972: Driving A Badge, The Fun Your Car Deserves, Throw The Parts Catalog At It

Love them or hate them, everyone has an opinion on cars. But we believe we're all one great car away from being our enthusiast. So we're here to help you find a car you love. And let it take us to everything else in life. I'm Paul. I'm Todd and this is the everyday driver car to me. Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. We're thrilled you're with us. We've got some cool car conclusions, but I've got a chance back with me on the podcast. Hey guys, how's it going? Good to be back.

It's a little mini-ski vacation. How dare they decide to take off. It's like it's winter or something. The nerve of those two. So I'm glad they're getting a little bit of time away. But I'm really glad you're joining me, man. Really appreciate it. Got a great show for you guys. We've got some events up top. We've got car conclusions. Many of them you guys have been sending photos, which I really appreciate because I've been asking for your conclusions. And then you send photo too. And I like that you're showing off your new ride. And so it's really cool to see the car with the description. And then we've got a cool car debate.

And many questions, chance you've posted up on Discord a little bit and it looks like people are responding on there, which is cool. Jumping into everyday driver events, go to everyday driver adventures. That is the adventures tab at everyday driver.com. And you can see the 2025 pilgrimage trip from April 27th to May 1st. That is a two days. So it's a road tour splitting two track days. Want the ring? Want a famous spa, Franco, which we love. If you've been thinking about this, if you've heard us talk about this before, I really think this could be your year to come.

Because you hear it, you think I'll do it at some point, and it won't happen unless you register. Also in the States, there's Coda May 31st and June 1st for hooked on driving. And there's a road tour to the event and a road tour afterwards. We will be sharing more details. There were just beginning to start to work those details out. But that is a track day. It's going to be cars and coffee. It's going to be a big event. And that coincides with our podcast episode number 1000. So we're going to be doing the 1000th episode

from Circa of the Americas. That Saturday night May 31st, 2025. We'd love to have you participate and come to that. It's going to be fun. It's going to be crazy. And it's crazy too. I think it's going to be hot too. Yeah, human snowing hopefully not too many. Finally, we've got Watkins Glen Watkins Glen racetrack July 4th, 5th and 6th, the northeast region there having a huge event. And then finally, the hooked on driving European adventure includes two F1 racetracks. That is after July 4th.

Overlapping events, you are going to have to decide which one you want to come to, which is a nice problem to have. So go to hooked on driving.com to sign up to register for events and get on a track day near you.

I understand. That's how you bang smarter this season. Follow along. Class dismissed. Join time today.

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He said he will address the 86 300 ZX in his garage because it was his first car he's had it since high school when his dad bought it for him. They both had fun in it. They ended up drifting it for his early 20s because of course you did. And at some point he parked it to add a turbo and upgraded components like coilovers full poly suspension externally gated upgraded turbo intercooler setup. He says the car costs him nothing but space and isn't worth much as is.

And now he's got a younger half brother who's 14 years old he'd rather keep it the family and maybe pass it off to him or use it as a track car between the three of them himself his brother and his dad.

When he wrote to his last he began debating between C6 Corvettes and E92 M3's then about a month ago a beautifully specced M3 came up and he clicked on it and he had to just go get it. He is now the proud owner of a 2012 M3 manual coupe with the competition pack.

86,000 miles on it. It is black. The infamous rod bearings and throttle actuators have been done and he paid 34 grand for that's good.

That's a good price. You're either going to be paying through it in the purchase price or paying for it a little bit later.

But I'm glad that's been done at 86,000. I think you take care of that and you should be able to double your mileage no problem to drive that thing.

And you have you said it's such a joy to drive. He loves everything about it.

He mentioned how important engine sound was to him and it doesn't get much better than that.

88 is quite special. It's also quite thirsty. We know this.

But he says his goal is a track it at one of the HOD events.

Laguna Saka or Sonoma. Why not both. They're very different tracks, which is really cool to experience.

Your driving of course is very different at both tracks but it's nice to experience both.

Laguna Saka of course is very historic and it's a very classic track.

But Sonoma I think is for me is more fun. I don't want to say there's not as much elevation change because I think the actual top to bottom at Laguna Saka is more.

But the way Sonoma flows with the elevation I think is a lot more fun.

It happens more rapidly over the course of the lap rather than a gradual all the way up and then all the way down kind of like Laguna.

But if you haven't and you want to get your car on track, that's right.

Luis, go to hookdowndriving.com. You can find one. We've got great calendar for 2025 so you can find it there.

Miguel A writes to us with his car conclusion saying last year ended with his Gen 2 Chevy Bolt,

Volt, not Bolt, being in the shop for over a month with a battery control issue.

That got fixed under warranty and he thought he was good to go after that.

But wait, the EGR cooler failed and it is almost impossible to locate a replacement.

So the car has to go. He decided to take Todd's approach and get something for his Minister of Finance first.

She hates filling up so the summer they found her a great deal on an Ionic 5.

Those are great cars. Good least deal, huh?

Yeah, it's cool. Two years of free charging included as well, which is also awesome.

