CarCast+Edmunds - Monterey Car Week recap. Driving the Cadillac Vistiq and Toyota Land Cruiser.

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Hello, welcome to the Edmonton Car Gas Podcast.

I'm Matt, the moderator, D'Andre here with Alistair Weaver.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Matt.

And just back from call week.

Yep.

Yeah, to get yourself some color.

Got yourself a nice tan.

Got myself a bit of tan.

I'm putting my moisturizer on this morning.

I'm looking shiny and tan.

I'm feeling exhausted.

I got back about, I did the Concorde Delegance yesterday morning and then set off for LA on

my own yesterday afternoon and rolled in about kind of 11 p.m. last night.

So I'm feeling pretty, pretty crispy and pretty broken but zero sympathy obviously

from the other half who looked after the kids for five days while I was off quaffing

champagne and pretending to be wealthy.

Yeah, there's always a bit of that.

Yeah, right.

Had a good time.

We went out, well, we get into it, but you're right.

Sunday we went out early to meet with the group.

We would meet with the group and then the plan is like, oh, Sunday we're going to

go to breakfast, meet with the Rolex team, say hi, do a lap around the Pavel Beach,

grab some lunch, be wheels up by one o'clock.

And that turned into five o'clock.

So then and then drive home, except I drive home and the other clowns that those guys just

sleep in the car the whole time.

Yeah, well, I was I was going solo.

So yeah.

All right.

So obviously the topic this week is a Monterey car week recap.

I think there's enough content to probably get a few episodes out of this because there are

certain vehicles that I think were really kind of cool that maybe we want to get into a little

bit more, some interviews as well.

But for now as we're back and I don't know if this is going to be a full show or not,

but let's get into it.

We headed up, Adam Kroll and I went up.

We brought Sonny year 11 for Sonny.

He's 19.

He's started going when he was little and now he's giant and had a great time.

Did the did the road trip up there?

You know, for us, it starts at the track.

We have somebody else that was also hauling the race car up there.

Adam is racing the BRE Datsun 510.

Those of you guys that are familiar with the show are familiar with the car.

Let me see if I can grab a photo real quick.

There it is.

It's a very sweet, cool little Datsun.

It's great, right?

This is Pete Brock.

This is Pete Brock's design, his color scheme.

And really when you watch this run group, it has Alfa Mayos like the GTAs.

And didn't the guy called Jensen Button win the race?

Yes.

Yeah, what happened?

I never achieved much in his racing career.

So we're out there.

We're running the, Adam's running this car.

You know, Mini Cooper's, Cortina's, the Alfa Mayos, this Datsun.

I guess technically this wasn't supposed to be in the run group because it has fender flares,

although it's the same tire size.

And you know, it's like, I get it.

If if Adam was out there like whooping up on everybody, then then people can go,

well, it's it's a cheater car, I guess.

And but I don't really see it.

And yes, to your point, there was a red alpha that was just smoking everybody out there

by about 10 car lengths.

And the driver was just like, just having a good time looking around.

Like it's, you know, it's no big deal.

And it's Jensen Button.

A comedian versus a Formula One world champion.

It's not really a fair race.

And I, I, I talked to him afterward.

I, when they were running the Iraq car.

So one of the themes, one of the featured marquees is usually a manufacturer or vintage

Formula One was one of the things in like 80s Iraq cars.

And Ray Abraham basically co-owns all the Iraq cars and bringing back the racing.

And so he made some phone calls and got a bunch of of his friends to come and drive these cars.

Marino Franckini was there, Jensen Button, Dario Franckini, Jeff Gordon, Unser,

like you just had like a who's who of out there parading these cars.

And then I, I went to the driver's suite, Adam and I walked over to the driver suite.

Adam's like, let's, let's look at these Iraq cars drive.

And we're up there and I see Jensen Button and Marino Franckini

like just watching.

And I was like, Oh, let's go see what's going on.

And we went over.

I was like, Hey, aren't you guys supposed to be driving?

And Jensen was like, Yeah, I inspected the car and I got in it.

And he goes, I got right out of it.

He goes, they hadn't changed the brake pad since 1988.

It's like, it had the same fluids.

He's like, I'm not getting in that car.

I think Dario was supposed to drive this pink Camaro.

And then he, he got in it too.

And he's like, there's no way I'm driving this car.

And he switched to a different car.

Then the owner of that car, just like, I'll do it.

And he just jumped in it and he drove it.

He was last, but he got in it.

So Dario jumped into one of these cars.

I think he was driving a Camaro, maybe Firebird.

And they did sound really good.

A couple of them drove past me.

They sound amazing, sensational.

But they also look so incredible.

I mean, they look big.

They look big.

And they also look incredibly basic.

I mean, I know it's 40 years ago, but the 80s, like,

you know, maybe it's just because I'm getting old,

but I still feel like the 80s has been reasonably modern.

But it just looks so unbelievably basic.

And, you know, some of these guys, this was interesting.

