Cheaper Cybertruck, Lexus TX Review, Japanese Micro Cars for America
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Term
Catalytic Converter
A catalytic converter is a part in your car that cleans the bad gases from the exhaust so they don't pollute the air as much.
Car
Chevrolet Traverse
The Chevrolet Traverse is a big SUV that got a new look and new features last year. It's good for families and has lots of space inside.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Ford Mustang is a famous car that looks sporty and is fun to drive. People like it because it has been around a long time and is easy to recognize.
Car
Chevrolet Corvette
The Chevrolet Corvette is a fast and stylish car made in America. The C2 version is special because it has a big engine that makes it go really fast.
Concept
Formula E
Formula E is a type of car race where the cars run on electricity, so they don't make loud engine noises like regular race cars.
Term
electric cars
Electric cars run on batteries and motors instead of gas engines. They are quieter and don't produce exhaust smoke.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a way to measure how strong a car's engine is. More horsepower usually means the car can go faster or pull heavier loads.
Car
Ford Ranger
The Ford Ranger is a small truck that is easy to drive and useful for carrying things. Some older versions with manual gears can be hard to use.
Term
rust
Rust happens when water and air make metal parts on a car start to break down and get flaky. It can make the car weak and look bad, especially if the car is old.
Term
dual motor
Dual motor means the car has two electric motors, one for the front wheels and one for the back wheels, which helps it go faster and handle better.
Term
all wheel drive
All wheel drive means the car sends power to all four wheels, helping it grip the road better when it's slippery or rough.
Term
towing capacity
Towing capacity means how much weight a car can pull behind it, like a trailer or a boat.
Term
ventilated seats
Ventilated seats have tiny fans that blow air through the seat to keep you cool when it's hot outside.
Term
air suspension
Air suspension means the car uses air-filled bags instead of regular springs to make the ride smoother and let you raise or lower the car.
Car
Tesla Cybertruck
The Tesla Cybertruck is a new kind of electric truck that looks very different from regular trucks. It can go fast and carry heavy stuff, and many people find it fun to drive.
Car
Tesla Model S
The Tesla Model S Plaid is a very fast electric car that looks like a regular sedan but can go really fast and has lots of cool features.
Car
Ford Maverick
The Ford Maverick is a small truck that's cheaper and easier to park than big trucks. It's good for people who want a truck but don't need a huge one.
Car
Chevrolet Volt
The Chevrolet Volt is a car that can run on electricity but also has a gas engine for longer trips. It helped people get used to electric cars.
Car
Dodge Charger
The Dodge Charger is a big car that can go very fast. It looks cool and is made for people who like strong engines.
Concept
electric vehicle
An electric vehicle is a car that runs on electricity instead of gas. It uses batteries to power the motor, so it doesn't need fuel like regular cars.
Car
Toyota Grand Highlander
The Toyota Grand Highlander is a big SUV that can fit more people and stuff inside. It's good for families who need extra space.
Car
Toyota Highlander
The Toyota Highlander is a popular family SUV that will soon be available only as an electric vehicle, meaning it will run entirely on battery power.
Car
Lexus RX
The Lexus RX is a fancy SUV that shares many parts and size with the Toyota Highlander but has more luxury features.
Brand
Genesis
Genesis is a fancy car brand from Korea that makes cars with nice interiors and lots of features.
Term
2.4 turbo
A 2.4 turbo means the car has an engine that is 2.4 liters big and uses a turbocharger to make the car go faster.
Car
Jeep Grand Cherokee
The Jeep Grand Cherokee is a big car that can drive on rough roads and is also comfortable inside. Many people like it because it can do many things.
Term
supercar
A supercar is a very fast and fancy car that is better than most regular cars. It is usually expensive and looks cool.
Car
Porsche 911
The Porsche 911 is a very fast and sporty car that many people dream of owning. It looks special and is fun to drive.
Car
Toyota Crown
The Toyota Crown is a fancy car mostly sold in Japan. It costs more money every year to keep it because of special rules there.
Brand
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz is a famous car company from Germany that makes luxury cars. They worked with Smart to make small cars for cities, but those cars didn't sell very well everywhere.
Car
Chevrolet Sonic
The Chevrolet Sonic is a small car that is a bit bigger than the Spark. It's good for people who want a small car but with more room inside.
Car
Chevrolet Spark
The Chevrolet Spark is a tiny car that's easy to park and uses little gas. It's good for driving around the city but doesn't have much room inside.
Part
CVT
A CVT is a special kind of transmission that helps the car speed up smoothly without feeling like it changes gears.
Term
traction control
Traction control helps stop your car's wheels from slipping when you press the gas, so you stay in control.
Term
airbags
Airbags are cushions inside the car that pop out quickly if there's a crash to keep you safe.
Car
Chevrolet Trax
The Chevrolet Trax is a small SUV that's good for driving in the city. The cheapest versions don't have many extra things inside.
Car
Toyota Corolla
The Toyota Corolla is a small car that many people buy because it doesn't break down often and uses little gas. The Touring is a version with more room for stuff.
Car
Honda S660
The Honda S660 is a very small and light sports car made mostly for Japan. It's fun to drive even though it's tiny.
Car
Acura NSX
The Acura NSX is a fast car with its engine in the middle, making it very balanced. It can be used every day but also goes really fast.
Car
Honda NSX
The Honda NSX is a fast sports car with the engine placed behind the seats, making it very sporty and fun to drive. It is one of Honda's most famous cars.
Term
three cylinder turbo
This means the car's engine has three small cylinders and a turbocharger, which helps the engine make more power by pushing extra air in.
Car
Suzuki Cappuccino
The Suzuki Cappuccino is a tiny sports car from Japan that is light and fun to drive. It's similar to other small sporty cars made in Japan.
Car
Mazda 3
The Mazda RX-3 is an old sporty car with a special engine that is different from most cars. People who like unique cars really like it.
Car
Suzuki Jimny
The Suzuki Jimny is a small SUV that can drive off-road and is tough even though it’s not very big.
Car
Ford Granada
The Ford Granada is an older car that was made to be comfortable and nice inside. It was not built on the same parts as some other Ford cars.
Car
Ford Thunderbird
The Ford Thunderbird is a fancy car made for comfortable driving. Some versions were not liked as much because of how they looked or worked.
Car
Chevrolet Malibu
The Chevrolet Malibu is a medium-sized car that many people used to drive in the 1990s. It was known for being comfortable and not too expensive.
Car
Chevrolet Chevelle
The Chevrolet Chevelle is an old car from the 60s and 70s that was popular for being fast and cool. Some versions had special names to show they were better.
Part
three liter V six
A three liter V6 engine is a type of car engine with six cylinders shaped like a V. It helps the car have good power and run smoothly.
Car
Toyota RAV4
The Toyota RAV4 is a small SUV that can carry people and stuff easily. It has been around since the 1990s and is very reliable.
Car
Nissan Altima
The Nissan Altima is a type of car that many people drive. It is a mid-sized car that is comfortable and not too expensive.
Car
Nissan Maxima
The Nissan Maxima is a bigger and more powerful car than some others. It was popular in the 1990s and had features that made it feel a bit fancier.
Term
red herring
A 'red herring' is like a trick or distraction that makes you look the wrong way. It's something that seems important but actually isn't.
Term
cash rebates
Cash rebates mean the car company gives you money back when you buy a car, making it cheaper.
Car
Volvo EX90
The Volvo EX90 is a new electric car that is safe and not too big. It's good for people who want an electric car that's easy to drive and park.
Car
Dodge Avenger
The Dodge Avenger is a medium-sized car that was made to be cheap and simple. Some people think it looks a bit unusual.