Yeah, it seems like more and more manufacturers are using that as little bait, little reward.

He took over the old reliable CRV because he didn't have a commute to work.

He's also got a project E46 that he needs to work on.

Of course you do. That's where all your money is going.

Yeah. Well, over fall, he got a new job that is now requiring him to commute.

CRV is comfortable enough but makes his mind want to melt, calling it a boring and dull appliance car.

I couldn't agree more with that. He looked at all sorts of things.

He doesn't work because he's too tall. Mustangs are fun, but they're too big for no reason.

Which is accurate.

What do you have to say about that?

Too big for no reason. What do we have to say about that?

Anyway, keep going.

CRV 6s are great, but he also looked at C6 and C7 Corvettes because he wanted to V8.

But this is where things took a turn. He thought he had a $45,000 budget.

He was prepared to defend his budget with his wife who has a master's in finance and as a CFO.

Get ready to lose that battle. I guess.

Here's the shocker though. His wife came in and doubled his budget.

It happens. It does happen.

That's fantastic.

Miguel.

Congratulations.

That's a victory right there.

That's a rare victory too.

Car budget goes.

After he picked his job off the floor, he asked if half a dozen times,

are you, is this for real? Can I actually, is that what my budget is?

So he switched to looking at, you guessed it, Porsche's.

That's what we do here. Love it.

And he ended up finding a 2015 manual Cayman with 15,000 miles on it.

It is Rhodium silver over garnet red.

He says he was hoping to join the team's skittles, but feels like the red interior gives him a pass,

which I would agree with that. I agree with that. I'll give you that. Yeah, Miguel. That's good.

And look, he said he spent significantly less than what the MOF allotted.

So he's got money for upgrades and mods.

Not that she knows that yet, but she knows it now.

She knows it now.

See, I like Miguel that you test drove.

He started out with a 9-9-11.

997 Cabriolet. Love the engine noise.

Felt the car was too old for him to be comfortable to use on a daily basis.

You then drove a 7-18 Cayman fell in love.

He said, small without feeling tiny.

And it's got a great interior.

That's what he was looking for.

So I like that you did some drive homework.

You allowed yourself to open up.

Congratulations to your minister of finance.

And I hope she gets to drive it.

Bit of a reward for her too, but fantastic.

I mean, it happens.

It does.

It seems like it's few and far between.

But even at, I think at any budget level, you think, well, I found the perfect thing.

And it's almost right within my budget, but I could really imagine myself living with that.

Like I could see that car in my life.

Yeah.

And somehow magically you find more money and you can do it.

And so that's what Miguel has done here.

It doesn't happen all the time for our debate.

I'm actually going to restrain myself, which is I know a surprise.

Well, that's good.

So Miguel, congratulations.

Send photos.

I think it's a fantastic buy.

I really hope you enjoyed.

Plus, low mileage.

Geez.

Yeah, no kidding.

A little on to Don's email.

He said he forgot the episode in which he featured.

We featured his debate.

But he wanted to let us know how things turned out.

Because we had recommended cayens.

He did go test drive at cayenne, a very nice V6.

Didn't like it as much as he thought he would.

It seemed underpowered, which surprised him.

He was also self-conscious about driving the badge.

I think a lot of people are that way, to be honest.

In any model, doesn't matter what model in the car company.

I mean, Porsche is kind of universal, anything like that.

I get it, Don.

It shocked him because owning a Porsche has always been a dream of his.

Funny how all that evolved from growing up and he didn't realize

it didn't match his personality until he got behind the wheel.

I like that you recognize that, despite your love.

And you thought, this is the direction I'm going,

but you were able to sort of let yourself go a different direction.

And you recognize that early on.

Yeah.

And it doesn't really sound like it's a meat your hero's kind of thing.

Either it just didn't quite jive with him.

Right.

So he test drove a BMW X5.

That felt more in line with what he was looking for.

But at the same time, apparently they shopped for a boat.

They found reasonable year-round storage with good maintenance fees

so their need for the tow vehicle evaporated.

He still hasn't bought the boat, but the wife was happy to not have a 2 SUV family.

So what did he buy?

He sold his Mustang for a great price and bought another one.

Mm-hmm.

Does this happen?

Yeah.

Oh wait, Shelby GT, Gorgeous Blue, Cool Stripe Sonic, cool GT.

Those are really cool.

It's not the GT 500.

They're kind of a GT with a little bit more power, some suspension mods and things like that.

I've always liked that particular version of the Mustang, the Shelby GT.

I thought they looked great.

They sound good.

My 67 Mustang was about as fast as one of those, which I was proud of for 50-year-old car.

Okay.

That's impressive.

Yeah.

Gorgeous blue, man.

Congratulations on that one.

Only 45,000 miles one owner well-maintained.

Don congrats.

That is awesome.

Well-bought.

I mean, you had a Mustang, but you got another Mustang, but at least you didn't go get a tow vehicle.

So, you know, there's that.

Well done.

It does sound like he went from a V6 to a V8 Mustang too.

That's true.

He did.

Yeah.

Pretty good jump.

That's right.