I was, I was asking this to Adam.

I said, who do you think would be faster?

Somebody like Dario who knows the track,

but has never been in that car,

or someone like Jeff Gordon who knows the car

doesn't know the track well?

The answer was Dario.

Although Jeff Gordon, I've done a bit,

done a couple of things with Jeff Gordon in his in his heyday.

And yeah, he was a great, you know,

he wasn't just good at turning left.

He's great.

So, I mean, he was quick in a Formula One car, Jeff Gordon.

He was, he's proper.

The winner of the group was a guy named Tommy Driesey.

And if you don't know that name, Tommy is a great driver.

He is, I think, the current Trans Am champion

and knows that track and knows that style of car.

And then second place was Dario.

And then I found out when I was joking,

going who would be faster, right?

The, you know, Jeff Gordon had never driven Laguna Seca.

Really?

Yeah.

That astonishes me.

Right.

That's what we were all saying.

Anyway, it was great to watch.

And when I was talking to Jensen Button,

I was like, are you driving somebody else's car?

We saw you in this Alpha running in this, you know, the 1600 CC group.

And he was like, no, it's mine.

He's like, I bought it about a year ago and brought it here and running it.

And I was like, oh, yeah, he's like, that car is fun.

I was like, yeah, but you smoked everybody by like 10 cars.

He's like, yeah, that car is fun.

That was it.

So he had a good time.

It's funny.

It's funny. A guy that I used to race against in a very amateur way,

nothing like what we're talking about.

But he suddenly found a formula that he was winning everything in.

And suddenly he was being talked about as his great club racing champion.

And I used to race against him in catering.

And I was like, yeah, it was never that good.

I think you just, I think it's all about finding a formula in life that you can win in.

I think that's the, that's the, that's the, if you're an amateur,

I think that's the key to success.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think you're right.

All right.

So before we, we'll get into some other stuff.

Let me see if you guys can just see that.

I don't think the way I share this screen, you can't hear it, but this is.

There you go.

This is kind of the start of that run group with Adam and John Jensen.

And there's Adam's car.

It's a great group.

These cars are so fun.

They actually run, uh, lap times that are as quick as, you know, like the, uh,

like the Trans Am, uh, like Mustangs, like 60s Mustangs, Camaros,

because those cars got so much power and little tire on the ground.

And you see them coming around a turn and they're just sliding all over.

And these little cars, I mean, it seems like not a big tire,

but they don't weigh anything.

They stick and you could just throw them around.

And it's all about conservation, conservation momentum.

It's like a little go-kart.

Yeah.

So, you know, all the guys are sitting around going, oh, what are you running?

I'm running like a 148.

I'm running like a 152 or something.

And then, you know, then there's Jensen.

And he's like, I ran a 135.

I'm like, what?

It's like, it's like 10 seconds faster than everybody.

But anytime you have a racing weekend where you're bringing the car out,

it runs well.

You do a couple of small things to it.

You qualify.

You race.

The car is still fine in one piece.

And you can load it on the trailer and go home.

That's a good racing weekend.

Yeah.

You know, and was able to do all of all of that stuff.

A good racing weekend.

They did do an endurance race on Friday.

And it was the only run group they did this.

And because they called it the Dan Gurney group.

So they were like, oh, like 12 hours to see bringing 24 hours of law or Daytona.

And the rule was they're out there for an hour.

And you got to bring the car in somewhere between 25 and 35 minutes,

not before 25 minutes, not after 35.

You have to stop.

The driver has to get out of the car.

Somebody needs to refuel it for three minutes.

You have to be out and you can do a driver change and then go back out.

You don't have to do it.

It was a standalone race.

So with Adam, we didn't bring extra crew.

We didn't talk to anybody about co-driving.

And we didn't really set it up to refuel it.

So he just went out and raced for 30 minutes and then came in.

He's like, car's good.

I don't want to push it.

I'm going to do my real race on Saturday.

But there was driver changes.

And the driver changes, oftentimes you'll maybe hire a ringer driver,

not specifically for the race, but to help dial in your car and get feedback.

So yeah, you're out there and there's a Jensen button

and then somebody pulls up in an alpha and the driver swap is Patrick Long.

He's a factory Porsche driver to help get some feedback

and see how the car is doing.

But it was a fun race for those guys to do the endurance race

because you see all the cars come in and someone's got to refuel it

and the driver has to get out and the same driver can get back in.

But when you're refueling it,

all you can have is one person out there over the wall refueling it

or two, one with a fire extinguisher and one refueling.

But yeah, anyway.

It was great.

I mean, I spent Saturday, as you know, because we met up in the paddock

just wandering around and seeing all the old cars.

And it isn't, I mean, the whole week is this,

you feel like you're in kind of living theater,

even just being out on the roads and you'll, you know, it's like a GTO,

you know, like, hang on a minute, that's like a $20 million car

and it's just parked in the street.

