like, they're just a bunch of morons
and they need to fucking chaperone
and get me out of this goddamn car.
And then Sam's, you know, like always-
Literary.
Sam's just not philosophical.
Sam is such a creative genius when it comes to writing
that he, you know, his commentary was often
not about anything other than
readjust throwing donuts at him.
Because of course we had food fights in the cars.
What the fuck else were we gonna do?
It's funny because when I was reading them before,
you would get the who's, you know,
each one has an attribution of who wrote it.
I could tell ones that were written by you
and I could tell the ones that were written by Sam
without, before I got to the end
because the tone and the like voice
and the focus was so different for each of you.
So your personalities certainly all came through.
That's great.
Um, yeah, he, um, but he, he wrote actually
the greatest line for me.
The greatest observation was he's,
I think about this all the time
when I'm in some terrible old shit box
and I can't believe it's moving.
And I'm like, he said, you know,
it's in these open spaces and these, you know,
whatever, blah, blah, blah that you realize
that you're moving by the grace of moving pistons
and explosions and whatever, blah, blah, blah.
And he really did sit and think about this
while we were singing James Taylor
or whatever we were doing.
Um, um, you've lost that loving feeling
was the song that just kept playing.
And, you know, Jean did this gravelly.
And you know, you've lost.
She was just in, it was post Elvis Day or whatever.
But, um, you know, he would spend some time
really thinking about this,
which is what makes Sam such a great writer.
He's a thinker.
Um, and he's right.
I mean, you're like, wow, holy shit.
We did actually make it some many hundreds of miles
by grace of this old shit box
that no matter how bad it was covered more ground
than humans would have ever been able to cover otherwise.
And that's something we should appreciate.
By virtue of some guys in Detroit screwing the thing together
25 years earlier.
Yeah.
Pretty wild.
Who had no idea what it would ever be used for.
Don't probably think about it much.
83, and I still have the VIN.
We could look it up and see if it's caught on the Carfax.
Do you have an unlimited Carfax, Derek?
Yeah, I have a dealer account.
Give me the VIN.
You want it?
Can we do it live on?
No, no, I need the,
I have to get the verification code once I log in
with the dealer account and it gets texted to my conference.
Maybe we'll do a screenshot of what the last entry was of this,
if we can.
I will have the VIN.
If the new owner ever titled it,
then they're never titled it.
Then there won't be nothing after you.
Well, I got a phone call from his dad the next day.
I remember being home and it just,
I was on my way to the laundry room.
It was the worst call I've ever got,
the fucking wildest call ever.
Like scary.
Scary.
Yeah, I was in the hallway on my way to the washing machine
and the phone rings and I put the laundry back down
and I answer the phone.
It was on no number and it was like,
you know, my boy is only 17 years old.
And I was like, what the fuck is it?
What?
Like, huh, my boy is only 17.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
My boy, you sold him a Cadillac and I was like, what?
Yeah, what end?
Take it back.
He demanded we take it back.
And I'm like, it's not mine.
Like this car is owned by Primedia,
which is, you know, fucking New York publicly traded company.
I don't want to tell you, but like we warned them.
And by the time we got off the phone, he was okay.
But like to get that phone call, I don't know.
Totally out of the blue, no context.
I think it might have been,
it might have even been a couple of weeks later.
I don't remember.
But I just remember that scene of like my phone
and dropping the laundry and going, what the fuck?
Wild.
Could have only been, yeah, please.
You never, that's what you never want to hear
ever from any phone call is so and so is only 17 years old.
Doesn't matter what the context is,
that's not how you begin a good conversation.
That's right.
That can only be bad news.
And that's, yeah.
Well, congratulations on 20 years.
Thank you.
Guess he's 37 now.
Yeah, exactly.
Anyway.
Thank you for allowing me this trip down memory lane.
Yeah, it was brilliant to get the backstory.
I'm sure there's like a lot of stuff
that never got published excerpts from that.
If you ever wanted to share them,
I bet they would be avidly consumed.
I sure I shall go.
I went through my quick number, the final,
final notes that I submitted,
but I should probably go through the rest of them.
Who knows what I've forgotten,
but we do have about 300 billion pictures of it,
because Regis was just snapping the whole time.
We'll throw some of the inserts in.
If you haven't, if you've been listening to this,
they'll be on YouTube.
So you can see like, you know,
Jean Jean, the Elvis thing at Chick-fil-A.
No pictures of the cop in Virginia.
Damn it.
Hello.
What are you going to do next time?
And speaking of next time,
we'll see you next week on the Carmagen Show.
All right.
Thanks for listening.
About this episode
A 20-year automotive journalism anniversary turns into a whirlwind of stories: early days in Ann Arbor, including a Boxster parking-garage run-in with a cop, and the behind-the-scenes chaos of Automotive.com’s internet-era domain hustle. The centerpiece is Jason Cammisa’s “insane assignment” built around a $250 1983 Cadillac stretch limo and the “1,000 plus mile rally from New York to New Orleans,” where towing, brake failures, overheating, and repeated breakdowns keep derailing the trip.
Just three days ago, Jason celebrated 20 years in an automotive journalism!
The industry has changed in a number of ways - most noticeably, with video taking over as the primary consumed content medium over print. Jason’s career started at the beginning of the end of the print heydays - a time vastly different than the one we’re currently living in.
Jason’s story starts in Ann Arbor, MI in 2007 - where actually, it almost stopped completely. Very quickly, he’s thrown into the middle of a pyramidal power struggle between the domain name-owning agency Automotive.com, and his in-person editorial team. From getting a speeding ticket on his first day with a press car, to getting fired by one internal team and immediately re-hired by another, to living in a place he struggled to call home, Jason nearly threw in the towel.
But automotive legend Jean Jennings - his (real) boss at the time - is one of the reasons you see him with us today. And a trip from New York to New Orleans in a $250 Cadillac Fleetwood Limo cemented - but almost shattered - their relationship.
This episode, amongst other parts of Jason’s career - is primarily about that perilous journey. Jason recounts his time in a broken-frame Cadillac limo with Jean and another automotive legend - Sam Smith - with nearly 100 breakdowns, bruises, burns, pink tutus and tuxedos, rubber ducks, and unbearable heat.
But somehow, they made it - and you can read more about it here from the original airing of the article in Automobile Magazine in 2007: http://bit.ly/4vqFvhw
(Also, a link to the 1983 Car And Driver Mexico Torture Test - you’ll understand why later in the show: https://www.caranddriver.com/photos/g17857487/escape-from-baja-mexican-sports-sedan-torture-test-archived-comparison-test-gallery/ )
All this and much more on this special episode of The Carmudgeon Show.
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