2025 SEMA Show Recap, Q’s GTO Updates, Automotive Trivia, and Much More on the V8 Radio Podcast!

All right, ladies and gentlemen, automotive enthusiasts and friends from around the great

old planet Earth.

You've done it once again.

You've hit play on yet another...

Kevin, another Malifluous episode of V8 Radio.

Well, of course, it is very Malifluous.

I was feeling Malifluous this morning.

I gathered that.

Yes, sir.

It is Malifluous.

This means pleasant to hear.

Oh, right on.

Yeah, man.

Yeah, well, it's too bad Malifluous doesn't rhyme with anything, or that could be our new tag

line.

Exactly.

It's a listener shout-out.

Come up with a tag line that contains the word Malifluous, and you win a sticker.

This is the V8 Radio podcast.

I'm your host, Kevin Oste.

Joined as always by our esteemed co-host, Mr. Mike Kubal-Clarke.

Hey-o.

How's it going?

Hey-o.

Well, you have to bear with me because I am battling a non-Malifluous cold here, because

I got something in the upper respiratory region that I'm trying to use the dump button as

much as I can.

You're right.

You got the post-sema flu, man.

Some call it the sema sludge.

That sounds about right.

I got it.

But before we get into all that, nice little teaser there, the show's not going to be about

the sickness.

It's going to be about the sema.

That dang.

For those, for you who listen repeatedly, you know that we launch every episode with

an automotive trivia question that is educational, insightful, and riveting all at once.

We ask in the beginning and then answer it at the end as a way to coax you to listen to

the whole show about that.

How about that?

Do you have an automotive trivia question?

Of course.

Of course I do, sir.

Here we go.

All right, Kevin.

What model year of Corvette production saw the highest number of units sold?

Oh, that's a great question.

What model year of Corvette production saw the highest?

Well I know it was not 1953, because that was like 300.

Yeah, like 12 cars.

I want to say, I used to know this, I'm going to say it was like 78, 9, 80, 79 somewhere

around there.

Well, we need to narrow down to one, sir.

To one, yeah, yeah.

They peaked again in the 90s.

You know, not intended to be the highest mass produced vehicle in the world.

So I'm just going to throw a wag out there and say 1979.

Well, let's not forget, also when the CA came out, a lot of people bought those.

They did.

They were pretty affordable, relatively speaking.

Relatively, but a 79 was far more affordable, relatively speaking.

Gotcha.

And that was at the high, there was a, you know, here goes the rabbit hole.

Thanks to the resurgence of what I would say an invigoration of automotive culture in,

especially in the United States in the late 70s, as brought on by the Smoky and the Bandit

movie, the Bandit Trans-Am, Trans-Am, SE, is it supposed to be called, and the Camaro

Z28 kind of got a tune up and disco music and Saturday Night Fever and all those

movies that featured those type of cars, right?

The only one cooler than that on the street was a Corvette.

And a lot of people bought Corvettes of that generation.

This is the end of the C3 body style, which meant, you know, they were largely sorted

out.

They didn't have any issues.

The biggest problem they had is they were slow.

They didn't make any power, but that was because of the emissions laws and the reduced

compression and the catalytic converters.

And, you know, we just didn't have the technology to tune things like we do today, but they were

popular.

And I throw back to that statistic that my dad had told me a long time ago that in

those days, you know, if you bought a, if you lived in New York City, LA or Chicago

and you bought a new Corvette and parked it on a city street, its life expectancy

was like 24 hours before it was stolen.

No.

And I, so that's, that's where I'm pulling my, my guess from.

I gotcha.

Oh, by the way, this question brought to you by VH Speed & Resto shops own Brian Wibbenmeyer,

who came up with that question for us.

Thank you, Brian.

See, I used it.

Always liked the audience participation.

Right on.

All right.

Well, that's my final answer.

Dig it.

What do you got for?

What do you got for us?

All right.

Nice and easy one today.

Oh, God.

Here we go.

Who is the DeSoto car company named after?

Oh, the DeSoto car company named after.

That's right.

As you recall, DeSoto was a brand created to be kind of a mid-range car to, to

compete with Oldsmobile and Studebaker under the Chrysler umbrella.

Well, Kevin and listeners, the DeSoto car company was named for the town of DeSoto, Texas.

Oh, DeSoto, Texas, who's, I'm going to say, I'm just, just a wag who's the inception

who, who conceived of the brand was from said city in Texas.

So there we go.

Named after the city of DeSoto, Texas.

All right.

And I only know that town because I used to live there in the summertime when I was a

kid.

Maybe they, maybe it was a prediction that someday the, the queue would walk the earth

so they needed to commemorate the land of the future queue walking with a car brand.

Perhaps, perhaps yes.

Yeah.

I mean, hey, why not?

Right?

I mean, stranger things have happened.

Anything is possible.

True.

Very true.

Okay.

DeSoto, Texas, right?

Yeah, man.

Duly noted.

Oh, I appreciate that.

As always.

Yeah.

So there's a lot to cover.

Right?

Yeah.

We have a few topics.

Yeah.

Do you remember any of them?

Well, the Seema show as was brought up earlier.

Ah, yes.

You just got back from there and had a good old time.

Had a great time.

And once again, I will pre-apologize because I'm kind of hopped up on cold medicine right

now.

So.

Well, this is going to be a great show then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Under the influence of expectorance to lower your expectations.

It was a great show.

Easy to say because when you have a thing like the Seema show that has so many different

dimensions and so many different possible metrics to measure it by, saying it was

a great show is like the largest blanket generalization ever created.

It is.

It is a very big generalization.

I mean, there's, there are so many facets and pieces to that show.

It is hard to, you can't sum it up in one word.

No, no, you can't.

Even though I just did.

Right.

What I will say is that to go the other way, the opposite way, one of the things

that, you know, kind of frustrates me year after year after the show as we start

to see the media coverage and the social posts and the word getting out a social

post will generally focus on one of the 50 million aspects of the Seema show and

even down to one vehicle.

And then you get commentary from people who clearly have not been to the Seema

show who make comments about a particular car and judge the entire show based

on one vehicle.

Yeah.

Oh boy.

Here we go.

Wee.

Well, and I'm not saying that vehicle doesn't deserve to be judged, but it is not

fair to generalize the entire show by that.

For sure.

So to try to figure this out, I've come up with an analogy that really it's

not the Seema show.

It's really planet cars.

Oh, okay.

And planet cars is a mystical place that once a year starts off as a clean

planet with no inhabitants and is only habitable by those in the automotive

and automotive aftermarket enthusiast industry.

And on Friday, it opens up to the general public of automotive enthusiasts.

But there is nothing else.

But there is everything in the automotive enthusiast world on planet cars.

So planets are big things.

They got lots of different aspects.

They have their own ecosystem, man.

That's right.

So if you are walking on planet cars and you see one particular vehicle and

you judge the entire planet by the one vehicle, it is a great

disservice to planet cars.

True.

Some of the different aspects, the metrics that I use to say was this a

successful Seema show or not.

V8 Speed & Resto Shop, myself, my wife Kelly, we've all had various

roles in this show.

One that we have not been is a manufacturer because we don't manufacture.

But we build cars and we display cars and I work the show and whatnot.

But I like to talk to manufacturers because that's really what this show

is all about.

The biggest continent on planet cars is the parts and the manufacturing side.

And if you're going to envision that continent, what they're trying to do is

manufacture their parts, but then get them out onto other continents on

planet cars to sell and distribute their wares.

So I was chatting with our good friend, Mr. Tim McCarthy at Hushman.

And he's a manufacturer and exhibitor.

