CAM Show #247 airdate 06-10-26 Stewart welcomes Zak Brown, C.E.O. @MclarenF1, Author and Golf Products Company Owner. Discussed are his early years around Southern California Drag Racing, racing Go Karts, his progress to @IndyCar and Formula1 @F1. Also discussed is his amazing knowledge and collection of racing and other cars, his #1970FordCondor originally owned by McLaren, his book: "Seven Tenths of a Second: Life, Leadership and Formula 1" and 1.8 second pit stops. Steve joins later to discuss Zak's "Triple Crown" quest, a review of new arrivals, Classic sales and the upcoming CAM auction on June 19, 2026. #BruceMclaren @McLarenAuto @F1MikaHakkinen @Mercedes @Ferrarri @Benetton @MarioAndretti @BobbyRahal @Daytona @Ferrari @Porsche, @Mercedes @MichaelShoemaker @NigelMansell @CadillacRacing, @MarioAndretti @DPWorld @OscarMayer #AlUnser #LeMans #Long Beach #Indy500 #BorgWarner #RogerPenske, #slotmods #ColinChapman #Monaco, #WatkinsGlen #LongBeach #GrandPrix #Sebring #DonPrudhomme #pitcrew, #EmersonFittipaldi, #JohnnyRutherford #CanAm, #SlotMods #HotWheels #JohnnyRutherford https://www.24h-lemans.com/en
CONTENT NOTE: Contests, Prizes, Offers, Vehicles & other items may no longer be available or offered after each show's original broadcast or posting date.
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"And this guy makes these things and they are one of them is a it looks like a model of a 917 Porsche. It's about 10, 10, 12 feet long and it opens it, splits in two and opens up and"
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.
You know, my wife hates it when you say my name like that.
I think it sounds kind of cool though, so.
Joining us 247 and the man with all the toys, that may be a little misnomer because the guy we have on us probably has more toys than I hope that's so.
Anyway, quickly before we get to our great guest who's joining us via Zoom, how many cars in inventory right this moment, JR?
In salute to the 250th anniversary, I go with 776.
That was a good thought, yeah.
I pre-wrote mine, as you can see. 770.
770, too. So you, without going over.
Winner.
Yeah, winner, winner. So you get a raise, I think.
Oh, nice.
Yeah, so let's get right to our guest who's joining us via Zoom.
Mr. Zach Brown, CEO, McLaren Racing, car collector, race car collector, author, golf equipment manufacturer.
Man, you got a lot going on. Good morning, Zach.
The author is the one that sounds kind of strange because I can barely write, so I would have never thought.
But here we go. Thanks for having me on.
Great to have you and I've been looking forward to it.
We met, you and I met briefly at the IMRRC up near Watkins Glen not too long ago and a couple of years ago.
And what a great event that is.
Anything that celebrates motorsports or cars or motors or engines or whatever, we're happy to be involved with, right?
Yeah, 100%. I love the history of our sport.
I do.
Awesome. So it was a great honor, clearly a slow season of candidates.
Yeah, that's the way I always feel. They're giving me an hour and like, what in the who? I'm it. That was the last you had.
But you were born and raised in car country. I mean, Southern California, it's hard not to have cars in your blood from there, right?
Yeah, and actually, I grew up kind of drag racing.
My first ever race was the Long Beach Grand Prix in 1981, and then I would go to Riverside.
But the type of racing that I actually kind of hoped to was drag racing.
So I was with Don the Snake per Dome.
Yeah.
In Long Beach and sharing stories of going to Pomona a thousand times, watching he and John Forrest and Kenny Bernstein and Raymond Beattle race.
So because I think kind of LA is a bit of a hot rod town.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that people that have never been to a drag race don't quite get it because once you take somebody there in the furious thunder and everything that's going on, you say, I get it.
Watching it on TV doesn't quite do it justice.
It is unexplainable.
Yeah.
The power thrust violence, whatever you want to call it, of standing on the starting line between two top fuel funny cars or dragsters.
Forget about 230 miles an hour at ND. Forget about standing starts in Formula One.
Two nitro funny cars when they light up going down the J. There is nothing even close to it.
Yeah, it's like, you know, the guy, if you ask the guy a question, he works a starting line.
