985: Who Buys The Z, Seemingly About To Break, Walk Away From Old Slogans

Love them or hate them. Everyone has an opinion on cars. But we believe we're all one great car away from a car 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 Todd. I'm Paul, and this is the everyday driver car debate. Hello everyone, happy Friday. Welcome back to the podcast. We're glad to have you with us, and we have lots of really cool stuff to do. We've got a couple of cool car debates. We've got some questions from you guys. A lot coming in. But we just stumbled across a bit of news.

It was surprising. Is the way to undersell it? What on earth is going on here according to car scoops? And of course they're looking at sales numbers that are actually publicly posted. Nissan, who has been easy to kick of late because where's your new product and what happened to your sales? Of course, they have a new CEO who apparently is a real car guy. Nissan's sales are up first quarter, about 6%. Now that's not much. But here is the big headline that I am boggled by. The Nissan Z has been out for a while. And not selling.

But somehow in the first quarter of 2025, they've sold 200% more. What's the difference? They've sold. Here's the thing. They've sold more than 2,000 cars in quarter one. I'm wondering if deliveries are finally caught up to interest because nobody, all of you witnessed nobody's seen a Z car on the road. But but in the fact that this happened, will we see any? I don't know. Will we still see in the first quarter of this year the super sold about 400 cars?

And the Nissan Z sold about 2,000 cars. So I am astonished to be here saying that the Z car actually is selling fairly well comparatively. Are we going to see them now to your point? Are we going to see any? And who suddenly decided to buy a Z car? What I also wonder is, is this the result of the Z car was the car in the Nissan lineup that everybody marked up?

Okay, sure. Have the markups come down? Are we selling them at MSRP now? Because that would make sense to me because the Supra has been selling an MSRP for a while. It's somewhat old news, okay?

I'm wondering if now all the dealers have have shied away from their market adjustments and are actually selling the cars for what they're worth.

You know, hard to say, I'm wondering because the Supra is possibly due for a refresh or some kind of update, because when you introduce that A91 version of it, like, hey, here's kind of the last tarot, it was a Japanese only model that they teased not too long ago, but with ridiculous power and even more ridiculous price.

Yeah, exactly, but limited numbers. And when that happens, you know, that's kind of the indication for car companies to say, hey, we're transitioning or we're either going to end this particular year.

We're coming out with refresh the next one. So I'm wondering if Nissan Zs and Supras are going to go back and forth, you know, Supra next generation Supra comes out maybe, and then it goes through a sale cycle and then Z goes away and then comes back with a later refresh, but I still think there's so much runway for Nissan to do things. Cool things with the Z.

The Supra is already great. I welcome new styling, I welcome fresh upgrades and updates to that, but the Z seems like it still has yet another full generation of clean sheet kind of design and rethink and really make this thing even better. We like it. It's, you know, it goes up against some formidable competition.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and it's an excellent GT car. It's definitely a heavier car in the sports car category it competes with, but maybe they can do something. Maybe this new CEO can do something with the Z for future generations.

I'm just astonished. They say they sold just over 3000 all of 2024 and they sold just over 2000 in quarter one of 2025. So what's the shakeout when the years over? That's a huge. Everybody decided to buy Zs.

Apparently, that was the thing of 2025 and buying a Z car. And I know that look, comparatively, these are tiny numbers compared to we sell two or three or 400,000 SUVs a year. I mean, that's what a good SUV sells to, but for sports cars, genuinely, these are legitimate numbers.

This is why it's so hard to make a sports car make money because these are the kind of numbers that you sell at. But I let's hope the Z is enough of the success to what you just said that they make a new one after this that is even better.

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Cool debate today from Peyton in Spokane, Washington who writes to us to stop him from buying a ranger.

Here's the thing is he unpacks this we start to see I see why you're looking at a Ford Ranger and when I started shopping on auto tempas.com slash every day I started shopping there and I realized he really could get a lot of Ford Rangers for what he's hoping for.

There's a reason he wound up there. He's just hoping because everyone he knows seems to own a Ford Ranger that we can get him somewhere else.

You also start off your email here Peyton saying that you're looking to downgrade your car and that's not typically the thinking for car enthusiasts.

True. You've got a specific use case here which is quite interesting for the last 10 years Peyton's driven a 2014 Jeep Wrangler Ford or got it as a trade in just before college and it's a bit of good vehicle.

He's done long road trips gone off road hiking trips filled the back with tools. He said for the last few years it's almost always felt like something is about to break.

Even if it hasn't yet so that's interesting so it's not that it's been unreliable he just kind of lives in this ongoing fear right now that it's 10 years old and it's just about to be catastrophic that's uncomfortable for sure yeah.

He also realizes he's spending more time at home depot than he does driving the trail heads so he's ready for a change he wants to part with the Jeep while it still has value but he wants something reliable and easy to work on that will just run without him having to think about it too much.

Peyton is a landscaper by trade and he's on call to do snow plowing the winter so utility and four-wheel drive are a must you prefer manual so this new vehicle must be similarly size or even smaller than that Jeep even though that's not really deal breaker and his wife has a 2016 out of a three they take on road trips they can drive five people around in five people in a three is a little cramped well here's the thing you know all those people that's the thing you know those people well everybody's friendly here five of us in an a three that's a bit of a clown car but I'm glad you make it work.

