2025 SEMA Show Recap, Qβs GTO Updates, Automotive Trivia, and Much More on the V8 Radio Podcast!
V8 Radio Podcast
2025 SEMA Show Recap, Qβs GTO Updates, Automotive Trivia, and Much More on the V8 Radio Podcast!
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Car
Chevrolet Corvette
The Chevrolet Corvette is a fast and stylish car that many people love for its cool looks and speed. It's been around for a long time and is often talked about because it's a classic American sports car.
Car
Pontiac Trans Am
The Pontiac Trans Am is a sporty car that was popular in the late 1970s. It became famous because it was featured in movies, which made it a symbol of American muscle cars.
Car
Chevrolet Camaro
The Chevrolet Camaro is a sporty car that looks really cool and is known for being fast. It was made to compete with other popular cars and has been loved by many car fans for its power and design.
Term
C3 body style
The C3 body style is a specific version of the Corvette that was made from 1968 to 1982. It has a long front and a short back, making it look sporty and unique.
Term
catalytic converters
Catalytic converters are parts of a car that help clean the exhaust gases before they come out of the tailpipe. They make the car less polluting and help it meet environmental rules.
Brand
DeSoto
DeSoto was a car brand that made vehicles in the United States from 1928 until 1961. It was designed to be a more affordable option compared to other brands like Oldsmobile and Studebaker.
Brand
Studebaker
Studebaker was a car company in the U.S. that made vehicles for over a century, known for its unique designs and innovations. It ceased operations in 1966.
Brand
Oldsmobile
Oldsmobile was a car brand that made vehicles in the U.S. for over a century, known for its unique designs and technology. It was part of General Motors and stopped making cars in 2004.
Concept
Grand National Roadster Show
The Grand National Roadster Show is a big car event where people display their custom cars. It's a chance for car lovers to see amazing builds and get inspired.
Car
Buick Grand National
The Buick Grand National is a cool car from the 1980s that is known for being really fast and having a unique look. It's popular among car fans because it's special and not very common.
Concept
low rider
Low riders are cars that sit very low to the ground. They often have unique paint jobs and are designed for show rather than speed.
Concept
muscle car
Muscle cars are fast cars that usually have big engines. They were very popular in the U.S. during the 1960s and 1970s and are known for their power and speed.
Car
Chevrolet Malibu SS
The Chevrolet Malibu SS Z16 is a sportier version of the Malibu car. It has features that make it faster and more fun to drive compared to regular Malibus.
Concept
SEMA show
The SEMA show is a big event where companies show off new car parts and accessories. It's a place for people in the car industry to meet and see what's new.
Term
four-wheel drive
Four-wheel drive means that all four wheels of a vehicle can get power from the engine at the same time. This helps the vehicle grip the road better, especially when driving on rough or slippery surfaces.
Term
window tinting
Window tinting is when a special film is put on car windows to make them darker. This helps keep the car cooler and gives more privacy inside.
Part
lift kits
A lift kit is a set of parts that makes a car higher off the ground. This helps with driving on rough surfaces and allows for bigger tires.
Part
shocks
Shocks are parts of a car that help make the ride smoother by absorbing bumps in the road.
Term
427
The '427' is a type of engine that is very powerful and was used in some Corvettes. It helps the car go really fast and perform well.
Company
Coker Tire
Coker Tire makes tires specifically for older and unique cars. They focus on providing options that fit the style and needs of classic car enthusiasts.
Term
radial tire
Radial tires are the type of tires most cars use today. They have a special design that helps them grip the road better and last longer.
Brand
Pro Track
Pro Track is a brand that makes tires and wheels for fast cars. They are popular among people who race or want better performance from their vehicles.
Term
chrome plated
Chrome plating is when a shiny layer of metal is added to parts of a car to make them look nice and protect them from rust.
Company
FIA
The FIA is an organization that oversees car racing events, making sure that the races are fair and safe for everyone involved. They are in charge of rules and regulations for racing.