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Whether you drive a car, need a car, or just occasionally bummer ride with friends, you've
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Join Gell and Tom as they break down everything that's going on in the auto world.
New car reviews, shopping tips, driving green, electric cars, classic cars, and plenty of
great guests.
This is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff podcast.
All right, this is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff podcast.
I'm Tom Appel, publisher of Consumer Guide Automotive.
Thank you for joining us today.
When you have a chance, check us out at consumerguide.com.
That's consumerguide.com.
My reviews are there, fun old stuff is there, and sometimes I do serious stuff.
I just wrote a piece called What is a Catalytic Converter?
Just in case you're wondering what your neighbors just had stolen from their vehicle.
In studio today is Brendan Appel in for Gell.
Brendan, how are you?
I'm great, Tom.
How are you?
You are one of the leaders over at Sons of Speed.
Yes, it's me and my friend Paul Harold, and we concentrate everything that is soulful
about a car.
So if you want to kind of know what it's like to drive it and maybe drive it at its limits,
that'd be us.
Funny you should mention driving it at its limits.
I was just doing the opposite, the very opposite.
I just got into the Chevrolet Traverse, which was redesigned last year, and one of the
interesting things I've heard from people, including Jill, who's, I don't know what
she's doing today.
Yeah, she's probably getting her nails done.
Yeah, yeah, or just sleeping late.
I would do that.
Really, really late.
But the Traverse went from a V6, a very nice 3.6-liter V6, to a turbocharged 2.4-liter
4.
Okay.
More power, but people are complaining about the power delivery.
Is it peaky?
That's what I'm hearing.
The shifts are a little aggressive that you can hear the engine.
So I drove here and I've only put 1.8 miles on this thing, but I tried to drive it as
slow as I possibly could and try to feel the shifts.
So far, all I'm getting is I can hear the engine.
It doesn't sound bad, but I'm hearing more engine than I'd expect to.
Yeah, one of the things that growing up, I always appreciated more than, I don't want
to hear the engine necessarily, I want to hear the exhaust.
I want to hear a nice V8 exhaust on top of that and something with a little bit of like
that.
What we get nowadays is no exhaust sound because of a lot of turbo's and drive-by noise regulations.
Thank you, California.
So basically, except for the Mustang and a few other vehicles, you really don't get
any meaningful exhaust noise.
What that does, though, is that the noise it is created now is that your hearing is
coming more and more from the engine.
And unless it's got a supercharger, you're probably, there's not a lot of good noise
that comes out from under the hood itself.
I am, and I'm sure I lose points in your eyes for saying this, but I find the Mustang exhaust
obnoxious.
Yeah.
It kind of depends on your age.
Yeah.
I've noticed that the older I get.
I'm old.
Thank you.
I know.
And it's not just you, but it's like the older I get, the more I kind of just, I get that.
I totally understand that.
But when I was younger, we would go to car shows and not only car shows, but just those
drive-in meets.
They used to have one at Fluke's in Niles here every Friday and Saturday night.
And the best part of that was just standing there and watching that, especially the mopars
come through with just like high-lobed cams and just the little, that beat in the exhaust.
And you was just, it put a smile on your face.
Why?
I don't know.
It just did.
I was at Superdog once, and there was like half of a car show there.
I think it was a car show ended and people went to Superdog afterwards.
But it was the evening.
And one of the cars that came in, a C2 Corvette, had to be a 427.
I didn't hear it come in, but I heard it start after it had been parked.
Oh, yeah.
Holy cow.
The cold start.
Like Richter scale.
It was crazy.
But it was engine.
It was exhaust.
And it was just throbbing.
And that was, that's real.
You know, that was a 427.
Right.
And this is what, if you ever go to a race, if you go to a racetrack and you go to a
real race, 90% of what you are feeling and experiencing in that moment is going to be
the sound.
And like another 8% is going to be the smell.
And then like 2% is going to be just watching what's going on.
But it's like, the sound is so important.
And I feel like if I ever went to a Formula E race where it was just silent, it would,
I don't know what that would be.
I'd be like watching a silent movie now.
I've never watched a Formula E race, but for people who don't know, those are electric
cars.
Right.
And they don't make noise.
No.
At all.
And that's like, you know, go to an actual race, even go to a drag race or something,
just something with like a very high horsepower, loud exhaust vehicle.
And you will see what I mean in that it is so integral to the experience itself that
removing that one element is basically removing all sensory of that event.
So to take this full circle, the traverse is coughing up a little bit of that.
Yes.
So it seems like a very nice car.
Again, I've only put two miles on it.
The problem is, is that the whole industry has gone away from the six, except I guess
now, you know, the Ram has that had, or I guess still has the hurricane in line six
and they put it in some other stuff at Stellantis.
But the very smooth, nice six cylinders that we've all grown up with, if you're of a certain
age, they're all going away.
Even these nice V6 is that that 3.8 has been around forever, the 3,800, as they used to
call it.
What a, just a great engine.
And now everything has got to be turbocharged and smaller and peakier and it's, yeah, they're
faster, yeah, they're more fuel efficient, but they're not a better driving experience
for the most part.
I am not seeing the mass of fuel economy games, you would expect.
And part of that probably is because you drive a little harder to compensate, right?
You want to get into the torque and most of these engines feel good.
And later on, I want to talk about the Lexus TX, which is the long wheelbase three-row
version of the very popular RX.
That's now powered by a 2.4-liter four-cylinder turbo as well, 275 horsepower, doesn't sound
great on paper, but it feels good, but it's not the V6.
And it's getting better and better each year.
I don't know if they're making little tweaks to it, but still, and I'm not seeing the huge
fuel economy.
No, and even the RAM, you know, in my, I bought, as you know, a RAM last year with the inline
six and I'm averaging right now in the frigid weather, you know, that doesn't just affect
EVs.
Right.
12.9, 13 miles a gallon, it's, it, I was getting, if I drove a TRX really nice, I probably
get about 10 or 11, so I'm not that far off and I'm not driving a TRX, I'm driving just
a normal high output, you know, hurricane engine.
So I'm not seeing it.
You see it, it's very, I don't know why it's so affected by the cold weather, but it is
and that happened also last year, so it's definitely a pattern.
In the better weather, I'd probably get about 15.
So on, in the city.
So yeah, I'm not seeing a huge savings on the fuel economy either.
And the thing about a V8 is that you don't have to dip in to get going.
It's that extra torque that it has that was so nice as just not being, not having to get
the engine really going to just move the vehicle.
That relaxed thing and there's a lot of people who will never, ever experience this and I
hardly experience this, but back, back when there were 500 cubic inch Cadillacs and 460
cubic inch Fords and Lincoln, yeah, just, just creep off idle, you had all the power
in the world.
You just had these monster engines.
We used to call it breathing on the throttle would just get that thing going, right?
Because it's so much inherent torque and those, I call those the good old days.
I just, there's something about those engines that really made driving just easy.
And then, you know, you go to a high, high revving, high, high horsepower, so to speak,
in the higher RPM range, smaller engines, and you really got to wring them out to get
anywhere with them.
And a lot of people will say, yeah, but driving a slow car fast is more fun than driving a
fast car slow.
True.
But it's also a lot more work, you know.
Yeah, and that's, that's the thing about getting old too, right?
I mean, I loved my Volkswagen Cheraco.
I had a Sunbird with a five-speed manual before that.
I had a Ranger with a five-speed that was totally useless and snow.
You just kept trying somehow.
I'll take off and forth, but, but whatever.
But yeah, automatics at some point.
My wife was very, very disappointed.
She was very scared to tell me that when we bought her last car that she didn't want
to stick anymore.
Yeah.