He's like, Bob, who worked in artillery, you know, he just he has to yell at every. It's crazy.
I can't put enough ear protection on when I'm at a drag race and I'm up in the stands.
Yeah, your eyes are crying.
Yeah.
It's an unbelievable experience.
It's crazy.
So, so obviously a natural path to McLaren racing from being a drag racer.
I mean, we're even from Pomona.
Yeah, from Pomona.
Yeah, exactly.
And I used to go to I lived in Los Angeles area back in the early 80s and went to the Long Beach Grand Prix
and people don't realize that there was Formula One in the United States well before what's going on now.
I mean, there was Watkins Glen and there was Dallas had a race back in the day in Vegas and Detroit,
Detroit, Phoenix, Kind of.
Yes.
I'm not sure many people knew there was one in Phoenix, but I went.
Yeah, exactly.
So could there be a fourth or is there a talk of a fourth or is that talk of a fourth?
But I don't think the kind of schedule allows for it in the sense of, you know, I think we've got 24 races.
We can't do 25.
We can barely do 24 from a, you know, the logistics and manpower point of view.
And then I think as much as I personally love to see a fourth race in the U.S.
I think there's other markets we need to be in that I would put as a priority ahead of a fourth race.
So I think the appetites there for a fourth race.
Right.
But I don't think the calendar has room.
Sure.
Well, and it goes without saying what Drive to Survive did for Formula One was huge.
I mean, people, my wife's even into it.
And I'm like, what?
You're into this?
It's amazing.
I don't think any of us saw that coming.
We were kind of the first to sign up because we love that stuff.
Sure.
We're all about the fans and the more we can get our fans closer to us.
But I think we all thought, hey, it's going to be some more shoulder programming.
Sure.
It'll be cool.
It'll be another, you know, we'd done something with Amazon the year before, which was, which
was good, but it didn't kind of change the world of Formula One.
So I think none of us expected it to have the impact that it did.
Sure.
Absolutely.
And but, you know, Formula One today, it looks like when you go in the pits, I mean, you
all have it set up almost as if it's the same every location, whatever country you're in.
You got the same kind of set up there.
Everything is almost like being a rock star.
Hello, Cleveland, because every town is Cleveland.
You know, it's like every.
Yeah.
So we actually have six sets of the garage.
Right.
That we send around the world.
That's where our partner DP world, you know, helps us ship our team around the world.
And and that's why it looks the same.
So the back of house is the same in Europe because we've got a beautiful, you know, it
doesn't look like a motor home.
Right.
A lot of team hub.
It's a lot of trucks.
But the front of house, we have different size of the garage, different venues have
different sizes, Monica's very small and you get to the newer facilities are quite large.
Right.
But they look the same because we are kind of traveling the same.
They were the same stuff.
Sure.
Well, and it's important, I think, for the consistency.
You've got to be for the drivers and the team and the mechanics and everybody to have a
comfort level everywhere you go.
It doesn't seem completely different when you go to somewhere else.
Yeah, totally.
No, say we're all about routine.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
We watch that in your pit stops.
1.8 seconds is a world record.
That's a world record.
It doesn't mean a 1.79 can't be done, but we shoot for consistency over over speed because
what we do and where when we're getting into strategy, we kind of gear off what is our
expected time if we can go faster, great, but what we really don't want to do is go slower.
Right.
Obviously, if you rush it, you run a higher risk.
So the 1.8 was awesome, but the goal is about consistency as opposed to outright pace.
Sure.
Yeah, because it's easy to make a mistake.
I mean, you got how many guys out there with 12 and 14 guys out there across the wall?
You've got three on each wheel.
You got a couple at the front, back, people on standby in case equipment fails.
So yeah, it's and you're only as quick as your weakest link.
So it's I'm glad I'm not on the pit crew because I would not want that pressure.
Yeah.
I imagine that the training is as intense as it gets probably more so than the driver
training.
Physical and mental.
Yeah, because you need to be in the zone.
Don't worry about the pressure.
Right.
Don't screw up.
And then the physical side, right?
These these wheels, you know, you got a race car coming in at you, stopping at the last
second on the, you know, millimeter, right, which they may or may not hit.
You got cars, you know, you know, it's burning rubber around you, missing you by a foot.
