Behind the Wheels: Exploring the Shelby Automotive Program, and the Grand Wagoneer!

Welcome to another In Wheel Time podcast, a 30 minute mini version of the In Wheel Time Car Show that airs live every Saturday morning 8 to 11am, central From Studio A at the world famous Sugar Shack in Texas, usa.

It's the In Wheel Time Car Talk Show Coming up.

Ron Lou Ellen, professor and director of the Shelby Automotive Program, joints will also have the upcoming events calendar, mr Maher's reviews, the Grand Wagoneer Plus.

You'll hear the stories making automotive news headlines this week.

Howdy, along with Mike out of this rural bars King, conrad DeLong we always need more.

Jeff Zeekin and I'm Don Armstrong.

Thanks for joining us on this Saturday in our live show.

We're back after a three week respite couple of weekends Welcome back from vacation.

Thank you very much, had a great time.

I joined our chief engineer, david Ainsley, at the cottage up there Off of Lake Huron and it was spectacular.

The upper peninsula, of Michigan and of the world as we know.

It had a great time and thank you, David, for that.

Okay, let's just get right to it.

Let's just get into it.

Get her done.

We're going to get her done right now.

Ladies and gentlemen, he is the professor and director of the Shelby Automotive Program automotive repair credentials.

He's from the graduate Northern Arizona University.

Mr Llewellyn has 18 plus years as an industry experience.

I'm just kind of butchering this all up on it, but anyway, we're just going to get right to it.

Let's just turn it over to him, how's?

that.

Well, let's just do that.

Good morning sir, good morning Ron Good morning guys.

How are you guys doing?

Hey, thank you so much, I'm sorry I butchered your intro all up, but you know what?

It doesn't make any difference, because you're going to explain to us all about the Shelby Automotive Program.

Tell us where the program takes place.

Well, Carol was originally born and raised for his youth years near a little town called Pittsburgh, like about 100 miles southeast of Texarkana.

Pittsburgh, pittsburgh, texas, pittsburgh, texas.

He came back to this area and was going to create his own automotive program back in the mid 2010s, around 2005, 2007.

He wanted to build his own automotive school.

We didn't get a lot of support from the local people other than the community college where I work, northeast Texas Community College.

He decided to create this program, this automotive repair program, at the school where I'm employed.

I've been there since 2016, but the program started back in 2007 while Carol was still alive.

Very nice.

Give me the age of the students that you have there Approximately.

It's really varied.

I mean, most of my students are like college age students, late teens to mid-20s.

But I have students sometime that come to us that are just starting over again, trying to start a new career.

That could be late 30s, early 40s, all the way close to 50 years old.

Careful now we're getting close to us.

I'm thinking.

I will say this this interests me a lot.

I love learning things about automotive, and we have our board member here, mr Conrad DeLong, that knows all about that sort of stuff.

He used to be with General Motors years ago and very knowledgeable when it comes to automotive things.

So if you ever need a guest speaker, conrad would be the guy for you, but at any rate.

So how many students do you have?

Okay.

So I mean it's really unique.

I mean we've got a connection with Carol's foundation.

He connected us with his foundation.

His foundation is located in Gardena, california, where the original factory was, where he built the original CSX Cobras, and the foundation gives us $50,000 a year in scholarship money to support our students.

And I mean we even have a connection with the actual parent company in Las Vegas.

I've got students that go there every summer to Shelby American LLC in Las Vegas, right off the strip where the company is now, and they go there and help build cars through the summer.

I've got two kids out there right now.

So they intern there at LLC.

Yes, sir.

Nice, and how many students do you?

have Okay.

So yeah, it's a small college and we're building this program.

So I mean our whole student body is around 2000 for a semester.

So we're looking at with our high school dual credit students and our college students that we bring in about 55, 60 students a semester.

Manageable.

Yeah, that's not bad yeah.

And as your students graduate your program, are they moving out into the repair world of dealerships and independent shops, or are they moving towards more of the customization world of like Shelby American or you know any of these guys that are doing all this customization work, or even racing?

Yeah, well, I mean, the racing is kind of a tough nut to crack, especially with a program that's so fledgling.

But yeah, I mean, I've got connections with two of the Shelby car builders that are outside of the Shelby network.

I don't know if you guys are aware, but there's only three companies in the entire US that have the right to, or you know the naming rights to build Shelby automobiles.

