Classic Auto Mall - #237 - Stewart Howden with Guests Rick Shaffer and Keith Martin
Classic Auto Mall SHOW
Classic Auto Mall - #237 - Stewart Howden with Guests Rick Shaffer and Keith Martin
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Concept
Classic Automall
This is basically a big indoor marketplace for classic cars. Instead of going to lots of different places, you can look at many cars in one location.
Concept
Indianapolis
Indianapolis is a famous place for racing in the U.S. A lot of big events happen there, especially the Indy 500, so “coming to Indy” usually means showing up for that kind of competition.
Concept
Indy 500
The Indy 500 is a famous race in the U.S. where open-wheel race cars compete at Indianapolis. It’s known for big changes in technology over the years.
Concept
turbocharged
Turbocharged engines use a device that forces extra air into the engine. More air usually means more power, which is why turbos became important in racing.
Concept
endowment
An endowment is like a financial “nest egg” for an organization. They invest it so they can keep the museum going for a long time, even if donations or ticket sales fluctuate.
Brand
A.J. Foyt
A.J. Foyt is a famous race car driver. He’s known for winning big races many times, which is why his name comes up in discussions about “repeat winners.”
Concept
Formula One
Formula One is the big international race series with teams competing all season. Finishing positions earn points, so even a mid-pack finish can still matter a lot for the team and their sponsors.
Concept
NASCAR
NASCAR is a racing series with stock-style cars, usually on oval tracks. The point here is that NASCAR teams are known for getting crashes cleaned up quickly and running pit stops in a very hands-on way.
Concept
wheelbase
Wheelbase is how far apart the front and rear wheels are. A longer wheelbase can change how the car feels and handles, and the speaker thinks the current look/design is less attractive.
Concept
IndyCar series
IndyCar is the main kind of open-wheel racing in the U.S. It’s a whole season of races, not just one event. People follow it like a championship.
Concept
turbine engines
Turbine engines use a gas turbine (air + fuel burned to spin a turbine) rather than a conventional piston engine. They were explored in racing and experimental cars because they can deliver smooth power and high RPM potential, though they also faced challenges like throttle response and efficiency.
Term
pace car
A pace car is used to slow and guide the race cars when there’s a caution or during certain parts of the event. It helps keep everyone safe and organized.
Car
Studebaker Avanti
The Studebaker Avanti is a classic car made by Studebaker. It’s known for having a very unusual, eye-catching design. People bring it up because it has a notable place in early-1960s car history.
Term
flatbed
A flatbed is a trailer with a flat, open deck used to haul vehicles or equipment without side walls. For race teams, flatbeds are common for moving cars and parts short distances because they’re flexible for loading and unloading.
Term
open trailer
An open trailer is a trailer that doesn’t have a full enclosed box around it. It’s a cheaper way to haul cars, especially for short trips.
Term
testing
Testing is practice at the track to see how the car behaves. Teams use it to dial in settings before the real race.
Term
three hundred eight thousand miles
Miles are how much a car has been driven over its life. 308,000 miles is a lot, so it usually means the car has needed maintenance and repairs to keep running.
Brand
Chevron
Chevron is a gas brand. They’re talking about how Chevron ads used a “car with eyes” idea, which connects to how Pixar made the movie Cars feel expressive.
Term
radar detectors
A radar detector is a gadget that alerts you when police radar is nearby. It’s meant to help you avoid speeding tickets by giving you a warning.
Term
Uber
Uber is an app you use to request a ride from a nearby driver. It’s one of the most common alternatives to taxis.
Concept
Circuit of the Americas
Circuit of the Americas is a race track in Austin, Texas. It’s built outside the city, so it’s usually less disruptive than racing right through downtown streets.
Car
Chevrolet Camaro SS Z 28
The Chevrolet Camaro SS Z/28 is a performance trim of the Camaro, combining the SS package with the Z/28 performance identity. In the late 1990s, these cars are especially sought after by collectors because they represent a classic muscle-era look with modern (for the time) V8 performance.
Term
LS one
The LS1 is a Chevrolet V8 engine used in certain performance cars from that era. It’s popular because it makes good power and there are lots of parts and tuning options for it.
Term
302 cubic inch
That “302 cubic inch” number is the engine size. Bigger displacement usually means more potential for power, and it’s one of the main specs people look for on older cars.
Term
turbo 400 automatic
The “Turbo 400” is a classic automatic transmission used by GM. It’s known for being tough and reliable, especially in performance cars.
Term
paddle
Paddles are the little levers behind the steering wheel that let you change gears. The speaker is saying it can feel less fun than a system where you actually move the shifter.
Term
grinding
Grinding is the ugly sound you get when gears don’t line up correctly during a manual shift. It usually means you shifted at the wrong time, so the gears fight each other.
Term
transmission
A transmission is what changes the gears so the engine can work efficiently. It’s the part that helps the car accelerate and drive smoothly.
Term
four plus three
“Four plus three” sounds like a special way of getting more gear options than a normal setup. Here it’s tied to a shifter/transmission combination that’s meant to feel more like manual shifting.
Term
clutch
A clutch is what you press (in a manual car) to help you change gears. It temporarily disconnects the engine from the gearbox.
Company
Barrett Jackson
Barrett-Jackson is a famous classic car auction. They sometimes do challenges where people can’t see the car and have to judge it by feel.
Term
cruise control
Cruise control is the feature that helps your car hold a steady speed. Instead of you constantly controlling the gas, the car does it for you.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a measure of an engine’s power output—how much work it can do over time. In the context of this segment, the speaker is saying the car had very little horsepower, which makes driving a manual more challenging because you can’t rely on strong acceleration to recover from mistakes.
LIVE
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 barred-fine vehicles for sale under one
climate-controlled roof. Now, here's your host,
Classic Automall president and the man with all the toys,
Stuart Howden.
And here we are, show number 237.
Cha-ching.
Cha-ching. I don't know what that means either.
You know, these kids today, they say things.
You think we got paid for this?
I was in Vegas last weekend and I heard people talking.
I don't even know what they're talking about.
Different language?
No, it's not even a foreign language.
I don't get that. It's a foreign language that's the
language I speak.
First sign of aging.
You're out of the generation.
That's true.
That's exactly right.
But anyway, welcome to the show.
And before we get started, how many cars and inventory, Steve?
Well, see, I wrote it down ahead of time based on our earlier
discussion. I'm going to say 845.
Oh, NJR?
817.
841.
Oh, no.
So we've been selling a lot crazy, but we need your consignments.
I keep asking.
I'm going to start begging if I need to.
Well, the sun's out today.
The sun's out. Bring your dad-gum car.
Yeah.
Bring it in.
Yeah, we're ready for it.
So, you know, it's interesting, though, when we had 1,100 cars
in the building, it was too many.
It was hard to get around.
It wasn't as an enjoyable experience if you're coming here
just to look and not buy.
And we want to make it an enjoyable.
We don't expect everybody to buy a car from us.
We don't expect everyone.
We're not going to be mad at you if you don't buy a car.
We don't sell more than we do sell.
Well, it's April 1st.
Officially, car show season has started.
So, I'm excited about it.
And there's no April Fools to that.
Oh, mention the Fool back then.
Oh, we had an April Fools joke today.
Oh, we did.
Box of donuts over there.
And there's a crudite salad inside the box.
No.
And also, what brought you to it was a spilled can of soda.
A fake spilled can.
Those jokers back there.
Those boys better get to selling.
My dad used to go to this restaurant every night for happy hour
and he'd give him a steak and a styrofoam box to take home.