His budget is firm at eight thousand dollars roughly half the value of the Jeep okay there's two reasons he'll be buying the new truck before he sells the old one and that's as much as he and his MOF feel comfortable taking out okay.

Number two any money left over after the sale of the Jeep will go towards funding a garage expansion then we can store some gifted family heirloom cars which are a 67 Mustang and a 1968 Ford F100.

That F100 is two-wheel drive otherwise he would daily it and he's considered a four-wheel drive swap but that also feels risky to him it's also a bit of a money pit to getting it to where you want it for sure.

It's probably worth a bit more as it is although an F100 it's pretty much a work truck yeah and but they are cool especially if you have a nice old one that's very cool.

So Peyton says the best choice is probably a Tacoma.

Yes.

I got it this part of the e-mail is like you just need a Tacoma.

But he also says those are almost always outside his budget.

I mean the ones that are in budget have three hundred and fifty million miles on them and they've been beat down but he says then there's the Ford Ranger.

Okay checks almost every box half of his co-workers already own one so he's trying to look at more interesting alternatives.

He's now considered almost everything SUV N truck then the front runner is that 90s Nissan D21 hard body.

His grandparents own a pathfinder of the same vintage for 30 years and at 230,000 miles it's running flawlessly so he knows those meet his criteria.

And it's got the cool factor that's right that Nissan hard body.

It's just a cool pathfinder that made its mark with the slanted sea pillar and the three punched vents in the hood.

It was very boxy design. It almost feels like truck designed by way of Delorean.

It has that kind of look about it.

The pathfinder is the ones we know about but they made pickups of the same vintage.

I totally get it.

He's also looked at four runners.

The Mitsubishi mighty max.

I remember the car.

Yeah exactly.

Maybe even a K truck which is interesting, harder to find in decent condition and he's worried about the mileage.

Plus it is about the same as an equally priced ranger so why not just get the ranger.

He doesn't mind buying something on the low end of the budget but he could use a little bit of extra spruce it up maybe.

Everything he's looking at is going to be high mileage but he's considering anything under 200,000 miles.

So where else should he look then the ranger or should he just go by the Ford ranger.

Peyton here's the thing. I see exactly why the ranger feels all your needs and then I went to auto tempest and discovered yeah for your budget and what you need.

There's a lot of them.

I didn't know rangers had a siren song.

I was not familiar with the siren song of the ranger.

Didn't know either I've never heard it personally but you see how it works here.

This is one of the things I actually love about this show and about all of your emails is when we read a dilemma and it takes us a place that we've never looked before.

It's one of my favorite things. I will be honest. I have never dug into the Ford ranger prior to today.

So it's funny when all these emails leave us here. I love it.

So the ranger does fill your needs.

For real drive, smaller truck, manual transmission, those things you're asking about are there in the ranger.

I did find Tacoma's in your budget but the problem is they're all early 2000 models like year 2000 models and they're all around 200,000 miles.

I found like 183,000 miles for a year 2000 Tacoma.

We know that'll run. We know it'll work.

I was searching only manual transmissions but the problem is you're to get a Tacoma which was my first thought for you.

You end up with there's a couple in your budget and they're just under your mileage cap.

So it's probably out.

I'll tell you where I landed, Peyton because your Nissan headed me down this road.

I like the 90s Nissan but the concern I have for the 90s Nissan is those are 30 something year old trucks now.

What are you going to do about parts and you're going to find them generally in really nice shape.

I feel like those exist in two categories. Can't find one or that's a show truck.

For the hard body, the Nissan hard.

I feel like that's where you find them now.

Did you find some expensive ones?

Well, I found a few, here's the thing. I found a few that are nice.

And my question is, are you going to buy a nice one to proceed to make it the thing that you use to put a snow plow on the front up?

I just can't imagine you're going to do that.

That's my thinking, okay? I kind of want to bang around truck which led me to the early 2000s Nissan Frontier.

They may have been told like two years ago and you know what, they're all the same.

That engine is tried and true.

Yes.

The interior is basic. The transmission is fine.

Our problem with the last couple of years of that old Frontier.

And again, I'm talking like two years ago when they refreshed it.

Our problem was it had been around forever and it had gotten old.

But you want it to be reliable. You don't want to have to worry about it.

You want it to be a four wheel drive and have manual transmission and just be work truck.

Yes.

And just run and run forever parts.

People love that engine. It's been very reliable.

I mean, the number of people that have written us about their farm truck

is a Frontier that just starts every time they want.

We've got a friend whose son just bought a beat down one in Hawaii.

Oh, man.

When it's been from multiple accidents and it just keeps running.

It's right.

So I think you want the early 2000s version of the Nissan Frontier.

Find one that is in your budget, decently taken care of, decent miles,

and just drive it till it stops.

And all the tech on that is simple.

So you're back into pop in the hood in your garage and just fixing stuff.

That's really good. I think the Frontier is the answer here.

It sets you apart just a little bit, but tried and drew, Peyton.

I thought I had the answer. Peyton, I thought I had nailed it.

I was thinking, Ranger, what can these be because of Ranger?

I have an old Chevy S10.

You know, I see those around. Those just keep running their beat down.

And then I thought I landed on it.

Okay.

I went searching.

All right.

You remember the Toyota T100?

Yeah.

Peyton, from Toyota's era of when they still hadn't figured out what a large truck was

for the North American market.