You got to be in the zone and then, you know, taking these tires on or off and then the gun
has a lot of torque.
Yeah.
It's a pretty violent environment.
Yeah.
And the heat from the wheels.
I mean, those things catch on fire and it seems just normal.
Everybody's like, oh, that wheels on fire.
Okay.
Yeah.
And you can't blink, right?
Like you can't be looking out of the corner of your eyes.
You know, for are you going to come, you know, whack me on my run over my toes?
So it's it's it's kind of like being in you see those people in the military that are
loading the artillery.
It's kind of like it's pretty intense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you probably can't think that if you think about it, you'll screw it up.
I would imagine you just got to be so low.
Yeah, you got to go and I'll be remiss in my duty.
My son wants to know what he needs to wear where he feels out an application to be a tire
changer for you.
So he's convinced and he said he would do it for free.
So you know that.
Exactly.
We don't we don't do it for free, but don't tell my boss.
Yeah, exactly.
And that's the truth, though.
Isn't it great to be able to do something that you would do for free?
I mean, it just it's such a pleasure for us every day to walk in a building with a thousand
classic cars for sale.
And with you to think about, you know, you've got an IndyCar team, a Formula One team and
E-T. I mean, just list goes on and on and on.
Everyone is a check mark off the box of life, right?
Yeah, it's funny.
My best mate, Richard Dean, who, you know, racing with at LaMalle this weekend.
And he's like, hey, I found when you used to live here 30 years ago in the attic, all
these 143rd cars that you collect.
It's like, now you got kind of the one full scale size car.
So I mean, I'm still a kid.
I'm still a Hot Wheels kid.
I've been fortunate enough to go from the 143rd to the full scale in some instances.
I love the history of the sport.
I love hanging out with the former drivers, probably more than the current drivers.
Because, you know, I think we all we all think through, at least I do have kind of, I think
the most romantic part of the sport is what you followed growing up.
So when I see Nigel Mansell or Mika Hackingen, I get.
I get goosebumps.
Emerson Fittipaldi, because these are the legends that I used to watch race that I never thought
I would meet, let alone be able to call him friend.
Sure, and be a part of it.
And of course, you know, the history of McLaren founded in 63 by Bruce McLaren.
I mean, and it's interesting that, you know, to race for Bruce, he always said talent was
important, but determination, enthusiasm meant more than that.
Just, you know, that determination, I think, is to win the will to win.
We see that today.
But boy, back then it was a different animal.
Yeah, I think reality is I'm sure he was being humble because he was that type of character.
Reality is obviously you need all the above.
But if you don't have all the above, then it'll fall down.
Sure.
I would say, you know, determination and passion is is equally as important because I've
met very few successful lazy people.
Right.
That's a good I'm going to write that down.
That's the best quote we've had ever on the show, I think.
So, you know, what's even more fascinating to me is that over 100 F1 teams have come
and gone since McLaren started in F1.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
It's expensive sport and Justin Ferrari, you know, obviously, I think Williams must be
in third there.
Right.
It's great to see because those are the, you know, historic sports.
Obviously, Mercedes has great history in sport, Red Bull, you know, et cetera.
But yeah, I think, you know, growing up for me, it was, you know, I was always in
McLaren guy, then I was Ferrari, Williams, and then I love Benetton.
Oh, I love Benetton too.
And you know, that's on school team.
Yeah, they were so cool and had a cool.
Well, they just disappeared off the earth.
It was like the whole.
Yeah.
I think Benetton today now, I think they're still around.
Right.
But five different names on.
So Benetton did become a God of who they like.
B.A.R.
And then B.A.R. became someone else.
I will have to trace that back.
Yeah.
Benetton still exists.
It's just about five versions on.
Sure.
Sure.
You know, I loved what, you know, I was explaining to my wife about the Williams
team and how dominant they were back in the day.
And it's hard to even grasp that because, you know, they had they've had struggles,
obviously, you know, over the past few years.
And it's funny that she said it's weird that people, you know, people like
celebrate ninth place is like, whoa, we got ninth, you know, but I said, you know,
the value of a point in Formula One is, you know, not immeasurable.
It's certainly measurable, but it's a lot.
It is. And it's important.