They manufacture the Hushman sound-dending product and then the Zyco to Zybar

coatings.

And I asked him how the show was from a manufacturer standpoint.

And he said, he signed up, I think, over 70 new dealers for his product.

Holy cow.

That's incredible.

And several warehouse distributors for his product.

Well, good for you, Tim.

That is a successful show right there.

Sure.

Because now you have a manufacturer who has connected with channels to retail

and distribute his stuff, which means that's how it's going to land in the

hands of consumers and builders and end users.

Right.

And those deals would not have happened if he was not in his booth

with his displays and those retailers or distributors, dealers,

came to him and said, hey, we want to carry this.

Or hey, tell me about this, should I carry it?

Or there's differences between a regular dealer and a warehouse distributor,

but that's a huge thing.

So that is the business, one slice, one county on the continent

of planet cars that goes down at the SEMA show is that.

So to me, as long as that keeps happening,

there's going to be a show.

That's the biggest part of it.

For sure.

Yeah.

Getting back to judging the cars that are there based on whatever,

you've got to remember that those cars are there to display a product

for that particular manufacturer where they are.

It's not, again, it's not a car show.

It's a trade show.

And people want to display the parts they make on an actual car.

So people like builders can look at that and say, oh, that's cool.

I think I want that for my build.

So it's not a judged car show, so to speak.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so the organizers of the show

don't say, OK, we're going to plan this out

and we're going to have, if you look at something

like the Grand National Roadster Show, awesome event,

and they have theme displays every year.

So a couple of years ago, they had a great low rider exhibit

where it was like two buildings basically full of low riders

that they curated and brought in.

And those decisions of what types of cars

rely on the shoulders of the show organizers.

So another example is the upcoming muscle car

and Corvette Nationals.

They have their invitational displays

of certain types of muscle cars.

So this year, I believe they're having a Malibu SS Z16 display.

So they're going to curate those and market that.

Oh, yeah.

But the SEMA show does not curate displays of vehicles.

They don't pick the vehicles that

are going to be there.

The SEMA show is coming out of the SEMA association,

which the best definition I've heard

is a mirror that reflects what's going on in the industry.

That makes sense.

So if it's happening in the industry,

and here's the thing with getting back to playing

at cars, everybody's welcome.

If you're in this business, you're

welcome to come to the show.

So you are welcome to display at the SEMA show.

And whatever you make for whatever type of car is welcome

and encouraged to come out.

And there's where you get this unbelievable range of products

and unfathomable range of vehicles

that one parked right next to the next one

doesn't make any sense at all.

I mean, there are certain manufacturers.

They group the show by categories of hot rod alley.

You've got the mobile electronics sections of the show

so that the exhibitors are categorized.

But the whole perimeter of the building

and in the hallways and some of the extra space areas

is a random smattering of a reflection of what's

going on in the industry.

So yeah, you're right.

Those vehicles, the reason why they're there,

the main reason is to put new products in context.

And you mentioned, so builders can see them.

And far beyond builders, again, a dealer can walk by.

And maybe this dealer does four-wheel drive

upfits for trucks.

And those type of shops, they'll do appearance packages.

They'll do window tinting.

They'll do flares.

They'll do lighting.

They'll do winches.

They'll do shocks, lift kits, wheels, tires,

that kind of a shop.

And if they walk by and they go, yeah, look at this lifted

whatever, yeah, we sell that.

We sell, ooh, what's that?

We don't sell that.

We need to get that in our product line.

Because look at how nice it looks against that custom

bumper or push bar or whatever.

So then they'll find that manufacturer there at the show

and work a deal to be able to retail that product.

So it is a great way to contextualize

rather than just see a welded up piece of steel

on a bench top or a picture of something,

that the vehicle is a great way to demonstrate it.

Sure.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it's great.

Speaking of vehicles, we had one of our own builds

on display there at the SEMA show this year.

A 11969 Corvette Roadster.

That's right.

And again, for that same exact reason.

So we built this 427 Corvette.

It was on display at the McCacken show.

It did really well.

We recently launched a video on the whole build process

and the story behind it.

And our good friends at Coker Tire called up

and they said, we're launching some brand new tires.

And we think that that's the perfect vehicle to show them.

So the tire is a low profile, high performance

radial that now comes in a red line or a raised white letter.

So these are larger diameters, 17 to, I think, up to 20s.

Wow.

Low profile, high performance tire

with a raised white letter or a red line.

And those did not exist off the shelf until this SEMA show.

That's crazy.

It's pretty cool.

Yeah, it's really, really cool.

And that Corvette has a lot of power.

It's got a great suspension system.

It goes around turns.

And so our friends at Coker said, hey,

this car is going to be a great showpiece for the red line

and for the raised white letter.

It's a Pro Track brand.

It's a classic brand that people are familiar with.

And so one half of the car had the raised white letter.

The other side had the red line.

And they installed a set of period chrome plated

Kregar SS wheels in a 17 on the Corvette.

And it totally changed the look of the car.

It looked right just the way it looked right before.

Sure.

I mean, I thought it was killer.

It looked really cool.

Yeah, I thought it was fantastic.

And they said there was a lot of interest and traffic

and a lot of pictures taken of the car.

But again, that's why that car was there,

was to demonstrate what this stuff looks like

on an actual application.

And that was fun for us because right in that area,

it was displayed in Hot Rod Alley where the Coker display was.

Oh, nice.

And we really, really appreciate them handling all that.

And showing the interest of the car

and being a partner on that one, many of the other

manufacturers who are on that car

got to go along for the ride and were

exhibiting in that area.

So modern drive line with the clutch,

well with the brakes.

Right.

There was an audio system in there

that was on display right down the hallway.

A whole bunch of different products.

Of course, in the Coker family is also

Zip Corvette and Corvette Central.

And a host of restoration parts on that car

were made by them.

Oh, yes, they were.

I ordered many of them.

So it becomes a rolling showpiece

for all the cool stuff.

And Vintage Air, another great example, Dakota Digital.

They have a cruise control unit on that car.

So Ben, and our marketing manager,

was able to grab some of these representatives

from the companies who are on the car.

And he shot some videos with them talking about their product

line, but also the car, right?

Which was pretty cool.

To hear other manufacturers say, yeah, we like this car.

We're happy to be on this car.

And this is a great example of how

you can integrate our stuff and how the Vintage Air looks

in a C3 Corvette and the whole thing.

That is killer how that all comes together

and how the whole industry is, you know,

your analogy of planted cars is a perfect analogy,

because it is its own self-contained ecosystem,

much like a plant it is.

You have so many different parts that make up the whole.

And certain parts work in concert with each other

to create something.

And it's a really neat business to be in,

a really great industry.

I'm glad I'm an industry guy now.

You are an industry guy, for sure.

And just like playing on earth,

there's parts of playing a car that I've never been to.

Sure.

And parts I'm not interested in,

but I'm happy they're there.

And- Right, they need to be there.

They do.

And it all kind of feeds off itself.

And again, I think it's really important to point out

that the CMOS association

is in control of the show for like who they sell

the booth space to and the logistics of the show

and everything else.

But they really don't have anything to do

with the content of the show.

That's us.

Right.

That's us in the industry.

We make that show.

They put it up, but we populate it, you know?

For sure.

And Tom Gattuso, who's the VP of events,

the guy that basically runs the CMOS show,

he and I had a nice chat at the CMOS central stage

and he pointed that out again.

He's like, look, if you are an enthusiast out there

in the world and you're seeing something

here at the show that you have questions about,

you can't call us.

You gotta call the manufacturer that built it

or call the builder.