Concept
Formula One
Formula One is a type of car racing that involves very fast cars competing in races called Grands Prix. It's known for its advanced technology and is considered the top level of racing.
Car
Ford Broncos
The Ford Bronco is a tough SUV that people love for taking off-road and exploring nature. It has a classic look and was recently brought back after being gone for many years, which makes it popular among car fans.
Brand
Cadillac
Cadillac is a well-known American car brand that makes luxury vehicles. They are famous for their stylish designs and high-quality features.
Concept
Formula 1
Formula 1 is a popular and prestigious type of car racing where specially designed cars compete on tracks. It's known for its speed and advanced technology.
Brand
Dodge
Dodge is a car brand that makes powerful cars, especially muscle cars like the Charger and Challenger. They are known for their speed and performance.
Company
Stellantis
Stellantis is a big car company that owns many brands like Dodge and Jeep. They make a variety of vehicles, from trucks to sports cars.
Term
SRT
SRT is a special division of Dodge that makes high-performance cars. They focus on creating fast and powerful vehicles like the Hellcat.
Car
Dodge Hellcat
The Dodge Hellcat is a super fast version of the Charger and Challenger cars. It has a really powerful engine that makes it one of the fastest muscle cars.
Car
Toyota Supra
The Toyota Supra is a fast and sporty car that many people admire for its speed and style. It's been featured in movies, making it even more popular among car lovers.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Ford Mustang is a famous American car that looks sporty and goes really fast. It's been around for a long time and is loved by many people for its cool design and powerful engines.
Car
Porsche 911 GT3
The Porsche 911 GT3 is a super-fast sports car that is made for racing and driving on tracks. It's known for being very well-built and fun to drive, making it a favorite among car enthusiasts.
Car
Chevrolet Monte Carlo
The Chevrolet Monte Carlo is a stylish car that was popular for many years. It's known for being comfortable and nice to drive, making it a favorite among people who like classic cars.
Car
Ford Explorer
The Ford Explorer is a big family car that can carry lots of people and their stuff. It's popular because it's comfortable and good for road trips or everyday use.
Car
Chrysler P Chrysler
The Chrysler PT Cruiser is a small car that has a unique, old-fashioned look. It's known for being practical and having a lot of space inside, which makes it different from other cars.
LIVE
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There you go.
I'm telling you, man.
See, Michelle does it to you.
Ha ha ha ha.
Very nice.
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.
About this episode
A vibrant recap of the 2025 SEMA Show highlights the diverse automotive culture and industry connections made during the event. Hosts Kevin and Mike share insights from their experiences, including notable interactions with industry leaders like Jay Leno and Muhammad bin Sulayem. They discuss their own project car displayed at the show, a 1969 Corvette Roadster, and the importance of building relationships with manufacturers. The episode also features automotive trivia, updates on Kevin's GTO project, and reflections on the dynamic nature of the automotive aftermarket.
Original notes
On the latest V8 Radio Podcast β Kevin's hopped up on cold meds so he's a bit goofy, but the mellifluous vibes are STRONG! We dive deep into SEMA Show 2025, automotive trivia, Q-Ballβs GTO block resurrection, and a LOT more! Listen and subscribe! #V8Radio #SEMAShow #MuscleCars
π₯ Topics & Tangents:- SEMA Show recap: New dealers, 2334 display vehicles, the Smokey Yunick Camaro, thousands of new products & the epic SEMA Cruise chaos!
- 1969 Corvette build spotlight with Coker Tire's hot new redline/raised white letter Pro-Trac radials
- GTO 400 block teardown: Cracked, but not dead! Dyno dreams ahead!
π And: Kevin apologizes on-mic for blocking media cams at the SEMA Cruise: "Sorry, I was the guy with the big bucket of brains!" π€―
V8 Radio Podcast: https://www.v8radio.com
V8 Radio Podcast
Kevin Oeste and Michael Clarke
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