And we bought a cross-track, a Subaru cross-track.
It's a great vehicle.
It's a great vehicle, and we love it.
We still have it because she stopped working away from the office.
So our 10-year-old car now has like 60,000 miles on it.
Right.
Well, and that's, you know, back in the day, you know, you had these great engines and
these, you know, we have a lot of nostalgia for them, but a 10-year-old car,
even if it had 50,000 miles, probably had so much rust in it that, you know, you
just, it was, it was basically gone.
And, and, and even a 50,000 mile car started to feel a little tired in the,
all the components.
So while we, we asked nostalgic for the old days, there are some really good
benefits to the new vehicles too.
Speaking of the old days, do you remember?
This is a terrible segue, but I want to talk about the cyber truck here for a
moment.
I don't know if you saw the cyber truck news.
I, maybe I didn't.
I heard that maybe they're trying to build a smaller one now or something.
A much cheaper one.
Oh, well, that would be helpful.
And the news here is a bit confusing, you know, unclear, but Elon Musk introduced
this vehicle and said that it's only available for 10 days.
Okay.
Which doesn't make any sense.
And there was a clarification, I think, later that they're going to see what
happens after 10 days to make a decision about what to do.
But basically the old dual motor version, which was the popular version, was
79,990 bucks to start with all wheel drive.
And they did try briefly a cheaper, rural drive version that was 10 grand less.
Well, if you bought one of those, you're really pissed off now.
Well, this is Tesla's business model.
Yeah, pissing people off, but there's a new base all wheel drive, dual
motor for 59,990.
Okay.
60 grand.
All right.
This is going to kill resale values of existing vehicles.
Well, yeah, another Tesla staple.
It's starting to seem like a deal, but you lose a bunch of stuff to do this.
You lose the air suspension, the ventilated seats, the leather, some towing capacity.
I don't know why the rear seat screen, you go to a cheaper audio system, you lose
active noise cancellation and you lose the end cab and 120 volt outlet.
But you weren't saving 20 grand.
Yeah.
So the thing about the Cybertruck is everyone loves to hate the way it looks.
And I'm sure I don't disagree.
But the one thing I will tell you from people who have one that I've talked to
is that they love the way it drives, which is seemingly counterintuitive.
And this is coming from somebody who owned a Model S Plaid and a Cybertruck and
said they'd rather drive the Cybertruck.
It just drives better.
And I don't know why that is.
I've never driven ones personally, but if it does drive that well and they can
get people in to maybe look at them and take a test drive at 59,000 that they
wouldn't have at 70,000 or 79,000.
Yeah.
Maybe that's going to help deliver sales.
They may have to move to this and they may be in a position where they actually
have to lose a little money on these because the factory is so underutilized.
That plant that they built in Austin, Texas was set up to deliver 500,000
vehicles a year.
Half of those were supposed to be Cybertrucks.
Last year, it looks like they sold and the numbers are a little unclear because
Tesla doesn't break them out, but it looks like they sold about 20,000 of these.
Wow.
So they are wildly under delivering these things.
You know what they really need is they need a Maverick size truck and it doesn't
need to look like it came out of an 8-bit polygon NES graphics from 1984.
We'll see how that goes, right?
Because Ford just announced more about their model T-moment vehicle.
Okay.
And there's some interesting things we know about that.
Now it's going to be a 48-volt system, which is way down because I think your
average EV is right around 400 volts.
Right.
And your advanced ones with the faster charging are 800 volts.
Right.
So we'll see where this goes, but they're still talking about a 30 grand
subcompact pickup truck that's electric.
Are they thinking 48 volts in conjunction with new battery technology that works better?
I have not heard that, but possibly.
Yeah, because that would be a really weird modification to what basically has
been come a standard, you know, 400 to 800 volt system.
But if they figured out a way to get that to work with some of the new battery
technology that we've been waiting for, for like ever, it seems, maybe that's it.
But otherwise, maybe they just don't want to have people saying, I need to put a
battery charger.
No, just plug this in the wall because it's not going to charge any faster.
Yeah, 48 volts is a little complicated relative to DC fast charging, too.
You're going to have to invert that way down.
It's so odd.
I don't know.
We'll probably hear more about that, though.
Yeah, I'm glad they're still pushing ahead with this.
I still think they're kind of doing this on the fly, too.
If you remember when the Chevrolet Volt came out in 2000, I think they had it at
the 2010 Chicago Auto Show.
Yeah, I think everyone at Journal Motors was like, oh, crap, we got to build this.
Like the response was really positive.
Right.
And even though a lot of people didn't get it, people who did get it liked it and
wrote about it and they were pretty like, oh, we got to build this.
I remember the do you remember the commercials that they ran for the volt
and it had surrounded why are you at a gas station kind of thing?
Yeah.
I thought that was a lot.
It was basically a guy showing up at a gas station and everybody's like, why is
that here?
I thought that ran on and they they were trying to use that commercial to
explain the range extender.
And I I understood it, but I hope that helped.
But I don't know because the volts not around anymore.
But it was a great idea.
And their scout is going to be using that.
Yeah.
The I don't know if the Stalinas is still doing the Rev.
The what are they that truck that they were going to?
Oh, what's going to come out is going to be the extended range truck.
Right. The EV is dead.
The EV is dead.
But then they changed the names.
I'm afraid to even say it now.
Right. Exactly.
That's why it's not coming to mind because it's changed so much.
But the extended range, I believe, was the Ram Rev.
Ram Rev.
So I was at the Ram Charger.
I think you're a dammit.
I don't remember whatever it was.
But the volt is the one that that launched that technology.
And you're right.
It took you know, the idea of it was so tremendous that they actually had to
build it and then they had to try to educate the public on what it was.
Well, famously, David Letterman didn't get it.
And Bob Lutz, who was head of marketing at General Motors,
ended up being a guest on Letterman to try to clear the air.
Because Letterman was just ripping on it like it's an electric vehicle that goes
40 miles. What's the point?
Right. And what was the point?
If that's what you think it is.
And that's what everyone thought it was.
Right. And for those of you who don't know what it was, was it was a gas
generator that charged the batteries that ran the car.
So the gas engine was only connected to a generator.
It wasn't connected to the wheels of the car.
And it was very efficient.
And you could plug it into, I believe.
At least now you came with the new systems.
But yeah. Right.
Yep. There you go.
All right. I've got a new review up.
I want to talk about this car real quickly.
OK. What is it?
Have you driven the Grand Highlander?
No, actually, I have not.
Because there's a Lexus analog for that.
And that is the Lexus TX. Yes. Available 350,
500 and 550 H plus.
Apparently it ate both the LS and the LC.
It did because both of those cars are gone.
Those are gone.
But the TX is interesting for a couple of reasons.
It is it is a long wheelbase version of the RX. Right.
So it's a three row version.
Three rows are suddenly very hot again in the US.
Weird how that just is up and down.
It's cyclical.
Because I remember people not worrying about three rows for a while.
And now they're really hot.
I'll tell you what happened in my house is that we didn't want three rows
because we didn't want to drive everyone else's kids around.
So we were specifically looking for two rows.
So we didn't get stuck driving doing the carpools.
But the funny thing here is the Highlander is going away.
The Toyota Highlander and that's becoming electric only.
And the Grand Highlander is going to kind of take its place.
But that's not happening at Lexus.
The RX very much like the Highlander mechanically and dimensionally.
It didn't suffer any decline in sales when the TX went on sale.
It's still like this crazy hot more than 100,000 unit thing.
I don't know how Lexus does it.
But the RX is also a really nice vehicle.
And it's just got such a following from the day it came out.
And it's been a leader in its segment since day one.
So here's the thing.