And he lived so far out and out of town, out on the river, out on the lake,
he would take that steak home, fire the grill up, get everything going,
and he opened it up.
And one time, they had put a glass ashtray in place of the steak.
And he couldn't drive all the way back into town.
And he was mad.
And, you know, to this day, I remember that story.
Anyway, let's get to our guest joining us via Zoom from the great state of Indiana,
Rick Schaefer, author, racing historian, journalist, publicist,
and an all-around car guy.
How are you this morning, Rick?
I'm delighted to be here.
Thank you very much for the opportunity.
We're glad to have you.
And your latest book is amazing.
I've been fumbling through it.
You know, my problem anymore is I read like the kids today.
I read bullet points, you know.
I forget that there's a whole paragraph here and I'm just reading the highlights.
Man, I was delving deeper into your book and what an amazing.
It was interesting.
You picked, for outsiders looking in, an unusual time frame to write this book,
but it's not really unusual when you think about it, right?
Well, actually, there's a story behind that time frame.
When I had my first book published in 1999, a racing photographer named Steve Snotty,
he was from Indianapolis, came up to me and said,
you know, if you think about doing another book, I got a great idea for it.
And I said, well, what's that?
And he said, thank you the years 1962 to 1972 and all the great cars,
drivers and teams that came to Indy during that era.
And I said, that's a great idea.
So I kind of filed it away and sadly Steve passed away 10 years later.
But I thought, if I were to get this book written and published,
I'm going to dedicate it to him.
And that's what I've done.
So that's, it's his idea, but I've fun with it.
So yeah, the list of characters who were involved in Indy 500 between 62 and 72,
which is the year it's unbelievable.
So you get guys from Formula One, you get guys from Mexico,
you get guys from all over Europe, you get, you know, the characters from the United States,
you get just amazing.
It's like a who's who at racing during that era.
Graham Hill and Jimmy Clark and Mark Donahue and the list just goes on and on.
And, you know, also there's an underlying theme here is that you went during this era
from all front engine cars.
Actually in 62 you had one rear engine car with Dan Gurney driving.
By 69 all the cars had the engine behind the driver.
So that was our transition a little longer than it took in Europe in Formula One racing.
On the engine side by 1970 every engine was turbocharged.
Right, right.
And you also had the biggest jump in speed, 46 miles an hour from 62 to 72.
Wow.
And one year was it 60, I think 64, was it 66 or 67 when they had the turbine engine that won the race?
Well, it should have won the race.
It came with four laps.
Oh, that's right.
Finally, Jones driving his last 500.
Wow.
Interestingly, he qualified his race setup.
Everybody thought he was sandbagging, but that was in an era when a lot of people used nitro
in their fuel to get some extra mile per hour and qualifying.
They couldn't race with that.
So we knew that, you know, the speed he was at was going to come in handy on race day
in addition to being a four-wheel drive car.
So he managed to pass five cars on the first lap, take the lead.
Wow.
Yeah, I mean, we saw a lot of different varieties of stuff during that era.
Not only were the speeds increasing kind of exponentially, but, you know, you saw the
variety of tires, you saw the variety of engines, you saw the configurations.
They didn't even close to look the same.
Smokey Unic would bring some oddball creation that nobody had ever seen before.
Yeah.
He was probably the guy that thought out of the box more than anybody because he tried
a super modified wing on a Roadster in 1962.
On a 63, he had a car that had front engine, but it had side fuel tanks, which was unusual.
Sure.
And then, of course, the most unusual car of all was the, I call it the side car, but
it's a lot of people call it the capsule car.
And that was the one that was just a tube with a fuel tank and off the engine and then
looked like a motorcycle side car mounted on the left side.
And it could have made the race, by the way.
And there was, there was a funny two back then.
I mean, there was 60, 70 cars that were vying for the spaces at the race.
It wasn't just like it was, you know, almost everybody got in.
I mean, half of the people trying didn't even get in the race.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's the format today is so much different in Indianapolis, but those
times you had three chances to get in for a car.
The driver could move around and make as many attempts as he wanted, but I got three attempts.
Once you took the green flag, that was an attempt whether you qualified or not.
Sure.
Well, and I think that, and of course, safety wasn't as big an issue as it is now.
I imagine it progressed from 62 to 72 to some degree, but I, if you look at some of those
cars, they don't look very safe from, from compared to modern day.
Well, no, they, you know, they had a lot of problem with fires.
And I know both Goodyear and Firestone tried to develop rubber line tanks.
And of course, I think one of the biggest advances was using the material developed by
NASA called Nomics.
Right.
We had a local suit manufacturer in Indianapolis called JB Hinchman.
If you look, he has a familiar crust checkered flag logo on the shoulder and everybody in
Formula One was using him.
Everybody in India was using him.
You know, even some NASCAR guys were using him.
So, you know, the Nomex, people don't, I don't think, realized, you know, how, what
significance it played because the rubber line tank seemed to, that seemed very logical.
It seemed like, oh, that makes sense.
Although I imagine, didn't the fuel have some degradation problems with rubber?
I would imagine that that would be an issue as well.
It could have been.
The real problem was sloshing.
And Goodyear, they tried to put like a lot of foam inside the tank and actually had a
demonstration tank where they had to go up and down and the fuel wouldn't slosh because
of the foam rubber in it.
So, and of course, the book that your latest book is, it's a new track record, which was
famous words said for many, you know, for all that decade, right?
Absolutely.
I mean, there were a couple of years, they didn't break the track record, but having
been an Indianapolis person, I got to hear Mr. Carnegie say that many times.
And of course, he was really good at getting the crowd fired up during a qualifier.
And I think he did find the races, but I think he was absolutely at his best during those
qualifying runs.
Sure, sure.
Yeah, that's, it was so, I mean, a race is great, but the qualifying seems to be the
next level of excitement, you know, it's just a finite amount of time.
You run in a 500 mile race that gets to be droning on a little bit sometimes.
I mean, even the most ardent race fans probably say, oh, let's go take a break for a minute,
you know.
Yeah.
Well, you know, the idea that the guys buy himself on the track too, there's the element
of excitement.
Sure.
It's like, what's going to happen?
Yeah.
And it's got to be a little pressure.
I mean, if you're a rookie or, you know, fairly new guy to the Indy 500, I mean, to go out
there on the track by yourself and all eyes are on you had to be a little bit intimidating
to say the least.
Well, the other thing is when the speeds started really going up in the early 60s, the crowds
that the qualifying really went up and it was like, there were some years they had crowds
nearing what you would see during race day.
I mean, the mid, you know, mid 60s especially, we see that's kind of dropped off big time,
which is unfortunate.
Well, in the month of May, I mean, there is activities going on many, many days other
than the actual race day and a lot of people, the diehards are there almost every day for
the entire month.
Well, it used to be, they called it the 30 days of May because practice started on the
first.
And then the race was, unless the race was Memorial Day was on a Sunday, then it would
be on the 31st.
But they had about two full weeks of practice for qualifying days, car day test in the race
itself.
So if you lived in Indianapolis, you had a lot of opportunities to go out and see the
cars run.
What was your first time?
How were you on your first trip to the track?
Well, I was 10.
I had, interestingly, I had watched the Monaco Grand Prix earlier in the summer of 62 with
my dad and something about that captivated me.
And so naturally I got interested in the 500 as well, because my folks went there to the
race set together since 58.
So he recognized my interest.
So in the fall, he took my older brother and I out to the museum and we got a lap of the
track.
I mean, that place just overwhelmed a 10 year old and I mean, I can reel of that day, you
know, as if it was yesterday.
But even today when I got there, you know, just the massive grandstands and the vastness,
it just, it overwhelms me.