For sure.

Because it's a unique thing.

It's like, if this was a Broadway play,

you know, SEMA would be the theater owner

and the production people would be the actors

and the players and that's who the industry is.

Right on, man.

Yeah.

So it was a hugely busy week.

Again, a success metric for us

was that we had a vehicle on display, which was great.

Also in a great booth, great experience.

You mentioned Brian before he was there at the show

and we tasked him with kind of babysitting the car

on its way out.

And, you know, we learned a little something.

Car had a parasitic electrical draw

that it didn't want to leave the show.

It loves planet cars.

It wants to be there.

Yeah, they love our shop and they love planet cars.

So sometimes I think we single-handedly

keep the battery business in business.

The battery business needs something.

Yeah.

And also, it happens to everybody.

I mean, when we had the car in our possession a year ago

as we were preparing it to take it to the McCacken show,

we noticed that one of the door pin switches

for the dome light was malfunctioning.

And you'd close the door,

but the dome light would stay on.

And this being a convertible and a Corvette,

the dome light is tucked up under the dash.

So you really can't see.

It's not like... Hard to see at daytime.

Yeah.

So it got left on periodically

and we fixed it when it was at our shop,

or so we thought.

I think it went home to the owner

who had this switch fail on him

and just cycled the battery too low too many times.

And when it was go time to leave the SEMA show,

the battery's like, yeah, no, I don't want anymore.

Yeah, I'm good.

I'm good right here.

Yeah.

So there's a long list of things that we learned again,

as we do every time about ways to prepare and build

and test, you know.

Sure.

If we finish a big car build like that

and it leaves our shop and it's meant to be driven

and enjoyed and used,

but when you add that dynamic of motion

and things moving around,

and that's when things like this can happen.

They can loosen up or they can disconnect

or a part can fail or whatever.

And, you know, of course we try to prevent

as much of that as we can, but it does happen.

I'm just the only saving grace,

and forgive me, Brian,

is that it happened to one of us and not the owner, you know.

Yeah.

We were able to mitigate that.

Yeah.

Rather than a frustrated owner at a show

by himself somewhere.

Right, no, what do I do?

You know, that kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we got it.

And we're working with the battery manufacturer

and you mentioned, you know, the battery.

I don't know that it is the battery, you know.

It was probably some kind of short.

Right.

Yeah, no, it was probably a draw that it happened.

That caused the battery to die,

but the point is we still have to replace another battery.

And that's-

Yeah, it took the battery down with it, for sure.

Yeah, exactly.

So that's the bummer part, you know.

We're, I mean, usually when these things happen,

the battery places where we buy our batteries

are really good about warranting the batteries for us.

So that's one good thing.

So.

Yeah, for sure.

Which reminds me of a, I saw this beat up rusty,

not rusty, but, you know,

Petina smoked out utility van in Arizona a couple of months ago.

Just sunbeat and dented and it was from the 90s

and it had a door logo that said like,

it said like Smith Electric Company,

let us remove your shorts.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

That's nice.

Let us remove your shorts.

Yeah, that's right.

So we took the shorts of the Corvette, yeah.

But, you know, that was a great part of the show.

And again, I was very fortunate to work for

the association that week and

hosted the SEMA Central Stage,

which was the opportunity to do some interviews

with some industry notables and friends.

Right.

And some fun people came across through there.

Jay Leno came through again.

I didn't even know he was going to be there.

And that was cool.

Yeah.

Great chat with Jay.

He's still doing standup every week.

In fact, he did a standup show in Vegas

the night before.

Yeah, I heard that.

I'm like, oh, well, that's perfect timing.

Doing a standup show in Vegas

and same week as the SEMA show.

So swing on by.

Yeah.

And we had a fun chat about the Chrysler turbine car

and that whole program.

Cause he just got his rebuilt.

Oh, no kidding.

That's cool.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's neat.

He drives that thing.

He drives everything that he has.

I think he tries to anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah, he does.

It's pretty cool.

Yeah.

All the way on up to people like

Muhammad bin Salim, who is the president of the FIA,

which is the sanctioning body that owns Formula One.

Right.

And the FIA also has a mobility side

with mobility agendas around the world.

And they've partnered up with SEMA

to help advance these mobility programs.

So that's on paper.

That's why he was there.

But in talking to him, Muhammad bin Salim

is a great guy.

He's a former rally car champion.

He's a huge car guy.

He's a racer.

And he was actually looking for parts

for one of his project Broncos, I think.

Oh, no kidding.

I'll be done.

Yeah.

People were talking about FIA and he's like,

oh, yes, I really want to see the parts.

Okay.

That's awesome, man.

I love it.

Yeah.

At one point on the stage,

I had Mike Spagnola, who's SEMA president,

Muhammad bin Salim from FIA president,

president of NHRA,

Nevada State Representative,

the head of the Las Vegas Convention and Tourism Board,

and then a couple other board members from SEMA.

Yeah.

And we did the big kickoff on Tuesday morning,

noting that Las Vegas in that short period of time,

the few weeks before to a few weeks after the SEMA show,

it's like the automotive center of the universe,

even beyond planet cars.

Oh, man.

Because two weeks before,

there was like a 25,000 person lowrider show

at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Oh, wow.

Then there was the NHRA race,

the F1 race.

There's an off-road race right there.

You've got the SEMA show.

You've got the Concorda elegance at the Wynn Hotel.

There's a drift competition.

There's all these things that happen

right in that time frame.

There's also a Mekum auction going on right now in Vegas,

as we record this. Yeah, correct, yeah.

And there's also a Barrett Jackson auction

that happens in Vegas.

So basically anything you could want to do

in the automotive world happens

like at this time of year in Vegas.

It's really wild.

And it was great to,

I believe she was a state,

I don't want to get it wrong.

So a state representative,

she was either a congress or senator.

I don't remember which one at the time.

But a representative from Nevada was saying,

yeah, bring your auto events here,

bring your car shows,

bring your races here, we want them.

And that was awesome to hear.

That is awesome to hear.

I love that.

I love when the automotive world is embraced

by official government leadership.

So that's terrific.

But circling back, speaking of SEMA board members,

we had our own Kelly Oste,

who's on the SEMA board of directors

that was out there doing her thing as well.

Yeah, and yeah, she covered some pavement for sure.

Yeah.

The responsibilities of the board of directors at the show,

it's kind of interesting because the SEMA board is unique

in the sense that they're all working professionals

in the industry.

So many of them are displaying that week, they're working.

So they don't schedule like board room type meetings

and activities during the SEMA show

because they respect the fact that,

this is one of the biggest opportunities of the year

for a lot of the board members that are manufacturers.

So for example, Norris Marshall,

our good friend at Blueprint Engines,

is on the SEMA board and he's got a great booth

and he's selling engines.

And yeah, they unveiled a new Fuse Continental,

that 56 Continental was in Norris' booth.

I don't know if you saw that.

He had not seen that, but I heard about it.

That's pretty killer.

Yeah, it was.

So here you have a guy who's a manufacturer of engines,

who's on display, who's in a Fuse project at the SEMA show,

eyeballs deep in the whole industry,

but is also on the board of directors, right?

And to me, that's who you want on the board

is that type of experience level.

Yes, 100%.

And instead of just some corporate marketing mucks

from other industries who don't know what's going on.

Right, who just don't get it, who don't have the passion.

So yeah.

Right, they might know business,

but they don't know the car culture.

They don't know planet cars, man.

That's it, that's it.

So Kelly was, I think she was able to take

about six steps at a time before being pulled.