The TX, longer wheelbase, longer overall, a little bit wider.
It is better for all of those things.
It's a little less sexy looking.
Right. It is big. Yes.
So the dimensions kind of weigh it down a little bit.
But wow, what a nice car.
Everything that the RX is, this is more it is quieter.
It is roomier and it is shockingly, shockingly refined on the highway.
I can't believe the quality of the ride. Wow.
It's it's it's right up there with something like a Bentley or a Rolls.
I cannot believe the ride quality.
But well, that's good because Lexus really is had been known for that quality of ride
and just providing you a luxury experience at it, essentially a discount price.
Yep. And then, you know,
you had Genesis come along kind of steel that thunder for a while.
A little bit.
And Genesis owns the interior, right?
Yes. The Lexus interior is arguably
made me more refined and a little bit more restrained. Right.
But it also is less classy.
I mean, you got to hand it to Genesis. How you do.
But if Lexus is coming back now with a ride that rivals those cars
that you're speaking of, that's awesome.
Yeah. So I drove a full boat luxury.
So there's a TX 350.
That's a 2.4 turbo.
There's the 500, which is a 2.4 turbo hybrid.
And then there's the plug in hybrid, the 550 H plus, which is stupid money.
It's like over 80 grand.
I don't know why anyone would do that, especially since the limitations
of plug in hybrids that we've talked about many times.
But one of the funny things about this is so you have 275 horsepower
out of the base engine. I think it's 303.
It's a lot of power out of the.
I'm just going to say that my notes are not what's that.
Does the hybrid add a lot of horsepower or not?
It does. Yeah, to 360 something.
OK. I don't know why I can't find this.
And then what kind of fuel economy are you seeing difference wise?
I drove this during the really nasty cold.
And you had the non hybrid, right?
I had the non hybrid.
And that was it's 366 horsepower for the hybrid.
Yeah. But I actually moved a bunch of people around with this car.
Did a little highway drive.
It was very, very, very cold.
And I got exactly 20 miles per gallon.
How did the heated seats work?
Well, yeah, you you don't know how much you need those until
the weather that we find that I need heated steering wheel the most.
I don't wear gloves. I love the heated steering.
Yeah. And that's just I love leveled heated steering wheels
because in the Ram, you got three levels.
But if I take it in and I get a loan or they give me a grand Cherokee
that has one level, which is the surface of the sun.
OK, levels of. Yeah.
Yeah, where like you can have it on for about a minute before it just
heats to the levels that will melt your skin when you got to turn it off.
So well, the cheap bastards that Lexus only give you one level.
Well, maybe it's maybe they've nailed the level so you don't need the three.
It was good. OK, it was good.
Yeah, I love this vehicle.
And I've said this before and I'll say it again.
Lexuses aren't fun to drive.
They are very much the size the LC.
Yes, that was fun to drive.
Yeah, unless it's a car that is specifically funded or an ISF,
something like that, right, those are crazy cars, right?
None of their crossovers.
There's the line in the sand.
There is the line in the sand.
And I just, you know, I haven't been here since they killed the LC.
Let me just, you know, play some taps for it,
because, man, was that such a great, great car.
If if you want one and I strongly suggest it, you probably do.
You just don't know it yet.
Man, beautiful, sounds great, just such a great car.
I am going to remind us what the LC was.
The LC was a luxury coupe.
So it was a two door long hood, short deck,
drove fantastic, had a 472 horsepower V8
that sounded amazing.
And if you didn't know about cars and you looked at this,
you'd be like Ferrari. Right, right.
It looks like it looks like a Ferrari,
like a GT Cruiser that Ferrari would have made.
It came in some crazy colors, including like copper.
And it just they had some really nice interiors.
We have a bunch of videos on our on our channel,
which is that we are motor driven.
If you look on YouTube and OK, we'll link to those.
Yeah. And there's also we did a couple on Tic Tac Long Forms
that it's we just had such a love affair with this car.
The convertible made it even better, even though it took away a lot of structural rigidity.
It didn't matter because now then you could hear the exhaust even better.
I have this great video just driving through the hills of Galena in that thing.
And it's so much fun.
That is the one car I will miss that of all of the ones that recently died.
I used to call it the poor man's Ferrari, but it was really the smart man's Ferrari.
If you were just looking for a car that was that had that presence.
Yeah. And yet was more drivable and you could get an $80 oil change for.
Right. And they'd probably feed you breakfast while you were doing it.
Yeah. Yeah. Because the dealer experience at Lexus is top nine.
And they never sold well.
Because there are 100.
They were they got up to 100 plus thousand dollars.
Yeah. It's a lot of money for a Lexus buyer or an average buyer.
Right. Or if you were thinking about a Corvette, it's a lot of money.
Exactly. So the thing about it is I think that they are going to be very collectible.
Yes. I totally agree with that.
And now that we know that the number has been capped.
Exactly. And I know that they're coming with some sort of LFA replacement
that may or may not be sold through Lexus directly.
But that's going to be even more expensive.
So this that's sort of near super car price, but not quite, you know,
it was sort of an affordable 9-11 convertible competitor.
I mean, compared to that car, it was it was a bargain.
Right. But it was just such a fun car to drive and such it sounded great
and look great and it's going to be sorely missed.
Yeah. That's a shame.
My review of the TX is live now. Excellent.
And people can check that out.
And that's consumerguide.com.
We will link to your videos of the LC.
Yes. And we're going to take a break when we come back.
We talked to Zach Prattle of Shooting Cars.
Yes. Stick around.
Questions or comments?
Drop us a line at carstuffatconsumerguide.com.
That's carstuffatconsumerguide.com.
Welcome back to the Car Stuff Podcast.
And we're back.
This is the ConsumerGuide Car Stuff Podcast.
I'm Tom. He is Brendan sitting in for Jill this week.
Thanks for doing that.
Oh, my pleasure.
You're in studio and we have we have tapped the donut box.
Yes, we have.
And I have a very nice blueberry, something or other.
Those smell so good.
Gosh, it's like, you know, it's like that candle.
It does. It smells amazing.
Hey, Tom, by the way, are you on social media at all?
You made that so easy for me.
I am Car Guy Tom.
I am on Twitter X and on Blue Sky.
For whatever reason, Blue Sky has come alive for car people.
So if you want to check out Blue Sky, just try to find some of the people
I've been chatting with and you want to get into those conversations.
But it's all of a sudden just exploding.
I will say that Tom is one of the more entertaining people to even follow
on any of those platforms because he actually uses them and asks
interesting questions and puts interesting things.
So I appreciate it.
People seem to enjoy it.
And then over the weekend, I saw a Ford Ranger flareside.
Wow.
You don't see those very often, but the flareside is kind of cool.
It's a good look.
Yeah. A very nostalgic look.
What people forget about the flareside is that its roots go back to
like people sitting on the side of the truck, standing on the side of the truck
by the bed and taking things like cones and putting them down on the road
while the vehicle is driving.
And it was literally a step side because you could step there.
It had some function to it that everybody was like, that looks cool too.
And that's yeah.
And that function got lost years and years ago.
But the flareside and the step side stuck around forever.
Oh, she killed that.
Probably. Yeah.
It was me.
It's not actually safe.
All right.
In the studio with us for, I think, the third time, Zach Prattle.
Zach, how are you?
I'm good. How are you?
I'm good.
You are the host and creator of Shooting Cars, one of my favorite things on the
internet, because one of the things you do is drive other people's cars.
Yes.
Which is awesome.
All cars, new cars, whatever it is.
Yeah. And you do nice videos.
They're fun to watch and they're tidy.
They're about 10 minutes each.
Yeah.
So we were going to talk.
