Classic Auto Mall - #222 - Stewart Howden with Guests Matt Hagan + Keith Martin

This is the Classic Automall Show.

Broadcast from the studios inside the Classic Automall in Morgantown, Pennsylvania.

Just one hour west of Philadelphia at Pennsylvania Turnpike Exit 298.

Featuring nearly 1,000 classic vintage and barbed-fine vehicles for sale under one climate control roof.

Now, here's your host, Classic Automall president and the man with all the toys, Stuart Howden.

And welcome show number 222, so easy to remember because they're all the same number.

You remember that show? Room 222?

222, that's right. I've forgotten that show.

Back in the second ones.

Back in the good old days, right? When we had three channels.

And they went off at midnight and there was just fuzz on the thing and you're like,

Oh, now what am I going to do?

That's right.

And you didn't have to dial the area code to phone number if you had one.

We were just talking earlier. I remember my first phone number.

Right.

5842853.

But you don't know your current one.

I had no idea what my current one was.

Because it's all programmed.

But anybody's numbers are anymore.

All right. Before we get to our guest.

Yes, sir.

How many cars in inventory JR you go first this week?

I'm going to go with my first phone number, which was 65, but I'll add a nine to it.

965.

Steve?

Pretty good. 950.

Oh, 957.

Oh.

Steve wins once again.

So good for you.

If those keeping score at home, it's Steve, 12, JR, 9.

I think it's something.

I don't know.

Anyway, let's get right to our guest.

Joining us via Zoom, Matt Hagen.

How are you this morning, Matt?

Good morning, guys.

Glad to be on the show.

We're glad to have you on here.

Top fuel, funny car driver and farmer.

I see you have a little ranch up there.

A little small place, right?

3,000 acres.

We got a few mouths to feed.

We got about 3,400 acres and 1,800 head of cattle.

And it's grown over the years.

I started with 100 acres.

And I just, I guess I was too lazy to get out there and mow all of it.

So I threw some cows out there.

And then one thing led to another.

And I said, well, if we're doing this, let's just do it.

Let's do it.

So it's been great, you know, but it's really, for me, it allows me to turn everything off.

You know, everything we do is 330 miles an hour.

It's adrenaline driven, you know, fans, lots of energy.

You know, and then you get back home and it's just like, okay, turn all that off.

Throw you phone in the truck and you get to put around on a tractor at 6 miles an hour,

you know?

I get it.

It's fun to get away and just kind of decompress from whatever it is you do.

Because, you know, life is stressful no matter what you do.

But add in the fact that you're going, you know, 340 miles an hour down a thousand feet.

That does change it a little bit.

Are you a fast driver when you're driving just your regular car?

Are you hauling ass everywhere you go?

Or are you just kind of a...

Well, I'm definitely not Tony Stewart put that way.

But, you know, it was one of them things where I do zip around here and there.

I've had a few tickets, but, you know, it's been kind of cool.

Like, I remember my last ticket.

I was all...

I had all my race stuff on and the...

I was down in Texas and it was like a 70 mile an hour or something like that.

And I was running 102.

And I thought, I was like, man, I'm going to go to jail, you know?

I'm like, anything over 100 miles an hour, you know?

And I was like, for sure.

And so I was so nervous, the state trooper, he came over and I handed him my room key card instead of my license.

And he's like, hey, I don't want your room key, but I need your license, you know?

So he just, you know, he warned me and I was late to a sponsor dinner and stuff.

He's like, hey, man, I know it's flat out here and, you know, whatnot,

but he said, slow it down and keep it safe and then let me go.

So I was real grateful for that.

Yeah, I hear you.

I hear, you know, it's easy to get kind of caught up in the moment.

You got a good song on the radio and we're on the iPod or whatever it is anymore.

Well, with these cars nowadays, I mean, they throw me in a Hellcat Durango and that's a grocery getter, you know?

But it's got, you know, almost a thousand horsepower for an SUV, you know?

And so it's just, it's crazy, you know?

I was trying to explain to somebody the other day, you look up and you're running 75 miles an hour

and it doesn't even feel like you're doing it.

But like in my old pickup truck, that thing's working to run 75 miles an hour, you know?

Absolutely.

You know, you get a 69 Z28 on the highway with a four speed in it and you're just begging for that next gear.

Yeah, let's go.

You're just going.

Absolutely.

Can you imagine a thousand horsepower in an SUV?

I mean, isn't that just, that's mind boggling.

It's wild, man.

And it all will drive and we run them down the strip and, you know, just to kind of give people a ride.

We do like a thorough ride stuff on Thursdays a lot of time.

And people are blown away when we, you know, run them to the quarter mile and they're like, oh my gosh,

this thing's doing 110 miles an hour and a quarter mile and it's SUV all will drive.

Yeah.

That drives like, you know, you got air conditioning and music playing and it's comfortable and,

you know, you think about anything that had over four or 500 horsepower back in the 60s or 70s was just

temperamental and, you know, you were constantly fiddling with it.

Never ran right.

It was always kicking and sputtering and all that.

And now they're just no problem at all.

A thousand horsepower.

No big deal.

I'm glad that I'm not 16 years old right now.

Yeah.

I'm telling you, man.

A good thing in most 16 year olds can't afford it, but it's just one of those things where

if they could, they'll definitely get it because the cars nowadays are just unbelievable.

Yeah.

Well, I always joke around.

We say this on the show all the time.

My Trans Am, when I first got it, had 180 horsepower.

Wow.

Yeah.

That wouldn't be, you know, the cheapest car on the planet would have more horsepower now

than that.

Nissan Versa, you know, my dad was telling me his first car was a, I think it was a Coronada.

It had a 454 in it.

He said, he said, the only reason I could afford it is because nobody could afford gas for it.

You know what I mean?

So, you know, it's kind of one of the things where he asked, what in the world are you doing

with a 454 back there when you first got your first car?

He says, ah, it's all I could afford.

You know, but it was a four, it was a four door, you know, right, right.

Cornette.

Yeah.

It was a Cornette, I think.

But, um, but yeah, it was just one of the things to hear these stories for these guys,

you know, in their cars.

I tell you something that I don't know if you know the guy or not, but my sponsor, Jason

Johnson, um, he owns Jason Johnson horsepower garage.

He's got about 400 cars, man.

And his collection is unbelievable.

I need to link you guys up sometime.

I mean, obviously you got a lot of cars and this guy's collection is unbelievable.

Yeah.

He's just south of Nashville.

I was doing a little research.

Right there.

30 minutes from Nashville.

Yeah.

And he built your rig that you use at the, at the track that, uh, oh my God.

That thing is too cool.

That was cool, man.

So you paying attention.

You got it.

Yeah.

I ain't gonna tell you nothing.

No, no, no.

It's a, you know, I try to do my homework because, you know, if I don't write it down,

I'll never remember it.

You know, it's one of those things.

But, uh, you know, if you, um, um, a guy like him who builds cars like that and collects

cars like that, you know, that's a whole different world than just about anything.

And, and it's funny.

We just lost him.

Did you lose?

No, we got you.

It was our screen just went blank.

So, okay.

So tell us about the, the hauler that you had that he had built for you.

What was it?

Um, uh, uh, 1965 Dodge 200 power wagon crew.

Yeah.

That thing was cool.