Somebody asking a question, somebody,

and you know, God bless her,

she will help show somebody where the bathroom is

all the way on up to, hey, I have a question about my booth.

Can you put me in touch with somebody?

Right.

And everybody in between.

Sure.

So in typical fashion, she was communicating

with a lot of people that might have been

first time visitors to help them navigate the show.

She was talking with other business owners

to come up with ways to advance

the way we do operations at our shop at VHB and Resto.

She was helping the show staff get things done.

And communicating with other board members,

they have a board meeting coming up

at the PRI show in December.

So that's where they'll all get together

and recap SEMA, so.

Very nice.

Yeah.

Cool, man.

So that was another aspect of it.

The events that happen within the show,

you know, that's another thing you hear sometimes

is people are like, you know, if it's a trade show,

how come you have Jay Leno walking around

and how come you have, you know,

these banquets and a drift car expedition

out in front and all these other things,

that's not doing business, you know.

But really it kind of is.

Yeah.

It absolutely is.

It's tea things.

Yeah, it's demonstrating trends in the industry.

Again, holding up a mirror to what's going on out there.

But also, you know, if you're gonna go

to a trade show for a week,

why not have some fun while you're there?

Amen, man.

Heck yeah.

This isn't a dental insurance convention.

This is SEMA, man.

You've heard this speech before.

Yeah, exactly.

But they're all endemic to what the industry does.

You know, it's not like they had

something that was completely unrelated.

You know, like, I don't know,

the automotive industry reaches so many things,

but it wasn't like here's a performance

of professional banana peelers, you know.

There wasn't that.

Right.

It was all automotive cultural events going on.

And the kickoff breakfast was really fantastic this year.

Jared DeAnda hosted that one.

I write the script for that,

which really isn't a whole lot.

It's kind of Jared's intros and some stuff,

which he takes and does whatever he's gonna do anyway,

which is cool.

But Spagnola and Muhammad Bin Salim were on stage

talking about racing and things like Cadillac's return

to F1, which is incredible.

Ooh, that is incredible.

And it's gonna be an American driver behind the wheel.

Oh wow.

Yeah, and F1 is one of those sports.

It's a global sport, but the United States,

we have some tracks,

but we really don't have a whole lot of involvement.

Right.

There's really no drivers.

There's no teams.

Well, Income's Cadillac,

so that's gonna be really awesome.

And then next up for guests were Tim Caniscus,

who's the head of Stellantis Dodge.

So he's the guy behind the SRT program behind Hellcat.

And basically a total car guy loves Hemmys,

loves gasoline, loves high performance

and was really rallying the crowds

about high performance cars and trucks

that are gonna have the Dodge

and Ram brand on them going forward.

We had the EV kind of clamped down for a while

and that has corrected a couple years ago.

It seemed like the main theme of everything was EV

and now it's like, okay, there's a place for him,

but no, people really dig gasoline-powered

high performance cars and trucks.

Amen.

High performance diesel trucks.

So great to hear that from him.

And then the rest of the program

was kind of a fireside chat with Brian Scotto

and Travis Pastrana about some Hoonigan videos,

new Jim Khanna video and carrying on the Ken Block legacy

and that side of things.

So that was really cool.

And for me, it was a chance,

I was a hundred miles an hour,

we shot some Hot Rod Industry Alliance feature vehicles

on Monday, Ben came out, our marketing manager,

kind of my right hand on the marketing video

on the media side.

And I'm in the HRA, as I've mentioned before here.

The Hot Rod Industry Alliance is a council of SEMA,

it's a little slice, it's a state.

Right on.

Planet cars, that is Hot Rod Land.

So they feature some vehicles there

and we shot six videos on Monday that we edited

Monday and Tuesday and then they got shown

on the big screens Wednesday night at the HRA banquet

where we honored some Hall of Famers

and some individuals and manufacturers of the year,

some innovative builders, did some great presentations,

showed the videos, fun event, a lot of fun.

And then Thursday night was the reformatted SEMA

industry awards night, used to be the SEMA banquet,

used to be kind of a sit down thing at the table

when you get a presentation on stage.

This year it was in a brand new theater

across the street from the convention center

at the Fountain Blue Casino Hotel.

Oh yeah, they got a, the stage has like a,

I think it's a 60 foot tall digital backdrop.

Holy cats.

It's state of the art and it's a classic theater, right?

So if you look at, I know the first image

that comes to mind is Showtime at the Apollo,

like the stage with the audio up the sides

and the curved balcony seating with an open floor.

So we had tables on the floor and people sitting everywhere

and that's where the SEMA industry awards happened.

So that's where we presented four SEMA Hall of Famers,

Person of the Year, the Peterson Lifetime Achievement Award

which went to Don Garlitz this year, very worthy.

Oh, very cool.

Yeah, great stuff.

And there's a fun story there

because Mike's bagnola came out to give his opening speech

and on the stage are some vehicles.

We can put cars on stage.

Ooh, nice.

Which we couldn't do before.

Yeah, oh yeah.

And Mike really wanted to get back to,

this is all about the cars.

Plain of cars is about the cars, you know?

And the people that built them

and the stories behind them.

So they had some cars lined up

and the emcee by the way was Sun Kang,

the actor that was in Fast and Furious,

take a drift and you know.

So one of the cars was a screen-shown Sun Kang Supra

from Tokyo Drift.

Nice.

That segment was represented.

The big ole Baja 1000 winning Bronco from 1970 and 71

was on stage, the actual Bronco.

Wow.

No kidding.

Oh yeah, yeah.

The McGee Roadster, which is a 32 Ford Roadster

that was built originally in about 1946, 47,

and established the stance that every hot rod has today.

No way.

It's super clean, it's lowered,

it's got big and little tires on it.

It's a great story behind it.

It was the first non-race car to be featured

on the cover of Hot Rod Magazine in 1949.

I'll be darned.

So Hot Rod's first few issues were race cars

and this was the first street car.

But then the McGee went on to run and set a record

at El Mirage on the dry lakes

and then it went on to set a record at Bonneville on the Salt

and eventually was restored back to the way it looked

when McGee built it himself.

It's been in the Bruce Meyer Collection

and on display at the Peterson Museum for a long time.

It is the definitive Hot Rods, red, you know.

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now, it is.

It's the quintessential Hot Rod.

Yeah, it's perfect.

So that was on stage.

So then they also had the Hoonigan Mustang bodied

Jim Conakar that Ken Block drove

that embodies that whole, you know,

it's a 1400 horsepower, you know,

drift off-road machine, it's incredible.

Showcasing like all kinds of great stuff

from not only aftermarket performance parts,

but, you know, fabrication and having fun with cars.

And they were gonna have another car there

that couldn't make it.

Yeah.

And the reason why I couldn't make it

is because it didn't fit in the elevator.

No way.

Because there's an elevator that brings a car

up to the stage.

Sure.

And that was Kaddzilla.

Come on.

Yeah, and I'm on a call with Spagnola and he's like,

hey, Kaddzilla fell out, we can't, we can't fit it.

And I'm like, oh man, that's a hell.

Gee whiz.

So he said, I need a car.

And I said, well, what do you got?

You know, so we went over the list

and I said, you know what would be killer?

Would be the Smoky unit Camaro,

that first gen Camaro that Smoky built.

Oh yeah.

That was immediately outlawed in SCCA, black and gold.

And it's, you know, the car is crazy.

They sectioned the nose, they flushed the glass,

they belly pan the whole thing.

Everybody panel's been tweaked for Arrow.

It's got a list of about a thousand tricks

in this car to make it balanced and perform.

And it was part of the Vic Edelbrock collection

for a long time.