I guess the Cayenne V6 sort of told him no V6 on any future car, right?

I guess.

So Ben writes to us.

Thanks for answering my question on November 15th, which ironically he heard from

while driving back in his new car.

He rode in and got the validation he needed, and he found himself a Python green Cayman T 6-speed

manual.

That green is rather striking.

It is a very bold green.

Yes.

He says he loves the car.

The engine, the 4-cylinder turbo sounds absolutely fine.

I love it.

I know.

They sound certainly different.

It's not what people are used to, but I never thought it was a terrible sound.

Those things are fast.

They make tons of power.

I agree with you.

He actually says he ended up cancelling his Amira allocation to buy this car.

So canceled a Lotus to get the Porsche, drove 100 miles to pick it up.

Thoroughly enjoyed the drive home.

He is in Chicago.

So yeah, you got to get to our driving events.

We don't currently have anything near Chicago, but we are definitely working on a lot of ideas

in that area, and definitely bring that to a track.

I mean Cayman T.

It's designed to track use.

It's lightweight version is perfect.

And he sent a photos with the family.

Excellent.

Well bought.

Patrick J wrote to us a few weeks ago about a conundrum he blamed on Todd.

And we can talk about him since he's not here.

He needed help choosing between an Elise and a C606.

He flew down to Florida on Monday of the week he sent us this email and bought himself a bright orange Lotus.

So Lotus over vet.

He promptly roadtipped at home 650 miles immediately after he bought it.

And we answered his original question and we helped him make this choice.

His lovely wife, his son and he all smile every time they see it.

See, that's how you know.

Oh yeah.

His son asks to ride in it every single morning and evening with the biggest grin he's ever seen on his face.

Patrick laughs every time he drives it, especially when it gets on second cam.

I love it.

He said the car is even better than he could have imagined.

Life long dream fulfilled that he gets to live every day.

So that's a big step.

And Elise is an awesome car.

But it's not for everybody.

No, they're not.

And to have one in your life, I mean, there's some sacrifice to be made.

But the fact that you drove it 650 miles, you put miles on it immediately, just driving it.

And I love that you are, it sounds like you're cackling just like Todd does everywhere he goes.

So he even added a PS, thanking Todd for putting up the videos of roadtripping in his Lotus

so that he knows to wear noise canceling headphones in his Lotus while riding it back.

You remember Osama J from episode 920?

He wanted to share his car conclusion with us.

He was on the hunt for something sporty and luxurious to replace the trusty 2015 Honda Civic and NC generation Miata.

He had that O6 Miata he flew to Georgia and he bought there, drove eight hours back to North Carolina.

He had it for two years before selling it right before he rode into us.

So during his car quest, he was calling dealerships nationwide.

Mystical from a Florida number.

I thought it was a BMW Fort Lauderdale dealership.

On that website, he hopped on their site.

He found a stunning 2018 BMW 440i Grand Coupé in a color called Snapper Rocks Blue with the fun name.

29,000 miles. He sent a great photo.

It's a turquoise. It's a blue.

It looks like the ocean water on the vacation you imagine.

Yeah, it's gorgeous.

It had almost everything he wanted, including the M Sport package.

He was also on the BMW Del Rey Beach site by mistake.

He called them requested to put the car and hold with a $1,000 refundable deposit, flew down to Florida, test drove it, had it shipped to North Carolina.

All that to get to the expanding of the budget.

Blowing of the budget once again, it was a $25,000 budget he ended up at 29.

He says, thanks Miata and Civic funds, but totally worth it.

They love it. A lot of random nods and thumbs up from strangers.

And so some is first time owning a German car, so he's loving the power and the drive.

Gorgeous car.

Yeah.

Just another example of budgets being up.

Not a lot here, but again, you could see yourself.

You love the color. You could see that in your life.

It is the one without the beaver teeth.

And you know what? This is a great looking car.

Glad it's your life, Osama Wellbot.

Fernando L writes to us from episode 820.

He wrote to us about a year ago asking what he should do with about a $50,000 budget to get out of his trouble from C6 Corvette.

And about four months after he wrote in, his plans completely changed.

He bought a house. Their town was hit by a tornado, which included a tree falling on his house.

Oh my gosh.

Because thankfully it was minor, all things considered, but that delayed his plans to sell the Corvette and buy something else.

He says with financial constraints in mind, his plan was to go for about $15,000 or under a car that he could drive around town, not worry about it.

And then one or two years later, go for a special car like an 08 Aston V8 Vantage that's been on his mind.

Apparently we shouldn't talk about it because that makes the price go up.

I can't imagine that's the case, but yeah.

All right. We'll move on. Aston V8.

He wants maybe a project car that he could use for tracking me on a Civic's Corvettes, anything buildable for cheap.

He was also eyeing the LS430 Sedans for $15 grand.

He says he knows they're boring, but for some reason he always had a, they appealed to him because of that engine, a lot of features.

It just felt right. But in the back of his mind, he thought this is still a 20 year old car and nothing overcomes time when it comes to reliability.

So true.

The only thing that does is money.

So true.

That's what you can do.