It feels like one of those kind of theatrical performances that they do.

But even being at the circuit, like I stumbled across was like,

it really looked like a tatty little easier, the sort of thing that,

you know, you might put up for like a children's party.

And I looked underneath it and it was like two Bugattis.

Yeah.

Like, period Bugattis.

And I really enjoyed looking at some of the old Formula One cars.

It was a big celebration of F1 and they went all the way through the years.

And, you know, some of them have been driven by American Drivers,

all the way through to the contemporary McLaren, or I think last year's car.

And what was staggering to me, I spent a lot of time looking at some of the,

you know, the early stuff.

And, you know, they always looked like they were going to kill you.

And unfortunately, they did kill a lot of drivers.

I think it was one in seven was your chance that, you know,

was your chance of dying at the worst moments.

So they always looked like them, but how tiny they were.

But then, even when you get through to the 80s, 90s and into the 2000s,

the cars are actually still pretty small.

And I grew up watching Nigel Mansel race of Williams Honda.

And that went out with Takuma Sato and did some celebration laps.

And that was great to see, but it's incredible how small it was.

Then you look at the McLaren of today and it's like a bus.

Yeah.

And this is a big thing that Formula One's been working on.

And next year's cars are going to be a little bit smaller,

but it was incredible how big they've got.

And, you know, it's somewhere like Monaco or something like that.

You know, it must be incredibly difficult to just manhandle something that big.

And then it makes overtaking more difficult.

But yeah, it's always, that's something that's always fascinating.

And, you know, you're also reaching age in life where you're like,

oh, I remember that racing you.

And now it's in the, you know, the vintage category or something like that.

But yeah, yeah.

Mansel's, Mansel's Williams, so simple.

All the aerodynamics, everything was a straight line.

It was so simple, so elegant, so tiny.

You know, the drivers had to be tiny as well.

Yeah.

So McLaren auctioned off a modern day F1 car at RM Sotheby's.

Zach Brown, who is the CEO of McLaren Motorsports,

he was there and he was talking about it saying,

we've never offered in the last decade one of these cars for sale

because they're so complicated.

The hybrid systems and everything you'd have to do as a driver,

it goes, we just wouldn't even be able to explain it.

Like we couldn't do it.

They go, so this year we are offering it,

but the only way to do it is you buy this car at auction

and it comes with track support.

Like we will have people available.

Like when you do want to drive it, like it's part of,

I don't want to say it's all included in the fee.

Certainly you pay extra for that, I imagine.

But he's saying, but you can make a call and saying,

I want to run the Rolex Historix at some point.

It doesn't qualify for that yet, but if you want to do something.

I want to do a private track day at Spa and can you,

yeah, you need to send six people

because you need six people to start the thing.

Right.

Or like you wouldn't run the Historix,

but maybe you'd submit and go, listen, during lunch break,

there's some guys doing parade laps.

Someone's out there and like, you know, a Gordon Murray T50.

Can I, it'd be cool.

You know, can I bring two laps?

Can I do two laps?

You know, and then maybe McLaren goes,

hey, I think that's great.

Like you're going to do two laps,

but also we have a driver available if you want.

He can do a fast lap and you guys can talk

and it'll only cost you $100,000 of track support.

I suspect it'd be more than that, but it's true.

I heard one on the 90s car.

I think it was a Damon Hill Williams.

It was something, I don't think it's a pocketful story

because I just struggled to get my head round

why this would be the case,

but apparently you needed a period laptop to start this thing

because you would imagine we're like today's world,

you'd have like emulators

or you'd be able to have some sort of app

that simulated a 1994 laptop.

Yeah.

But apparently not.

Apparently you needed like the laptop from 1994

to actually start this thing.

Which is funny because your phone is more powerful than that.

Sure, for sure.

Yeah, it's amazing.

Like Takuma Sato went out in Nigel Manson's Williams

and I was stood in the pit box when he came back

and he seemed to have had a great time,

but I was talking to one of the Honda guys.

I was like, I don't think he ever raced

like an H-Pattern gearbox.

I was trying to think what he did.

He did British Formula 3 and everything else

and that would I think would have been sequential at the time.

So a lot of these guys now,

you know, like the contemporary races,

they've just got no experience of, you know,

like having to heel and toe and H-Pattern gearboxes

and, you know, crazy turbos that have tons of lag.

And so, yeah, it was still great to see that run.

I was like a little taste of my childhood.

So yeah, the track was phenomenal.

But let's go ahead and back up a little bit.

What was your trip going up there?

You went up by yourself.

Yeah, I went up.

I was very kind of a guest of Corvette and Cadillac

who had a couple of concerts.

I think we'll get on to get into that more,

perhaps next week as we get into some of the detail stuff.

But yeah, I drove up in a Cadillac Vistit,

which is their new three-row electric SUV,

which is actually a really nice, a really nice three-row.

I mean, we've seen quite a lot of good three-roads.