I understand when the drivers say they get that funny feeling when they drive under the
tunnel and go in the infield zone.
Yeah.
It's a special place for certain, there are certain places that have an aura about them
and in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway certainly has that.
And as you said, I've been there on days when there was nothing going on and it was still
just awe inspiring to be there and to look at it and to realize everything that's happened
there and all the, you know, and all the different people that have graced its halls, if you will.
And the museum is amazing.
Of course, they just redid the museum as well, too.
So that I haven't seen the new version, but I'm anxious to.
Well, it's what's neat is they've opened up all three floors in that building.
And initially they just use part of one floor.
Right.
And but my one complaint is that they're not using enough cars displayed.
They have this incredible car collection and I know they're going to build a restoration
center nearby and they're going to display cars there as well.
But right now it's like there's a lot of dramatic presentations the way the cars are displayed.
But I'd like to see more cars myself, but that's just me.
I mean, your average person going in there is going to be overwhelmed by the place.
Sure.
Well, and they had a bunch of cars that they sold off because they really didn't have
any relationship to the Indy 500.
They were just donated by different companies for whatever reason back in the 50s and 60s.
And they sold off and did pretty well with that sale.
Well, why didn't they?
I mean, you know, the 196 strongly in the bargain that was worth.
I wish they could have kept it.
I understand why they made $50 million in the sale for sure.
Well, and it's good for their endowment is what they were basically doing.
I said, because I asked, I had Rob Dyson, who was the chairman of the
the speed of the museum at the time, I asked him, I had him on the show and asked him about it.
I said, did you need this for the construction?
He said, no, we've had the construction paid for for a long time.
This is just the endowment to keep it going for, you know, forever in essence.
And and to add to it, if there's something, the right cars come along.
And and so you want to make sure that they see these cars are shared.
And as you said, there's three stories opened up now, but still they could use more room.
Of course, I think Mr.
Pinsky told them they needed to double the size, but they could have no more footprint.
Yeah, they didn't expand the building.
They just what they did was they redid the interior. Sure. Sure.
So the forward to your book is by some guy I think I've heard of named A.J.
Foyt. Is that his name? Yes.
I was very fortunate to get Mr.
Foyt to do the forward and ironically, my previous book, 500 and 500,
I have another four time winner, L. O.
Caster name was so I'm thinking the next book, maybe I can convince Rick Mears
and just keep my string going with four time. I think that's a great.
Will we see a five time winner? Do you think?
You know, we could.
I mean, of course, obviously right now, the only guy's got the chances.
Elio, you wouldn't have three time winners right now.
So it's going to take some time to get a four time winner and then we can start talking again.
But you know, I think still has the ability.
I don't know if, you know, you got to be lucky on race day two.
They have to go your way. Sure.
And that race, when he won his fourth, I thought that was he drove a very smart race
and the pits worked out fine for him.
So yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, Alex Pillow may have me
one driver that you could say has got a shot at it.
And but yeah, there's I don't know.
It's tougher than people think.
And I think it's only going to get tougher, not easier as time progresses.
Yeah. Well, Elio's his case.
It took him 12 years to get from his third to his fourth win. Right. Right.
I mean, that's the longest gap of any of the four time winners.
He could have just as easily been without a ride, too.
I mean, I don't imagine people were beating his door down to give him a ride
at the Indy 500 as he got older and, you know, they the reaction
and all the different things that change over time.
Well, you know, he was still very popular driver, though, I think.
Sure. He was going to help him as he was going to be a dream
for the sponsors to work with. So well, I mean, if you look at Formula One,
I mean, you know, there's not many people that come in first in a year.
So, you know, you that when the teams celebrate a fifth or sixth place,
it tells you a lot about, you know, how the sport works
and and the fact that if if a person is in fifth or sixth place,
that's a win for them that day and a win for their sponsors.
Well, I get to kick out a NASCAR.
They act like a top 20.
Yeah, it was kind of sad to watch that Daytona 500
when two cars are blocking everybody because they're trying to get the fuel
economy to a point where they can make it to the end.
I don't know. That just doesn't seem like racing to me.
I get it. It's it's whatever they think is the right thing to do.
And it has nothing to do with me.
But I like to see somebody win because they had the fastest car and the fastest
driver. Now, my big gripe of NASCAR is how often they've tried to arrange the
finishes. Right. To me, it's a little sport.
And I mean, they've actually, you know, two years ago at the fire, three years
ago at the fire, they tried to do that with the three red flags in the last
10 laps. And it was like, guys, you know, this is not racing.
Yeah, exactly. Although I wish I wish Formula One would take one lesson
from NASCAR and clean up their wrecks faster.
They dilly-dally about like they've got nothing else going on.
They, well, we're going to get the tractor and we'll get it over there.
You see those NASCAR guys, there's 30 cars in there, you know, 15 cars in a crash
and they've got, they're out there. They got the track cleared in a matter of minutes.
They got a lot more practice.
Well, that's true too. And of course, you know, the pit stops in NASCAR versus
Formula One, a little different animal and more, more analog with NASCAR than it
is with F1. And do you what, do you pay attention to the F1 series?
You know, not like I used to, because I just, I don't like the cars.
I, I'm glad they shortened the wheelbase, but I didn't shorten enough.
I just think that long wheelbase is ugly.
I'm sorry to see the endurance cars doing the same thing.
Yeah. I'm kind of an old school guy, though.
So, you know, every car looks like yourself for your paint job down in Formula One.
So. Sure. That's exactly right.
I mean, and that's one thing I gleaned from your book is looking at all
the different variations of cars and designs.
And people had more creative license back then to try different things.
And that doesn't exist today.
No. Well, it's just all about the economy and the cost.
I don't think we'll see that era come back where you had several manufacturers.
I mean, you know, people complain, well, this has become a spec series.
But I thought, well, but at least we have an IndyCar series and we have a 500.
And, you know, we're seeing some good races and some interesting people.
You know, there's some great personalities in IndyCar.
And so I'm not going to apologize for that being my favorite series.
Absolutely. And it is.
It's really exciting.
I think a lot of people watch Formula One because it's kind of the new
trendy thing to do and whether they'll stay fans or not remains to be seen.
But the Indy 500 or the IndyCar series is great and and it's exciting.
And there's some great talent and some great names.
And I mean, that's important that we have recognizable names
in in racing or any sport.
You know, boxing used to be that you knew every boxer back in the day.
And now I can't even tell you if there is a heavyweight champion and who he is.
I agree. So it's a really nice.
Yeah, it's it's it's amazing how things when when Parnelli became
the first guy to break a lap of 150 miles an hour.
Did everybody think that was the ceiling that it wasn't going to go any faster?
That's impossible to go faster than that.
Well, when he went out for that run, there were people both in the stands
and in the panic with racing teams that thought it was physically impossible.
Right. And when we did it, I think they kind of relaxed a bit.
Of course, two years later, Bobby Marshman does 160 mile an hour lap
and practice on pole day. So, you know, once once the engine cars got
settled in, they when the engines were more powerful.
I mean, it was just, you know, the sky didn't become the limit that way.
Yeah. And at the end of the 10 years and 72, I mean, they were almost clipping 200, right?
They were close to and the answer family.
What a what a success story that's been at the Indy 500.
I mean, to to watch what they did, especially during the era that you wrote about.
But even beyond that, it's been quite impressive.
Well, I'll tell you a little story.
My first race I get to see was the 64 500.
So I actually got to see nine of the 11 races I'm writing about.
And the following year, I get to go to qualifying for the first time.