Smoky, you know, went through tech at a race

and they banned it.

So then he took it to Bonneville

and he set a record with a small block

and then set a record with a big block in it.

And then Don Yanko ended up getting it

and racing it in the 70s.

And he was successful in trans-am with it.

Oh, wow.

They made it legal, yeah.

So the names that are attached to this car

between Smoky Unic and Don Yanko,

and I mean, it's incredible.

So I said, you need that.

And he was like, oh yeah, great idea.

Do you know where it is?

And I'm like, I thought it was, you know,

in the Vic Edelbrock collection.

And then it dawned on me that that whole collection

got liquidated about two months before the SEMA show.

Oh boy.

It was auctioned off at a Bonham's auction.

Oh boy.

So let me see what I can do here.

So I put the magic of social media to work

and I put a post out on my personal Facebook page

with a picture of the car at the auction.

And I said, does anybody know where this landed?

Because I'd like to do something with it.

And put it this way, within one hour

I had the contact of who owns it.

Get out of town, holy cow, man.

Now that is what social media should be used for every day.

100%.

So a gentleman contacted me and he goes,

hey, a friend of mine on Facebook

that I don't know that we've actually met in person.

But he said, hey, I know where the car is.

You know, what are you gonna do with it?

And I said, well, there's an event

and it's kind of above my pay grade.

But if we can, you know, if I can talk to the owner.

So he said, because it's you,

I will share the guy's information.

Oh, very cool.

But it's clearly not for public knowledge.

He's like, this has been my best friend for 40 years.

I don't want him, you know.

And I said, exactly, I get it, I respect that.

So I reached out to him and it's a gentleman

who lives in Northern California.

And he called me back and he said, yeah, what's up?

And I said, are you familiar with the SEMA show?

And he goes, yeah, I said, do you own the Smokey Camaro?

He says, yeah, I said, do you wanna bring it?

And he's like, what are you gonna do?

And I said, well, they wanna have it featured

on the stage for the big SEMA Industry Awards night.

And he's like, that would be awesome.

Oh, awesome.

So we chatted for a little while about the car

and how cool it is and the whole thing.

And I said, all right, well, from here

I'm gonna put you in touch with Spagnola

and the SEMA show team.

It's not my, again, you're above my pay grade

at this point, I just made the connection.

And he goes, yeah, yeah, there's one caveat.

And I said, what's that?

He said, there's no motor in it.

Oh, geez.

Okay.

And he said, well, we run a vintage race team.

And every 40 hours we rebuild our race engines.

And we noticed that this engine has 46 hours on it.

So we pulled it and we're refreshing it

because we're gonna race this car.

Oh.

And I went, yes.

Yes, that is excellent.

That makes it even cooler.

Yeah.

So he said, it's at the machine shop right now.

I don't know if it's gonna get finished in time.

And I said, I wouldn't even care.

And I would have Mike tell that story that,

yeah, if it looks like it's sitting a little high

in the nose, it's because the engine's not

getting refreshed for the next race season.

I mean, that's awesome.

Yeah.

Because this car is getting used,

not just getting displayed.

So I put him in contact with Mike.

They do their thing at the show and had an engine in it.

So I don't, yeah, I don't know if they put a weight in it,

if you will, you know, placeholder,

or if they were able to finish up the actual race engine.

But so those cars were all on the stage

at this awards ceremony.

It was amazing.

The variety and the, how far reaching each one

of those cars goes, you know, the Sun King Supra

is the connection to the whole tuner industry.

You know.

Oh, right.

That car helped ignite that whole industry.

And the smoky car and the McGee launched

the hot rod industry and the big Oli Bronco

helped launch the off-road performance parts industry.

You know, because if you think about it,

in 1965, you couldn't go buy like a Skyjacker suspension.

You didn't see lifted trucks driving down the street.

Right.

It was that truck that got so much press

and so much excitement for people to start building

modified off-road vehicles in the 70s.

And it started, you know, not completely,

but a big part of it was right there.

So you want to talk about authentic vehicles

on the stage and in the room,

I mean, it gave me goosebumps.

It was crazy.

That is pretty, that is really, really cool.

Ah, man, I wish I could have been there,

but that's cool that you got to experience that

and you got to have a hand in what was on there.

So that's even cooler.

Yeah, you know, a little bit, I guess.

The other fun thing was our good friend,

Mr. John McLeod was one of the 2025

SEMA Hall of Fame inductees.

And this year they had people from the SEMA councils

and networks present the Hall of Fame awards

at that award ceremony from relevant councils.

So John McLeod is at the helm of classic instruments,

which is a hot rod company.

He also works under the Holly umbrella.

So he's very involved in the hot rod side.

And he's also involved in restoration.

So they asked Chris Compton, who is with Armo and SEMA,

and then myself from the hot rod industry,

the two of us presented McLeod's,

we at least introduced McLeod to come out on stage

for that, which was cool.

But we got to follow Don Garlett's coming off the stage.

So I chatted with Don just right before in the wings,

which was pretty cool.

So yeah, a lot of cool magic stuff like that.

That is super cool, man.

What a cool planet.

How about it?

It's a cool planet.

That's a planet we need to save, my friend.

Yeah, man.

Always.

Save the planet.

I'm a full on environmentalist for planet cars.

Yes, sir, as we all should be.

We all have to do our part.

Yeah.

And it all rounds out for me with the SEMA crews.

Oh yeah, you win the Joseph Burgandio, right?

That's right.

And Tom Gattuso summed that up.

He's like, you know, it's nothing like having a 5K

at the end of the marathon.

And that's basically, I'll call it a 10K,

but that's basically what the SEMA crews is.

All the show vehicles start up and roll out.

And you've seen the videos online and all the stuff.

And this year, by the numbers,

there was over 150,000 people

that attended the SEMA show.

Good gravy.

And it was nearly 2,000 new products launched.

There were 2,334 vehicles on display.

Sweet Lord.

Good heavens.

A good load of those rolled out of the SEMA crews.

Not all of them, but a good load of them did.

And the SEMA crews, it's my job and Joe's job

to kind of work the crowd and provide color commentary

on what we see rolling by.

And that one is, it's so much fun

because it is a curve ball after a curve ball.

Here's a low rider.

Here's a lifted truck you can walk under.

Here's a Dodge diesel with 18 turbos on the front of it.

Truck bed full of train horns.

Literally that happened.

Here's a Porsche GT3.

Here's an 84 Monte Carlo low rider.

I mean, just everything, one after the next.

And some of the stuff I know what the car is

or what it was, some of them I might know the actual car

like the builder and the details.

But the vast majority, you're just kind of winging it.

And when you look at the crowd on hand,

there's bleachers set up on both sides

of what they call a Valley of the Valley of Fun

and attraction in plenty of cars.

Nice.

And then they go across the street

past the West Hall down to Vegas Boulevard.

And that street is like a quarter mile long

with people five and six deep on both sides.

That's crazy.

And there's 10,000 people there watching the cruise.

So there's an interesting thing that happens.

I'm standing there, Joe's standing there.

We got microphones.

The first thing was behind us are all of the,

there's a media corral area where they tried to come up

with like the best shot and let the people shooting videos

and photographs hang out in the media area.

Well, this guy with the big bucket of brains

wasn't paying attention and was standing in front of them.

Oh boy.

A lot.

Yeah.

And so finally, one of the camera guys like,

hey dude, can you just get out of the way?

I mean, I'm getting all this video of your bat.

I'm like, oh my God.

This guy with the big bucket of brains.

So I actually gave an apology on the mic.