They're a GT in Roaring Springs, pennsylvania.

Here in Texas it's a group run by the Stone Brothers out of Flower Mount, texas.

They started out as classic recreations and now they spread into Doing more modernized stuff.

You know, upgrades shall be upgrades on more modern cars and they're new, new places shall be garage, but they're started out as classic recreation.

So those two, along with shall be american, are the only entities in the country that have shall be right to create vehicles and put shall be serial numbers on.

So the program that you have there at the community college, the, is it geared all to?

The shall be brand no sir.

No, I just I've, you know, I've tried to since my start there in 16 to try to get the connection with Ford because I mean this makes the most sense to have connection with Ford.

So we've partnered with the local dealers and we're not afford, you know, factory training program but we have the Ford ace that we use for our classroom curriculum, the accelerate career education program from Ford and, yeah, my my own philosophies.

I don't really care if these kids go to work for Ford.

I mean I like that connection with Ford but I think it's just good that they're connected somehow with a manufacturer because I know in my career I learned so much more when I was exposed to manufacturer repair program, repairing vehicles in a manufacturer setting.

I work for GMC for years, so where I think it's really good for these kids to understand that you know that when they go to work for a manufacturer and they've got that, you know there's just 10 times, 10 times more information working inside that network than there is working as an independent.

You had mentioned that.

You know, back in our days we only we didn't have all those connections.

Like you said, you had one or two that you relied on, but now, with what you're doing there, you have multiple.

So those students can go virtually anywhere in the automotive industry through your program.

Yes, sir, yeah, that's.

I mean we're we're trying to just make sure we're, you know, not stepping completely into the realm, where we're gonna, you know, pigeonhole ourselves into the Ford program program, want to keep this community college, want to keep it open to, you know, all aspects of automotive repair.

But it's really been really helpful that we've got the connection with Shelby and with Ford.

Well, it's a good thing that you're producing general technicians for the industry, because the dealerships have no place to find new technicians.

You know there's such a shortage of Technically experienced people out there to go to work where there's a dealership or independent shops.

So programs like yours are very, very important for the industry To continue to produce technicians for the field, because you know lots of them are my age and they're all retiring and if they're not out mentoring somebody new and young, their knowledge gets lost, their experience gets lost.

So having a program like yours is pretty important, is your program a two year program.

Yes, sir, we well, you know it's, it's we've created is a lockstep thing kind of thing.

We start out with a one year certificate.

We do what we call a summer performance academy in the summer between the first and second year, and we build a car.

I mean we have gotten with our partnership with Shelby that they're looking towards the future.

You know as well as Ford.

I mean they you know building the Ford lightning.

So we're, we started an EV program.

We had a write up in the New York Times, in the Wall Street Journal.

We were the first college in the country that declared that we were going to have a standalone electric vehicle program.

Wow, we've even got the funding and built a brand new facility just to support that EV program.

That's shocking yeah lightning.

Well, you know Conrad brings just a sense of humor to this, that no one knows he tries to bring us.

I'm sorry.

Yes, there's that.

Maybe he's not going to be a good speaker for.

So are you a native certified.

No, sir, we are not at one point.

It's the same as the last college I was.

That I was formally was a Yavapai college in Prescott, arizona, and I had to go through the process of the nature certification for the diesel program I had there and that's something that's in the to do list here.

But it's, this program is the same as the last program.

They there's college.

At the last school.

They had a president come into that last college and destroy the career tech programs and then they realize they were going to lose all their Federal funding and they ousted her and I had to come back in and create a diesel program there from the ground up, along with the automotive instructors are working there too and we had to go through like a long and it was like six years for us to go, do and put everything together to get the nature of sir oh yeah, yeah

, it's very, very complicated are you?

any relationships you have with manufacturers is very beneficial to me to as well.

I used to do.

You know, there's a couple points in time where somebody has to come in and kind of do an inspection of the facility, and I would.

When I work for General Motors I would do some of those native inspections throughout the state of Texas.

Are you also?

You're a side inspector for for nature?

yeah, are you also?

Are you affiliated at all with the program either?

Now, and we haven't really done a lot with skills USA either.

But I mean those are things that we really my biggest problem right now, you know the fundings not there only have Three full time instructors and one part time instructor, along with my, my student workers.

I mean there's just a lot to do.