And, you know, I hope they get back to the front, you know, near the front.
Yeah. Maybe not in front.
But yeah, it's a great.
It's a great historic racing team.
I'm glad to see them doing some of the stuff they're doing around bringing back
Damon Hill, you know, and some of the Nigel Mansell, because I think a lot of
the new fans don't know Williams history.
That's why, you know, we just celebrated our thousands.
And we brought out Mika Hacking in and John Watson.
It was so cool that Fernando and Lou showed up, even though they drive for
other teams now.
And I think it's important while we're making history moving forward in today's
superstars are Orlando and Oscar, that people know who Eriton Senna, who Mika
Hacking and who Emerson Fittipaldi, who Alon Prost, who Nicky Lauda was.
Absolutely. That's our history.
We've got a rich history.
Absolutely. And I don't know if this is an unanswerable question, but is it is
it hard to have two top tier drivers versus having maybe one top tier driver
and a mid-pack driver? Is that is that even a thing?
I think both are hard. Right.
But one's a hell of a lot more fun than the other.
I'd like our approach.
Right. So, you know, if you if you're a one in a two, what's hard is good luck
winning the constructors, right?
And having one horse in the race.
So that's hard to accomplish what we want to accomplish.
Which is we want to win the drivers championship.
We want to finish first and second.
We want to win the constructors and we want to win as many races as possible.
Right. The best way to do that is to have two number one drivers.
Right.
The challenge becomes you got two drivers that want to kind of finish in the same
position. Right.
But for us, it's been a pleasure to work with both our guys because they're
their team players.
We've got an immense amount of trust.
They've had their, you know, coming together is on track.
Sure. That's only been you're going to have to
lions behind the wheel.
It's going to happen from time to time.
But we've been able to manage it.
They're great guys.
And we've been able to win the constructors and the drivers.
And, you know, last year, we had two drivers go down to the last race of the
year with, you know, equal opportunity.
OK, Lando had more points at the time, but, you know, both had a chance to win
the world championship.
And here we are, unlike many other teams that have tried this, where they've had
to move a driver out because it's become a punch up.
Right. So I'm very proud of the fact that
McLaren or a bunch of racers that were, we say, true to our values and that
we don't run from pressure or take an easy exit.
Right.
Say, let's just have one and two.
Right. That's not how we want to go racing.
Exactly. And they're both great ambassadors for the sport.
So that's, you know, they're awesome.
That's important as well.
Could be happier.
Could be happier with our driver, Lando.
Yeah. And and Cadillac is great thing that an American, if you, you know,
American team, if you will.
And are they where they're supposed to be?
I mean, they weren't going to come out of the box and ever be.
No, no, they're where they're supposed to be.
And I think realistically, they're going to be there a while.
And that's just because of how competitive the sport is.
So, you know, I think they've done a good job to come out of the gates as they have.
I mean, you saw how difficult it is, you know, Williams and Aston missed
the first part of testing.
So teams that have been around for a long time.
So, you know, them being kind of last on the grid.
That that's that just shows how tough the sport is.
The fact that they've made it to the grid hats off.
Yeah. And, you know, it takes some time to get to the front
and it's going to take them time, but it would, you know, any other team.
Sure. Absolutely. No matter how good you are, it doesn't matter.
You it's a different animal when you get out there in the real world
versus everything that charts and graphs and put it down on paper.
And it all sounds good until you get out there and then you have to practice
what you preach. Totally. Yeah.
So Indy 500 has got to be as exciting as it gets.
I mean, that, you know, Formula One is my favorite motor sports.
But there's something special about the Indy 500 that just almost indescribable
to people until you experience it or understand what it really means.
100 percent. It, you know, here I am at Le Mans.
And it's I'm asked all the time, what's your favorite form of motorsport?
You know, is it F1? Is it Indy car?
You know, is it sports car? And it's like they're all different.
Right. I think my answer is Formula One.
And then I go, but I actually grew up around Indy car and Indy 500.
And then it's like, well, I'm going to be at Le Mans this weekend.
I can't think of like a cooler race than Le Mans.
So if you can have a three way tie, you know, it's I love Indy car racing.
That was what got me into racing like professionally was the 1987 Long Beach
Grand Prix when I met Mario Andretti.