It was on a, you know, a new cab chassis kind of deal, you know, but, uh, um, they took

the body off that thing and stuck it on there.

And it was just unbelievable, man.

I mean, I think he had a little bit over $300,000 in it, you know, and it just everybody, there

was more people that stopped and took pictures of that, that truck than they did with my race

car.

Right.

You know what I mean?

So, uh, he's got, uh, so his thing now is going to be kind of like taking and debuting

one of his new cars and stuff like, or it would be SUV or truck to be able to pull our

race cars around at the races that he sponsors.

So he's actually setting up a dealership to where he's going to start selling some of

these cars along the way.

I think that, uh, he, you know, it's more or less that, you know, I don't know if he

even really wants to sell them, you know what I'm saying?

It doesn't mean to sell them, you know what I mean?

Right.

And, uh, but he just spent like $5 million down the road there from his, his place to

set up this new dealership.

And it's just been, uh, really, really great to, to get to learn this guy and, and really

see what his, you know, passion is.

His, his background is, um, from, uh, co-part, you know, so his dad basically, they've been

in the, um, kind of sat, I wouldn't say salvage, but like just basically disassembling cars

and selling parts and pieces.

And, uh, they took that company public.

And so we go to these meek amoxions and stuff and Jason can tell you everything about any

car ever blown away, man.

You know what I mean?

So I'm sure you're like that as well.

I'm not like quite because the guys that did that, that took them apart and had to pull

every alternator off, every fuel pump off, every airfield, you know, every, all of that,

those guys really understood every single car much better than a lot of us.

You know, it's like, it's like anything.

You know, somebody asked you about somebody, a race car driver or somebody that you knew

and you, you think, you know, a little bit, and then you start doing research on them

and you go, man, I didn't know any of this.

I was like, wow.

Yeah, but I got a question.

I asked Jason.

That's for sure.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, uh, four times you've, you were champion, uh, in funny car 2011, 2014, 20 and 23.

Wow, man.

And four times second place.

That's, is that we run it up this year, man.

We had a little bit of a tough deal, you know, not being able to run our last race.

It was a little bit of a long shot.

I mean, but well, I think we're a hundred points back, you know, and so we needed, he

needed to go out first round.

We needed to win the race, but that happened to me, man.

And 2010.

So my second year driving a fuel funny car, I show up.

I'm still learning to drive this thing.

Right.

And I got an opportunity to win a championship.

I just got to go two rounds and I win my first championship, my second year in this thing

and I lose first round and John force has to win the race.

And he goes out there and wins a race and it was just devastating.

Right.

So, you know, that question in my back of my mind is always going to be this year, like

what if, because I lived through it.

You know what I mean?

Like I watched it unfold in front of me.

Um, that, you know, we didn't win the championship because of the last race and we, we stumbled

and they performed.

And, uh, so that, that we're sitting in the same situation this year in the rain out there

in California.

Which was crazy.

It blew my mind.

You know what I mean?

When's the last time there's a lot of stuff involved, you know, because there's a, you

know, the sand trap was really bad.

And, you know, there's a lot of water sitting there.

We have the banquet that they have, you know, hundreds of thousands, maybe half a million

bucks involved with, with, uh, Pachanga and stuff.

But at the end of the day, man, we're racing.

Yeah.

Like this is what we do.

You know what I mean?

So I was like, let's go to Vegas.

You know, Pomona.

I mean, we were in Pomona, but let's go to, you know, uh, Phoenix or something.

You know, let's unroll this thing.

Yeah.

I was like, man, well, maybe we should just call him out and be like the best two out

of three.

You know what I mean?

I like your thinking.

Well, you know, what are you going to, and his second place just is painful, right?

It's got to be like, I mean, it's, it's, but it's, you know, it's awesome.

I mean, how many drivers are in top fuel funny cars now?

Like over 30.

You know, there's like 25 of us that really kind of run around the country, you know,

and, and a handful of, there's, there's a good 16, 18 of us to show up at every race,

you know, and there's some feelings here and there.

But, you know, it's, it's a, it's a special little niche that we get to do out here in

the world that you can say like, man, I'm going 330 miles an hour every weekend, you

know, that I get to race and it's crazy.

But, uh, but at the end of the day, you know, we, you always want to be the best at your

craft, right?

And you always are giving everything, you know, people think it's so glamorous and

you're just, you know, out here, I guess, winning races and chasing women and drinking beer

and all that kind of stuff.

But, but it's just not, there's just, I'm going 34 weeks out of the year, you know,

and, uh, it's a lot of travel, a lot of wear and tear.

And I've been doing this for 20 years and I'm very, very blessed to do it.

Don't get me wrong.

But man, I'm, I'm 43 years old.

I just turned that the other day and, and I was like, man, I usually can sleep on this

concrete floor and, and dude, I'm telling you, we got a great bed.

I'm, I'm finding a different hotel around.

Yeah.

I want that good mattress.

I don't want that.

Yeah.

I want that dream, whatever they call it, or coma mattress.

I think they call it.

Yeah, that's right.

Well, and, and, you know, to not be able to get a chance to win, there's always in the

back of your mind going to be saying, what if, you know, what if, and, and, you know,

how frustrating is that?

How many, there's not many other drivers who've won four championships in time.

No, sir.

Right.

Yeah.

So my kind of goal in life right now is to try to win my fifth championship.

We got real close this year.

I had a brand new crew chief this year.

Um, I've won 55 races so far, four championships, run it up a handful of times, but, uh, with

this new kid, I think I really have won championships with two different crew chiefs.

Right.

And I really think with this new kid, Mike Knudson, um, you know, he's kind of came

up under our old crew chief.

Um, he just, he needed a shot.

You know what I mean?

And there's this time for to be in the sun and he, you know, I really stuck my neck out

for him.

And he, you know, he really performed.

We won three races this year.

You know, no one ever thought we'd even win a race.

You know, and so I just, you know, we got a good group right now.

But, you know, for me, five championships kind of puts you an elite group with just me

and John force.

Right.

Yeah.

Nobody else.

So right now it's, uh, Kenny Bernstein, Don the snake, Pradome, um, John force and me.

Yeah.

There's the four of us that have four championships.

So it's still a very elite group, right?

But like, I think if I could win my fifth, uh, or win our fifth, um, we would, uh, it

would be something I feel like, okay, man, maybe I can walk away from the sport.

You know what I mean?

That kind of thing.

Sure.

Um, and you never know how long that's going to take or if you ever get there, you know,

championships, race wins are hard to get much less a championship.

So I think people have a hard time putting that in perspective.

There's a lot of guys out here that haven't ever even won their first race.

Right.

So, um, I'm very, very blessed and humbled to be around such a great group of guys that

have, have really been motivated and driven and really put a great race car underneath

me.

And I just, I try hard not to mess it up when I do that, you know, that's the worst feeling

in the world, man.

It's to come back and everybody's like, oh man, you know, it's like, no, look at those

10 dudes in the eye and they feel disappointed in you.

I was like, punch me in the head right now because it ain't going to hurt as bad, you

know?

That's what my mom used to say.

You really disappointed me, Stuart.

And I'm like, oh man, you should have just spanked me or something.

What people don't realize is that in your sport versus, let's say like Formula One,

Formula One, the difference between first and second is 45 seconds sometimes.