We've seen, you know, Kearie V9, new Hyundai Ioniq 9,

is a really good car.

But the Cadillac feels, as it should do as a luxury brand,

it feels a little bit of a cut above that.

It's also a little bit of a cut above that from a,

you know, from a price perspective.

There's a couple of photos as the sun was going down.

Perhaps not my best work.

This was heading home late last night.

It also has supercruise,

which when you're driving up on your own,

you know, I love driving,

but if you're just going up the five,

then the supercruise just allows you to take all your hands

off the wheel or your feet off,

and it will just drive itself.

You have to keep looking forwards.

And I think there was one occasion

when I was driving back where the road split

and it got a little bit confused

and you had to jump on the wheel,

but it's a very kind of relaxing car to drive.

The only challenge with it, it's an EV.

And of course, then you get into the infrastructure issues.

And I feel really bad for Caddy

because we're going to talk about what a pain it was.

And it's got nothing to do with the vehicle.

I actually really liked the Vistica.

Came back and said to my wife,

you know, if we want a three-row next time,

this would be a really nice car.

It's just if you're on a road trip like that,

you're driving from LA to Monterey,

you've got to stop.

And you may remember a couple of years ago on the show,

I talked about a nightmare experience

that I had with the Rivian

trying to charge it going to Monterey

on a family vacation.

And it was like a,

this is like two years on now,

I'll be in the infrastructure will improve, blah, blah, blah.

Same electrify America, charges were broken.

Drive a little bit further charge point charges were broken.

Okay. So get ourselves to pass a Roblox.

I've now got 20 miles left in the can.

One of the charges are really fast one broken.

You got two charges that are working.

There's a queue.

So I'm third in line now at this way in a queue.

One of them is a Hummer.

So he's going to sit there all day.

So I kind of waited for half an hour in the queue

for to actually get onto the charger.

Then it wasn't charging very fast.

It was supposed to be 350.

It was actually only charging about 70 kilowatts.

So 50 minutes later,

I've only got to like 70% charge.

So I only just made it to the hotel.

I made the hotel with like 20 miles left.

Quite a lot of stress.

And, you know, and I was,

I added well over an hour and a half to my journey.

And then I spoke to the caddy guys and I said,

look, I know that a lot of the GM cars

will now work with Tesla chargers.

Any chance I can borrow an adapter?

And they said, well, actually, we have got one spare.

Here you go.

Yeah.

And it was a good side.

I drove back into Paso Robles.

Then I had to charge.

So I used the Tesla charger,

which takes a little bit of playing around

with the Tesla app to get it working.

Did that.

Then found out, which is the big problem,

the cables for Tesla chargers are built for Teslas.

Yes.

On the Caddy,

I know you've had this problem with the F-150 Lightning.

On the Caddy like the charging point

is like the front right of the vehicle.

Yeah.

So I ended up having to kind of like drive

between two chargers, bounce them on to a curb

to finally get this thing into the side of the car.

Once I'd done that, it charged, all went well.

I went and had some sushi, came back, drove home.

But it's still, you know,

it was still 50 minutes of charging

and I only just made it home.

So.

Do you remember what it cost?

What was the kill line?

I probably got it in the app.

I mean, if you're a fast charger like that,

it's pretty much equivalent to gas.

There's not a lot of, there's not a lot of difference.

You only really make big savings if you charge from home.

Yeah.

So I did make it home without having to charge again,

which was a relief,

but now I've got to charge it home after we finish this show.

So again, it's like hour and a half extra going up,

probably another 50 minutes,

55 minutes extra coming down.

And you know, when you go to a six hour journey,

it's late at night.

It's, that unfortunately remains the great conundrum.

This car is great.

And there are other EVs similar to it,

which are also really good.

The product's got really good.

It's just the infrastructure hasn't.

And this is going to be the,

I just find it so frustrating because I like it this deep.

But then if you're spending 80,000 bucks,

you probably want that to be prime.

I mean, depending on which you are,

but I would imagine for most people,

80,000 bucks is their primary vehicle.

And what kind of range were you getting with that?

I mean, it's 300 ish.

But of course you don't,

you know, it's not 300 in as much that,

you know, you got to run it down.

I mean, I was gambling at 20 miles of range left.

And then when you charge,

sorry, just to finish the story.

So you come down to 20 miles.

You tell him, I'm on one here.

But then when you charge it back up,

getting the last 10% of charge takes so long

because the power drops off

because of the way they manage the batteries.

Right.

They've been charging 50 minutes.

You're now at like 88%.

And you're just watching the charging speed go down

and down.

You're like, oh, God, I'm going to be sitting here for another half hour.

And some of them, like when I use a Tesla charger,

pop them on my phone.

You're like, it's like, we're at 80%.

We're going to start slowing your charge.

And not 90% will start slowing your charge.

Like, okay, you know, they're like,

you need to get off the charger.

You've got enough.

It's partly that, but it's also partly

because of the battery management

that you can't keep stuffing.

