The Autopian Podcast Jan 3, 2024

Crew Show; The Autopian’s Predictions For 2024

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Car

Jeep YJ

The Jeep YJ is a type of Jeep Wrangler made between 1987 and 1995. It's popular for off-roading and has a unique look with square headlights.

Car

Dodge Ram

The Dodge Ram is a big truck that's great for hauling things and is popular among people who need a reliable vehicle for work or play.

Term

Cummins 5.9

The Cummins 5.9 is a strong diesel engine that many trucks use because it's tough and lasts a long time.

Car

Bmw I3

The BMW i3 is a small electric car that's designed for city driving and is made with environmentally friendly materials.

Term

carbon fiber body

A carbon fiber body is made from a special lightweight material that is very strong. This helps the car be more efficient and perform better because it weighs less.

Term

rear engine

A rear engine means the car's engine is located at the back instead of the front. This can help the car grip the road better and handle turns more effectively.

Term

rear wheel drive

Rear wheel drive means the car's power goes to the back wheels, which can make it faster and more fun to drive, especially when going around corners.

Car

Nissan Leaf

The Nissan Leaf is an electric car that doesn't use gasoline. It's designed to be environmentally friendly and is known for being affordable and easy to drive.

Car

Tesla Cybertruck

The Tesla Cybertruck is a unique electric truck that looks very different from regular trucks. It's made to be tough and is part of Tesla's plan to make more electric vehicles.

Term

A supercharged V8 is a type of engine that has a device called a supercharger, which helps it produce more power by forcing in extra air. This makes the engine much stronger and faster than regular engines.

Term

horsepower

Horsepower is a way to measure how powerful an engine is. The more horsepower an engine has, the faster and stronger it can make a vehicle go.

Car

GMC Tornado

The GMC Tornado is a small truck made by GMC that was popular in the past. It has a distinctive look and was used for various purposes.

Concept

Airstream

Airstream is a company that makes shiny, silver travel trailers that people use for camping and road trips. They are known for their unique design.

Concept

barn find

A barn find is when someone finds an old car that has been hidden away for a long time, usually in a barn. These cars can be special and worth a lot to collectors.

Part

fuel hose

A fuel hose is a tube that carries fuel to the engine. In some older cars, these hoses can wear out and start leaking, which can be dangerous.

Car

Bugatti Veyron

The Bugatti Veyron is a super fast car that was once the fastest in the world, known for its powerful engine and luxury features.

Car

Toyota Tundra

Car

Toyota Tacoma

The Toyota Tacoma is a smaller truck compared to the Tundra, and it's great for driving off-road or for everyday use. It's popular for its reliability and ability to handle rough terrain.

Company

Foxconn

Foxconn is a big company that usually makes electronics, like smartphones. Now, they are also getting into making cars, especially electric ones.

Brand

Fisker

Fisker is a car company that makes electric cars. They are known for their stylish designs and environmentally friendly vehicles.

Part

bumper tail lights

Bumper tail lights are the lights at the back of a car, usually found on the bumper. They help other drivers see when you're stopping or reversing, but their position can sometimes be confusing.

Car

BMW Series Bmw

The BMW 7 Series is a big luxury car that has all the latest tech and comfort features. It's considered one of the best cars BMW makes.

Car

Buick Park

The Buick Park Avenue is a big, comfortable car that people used to drive for a smooth ride. It's known for being a nice, classic luxury vehicle.

Term

headliner

The headliner is the fabric or material that lines the inside roof of a car. It's there to make the car look nicer and help with noise and temperature control.

Car

Ford Ranchero

The Ford Ranchero is a mix between a car and a truck that was made a long time ago. It's interesting because it combines features of both types of vehicles.

Term

column shift

A column shift is where the gear lever is located on the steering column instead of on the floor. It was popular in older cars and helps save space inside the car.

Concept

American cars vs European cars

This concept talks about how American cars and European cars are different. American cars usually have bigger engines and focus on comfort, while European cars are often designed for better handling and performance.

Car

Mercedes-Benz Aclass

The Mercedes-Benz A-Class is a small luxury car that has nice features and a comfortable ride. It's a good option for people looking for a fancy car without going too big.

Car

Audi A2

The Audi A2 is a small car that was made a while ago and is known for being light and space-efficient. Some people really like it because it's different from other cars.

Car

Rover 800

The Rover 800 is a car that was made in the UK during the late 1980s and 1990s. It was designed to be comfortable and spacious, but it wasn't always very reliable.

Car

Montego

The Rover Montego is another car made by Rover, produced in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was designed to be practical and came in different versions, like a sedan and a station wagon.

Concept

Oh, just listen to that four liter per under hood.

Oh, it's good.

Oh, just listen to the shifts of this five speed.

Oh, this Jeep is glory.

Oh, boy.

He's never.

Oh, no.

Do you know why I pulled you over, son?

Or, sir, son?

Did you see my foot through the floorboard?

Maybe.

Was it the exhaust hanging on the ground?

Was that it?

Not that I noticed, but.

Oh, it's because I was doing 55 and a 54, right?

This vehicle couldn't do 55.

That's fair, OK.

Then what's the problem, officer?