That's a good thing.

That's your friend.

It's right in between Ranger Tacoma.

It's just a little bit bigger.

It's not quite full-size.

Yep.

Yep. You're right.

And then I went shopping.

They're more than you think, aren't they?

A 1995 Toyota T100 DX2 door four-wheel drive extended cab.

140,000 miles for a 1995 T100.

Okay.

Take a guess.

140,000 on a 1995 T100.

You're going to tell me it's over 20 grand already.

It's $26,988.

What?

$27,000 for a more than 30-year-old Toyota.

And I found another one.

S-R5 1995 T100 S-R5 for 149, which is almost double what you want to pay.

They've landed in the Tacoma Cadillac.

And that is a 30-year-old truck.

Yes.

Here's a 97.

This is a two-door, I can't tell if it's four-wheel drive or not.

216,000 miles, Peyton, for 6,300.

That seems more like it.

But it appears to be two-wheel drive, and that's in Texas.

But there's not a huge selection.

216,000 on a 97 for 6,300.

That seems like the play to me.

Well, but he's only-

It's only a rear-wheel drive.

And he's worried about being under 200,000 miles to start.

So that's the problem.

Yes.

These Toyota are possible, but only if you want to blot your mileage cap.

Because I see T100s practically everywhere.

They're just the right size.

I do see it.

Or landscapers.

I see them constantly.

You're right.

That's the point.

There's the big boys they've drive.

Of course.

And the big Chevy Silverado's and that kind of stuff.

OK, I know which landscape companies charge their customers a lot of money.

Because you guys are driving brand new least.

2,500s.

With all the delivery on the side.

Yeah.

They refresh their trucks every year.

How much are you charging?

I've seen those in Park City for sure.

Yeah.

I'm thinking T100, but then with the prices I'm finding and the low selection.

What?

It makes me go back to Frontier.

So I will say, if you can find a T100, go get that because they clearly also last forever.

True.

Yeah, obviously.

Yeah.

They're the right size.

Really make that work.

Peyton, thank you for writing.

Really appreciate it.

Happy hunting while you go look for a truck.

And if you do settle on a ranger, that's OK.

It's OK.

I mean, clearly look.

We talked it through already.

It does check all the boxes of what you're looking for.

I didn't think we would find the perfect buyer for a ranger.

But it may just be you.

And that's OK.

You got to get a car that works in this case of truck.

But I'm also recommending an old Frontier,

which I don't think I've done before either.

This is a new podcast.

I like it.

It's very different.

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The next car debate is for Matt and Sidney riding in from Orange County.

And the tagline here is looking for a sport utility meana.

But I'm reading a long in here and I'm having ideas and stuff striking me and then we'll

get there.

This throws out the things that are unacceptable and he kind of wipes the board clean.

It got really difficult.

So we'll dive in here.

We're writing from Orange County.

He and his fiance Sidney are writing in and I love how we, the collective we, we have

a car in our life that gives us problems.

I feel like we all do this.

We live in two parts of our brain simultaneously.

There's the part of your brain that knows all the money and hassle and time you've spent

in car X.

But somehow we get emails like this all the time.

When you end up describing it, you describe it as not that bad.

I don't know how this is possible, but it happens again.

The transmission on Sidney's 2015 Escape EcoBoost bit the dust for the second time in her

ownership.

So let me rewind.

They have gone through.

They are now on their third transmission.

There was the one it came with.

There was the one she replaced and that one has died and they need a third.

I didn't know the transmissions on those things were bad.

The last one was replaced two years and 20,000 miles ago.

It's going to be fixed under warranty this time around.

But my point is you are about to have a 2015 EcoBoost on its third transmission.

Now that is not the only story.

It's not just the transmission.

Oh no.

Because the last time they took it on a big road trip, they went to Zion this past summer

and the AC went out on the way to Zion during what happened to be a record brake hammer

with this record braking heat wave for Hurricane Utah and Las Vegas, Nevada.

So with 130,000 miles in the clock, three transmissions and it's down an air conditioner.

It's not super old, but they're over this car reliability wise.

And then my favorite sentence of the entire email other than that, it's been fine.

Three transmissions, no AC, but it's good.

I'm poking fun Matt, but we all do this.

We all do this.

You have all the things that are, you had to fix on the unreliable car and then you go otherwise

it's good.

But we just had the list, the list from howl.

Sydney feels like the car is too big for what she needs in a skate EcoBoost.

It's got poor visibility and maneuverability.

It's all fine except for the poor visibility.

All of the bad things.

Oh yeah, the three transmissions, the AC going out.

What happened to quality is job one.

I know that is an old tagline for Ford, but is that so far in the past that what happened

to you?

BMW, the ultimate driving machine.

I mean, people are walking away from the old slogans.

It's what I'm saying.

But they matched.

They were good.

I know.

Just because they got old doesn't mean they weren't relevant.

Well, I guess it's irrelevant because of the problems you had when they went away from quality

being job number one to job like number 30.

It's on the list of jobs.

Somebody has that job.

This car history starts with a second generation Mazda 3 Sedan.

This was the car that got him into driving.

Cool.

It's just light and nimble enough to chuck in the corners, even it was down on power, which

led him to his current car in 99 Miata currently at 140,000 miles.

Thanks in part to a lot of our Miata films.

Well, that's cool.