Oh yeah, if I had some more, if the funding would come across where I had ability to hire some more, you know, season people, some people to help with this, I'd be able to get a lot more this done, I think.

But I mean it'll all come into town.

And you know that's the problem is the.

The funding creates Industry need because you're producing technicians for the field and I, you know I would assume a significant amount of them would stay as a community college in those communities to back feed the, the real strong need of dealerships and independent shops for technicians and why that doesn't get a serious funding from the local community and the community college Makes absolutely no sense because it kind of feeds the

need that's in and around the area that Is is running dry and running dryer all the time.

So Good idea, good program.

I love the relationship you have with Shelby.

That's quite unique in all my time being associated with various community college programs.

The one thing I can say is I mean it's it's Kind of we've we've looked at here the colleges a destination program, because he's Foundation or his foundations actually supporting other colleges.

Now they're putting money into other colleges.

I mean he had a quite a Hefty foundational you know a lot month that he left behind after he passed.

But we are the only one that will ever have the naming rights to be called the Carol Shelby automotive program that's pretty unique.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, you, you have Students that come from other parts of Texas or the United States.

Oh yes, I've got students that have came to me.

I've got a partnerships with that other entity up in Lauren Springs, pennsylvania have kids come from that area.

I've got this program that we call the hometown scholarship To try to recruit kids from those areas.

I've got another Company called Gateway Bronco right outside of St Louis and In the rural Illinois.

They they build the first gen Broncos.

They've got a place, I think, in Iowa that builds the 10s and they build a custom frames and stick stuff, coyote motors and these things is selling for, you know, quarter million dollars.

Of course they do, I've got kids working for them and I try to promote kids from those areas to come stay in our dorms and live in our dorms.

You know, do our education go back there?

To go to work is the one thing I've noticed with these younger generation.

A lot of them they don't want to leave the area they're in.

I mean, they want to stay somewhere close to home.

I guess they're used to mom setting out their underwear in their socks every morning.

I guess I don't know.

And that's why some of us get married.

Yeah, just take another mother.

Yeah, but yeah, I mean it's really difficult.

I put some of these kids in some just amazing opportunities to go somewhere you know and work for these, you know, these high profile companies, and they, they don't want to do it.

I mean they want to stay at home.

I mean it just boggles my mind.

I mean when I was their age man, I would be on the first train out of town.

Yeah, kind of a difference in work ethic as well, not just you desire, but work ethic in general.

And that's tough to overcome as a school because you've got to be able, as you're trying, to deliver these apprentice I'll say apprentice level technicians to the field.

You know they have to go somewhere and have a good work ethic to become successful and you know a good technician I mean an A level technician is a six figure income person.

Yes and it's not difficult to get the six figures if they're willing to put the work into it.

You had mentioned earlier that you have not had a lot of success in putting any of your students into any kind of racing programs.

Why is that?

Well, I mean you know the connection with the name is there.

It's just really hard to break into those, those realms.

I mean, you know, when I started out teaching for Universal Tech Institute Because I graduated from a diesel program down, I did automotive training in the state here through Job Corps.

I did an automotive program down at San Marcos they used to have.

It's not even there any longer.

Let's start out as an automotive tech.

I went to work for a local dealer in Tyler, texas, and then this is back in the early 80s when there were stuff in diesel engines and everything General Motors and they sent me on successfully.

I worked for Oldsmobile back in those days and I am quite unsuccessful.

The 570, so it wasn't really a great.

Who'd you work for in Tyler?

I worked for what used to be King's Chevrolet in downtown South.

But yeah, yeah, they decided they want to make a diesel tech out of me and they sent me to the Houston campus down in the woodlands and I did diesel training down there.

So I ended up going back to work for UTI and you know it like we're getting back to these students nowadays.

I mean they're just easily influenced and they really don't want to.

They really really want to leave home or go anywhere or go away from where they're at.

So you know, I think this industry is in a lot of trouble too Because of what you know, you were saying.

I mean that these kids, a lot of them, just aren't interested in cars anymore.

I mean there's other things that they're interested in.

We as an industry know to figure out how to Spark their attention and get them interested and and working on automobiles and, you know, get the word out there to them that there is a lucrative income from working on.

Ron, it's great to talk to you.

We thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us this Saturday morning.

Best of luck to you up there at Northeast Texas Community College.