You know, the scientific reasons

is not just Tesla being difficult.

So yeah.

So then you, so you don't realistically,

you're only using 10% to 80 to 90%.

Because anything outside of that is too risky

or takes too long to charge.

So that's your realistic,

that's your realistic window.

And I just wish, you know, I kind of hoped

that as the technology improved

and the cars have got really good,

that, you know, all of this would have kept up

and caught up and, you know,

we'd now have a great system in place.

And it worries me that, you know,

with the changes to the tax credits

with, you know, all the kind of political noise

at the moment,

if they don't keep investing in the infrastructure,

if things don't get better and don't get faster,

then it's really going to kind of,

you know, kill the EV adoption.

That would be a shame

because I think the products are great.

Adam and I went and hung out with the Lincoln team.

They were very nice.

They were part of,

big part of our wonderful hospitality.

They inviting us up there.

And we got to speak with the president

of Lincoln for a while.

And I think he was excited

about telling us some things

that are happening in the future.

And then he was told,

stop talking by his PR team.

But I said, you know,

I want to talk about EV for a second.

And I had just toured, you know,

Ford's, you know,

big new Long Beach,

you know,

other electric vehicle development center

and I said, this isn't you guys.

I said, this isn't Lincoln.

This isn't Cadillac.

This isn't Tesla.

I go, it's just how this is sort of

being sold to us is going,

we've got an EV, it's 300 mile range.

Or we got a new EV, it's 350 mile range.

I go, if you look at the Minroni

and it says MPGE

and nobody understands like what it is,

it doesn't mean anything to the consumer.

And I kept telling him,

I go, listen, we need a new sales pitch

or a new Minroni

that has in your gas card,

you have city highway and combined.

You have the three numbers.

I said the EV should have the three numbers.

It should have max range.

I get it.

This is the big selling point.

300 miles of range.

It should have your normal 80% range,

80% charge range

and your highway range like realistic,

not 55 miles an hour.

Like I want to know how much range

I'm going to get at some realistic number.

Call it 75.

I mean, everyone does 80, 85,

but 75 miles an hour

because that's not the part of the full range.

If you give me those three numbers,

you can go, here's your highway range.

Here's your 80% average charge range

and your max range.

That would be a much more

informative pitch

or Minroni, a window sticker.

And that's what we've been trying to do

with the Edmunds EV range test

is to try and give them.

That's 60% urban, 40%.

So it's trying to give people

more of a kind of realistic measure.

We have discussed,

trying doing a highway measure as well.

I mean, the reality is like,

where do you stop?

And they're doing the

running about 500 mile vehicle

down to zero already takes like

15 hours or whatever it takes.

It does.

And in LA, it's difficult

because you're like,

when do we do this?

Do we just have to start doing this

at five in the morning?

Because there's always traffic

in that first hour and a half

is just in traffic anyway.

So how do you realistically go,

oh, we're going to do a highway range test?

And also like gradient,

there's all these things

that you don't really think about

that we went up and over the grapevine.

If people aren't familiar

with Southern California,

this is basically a,

there's a steep incline

followed by a steep descent

over a mountain top

as you go north out of LA.

It's miles and miles, it's not.

And it's miles and miles.

And you go up

and you watch your range,

your range plummet

and then you come down

and it's a bit like being on a push bike

when you just freewheel

and you can actually see

on the little gauges

that your battery is getting replenished

and it's quite exciting

and up you go again.

Yeah.

And I wouldn't say quite balanced

is it out because of,

because of losses,

but by the time I got the top of the hill,

it said you've,

you got no hope of getting home.

By the time I got the bottom of the hill,

it was like, oh, you should make it

with about 10 miles left.

So given our time.

Going up the hill takes more

than what you'd get back

going down the hill.

That's always going to be the case.

Yeah.

Do you know what my other pet thing

was?

You're on that one.

Then we could perhaps move on.

But it's sometimes where

these charges are

because I stopped in

Paso Robles both times.

First time it was in kind of,

you know, big carpark.

Second time,

you know, you're late at night.

You're pulling to these charges.

You're kind of like locked in

because you plug it in

and you do feel a bit vulnerable.

And you know,

I'm a guy on my own and, you know,

it's slightly different

if it was my wife on her own,

for example.

But, you know, I'm sitting there.

I've got all my stuff from the week.

I've got my laptop with me.

And, you know, you're sort of sitting

in quite a sort of desolate,

desolate parking bay

on your own, strapped in,

you know, plugged in.

It's not a nice feeling.

You know, sometimes you're even

at gas stations when you turn up at

like late at night and it's,

you know, feels a little bit edgy.

Yeah.

But you're there for five minutes.

Maybe you're there for five minutes,

you know, and you feel a little bit

like, OK, this is not the best place

to stop.

But, you know, if you're sitting

at 50 minutes on your own

in the dark,

in the middle of nowhere

trying to charge a car,

it's not a, it's just not a good.