We were talking online before we, I'm sorry, not online, pre online.
We were talking.
And one of the things you're going to help us understand today is the K car.
Yes.
And it's pronounced K car, I believe.
Yes, it is spelled K E I comes from the Japanese translation.
So K cars are a classification of car in Japan, where they are under
a certain length, width and height restraint.
It's like two meters tall.
I think it's like 11 feet long is the the maximum.
And they have to have 660 CC engines or smaller.
So you guys are talking about your throaty V8s.
That's sound.
These are 0.7 liter or smaller engines and there's generally
three or four cylinders, three or four cylinder.
There's only a handful of four cylinder and not a lot of them are turbo.
So some are, some for sure are, but not every one of them is turbo.
And so basically in Japan, these small cars carry a lot of benefits, right?
So like there are certain small car parking spots that are oftentimes close
to the door in Japan.
If you want to buy a car before you can even buy a car, you have to call
your local police station and they have to come out, measure your parking spot
to then allow you to buy like if you want to buy a big pickup truck,
they got to come out and measure your parking pad at your house to make
sure that you can fit the certain car with K cars.
You don't have to do that because they're so small, you can park them in your pocket.
So insurance is cheaper.
Registration is about 500 bucks a year where normal cars like a Toyota Crown
in Japan would be like $3,000 a year to register every single year.
So they carry a ton of benefits and they've been in the news recently
because President Trump said that he wanted to bring K cars into America.
Right. So a brand new K car.
We're looking at like 1.6 million yen, which works out to about $10,000.
Oh, very cool.
So now you start saying, oh, maybe I could do with a little bit less for a 10 grand
brand new car. Well, now Smart tried this through Mercedes-Benz many years ago.
Yes. It didn't really work all that great up.
But maybe maybe I'm always up for a new challenge as a society to see if we can
maybe find a use for these vehicles.
Yeah, Americans and I want to talk about your trip to Japan because you just got
back from Japan, which is so cool.
But just a quick point about that.
Americans rejected the Fiesta, the Scion IA, which I think was a Mazda to work
with me here. If you remember, that was even smaller.
The Yaris was the Mazda to the IA, I believe was even smaller.
Yeah. But Americans didn't buy these things.
Also Chevy had the the Sonic and Spark.
Yeah. The spark was so tiny.
And you're missing what I thought of when I thought of small cars that failed.
The Geo Metro three cylinder. Come on.
My dad got a speeding ticket in that vehicle going 80 miles an hour down an
entrance ramp that should be framed in your house.
I swear to God.
And his, you know, this is in Virginia where they love to give speeding tickets.
But the cop comes to the window and my dad goes,
are you sure this thing could do if it wasn't downhill, it wouldn't have done it.
Those were interesting periods of time, right?
Because the Metro was around for a while and it was sold as a Geo and as a Chevy.
Correct. And there was a Subaru Justi just before that.
Oh, my gosh, you are really and scraping the bottom of the world.
Yeah. Yeah. And in Canada, there was the Firefly,
which was based on the Metro here.
And these vehicles were around for a while and they always have a couple of years
of sales and then they disappear.
There's no contiguous movement in the small car thing.
And I'm like, I think the only one I can remember that was truly small,
that's sold in volume and maybe people just thought it was safe.
But the Chevette, right, that had a long run, but it was really cheap too.
I think most of those cars were bought by people with speech and pediments that
wanted a Corvette. Right.
Well, I walked into the dealer and they're like, oh, Chevette, here you go.
No, I think it was young guys who wanted to pick up girls and they would say,
oh, I've got my yellow vet outside and except it was the Chevette.
I will say my mom and dad's first date was in a Chevette.
Wow. And she called the Flintstone Mobile for obvious reasons.
My when I went to the gas station in the 80s, our parts supplier,
Colfax Auto Parts had a fleet and by fleet, I mean four or five Chevets.
The only glass on it was the windshield and they didn't.
They just left them outside to just let them get wet.
They were just vinyl four speeds, no equipment whatsoever.
But the windows being out allowed them to stick exhaust parts through the car
and deliver them.
And they never when the when the mufflers fell off,
they left the mufflers off and they made the greatest noise.
They sounded almost sporty, but they ran.
Yeah. And no one, the thing about the Chevette was,
I think once you owned one, you just didn't care about it.
You don't really matter what happened to it.
No. Yeah.
You lost a lot of that worry that you got a door ding or a wheel scrape or
something like that.
So to bring this back around to some point that I think I was making.
What's that?
Well, so those cars all have above a leader engine.
Yes, we're talking 660 cc's.
Now we're talking turbochargers, you said.
Right. I've driven some are more powerful than those.
There was an old car, the Honda Today.
I mean, it looked like a shoe box.
I want one dearly.
I drove a carbureted one, I believe it was a 91 or 92 carbureted,
three cylinder, about 45 horsepower.
It's, you know, for the American roads, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
They're extremely charming cars.
They come in pink.
Some of them have eyelashes on them.
They're they're cute.
They're adorable. They're these little cars.
But man, are they lacking in the power department.
So as for the idea that the current
administration might want to support bringing these here,
this, I suppose, because of affordability issues,
would do you know, are you aware that there would be similar concessions for owners
of these vehicles?
Just knowing the American buyer.
So when I was in Japan last week, I actually rented a couple of modern K cars.
So I'm like, everything that we get here in the States is 25 years old because we
have those import laws, right?
So I've driven a bunch of 90s K cars, but no airbags, no traction control,
all our manual, all that.
So I rented a few new ones.
I drove a Nissan,
Nissan Days Rooks Highway Star.
Oh, sure.
Yeah, you know, really rolls off the tongue with that one.
It was a six hundred, six hundred and sixty CC turbo, three cylinder CVT.
But it had four airbags.
It had traction control.
It had, you know, Apple CarPlay and things like that.
So what did that car cost?
So that car knew was the one point six million.
So that that was what I based it off of.
And that works out to, I think, ten and a half thousand.
Let's throw a two thousand dollar, you know, import fee onto it.
You're looking at a twelve grand brand new car.
We haven't seen that since what the early 2000s.
I think the cheapest you can do now, if you can find one,
is a base level Chevy Trax with no options.
And I think you're twenty four.
Is that like the cheapest car you can buy in the US?
I thought that they were like twenty one or twenty two.
But there's been some price increases.
Yeah, related to to tariffs.
A thirteen hundred dollar destination charging.
Right. Yeah.
So on paper, these K cars look great.
And in Japan, everyone drives one.
Everyone drives one.
You go downtown Tokyo, it's all K cars.
Talk about how congested a city like Tokyo is and how that's almost required.
People wise, spatially, Tokyo is the most congested city in the world.
I mean, there's forty one million people in Tokyo, which is insane.
There's like fourteen different downtowns.
Because I told I asked my translator,
I'm like, can we go to downtown Tokyo?
And he's like, which one?
I'm like, I've never been asked that question.
So the the congestion, the parking is a nightmare in Tokyo.
If you want to own a car.
So I rented my entire trip.
I had a Toyota Corolla Touring, which is the wagon version of the Corolla.
That's cool. Kind of large for there.
Right. So that was the thing.
I was like, oh, I'll get a Corolla sensible, you know, and I'm like jamming it down
these streets where like I have to fold in the mirrors to get through here.
And so now a Toyota Corolla is big.
So these K cars like in Tokyo and their highest speed limits that I hit was 80
kilometers an hour. Oh, that's nothing.
Which, you know, I'm cruising at 80 and I'm like forty seven miles.
It's something like that.
The highways, I saw one one twenty zone.
It's like forty eight or forty nine miles per hour.
Something about that.
So these K cars are perfect.