So cheap as Porsche is the most expensive Porsche.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, I have ideas.

What you said, what you just said ties into the debate for later.

Okay, I'm just, I'm gonna hold off.

Give me a head then, huh?

All right. So his budget changed.

He started looking at higher price ranges.

I swear everyone, I am not picking the emails where people deliver to say, well, my budget changed.

And you notice how it always goes up.

And you would say, Paul, why didn't you pick the emails where the budget changed

and it went the other direction?

It doesn't happen quite as much, I guess.

It does sometimes.

And I want to respect it.

But I also, I want everyone to get in the car.

They love to drive.

Yeah.

That's the bottom line.

And if it's a little bit more and you can see yourself like, you know what?

The balance between future, life, work, now, all of that stuff.

Usually my mind, it comes out in the auto comes to the plate too.

Yeah, it just does.

So 25 to 35,000 is the new budget.

New or CPO.

Fernando is scarred from all the issues with his vet.

So he figured this would give him good peace of mind and allow him to get over that fear of cars always being troublesome.

Yeah.

So he started driving things like the news of the SI, the Kia Stinger GT, the 2018 BMW 3 Series, a 2022 Genesis G70 V6 and a Lexus RC 350.

Just sting.

That doesn't come up very often.

Yeah.

The last one is definitely an odd ball for sure.

The Civic was too slow.

The Stinger impressed the heck out of him, but he said it lacked the sound and specialness factor.

I can see that.

Yeah.

The G70, he wasn't too sure on him, but he expected more feedback.

The BMW felt like a solid car but was overly stiff for a commuter.

That's a common problem with modern BMWs, I feel like.

It doesn't matter what modes are in there, just stiff.

Yeah.

I mean, they want to take the speed, I guess, that's the genesis of their company, I guess.

Yeah.

And then the Lexus RC 350 would not have been a CPO car, but it's a Lexus, so he wasn't too worried about that.

However, the interior was very crammed.

We noted that passenger side hump.

Remember that?

It hasn't been the driver side.

The driver side?

It's got that giant hump in the football.

Yeah.

Because the all-wheel drive, well, let the passengers, the people take the brunt of this.

They ask for all-wheel drive, here you go, but the compromise is not worth it, I don't think.

Yeah.

So at this point, he was at a loss and had no idea what kind of car to go to.

So the next logical thing to do was to take the Paul approach and increase the budget even more.

Are you sure you're not vetting these for just driving budgets?

Yeah.

I love the stories.

I love the growth behind the story.

It's like in design school, your instructors always wanted to see the progression throughout your sketches.

Yeah.

It almost didn't matter what vehicle or product, what the final result ended up being when you're a student.

They almost don't care about that.

They want to see how you think.

They want to see the progression from initial napkin sketch doodle all the way to, you know what?

Let's pull that out.

That could be an interesting concept.

It turns into the design brief.

You know, here's how we've manifested that sketch and it's grown and gestated throughout the ideation process.

That's what's important.

So I apply that to budget here.

You start with a budget in mind.

You think, okay, these are my options, huh?

And I wouldn't drive some of it.

Like, okay.

It's not really doing it for me.

I'm willing to justify a little bit more.

So I see that as this, you know, you're growing.

You're carrots being dangled in front of them.

What it really is.

I feel like I always, when you're on the podcast, I feel like I always have to justify it more.

For some reason, I feel like I have to explain.

Anyway, I'll just poke you a little bit more about it.

Keep going.

He says he found a 2019 RS3 per your recommendations, Paul, and test drove it.

And it was an awesome car.

Yes.

But something wasn't quite right about it.

The sound, the speaker going through the speakers, and yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he said he was just so used to an LS.

True, which that's a hard sound to beat.

It really, really is.

I don't care what it is.

LS engines just, they sound good.

Understand, I have a friend, Michael, my friend who's totally into Pontiacs.

He has a Catalina from 59.

And he's currently wrestling with taking the engine out of his wife's escalade

to drop into the Catalina to give it more power and a little bit more reliability,

because the Catalina has mechanical carb.

But it's actually a great setup.

It's really robust.

The problem is he really likes the character of the Pontiac Catalina engine, that V8.

Yeah, sure.

It was excellent then, and it's lacking in the escalade, even though he also put new cams in

to overcome the switch off between V4 and V8, because he didn't like it,

and he didn't like the lack of power.

So we just solved the problem, and now the things in V8 mode all the time,

everywhere you go, he's like, oh, this is great, plenty of power.

But now he wants to take that engine.

So I get it.

He's like, oh yeah.

The Catalina has such character.

And this is a guy who speaks V8, but I just, I have to laugh, because he's trying to swap

one beat for the other, and then comparing character in the car.

So Fernando, I get it.

You understand the character out of that engine, and it's suited to the car I understand.

All right, keep going.

He also said that the back seat was just too small, even for him, at five-six, which is a problem.

So he didn't fall in love with that car.

But then he limited his search to V8s only, as one does.

And he thought that he felt like Todd would be screaming at him, Chevy SS.

Everyone could probably hear that right now.