What's a good way to get a hold of you?

The best way to get a hold to me is just go to our Facebook page or our website.

Facebook page is just a Shelby automotive program and you can get hold to me on our honor, our web, our website, northeast Texas Community College.

It's ntccedu.

Or you can get hold to me on my, on my email address, it's our, with my last name, lou Ellen, at NTCC dot.

Edu.

Ron, you're great.

Thank you so much.

Thank you luck to you.

Let's stay in touch.

Yes, sir, thank you guys, you bet Appreciate you.

Okay, if you'd like to get in touch with us, you can always shoot us an email.

Our address here as info.

At in wheel time calm and be sure to follow us on Facebook, if you would, please.

Okay, time now for the events calendar.

Not the cruise in, but the events calendar.

There's a difference.

I know there is so not this, not tomorrow, but next week is coffee and crown right, right, that's a Sunday morning.

Sunday morning.

October 20th is the 38th at 38th annual Wolf Creek car and truck and bike show at Wolf Creek Park in Cold Spring, texas.

August 12th is the Cypress cars and coffee Back to school drive at the Fairfield Baptist Church.

October 28th is Okay, ok, turbofest in Kareem Springs Shriners Club in Waco, texas.

Turbo.

Ok, turbo.

I thought it was a great name.

Creative Lone Star Drift round four at Motorsports Resort in did you read this ahead of time?

No, it's August 19th.

September 23rd.

Lone Star Drift is at the Houston Police Academy at 17,000 Aldean Westfield.

That's September 23rd and then also October 21st.

Lone Star Drift at the Houston Police Academy which, speaking of drifting, we're going to have a guest coming our way, that is going to be Zach Triggs fat cats racing, drift, drifting stuff, and that's going to be at the top of the 10 o'clock hour, central time a little bit why I did a little research on.

Now next week I'll be back up in Detroit, and then the week after that, I believe, is the Woodward cruise, the week I come back.

I think, well, that's great timing on your part, I guess.

Well no on their part.

They should have had it a week earlier.

Now You're right, it's all their fault.

That's right, maybe you'll be lucky and they'll cancel your flight.

I always get a dream cruise.

Mr Morris has a review now of the Jeep Wagon here.

Can can I just can I just kind of kick things off and just ask you right up front what is the MSRP on this vehicle?

As it was all the way down to the bottom over there where it's got, you know.

Destination.

All that, yeah, yeah, it's 100, 14,180 dollars.

Okay, now you can continue on with your review.

We wanted to know where the perspective was.

Donning, and it's the kind of guy that reads the last three pages of the book and then starts it over unless he's buying a car, he's looking at the bottom line first, and so this is the 2023 Grand Wagon here, series 3.

I say this right, obsidian, obsidian, obsidian, that's not the way it's obsidian.

That's not the way it sounded out in anyway obsidian, obsidian.

Okay, I'll take you where it's obscene either way, it's four by four.

It's obsidian.

Yeah.

Oh, uh, whatever you want to start over from leader.

Yeah, it's 2020.

I was 2023 grand wagon and I did find Don mentioned earlier that he found a place where it does say Jeep someplace on it.

I found it on the when Roni.

There's one place where it has the word Jeep but generally speaking this says they they marketed as a grand wagon here in the grand wagon here L, which is new and the longer one, but we have the regular grand wagon here, series 3, and I really love the way they did the trims on this series 1, series 2, series 3.

That's it.

But then they kind of mucked it up with all the groups they had on Convenience groups and rear seat entertainment groups and tailor it's.

They add a bunch of stuff on the end of it, but it starts out good.

It's a full-size luxury SUV, the one we had, seats 7.

It does have the 7 slot grille up front and so it's like a lot of the large SUVs nice, big square, butt, mass, muscular type build.

I mean it looks like it's got substance going down the road.

We had the black roof, had some black highlights, black tow hooks, uh, and the wheel inserts, so and that went along with the white paint.

We had the bright white paint.

Now I like white cars and with that black, nice contrasting, it was a really good color combination.

I thought led lighting, uh, power Running boards on the sides that come out, you know, whenever you step up on them.

But they're wide.

I mean these things are almost nine inches wide so they're easy to step on.

They're not some little skinny little thing that you're gonna slip off of power liftgate.

I had the tri panel Panoramic sunroof.