They go about fifty, you know, the streets are tight, the parking is tight.
They're cheaper.
They're easy to drive because you're not looking over a long hood.
You're looking over about a foot and a half.
This reminds me of my trip that I took about a year ago to Italy.
And I rented a three series wagon.
And I hated every minute of it that I was in Italy because the streets were so
narrow and the traffic was so high and the number of mopeds around you was so
crazy that I couldn't believe I was longing and pining for like a fiat five
hundred, but like an old old one from the movie cars, a little tiny guy,
because that's all you could really maneuver around.
I mean, I smacked mirrors with a car just going, you know, in the city side by side.
So, yeah, these cars make sense in these uber congested places.
And, you know, that's that's where they're made for.
But also with the, as you said, the expense, I mean,
if you had to pay $3,000 a year to register your crown, that's, I mean,
there's places like South Carolina, there's a couple of states that do this.
Virginia, they have like a vehicle tax every year and it's based on the value
of the car, which is weird because you could have like a five million dollar
in 1971 Hemikuta convertible that they'll tax it like a dollar.
Yeah, the original sale price is $3,400.
Because but but same thing, you know, where it's like you buy a new car,
you buy an expensive car, now you're paying for it every year,
like you bought a house and now you have to pay property tax on it.
So it makes a whole lot of sense when you've got people, you know,
those hotels or those those condos that you're basically sleeping in a big drawer.
Yeah, because it's so congested when you have a place that's that congested.
This makes perfect sense.
Yeah. And, you know, it kind of defeats a lot of the second hand market too,
because here in the States, if we look at $12,000, right?
$12,000 for a brand new car, you could do that.
Or you could buy a 10 year old Lexus GS 350, which three and a half liter
V six heated seats, heated steering wheel, reliable.
And you could do that here.
And we have reasonably affordable gas here too.
Right. Right.
Which I didn't notice too much of a difference between gas prices.
Premium premiums through the roof there.
But filling up my Corolla ended up translating to about 35 bucks for a tank.
Oh, which compared to here is not bad.
Oh, that's great. Same ballpark.
So let's talk about the inside of the K car now.
You are larger than the average Japanese thousand percent.
Yeah, and I'm way larger.
Did you fit OK in the car?
Were you comfortable?
Every single one except for the Honda S660.
I adore the Honda S660 tremendously.
It's basically I said in my video, it's a shrunken NSX, right?
It's a rear mid-engine three cylinder turbo, but it's really cool.
Target top, the one that I had was red, of course, like every NSX.
It's a joy to drive.
You get all these boost noises.
There's a tiny little about the size of a dinner plate window that you can lower
in the back and you just get straight boost noises through your ear.
I had to drive with the window down so I could fit my shoulder out.
I was more so wearing the car as opposed to driving it.
Every other K car that I've driven with the Suzuki Cappuccino is in the same
ballpark as that in the old AutoZam AZ1.
The bigger ones, the Vans, the Nissan Daze Rooks Highway Star that flows off the tongue.
That was super spacious because they use every single millimeter for the interior.
I mean, the doors are paper thin.
I mean, you sneeze on them, you blow a hole in the door.
But they use that space really, really well.
And driving the Nissan K car, it was way more spacious than I would ever need it to be.
I fit in the back seat of that car way better than I do my own Mazda 3 here in the states.
So one of the things I'm hearing here, and we're running out of time in this segment,
but the K cars to come to the US at an affordable price would need a bunch of exceptions.
They would have to a bunch of federal laws because you're not going to get side impact
protection if the doors are thin.
Roll over.
You probably don't have rollover protection.
You probably don't have all the airbag protection.
They would have to be serious benefits,
monetarily from the government of like, hey, you don't have to register these or you
don't have to pay to register them or something like that.
Or there are some K cars that in some other markets, they'll throw a one liter into it.
So for non Japan, Indonesia, you know, the Middle East, they'll throw a one liter,
one or five liter into it.
It helps out a little bit, but you're still dealing with this car the size of this table.
How much do they weigh?
Not a whole lot because there's not a whole lot in them.
Right.
So we're talking like two thousand, three thousand pounds.
Even that much.
Yeah.
But I mean, well, modern ones have the airbags, they have the ABS, they have the
traction control and the computers and all that stuff, but they're still small.
One of the things about price that's so interesting, too, is Jill and I had this
conversation about Zika, she is so Zika at the LA Auto Show.
And Zika's sold in Mexico, so for almost twice as much as they do in China.
Interesting.
So Chinese car to to make money to meet certain whatever requirements you need.
And Mexico is an easy market, right?
Right.
Way easier than bringing the car into the U.S.
But still the prices went way, way up.
So it'd be interesting to see what could happen with the K car, but I think there's
a bunch that has to happen and it may be that no matter what they do,
they're going to have to make some concessions into the design of the vehicle.
So we wouldn't see anything until they redesign these things anyway.
So next generation of these things.
But you're saying fun to drive.
Fun to drive.
They're cute. They're adorable.
They're great for in town areas.
I got it on the highway.
My Nissan had a CVT and it was it was mind-numbing.
I just put to the floor and it just sat there and I got up to 60 kilometers an hour
and I sat there.
Are they reasonably quick around town?
Yeah, like and you know, there are some other cars.
The S660 was really quick.
The Jimny was decent enough.
Those obviously had manual transmissions that helped out tremendously.
I mean, driving a CVT K cars is not great.
But around town, they're punchy, they're fun.
It's just the highways, which we have a lot of here in the States fall flat on its face.
So you mentioned the Jimny.
That's that's a Suzuki.
Yes.
And then a lot of these are Dihatsu's.
A lot of Dihatsu's, which is owned by Toyota.
So essentially Toyota just shrugs off their K cars to Dihatsu.
Honda makes them.
Honda Endbox is one of the.
That was a big one, right?
Yeah, that's one of the top selling K cars.
They're everywhere and Mazda has some, but they're really just re-bedged.
Suzuki's. Oh, OK.
Yeah, interesting.
Yeah, we just ran out of time for the segment.
But but tell us how we can check out your videos.
Yeah, YouTube shooting cars.
If there's a car that you're interested in, just type it in after shooting cars.
And I'm sure I have a video on it.
And remind us later, reach out to us when you start putting up the videos of the
vehicles you drove in Japan so we can share those.
Got you. All right.
And then you're sticking around for the quiz.
Yes. Excellent.
We're going to take a break.
And when we come back, it's quiz time.
Questions or comments?
Drop us a line at carstuff at consumerguide.com.
That's carstuff at consumerguide.com.
Welcome back to the carstuff podcast.
And we're back.
This is the consumer guide carstuff podcast.
I am Tom.
He is Brendan and he is Zach, Zach Prattle of shooting cars.
Thanks for sticking around real quick.
How can we get ahold of you guys and your stuff?
Check us out at wearemotoredriven.com or sonsofspeed.com.
They'll get you the same place.
And from there, you can check out all our stuff.
And then your your your excellent podcast is on hiatus.
But coming back soon.
Coming back soon.
We should have some new episodes in the next several weeks.
But yeah, we are looking forward to it.
We have a great time at the Weird Motor Driven podcast.
And a lot of our stuff is timeless.
So if you haven't heard all the episodes, don't think that.
Oh, I can't listen to that one.
It's been, you know, it's been out for two months.
Trust me, it's still going to be entertaining and fun and informative.
And how can we keep track of your stuff, Zach?
Just YouTube shooting cars.
Like I said earlier, if you have a certain car in mind, type it in after shooting cars.
I'm sure I probably have a video of it.
Excellent. All right.
It's quiz time, guys.
I hope you're ready.
Ready.
Today's topic is this kind of topical.
The 90s.