So I probably spent most of my time in my childhood, if you want to call it.
My early racing career around Indy car.
So I mean, to me, Andretti, Unzer, Sullivan, Mears, Fittipal, Ray Hall.
I mean, just, you know, those are the guys.
Yeah, those are the guys. Absolutely.
And so, you know, the Indy 500, I remember my earliest memories of that
was Johnny Rutherford in 19, 1980 when he won.
Obviously he was in the Chaperrill, but he's McLaren's one are only two
Indy 500 victories. So that's kind of my earliest memories there.
And then when I met Mario at the 87 Long Beach Grand Prix, I asked him,
how do you get started? He said, I was he was friends with the the people
that I went with. Right.
He said, karting and there happened to be an ad in the program,
a little one for Jim Hall Kart racing school and sold my watches from Wheel
of Fortune Teen Week went karting and in a way we went.
And then sports car racing, I mean, Le Mans, Daytona, Sebring, the cars.
I mean, you talk about sexy racing. Yeah.
9.62 Jaguar 9.35.
9.35. I mean, these cars. Yeah.
Have so much character.
And that's one of the things I love about sports car racing today.
Right. Is while Formula One is not back, the rules are so tight,
they kind of look all the same compared to the 80s, right?
I mean, you could, you know, if you if you took all the livery off of a Formula
One car, right, most people, including myself,
probably wouldn't get 11 out of 11. Right.
You go to the 80s, low side pods, high side pods, different engine.
Right. You have six wheels.
Yeah, the Turtles.
That's all kind of gravitated to be similar where sports car racing
today still has that who's got the V12, V10,
who's got the V8, V6, etc.
And so I think that's from a pure car perspective.
Pretty awesome. Right.
And the different sounds were always great back in the day as well, too.
So we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about cars in general and just what, you know,
every man cars like your collection you've got going on.
I imagine bring a trailer is the ultimate rabbit hole for guys like us.
It's just hard to go on there and all of a sudden days have passed.
You know, it's you bought an interesting vehicle on bring a trailer as well.
We'll touch on that real quickly.
The 1972 Ford Condor 2 motor coach,
which was McLaren's team coach back in the 70s. Is that right?
Yeah. So I can't remember who sent it to me.
Probably my buddy who ended up bidding on it for me.
Right. Alan Gow runs British touring cars.
It was like, well, you can't have your name in there.
Right. I run you. Run you up.
So it was McLaren's motorhome from 72 to 80.
I think it was. So it's had, you know, it was Grand Prix West, Grand Prix East.
You know, when I was Watkins Glen, Long Beach, it was Can-Am.
It was Indy car and it is all original.
It's mint, a change of refrigerator and air conditioning and put a little
Wi-Fi behind the scenes, but absolutely mint.
And the stuff that was in there, I've got time sheets from the Long Beach,
Grand Prix 78, the original set, like amazing.
And so it was McLaren's motorhome and it came up and my buddy bid on it for me.
And it was it was fun.
I had a bit of a bid in war and then we won and my buddy responded.
Everyone was kind of like, I wonder who bought it.
And my buddy responded, hey, you were never going to outbid the CEO McLaren.
And then everyone was nuts because it just thought it was a really cool story.
And it brought kind of tears to the the gentleman that was selling it.
Like it was, you know, he'd had it since then.
He bought it at like Watkins Glen.
It was in the 80s.
It's kind of sitting at a at a restaurant.
So it was, you know, a special thing to him.
And then it went on to win auction of the year because the whole story was cool.
And it's awesome.
So it was at Indy this year, you know, Roger Roger knows everywhere.
Everyone's parked to put the condor next to his bus.
And it's funny because you've got all the drivers and the teams and their
multi-million dollar, you know, motorhomes.
And then you got my 1970 to Ford condor and he put it right next to him,
which was really, which was really nice.
Yeah. Rodgers.
Rodgers, my hero.
Yeah, he mine too.
You know, because I'm a business guy.
I love business as much as I love cars.
And to see him.
So the question begs the grudge race race for pink slip.
Who wins Oscar Mayer, Wiener, Mobile or the Ford condor?
It's pretty, it's pretty close, but I go for the Ford condor.
I think so too.