The difference between first and second in your sport is one one thousandth of a second.

I mean, yeah, you're splitting frog hairs up, man.

I mean, it's like, you know, I've lost a couple races by, you know, a couple, it was

like a hundred thousandths of a second or something like that.

You know, it's just, it's crazy that the timing system and all that kind of stuff

can do that.

But obviously, that's, you know, it's make or break.

A lot of times now these, these races are pitted upon reaction times and we only like

the manufacturers are only two or three and the rules are so tight.

You know, the, the era of John force when he won 10 races in a row or 10 championships

in a row and just dominated that'll never happen again.

Right.

You know, they'll never be another John force because the rules are so strict.

You know, back then you could innovate and if you had enough money that didn't

care, they just go faster and faster and faster and whoever could spend the most

and you had enough cars blocking for you and team members and stuff is what it is.

That's the rules and here you go.

So, but now they don't want us to go any faster.

We're already running three hundred and forty miles an hour and they're like,

hey guys, they added 50 pounds to it.

Sure.

They're trying to slow us down and keep adding rev limiters to it.

So those and, you know, you can't modify or do anything to these cars anymore.

So those, those, I guess, opportunities to kind of just, you know, dominate forever

is because you everybody has the same parts and pieces, you know, and like,

don't get me wrong, Austin, Proc and, and Jimmy, they, they've done a really good

job the last two years.

They won nine races this year.

You know, we won three.

Yeah.

So they have dominated, but it just, it's so tough to do that for a long period

of time because of the rules and everybody kind of figures out this and that.

And everybody's rubbing on the same parts and pieces, you know.

Well, it's like Don Pradoam said, we had him on the show a while back.

And he said, you know, he said, I wouldn't, I'm, I was against changing it

from a quarter mile to a thousand feet.

He said, I think we should have slowed the cars down because he said,

everybody was just so a quarter mile was what we always said.

You know, that was, that was the, the benchmark.

You know, how fast is it in the quarter?

You know, that was our zero to 60 or in the quarter and to go to a thousand

feet, he said, it was, you know, he said, maybe it would have been better

to have some kind of spacers or limiters or something like that on the cars.

Well, I'll tell you what, anybody that's never been on fire and one of these

things, I'll take the extra 320 feet to stop.

You know what I mean?

But there's been some times where I'm going like, man, I realize, you know,

when you see somebody on the news and they're in a skyscraper and they jump

out of a skyscraper to their death because the fire is so hot, that's, I've

been there, you know what I mean?

And it's, it's one of those things where your mind freaks out and you're taking

in all this heat and the fire and you can't see where you're at.

And then you start to panic and then you start to breathe more and then, well,

then you start taking in all this carbon and smoke and then you panic even more

because it's coughing and you're still running, you know, 300 miles an hour.

And it's just like this massive fireball and stuff.

So, so it gets interesting real quick, but I think you got to go through

some of that kind of stuff to realize how to get yourself out of some of those

situations, you know, and I've had some really bad fires early on in my career

that kind of helped me get through the rest of my stuff.

But, but man, there's nobody can tell you how to do that.

So it's tough.

You know, don't get me wrong.

I definitely am a quarter mile guy.

That's how I started as well.

But, but man, when you get that extra 300 feet of stuff somewhere, I'm all

about it. I hear you. I hear you.

Well, you know, it's like anything.

I mean, just up the street, you had a pretty interesting run this season

at Maple Grove and and I know you weren't happy with the, you know, one

of the rules that they have, and that's the tethering.

And that's part of what you just said, where you can't see anything.

And you'd rather that be gone.

I mean, that body, the chances of the body blown into the stands like it did.

Has it been one time?

Maybe that it's actually happened or it's been like once or twice, but it's

like in the history of our sport, we've been blowing bodies off for decades.

And there hasn't been a single fan heard.

I looked it up and there was one incident where someone had a sprain

wrist from, I guess, pushing the body off of them or something.

But other than that, we just, we haven't, you know, and what's happening.

These things, you know, think about 12,000 horsepower, 80,000 foot

pounds of torque, and it's a bomb in your lap.

Right.

And so that energy has to go somewhere.

And a lot of times these cars, you know, they used to shed the body

and that energy would go away and you could see in the parachutes come out

and it straightens the car out, all that kind of stuff.

So those things happen, but then we could, we could control the situation

right better, but now tying these bodies down with the tethers to hold them on.

It's like taking a firecracker and putting your hand and then putting

your hand around it, right?

It's going to knock your fingers off, right?

But if you opened up your hand and burn you, I mean, it's still not great

no matter what, but just it's just physics, man.

I mean, like, and we're trying to say, like, this is the best thing for us.

Well, it might be to keep them, you know, from flying up in the air.

But man, it makes it really, really dangerous for our drivers.

And, you know, we've already had a couple of drivers get hurt from it

and different things like that.

I mean, you look at John Force, he would probably as crazy as John

Force is, he would probably still be in a race car right now, you know.

But he's 70. How does he 70?

He's got to be 76 or 77.

You feel like a young punk, you know, he was 30 when you were born.

Oh, I know.

I guess the first time I ever saw John Force was on CNN and he was

talking to Larry King, you know, and I was like, who is this guy?

This guy's high on life.

You know what I mean?

So he's just living it up.

He was living it up.

You got anybody dreamed of racing.

Yeah. And anybody who has that kind of enthusiasm, you got, you can't help

but like, you know, even if you don't agree with them, you just like them

because they're just so enthusiastic, you know.

Yeah, he's good people.

Yeah. And there's been a lot of good people in this sport.

You know, and your sport has been, you know, I mean, if you look at the guys,

Kenny Bernstein and those guys back in the day and even further back in the day,

I mean, my God, Frank Hawley and of course, Perdome and John Force.

So many great things.

Oh, my God.

And just down the street from us is Bruce Larson, who won, I think he won in 89,

I think, one year only.

He won the championship, which is kind of weird.

But so you got started, though.

Was Bristol your home track?

I mean, when you were growing up, is that the track you went to?

Yeah, you know, Bristol kind of is.

I mean, they're both Bristol and Charlotte are two hours away from me.

So it's really kind of flip a coin of which, you know, you want to call home,

whichever race that weekend is.

I'm like, oh, this is my home track.

You know, but, but, you know, I really got started.

You can see this 69 dart behind me here.

And it was one of my family friends.

He worked for my dad and he was kind of like my second dad.

You know, he was one of those guys that sneak your beers and take you to

the racetrack and let you air the tires up and all that kind of stuff.

And, you know, at the time, I mean, I wasn't drinking beer at 13,

but when he started taking me to the thing was around 13.

And and so anyway, long story short,

I just fell in love with this car behind me.

You know, I mean, this thing's a gear jammer.

It's got a it's got a 570 all aluminum motor in it.

And it's just, you know, it stands on its back bumper.

And when you pull second gear, you're looking at blue sky, right?

And I was just like, oh, my gosh, this is crazy.

You know, so I didn't have a race car at 13, but I had a four wheeler.

So he was like, well, throw your four wheeler on the race.

Holler will chair it down there.

And then they let me bracket race it.

And I I won some money the first time.

And I was like, OK, so pops has a dealership.

And I started stealing cars off of his used car a lot and bring them back

with no transmissions in them.