He's had the Miata for the past two and a half years.

He's had a track day, two auto crosses, plenty of canyon drives.

He's called Bikes Furniture.

Anything else he's need to move.

I love this.

This includes front sway bar coilovers, exhaust, custom Bluetooth audio, and 3D printed

experiments on the interior.

Hmm.

He learned to do all the maintenance on this car.

Sydney's use case includes a daily commute that is mixed street and LA traffic 10 to 15

miles, seasonal driving up to LA, and a 70 mile round trip one to four times a week, a couple

of months of the year.

So most of the time it's a short commute, but it sounds like through a few months of

the year she's driving from Orange County to Los Angeles.

But as a 70 mile round trip commute, and that having just been in LA for a shoot is going

to be no fun at all.

So she has no hauling requirements.

It's fine.

It's just a box on wheels.

But she has to take tap shoes and props here or there.

Your wife is either a dancer or an actress.

Anyway, side note, by the occasional things they do have to fit in her car that won't fit

in the Miata.

Now we've covered Bikes and basic house stuff, furniture fits in the Miata.

So I'm not sure what fits in there, but occasional things will go in this other car.

She needs decent infotainment in this car.

Anything better than the Miata is her quote, and buttons would be nice.

But essentially what we're talking about here is this is a commute car.

That's what it has to do well.

It has to be comfortable and have recent tech.

So it's decent to commute in.

It would also be their primary camping and road trip car, which means it might get left

at trailheads that they pack their gear in.

But most of the time it is a commute car on pavement.

They pack lightly.

No kids.

No pets.

Original backseat passengers, middle seat is irrelevant.

So we're not talking about five people in an Audi A3.

When did we talk about?

Oh, that's right.

That's right.

That happened earlier and I'm still boggled.

Apparently that happens.

Uh-huh.

So the parameters.

This is where he wiped the board clean.

I had to read this sentence four times.

No crossovers, no SUVs, sedans or sedans masquerading his hatches.

Looking at you, Civic.

So wait a minute.

We can't get her a crossover.

We can't get her an SUV.

We can get no sedans and also no sedans that look like they're actually hatches, meaning

it's a sedan hiding a hatch in it.

Then we go smaller than the escape, a backseat and four doors.

So no Veloster, which I would thought of next.

But a backseat and four doors is so no backseat and four doors or no, they want a backseat

and four doors, which is a sedan, which is the, well, yes.

Here's what happens.

Preferably Asian.

Tell you where this ends is, preferably Asian, so that he can work on it needs to have

relatively low miles because they want to put about a hundred thousand miles on this

car.

So they're going to have it for a while.

And also, by the way, nothing that's afforded.

You know where we've landed here?

There's one place we've landed.

Hatchbacks.

That's it.

We're just, we're shopping for hatchbacks.

That's the entire board.

And I saw hatchbacks and went, you know what you need?

Focus ST.

Except it's a four.

And he said no fours.

So the Veloster ends out because it's three doors, not four hatchbacks.

We're done.

Wow.

But then the budget, $18,000, Paul Limiter, $20,000, $20,500, and a very hard stop at $21,000.

Okay.

Now he's actually had some cars they've looked into and you'll see how we wind up right

in hatchbacks.

The third or fourth gen Mazda 3 hatch, the Corolla IMSE or XSE hatch.

We do like those.

And the Lexus CT-200H, and then his own wild card, I guess technically is none of the things

he talked about.

It's not across over an SUV sedan or something.

Okay.

No, it's not.

His wild card is a Santa Cruz, Hyundai Santa Cruz.

He'd like the turbo all-wheel drive, but that's actually might be too big and is definitely

too expensive.

So now he's asking us about the non-turbo.

That is a total wild card, but you're right, you got in just under the wire because technically,

the Santa Cruz is not a crossover, an SUV sedan or a sedan mask rating as a hatch.

It's a yut.

This is hard.

Matt Sidney, I think I can get this done.

I had to go through a lot of cars and discard a lot because of your very difficult requirements.

See.

Where did it key in Nero?

Okay.

Yeah.

Start it there.

Could be a contender.

I moved up to the Hyundai Kona.

Is it an SUV or is it a tall hatch?

I don't know.

Depending on the light.

That day.

And which marketing department you read from?

Yeah.

Then I moved on to the Acura RDX.

I didn't like that because that was CUV SUV.

That is CUV SUV.

Yeah.

I thought of the Volvo XC40 and as cool as those are, those are an SUV, so that's out.

Then I saw your Toyota, the Corolla IMSE XSE, and I went for that.

The Corolla XSE, that small hatch.

Good.

Very good contender.

We really like those.

Yeah.

Keep trying.

There's this vehicle.

You and I have driven it.

We produced a test drive with this vehicle.

All right.

And it's a civic-based car.

It's the HRV, Honda HRV, and it's because I couldn't classify it.

One day, it's sort of like a tall sedan.

Well, that means it's not a sedan.

It's also a short SUV.

It's kind of right in between.

It's a lifted hatch.

It's a slightly, it's a hatch-ish, it's sedan-ish, you're right.

It's all of them and nothing, mad and Sydney.

That's the car.

I think that's a good one, actually.

I hadn't thought about that, but that is good with the HRV.

It drives well because it's a civic platform.

It's not powerful, but you don't need powerful and it does do everything you do.

And you're right.