And I never really thought about

that too much before

because I've generally been,

not really had it,

but driving home last night

was dark.

You know, it was sort of on a,

you know, it was near the town centre,

but in the town centre

there's not a lot of people around.

And yeah, it felt, you know,

it felt a little bit vulnerable.

Yeah.

I'm not, I'm not built,

I'm a, I'm a lover not a fighter.

I, we drove up a Toyota Land Cruiser,

which I enjoyed.

I like the Land Cruiser.

We didn't get to really do off-roading,

but even just sort of the little

things that you get thrown out to

at an event like this,

going up Phil Hill

and hitting the dirt road parking lots

and you see, you know,

someone in there 9-11

trying to park on a golf course

and they're, you know, scraping

and you just see the guy cringing

every time he hits something

and there's a, you know,

there's a guy with an orange flag

standing 100 feet in front of you,

waving, going,

let's go, people are trying to park

and they're trying to move you

into your spot

and we could just blow by them

in the Land Cruiser

and bounce along and not,

not really care,

make it super easy.

But the Land Cruiser,

I think we talked about this before.

So there's the Land Cruiser

and then Lexus

his version is the LX.

Right. GX.

GX, GX.

And the Land Cruiser is a hybrid

but I think the GX

is a turbo six cylinder

and I don't,

that's one of the big differences.

It's a, yeah, V6

because we have, yeah.

So the hybrid,

the Land Cruiser is a two row

and the rear hatch area,

the floor of that is a little bit higher,

I guess because there's a battery back there

for the hybrid system.

So it takes a little bit of storage space

but you fill this thing up with fuel

and you get about 280 miles of range.

You know, we filled it up,

I don't know, we got 279 or 277.

That's not great, is it?

And I'm like,

I thought this was like a road trip vehicle,

like go off road,

like go exploring.

And we got in the car,

we're packed up to go to Monterey

and then to pack up to go home

and Adam goes,

are we gonna make it home

on one tank of fuel?

And like, no, we're not.

Like we're gonna come in 40 miles short.

That's just to drop you guys off

and then I've got another 40 minutes of driving.

It's like, no.

And he's like, I go,

it's a little weird for a vehicle

that's being sold as like the adventure vehicle.

You know?

Yeah, you're right.

That is the go anywhere,

hacky way across Africa to go vehicle.

And yeah, well, it can only go 279 miles.

Anywhere you want.

I'm surprised it's that low actually.

The GX, the GX also,

I mean, we talked about it on the show,

we took one up,

I take one up to Sequoia the other week.

The, we like that vehicle generally.

There's a lot of positive things about it.

We don't like the fact

that there's not a lot of room inside.

And also the fuel economy is abysmal.

It's a three and a half liter V6.

And we're getting, you know, mid teens,

which is, you know, which is pretty poor.

That's actually a good question.

So we drove up to Monterey,

drove around Monterey for four days,

you know, to the track and the pebble and whatever.

There's a lot of traffic and drove home.

And we averaged 18 miles to the gallon.

Yeah, that's the little

seemed a little on the low end

for the hybrid four cylinder.

Yeah, you see a probably

all that highway driving

with a load of weight on board

and I mean, else that's actually not,

it's not playing into the benefits.

Yeah, and I, I gunned it on the way home

and on the way there.

I mean, when we were driving around town though,

I think it was trying to take the average

and it got to like 18.2.

Yeah, still great though, is it?

But, but I was, you know,

and it was interesting enough

that I caught Adam's attention

and he's like, this is a hybrid.

And he goes, every time we're at a light,

he hears the engine shut off

and the hybrid, you know,

gets the car moving.

So it's a more to more livable,

less annoying start, stop.

And he's like, we're not even getting 20 miles

of the gallon

and we're just sitting in traffic

trying to get to, you know,

the good ink auction.

I'm like, no.

He's like, it's not what I thought.

But you'd have been getting 10 in the GX.

And I guess that's the right.

But does the GX have a 30 gallon

tank of fuel?

Because this thing I think maybe had 16.

But I'd typically go back to the EV from

because you're talking about acceleration

and gunning it.

And you're right, you're driving the EV

the first time you're thinking,

oh, hang on a minute.

Like there was a big sort of

bit of cross country runners.

I was cutting across the five

to come down south towards LA.

And, you know, it was kind of,

it was, it was quiet.

And I was, it was some nice twisty roads

and I was having a little bit of fun.

And I was like, oh, hang on a minute

because this thing's got,

you know, 600 horsepower, I think it has.

I mean, it's quick.

There's like a V-spec mode.

I was, I was off.

And I said, oh, hang on a minute.

I can't do this because it's going to

send me even more time at the charger.

So it's like, enjoy this thing that I'm going to,

I'm going to spend even more time

sitting, charging it.

And that's, again, something you don't,

don't think about with a gas car.

But I feel, I feel bad for getting

because I think they've done a really

good job with the Vistig.