And we, my brother and I went with a neighbor who was one of the safety
patrol people and he was stationed in the grandstand behind the pit.
So we got to go up and get autographs.
First autograph I got was from Al Unser.
It was a rookie. Right.
And the thing was, he didn't just sign my program.
He talked to my brother and I like we were important.
He asked us how we're doing in school.
Do we like racing or we have that?
And I thought that just overwhelmed me.
So I became an Al Unser fan for life because of that.
And of course, you know, he's only a four time winner.
He's got the most top three finishes with 11.
So, I mean, he certainly accorded himself well.
And then in that race, interestingly, his brother was in as well.
But their older brother, Louie, was Jerry's twin who had been in the 58 race.
He was Al's chief mechanic. Oh, wow.
I think 11 top three finishes are better.
It's got to be as great a record as you could have at the ND 500,
even including the four time wins.
Well, I mean, Al just was one of these guys.
He brought the car home and he was very good on, you know,
he rarely wrecked the lower tax equipment.
And people asked me my favorite race.
And because I was a fan when he wins 1970 leading 190 laps,
that was a boring race. Not for me.
Yeah, I mean, it's an amazing impact of a person,
especially an older person or an adult, giving time to you as a child.
The memory that will stay with you for the rest of your life.
That's the kind of stuff that just never leaves you.
Your book, you wrote another book of more than one other book,
but 500 on 500 facts and figures on the greatest
or tales facts and figures on the greatest race in the world.
I got to imagine there's some great stories that go along with the ND 500
that you've written about.
Well, I tried to do stories that weren't, you know, widely known.
I mean, I think I've read all but a couple of every book on the 500.
And, you know, you seem to get the same stuff, same pictures.
So I did the same thing.
I get to choose the photos.
So I tried to find photos that weren't, you know, well published or ever published.
I have, I think the only 500 history book that has a picture of a gentleman
named Cyrus Pashke, and most people don't know who he is.
But in 1911, he relieved Ray Haroon from the carbon team.
And then he also relieved the race teammate, Joe Dawson, who finished the play.
So I mean, they never came back to race here.
He was a driver, but he was relieved to her.
And I have a picture of him once I figured out how to spell his last name.
I was a little funny. A photo of him.
I have a picture.
The only picture of the four founders of the Speedway, Carl Fisher,
James Allison, Arthur, you mean a Frank Wheeler?
They're always posed together.
But in that picture, Henry Ford standing with him, he almost always gets cut out
of the photo. So I make sure we had the actual photo with Mr.
Ford in it. He appreciated being on the cutting line for that much.
Another thing that I'm really proud about that book is a lot of people think
that the first chaperonella in the Indy car was the yellow submarine
that Johnny Rutherford won the 80 races.
Well, all built in Indy car in the late 60s.
Right. And I have a picture of that car.
Yeah. And it was going to have a high strut wing and Chevy engine, of course.
And then 69 FAA outlawed high strut wings.
And so he scrapped the project.
It ran some formula, 5,000 races, but it didn't have any success.
But then, you know, years later, he finally comes to the 500.
Well, Jim Hall probably is gets half of the respect that he deserved,
probably not even half of what he deserves of what he was able to do
with the chaperonella program and just amazing.
I mean, you know, here's a guy, you know, unlimited funds,
because that doesn't hurt.
But a brilliant mind when it came to racing.
Yeah, he was definitely ahead of the curve.
And of course, I was from a Chevy family, so we like a Chevy powered guy
winning these races that we were watching on TV. So that's funny.
You say that, you know, you don't hear that quite as often.
We're a Ford family. We're a Chrysler family.
We're Chevy, you know, and that was the way people were.
They were so loyal to those brands.
Those American made manufacturer brands that that's who you were.
And you wouldn't be caught dead in the other of the competition's car.
Well, you know, it's me and Chevy.
You had three Chevrolet brothers race in five minutes.
They never raced a Chevy, though.
That's the irony of that, right? Wow.
I talk about that in the book.
It was just just a happenstance.
But yeah, the first Chevrolet engines to make the 500
were in Mickey Thompson's cars in 1963.
All right. And I love, you know, what cracks me up.
The pictures in the book that crack me up the most is the pit crew
and the the STP pajamas all around the car.
And then the STP suit that I guess,
Granitelli had custom made and it said STP and read all over it.
And he was he was Mr.
Shulmanship. Sure.
And, you know, the picture in the it's a new
track record book of the guys in the pajama suit.
If you look in that, in the back corner, there's a real tall gentleman.
And this is Major Tony Rolt, who actually had won the 24 hours
along the 1950s for Jaguar.
And he was there for Ferguson, which provided the four wheel drive system.
And also they actually built the car for the Granitelli's to house the Nova.
So lots of lots of technology came from from that era that passed down to
passenger cars, right? I mean, or stuff that was already being used,
but maybe it wasn't as people weren't as aware of.
Did they think that these turbine engines or things like that was
did they really feel like there was going to be a future?
Or was that just a kind of a gimmick?
Well, you know, Chrysler, they were they were trying to develop
a passenger car. Sure.
And I think, you know, any Granitelli, I always want to do something different,
which is why you start out with the No Vice and, you know,
then he goes to the turbine cars and it was you could probably see at that point
Chrysler already scrapped that car that they had.
But, you know, two years ago, they almost won the 500.
Right. And that turbine car, that Chrysler concept car,
is still making its way around the circuit.
You see it from time to time.
It's a looks like a Thunderbird, almost for lack of a better description.
And it's been around the block. I guess it runs.
I don't know. I think there was.
There was way more than I think people realized one of those things.
So and, of course, you know, the tradition of the Indy 500,
so many interesting and cool things that happened.
The bottle of milk at the end, the pace car.
I loved I was reading in your book on the on the chapter of 1962
when it talked about the Avanti was going to be the pace car in 62.
But it wasn't out of development yet.
And they had to use the Lark, which was kind of plain and dull.
And then the winner, Roger Ward, got to choose between the Lark and the Avanti.
And he chose the Avanti.
He made the right choice.
Yeah, I mean, look at your body's titles.
It still looks great today. So such a cool car.
I wonder where that car is.
That would be an interesting car to find the one that that was given him.
Is it at the museum or is it anywhere?
You know, because he would have had it personally, however long he kept it.
I know he won.
You know, in those days, the winner did get to keep the pace car.
And, you know, then when you had somebody like Roger Pesky come along,
he would do a contract with his driver that the driver had to give the actual
winning pace car to his Pesky's collection.
Right. And they probably got a duplicate.
Right. So some of the guys did sell their.
I know Mario Andretti, when he won 69, he ended up selling his Z28 Camaro to somebody.
Now, that'd probably be a valuable car.
If you found that particular one these days as well, too, I would imagine.
But, you know, 1963 was a great picture of Graham Hill sitting in his car
and Jimmy Clark standing beside or kneeling beside him.
I mean, where did you four did that come from the archives of Indy?
Or where does that come from?
All the pictures in the.
It's a new track record book came from the IMS Photoshop.
Wow. And that car, Graham Hill, was in a 63.
It was Mickey Thompson is one of his radical cars.
It was people called it the roller skate car, the skateboard car.
Or my favorite, the pancake car is the low rounded slides on it.
But it also Stewart had wide, low tires with firestone, especially for him.
And that started the wide tire movement for any car racing.
So people didn't think much about tires in that respect.
I mean, I remember reading back from the the early years of the Indy 500,
there was races that a set of four tires would do the whole 500 miles.
Can you imagine that?
It was late at 65.
I mean, firestone did an thing that all these top 10 guys want the distance
without change, of course.
And then the tires, I mean, Goodyear was there for a while.