We were rolling some 22 inch polysilumine wheels with the black inserts, again more black trim.

That really sets off that white paint obsidian touchscreen I'm ignoring.

I had the uh on the inside of it.

We had the quilted palermo leather with front seats where heat had been elated with massage Used that a lot.

Second row captain's chairs, heated, ventilated.

Third row was 6040 power folding seats.

Upfront we had the 12 inch touchscreen in the front of it.

That was really nice, easy to read.

Of course it's easy to use because of the the stilance program that they've got built into it.

But the one thing I wanted to point out was and you can see it on the screen if you happen to be looking at the YouTube video there is the panel for the USB ports and everything is really sass behind a panel.

Well, that panel is actually an additional screen.

So you open it up, you put your phone in there for the Wireless charging, there's USB ports, everything else you need, but when you close that it's all out of sight, out of mind, it doesn't go any place.

But that becomes a screen and you can adjust your massaging seats and several other things.

So you have an additional screen to work with besides what's up there on the top, and I thought it was a really nice touch and it was really well executed.

I love that part of it.

Macintosh entertainment system 23 speakers, including the Amazon fire TV for the rear entertainment system, which is two 10 inch speakers behind the rear seats, so they could watch us while we're driving down the road.

There you go now to make all this stuff go down that road.

You like this dawn in line.

Six turbocharged 510 horsepower 500 pounds New in line six that they're using.

And how was it?

Oh man, like I said, I thought it was the v8 to begin, with a twin turbo, 510 horsepower, 500 pound feet of torque.

So it's got a lot of low-end juice and that's the standard motor on the series to its series three it will is backed by an eight speed automatic.

It'll tow ten thousand pounds, properly equipped with a tow package, which this one had.

Epa says it's rated for 14 in the city, highway 20 and combined 17.

Now I Do to some other things going on.

I didn't get to get it out on the highway much, except for just a couple of quick passes, so I only put a hundred miles on this vehicle all in town.

So don't count mine.

Well it's things going on, and so it.

Most of the driveway, most of the time you had.

No, it was just two miles to here, two miles to there.

Too much looking for a new house?

Yeah, moving the vacuum cleaner, but this thing had plenty of power and I think I really believe you could tow that ten thousand pounds.

I would like to have had the opportunity to try it.

Good-looking truck it is Particularly with a black and white.

Like I say, we had the standard air suspension on it.

You can raise it up.

You can actually get an extra ten inches of clearance if you're going off-roading in this vehicle and it also all over running in something like that.

To me it's more like you got into some mud, the sand, but that's.

They listed it as an off-roading.

Okay, you lower it down for exiting, but again, with running boards it's real easy.

I love those running boards.

Now the base model price on this vehicle is 8999899995 Now.

The base trim price for the series 3 107995 now.

By the time you throw in a few little options packages and the $2,000 destination fee of course, kicks it up to one thousand a hundred and fourteen thousand one hundred eighty dollars.

Now, if you're looking to something to compare that to in that large luxury SUV, of course you're gonna go look at a Cadillac Escalade it's gonna start out at eighty, eight thousand ninety five dollars.

You maybe even the Lincoln Navigator it's gonna be kicking out at about ninety, seven thousand, I believe, on the base level, and then the or you could look over it in Lexus LX at ninety two thousand one hundred.

But again, you this is the Grand Wagoneer from Jeep, even if they don't claim it.

Thank you, Mike Obsidian Mars.

Obsidian Mars.

I swear that's how it told me to say that.

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Everyone at the Tailpipes and Tacos cruise in at the Loopy Tortilla Tex-Max in Katie.

Thank you for participating in the best cruise in a round and look forward to seeing you again.

You'll hear about the next cruise in date right here on In Wheel Time.

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When passing through Beaumont or College Station, stop in and have Loopy's award-winning beef fajitas and frozen margaritas.

There's always a celebration at Loopy Tortilla.

Loopy Tortilla founder Stan Hold and his wife Sheila are winning racers on the NHRA Drag Racing Circuit and have a collection of hot rods and classics that everyone appreciates.

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Behind the Wheels: Exploring the Shelby Automotive Program, and the Grand Wagoneer!

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Jeep Grand Wagoneer

Shelby Cobra

Ford F-150 Lightning

Toyota Crown

Cadillac Escalade

Lincoln Navigator

Lexus Lx

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