Oh, geez. OK.
I'm going to give you a car model and you have to tell me if it existed in the 90s.
Oh, I should be good at this because I started driving in 91.
I wasn't born till the very end.
So this is a little pre my time.
This would be easier for me, I think.
All right, Zach, you start.
You are a guest of the Ford Firmont.
Was there a Ford Firmont available in the 90s?
I don't believe so.
No, there was not.
You guys both get a point.
The Firmont was around from 78 to 83,
after which 75 different things were built on that car and called other things.
Yeah, like the Granada.
Was that ever on the Fox platform?
That was the Fox.
But that was the Fox platform.
That was the sedan.
Yeah, it's 78.
So that was same year as the Mustang.
Yeah, yeah, the Mustang, too.
Mercury Marquis have driven one of those in wagon format.
The Marquis was Fox body.
Yeah, and the awful Thunderbird.
All right, you both have a point.
Brendan, Zach, point, point.
OK, good.
Number two, this goes to you, Brendan.
The Malibu.
Was there a Chevrolet Malibu in the 90s?
Well, that's a fun question because it started in the 60s and it picked up again.
Yeah, it was a trim level on the Chevelle for a while.
And was it on the Chevy 22?
Anyway, but yeah, it was around in the 60s.
It was around in the 60s and do they still make the Malibu?
Or did they just kill it for finally like for the 10th time?
I'm always stunned to learn that it's still around, but I think it's actually dead.
Yeah, that's a good car.
It was.
So if you get a chance to rent one.
My daughter just rented one.
Yeah, I was going to say, like, don't don't don't shy away.
It's a decent rental.
The question is whether when it came back, if it was at the tail end of the 90s
or if they didn't do that until the 2000s.
And I'm going to say, yes, it was a 90s.
I'm going to go no, but I'm feeling like I might get a technicality of like a 99.
They brought it back or canceled it in 91.
Oh, they brought it back in 97.
Yes. I'm trying to remember if that was the really, really ugly one.
They heard I was coming into this world and they're like,
we need to get a Malibu for this kid.
Exactly. All right.
Brendan gets a point.
There we go.
Zach, this question goes to you.
Chrysler LaBaron.
Yes. Was there a Chrysler LaBaron in the 90s?
Oh, absolutely. Yes, there was.
I've done so many of them.
It's such a good looking car, too.
None of the wing windows work on them.
Fun fact, none of them break after like 20 years every single one of them.
The thing about that, too, is that at some point,
like up until 77, Chrysler only sold big cars, right?
That was all they ever sold.
New Yorkers, Newports, Imperials, when those were branded Chrysler.
And then in 77, all of a sudden they're like, crap,
we probably need to downsize like everyone else.
And the LaBaron's came out and then lots of them came out.
Yeah. And then a K cars.
Yeah, exactly.
American K car.
The mid 90s had the LaBaron TC for Maserati.
By Maserati. Yes.
That was so weird for a bunch of reasons.
It was very weird.
I almost filmed one, but the belt snapped.
And the owner never got it fixed.
Just sold it.
When that came out, it came out with a Lotus head.
Yeah. I guess it was actually not Lotus,
but I think it was built by Lotus,
but it was considered a Maserati head on the four cylinder 2.2 turbo.
Such a Frankenstein.
Yeah, it was ridiculous.
And that engine turned out to be hyper unreliable.
And I think there were fires when it was a Zuzu impulse
had handling by Lotus down the side.
Yes, it did.
I was going to get a handling by Lotus sticker
and put it on my Ranger.
But the thing about that was you could buy
a Chrysler TC by Maserati with a Mitsubishi engine.
The three liter V six was in there.
So that was really international.
Is that the most automakers on one car?
Right. That's got it.
It's got it. It's got to be.
The only thing that gets weirder are pole stars.
Oh, yeah.
Because you got Chinese designs built in Korea.
Designed at Scandinavia and Swedish company.
By a built in Korea by a French company.
Right, right.
Because we're no longer in that factory
that they sell in the U.S.
And disliked by Americans.
Overlooked by Americans.
All right, Brendan, the RAV4.
Was there a RAV4 in the 90s?
Toyota's RAV4, the best selling vehicle
that isn't to pick another one of those fringe ones.
Exactly. I'm going to say yes.
Yes. Yes.
1996. OK, I would have put it a little bit later.
You're going for a streak here.
Yeah. All right.
Then finally, this one goes back to you, Zach.
The Nissan Altima.
Was there a Nissan Altima in the 90s?
No, I don't think so.
I can't picture one if there was no.
Oh, gosh.
The Maxima was like the 90s Nissan.
Yeah. And a half.
And you had one.
I had a 99.
In Centra, there's the S.E.R.
and all that stuff for the 90s.
I think the Altima came in to replace
something or fill a need in later.
So I'm going to say no.
You both said no. Yeah, it was.
Altima kicked in for 93.
No way. Yeah.
And there was a funny story there.
And I tried to get the story today
and I've never gotten the story straight.
But for a year or two,
Nissan was required to put Stanza stickers
on the Altimas because they didn't
file the name correctly or something weird.
So I think on your.
Oh, yeah, I remember that.
I remember the stands.
I don't. I cannot picture a 90s Altima.
Yeah.
Nineteen ninety three.
All right. Well, you'll have to review one.
Yeah, I know.
If you got a 90s Altima, you want Zach to review it.
Yeah. Shooting cards.
All right.
Brendan wins.
But we go to the bonus question
because that's what we do.
All right. Well, this is a payback
because it was that totally cleaned my clock last time.
So yeah. All right.
One in one.
Oh, you're a big fan of Denny's, right?
Loves over my hammies.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Give me a grand slam.
Denny's huge in Japan.
Really? Oh, really? Huge.
Everywhere you look, there's a Denny's.
Oh, wow. Wild.
You know what else is huge there?
And this is just a little part of my history.
My mother used to work at Mr. Donut.
I was going to tell you about Mr. Donut.
I discovered it in Japan and it was amazing.
They're they're dead in the U.S.
Yes. Everywhere in Japan.
Yeah. Yeah.
I went almost every day.
Is Japan just like picking up our foregone nostalgia
and then we could just go there to like relive some stuff?
Oh, a thousand percent.
I was watching a restaurant review.
One of the shorts is a guy called I think he calls this his site.
Japan eats fantastic stuff.
And they're just short reviews of Japanese restaurants
and his American take on them.
But he's had a restaurant in the background.
There's a bunch of big boy paraphernalia.
Oh, my gosh.
That's awesome. You know, the big boy.
Yeah, big boy never went away.
As a court, you know, if you've seen Austin Powers,
you know, the big boy never truly went away.
There was an organization, I think in the 80s,
called the Fraternity for the Freedom of Corporate Mascots
that was stealing big boys.
God love. Oh, my gosh.
All right. Denny's in Mexico.
Anyone want to guess how many Denny's there are worldwide?
Oh, I'm going to say it's eight hundred and thirty.
Oh, I was way off.
I'm going to say five thousand.
You're closer and in ballpark.
It's fourteen hundred globally.
OK, twelve hundred in the U.S.
and fifteen in Mexico, Mexico, Mexico.
If we all chip in, we can just buy the Mexican.
We could, especially when you do the conversion with the pesos.
Yeah. Yeah.
All right, Brendan, I need you to tell me
which of the following is not on the menu on Denny's in Mexico.
Are you ready? I am ready.
The flaming five pepper burger.
Wild Alaska salmon.
The loaded veggie omelette.
They smell omelette weird there, by the way.
The spicy tuna milk club.
I wouldn't think that Alaska salmon would be a long trip.
It is a long trip.
Although the whales do it every year.