And he kind of got wind of that.

And then, you know, helped me get my first race car, which was like a Chevy

2 Nova with a 406 with a slapstick and breaking it.

One thing led to another fell in love with the sport, man,

and just kind of worked my way up through it and really got in front

of the right people at the right time.

And, you know, I think the biggest thing in my career was I own my own team.

And I went to Indy, which is the NHR's biggest race.

And I qualified for Selzey and Tommy Johnson, Jr. at Indy.

And yes, yeah, just on my own dime, doing my own thing.

And Don Schumacher walked through my pit and he was like, who are you?

And where'd you come from?

And do you got any money that you can spend?

And I was like, no, he got no money, man.

But but I like willing these race cars.

And and so he he said, well, Gary sells his retire and he's going to go

back and work his family business and his kids are young and he's kind of,

you know, want to spend more time with them.

And he's like, I need a wheel man.

He's like, why don't you sell your hunk of junk and come drive mine?

And I was like, it's not like pretty good plan to me, you know?

So and by then, you know, that my first year, we'd blown up so much

like at my sponsorship, I thought I was going to have to go take a loan

out to get to the end of the year.

You know, I was like, I was like, you know, when you're you're young,

like that was 19 years old and you think, oh man, I got like $3 million

sponsor and I got these trailers and trucks and rigs within my crew.

Chief kept set me on fire and blowing the stuff up.

And I was just like, this little pot of money that I thought I was going

to have at the end of the season, it kept getting smaller and smaller.

And then it just went to zero.

And then I'm like, how do I get to the last race?

Don't have enough gas money.

Yeah.

So when Don came by, I was like, this is a great idea.

Let me sell this stuff.

Yeah.

Well, it just happened with Josh Hart and top fuel dragsters.

He just sold his team and went to driving for John force.

So, you know, that's he said he was glad to get away from the bookkeeping

and accounting and payroll stuff.

Oh, I bet.

Yeah, it's a lot.

Oh, man, it's it's so much.

And, you know, sponsors, I mean, you got to make these guys happy.

Although I love your sponsor, the American Rebel beer.

I mean, man, Andy's great.

Listen, their slogan, America's patriotic, God fearing,

constitution loving, national anthem singing, stand your ground beer.

That's so cool.

He's he's a true blooded American man.

I'm telling you, like, he just was at my place, my farm, and was shooting a video.

He had a TV hunting show for 10 years.

And then he kind of started writing some songs.

And then they the guy that actually took Smith and Weston and bought it

and turned it around, it was going bankrupt at the time was Corey.

And he he saw Andy or knew Andy somehow through some of these song stuff

and just fell in love with the brand, the American Rebel.

And then they started out with a safe company

and basically a concealed carry company.

And they're like, well, man, these safes are kind of hard to sell

because it's a one time purchase and shipping and stuff.

He's like, you know, we're already public.

So let's let's do something with racing.

And he's like, well, everybody needs beer and everybody drinks beer.

You know, so so one thing led to another.

But Andy Ross has been amazing.

No different than Jason Johnson and obviously my part sponsors and stuff like that.

But he's just sort of the earth guy, man.

And I mean, he's just kind of a cool dude that you just kind of have fun with.

And he, you know, we spent a lot of time together.

And you know what's kind of wild is like Andy signed on and we won a championship

that year and we won three or four races with his car.

And then every time he shows up, we keep winning.

And so I was like, man, we got to get you on this car all the time or something.

You know what I mean? But sure.

But it's but it's really neat to have a situation where, you know,

Mopar picks up 10 and then Andy's got five with American Rebel and Jason

picks up five and we're just fully funded.

And that's that's kind of unheard of out here a lot to have multi years

where you're you're just not worrying about sponsorship.

And that just tells you how great our partners are and how excited they are.

And, you know, Andy's trying to get more races and Jason is too.

And Mopar won't come off many.

So it's just kind of it's a great situation to be in.

Well, you've been with Mopar a long time, right? I mean, I have.

I've been coming up on 18 years with Dodge and Mopar now.

And they just, you know, I get a lot of fans that come up.

Some of them will have like a Mopar tattoo on their neck.

I'm like, brother, I drive the car and I don't think I'm that big of a fan.

You know what I mean? Like you were a die hard fan.

You know, I love what the the Dodge CEO called you the ultimate bad assider,

like ambassador, but bad assider.

I thought that was that was great. That was so cool.

That's cool. Now, they've been a really good sponsor for me for the last

coming up on 18 years now and I've been able to win several championships

and just I've seen a lot of couple of them come and go up with big companies.

There's internal turnover, but we've made a lot of great relationships

and been able to keep it alive for a long time.

And they're just they're just great.

You know, Mark Whitney is the guy that's basically now that's kind of like

he runs it up the chain to the top guy, but he's our guy.

And he's in the trenches with us and he's a racer as well.

So he gets it.

So it's not like you're trying to have to pitch it and sell it.

And he's super easy.

He drives the most of the races and he comes in, hangs out in the pit

and in our and our stuff and just he sees the value, right?

Like we're we're a huge like the the days of, you know,

went on Sunday, by on Monday are kind of gone.

You know, we're allowed fast billboard, right?

And people pay attention when we hit the pedal, you know what I mean?

So he understands the value behind it.

And, you know, we're we're very blessed to have a bunch of great partners.

Well, at Meekum auctions, you know, they had the drifting set up

with the dodged cars out there and the challengers and the himmys and all that stuff.

And that is such a huge thing for them, you know.

But like you said, when on Sunday, you know, sell on Monday,

doesn't really happen like it used to happen.

But but the awareness you have to keep.

I mean, there's a reason that Budweiser and Coca-Cola still advertise

because you have to keep your name out there. You have to.

It's keeping in the front of that brain, you know, because it's, you know,

there's everybody's got options and nowadays everybody wants the cheapest thing going.

But, you know, where do you go get a thousand horsepower car now?

You know, I mean, you can there's a couple other other places,

but like it's just like Dodge and Mopar has been known for that.

That old, old, old school muscle, man.

Well, not many people are even making cars anymore.

I mean, you know, if you look at Ford, I don't think Ford has a passenger car

even in their lineup anymore. It's either trucks or SUVs or, you know,

some kind of weird hybrid, whatever.

When speaking of cars, I think the Ford president,

he came out and said that there's like five thousand, you know,

mechanic jobs right now that they're paying over $100,000 a year.

I saw that. Yeah, they cannot fill them.

And you think and as long as it will take people to go to school

and learn it, you know, by then, then where they have a two year cap program

that we promote, we bring these kids in every race.

And on Fridays, they come into our hospitality tent.

We sit them down and we put dealers in front of them.

So they leave the school with a job opportunity before they even graduate.

Right. Right. And this cap program is great.

You know, Dodge does it and we get to talk to these young individuals

and, you know, kind of tell them how to stay motivated and stay in school.

And, you know, the like what separates you from the person beside of you?

You know, if you lay your resume on the desk and it's like, yeah,

you're all in the same school, but what have you done more to make sure

that they pick your resume over the person beside of you?

You know, just you get to just kind of like open their brain for a little bit

and kind of talk about some of that stuff, but also show them that,

hey, it's not just in a dealership.

You can I have several guys that have been through some of these tech programs

that work on my car and they won championships with me.