I think it's, I think the interior is great.

It looks good, spacious.

It's, it's, if it was just a car for LA

and everything else or a car for,

you know, if it's your sort of

charge it at home every night car,

it's terrific.

It's just, if you're going to do big miles,

family road trips, it's going to be a pain.

And I would say the same for,

for the Land Cruiser and that I,

I enjoyed the vehicle.

I think it's off-road capabilities,

although we barely scratch the service

are there.

I like that it has tactile buttons.

And maybe that's just because more of it,

being an off-road vehicle,

they want you to be able to like,

actually, you know,

hit a volume knob,

like a real volume knob

or hit a button to get into the different,

you know, off-road modes or, you know,

things like that.

So I, it was fine.

Like there was,

we didn't have complaints about the vehicle.

It was just the range was just a little odd

for us on that.

Yeah.

But, but I like it.

You know, I, I am curious to see the,

to try the GX at some point,

because, you know,

what is the luxury version of it

with a slightly different engine,

but it's also clear

that they are kind of peppering the market

because you've got

the forerunner,

which is basically as big.

Yeah.

But you've got the,

then you've got the

Land Cruiser,

then you've got the GX,

which is,

which is the Lexus version,

you know,

so it's,

it is,

you know,

they've got three vehicles

that are actually

really close to each other.

So, yeah,

and all doing it,

all doing a pretty similar job,

but, you know,

they seem to know what they're doing.

I mean, you know,

they can't build GX

as fast enough

at the moment

that we're having.

Yeah.

They are really,

but just,

you know,

there's part of that

that's quite a

quite an expensive vehicle there.

All right,

let's recap some of the events

before we

do that.

Let's just take a quick break.

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it's Matt again.

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Okay, Monterey events.

For us,

we enjoy going to the auctions.

I don't know if that was

quite on your agenda,

mostly being with

Cadillac on the way up there,

but

went over to Broad Arrow

on Wednesday,

got a tour of that,

saw some pretty

amazing things.

We hung out with

John Hennessey for a minute

and one of his

Hennessey Venoms,

not the new F5,

the other version.

He was there

and a red one

was coming up for sale

and he was like,

yeah, I had that car

and then, you know,

I sold it to a client

and I, you know,

I, you know,

probably didn't sell it for much

and then he goes,

now I realize

I don't have one

in my collection.

And so he bought it back

I think the hammer price

is about $550,000

and it's one of the early ones

that had

like an LS9 engine

or something.

Right.

That's the Corvette engine,

right?

Yeah.

And

he's like,

he was saying,

yeah, it wasn't,

it wasn't like the big

horsepower version.

He goes,

so he goes,

I want to buy it back

and take the Venom F5 engine

and put it in that

and make a 1200 horsepower version

of the previous car.

And I was like,

and he goes,

and then have

this car in the collection as well.

But I'm glad he was able

to get that.

Some amazing cars

to go and see.

I mean, California,

you know, Ferrari,

California 250,

short wheelbase,

long wheelbase.

These cars are there.

These are $20 million plus cars.

RM's in the private sale

section of McLaren F1.

The estimate was just

in excess of $20 million.

They're like, okay.

It's,

I was saying about,

I was saying,

I got like,

you know,

I was telling the kids,

the kids this morning,

I was like,

it is hard to

conceptualize the

concentration of wealth.

Like you and I go up there

and I'm there,

kind of like working

in a media capacity.

We both are.

And,

you know,

you also are like hanging out with Adam

who has a race car

and racing there.

But just that,

it's extraordinary

concentration of wealth

and one of my team,

Edmunds had,

we had like four or five people up there

and my team was saying,

he'd been talking to somebody

about Flexjet,

who I think they do this,

kind of like,

you know,

where you've got almost like

a time share for a private jet.

Yeah.

And they were there

with a standard quail.

And one of my team

was talking to somebody

and I think there's almost like

jokingly said,

oh, maybe we'll go get a jet

and then the person like

deadpan and said,

yeah, we just,

we just bought a new jet.

Like not,

no irony,

not nothing.

Yeah.

Bought a new,

bought a new jet.

Okay.

And I was going to,

well, we'll play the interview,

I think next week

or in the next couple of weeks,

we've got so much good material.

But I had a good chat

with the president of Bugatti

and he was saying that

about 10% of his custom base,

I didn't mean like his current

custom base,

but you think about

how many vehicles Bugatti builds,

not very many.

So since he came back

in this kind of Volkswagen

and now Rimac owned era,

partly Volkswagen.

And you know, he reckoned that,

you know, he had about 80,

I think he said,

he said 70 or 80 customers

like at Quayle,

which was 10% of his customer base,

who were there?

And,

you know,

they had these Bugatti sunglasses,

which I thought were a bit

naff to be honest.

They were,

they had like a Bugatti badge

just above your nose.

And there was sort of thing

I might wear with irony,

like locally,

you know,

like you go to a dad's,

you go to a dad's.