And then I one year with Sears Allstate had a tire selection.
Now, that was Mickey Thompson's deal.
He actually lined that up as a sponsor and then they did their tires on that car.
And, you know, 64, you could have had four tire manufacturers,
because Goodyear did test firestone, of course, was there.
Dunlop was there for Lotus, but they also tested Dunlops on the Novi.
Right.
But Goodyear decided to wait and they came in later in the season.
But what's funny is in an interview I did with AJ Foyt,
he said he thought Goodyear had the best tire and he said the suits
from Akron came down and pulled the play on the effort.
And he's so rather unusual protest.
He wore a Goodyear fire suit to qualify in and win the race inning.
In those days, the Sports Illustrated cover after the race
would always have the winner.
So the 64 Sports Illustrated has AJ and his Goodyear suit.
Oh, yeah, that made him happy.
So, yeah, 19.
And then, you know, that was the price money from 1962 to 1972 was
anywhere from about $150,000 to about 200 and some odd change.
Did the drivers keep any of that or did that all go to the team?
Or how did that? How was that divvied up?
Most drivers operated on 40 percent.
That's kind of been the kind of a standard.
You didn't have guys back in those days until maybe later
in this in that era buying rides, you know,
brought sponsors and so.
But I think even the guys that brought sponsors,
they would certainly take a cut out of it.
So I imagine a lot of those guys had had regular jobs.
I mean, they weren't just they weren't full-time racers, right?
Well, no, you know, a lot of the indie guys
the American drivers there, you know, they were racing
a United States Auto Club different series.
I mean, a really healthy stock car series had sprints and midgets.
Sure. And most of these guys, you didn't have the sports car guys
coming up till much later in the decade.
So those sprint and midget cars on the dirt track are awfully fun to watch.
People don't realize how how how fun and how, you know, grass roots racing.
That really is. Well, until the early seventies,
they didn't have roll cages, right?
Some of those guys actually survived.
That was one of the things at the beginning, AJ Foyt, to do the forward was
I explained to his publicist trying to set this up.
I said, you know, he's the only driver that's still with us
that was in all those five hundred. So well, yeah, exactly.
So and, you know, I would imagine
fielding a team back in the day, back in the early 60s and through the 70s.
It obviously got exponentially more expensive as time went on.
But I mean, back then they didn't have fancy semi-tractor trailers and all that.
They might come in a flatbed from the shop, you know, across town.
Usually it was an open trailer by a pickup truck or a station wagon.
You know, they relied on a lot of what you call weekend warriors, guys
that would be free help. And, you know, the teams, I did stay in hotels or motels.
A lot of times I just got together with somebody's house and, you know,
a lot of people in Speedway were more than happy to rent their basement out
to racers and they do that not just for May, but the whole summer.
Because you guys be on the circuit.
Sure, after testing and all that.
So, well, we will put up on the screen where to find your book.
But what's the best way for somebody to find your book, your latest book?
You know, it's going to be sold in, I think, all major
book store chains like Barnes and Noble, Books a Million.
Obviously, Amazon would have it.
And, of course, I'm very partial to Coastal 1A1, who published my previous book.
They have it on their homepage right now. So.
Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome.
Well, you know, great.
I can't wait to read the rest of it.
I've got, like I said, I've been unpacked all through it,
but I'm going to really sit down and read it because, you know,
there's just so much great information there and stuff that you,
even though you pay attention to racing and you know about racing,
there's so much lost information out there.
And thank God, somebody like you is documenting that.
So it's there forever. You know, it's not going anywhere.
It's archived for history forever.
Well, I wanted to be a high school history teacher.
And my counselor steered me away from me and said,
there won't be any jobs for years from now.
What's your second favorite subject?
And I stumbled and said, oh, my journalism classics, take that.
And I luckily found out that I actually had an aptitude for writing.
I didn't realize I had. Sure.
And so I had a journalism career and then that got me into my racing career.
So yeah, you've written for for many, many years now and great stuff
and great to be able to do that.
So my last question is always my favorite question.
What's your daily driver?
My daily driver is something you guys might be interested in,
because it's got three hundred eight thousand miles.
It's a Pontiac GT, a Grand Prix GT, two thousand three.
Wow. And that many miles on it. That's impressive.
It's dying right now.
So what are you?
So you're making that crucial decision of what to replace it with?
What are you? What's on the radar for you?
Well, so I'm 73 years old.
So this is probably my my next car is probably the last one I buy.
But that engine in that Pontiac, a three point eight, six is bullet proof.
Yeah, obviously.
I'm looking for another Grand Prix or a GM product that has that engine
that maybe has a hundred and fifty thousand miles.
I'm just trying to save some money on both, you know, buying the car and then insurance.
So sure. Yeah. And that the tree.
Well, we'll keep an eye. We'll keep an eye out for you.
If one shows up here, we will certainly let you know.
And we certainly appreciate it.
If you ever make it to the the southeastern part of Pennsylvania,
we'd love for you to come visit and give you the nickel to her.
I appreciate it very much.
Thank you very much.
Author, Rick Schaefer, thanks so much for being on the show.
Rick, we'll be back with a classic Auto Mall show in just a couple of minutes.
We'll see them now. Another classic Auto Mall show.
Here's Stuart with Jay Ward of Pixar Studios as he talks about the movie Cars
and the animation of the character's eyes.
Before we made our movie, the Chevron commercials were out where the headlights
are the eyes, right? You see the Chevron cars.
When you put the eyes down in the headlights,
the whole face is down at the front of the car and so it becomes like a like a snake.
Right. Right. Little face down low.
When you move the eyes up to the windshield,
you've got the head of a dog or a horse with a long snout in the mouth in front.
And you open up all this acting.
Hear more of Stuart's conversation with Jay Ward of Pixar from February
twenty twenty five in episode one eighty.
Remember, if you haven't seen it, it's new to you.
The classic Auto Mall show.
Flashback.
Oh.
The classic Auto Mall show.
Right on. Right on.
Here we are rocking in Morgantown.
All right. That's actually grown on me. I hated it.
Oh, you did.
I like this.
Actually catchy. Yeah, I like that idea.
Your instincts are much better than mine, obviously.
I think it's really awesome. Full disclosure.
It's an A.I. voice thing.
Well, yeah. But she kind of sounds like who is it?
Maybe Hart and Anna Nancy Wilson.
Yeah, so.
So we've had a busy, busy week, as we said a little while ago,
selling lots of lots of cars.
I mean, it has been just yesterday was madness.
You must pinch yourself. I see that list every day.
Yeah, that's amazing.
Yeah, it's hard to imagine.
I mean, I think back to the time when Kathy and I were doing this in a warehouse
somewhere, man, if we ever sold one car there, if we sold three hundred sixty
five cars in a year, we would just die and go to.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, if we did that here, none of us would be sitting here right now.
But we do need your consignment and we're selling.
So if you got something good, you're ready to bring it.
You're on the fence about anything. Give us a call.
Let us explain the program to you. It's pretty simple.
It's easy. You bring us the car, drop it off.
You wait for us to call you with a check. That's it.
Well, here's the thing. When something new comes in, we get excited.
Sure. And there have to be people out there looking at our inventory every day.
Sometimes I'm like, has something come in that I'm looking for or that I think is cool.
I've talked to numerous people who check our website every day.
Yeah, I do, too. Yeah.
Yeah. There. I mean, it's funny.
Even Ray Evernham was talking about how much he's on our website.
He's checking it. And we sold some cars to Ray.
And he's one of those guys that, you know, he's always looking for something.
And he's also one of those guys that he never really knows what he's looking for
until he finds it. You know, how that's that's funny, how that works.