Which interestingly, it doesn't seem like he wouldn't look at those.

Instead, he took a left turn at the Lexus GSF.

That's a good one.

Which that Lexus V8 is a pretty sweet engine.

It really is.

So he tried looking online for them and found that there was only 20 of them per sale nationally.

So Slim pickens on those, apparently.

But he does call it a unicorn, which seems like that was an appeal.

Bottom of the market is 42,000 for ones with the rough condition.

He says, maybe an accident, rough condition.

48,004 for one with a clean title.

See, he knew this was a stretch.

Cars are not investments.

But having the price, he noticed the price held for the past four years,

better than a comparable M3 or AMG product.

And the very limited production numbers, under 3,000 of them in the US

and the Lexus badging made for nano comfortable with the additional stretch.

See, you get to the point where I know I need to justify more dollars.

But there needs to be a reason to do it.

And he found one.

Yeah, he didn't just, he didn't just like simply double his budget.

He more than quadrupled it.

There's justification behind the email.

See, he says the Lexus badging, they've held their investment, they've held the price.

The unicorn aspect.

Yes, he spent hours watching YouTube videos trying to convince himself

that this was the car he needed.

And he did.

He eventually found one for 2017 with 64,000 miles in Delaware.

Brilliant.

Bit the bullet flew out to get it and drove it home.

It's really cool.

And he actually drove it 1200 miles home because he lives in Arkansas.

So he drove over the next few days and drove that's a long trip.

That is a long trip.

And it always feels weird when you buy a one-way plane ticket to do anything,

until to go buy a car thinking, yeah, I better like it.

No kidding, right?

I don't have a return ticket and I'm planning on driving home.

So I hope it's good.

Yeah.

Obviously you've done research.

You've done your due diligence.

Fernando, well bought.

2017 GSF.

Okay, everyone.

Apparently there are 42 to 48 grand for just over 50,000 miles.

It's a nice car.

It is.

2017, that's still new enough.

Drive that thing.

Okay, great on a road trip, too, to be honest.

Seriously, you could have your own Lexus high-mile sedan challenge with that thing, too.

Don't even sweat it.

Just drive that thing.

Change the oil and keep going.

Love it.

Fernando, well bought.

And to all of you that have sent us car conclusions, really appreciate it.

Continue to send us those conclusions.

Every day, drive your TV at gmail.com.

Topic Tuesdays, car debates, of course, as well.

But I didn't realize that including the photo was kind of becoming a thing.

But if you'd like to include the photo of what you bought, it's always helpful.

We love to see it.

And love that you guys are spending money you don't have.

Just kidding.

How should I put that?

You're getting the car that you want.

And these emails reveal the joy of that.

Yeah.

They really do.

A little more philosophical.

Here's my 30 second story with Guinness.

As soon as my sister and I get home for the holidays, we don't even unpack.

We head straight to our pub.

The bartender already knows our order.

Guinness and fries.

We laugh all night, catch up with old friends, and walk home with faces sore from smiling.

That's one of my favorite nights of the year.

That was my 30 second story with Guinness.

Guinness Draft Stout.

Please enjoy responsibly.

Imported by the Agio Beer Company USA, New York, New York.

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SJ in Texas has permission to purchase.

That's a good phrase right there.

A permission to purchase.

Good news, everyone.

He says he's loves cars his entire life growing up with a 64 Impala SS

and a 68 Mustang across the street.

That is just cool.

I knew you'd appreciate that.

It's writing because he obtained approval but from his ministry of finance

to purchase an additional car for fun.

However, due to a broad range of interests, I'm having a hard time deciding what direction to turn.

That is always the trick isn't it?

You just feel like you're scatterbrained and you're like cars but you like cars

for all kinds of different reasons and different purposes.

The sentence where he says he's always enjoyed cars that are well made.

That seems obvious.

But some of the good ones that give a great driving experience

aren't necessarily the best quality out there.

So you have to decide is it well made?

He wants it to function properly, especially in original condition.

I get it.

And likewise, well made cars don't always mean fun cars either.

Very true.

Vectors I think were well made.

At least they were made to like aircraft standards but I have no idea if they were good to drive.

I always think of that.

Like aircraft grade everything.

Was it good?

Is it fun?

And to what end?

No.

It was Jerry Wiggard's crazy brainchild but funky cars.

SJ has owned lots of toyotas over the years like pickup, Sienna's Camry's,

his daily is a 2016 GMC Sierra pickup with a 2018 Lexus RX350L in the garage.

You've got the L.

Do you use those back seats?

Anyway, we don't have to go there.

About 10 years ago SJ purchased a 56 Chevy sedan for fun.

It gets a lot of attention.

It's fun to cruise in.

But he's ready for something fun to drive that's more modern.

Now in the 90s he really loved things like the Nissan Centra SER.

You remember those?

And the Honda CRX SI.

Honda needs to bring the CRX.

Those are so cool.

Flat out.

They could tie in fuel economy.

They could tie in fun.

CRX Honda.

CRZ kind of was that but not really.

Yeah.

They need to bring that back.