So the sky's the limit, right?

And we got to perpetuate the hobby.

I mean, or the hobby, it's not a hobby anymore.

That's even my business is not a hobby anymore.

But but we do have to perpetuate like my first in college in Kansas

that teaches kids how to restore old cars and classic cars and pre-war cars

and keep some interested in all that.

We've got to keep the youth interested in more of it.

Otherwise, it's going to be a couple of electric cars.

You can't even hear running down the track.

And the coolest thing about drag racing is the sound and the fury.

I mean, if you don't know that, you know, I hadn't been to a drag race

until I moved up here eight years ago in about 20 years.

And I went to Maple Grove and I was just like, my God, these things are just

they're just pissed off and they're running like the loudest.

It's a small earthquake.

So we have some seismologists come out and it's a 2.3 on the record scale.

When two fuel cars leave the start line.

So it is a it truly is a mini earthquake.

And they run for it, Charlie, which I don't even that doesn't even compute.

That's great. Yeah.

But I remember the first time I was going to Bristol back in the day

in the early 80s, when literally the fence and we've talked about this on the show,

the fence was literally right on the track.

I mean, there wasn't a big grassy buffer area.

You could be standing there and on Saturday night when they were qualifying

and those flames are shooting out of there, they were singeing your eyebrows.

I mean, you were right there rocking him rocking him this year.

They just added it to our schedule.

And if I do remember right, because that was first place I ever won my first

IHRA went through the same thing.

There's a there's a stand right there on the track.

And then there's like a chain link fence.

And it's just like you press your face up and get on your on your face.

You know, exactly right.

So so the farming is going to carry when you decide to retire.

You got the farming to go on.

Yeah, well, I bought a beef jerky company or beef stick company, you know,

and the it was kind of one of those things of farming and that.

And then we got, you know, a CBD company and some other stuff.

Right. I'm really pumped up about this beef stick company right now.

I mean, this lady, Charlotte Haynes, she had the she's the heiress

does Hanna Haynes underwear. Yeah.

And she came in and I was trying to just get some beef sticks made, you know,

because we sell meat across the country as well and stuff.

And we're we're actually kind of like tearing that down to just be more local

just because of shipping and dry ice or labor and overhead.

But anyway, I went in there to get just some of these sticks made.

And she's like, you need to buy this place.

And I was like, I don't need to buy this place.

You know, she's like, make me an offer, you know.

And so one thing that I made her offer and she she was like, took it.

And I was like, oh, my gosh, now we have a company, you know,

then you got to figure out how to pay for it.

Yeah. Of course. Well, that's always the best way to do it.

You know, I figure that's so I got a question for you.

Do you eat if you raise an Angus beef, you eat steak for every meal?

Is that just, you know, yeah, we put two in the freezer every every year.

You know what I mean?

And we we we munch on them pretty much all the time.

And, you know, I don't know if it's always just for breakfast,

but we definitely got one of the three meals we're eating some type of beef.

Some type of you got to you got that protein in your life.

Right. You know, and a good quality stuff.

You know, that's what people don't understand is that, you know, by the time

that you buy it out of the grocery store, by the time it hits your plate,

it's changed hands almost seven times, you know, so it's crazy.

Seven different opportunities for somebody to put something in it

or give it an antibiotic or give it a hormone or this or that.

You know, when you buy straight from the farmers or your local farmer there,

it's usually from farm to table.

I mean, other than the processor that puts it in a bag and cuts it up, you know,

but that's what I think people don't realize.

Right. And the prices have gotten crabbing.

You go to Wegmans, which is a local grocery store chain around here,

which is a great store chain and it's amazing.

You know, you pick up a steak and you look at it, it's thirty five dollars.

You think, my God, I remember in 1981, you go out to a fancy restaurant

and a filet mignon was six ninety five.

Yeah, I wish it was now an age, you know, so long away from that.

Important question, though, when the cows are lying down,

does that mean it's going to rain or does that not mean?

It's so stored, man, you know what I mean?

So I've seen them standing in the land, but usually if they're laying there,

some weather or a front coming in, you know, so it kind of like that.

Old old saying, you know, if you see the trees turn the leaves upside down,

that's exactly right.

So my last question that I always like to ask everybody on the show is,

and I pretty much think I know this answer.

What's your daily driver?

Oh, man, I just got a bunch of pickup trucks.

You know, I love that.

You know, and obviously Dodge supplies me with a Hellcat Durango.

It would kind of zip around in and try to put some miles on it.

But they gave me a Hellcat Red Eye, really.

And that didn't really go that well on the farm.

We had a lot of cow crap all over it all the time.

I turned the thing in and they're like, there's cow stains in the floorboards.

It's like, I was like, I don't know what to tell you, man.

Let's get an SUV or something.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, give a race car to a farmer.

And that's what you're going to get, right?

You know, they're going to be strong in there and there's going to be mud.

And that's the way it is.

And you don't like it.

Dodge hooks me up pretty good on, you know, some discounts on buying trucks and stuff.

We got a lot of 5,500s in our fleet and stuff like that.

So, you know, but it's like anything else, man.

And, you know, I do have some old trucks that I love to kind of tinker with.

I got an 86 Dodge and a 63 Dodge V 200.

And then I got a V 300 dump truck, you know, that's a 66.

Sure.

So I like to tinker with some of that old stuff a little bit

and kind of redo it and kind of, you know, just, just wrench on stuff.

Like that stuff you can wrench on, right?

And it's therapy, right?

You got to plug them in, you know.

It's therapy, too.

You kind of work on a car and think about it and all that.

Well, listen, Matt, we really appreciate you being on the show today.

And I definitely want to hook up with your buddy from Johnson's Horsepower Garage.

And when you're at Maple Grove this year, I'm going to come see you

because we're seven miles is the flow.

Let me know.

I'll take care of you guys on some tickets.

I appreciate that.

And yeah, we'll definitely shout out to Judy Stropis.

Absolutely.

She's awesome.

So awesome.

Thanks again, Matt Hagen, everybody.

Thanks again.

We'll talk to you soon.

We'll be back in just a couple of minutes with the classic autumn all show.

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That's why there's classicautomall.com.

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And we're back with a classicautomall show from the ClassicAutomall Studio in Morgantown, Pennsylvania.

Matt Hagen, what a great guest.

Oh, wow.

Talked to him all day.

Awesome.

Exhausted.

And you didn't get into your Southern thing too much.

I thought you two were going to be back and forth.

Well, you know, sometimes the obvious thing.

That's why I'm sitting in the captain's chair.

I mean, he's going as fast as his cars.

Yeah, it's amazing.

But the businesses that he has and everything he's got and gone as many weeks as he said,

35 weeks out of the year, which is that is tough.

I mean, you talk to anybody that does that's, you know, in a rock band or in anything that travels that much.

It doesn't become fun.

It's like, you know, the reason the joke is, you know, Good Night Cleveland could be for Kipsey.

It could be Salt Lake City.

And it's just every night is the same.

It's just it's like Groundhog Day in a different city.

You think about that going to a drag strip.

I mean, they all look the same.

They're just all one big long straight line.

Well, and he's got race cars and then American Rebel beer.

And Hagen cattle company jerky.

So like you got your snacks, you got your beer, you got your TV and you're watching your racing.