And I'm the same way in a lot of cases that that I want something,
but I don't know exactly what it is.
Every other car that comes in here, I want.
I didn't know I wanted.
Yeah, I love when I get the phone call from somebody up front and says,
you got to get up here right away.
There's something really cool just came in, you know, and, of course,
kind of things like, you know, you're so busy, but it seems like funny how you can
just get right away when you need to. When the new car comes in.
I get an emergency up front. I got to go.
Yeah, there's stat, as we like to say. Yeah.
So where did we sell cars this past week?
Where? How about Grafton, Massachusetts?
OK. Suck a Suna in New Jersey.
It's S-U-C-C-A-S-U-N-N-A.
I'd go with that. I guess.
Never heard of.
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Newark, Delaware, Houston, Texas,
Bath, Pennsylvania, East Berlin, Pennsylvania, Rockville,
Center, New York, Landesburg, Pennsylvania, Hamburg, Pennsylvania,
Bowie, Maryland, Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Virginia is for lovers, you know.
Glen Olden, Pennsylvania, Rio Rancho, New Mexico, Brexville, Ohio,
Likens, Pennsylvania, Berlin, Maryland.
That's two Berlin's.
East Berlin and a Berlin.
Lakeland, Florida, Lakeland, Florida, Parkland, Florida, Parkland, Florida.
Wow. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania.
And Truillo, Alto, Puerto Rico.
P-R. P-R. The good old P-R.
Two corrections. Yes.
One would then one is local. Yes.
It's Newark, Delaware. Oh, that's right.
Delawareans. Newark. What did he say? Newark?
I said Newark. Newark.
And also, you had the southern pronunciation of Bowie, Maryland.
It's Bowie. Bowie. Is that right?
Yeah. It is a David Bowie or David Bowie?
People used to say David Bowie and I say B-S.
I say it was David Bowie and if you don't like it, then I don't care right now.
Virginia is not only for lovers, it's for speeding tickets.
Yeah. Oh, no radar detectors. No.
Remember, they would literally when you had a fuzz buster.
They take it. Which is a funny name.
I don't imagine they get so politically correct today in age
to call something that.
But they would literally yank it out of your car and stomp it on the ground
until it was smashed into pieces if you had one hooked up.
You had to put it in your trunk or something in a hermetically sealed box
and have some of that medical tape around it.
And people would put a box of Kleenex on the dashboard.
Yeah, with the thing hidden in there.
And then they had built-in radar detectors.
And of course, if you got caught with that, then that was trouble clear.
And they had a way to tell if you caught.
You know, well, one way to tell is if they hit you with the radar and you hit your brakes.
You have a radar detector. Revenue.
And they were very, very, very strict about that back in the day.
So, by the way, our YouTube channel, that's just amazing.
Blowing up 328,310 subscribers.
A year ago today, we had 6,210 subscribers.
Yeah, 1,828 videos, 14.3 million views.
I mean, is that that just.
Load up real good.
Mine, boggling.
So the car scene in Vegas is interesting.
Oh, it's it's not it's not as many Ubers and rideshares as you would think.
It's a lot of cabs.
Yes, because you walk out of the hotel.
If you call for an Uber or a rideshare, you may have to wait for 10 or 15 minutes.
Most of the time you walk out of a hotel.
I just got back from Vegas.
Yeah, they're lined up.
They're lined up and ready to go.
Now, Saturday night at, you know, 10 o'clock at night,
it's a line to get to the taxis.
And maybe you would save a little time with rideshare.
But then they had the self-driving cars, the zoo.
Oh, really?
They didn't have the Jaguar F-Pace that they had that we saw in Scottsdale.
That self-driving.
But they had this thing called the zoo.
Can it's this odd looking contraption?
I don't know.
I don't know the politics of Vegas anymore, but I imagine that the cab union
had something to do with blocking a little bit of.
Well, what are those medallions cost that they bought in the day?
But I've heard a lot, too, that younger people aren't so much going to Vegas.
Or if they are, they're using the Uber.
It's still older.
Because younger people want to go there to gamble.
I can do it on my phone.
Right. And a lot of the other things that they're they're not into,
where the older folks who have the money to stay at the nicer hotels and to gamble
and to do the shows and all the things, they're going to take a cab.
They want the convenient.
I don't want to mess with an app.
I want to walk out the door and there's a ride.
There there is.
And of course, you know, that's that's it.
I mean, they they say the tourism is down in Vegas, but it was busy.
I mean, it was busy, busy, busy.
And Saturday night was just we went to saw the Wizard of Oz at the sphere on
Friday, which was amazing.
You felt like you were in a tornado.
I mean, the seat was violently shaking.
Wow.
They're on the steep angle and it's winds hitting the face.
And they should do like one movie.
They should do a lot of things and or they should do Pink Floyd.
Dark side of the moon playing while the Wizard of Oz plays
because supposedly there's a lot of connections.
I was working on the radio in my car last night and time came up.
I've been so long since I heard that.
What a great song that is.
So. But did you gamble?
No, we did gamble and didn't do very well.
Well, we had fun. Yeah.
And and then, of course, Saturday night, we saw the Eagles at the sphere.
And that was I'm jealous.
Spectacular Vince Gill filling in some of the parts that he with his
high harmony and then how about Glen Fry's son, Deacon Fry?
It was amazing.
I mean, and Seven Bridges, all that song, it gives me chills.
And, you know, they didn't just put pictures up on the in the sphere behind them.
I mean, it was well thought out.
It was artistic, what they did and how they did it and how much it made sense.
And it was just incredible.
And then, of course, when they dump you out, they dump you right into
their own little pop up bar that's got the Troubadour facade on the back wall
where they got their start in LA. Really?
And it's got merchandise in a bar and you go through all this
and you spend some money on merchandise.
You get a drink and you go through the Troubadour.
And all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, I'm outside.
Back to Disney. Yeah.
Just went right through it and wow.
And then, of course, they dump you into the Venetian from there
and, you know, good business for the Venetian because, my goodness, gracious.
There was every machine in that hotel was completely packed.
Every bar, every seat was packed.
I mean, it's Saturday night, 10 30 at night.
You know, I'm thinking about bedtime, but it's a little late for me.
And that's the low rent hotel. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly.
And we stayed at the Fountain Blue and it was really nice.
And the amount of marble they have in that thing is unbelievable.
So so we had a great time.
I highly recommend if you can get out to see the Eagles.
Apparently, they're building a sphere that's going to be somewhere outside
of D.C. area, which we keep doing.
So very cool.
That would be what a brilliantly built place.
And the outside is cool, too, because they change it up in our hotel.
You can see directly to watch it changing.
And I asked the cab driver about Formula One.
Oh, that was not a good thing to do.
They don't like the formula because it takes over the streets.
Oh, yeah. I bet. And if you think about it, why wouldn't they just build
that track somewhere?
You know, you got a lot of land out there.
Well, they've already got the speedway out there to the north, west or east.
Why would they just build a track out there like they do like Cota?
Circuit of the Americas in Austin, where they have it, you know,
kind of outside of the town where it's not getting in people's way
and not a problem. And, you know, so anyway.
But we had a great time and that flight's long.
Five hours of airplane is not a lot of fun.
So faster coming home, though. It is. It is. It always is, which is kind of cool.
Some of our new arrivals.
How about the 1998 Chevrolet Camaro SS Z 28 coupe flame red over light neutral?
Light neutral. That sounds exciting.
Yes. That's a nice color, though, actually.
Twenty eight thousand five hundred and forty five actual miles.