It's also been a fan of the classic American sedan like Crown Vicks and Grand Marquis for

the room comfort and reliability.

He also recently had a chance to buy a 1996 Impala SS with 35,000 miles teal with a floor

shifter and analog gauges.

But he passed on it because it wasn't enjoyable to drive.

He quickly realized it wasn't a well-made car from the start.

I told you SJ that the tooling on those Grand Marquis and the Crown Vicks

and whatever became of the Impala.

They made so many of them because of cop cars and taxis.

The tooling itself didn't fit together very well, which is hilarious.

Newer model your cars were the worst ones from what this was all hearsay from buddies

at Ford.

They're like, yeah, the tooling is worn out.

We keep making them.

Taxi companies kept buying them.

The tooling's not cheap and the car like that, not worth the effort.

Apparently the tooling was well-passed shelf life.

Even for Ford to invest in new tooling would have meant great cost.

But how long was the model going to hang on?

They just decided, keep making them until it dies, which it finally did.

But they're almost sloppy from new.

Again, hearsay from buddies at Ford.

I cannot corroborate that.

But part of what you're saying, SJ, doesn't really surprise me.

All that's to be said, he's got a budget of $20,000 to $25,000 to buy something fun.

You want something from the 90s or newer that is reliable, easy to work on, and not

a Corvette.

That was kind of a funny side there.

Okay.

Well, SJ, I hope you can make it to a meet-up.

Hopefully, one of these suggestions that we give you, you can bring it to a track day.

We would love to see you there.

I've got many suggestions for you.

I've got two.

Well, I've got many German options.

I also have two Japanese options.

But what I'm mainly hearing from you is that you like to center SERs and Honda SER Xs.

You've been looking at big cars, 1956 Chevy Sedan, 1996 Impala SS.

A lot of them are like cop car kind of cars.

They're big stuff.

Look, I know you're in Texas.

I know you've got wide open spaces, but I still think having a small nimble lightweight

car even in a straight line would do you a lot of good.

You'd have a lot of joy and it would encourage you to do those road trips and meet-ups.

You'd want to take it somewhere, it would almost force you to go find the fun that the

car deserves.

Yeah.

Got a broach?

SJ, I decided that all the catalogs of all the car parts available, I thought, you could

decide what company you want to buy your parts from.

There's some at there's Jags, there's Pelican, there's tons of companies out there that

offer a wide variety of support for a lot of models.

So I thought, gosh, you know you're going to be doing stuff to this car to keep it maintained

and running well and continue it and you're going to put some investment into it.

So what catalog do you want to buy from, which means what car are you going to get?

You know, on one hand, I thought, well, that just means Mustangs and Cameras, a lot of

parts available.

You can get a lot of pony car for this price range.

On the other hand, there's a lot of Euro stuff, there's support across the board from

Miata's, to BMW's, there's all kinds of different factions and groups that have their go-to

catalog to get parts, not for upgrades, but to improve things like general maintenance.

OEM plus general maintenance, you know, here's the reengineered part that does the OEM

job, but it's better, it's longer lasting, you know, more reliable, all those things.

So I thought, should you start with catalogs that would determine the car that you go

get?

No, throw that out because-

No, we're the, we're the go-to business.

Because then it's sort of locked me into Mustangs, Cameras, maybe Corvettes.

If you want to put a hotter Cam and your wife's escalade to make it, to turn off the

four-cylinder, to shut that off, slightly higher Camped, exhaust, done, seriously, more

to need road trips are always fun.

So I'm going to start you out with the BMW Z3.

And that's because it's cheap, it runs, replacement parts don't cost you that much,

and it's just fun.

And it is the opposite of all these cars that you've been kind of toine around with.

We're going to talk about Z3s, like I have to talk about Z4s, BMW E36s, not even M3s.

Go find yourself just a fun manual sedan, a BMW sedan, and I thought, well, if I'm going

to go there, I've got to suggest the two series, I've increased your budget a bit, but

I want you to think like we did for our $8,000 cheap sports car challenge.

Times have changed since we shot that.

It wasn't that long ago, but most of those cars understand they're not really eight grand

anymore.

Things have gone up.

So give yourself a purchase price of about 15 to 18 and out of your 20 to $25,000 budget

spend the rest on getting that up to your ownership spec, your ownership desires.

So with 15 to 18 in mind, why don't you go look for a $9.86 boxster?

Because you said fun to cruise in, that 56 Chevy sedan was fun to cruise in, a betcha,

if you take your minister of finance on a cruise in a $9.86 boxster with a top-down,

I think that sounds like a lot of fun.

Go down to the beach, take it on a road trip, buy it for 15 to 18, and then again, rest

of that money, get it up to speed, tires, brakes, if it needs suspension, if it needs some

maintenance of any car that has some kind of thing that it needs to get you over that

hump.

So you will drive it to Japanese options include the Honda S2000, boatloads of fun.

Can you get them that low still?

They're going to be higher miles.

You'll have to spend most of your budget to go get that, but maybe look into a Honda

S2000, something that you just, you look at that car and your driveway, your garage

and you think, I just, we're out of milk again, right?