I'm like, look, ladies and gentlemen,

I have to sincerely apologize to all of our media creators

that are here because I was not aware

that I was standing right in front of all the cameras.

Oh Lord.

Like a guy with a big bucket of brains.

But as a car enters this little valley of fun,

you know, I'll spot it and then, you know, talk about it.

And a lot of times I'm able to pull them over to me

and interview the person behind the wheel,

which is the best to hear their story.

And then the car leaves.

Well, the audio system goes almost all the way

to the Vegas strip with speakers down the street.

And then it goes the other way.

So people on the far ends are hearing a different story.

They're seeing a different car roll by

than what I'm talking about.

And when these videos pop up online,

a lot of times you see, you know,

here's a Supra that's outfitted for road racing.

And you hear me, you know,

talking about a twin turbo 62 Chevy

because it's coming over to the PA.

And the comments are like,

this guy doesn't know anything.

Bald guy claps for self.

Oh yeah, here he is again.

It's so great.

So funny.

That's beautiful.

Man, well, it sounds like that was quite a week

as the SEMA show always is.

So I love seeing the, you know,

hearing about, you know,

doing new things like having that banquet

or the award ceremony at a different venue

that's a little more accommodating with the stage

and have actual cars up on there

and all the new products that are launched.

I mean, that just tells me

the state of the industry is still growing

and is still very strong, which is phenomenal.

It's very strong, very strong.

And Brian and Ben and Ziggy were there

from our team doing a great job.

They had a tremendous week.

They did.

Brian made so many contacts

and we've already affected change

on how we interact with some of these vendors

that we use because of their trip

and their contact and their meetings

with these people at the SEMA show.

Yeah, so give me an example of that.

So we're talking with,

actually we do a business with a company called Rare Parts

and they have updated their website

and they are helping us with,

we can see a lot more on the website.

We don't have to necessarily call them all the time

to get something ordered.

We have our pricing updated.

We can see tracking now.

We got a contact on how to,

because they're on the West Coast

and we're at central time

and so there's a few hours difference

and if they wanna contact us

and they realize, oh, we need to,

it's say it's three o'clock Pacific time

and they wanna call us, well, we're gone.

Or if we wanna, or if we're starting our day

at eight o'clock and we need to reach out to them,

well, nobody's there.

So Brian got an individual contact.

He says, just email me.

I check my email early

or you can call me, my phone flashes

and they're really annoys me.

So I know I have to get back with somebody.

So I can be your point of contact

rather than you just having to go through the,

general contact means.

So we can have better contact with them

and be able to do better business with them.

And I know that with-

That's great.

So that enhanced that relationship.

Yeah.

It provided a better means of working with them.

We like rare parts

because they'll actually make stuff for us

if we need a weird ball joint

or something for an old car that you can't get-

And they have just recently for us, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And they're not like a giant consumer facing,

they are consumer facing

but they don't have a whole online store

with a chat person and all that stuff.

They're a pretty small company.

But by having those contacts now,

we can get answers quicker.

We can get parts fulfilled and ordered quicker and faster

which means a better experience for our customers and our team.

Yeah.

Another good example is with blueprint engines.

When we get a crate engine from them,

an LS based engine specifically

and we put it in a Corvette

or a first gen Camaro or second gen F body,

we typically will need to change the oil pan out

to one that will fit the cross member a little bit better.

And so what they're gonna do for us

is they can build that engine with that oil pan

and sell it to us that way

rather than us having to swap it out.

And that's a huge improvement over the previous process.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and again, these type of nuances occur

from having these face to face conversations

and having these relationships.

So good.

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah, and just last year at the PRI show,

we established, and at SEMA, we talked with,

actually at the triple corner of rotting as well.

We talked about flooring of ARP

and we established a direct buys program with them

rather than have to buy through a distributor.

So that was a huge improvement as well.

Yeah, and that was a tough one

because in the past, our good friend, Chris Raschke,

who passed at Bonneville this past year,

he kind of just took care of us.

Yeah, he did.

And he did it for a lot of shops

where if we needed something,

we didn't have to go to a retailer,

we could just call them and the parts would show up

in whatever the bill was,

but it was like, it literally was

a really good friend work there

who gave us that type of service level,

which at the same time meant

it didn't have standard procedure

of a contact person tracking follow-up.

It was just like, Chris would go through

the shipping center and pull the order we needed

and box it and send it to us.

And then when it showed up, it showed up.

And we love that personal attention,

but it made it a little bit difficult in some ways

because we needed a little more formal of a process.

And unfortunately, again, he passed away,

which is a horrible thing.

And I miss that guy all the time.

But Bob Florian stepped up

and we were able to establish

more of a legit trackable account.

Exactly, and we have a contact person

and I emailed that person yesterday

and got an instant reply, which is great.

So that is super helpful

and it helps us keep things moving along a lot quicker.

As we grow, we need to establish more

kind of quote unquote official channels

to do business with people

and be able to track and have people be accountable

and be able to get back to people

if something doesn't go right.

Right, and again with Chris, it was like,

yeah, I'll get that as soon as I get back from Bonneville.

Cause I gotta go settle a lane speed record real fast.

Yeah, yeah.

Which is awesome, but it was when you have things in motion.

And so over the years, over the 21 years now,

we've built a huge database of relationships

of accounts that we buy directly from

and have these type of reps,

but it's always fun to add more

and I think we've got this year.

Yeah, it's been a very,

it was a very productive SEMA show for Brian

and for the shop.

So it was one of the best ones ever.

So to answer the original question,

you know, it was a great show

on all these different metrics.

And again, when somebody's like,

oh yeah, that's a stupid looking truck,

the SEMA show is dumb.

Yeah, I agree.

That is a stupid looking truck.

It isn't my thing,

but there's all the rest of the planet you're missing out on.

So don't rush to judgment.

For sure, for sure.

Oh boy, well that is phenomenal.

We need a quick GTO block update.

I understand you tore the thing down

to see the carnage inside.

Yeah, so on our last episode,

I was getting ready to get the block removed

and get it torn down and evaluated

and through the help of my good friend, Randy Burge,

he loaned me his engine stand and his engine hoist

and through the help of our good friend, Paul,

Mr. Paul Vichubar.

He came by and helped me yank it out

and get it on the engine stand

and then I got everything pulled apart

and one of the concerns I had,

I was not able to rotate the crankshaft all the way around.

I could get maybe 180 degrees in either direction

before things would get stuck.

And I was worried that the crankshaft was bent

or the rod was bent or something was interfering,

but I was afraid it was one of those two things.

When I got the engine out

and I got it on an engine stand

and I pulled the oil pan off

and I removed that number three connecting rod cap

and I had to try to get the piston out.

I had to literally go on the backside of it

with a piece of wood or something

and with a hammer,

I had to beat that thing out of the cylinder hole

because it was the piston itself

and the way the cylinder was probably all boogered up

that was holding things up.

Once I got that piston out

with all the other pistons and rods still intact

that that crankshaft rotated cleanly over 360 degrees

which was a great sign.

Yay!

Yeah, so that made me really, really happy.

So I got the block completely stripped,

got it loaded up in the Suburban.

I brought it down to our V8 Speed and Restore Shop

engine machine shop

and had our boy Ethan take a look at it

and he ran it through the jet wash

and got it cleaned up a little bit

and he did a magnet flux on it

and he showed that the cracks do not,

the cracks, there's about four separate cracks

in that cylinder

and they're all within like the middle third

of that cylinder.

So nothing is too far up into the deck

nothing is too far down to the bottom of the cylinder

or into the water jacket.