And yeah, I like it a lot.

I like being that busy.

So where did we sell cars the past two weeks?

Where you might add?

How about Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania, New Freedom, Pennsylvania, Elizabeth City,

North Carolina, Sunset, South Carolina, Elverson, Pennsylvania, Port Republic, New Jersey,

Downingtown, Pennsylvania, Semmys, Alabama, Springfield, Pennsylvania,

Mullica Hill, New Jersey, Levittown, Pennsylvania, Delran, New Jersey,

Rigby, Idaho, Lexington Park, Maryland, Jackson, New Jersey, Charlotte, North Carolina,

Perky, Omenville, Pennsylvania, Malvern, Pennsylvania, Hamburg, Pennsylvania,

Lehighton, Pennsylvania, Concha, Huckin, Pennsylvania, Murfreesboro, Tennessee,

Quakertown, Pennsylvania twice, Baldwin'sville, New York, Greenbelt, Maryland, Dickinson,

Texas, Maple Shade, New Jersey, Meyerstown, Pennsylvania, Leesport, Pennsylvania,

and Ogde, France for the third time.

We sold three cars to France.

BNC.

I was kind of busy. I had a busy couple of weeks there.

That's great. How was your Thanksgiving?

It was very nice. It was very quiet here. Kathy and I just chilled.

That's great.

Then we're going to go for Christmas. We're going to go see the grandkids in Missouri.

So that'll be anarchy and chaos.

We got a dog. Speaking of anarchy and chaos.

Sorry to hear that. We got rid of five kids. We're like, we don't need a dog because we

don't want to say, well, I'm sorry. We can't take that trip to Monaco because we've got a dog.

Well, we never had kids and this is our new kid.

I bought a vehicle over the holiday.

You did?

I did, yeah.

What did you get?

A Laforza parts truck showed up in Boyertown of all places.

Yeah, and a friend showed it to me. I didn't see it.

Posted it on Saturday. My friend showed me on Sunday. By Tuesday, I had a deposit on it.

It's just a parts truck, but it's the same spec as mine and we dragged it over to the house.

Clean Pennsylvania title and all that good stuff, so you got that. That's all good.

It's all good.

So what are you going to do with it?

I'm going to cannibalize parts, as they say, and I'm going to sell the rest of it as a parts

truck. Otherwise, I don't want to be shipping windshields and stuff because there's a lot of

money in the parts, but it's a lot of time.

But you hit the nail on the head. And people ask me all the time, they go, I got this car.

It's only worth like five grand as a whole, but it might be worth 10 or 12 grand in parts.

And you say, absolutely it might. You ever shipped a bumper to California?

That's right.

Not fun. Tires, wheels, California.

You got to build crates basically.

Yeah, you got to build some kind of crate and it's not fun. I've told the story,

Kathy and I sold 120 Schwinn bicycles on eBay, no reserve, and they all ended on Monday and by

Tuesday everybody paid and everybody's going, where's our bikes? We're like, oh, we never

thought about the shipping and we only charged $20 per. Oh no.

And we had to go steal bike boxes from dumpsters and buy bike shops.

Lesson learned.

Yeah, I was like, I never want to ship anything that's not as is, where it is.

That can fit in an envelope.

Either in an envelope or you got to come pick it up and put it in the product.

But I, you know, I'm never going to ship that kind of stuff again. So yes,

you can make more money doing that. And if you've got, you know, the timer,

space and space and whatever, then, then go for it. Do it. But, you know,

to sell like an 85 Jaguar with 120,000 miles, it's probably going to be worth four or five

grand. Now you could part it out for probably like I said, 10 or 12 more. But, you know,

it's the same thing. I think probably there's three times the money I paid for this thing

in parts, but I don't have the time.

Yeah. Who has the time?

Okay.

Retired.

I need you writing.

That's right. Yeah. I can't write today.

Not forzaing.

I'm building a crate for a door panel.

Exactly. So how about some of the new arrivals? How about the 1970 Jaguar XKE Coupe?

A little pricier than the $5,000 referencing. This one's in Ascot Fawn over Biscuit.

Ascot Fawn is a great name.

And Biscuit. What a name.

Good color combo.

Is that like a big old chalky biscuit you get from the south or is that something different?

It's a British biscuit.

It's a British biscuit. It's like a scone.

80,000 actual miles, 4.2 liter double overhead cam,

six cylinder, inline six. It's got that iconic, you know, that E-type is just unbelievable,

that styling. And as we always say, what's his name?

Ferrari.

He said it was the most beautiful car ever made.

Actually, he was talking about the Roadster, not the Coupe.

Right.

Still.

It's still got the same look to it. And when you're driving the Coupe and you're looking

out over the hood, it looks exactly the same as the Roadster.

Does it change anything?

And it's got a four-speed manual transmission.

That's nice.

So that is nice.

Also, a new arrival, the 68 Plymouth Barracuda Formula S. Fastback. Now, this is a tribute.

Yes.

Meaning that it's in honor of the Formula S. It started life as just a regular old Barracuda.

As we say, no harm, no foul.

No harm, no foul. As long as you announce it and say it and make sure that everybody understands

what it is and what it isn't. This is Sable White over red with a 344 barrel.

Got an A833 four-speed manual tranny and the sure grip axle and power front disc brakes.

This thing is really nicely done.

One of the best tail ends of any car.

Yeah, it really does. It's got a great look to it. It's like a boat tail.

It's like a modern day boat tail or modern day in the 60s.

And that fastback thing.

It's just really cool looking, so.

Also, a new end is the 1973 Plymouth Roadrunner Coupe. Silver Frost Metallic over black.

This is a two owner in the B body category. Numbers matching 360 cubic inch V8.

Numbers matching torque flight automatic. The axle is the eight and three-quarter,

three-twenty-three axle. This car, you don't see them very often because, probably because they

weren't very well built initially. This one's been done and nice and it's in amazing condition.

And the colors really stand, stands out with that charcoal gray.

They're unique.

Yeah, I really, they call it Silver Frost, but it's more charcoal to me.

And it's the last year for that body style.

That's right. That's right. This is, they say, the end of the muscle car.

And only less than 10,000 were built that year.

And yeah, in the buy, sell, hold category, I would say this is a buy.

Absolutely, because they're not quite collectible like some of the earlier ones are.

The B bodies.

The B bodies are, so.

We also got a great 1960 Chevrolet and Palo convertible.

Tesco turquoise over turquoise.

Frame off restored, climate controlled for its entire life, 348, three twos.

The three-two barrels, which makes six barrels.

Six barrels.

So it's like a, you know, six barrel and a Borg-Warner four-speed manual,

which is kind of interesting. But this thing's long, low and mean.

It's just really a cool looking car.

And it's hard to say mean about a car that's turquoise.

Right. It is, but it is.

They had a face. They had an attitude.

They absolutely did.

And next for something completely different, the 1988 BMW R100 GS motorcycle, Alpenweiss

over red, fully restored bike.

This was featured down at the Simeon when they had a selection of bikes down there,

I think, one time.

That's right.

And it's been in Radner Hunt, which is a participant out there.

That's Provenon's.

Yeah. John Lawless, he puts together the class for the Radner Hunt motorcycle category.

It does an amazing job and gets these cool things.

So this is nice provenance.