Technically, I think is called a crossover, but it is in that category of slightly lifted

hatch.

I think it's perfect, but it's way above your budget.

I am landing on Nero or Kona for you guys because that Nero is low-powered as it is.

It is, yes.

Design-wise, I think it does stand out more than a lot of other hatches on the market.

And the Kona, I think, is kind of an interesting choice.

We're not going full of the Loster, but yeah, the Kona, tall hatch, I'm sticking with

Kia.

That is my...

I think you would really like those and they run great.

All at $21,000.

$21,000.

Done.

I love it.

Ton of them.

So, mad and Sydney, since we've pretty much clarified that all we're getting you is a hatch.

I dug in on hatches.

The ones you brought to the table and I brought a few others as well.

Again, I think the Focus ST is viable here, but it's out because it's a Ford.

I think the Veloster is viable, but it's out because it's three doors.

Okay.

Let's move on elsewhere.

The CT200H.

That was a Lexus, essentially, with a Prius drive train.

It's interesting because it's unique.

I don't think you're going to like it as much as you hope to.

So I'm going to put that on the maybe column.

Absolutely.

Yes, to the Mazda 3.

You've had Mazda 3 experience before.

You have a Mazda right now.

You like it.

Every Mazda 3 owner we've known has had a pretty good experience.

Now they have some known issues.

There's been some, depending on the generation, there's been some issues with the engine

mounts.

There's been issues with transmissions.

There are some kind of known issues with those, but you can get those solved.

Generally, they're pretty reliable.

Yes, they have a good chassis.

Nothing wrong with the Mazda 3.

Paul brought up the current Corolla, the XSE trim.

We loved these.

This was the car we drove that may Paul say they should make a snorty rally version of

this.

And then they did.

And they did.

Okay, so that, that current Corolla XSE, you can even get an Emanuel.

You probably won't because it's a commute car, and I get that.

But that is probably the most modern choice in here.

But then I thought of a couple others.

I walked by the mini GTIs and Golf R's listed because those do work.

The older Golf R, the Mark 6 or more recent GTI, those work, but you're hoping for an

Asian brand, and you're worried about maintenance, and the problem with those GTIs and Golf R's

is they get needier as they get older.

I mean, every car does, but they are known for it.

So that concerned me a little bit.

I'm going to take a left turn here to the Santa Cruz and come back to my two actual recommendations

for you.

The Santa Cruz is really cool.

The Santa Cruz drives better than you think.

It drives best in all-wheel drive turbo form, but new that's a $40,000 vehicle.

Are they selling anywhere close to your budget now they probably aren't?

You should drive the front-wheel drive naturally aspirated and just see what you think.

See, first off, if it's enough power for you, I wonder if it will be.

We really like the power and dynamics of the upper trim, and we think that is the way

to go, but that is significantly more than your budget.

I have two you actually can find right now that I think walk the line.

One is the Mazda CX-30.

Find a turbo one of those.

Those are just fun to drive.

They're a little bit slightly lifted hatch.

Now ignore the marketing real quick, mad ignore the marketing because this was marketed as

a crossover.

It's not.

The CX-30 is a lifted hatchback.

We've talked about it in all of our test drives.

This is not a crossover.

It's a little hatch.

It's an all-hatch to the Mazda 3.

The CX-30 is your car for the Mazda lineup.

I think that would work great, but then I also thought about your budget, your needs, your

usage, mostly commuting, but you'd also like to be able to carry stuff in it, go backpacking,

go camping, etc.

I think you might be the perfect buyers, very happy buyers, or the Subaru Cross Trek.

Great miles per gallon.

You see them everywhere.

They run until the earth stops turning.

They are perfect on any fire road you want to go on, but they're also perfectly normal

commute cars.

And that, while being shopped as a crossover, we all agree, is a lifted hatchback.

So I think it's down to Subaru Cross Trek or Mazda CX-30.

Those are both hatches in reality.

Those are my two favorites to bring to the table alongside the two you already brought.

The Corolla XSE, excellent choice, and the current Mazda, or as new as you can get, a

Mazda 3.

Those are excellent choices.

Matt Sidney, wishing you all the best, happy hunting.

Send us an email every day at drivertv at gmail.com, topic Tuesday's, car conclusions, car

debates.

While we're talking about the email address, I have to share a little anecdote that happened.

I have to share something recently, and I'm still grumbling about it a bit.

I just want to share it with all the nice people listening.

We got an email recently, and I do want to remind you that we do read every single email

you send us, and thank you for sending us emails.

We get emails every now and then, where you guys are just like, I got to tell somebody,

I took a picture of this crazy car.

I can't believe I saw one there it was, or I didn't even get a photo, but can you believe

I saw this car nobody knew about?

Okay, recently we heard about a brand new Fisker Karma being seen in Jordan, the country

of Jordan.

So I mean, you never know what you're going to see.

Plus your random emails of I spotted this cool car, I wanted to share it with you guys.

We love that stuff.

We get articles from you.

We read it all, as Paul has already said, of course, when we say many times, send us

your car debates, the car conclusions, we love your topic Tuesdays.

One of us reads every single email that you send, even if we don't respond.

But I'm putting it out there right now.

If you were writing your email with a chatbot, we are not going to respond.

We've gotten a couple of emails of late that were poor.

I'm going to say it that way.