So with the sleeve that block is gonna be fully salvageable

and I'll be able to reuse it.

So that is phenomenal news

because I was looking at blocks on like marketplace

and other other classifieds

and you know what?

I just, I didn't want to go down that road

because what if you buy something and it's junk

and you still have to go through all the processes

and all that that you have to do now.

So that made me really, really, really happy.

So I'm gonna get a sleeve

and I'm gonna have the engine machine shops leave it.

Get a new set of pistons for it.

It'll be about 40 over.

We're at 35 over right now

and I found something with a better compression height

so I'll be able to get that better squish

with some mild decking of the block

to get it right to dial it in right where I want.

Looking at a set of metal block heads for it.

Take advantage of the can that's in there

to get some better airflow, get some better compression.

You can do anything to the heads?

I don't know.

I mean, I'll probably just general practices

even though we get a brand new set of heads

we'll still tear them down and check everything out.

Yeah.

And verify.

Are you gonna do any port work on them or anything?

I don't know.

I don't know if, you know,

depends on how comfortable our guys feel

about doing that stuff

because we haven't done a whole lot of it, but.

The other thing you could do,

I mean, yeah we do some hand porting here

and there and stuff, but it's definitely a thing

that is gonna affect the budget a little bit,

but there's a lot of guys out there

with a CNC program for those heads.

Yeah.

You might wanna call our friends a butler

and see if they can run them through a machine.

Yeah.

If I know they could.

And I thought about that.

But we'll see, we'll see what happens.

The Edelbrock heads probably perfectly fine

for out of the box.

Yeah.

It's probably better than just about any other

Pontiac head that was ever made.

Probably, yeah.

They flow.

I think they start where a cast iron block

will stop after a whole lot of porting is done

on a cast iron head.

Do you know what the CC size the runners are in OLED?

I don't know.

I know the combustion chamber is about 87 CCs

with everything else that I'm looking to do

will get me about 10 and a half to one, 10.6 to one,

which I feel perfectly fine with on an aluminum head.

Yeah, oh yeah, all day.

So that'll get me some, a little more,

a little bump in power, which in with the flow

to support that, I think I should be doing all right.

It can take some weight off the nose.

Yeah, yep.

Yeah, take about 50 pounds off.

So that'll be cool.

And I'm hoping by the time everything is all said and done,

our dyno room will be fully operational.

I can get that dynoed and see some real numbers on it.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

Well, that's good.

Yeah, that's great.

I didn't see it.

How did the block look after we,

so we just washed that one.

We didn't, we didn't shot peanut and tumble it.

No, we didn't tumble it or shot or blasted or hot tank it.

We just threw it in the jet wash

to get all the oil and residue off of it.

Cause it's still pretty clean.

Yeah, it is very clean.

I mean, a lot of paint flakes flaking off of it

because I can't, don't know how to paint a block

for save my life, but we're gonna have our good friend,

Mr. Jeff Whitlick paint that one for me

when the time is right.

So I'm gonna get that.

Are you going to run it through the hot tank

to further strip the paint?

Yeah, we'll need to do that

to give it all fully stripped.

And I do wanna get it painted by the shop

because I mean, I saw that,

we had that 79 Bronco with the 351 modified engine

that we rebuilt and ran through the paint shop.

And man, what a difference

between a rattle can and real,

real deal automotive level paint that went on there.

It is, oh my gosh, it's beautiful.

It is, it's really nice.

And you know, we had these conversations before

where it's like at our engine shop,

we have some really cool tools to clean and strip

and debur and remove paint and stuff.

So typically what the guys will do is take a greasy engine

and do a quick external degreasing,

maybe some sprays and some scrapers and whatnot

so that they can at least work on it

without getting completely covered and gunk.

And disassemble everything and then throw it in the,

there's that jet wash deal

and there's also the hot tank.

And then the next step beyond that is the,

it's a shot tumbler that has stainless steel shot beads in it.

And it does a process where it just rotates the part

and not really high pressure,

but it just inundates all the parts

with the stainless steel shot.

And when the part comes out of that,

it is like brand new cast.

Oh, it's like a fresh casting.

Yeah, it's amazing.

Yeah.

And the concern becomes like,

does that affect,

does it undo all the machine work

that's been done to that engine?

Right.

Does it put her up the lifter bores?

Do they have to be honed out again

or the cylinders and all that?

Yeah.

So that we kind of reserved

for a full complete remanu, remachine process.

Even though we have been told

that lifter bores don't seem to care about that,

but whatever.

So that is if you're gonna do the entire thing

back to square one full blueprint,

full machine deck.

Which I am, so.

Yeah.

Yeah, so you're gonna touch all the cylinders?

Yeah, well, I got a bore, I got an overbore.

I need to,

because these pistons I found are 40 over.

And I mean, there's not a lot of miles on it

on the last build, but I saw some scratches

that I don't like,

that I'd like to get gone out of there.

I don't know if a hone will do it.

Then I'll maybe revisit this,

but I'm not sure I have to have our bore, Ethan,

kind of evaluate that.

And that was what, 37 over before?

It was 35.

35 over.

Yeah.

So.

So there's room to.

Oh, there's plenty of room.

And I had a sonic checked

and I have plenty of cylinder wall left to,

I could go to 60 over if I wanted,

but I don't want to have.

I don't want to if I don't have to.

A 5,000 over bore is a very small step.

Yeah.

Well, here's the thing.

The current bore is 4155, right?

And these icon pistons I found through summit,

they say they're 40 over,

but the bore says it's 4165,

which would indicate it's 10,000 larger than what I have.

So I'm not sure where they're starting,

but everything else is fine.

It's designed to work with a 6800 rod

and it has a compression height

that's gonna put me right at about

like seven or 8,000 in the hole as it is.

So I was gonna deck the block about 3,000

to get that 5,000 in the hole

that I'm really looking for.

So I'm curious if they're really 40 over or they're 45 over.

But the fact that they say it's a 4165

lends to me to believe it's a 10,000 over than what I have,

but it's weird.

I think I'd rather do a 10,000 than a 5,000.

I would too,

because that's a little easier to take a little more off

and then hone it to sneak up on it.

Yeah, I think you're in control a little bit more.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

It's not that it can't be done,

but I just remember,

and we've told this story before,

but we had a long before we had our own crank,

cutting machine.

We sent that 428 crankshaft out to get cleaned up

and it really only needed like a thaw taken off of it.

Right.

And the crankshaft did like three of the journals

to get to number four

and whoops, and the cutter moved and it gouged it

and the guys are like,

this is too tight to cut anyway, you know.

Right.

Rune to crank.

Oh man.

Yeah, that's tough.

This should just be a polish to get you down the thaw, right?

Yeah, you'd think.

So sometimes you got to take a little more off

to just have a better process.

Sure, sure.

Yeah, so that's where we are right now.

I have a salvageable block

and I'm pretty soon I'm gonna be moving full steam ahead.

Oh, that's fantastic.

Yeah.

Yeah, it definitely was the news I needed.

So yeah.

Well, that's really awesome.

Thank you.

So, you know what else is really awesome?

Would that be the answers to your trivia questions?

Yes, and I will say there's a rule

and I know all the rules today in media

are quickly being broken

or have been broken for a long time.

One of the rules is you wanna create content

as they call it, which I hate that.

I know you hate that.

That just means like, I'm a content creator

so that means you just put something

on the pages between the covers, you know?

So, it's content.

Is that content?

Is it a story?

Is it worth it?

Or is it just a space hope anyway?

You wanna hear a funny one?

We're walking from one place to another

at the SEMA show.