We need something from the grocery store.

I have to go take that car, I have to figure out an excuse to go drive it.

Thought of SJ, the Nissan 300ZX, the Z32 like Todd's, get one super cheap, put the money

into maintenance.

Go drive that thing.

Take the teetops off, crank your tunes, yeah, that sounds like the way it's fun again.

Looking at our cheap sports car challenge, I want you to keep it to a two seat, the pure

sports car, I guess the two series and the E36 or not, but still you kind of get the

idea.

I want you to see something that is back to the basics almost, just fun, manual transmission,

so different than your truck, than your SUV, it's the opposite of all those, and then

spend the rest on the maintenance, like 96-boxer, I'm advocating that for you.

Yeah, I almost put that on my list, I decided not to, but I almost had those on my list.

Good thing I did, I actually went mostly the opposite direction, so I almost feel a little

bad because it's okay to help him, and instead we're being even more broad.

Choice is good.

I do have one smaller light weight car that I thought, you know, the CRX, and I kind

of, like what is a modern CRX today, and I thought, well, the Veloster N is kind of what

the CRX used to be.

Really good.

The Veloster N, and you can get those for 18 grand, 20 grand all day long, yeah.

Gosh.

There's plenty of them out there.

They have come down.

That's a great one.

The instantly fun, quirky, different, a rowdy around town with that kind of obnoxious

exhaust they have, and that's a fun little car.

I like that.

I kind of took more of the, he mentioned a lot of bigger sedans, and that's kind of the

cruising, the Texas power matters, and so I kind of went more of that approach, and one

of them, this one I think is more, I've got two that I think are more oddball.

One, you're really going to laugh because I don't, this is not the answer, but you're

going to laugh.

But I thought, what about the Taurus S-H-O from 10 years ago?

They had that, oh, from 10 years ago, that big V6 twin turbo in it.

See, I like that.

I like that.

They're 92.

The Yamaha.

Yeah, those are cool.

Super high output.

They probably are a little more interesting to drive than the newer one.

Probably.

But they're pretty quick in the way back.

Take it away straight line and big, cushy power.

Interesting.

I also thought, well, what about something more like the Lexus ISF?

You have to stretch a little bit.

Higher 20s is more where those live, but you can find them.

They're cool V8, they're quick, handle pretty well.

They're also quick in the straight line too.

It's good.

But then I thought, well, what if we went back a little ways?

Still sedan, you can get it with the manual, also a V8.

It's not a Chevy SS.

It's actually the E39 BMW M5.

Those are not cheap, though.

You can get them in the mid 20s.

You can?

You can.

I guess I'm looking at the wrong websites because everyone that I see is like, back to

enthusiast out of group and, well, yeah, you look there.

AP defender.

They're 100 grand.

Those are the nicest of the nice, but I'm looking at one.

This is an Connecticut 24.5 with 116,000 miles on it.

It's black.

It's in great shape.

Really?

Yeah.

They're harder to find for the lower prices.

Okay.

But at that higher mileage, I would suspect that either it's going to be terrible or all

the maintenance has been done.

Yeah.

There's no middle ground.

Yeah.

It's a big question mark, for sure.

If you're in German and 20 years old, 25 years old.

But if there's records, that almost makes you not hesitate, right?

More so than what?

If you've got the service and the service has been done and that owner has kept it to

that mileage and it runs great and it's in great shape, probably means they dump money

into doing the things that you'd want them to do.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Interesting.

I also thought, well, what about the E90 M3?

You can get the sedans, the coups, or the convertibles.

Yeah.

Some might stretch, but you can get them in your price range.

You can actually get E46s too in that price range, but those are going to be more questionable,

I think.

But the one I think that is my favorite is another one we don't talk about a whole lot,

but it's a big producer of a sedan.

It does have a Chevy engine in it, it's supercharged, and it is the Cadillac CTS-V from

what year?

2010-ish.

Okay.

So the second gen, you can get the earlier ones too, but the second gen with the big V8 and

manual and the same, you can't get the wagon for this price, but it's that generation.

You even had that funny looking coupe version too that you can get in this price range

too.

Forgot about that.

And think of that.

That's like the perfect Texas car, I feel like.

Is the perfect Texas?

556 horsepower somewhere in there?

That is cool.

Don't get that.

That is cool.

Man, that is a very different car, and then, yeah, it's still, it's talking cruise.

And it's a Cadillac, so to be built, I mean, it's GM from the 2000s, but it's, it'll

be well built, it'll be fast, it should handle well, and it's cheap, they're relatively

speaking.

55 grand.

They're out there.

Oh.

SJ, you have choice.

All of a sudden you're going to have to decide what direction you're going.

I mean, at first, I thought you mentioned the Honda CRX.

Why don't you go by the world's nicest CRX for 20 grand?

And then you'll have a CRX SI again, like, yeah, that would actually be kind of cool,

like, oh yeah.

Those have climbed in value of surprisingly, they are getting, they're not, oh my gosh.

The prices they're going for, they really make you scratch your head, because they're

not crazy expensive, but it's like, there's a lot of other things.