980cc boxer two-cylinder, five-speed manual with Brembo front disc brakes.

I'm learning all about motorcycles.

How cool is that?

And last but not least, this is near and dear to my heart, the 1968 Plymouth Fury 3

sports suburban station wagon, owned by yours truly, and my buddy Toby.

Yes, that's right.

Anyway, give Toby credit for this.

Got the red one, right?

That's right.

That's the red one.

Red.

Matador red.

Red and wood.

And wood grain over red interior.

It's got the big old 318 in it.

That's a hard, reliable 318.

Yeah, the reliable 3 on the tree.

It's got an AACA historic preservation award as well too for it.

And it's a long roof cruiser and it's got battle scars.

It's been used.

It was one family owned and they used it and had fun with it and all that good stuff.

The head that doesn't have the reverse facing seat.

Does it?

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't remember.

I don't know.

I don't remember.

It might.

I can't remember if it does or it doesn't.

Well, if you go on classicautomall.com and you look it up there,

well, you will find if it has the rear facing seat.

And then you can laugh about how silly I am that I don't know.

Just put Fury in the search field and it'll come up.

It'll pop up.

There it'll be.

And all the other furies we have.

And all the furies.

It'll be furiously furied.

Anyway, when we return, we'll begin our conversation with our good friend,

Mr. Keith Martin, Publisher of Sportscar Market Magazine.

We'll see you in just a couple of minutes.

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This is the Classic Automall Show.

If you have questions or comments,

write podcast at classicautomall.com.

And we're back with the Classic Automall Show

from the Classic Automall Studio in Morgantown, PA.

We're joining us now via Zoom from the West Coast

as our friend Keith Martin,

Publisher of Sportscar Market Magazine.

Good morning, Keith. How are you?

What I'm just great. How are you?

Doing well. We took a week off for Thanksgiving last week.

I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.

We went to a fancy restaurant.

Really?

We didn't do all the work.

I had the best old fashioned I'd ever had.

I had pecan pie for dessert that I didn't have to make.

Oh, that sounds good.

And all I had to do was give him a credit card

and go home and be happy.

You know what? I tell you, the older you get,

the more that sounds really, really desirable.

If not have to go.

We cooked all, for three of us,

we cooked all day the night before.

We're doing this, we're scheduling that,

and worried that Turkey's going to be,

oh, it's just become so much work.

And good, though. It's your family.

It's your friends.

And so each one has its advantage.

I've just, for the past couple of years,

I've just decided to take all the stress out of Thanksgiving.

Well, and in life in general,

just get rid of your stress.

Enjoy, go out and enjoy your car.

And what does the old say, you know,

buy the dress, drink the next second glass of wine,

go drive your car, do, you know, live and enjoy,

and don't be so stressed out.

But I have to correct you.

You said, enjoy yourself, have fun, drive your car.

Right.

Now, those three things don't always go in the same package.

Well, that's true, too.

And that takes us up to the blog.

Yeah, yeah.

Let me, let me.

Nice segue.

I'm going to skip the destruction derby I did

with my 9-11 for a second,

where I backed into the Wakanda Wall four times.

Four times. Wow. Okay.

All right.

Well, two, two and a half, well, what happened,

well, I'll make it short.

What happens with these three 9-11s,

they have a hand throttle.

Right.

And so instead of an idle increase, that's the way,

so I, I got in the car and,

and I hadn't been in that car in a while,

and the pedal configuration is just a little different.

Right.

The gas and the brake.

It's a sport-o-matic, so there's no clutch.

So I fired the car up,

and I had the hand throttle on just a little bit,

and the car started rolling backwards.

And these cars has this big five mile an hour impact bumpers.

Right.

And so I rolled maybe 10 feet at two miles an hour

and bumped into the wall behind me.

I thought, what the heck is this all about?

Like what, what's, it has my master cylinder gone out?

Well, it had to be that,

because it could not be the lack of driving skills.

So it couldn't be the fact that I was pressing

on the floorboard instead of the brake pedal.

Yeah, that might have had something to do.

It's like a, it's like a bad, you know,

passenger, just backseat driver, right?

That, so I turn around, I want to go back,

you know, across the condo,

because I have to back out and,

and I start the car and it creeps forward

at five miles an hour and goes bump into the thing.

It's just, I had to stop and look down at my feet and say, okay,

okay, foot, right foot, brake.

There's the brake.

Let's practice putting the,

amazing thing Stuart was,

I was prepared to be unbelievably bummed

with little Benson.

Oh yeah.

Nope.

But those bumpers totally protected the car

and there was a mark on that car.

What they were designed to do, right?

That was what they were built for,

was to protect your car,

the five mile per hour bumper test

that they used to have back in the day.

Oh my God.

I prefer not to test it again.

Are there cameras in your building

and in your garage?

I'm just curious if we could see any of this.

I disabled though.

Yeah, smashed them with a baseball bat

as you left the garage, right?

So stupid to have the car creeping forward

and not, I kept pressing and pressing and pressing,

but I was not pressing the brake pedal,

I was pressing the floorboard.

Oh my God, isn't that,

that's a, that's a horrible feeling

when you're, when you think that you're doing something

and it's not, the reaction is not happening

like it's supposed to happen.

And that's a terrible gut feeling

because you feel completely out of control.

Yeah, but I survive.

Yeah.

And so, and there's some carpet

got bunched up under there a little bit too.

That may have had a little.

Yeah, the carpet, I need to get some cocoa mats down there

and get the, it's the original carpet from 75 on the car.

I think you need some cocoa mats

and some sheepskin seat covers

and you'll really be in this Mr. 70s or 80s.

You know, I think you can buy even cheaper

covers than sheepskin.

What if that would, I don't want to know.

You know, because Walmart has some,

they're just kind of a nice vinyl

that goes over the car.

They're just a nice protector, you know.

It's like those bros that we used to put

on the front of our cars that were so ugly,

you know, they were just black.

Once they destroyed the paint.

Destroyed the paint and looked like crap,

but they saved you from rock chips.

From something.

Something, I think so.

And then of course your, your last blog

was the pennies back in the grenade.

Well, you and I talked a little bit about this,

sometimes bringing a car into service

is like breaking a horse.

Yeah.

You know, and I, with this car,

it was because there were different things.

The generator, some, or alternator,

sometimes the light would go on,

sometimes the light would go off.

Right.

You know, sometimes the heat would work,

sometimes the heat wouldn't work,

sometimes the idle will work.

I knew that I had broken head studs

and sooner or later the head gasses

would start to leak.

Right.

So I was really miserable driving the car

because I was just waiting for the next shoe to drop.

Right.

And then, and I,

so I, what I've done is, you know,

over the course of $20,000 in three years

or maybe $25,000 or maybe I don't know,

you know, some number, it,

it's gradually we've fixed each layer of thing.

And now it's a great car.

Now it's turning into, well, on Sunday last week

I was out with the Porsche Group here.

There were 10997s, brand new cars,

and my 50 year old 911.

Really?

And all these twisty roads.

And I had no trouble keeping up with them,

but I was working my ass off.

And they were just leisurely cruising.

They were, they were, I don't know,

they were listening to a podcaster.

Hopefully mine.

But I, I had to, I had to actually hit the apex of the turn.

I had to break early.