It was clear they were being written predominantly with prompts from a chatbot and once we realized

that I just felt like I had my time wasted.

Because I the human am taking the time to read and then taking the time to write back.

So I would like this is my, I'm not going to get too ranty, but this, but writing is my

thing.

Okay.

Yeah.

If you're going to write to us, please be a human writing to us because a human's going

to write back.

Exactly.

That's my little PSA for the day.

Based on Reese's peanut butter cups.

They go perfectly with music, podcasts and welcome back to the show.

Even nature sounds.

Oh, and the thing where someone crinkles tissue and whispers at you.

Hello.

Look, I'm not here to judge what you listen to.

I'm here to judge you for not eating Reese's while you listen to it.

Reese's actually go back to the nature sounds.

Nice.

Yeah.

That's really nice.

Diving into good questions is always thank you guys for always writing and responding.

We post things.

You just posted the new Lexus LX 700 H. Is that what it is?

Yes.

Over trail four wheel drive.

It is essentially the closest you can get to the Land Cruiser replacement here in the

U.S.

But it's not a Land Cruiser.

It's not Land Cruiser.

It's far bigger than Land Cruiser.

There's ever have been.

I mean, it's, it's gigantic.

But the 200 series, the one that just finished was monstrous.

This is that again.

Yeah, it's the Land Cruiser because it's even bigger.

It's like the Land Crusher is what it is.

It's just a huge, huge thing.

We have that right now.

There's coverage on it coming plus constant test drives.

You should know on our test drive videos channel.

That's every Sunday we drop a new one of those.

And on our original everyday driver channel, we are working our way to the 1000th podcast

with posting of old episodes that we did live on test drive videos.

Those are being posted once a week.

We are also doing a lot of really cool comparison videos.

Some huge ones coming between now and our Coda event.

And then we're gone for like three weeks straight around Coda.

That's the end of May, early June.

We're going to film a bunch of stuff.

Many of it with your cars.

When we are doing that trip, we're very excited.

And we have videos through the back half of the year that are going to be massive.

We're really excited about all the stuff we're doing.

We were filming like crazy the last two weeks.

This sounds so ridiculous.

You know what I realized?

I really like filming.

I enjoy it quite a bit.

I enjoy the filming just as much as I do everything else.

So it's really, really fun to just be out and drive in cars and do what we do.

So there's a lot of things to talk about here.

Daniel, you've written to me and you've said, since I own too low tie that I'm enthralled

with.

So clearly I have cars I like.

Do I ever catch myself looking at other cars for me on auto tempest?

And how do the people in my life react?

And do I get the standard?

But you already have a car.

Now Daniel, there's a lot of layers to this that we'll try to talk about all of them.

First off, Daniel, I get a little bit of a free pass from the people in my life

because of what I do, okay?

Because at any point I can be researching for the show.

That also means I can demure when my wife walks up behind me and sees some car on my computer

and she'll just sometimes she'll just go, no, sometimes she'll look over my shoulder

because she'll see the numbers of what I'm looking at.

She's just like, no, it's happened for sure it does because she's just trying to go

why on earth are you shopping at that level?

And nine times out of 10, I am either researching genuinely or I'm just doing that thing we all

do which is dreaming like, how much are those now?

I do that, I do that almost daily, I just go, how much are, how much are those right

at right now?

I ended up looking up that car and I have found so many things that I will probably never

buy and I'm just curious.

But the realities we said this many times, don't change spouses, change cars.

Changing cars is much, much easier than blowing up your relationship because you're looking

somewhere else.

If you get bored with your car, move on and just because you have a car you love doesn't

mean you can't look for a different car.

They are fairly easy, all things considered of all the big decisions in your life.

Cars are the easiest to swap.

So keep looking, why not use autotemps.com slash everyday and yes, my son has been like,

well, why are you talking about those?

What's happened with my son now is that because he's going to be 16 later this year which

is shocking to say, I will bump up into something that I realize is cheaper than I thought

they were.

I'll be like, hey, hey, Bodie, do you know these are only this much?

He's like, well, could I have one of those for my first car?

I've been bitten by a couple of times.

He's going to point that right back at you.

He's making a list.

Every time I say that, he's like, well, I'm just going to add that to my list of cars we

can talk about later.

That's definitely going on for sure.

On Instagram, J.R. Schultz asks about our favorite vehicle that has an overly complicated

drive train.

Once we posted photos of this, LX-700H, he says, Toyota should just bolt a supercharger

on this thing because it's not complicated enough.

When we read about cars that have extremely complicated mechanical drive trains, usually

these days it's hybrid.

Popped mine was that Ferrari FF with the oil drive system in the front, that all-wheel drive

shaft running through the oil pan, it had its own gearbox.

That's a great gear box, a separate transmission up front.

I just thought, you know, that's a great first car.

You want to be the first owner and get rid of it promptly.

Yeah.

I agree with you.

Yeah, that's a really good one.

But I will tease the most recent shoot we are just in LA driving the 2025 Porsche 911

GTS with the newly introduced turbo technology, turbo hybrid technology that is the T hybrid

up against the new version of the Mercedes AMG GT.

You're not going to tell you which one was better different.

We liked more, anything like that.

That film is going to be coming soon, but I'm teasing it because that also has a very

complicated drive train.

That was the ePerformance.

Both of these are hybrids, but they're not anything close to what you think they are.