And I saw the very first whales in Cabo in October of this past year
that I was on a tour boat.
We were snorkeling and I said, hey, it's the captain.
You've seen any whales?
And he goes, no, not yet.
And then seconds later, one just jumped right out in front of the boat,
like did a nice breach.
And so they make it down from Alaska.
I don't know, maybe I don't think the salmon do that.
I'm going to say the salmon.
The salmon's the fake.
I'm going with that one. All right.
Zach, the flaming five pepper burger, the Wild Alaska salmon,
the loaded veggie omelette or the spicy tuna milk club.
I'm going to go with the burger.
The first one is the fake.
Is the fake just because I would think one of the fish would be fake.
But if there's two on there, there's got to be one that's real.
Good point. I'm going with burger.
I think that's a red herring.
Turns out that the Wild Alaska Salmon Red Herring, thank you.
Wild Alaska salmon is real.
OK, loaded veggie omelette is real.
And the flaming five pepper burger is real.
The spicy tuna milk club is the fake.
The one I'd probably want to try the most.
I know. All right.
I'm signing this for you, Brandon.
Here you go. Thank you very much.
That's going right in my trophy room.
So I got a weird email.
Is that what you call your shredders?
I got a strange email from Polestar, and I didn't understand it
because it seemed like they were sort of rebooting
what they want people to think Polestar is.
I think I might have gotten this email.
But one of the interesting things about Polestar was towards the end
of last year, massive rebates.
They were actually doing those discounts off the purchase price.
So the cash rebates, but I don't know what's going on there.
And if they're rebooting and if they're trying to get more dealers
signed up, but they had a bad launch.
And they've got this list of vehicles here
that they're sort of focusing on now.
And it's a little strange, but the Polestar two.
This isn't a quiz question.
We're home's fake.
No, no, no.
This is news.
Well, first off, if you can keep your Polestar's one through seven straight.
God bless you. Yeah, yeah.
This is not my place here.
But the Polestar one, which wasn't even electric, it was a plug in hybrid.
That's gone, but that was a high performance vehicle.
The Polestar two was a really good looking, small,
Corolla sized four door hatchback.
Yeah, that was discontinued.
But I guess that's coming back.
Oh, not mentioned here at all, which is weird, is the Polestar three,
which I think is their volume car.
It's a midsize crossover.
Is that the one that we drove at the rail?
I can't remember if it was a two or three.
We drove. I believe it was a three.
Was it a three, right?
It's a very good car.
We love that thing because, you know, what it was, it was
it was a Volvo X in EX 90, right?
Shrunk down to a more manageable size for those who don't need all that room.
And it drove really well.
Yeah. And then I just drove the four.
That has no rear window, right? That's correct.
OK, that was the thing you said about that.
And that's a weird car because it's sort of a compact crossover, but it's low.
OK, it's almost like it's the coupe version of one.
What if manufacturers did this thing where they didn't do the crossover
and they just built the car lower to the ground
and then they had, I don't say, four doors and five seats and a box of the front,
box of the back, right? Maybe a box design, call it something like a sedan.
I don't know, because here's what's really weird about all of this.
The what is it? It's the Polestar five, I think.
It's supposed to be a grand touring vehicle.
And the more I read about it, I think it's like a Porsche Pad Amara.
OK, there's no market for that.
So you you drove the four. Yeah.
What was the price tag on that?
It's surprisingly affordable with a lot of stuff.
It was under 70.
The three that we had was 97.
Yeah, this was this was affordable.
And you didn't, you know what?
I might be wrong.
It might have been eighty four loaded.
Even still, I mean, that's more affordable than 90.
The three was 97.
That's the thing. It cost the same as the Volvo EX.
Right. I love driving it. Adored it.
Great for 97.
I can't in just tell my friend to go spend
$97,000 on that car.
No, also, they're doing these weird discounts,
which suggests to you that you should not buy one at retail.
Interesting. Yeah.
Like, why would you why would you just wait then?
Yeah, that's that was a thing that happened to the US
when we were really relied on when Detroit was really
relied on rebates to sell stuff.
Everyone just stopped buying stuff
until they saw a grand or two grand on the hood, which I got to tell you.
Polestar should be very glad that B.
Y. D. is not in our market right now.
I sat in a couple of B. Y. D.'s in Japan.
They're just slowly trickling into Japan.
I went to a B. Y. D. dealer in a shopping mall, by the way.
They also had a Jeep Avenger there.
Oh, that's a weird car.
We did to talk about it the other day.
But B. Y. D. is going to eat the lunch of pretty much
any electric automaker that there is. So interesting.
Guess what we did? Oh, boy, we ran out of time.
We did. Yeah. A lot of good, a lot of good talking.
A lot of good talking.
Thank you very much for filling in my pleasure.
Big thanks to Zach Prattle of Shooting Cars.
We appreciate you being here.
Thanks to Producer Randy and the good folks here at TalksOn.
Let's talk more about cars again next week. Next week.
Remember to check us out at ConsumerGuide.com.
The Car Stuff podcast is produced by J-Turn Media.
To advertise on the show, please drop us a line at
carstuffatconsumerguide.com.
About this episode
The hosts dive into the evolving landscape of automotive engines, lamenting the shift from smooth V6s and V8s to smaller turbocharged fours that sacrifice driving ease for efficiency. They discuss the Chevrolet Traverse's new turbo engine and the Lexus TX's similar powertrain, noting mixed feelings about power delivery and fuel economy. The conversation also touches on the sensory experience of driving, emphasizing the importance of engine and exhaust sound. Additionally, they cover Tesla's introduction of a cheaper Cybertruck variant, exploring its trade-offs and potential market impact.
2.4 turbo
air bags
air suspension
all wheel drive
cash rebates
catalytic converter
CVT
dual motor
EV
Formula E
Acura NSX
Chevrolet Chevelle
Chevrolet Corvette
Chevrolet Malibu
Chevrolet Sonic
Chevrolet Spark
Chevrolet Traverse
Chevrolet Trax
Chevrolet Volt
Dodge Avenger
Dodge Charger
Ford Granada
Ford Maverick
Ford Mustang
Ford Ranger
Ford Thunderbird
Honda NSX
Honda S660
Jeep Grand Cherokee
Lexus RX
Mazda RX-3
Nissan Altima
Nissan Maxima
Porsche 911
Suzuki Cappuccino
Suzuki Jimny
Tesla Cybertruck
Tesla Model S
Toyota Corolla
Toyota Crown
Toyota Grand Highlander
Toyota Highlander
Toyota RAV4
Volvo EX90
Original notes
Brendan Appel of the Sons of Speed sits in for Jill this week. Brendan and Tom open the show talking about the changing character of car engines, and how small turbocharged examples lack the character—especially exhaust note—of older, larger engines.
Tom shares news regarding deep price cuts on the Tesla Cybertruck. Per Elon Musk, the new, cheaper Tesla pickup may not be available long, so interested shoppers may want to act quickly. Brendan and Tom discuss what the price adjustment might mean for the resale value of existing examples of the controversially designed pickup truck.
Still in the first segment, Tom reviews the 3-row Lexus TX luxury crossover. Listen in for his take.
In the second segment Brendan and Tom welcome Zack Pradel of Shooting Cars to the show. Zack is just back from Japan where he drove a number of the country’s “kei” micro cars. As it has been suggested that kei cars could be the answer to rising new-car sticker prices in the U.S., Zack’s take on these tiny vehicles is especially interesting.
In the last segment Zack joins Brendan for this weeks quiz. The show warps up with a quick look at the current Polestar lineup.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Car Stuff Podcast
Consumer Guide Automotive, Tom Appel, Jill Ciminillo
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56:15