I had to be, I, I really, again,

it was great fun for me because I'm really busy,

but they were just cruising.

Yeah.

And I, you know,

there's times when you want to be busy driving

and there's times when you want to cruise.

You're in stop and go traffic,

you'd prefer the cruising side of it.

But on a twisty road, that's, you know,

that you're there because of driving.

You're not, there's no mission to get anywhere.

You're not got to get to the store and home before dinnertime.

That's when you want to enjoy a car

and enjoy a manual transmission

and enjoy hitting the apex of the corner

and enjoy all of those things that,

that we all preach and talk about,

but don't get to do nearly as much as we'd like to.

I agree.

You know.

The Porsche Club here puts on usually two events a week.

They're not retired or anything, are they?

They're not.

What I like about the club is they're so busy

and what I've,

I've always maintained that with cars,

there's value in use.

Sure.

Yeah.

I think so.

Absolutely.

And, and it's better for the car to be used than just to sit.

There's no question about that.

There's nothing worse than a car just sitting.

So, so the pin is back in the grenade.

It's secured, not loose,

and won't be coming out soon, right?

Well, here's the question that that begs.

I prepped this,

I fixed this nine,

this 2.7 to sell it.

Right.

So that you buy a more modern 996 with a Tiptronic in it.

But I'm having too much fun.

I don't, I say keep it.

I say no harm, no foul.

And you, you fixed it under one premise.

You're keeping it under another.

So be it.

You know, you,

there's no,

there shouldn't be many rules to what we're doing here.

It should just.

Do you mean that I have to admit that I've changed my mind?

Yes.

I think you have to do that.

Publicly, right here on the,

with you and our other 10 or 12 subscribers.

Okay, I thought you said there were eight.

Well, it just jumped up because you came on.

And so somehow that magically seems to raise the bar.

And when I record this, that counts as another one.

Right, exactly.

I'd like for you and all your friends to watch this as many

times you can humanly possible watch this over the next,

you know, 10, 12 days and we'll be just fine.

Actually, our numbers are really,

really good as you and I discussed.

Are you telling me that?

Yeah, it's.

How many did you get for Bruce Meier?

A hundred and a hundred and seventy six thousand for Bruce Meier.

Hundred and ninety three for Spike Ferreston,

Jerry Seinfeld's buddy who's got the Porsche collection.

Hundred and twenty six thousand on a couple of others.

I mean, our subscribers are over 130,

almost a hundred and forty thousand subscribers

and growing about a thousand a day, which I don't even,

when you start talking to those kind of things.

How does that relate to your core business?

I don't know.

I mean, we're having fun.

It's promoting classic auto mall.

Does it mean we're going to sell more cars,

which ultimately is kind of why we're doing it

or why we started doing it?

Let me let me back up with that.

The reason we started doing it is because I thought it'd be fun

to talk about cars and have people on

and do what you and I get to do every week.

And it's a lot of fun and I enjoy it.

And it's kind of a release valve for me.

All of a sudden, we went for four years of doing it,

where we had maybe what, we had five thousand subscribers.

And then in the last year, boom,

we go from five thousand to one hundred and thirty seven thousand.

And now it's becoming a thing.

But are we seeing more car sales from it?

Probably not.

We might see a few more eyeballs on what we're doing

and maybe in the long run, it will.

But we're not seeing a direct connection to it yet.

So either this thing is going to start paying for itself

or I'm going to have to find something else to do.

Oh, there's certainly a brand awareness

because I hear people talk about classic auto mall.

So there's something going on.

What do they say that 60% of advertising works

but we're just not sure what the percentage is?

That's exactly right.

Somebody said, you should cut out some of this advertising.

You're spending so much.

I said, it's working.

What should we cut out?

Well, I don't know.

Well, exactly.

I mean, which one do you cut out?

If it's working and you're doing well.

But to do this show every week

and to get the kind of guests that we're able to get

and to have you on is, you know, it's not nothing.

It's A, a lot of work and B, it's a lot of fun.

And C, we hope that it helps promote our brand and what we do

and we get, you know, nice recognition.

I'm speaking next Tuesday

at the Madison Avenue Sports Car Driving and Shouter Society,

which, you know, I mean, five years ago,

if you'd asked me, I would never get invited to that.

No, I didn't, you know, I wasn't in that circle of things.

But, you know, now we are.

So there's certainly some validity to what you said

about the recognition side of it.

And I love nothing better than to walk into an airplane

with my logo on my hat or my shirt and somebody say,

classic automobile, you know, that'll make you feel good.

I understand, I understand.

That makes you feel real good.

Well, the challenge we all face

is how we get our message across

in an internet social media world.

Yeah.

And when we're analog people, you know, sometimes,

sometimes life is a bowl of soup and I'm a fork.

I understand.

For my magazine, once the magazine gets into the hands of somebody,

they become a subscriber and we have them for life.

Exactly.

I think that's getting a social media kid to the magazine.

Right.

We're figuring it out.

We're trying some things and we're starting to get it

to get traction.

But what a challenge that is.

Yeah, it's very difficult.

Same with us here.

Once we get people in the door, we kind of got them.

We're the same way.

Once they open page one or walk through these glass doors

to come into classic automobile,

it's hard for them to walk out and not love it.

Even if they weren't car people or not car people,

you know, an older woman who in her, you know, late seventies

comes in and doesn't think much about cars.

Cars aren't really her thing.

And she comes in and just goes, oh my God, there's this

and there's that.

And there's the car we did this and we grew up with

neighbor and cool kid and all those different things.

And so once we get them through the door, I think, you know,

we've got them.

And I think that's the same with you is that we,

we have good sauce once you get inside.

Well, so I have one quick, one quick question as we wind up here.

My place where I store my car is Protek by Mike Christopherson

here in Portland.

He's having a whiskey tasting tonight.

Oh, I don't think it's whiskey taste can then test drive the car.

That's what I was going to say to you.

Yeah, you might want to, you know, it's like the drive-thru liquor store.

It's, you know, I'll never forget going to Tijuana one time.

I was in a van full of six people and then we went through a drive-in liquor store

and we all ordered margaritas.

They just handed us a tray through the car window.

Like, like when you used to go to Shoneys and they put that tray on your window.

Anyway, you have social events there.

We do.

We have lots of events here and we have clubs that meet in our meeting rooms.

We have, you know, car shows that come here and they're kind of half social,

half car show, and we have clubs that will come and bring their 20 or 30 cars and then

they'll have their meeting in one of our rooms here.

So we have social events.

We don't have parties per se, but we do have a lot of events that are going on here on a

pretty regular basis.

Well, we'll talk about those next week.

Absolutely, sounds great.

Thanks again for being on the show today, Keith, everybody.

Keith Martin, Sports Car Market Magazine, and we'll be back next week with a new show and

hopefully some guests that will to be determined.

We'll see you next week.

Oh, what a relief.

It is what a relief.

The Classic Automall Show with their host, Stuart Howden, executive producer, Steve Sethere,

produced and engineered by yours truly, JR Russ, video editor, Randy Lamby.

Available on ClassicAutomall.com, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Music, courtesy of the Pat Traverse Band, for tour dates, contact, and stuff,

visit pattraverse.com.

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Classic Auto Mall - #222 - Stewart Howden with Guests Matt Hagan + Keith Martin

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