They're not even close to the normal Hyundai's, Toyota's, Honda hybrids that we know because

hybrid generally...

We're not at a Prius anymore.

Fuel savings and we're sacrificing performance a little bit to gain miles per gallon over

here.

They have nothing to do with any of that.

I read the MPG on both of them just with...

Huh.

Hybrids.

Huh?

Those are not numbers.

I don't really associate with hybrids.

And then we went out and drove the part of the numbers were far lower than that.

So this was yeah, huh?

Then there's volvos with their turbo charging and supercharging that seems like a complicated

drive train.

And when I read about volvos that have the turbo housing integrated into the exhaust

manifold and I thought, that's for cost savings, but that doesn't help you when you need

repairs or replacements done later on.

For those few years, they had the four cylinder.

And if you got it with the I'd like everything, please, sir, on a side of extra, it was turbo

charge, supercharged and hybridized, which just suggests to me just like what breaks

this week.

I mean, I think they haven't been a disaster, but at the same time, every time we had a press

car, it was a phenomenal power delivery, but I just kept thinking there is way too much

going on.

It just seems like every car from here on out is going to have an increasingly complicated

drive train to achieve some numbers, whether it's performance or whether it's MPG, good

numbers.

So it's kind of like EVs are not the complicated drive train anymore.

They're the dead simple ones, which you get a straight electric car.

It's just like, well, this will run forever batteries plus motors.

Simple, but it does mean those complicated drive trains mean there could be some extra

level of fun.

And that's the whole point.

BMW is seemingly going down this path with what they're doing, a mix of hybridization.

And EVs, I don't see any car company that's not dabbling with some new complicated, interesting

drive trains.

And they're getting farther and farther apart.

It's not just apples to apples anymore, well, that has a V8, that has a V8, we're good

to go.

It's not Mustang and Camaro anymore.

Yeah, that's true.

So it's hard to say a particular favorite.

I mean, I will be able to once a video comes out shortly, this video that we shot.

But I do think we're at a place now when everybody's throwing everything at cars.

I feel like the last four or five years for the next five to ten years, this is what

everybody's doing.

It's like how many things can we combine and the result is just an engineering powerhouse.

I'm sitting here scratching my head going, who had that idea?

But then you back up and go, everything is going on in this car.

And that's a little scary.

But it's designed to pull dollars from their competitors.

Of course.

That's the whole point.

If any of these car manufacturers didn't invest and yeah, go down this path, they're

not pulling dollars out from their competitors and getting new customers because every customer

is so educated now.

Everybody has heard of various dry friends.

And now it's what suits your life.

And that probably means a new level of complication.

Wow.

You may have noticed if you follow automotive podcasts in general, that our friend Matt

Farage has celebrated his 1000th podcast.

He and Zach Clapman have done a thousand episodes of that podcast.

They started in late 2011 and they've just done a thousand.

The Kirkmeyer is asking and saying, isn't it interesting how we and the smoking tire

both have a thousand episodes within months of each other?

And were we invited to their eight hour monster episode, a couple of things here?

First off, the only reason we're close is coincidence because what happened is they started before us

doing one a week.

And we started thinking all we'll need to do is a half hour and it'll be one a week.

And I forget what the impetus was.

I think it was because you guys bombarded us with so many car debates.

Which was wonderful.

I love that.

We jumped to two.

We jumped to two before they did.

So as a result, we caught up for a while, even though they've been going longer, then they

jumped to two a week.

And so we've been kind of side by side for a while here.

So they just got to their 1000 and congratulations though, guys.

They are the definitive podcast for guests in the automotive space.

They get everybody.

Yeah.

The guests they get boggle my mind.

I listened to many of them.

There's a lot of really great episodes over there.

So congrats to those guys.

They had a guest extravaganza for their eight hours of their monster 1000 the podcast.

We were not invited because if you'll notice, the guests that were on there by and large

live in LA, a good amount of the time.

We obviously don't.

We're friends with Matt and Zach.

We would love to have been there.

But I was very clear why we weren't invited because we aren't local at all.

And they had a ton of people.

So that's a cool episode.

We are looking forward to our 1000th.

We decided to blow it out in our own special way by going to circuit of the Americas.

So I cannot believe it.

We are counting down Dakota with both brands hooked on driving and everyday driver.

We are doing a monster road trip there and then a monster road trip from going all the

way.

Ultimately from Park City to Austin, Texas and then all the way out to Knoxville, Tennessee.

It is a huge swath of the country.

We haven't covered before.

We're very excited.

Lots of road trip films to come out of that.

But our 1000th podcast will be on May 31st.

That is Saturday night at the circuit of the Americas track.

We will do it live and we will hopefully also live stream it.

If we can get all the tech to work, we will live stream it as well.

And then it will come out in different variations on both of our channels.

That will be explained more as we get close.

We're going to have a nice compilation piece to go with it on the everyday driver channel.

We're very excited about the 1000th.

We're also quite boggled by it.

And that will begin our all video podcast going forward.

On Facebook, Daniel asked me a question about powder coating wheels and you mentioned

prismatic powders.

Yeah, they're pretty much the go-to powder coating.

And you are asking about shades of charcoal or anthracite.

And while those can look good, there's a lot of different color choices.

It still needs pigment, Daniel.

I still feel like a tone, a shade, some kind of pigment, having something.