You can get, they like, for that money, 90 horsepower or something, like, yeah, maybe

a hundred.

The specs were terrible, but it was like this tiny fish bowl, they weigh nothing.

They're so fun to drive.

They're so cool.

I like the second gen.

They need to bring the CRX back.

My uncle had one of those when I was young, and Honda did something like the Veloster

N with that CRX, bring the CRX nameplate back when they introduced the new Prelude.

Yeah.

Why do they need Nissan?

I guess they don't.

SJ, thank you for writing, really appreciate it.

Happy hunting and send us a car conclusion when you decide.

Some people think nature is like this, but actually it's like this.

That's why Columbia engineers everything we make for anything nature can throw at you.

Columbia engineered for whatever.

Well we have several questions today, like always.

The one that I saw more frequently than not as the one I usually get, and that's for

a personal car update, and I don't really have a whole lot to update.

To be honest, my still got the same Mazda's, I've still got the Porsche and the garage sitting

in my ideas around though.

I am throwing ideas around.

We've thrown ideas at you as well.

My older Mazda 3, I never really warmed up to that car.

I bought it as a need.

I needed a car.

The 911 blew up the first time around, which I hate saying having to specify which time

around.

But that car recently had to do a clutch, and I replaced the front axles, the only axles,

but I replaced the axles in that car because it had a vibration in the steering wheel, didn't

go away when I replaced the axles.

So I don't know what that could be next, is it fixed now or is it still there?

Still, still there.

Yeah.

Awesome.

So it could be a wheel bearing, it could be wheel out of balance, it could be an alignment.

I don't know what it is.

But I've never liked that car, so that's unkind.

It's been a good car.

It can hear you.

It can be reasonably careful.

It can be reasonably fun.

It's got surprisingly good passing power.

It's an Econobox from 20 years ago too.

So I am looking around, starting to look more seriously around, I don't want to say what

I'm looking at just yet.

I think you need to keep it as a process, but I like that you're looking.

I'm going to look, trying to keep the budget around 10, 15 grams.

I am looking at, I want it to be something I don't have to worry about too much and not

something that I want to mod too much.

It is the urge, which is the temptation.

That's the fine line.

Which catalog do you want to throw at your car?

Yeah, you're right, you're right.

And the reason for that being is I still have a 911 garage and I do still plan on rebuilding

that.

I had some questions on that as well.

No, I'm probably not going to rebuild it myself.

I've kind of gone down that road, looked at it from various ways or directions and doing

yourself isn't that much cheaper than having one of the big shops do it.

It is cheaper, but you've got all that time you've got to put into it.

I don't have the tools, I don't have a lift.

Special tools are always the issue.

I mean, I've seen pictures of people taking out 911 engines on their driveway without a

lift and it's, I don't want to do that.

No, thank you.

Yikes.

So, I mean, you should have seen that guy in our neighborhood.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, I am.

So I have actually, I'm looking at a company called Slacker, they're in Oklahoma City.

They are partnered with another company called Hearttech out of the UK, which is one of

the big engine rebuilders globally.

They're cheaper than the Jake Rabie flat six innovations engines, which is enticing.

They're like 10 grand cheaper.

Which pay for not much difference in build, different way of going about it, but they are

kind of in line with each other.

But I actually got a quote from them recently, just a ballpark figure, it's a scary number

even with that.

But the quote includes shipping the car out to them, them taking the engine out, rebuilding

it, including with a new block, if needed.

So the numbers higher than what it might actually be, replacing the cooling lines that we didn't

do when I did it last time around.

Dino tuning the engine, which is what they do with all their, usually on an engine Dino,

but tuning the engine for the build and then I go pick it up and they quoted me 32 grand,

which is a lot of money, but they're doing a lot of things too.

So you would fly out theoretically and then drive it back as they shake down engine

break in, follow the rules for engine, engine break in procedures.

Yep, that would be the idea.

But it'll be a couple of years before I can save up that kind of money, but that is

the, interesting.

That's the idea.

Over on Discord, thank you guys for your ongoing conversations on Discord.

I always love to see that and the discussions are daily and they're, they're sometimes quite

involved.

I've got a question here about design, Road Raider 3 says how much of design is personal preference

versus what we think others will like in things like seats.

It's always difficult.

Road Raider writes to balance what you like and what you think people will like and the

latter isn't always correct.

You're right, but what you're being paid for as a professional designer is to extrapolate,

not just lead on your own tastes, but try to understand the design brief and who are

you designing for.

We make fun of mood boards, but that's the whole point.

You're trying to understand who is your target customer first.

Whatever mood board is the code word for anything, any research that helps you understand

the target market, the people, the buyers that you are designing the object for, whether

you travel to go to a region, whether you go to a factory and understand how things

are built.

Any of that stuff is valid and then learning what people are willing to spend.

All kinds of research is available, colors, trends, materials.

You're extrapolating all of that stuff to make a very educated guess.

It's still, in a sense, a guess, but just like Apple gives us the next product and says

972: Driving A Badge, The Fun Your Car Deserves, Throw The Parts Catalog At It

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