Actually it was after the awards ceremony

we're going to the bar

because the band Leadfoot was playing once again

and I got a chance to sing a couple tunes

with those guys again.

It was kind of fun.

Oh, cool.

But we're walking with Kyle Fickler.

Yeah.

Our man from ProCharger who's also

the immediate past chair of the SEMA board of directors

and a great friend, a guy who saved my life

a long time ago.

Yeah, he did.

His daughter, Danica, is in college.

She races Formula SAE, she's on that team.

She's a drag racer, NHRA, you know,

totally into this stuff.

Anyway, she's complaining about her shoes

because her and Kelly were walking

all dressed up from this big fancy event.

They're in heels.

And Kelly's like, yeah, just wear some tennis shoes.

And she said, yeah, I went shoe shopping with my dad

and he just got aggravated

because all these shoes have white soles

and he can't stand it.

And Kelly's like, what's the matter with white soles?

And he's like, he just hates them.

He just can't take it.

He just got really, really irritated.

So I'm like, huh, so I kind of put that one away.

And later on, I see him in the bar, you know,

and we're talking about stuff.

And I said, well, you know, your birthday's coming up.

I'm gonna get you a pair of these really cool

white soled shoes for your birthday.

And he looked at me and he's like, you're gonna what?

You can't do that.

How many times?

It's the dumbest thing ever.

And I'm like, wow.

He goes, I'm gonna find this tie raid.

And you know, he's got a good point.

If you're at a drag strip and there's like,

you know, hot rubber and VHT on a track,

you can't get it off a white soled shoe.

That's true.

But Danica said he forbade her from wearing a white soled shoe.

Boy, you hooked a whopper with that one.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah, that was a good one.

Oh yeah, that was a really good one.

So anyway, the term I was getting to is that

they want, you want to keep your,

your story time and your media evergreen.

And the term evergreen means you can listen to it today.

You can listen to it 10 years from now.

There's still something there.

It's not focused around a date or an event.

Right.

And so you'll notice that, you know,

we talked about the semen show,

but all the stuff we talked about is relevant

pretty much every year.

You know, it's not like.

But I will break that rule a little bit.

And do a quick preview.

And if you're, if you're hearing this in time,

the McCacken show is coming up right around the corner.

Muscle Car Corvette Nationals.

And we'll be there once again.

And you and I'll be there pulling covers off cars

and shooting video and doing interviews

and having a big time.

I think Brian's going to be there as well

with his dad and his brother.

His dad's never been.

So I think that's going to be super fun.

Yeah, that'll be cool.

And lots of great stuff to see there.

And guess what?

That whole statement was true

except for Brian's dad being there.

That whole statement was true every year.

So if you're listening to this

and then you're 2950 and the McCacken's coming up

and you should go.

Because we'll be there.

That's right.

Our remains will be spread at Rosemont.

Yeah, on display, yeah.

Yeah.

That's actually, now that is actually not a bad idea.

Uh-huh.

The remains display of Hot Rodder's past?

I mean, something with a magnet on it.

You can stick it in the car

and take your loved one for a cruise.

There you go.

I'm telling you, man.

See, Michelle does it to you.

Ha ha ha ha.

Very nice.

Anywho.

All right, so let's get back to these answers here.

So I asked you what model year of Corvette production

saw the highest number of units sold?

And you kinda went, you know, first at 78, 79, 80,

and then you settled on 79.

And despite my best effort to try to steer you off of that,

1979 is the answer, sir.

Are you kidding me?

Right at.

I'm not kidding you.

Ha ha ha ha.

You are right on the money, 1979.

Yeah, Brian and I, we happen to be talking

about a Corvette, I think, in the shop.

And he mentioned 1979.

He's like, highest number of units sold, by the way.

That's a trivia question.

I'm like, that is a trivia question.

Thank you very much, sir.

So that's where that came from.

Yeah, it is a good one.

Let's see, put that in my back pocket.

So congratulations.

Thank you, that was unexpected.

Yeah, no, no, please return the favor.

Yes, well, the question is to you.

Titling me, I'm correct.

Was who is the DeSoto car company named after?

And your exact answer was, quote,

DeSoto, Texas, who conceived the brand

from same said city.

Yes, the person who conceived the brand

was from DeSoto, is what I said.

Kind of, I was typing as you said it.

Okay, nice, nice.

I like that, from same said city.

From said city, yes.

Yeah, right, okay.

Well, unfortunately.

Ah!

Mr. I paid attention in high school history class

over there.

Yeah.

The DeSoto car company was named after

the Spanish explorer, Hernando DeSoto.

Oh!

Who led the first European expedition

into what is now the Southeastern United States.

Oh man.

So Chrysler, Walter P himself, chose the name in 1928,

that's another trivia question,

to evoke a sense of adventure

and to create a brand that would compete

in the mid-price car market,

which goes right to the DeSoto adventurer,

which was a car.

Yeah, very nice.

I mean, it's possible that the city of DeSoto, Texas

was named after Hernando DeSoto as well.

So in a roundabout sort of way, I was really kind of right.

Sort of, yeah.

In some universe.

She was born there, Walter P Chrysler

was born in DeSoto, Texas before it was named DeSoto.

Well, who knows?

Who knows?

So.

That's a great question though.

There you go.

Side trivia question.

What famous television character on the TV show MASH

had a wife who drove it to DeSoto?

Ooh.

And what was her name?

Oh gosh, darn it.

Well, I'll say it was Henry Blake and his wife Lorraine.

So, so close.

It was actually Sherman T Potter.

Sherman Potter.

And his wife Mildred who drove the DeSoto.

I wasn't gonna say Potter, but I went with Blake instead.

Gosh, darn it.

Sherman T Potter.

Yep.

All right.

Very nice.

All right, that's another example of the cough medicine.

So thank you.

It really brings out the creativity in you, man.

This is what happens, man.

When I get a fever, I get really crazy.

You asked Kelly, the one time she comes in the bedroom

and I was sick as a dog.

I had a high fever for me and I'm half delirious

and I'm writing down stuff.

And she's like, what are you writing down?

And I said, I'm recalling every phone number I ever had.

Right on.

I mean, that's just a good mental exercise.

All my teachers, I was compelled to go from preschool

to my last college professor and list every teacher's name.

Do you know the names of your teachers?

I know my elementary school teachers.

The DeSoto was definitely not one of them.

No, not one of them.

No, I remember my elementary school teachers.

But not in junior high or anything like that.

Well, next time you get sick, you can work on that.

I will, I will do that.

All right, well, I gotta go heal up

for the McCacken show and get this show on the road.

Right on, man.

Looking forward to that one.

All right, dude, well, yeah, me too.

If you like the show,

you know, sponsored by Primitine Mist

and Advil Cold and Sinus.

And Vicks Formula 44D.

Vicks, yeah, and Vicks VapoRub applied

straight to the back of the throat.

Nice.

That's what happened to Kelly's family.

She'd get a cold, her dad would take a handful of Vicks

and ram it down her throat.

Oh my God, no, what?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh my Lord.

I have to ask her about that next time.

I will.

That's why she's never sick now.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Her body's afraid of the Vicks injection.

Mm-hmm.

All right, that's enough.

Like, subscribe, share with your friends,

all that good stuff, and that's all we got.

So for Mr. Mike, Q-Ball, Clark, I'm Kevin Oste.

This has been the V8 Radio Podcast,

and we're reminding you to keep the shiny side up,

and we will talk at you next time on V8 Radio.

2025 SEMA Show Recap, Q’s GTO Updates, Automotive Trivia, and Much More on the V8 Radio Podcast!

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