And you'd win the Borg Wiener trophy, though.
So there you go. Exactly.
Exactly. How cool is that?
But you've got quite a collection of cars, race cars and street cars that you've
collected. And I think that one of your rules and what you collect is no losers.
You know, you only you don't collect cars that were, you know, backups to so and so.
You collect the actual car that won a race.
Yeah, that's collecting criteria.
Number one, if the car didn't win a race in period, even if it was my favorite
team, my favorite race, my favorite driver, that particular chassis only
for a second, no, thanks.
So that's that's kind of whenever kind of someone approaches me, it's like the
car went in and the answer is no.
I don't need to know anything else.
And then I collect the drivers I love, the teams racing series
that I love, all the, you know, it's just pure passion, but I want to kind of have
great pedigreed stuff.
And so so if it's on the IndyCar front, all the drivers you just mentioned,
you know, the Ray Halls, Michael, Mario, Unzer, Mears, Fiddle, Paul,
they've got their IndyCars.
I've got Mario's 1987 IndyCar that he won Long Beach in.
So it's from a like pinch me moment.
It's like right.
Full circle.
I remember.
Yeah.
I just and then on the F1 of, you know, it's Alan Jones in 1980, Williams
Championship car, but that one's really cool because the 1981 Long Beach
Grand Prix, Jones won.
So I kind of and, you know, looks very similar in Montserrat, who recruited me
at McLaren, he was one of the sponsors.
So, you know, that comes full circle.
Then I've got Santa, Lauda, Schumacher, Hamilton, Alonzo.
I'm long on McLaren's, as you would imagine.
Sure.
And then Group C cars, Imsa cars, rally cars and then some eclectic stuff.
Sure.
Ford Capris and Bathurst winning the Holdings.
But it's all stuff that I love.
Right.
And, you know, your passion runs the gamut of what you see.
Talking about Mario Andretti's, you know, as his world championship
John Player special, that black and gold livery was, man, that was sexy.
I was a poster car, wasn't it?
Well, absolutely.
But I tell you the poster that got me and I just got a chill when I was
saying it was the Lotus Esprit S2, the gold one with Colin Chapman sitting on
the hood and that Cezna 414 twin engine and black and gold sitting behind him.
When I saw that picture, I said, I want to be that guy.
That's that's what I want to do right there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Colin Chapman obviously never got a chance to meet him.
But when you look back at the characters in the sport, it doesn't just
include the drivers, it's the owners, the engineers and someone like Colin
Chapman, what a what a legend he was.
Yeah, absolutely.
So and straight cars, it looks like you're kind of working on the what is that?
What do they call the five Ferraris that are the F80, you know, the F40, the 288
GTO, the La Ferrari, it's hard to keep up with all of them anymore.
Yeah, I know I'm I love my road cars as you can imagine.
And you know, I love all brands.
Obviously, Mr. Mr. McLaren, but I've got a lot of respect for all the
Porsches, the Ferrari.
Sure.
And so I I I like supercars.
I'm a little bit on the older side.
Right.
You know, 275 GTB and the E-Types and they got a Cobra behind you.
Yeah.
289.
Yeah.
After Martin DB6.
And then, of course, from the Ferrari 288 GTO, the F50.
Yeah.
And then, of course, my modern stuff is is McLaren as you would expect.
Sure.
I don't have an F1 in my collection because that's a big ticket item.
They're getting bigger and bigger.
I think 20 something.
They're not going down in price.
They're not going and you get to sit in the center.
So, you know, that's cool, too.
So I love that.
Someone said to me, don't worry, Zach, you don't need to buy one today.
You can buy one tomorrow for more.
It was like, yeah, that's the problem.
You know, when I was growing up when I was a kid and I dreamt of all these cars,
I thought, you know, by the time I can afford them, they'll all be gone.
There won't be any cars.
They'd like the Rush song Red Barcetta, you know, it's hidden in a grandpa's
farm back in the weeds and you never get to drive them and see them.
But that's not the case at all.
And you've got a 959 Porsche, which at the time, you know, 444 horsepower twin
turbo all-wheel drive.
And then, of course, Bruce Canapa comes along and makes them even faster than.
He so normally I won't touch my cars are very purist, but not when it comes to
the 959, what Bruce has done to the 959.