If you're on the lawn

at Pebble Beach

and someone's showing,

they're, you know, 37 Bugatti,

you know, 1937 type 57,

they're wearing Bugatti stuff.

I was like,

these were 1200 bucks,

these sunglasses.

And apparently somebody got,

Oh yeah, let's go and get a kill

the pair.

It's like, like they were going to,

you know,

like they're going to rouse for a,

for a packet of chips or something.

But that,

I think that's,

that's,

if you've never been to this event,

I mean,

the people say,

oh, it's full ago or whatever.

And you know,

it's easy to understand that.

I mean, but it's just,

it is,

it is staggering the wealth.

I mean,

I was staying in a hotel,

the Carmel Valley Ranch,

which is,

which is a lovely hotel,

but like Pagani were there

and they had,

they had five,

I think like five or six Pagani's,

including Horatio Pagani

was sort of having dinner

at the next table.

And then Cezinger,

which is,

is it Hungarian?

They,

they've got a supercar builder.

They were out,

they were outside and,

you know,

you walk through the car park

and everything was a,

was a P,

McLaren P1

or a,

you're like,

McGeely over here

or is this or is that.

And it's just a,

I mean, you see the bid,

if you live in LA,

you know,

it's,

you go around Beverly Hills,

you're going to see Ferraris every day,

but it is kind of extraordinary.

One of the,

one of the people who was,

was kind of moving people around for,

for Cadillac came and said to me,

it's like,

basically got Ferrari fatigue,

that you're like,

ah,

you know,

that's my 30th I've seen today.

I'm a bit,

I'm a bit poor.

I remember going on Safari once to Africa,

which was an amazing trip

and being getting like zebra fatigue.

Like first time you see a zebra in the wild,

it's like a zebra.

And then there's like 30,000 of them

and after that,

you're like,

I don't know,

there's ever whatever.

Wait for it.

Yeah.

We,

we were,

we got invited to a couple of events.

And you're right,

they're sort of like the very wealthy people.

And then there's these billionaires

and it really is just kind of on a different level.

By the way,

everyone was absolutely amazing

and hospitality was fantastic.

And the conversations with them are just so interesting,

so intriguing.

Like you just want to chat with these,

with these people for,

for,

for hours.

And you know,

one,

we got invited to,

to someone's house.

We had been there before,

but it was like,

come see my car collection.

But again,

like I was like,

I have a business meeting that I have to be in,

but just show up,

you know,

and ring the gate.

And it's like,

then,

you know,

you show up,

you ring the gate.

I'm like,

hey,

you know,

we're,

you know,

we were invited and they're like,

yes,

of course we were expecting you.

The gate opens,

you drive up this driveway.

There's a nice lady there,

wearing a black dress.

And she comes in,

and she's like,

you know,

Mr. D'Andrea,

Mr. Carolla,

welcome,

welcome back.

You know,

this is,

you know,

this is this other guy,

you know,

Zeke,

I think his name was,

he's like,

he's going to show you around.

Let me get you a glass of champagne,

have some wine,

whatever you like.

You could tour the collection,

you know,

and then the guy owns the house.

I just want to give it away

and say his name,

just because his,

you know,

I want to respect his privacy.

Sure.

And he was just saying,

you know,

he will,

you know,

unfortunately he's in a meeting.

He apologizes.

He'll be,

he'll be out when he,

when he,

when he can.

And of course he came out

and he was like,

so sorry,

I still got to wrap this up,

you know,

enjoy,

do whatever you want,

walk around.

You walk in,

it's a two-story garage.

It's the most beautiful building

you've seen

and it's like

offshoot of the house

and it's all terrazzo floors.

And,

you know,

out of it,

I walk in and I'm like,

who polishes these?

That guy is,

he's like,

I do.

I go,

how often do you do this?

He's about like once a year.

And just the most amazing

collection of vehicles.

There's no photos.

It's just not that kind of collection.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean,

you go,

oh, do you got a,

you know,

Ferrari,

you know,

what do you got a 250 GTO,

250 LM?

You're like,

yeah,

but that's the Le Mans winning one.

You know,

so you're like,

oh,

that's a hundred million dollar car.

Yeah.

You know,

you just got like

that in the collection.

Just a different,

just a different world.

Just a completely different world.

And I know Adam

will talk about this

CarCast+Edmunds - Monterey Car Week recap. Driving the Cadillac Vistiq and Toyota Land Cruiser.

Datsun 510

Mini Coopers

Ford Cortina

Chevrolet Camaro

Pontiac Firebird

Ford Mustang

Gordon T50

Chevrolet Corvette

Hyundai Ioniq

Hyundai Ioniq 9

Dodge Charger

Ford F150 Lightning

Toyota Land

Porsche 911

Mclaren F1

Bugatti Type 57

Mclaren P1

Ferrari A250 Gto

250 Lm

Aston Martin Dbs

Aston Martin Lagonda

About this episode

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