It's got a work five point seven liter LS one with a nitrous
kit and a Tremac six speed and a 10 bolt, but the rare cloth interior.
That's right. Which is funny because, you know,
people have a misconception about cloth and leather interior.
They do. Cloth interior seems like it warms up or cools off
to your body temperature quicker, but leather actually acclimates itself
to whatever temperature is going on.
So actually, leather is a better form, although in the cold of the winter,
the cloth seems like it feels better, but it's not.
Now, I'm sure that a scientist is going to call me and tell me I'm full of crap.
Please do.
Podcast is a classic automobile. Exactly.
That's right. When I get in that leather seat in the convertible
with the top down in the sun, yeah, it is.
How about the 1969 Plymouth GTX hardtop blue fire metallic or B five blue
as we like to call it over black, rebuilt era, correct 440 cubic inch V8,
six pack induction, era, correct four speed manual, Dana 60,
sugar grip, axle, stunning performer and a true GTX and just a great car.
Love it. That's a great car.
Muscle car. Muscle car heaven.
Yeah. Thank you.
And next on the list is the 1975 Pontiac Grand Prix model J hardtop,
Honduras, Maroon over white and black, 103,000 actual miles,
numbers matching 400, numbers matching turbo, hydromatic 400, transmission,
great color combo. And everybody loves them.
The breeze are amazingly popular.
They are. They're the gentleman's muscle car.
They are. We like to call them that.
And and next on the list is kind of a different animal.
1974 Torino fast bag, Nugget gold metallic over ginger.
Color ginger. It's kind of like a good.
Yeah, exactly. Imagine. Yeah.
I don't remember, but I'm sure Randy's showing it on there like a bronze.
Yeah, show us.
I'm glad that I didn't put you on the spot or anything.
Thank you.
One family owned car and that's beautifully preserved.
This thing, 302 cubic inch, two barrel V8, three on the tree,
stunning interior, just a really neat car.
These Torinos are really, it's really cool.
And it's one of 12,490 non fat, non GT fastbacks.
So you don't see them that I love that fastback body style,
whether it's on a Mustang or a Torino or whatever.
Yeah, they're really good looking windows.
Awesome. Yeah.
And next on the list is the 1994 LTD country
square LX station wagon.
Twilight blue metallic and woodgrain over dark blue,
one of about 6,000 built, five liter V8.
Same basically the same motor as in the Torino before it.
Rebuilt, four speed automatic, newer AC,
newer exhaust ready to go.
And last but not least is the 1968 Pontiac Firebird 400 HO hard top.
A G in blue over black, numbers matching 400 cubic inch HO
or high output V8, correct turbo hadn't manic 400 automatic 10 volt
axle and got the PHS documentation.
This is show ready and only one of 684 built.
Another one that's hard to keep in stock.
Ta-da.
When we return, we'll continue with our show and welcome our guest,
Keith Martin, publisher of Sports Car Market Magazine.
We'll see you in a couple of minutes.
The classic automobile has more than 1000 vehicles for consignment
in our huge eight acre climate controlled showroom.
It's a real indoor mall.
If you'd like to know all the advantages of buying and selling
a car through consignment, the information is available on our website.
Or you can talk to a classic car specialist who can answer all your questions.
It's easy, safe, convenient, and it doesn't matter where you are.
We sell worldwide.
See our huge selection of classic and collectible vehicles at classicautomall.com.
This is the classic automobile show from our studio near Philadelphia
in Morgantown, Pennsylvania.
Admission is free.
Directions hours and more at classicautomall.com.
And we're back with the classic automobile show from the classic automobile
studio in somewhere in Pennsylvania.
And our guest is joining us from the Oregonian part of the world.
Good morning, Mr. Keith Martin, publisher of Sports Car Market Magazine.
How are you?
Glad to be here.
We're glad to have you.
How's your week going?
Well, it's only Wednesday.
So half of the stuff that can go wrong is already gone wrong, right?
Now, I'm I'm going to go see what is it called Hail Mary?
Yes, that could be.
But there's some new movie about about space rescue and.
Oh, I liked that.
I didn't I hadn't seen that.
I haven't watched any TV for like a year.
Don't know what's going on.
Go to a real movie theater where I can order wine in the afternoon.
Nice.
You know, what a, you know, poor movie theaters when from COVID,
they still haven't completely recovered from that.
It's it's amazing how that that industry just really did a 180.
Well, you've also got streaming now.
True. And and what you've also got what people realize is when they stayed home
is that, hey, I can cook a pretty good steak on my grill.
And hey, by the way, I can watch this movie with my new surround sound
flat screen, blah, blah, blah TV that's got all this and that.
And that's just as cool.
And I don't have to spend $20 for a box of popcorn.
Oh, yeah, that's the problem.
It opened people's eyes to things that, you know, from the economy
didn't didn't always do us any favors.
Oh, I agree with you.
I mean, it's not cheap to go to a movie.
No, it's not. And it's and I get it.
It's it's not cheap because it's expensive to put on a movie and it's
expensive to, you know, pay the studio, whatever you got to pay him.
I mean, the only profit that movie theaters usually make is on the popcorn
and the soda and they, you know, they do pretty well with that.
But I bet at the end of the day, it's not, you know, it's not gangbusters.
I think the movie theaters have gone out of business.
Quite a few of them. So anyway, it just had a showing of Stand By Me
here at a 3,000 seat hall and it was 60 bucks a ticket to get in.
And how was it full or half full or was it full?
Wow. Well, they had the stars from the original film there.
Oh, how cool is that?
Well, they had when we saw The Wizard of Oz on Friday in Vegas,
you know, it's the original movie with it's it got some enhancements to fill
in the sides, but pretty spectacular.
And and it was I don't remember what the cost was, but it was over $100 a ticket.
And it was that atmosphere.
Yeah. So you saw a movie from inside the sphere.
Yeah, we saw the movie inside the sphere on Friday and then Saturday night,
we saw the Eagles. So we had quite the full
itinerary while we were out there and had a great time.
So let's talk about cars.
Yeah, good idea.
Because you need to sell some after after Vegas.
That's right. Yeah, I told the guys, I said, get with it.
We got we got bills to pay.
They got an American Express card is coming to any day now.
So Vegas special or something.
I think, you know, I think that what I'm going to start doing is is that
everywhere I go, I'm just going to have Kathy film me.
And I'm going to talk about, you know, here I am in Vegas and look at this is
where the formula race was two months ago.
And this is where a car used to be.
And then it'll be cool.
So your your title for your new blog this week is let's get engaged.
So yeah, I'm assuming that's not going to the altar engaged.
That's maybe getting in.
Oh, getting engaged with your car.
And that means enjoying your car.
And as our friend and your contributor, Miles Collier puts it so succinctly,
it's all about engagement.
It is, you know, I've I've been because of the the stroke that I had.
I haven't been able to drive a stick very well,
although I'm getting much better at it.
And and the the question is like a peak.
I drove a brand new Porsche Macan GTS on a long tour.
And and honestly, the car didn't need you to do anything.
But it does really well.
Sure. You know, and and the part of the reason
the Sport-O-Matic as our cake, you know, that's the Volkswagen sports shift.
Right. Right.
Which people don't realize that they had that that was a thing back in
that would have been what, late sixties, early seventies.
Yeah. Yeah.
But it because you actually have to move the stick.
It's more fun than if you're just flicking a paddle.
Sure. I I don't disagree at all with that.
And of course, but it's no it's not more fun than non-synchronized gears
in trying to go into first gear and not grinding them.
Well, you remember that, don't you?
I do. I absolutely know how you have to kind of feel the gear shift forward
and you can actually feel the teeth start to engage.