You know, put aside McLaren for a moment.
Sure. If someone said to me, what's the one car?
You know, the garage is burning down.
What car are you taking?
Right. It's my it's my 959 Canapa car because you can drive it to Starbucks.
If you don't know what it is, people go, oh, that's an old Porsche.
You know what it is, you go, oh, my God, 959 versus driving around in the yellow
50, you're going to get noticed.
Sure. And and he's turned it into a monster.
It's like 850 horsepower.
They're very rare.
I think they're undervalued relative to where they are.
So I think those will just continue to climb.
And it was interesting when I called Porsche, because a lot of those had some
suspension issues, right?
They're like, you should think about Bruce Canapa doing your car.
And it's like to have an OEM suggests someone else touch their car.
Well, the amount of respect and credibility everyone has for that.
That means that I've got a couple of singers, which are amazing.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
When I was at Monterey this past year in August, seeing like singers
just passing you on the highway like no, it's just they're just so well done.
Whoever's got that eye for design on those things, they just change enough
just to make it so cool.
But like you said, most people that see it wouldn't know the difference.
You know, they just look at it.
Oh, that, you know, cool looking Porsche or cool looking whatever.
So we, you know, your your book talks about seven tenths of a second
life leadership and Formula One.
You know, we were talking about about the pit stops in 2.5 seconds
is your average one.
But I mean, you know, the difference in the pit stop can make seven tenths
of a second is winning versus losing. Right. Sometimes that when it came down
to Abu Dhabi, you know, what looked to be a walk in the park on Saturday
when we qualified first and second and Ferrari was, you know, fourth in 17th or 18th.
Right. And then Max wipes out Oscar Charles
the clerk has like the best start in the history of Formula One.
And goes from 17th to seventh in three laps.
All of a sudden you're going, oh, God, like we have to win this race.
And Carlos in the Ferrari was was right on
Lando and he came in to try and undercut us.
And, you know, you get in the D.R.S., which is very impactful.
Maybe Lando would have got back around him because Lando was on fire.
Maybe he wouldn't have. Right.
Had we been seven tenths of a second slower, Lando comes out,
Oscar Carlos is in his D.R.S.
You can't defend Carlos would have passed them. Right.
And if Lando doesn't get him back, we don't become world champions.
So it's crazy how, you know, thousand people, hundreds of millions spent
24 races around the world and it comes down to the final pit stop
and seven tenths of a second.
Maybe is the difference between us winning our first world championship
in 26 years or not. Absolutely.
You know, and you see that often, the time is just amazing.
The qualifying time between first and 20 second.
Now it's hard to say 20 seconds instead of 20th.
First and 20 second now is, you know, just not even a second and a half.
It's just crazy. So, so competitive.
How would you like to be on the pit crew for that pit stop?
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. No pressure there. Right.
You know, and that plane ride home, if you don't get it right,
it's got to be long.
I didn't even want to watch let alone be on the crew.
And I got it quickly before we get done.
I know you've got things to do.
You're joining us from Paris and getting ready to get us Lamar this weekend.
But do you have a slot mods track?
I have the coolest slot mods track.
It was it was cool. It's funny.
I've one of my guys that worked for me came in and there was this feature.
And I think it was auto week and he's like, hey, you don't have one of those.
And now I've got to get one of those.
Now I have to.
And so I've brought it to I've had it now for 15 years.
I've brought it to England. It's it's huge.
It's it's cool.
It's the front straight of Old Indy into the Riverside S's into the Nürburgring
Carousel into the Monaco hairpin Long Beach hairpin into LaSource
at Spa up through a Rouge down around through the Dunlop Lamar Bridge
into Old Three and Four at Indy with the old pagoda and scoring
Pylon Tower. It is awesome. That's incredible.
That's you like to track you get at Walmart.
Basically the same thing, only different.
You know what the best part about it is just the one place you can drink and drive.
You know, I have a play seat, one of those seats that they're forming the one
and they actually are sitting on the ground for the simulator that we have in the basement.
And I'm drinking a glass of wine and while I'm doing it, my wife's
you can't drink wine and do that.
I said, yes, I can.
I'm the boss and I can.