If you're going to go to the trouble of powder coating wheels, it just seems like it's

got to be a very unique shade, a very bright shade.

But also some pigment in that, I encourage that.

Daniel, I'm suggesting a very light champagne because it's a lighter color against your

dark car.

I don't want you to go too dark with a shade of charcoal that's going to look like black

on black or black on gray.

I want your wheels to pop.

And just the lightest touch, not a gold, not a bronze, but just the lightest touch of

champagne silver, like a warm silver is what I'm thinking for your card, Daniel.

Seth Kleinman is asking about crossing the double yellow line versus crossing the white line

on the inside of a corner, the shoulder line, if you will, okay?

The double yellow line is a no-no.

It's a big no.

I was following somebody down the canyon this past weekend and they were driving a full-size

ranger over at the absolute limits.

And the yellow line was a suggestion to them.

When there was an S curve, they took it straight down the middle.

Now, to their credit, it was a quiet road, okay?

I was behind them.

There was nobody coming up.

They were endangering anybody, but I am just conditioned that the double yellow line,

we do not cross.

I just stay very cautious about it.

But we're asking about the line on the other side, not toward traffic.

We're talking about the one next to the wall, the white line.

Can we cross that?

He's saying, what do we think?

That's supposed to be for pedestrians and cyclists, etc., is it okay to cross that toward

the edge of the concrete?

And I'm going to say to you, Seth, absolutely.

That's part of your lane.

If there's no one there.

Absolutely.

You have to be cautious of cyclists.

I use the white line.

If you are ever worried about your on a road, and this happens to us a lot, your on a road

where you know there will be cyclists, then you have to treat that white line like the

yellow line.

You have to assume, I'm going around a blind corner, and I can't be inside that line,

because if I could have it around this corner and there's a biker, they're done.

So if you're on a road, you know it's quiet, you don't, you know doesn't have people,

then sure, cross that white line and use all of the pavement.

But you've got to be certain, but there's not going to be cyclists around.

On Instagram, love the twisties says he's a long time listener.

He's been enjoying our podcast for the last eight years.

We're glad to have you with us.

We hope you'll maybe see it during the 1000th podcast.

Let us know where you're going to be.

We'd love to have you with us.

He's saying first time question ever in eight years, there were many times you're growing

up as a kid when he was in the car with his dad, his dad who do something a little bit

crazy and then say don't tell your mother about this.

Do we have any stories like that?

Well, here's the thing.

My father is probably closest to Ned Flanders in real life.

You keep saying that.

He is.

It's so funny.

It's true.

And also if you've ever thought about it and watched the Simpsons, Ned Flanders is a

son named Todd.

Anyway, I'm going to stop there.

But my dad is very straight laced and he is not a fast driver.

In fact, my mom, in spite of all their, their couple of years owning a Corvette, my mom

drive faster than my dad does.

And as he gets older, he drives slower.

Didn't think it was possible, but it is a thing.

Whenever we go anywhere in the car together.

I drive and he still sits beside me and does that thing, you will all done this thing.

When you first started to drive where your parent starts leaning towards your side of

the car so they can see the speedo clearer.

Yeah, he still does that anyway, but that he still, he still does it and I can feel, I

have like a sixth sense for it.

I could tell he's looking.

It's very funny.

Anyway, but I'm going to answer your question.

This has happened with me and my son where I'm driving along and I do something and he's

like dad and I'm like, yeah, we might not want to tell mom about that.

Now, generally, what that means is we get home and he goes, dad, dad, tell mom what we

did.

He's an open book.

He's an utterly open book.

Are you leaning over and looking at this pedometer now?

No, actually, I'm not.

You're not.

I can do it with an eye flick.

I do check it because because here's the problem.

You can just look at your phone at the G-P.

There you go.

Here's the problem.

My son is having, okay, as a driver, he's having trouble with speed maintenance.

He can accelerate fine.

He can decelerate fine.

But that thing that we all have to learn, I didn't think about it, but we've all learned

it.

That thing we all have to learn where you get up to 75 on the freeway and you can hold

the car, no cruise control.

You can hold the car at 75.

Well, not everybody can do that.

Not everybody can do that.

But it's that.

I wouldn't give it a generalization.

But it's that skill.

Yeah.

He's really struggling with speed maintenance.

Yeah.

You can accelerate.

He can decelerate.

But we get a lot of accelerate up and fully pull off the gas pedal and decelerate by four

or five miles an hour.

Now we go back up to that four or five miles an hour and we decelerate back that four

or five miles an hour.

We're doing a lot of that.

So we're working on that.

Which is fine.

He's learning and I'm glad to see him learning.

But there's been a lot of times when this is what's happened actually.

We will hit a speed and I've learned whatever speed we just wit will be repeated when we

get home.

There's no hiding it.

Oh, really?

Even if I'm like, yeah, we don't need to talk about that.

He's like, dad, dad, we gotta tell mom.

Did you tell mom yet?

And then, of course, now I'm telling mom.

Well, there's really no getting away with it, but that's what happens in our house.

So guys, thank you for all your questions.

We really appreciate it.

Right to us every day.

DriverTV at gmail.com, topic Tuesday's car conclusions, those great car debates keep

in coming.

And we're looking forward to hearing from you.

Cheers, everyone.

985: Who Buys The Z, Seemingly About To Break, Walk Away From Old Slogans

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