Yeah. And there's that satisfaction when you actually get it,
it plunks into the next gear.
And there's the god-awful feeling when you get it wrong.
And you just think, I have I ever driven before?
Why can I not, you know, it's not that hard, is it?
But it's harder than it looks.
You know, it's why, you know, not everybody's a race car driver.
Not everybody knows how to heel toe.
Not everybody knows how to keep the revs up on an engine
and why that's important.
And because is there are there any manual cars left?
Is there anything that's being made with the manual transmission now?
But there are some and there will be the the challenges that the
my understanding is the challenges that the the the auto and the dual clutch
gearboxes are really good. Right.
And then the question is how much horsepower can they handle?
Well, how do they have to redesign the gearboxes
to handle the massive amounts of power that's coming out of them now?
Well, and the ability to get the fuel economy down by putting nine or 10 gear
automatics. Yeah, I know, which just seems like a nightmare to me.
Yeah, it really does. I mean, listen,
we've all driven cars that begged for another gear.
We've all driven a four speed Camaro that if it had a fifth speed,
you'd really, really appreciate that because it sounds like the thing is going
to blow up. So I understand that.
But 10 gears and automatic seems just doesn't quite relate
to me for whatever reason. And it never will.
It's just my point was is is there a manumatic transmission
out there that cuts the line.
So it still has engagement, but it's still an automatic.
Yeah, didn't we talk about or read about or hear about?
Or did we talk about last week about a transmission
that can be both an automatic and a manual?
I don't know where I heard that.
Maybe I was dreaming that when I fell out of bed last night.
Hurst have a Pontiac have a four plus three or something.
Yeah, the Corvette, the Dugnash four plus three transmission.
That's one of them. And then, of course, the Hurst dual gate shifter,
which was, you know, an automatic to the left.
And, you know, kind of a not a manual because there's no clutch.
But but apparently there's one that a clutch actually will appear from the foot
wheel. And I don't I don't even I'm making all this up, probably.
Yeah, that sounds a little too weird for me.
Yeah, I think me too.
I think I hope I'll just think we'll talk that up to a bad dream that I had
sometimes. So but, you know, the engagement, as Miles Collier says,
and you say is important.
And, you know, there's there's there's things that driving a car with a manual
transmission tells you more about a car than driving it with an automatic
transmission. No question about it.
And the other thing is that people don't realize what I'll tell you more
about your car than anyway, engagement wise, go wash it.
You will learn things about your car that you had no earthly idea.
I agree. I agree.
And I used to review cars for the New York Times.
Part of my what I'll do is I was always take the car and hand wash it.
Right. It just feel feel all the surfaces and feel the gaps.
And just let the car talk to me.
Yeah. Well, it's like Barrett Jackson did that thing where they would blindfold
the Steve Mignanti and those guys and they'd have to feel what the car is.
And it's a lot harder than it looks.
You know, you think I'd get that pretty easily.
Well, yeah, 59 Cadillac with the fins you'd probably get.
But it's like a chef, you know, when they do the blind taste test
where they give you a grape and a guy goes, Walnut.
Right. No, it was a grape.
I think we'll continue to see fewer and fewer
manuals just because in today's traffic and in today's world,
I mean, you're not ramming through the years.
Right. Slanted from second.
But you mostly are just in drive.
Yeah. And I don't do it, but people put their car in cruise control
and in traffic jams.
And we've talked about this where it would make the traffic much better
if we didn't rely on our own instincts to slow down and stop or speed up
when you're in a stop and go traffic.
And you get and you've put it in cruise control, that adaptive cruise.
It knows, you know, how far to get on, how close to run together.
I think the only thing about self-driving cars
is it'll eliminate a lot of traffic jams.
That's the only plus that I can find to it.
I, you know, I've read the statistics
that a bad self-driving car is safer than a human being.
Yeah, probably true. I mean, it's sad.
But the fear factor.
Yeah. Driving down.
Recognize that stop and fire truck.
Well, driving down through the on the strip in Vegas in a taxi cab,
when you look to your right and there's a car passing in, wait, there's no driver.
It's it's very unnerving and and I get it.
You know, computers are, you know, what they are.
Listen, I have a car that it's in our stable, our Mercedes SUV.
And that thing does a lot of stuff on its own that I don't ask it to do.
And one time, driving down the highway, it slammed on the brakes on the turnpike.
And something had gotten over the camera, you know, like a piece of dirt or a leaf
or something and literally slammed on the brakes.
God forbid somebody had been behind me. So. Yeah. Yeah.
So well, the engagement is important.
And I think it's important for people to know.
And I think everybody ought to learn to know how to learn how to drive
a manual transmission. I think it's an important life lesson.
I think it's I think it's an important skill to have.
But I, you know, you don't know how to start a fire by rubbing two twigs together, right?
I tried it one time in camp and it didn't work.
I called it. I called BS.
I don't think it may be that that, you know, driving a manual is just something
that's going to my my son happens to like it. Sure.
But he's very unusual because he's been raised around them.
Yeah. I mean, when you when you were raised around cars like that and learned
and and were, you know, taught about them or early on.
I mean, the first car I ever drove was a Vega with a manual transmission
when I was like 11 years old and the neighbor kid had one and let me drive it.
And you had to work that car because it had no horsepower.
Yeah. That's zero.
And at the opposite of horsepower, it had no horsepower.
So, yeah.
And he taught me how to start on a hill, which was very invaluable in later years.
So we could do this all day, but I know you got other things to do.
And we really appreciate you being on as usual.
And we will catch you next week on the Classic Autonomous Show
with our guest Lisa Boggs from Firestone.
We'll see you then. And thanks for stopping by.
The Classic Automall Show with their host, Stuart Howden,
executive producer, Steve Sefair, produced and engineered by yours truly, J.R.
Russ, video editor, Randy Lambie, available on ClassicAutomall.com,
YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Music courtesy of the Pat Travers Band for tour dates, contact and stuff.
Visit PatTravers.com, produced by CarSmart Media Copyright All Rights Reserved.
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About this episode
Classic Auto Mall show #237 blends shop-floor updates with deep Indy 500 history and a modern debate about driving engagement. Stuart Howden pushes for consignments as inventory fluctuates, then chats with Rick Schaefer about his book covering Indy 500 (1962–1972): rising speeds, shifting engine layouts, turbo era, safety tech like Nomex, and wild one-off designs. Keith Martin (Sports Car Market) joins to discuss why manual transmissions still matter, how “engagement” beats automation, and what today’s tech gets right—and wrong. The episode also spotlights the museum, pace cars, and recent car arrivals.
Original notes
Show #237, airdate 04-01-26 Stewart greets Racing Historian and Author Rick Shaffer discussing his book "It's a new track record" (EvroPublishing.com) plus discussion of his time around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway how he writing as a skill and his previous book "500 on (the Indy) 500: Tales, Facts and Figures on the Greatest Race in the World" (#Amazon). Also, Keith Martin from Sports Car Market.
@USACracing @F1 @FIA @FirestoneRacing @GoodyearRacing @IMS @IndyCar @IndyCarOnFOX @AndrettiIndy @Daytona @AJFoytRacing @NASA @NASCAR #HelioCastronevis @H3lio #RickMears #AlexPalou #Studebaker #Avanti #Indianapolis #turbocharger #ParnelliJones #NitrousOxide #SmokeyYunick #AlUnser #JohnnyRutherford #STP #AndyGranitelli # Dunlop #JimHall #Monaco #MickeyThompson #Graham Hill
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Classic Auto Mall SHOW
Stewart Howden
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