I got to know how many times across the pond, the Atlantic Ocean, are you going every year?
I mean, what are you, 20, 30 times across?
Yeah, I live on the road.
250 nights on the road.
I'm I had this app I did last year.
I've lost patience with doing it.
I think I traveled around the world like eight times last year.
Wow. That's crazy.
And spent a month in the air when you add up all my travel time,
a month in the air.
It's got to be hard to to remain, you know, jet lag, all the other stuff that goes along
with it, different foods, different environments, different humidities.
All that's got to be tough on the body.
You got to really be in pretty good.
I'm sure it's not as healthy as being at home and have a scheduled breakfast
dinner and then, you know, eating weird time zones.
But I've been doing it forever and I love it.
So, yeah, it's it's tiresome.
But when you have to wake up tomorrow to go racing,
it's pretty easy to get motivated.
Exactly. So my last question I always like to ask is maybe this will have meaning or not.
But what's your daily driver?
Wow. Actually, a Range Rover.
But I like to kind of mix it up.
So I drive to the factory, which is really going to chance I get to drive.
I kind of rotate cars.
But, you know, the the the daily driver, if I'm not kind of, you know,
if it's raining and I don't want to get anything dirty, I'm hopping in a Range Rover.
Right. Gotcha.
Zach Brown, everybody, thanks so much for being on the show today.
I know you got lots on your plate and we really appreciate it.
And we hope we'll see you at one of the races coming up soon.
My pleasure. Thanks for having me on.
Yeah, we'll be back in just a couple minutes with the Classic Auto Mall show.
We'll see you then. 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 characters 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
2025 in episode 180
Remember, if you haven't seen it, it's new to you.
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But where and how can you find one and trust, you know,
as much as you can about it before the purchase?
That's why there's classic auto mall dot com.
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Classic Auto Mall Studios in Morgantown, England.
It's a good.
Good paradiddle in that.
I like to.
Yep.
He was only calling from Paris, France.
Wow. Yeah. Did you see how the drapes closed?
Yeah.
For last pretty cool.
That's a classic.
That's cool. That ain't no Red Roof Inn.
Although Red Roof Inn used to sponsor an IMSA car back in the day.
That's right. That's right.
So that was I can't even remember any of the details on that.
I think Hotel Six did too.
Probably did.
And Tom Baudet will leave the line on.
That's right. I don't think that's where they're staying.
I think they're staying five seasons, not four seasons.
They're not staying at that shabby old four.
Right. Right. What a great guest.
It was funny when you said you asked his daily driver, you thought he was going to say
a Gulf Stream Six or something.
Yeah, Gulf Stream Seven or eight or whatever they are.
And we didn't even get to talk about them.
So sorry, the triple crown, you know, that McLaren has won the Indy 500,
the Monaco Grand Prix and what's the LaMauk.
And wants to win again.
Yeah. And wants to win again.
So we didn't get to talk about that.
I'm remissing that it was just gosh, there was just so much to talk about.
I mean, I could have had him on for two hours.
And you're talking about it now. So.
Right. Well, there you go.
Yeah, we absolutely are.
So a lot of fun and a great guy ambassador to the sport.
And great to see the American involvement, whether it be Cadillac as a team,
whether Zach Brown running a team, whether having the three races in America.
It's great to see that Formula One is catching on.
My wife loves it.
She she was into it.
She knows about, you know, past zones and all that stuff.
And and and she always enjoyed cars and racing.
But she's, you know, drive to survive really had an effect on a lot of people
because it made it human, you know, because race car drivers,
you know what you see, you see the same thing.
Like he said, if you took the livery off of every car today,
it'd be hard to tell what it is.
Race car drivers the same way they all have helmets on.
So you never see their face.
You don't see their expressions.
You don't see their eyes, you know, and to women, that's important.
They like to see, you know, very visual,
very visual when it comes to stuff like that.
So anyway, great guess.
Thank you so, so, so, so much.
Let's get an extra applause.
Why? Yes, let's do it.
So where do we sell cars this week?
You were well.
Hey, how about I got it right here? OK.
Minneapolis, Minnesota. OK.
How about Jupiter, Florida, Hamstead, Maryland, Antioch, California,
Lewisville, Louisville, Kentucky, the villages, Florida,
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