I don't believe this is illegally registered

and insured view.

It looks like someone drove a riding lawnmower

through a scrap yard.

Ooh, that's cold.

Don't worry, though.

I've got insurance.

I'll prove it's insured and registered.

Check it out.

Let me just move this Taco Bell wrapper.

Insurance, please.

Wait, I've got marble.

Marbles?

No, marble.

It's the fast, free, and easy insurance app

that lets you track all of your insurance policies

by keeping them all in one place.

Boom, there we go.

Wow, this is great.

Thanks, actually, bought this YJ a few weeks ago.

No, not the car, the app.

It has insurance for all of your weird cars in one place.

Amazing.

Most people I pull over waste my time trying

to look up their insurance.

Once you set it up, it actually monitors your insurance

so you can get alerted if there's any rate increase.

Do you know where I could sign up?

Yeah, just go to marblepay.com slash utopian.

Just marble.

I got you.

It's marblepay.com slash utopian.

In that picture, is that hands on junk or hands off junk?

Oh, this is free pants shitting.

So this is all right.

So the normal amount of pants on junk.

Yeah, that's the normal amount, which is always in your buy.

So, by the way, for me, this is hard to hear

because I love you there.

Welcome to the utopian podcast.

This is the entire utopian staff.

We've got co-founder Bo Bo here to be a chaperone.

Hey, everyone.

And actually, I supposed to plug membership.

I actually don't know what we're doing here on this podcast.

Matt sort of put it together and.

Yeah, no, no, this is a well planned out podcast

on what everyone who's listening to know.

This is going to be fantastic.

So stay, stay tuned.

It's going to be something.

Chaos is the best thing and we're great at chaos,

but it's it's going to be great.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

This is the last podcast of 2023.

And we're going to have the whole almost all the staff on here.

No, Jason, for the moment.

And also, Lou and poor Lou and is in Australia.

So it's very, very, very early in the morning there.

But yeah, we're going to excuse.

I'm calling him up right now.

And we're going to talk to all the biggest stories

are really our favorite stories of the year.

Thomas, myself, Matt, Mercedes, Bo, Peter,

Adrian Clark, Stephen Walter Gossin,

whose name you have the same full every time for some reason.

What about just guys?

Yeah, I love guys work.

Yeah, I'm fine with that.

That's not fine. Yeah.

Whatever we're talking about that.

Yeah, it's all good.

You got some hot guys.

Hot guys.

All right, let's start with hot guys.

Goss, tell me what is what was your favorite story

that you do?

Do we introduce Adrian to or was I too focused on the gas?

You're too focused on the gas.

We introduce Adrian as well.

I apologize.

Well, I love that Adrian is overseas.

You know, he's he's up late.

But, Lou, and he's he's he's lazy in bed.

You know what I'm saying?

That's Adrian's here.

Thank you.

Australia and Britain are right next to each other.

They're right.

Well, you're close.

They're just not America.

So I thought everyone would just show up.

Anyway, sorry to interrupt.

No, it's it's fine.

I'll get to go.

It's not that early.

It's not that early in Australia right now.

OK, I'm looking at it up.

It can be OK.

I'm going to jump ahead and I'm going to jump ahead.

A couple of a couple of big stories for our site this year.

Really big one.

Actually, a lot of holy grails.

People seem to love to learn about new machines.

Love holy grails.

Can anyone guess what the top performing holy grail was this year?

To holy grails, for those of you who don't know,

they're deep dives into very interesting vehicles.

Usually, for the most part, extremely rare,

sometimes very obscure.

Sometimes they were sold for just one mile a year or just a limited market.

Mercedes has been sort of taking point on holy grails.

Can anyone guess what holy grail people were most excited to learn about?

And we have any guesses?

And am I allowed to answer or?

Yes, for the sake of speed, yes, you are.

That's exactly right.

The which one?

Um, the headline was.

The headline was two decades ago,

you could buy a Dodge Ram with a manual transmission

and one of the greatest truck engines of all time.

Almost a million, well, not over 900,000 views,

according to Google Analytics.

And yeah, people just wanted to.

Hear about the Cummins five nine,

which is a legendary 12 valve, unkillable engine.

So yeah, that's that that was a good one.

Another one that did a lot of page use this year

was the BMW i3 that I bought after Thomas basically.

Thomas made it impossible for me not to buy the i3.

He could he's like, dude, carbon fiber body.

It's got an engine, rear engine, rear wheel drive.

They're dirt cheap. What are you doing?

You were worried that you were worried that you were looking at

bolt and you were worried that a Chevrolet bolt would just bore

the ass clean off of you.

Yeah. And this was, you know, similar money,

similar form factor, but a way more interesting engineering premise.

So yeah, yeah, glad your i3 is, you know, living up to the dream

and glad that the stories are doing well.

I'm actually really excited when you couldn't

find a place to charge it, get it fixed.

For me, I loved all the torture you've gone through with that i3, brother.

That that has been hilarious.

So the one I couldn't charge was the leaf.

Did you read that story, by the way?

Oh, the leaf, that's right. Of course I did.

Oh, God, the Nissan Leaf story.

If you haven't read the Nissan Leaf story, I'm not saying because I wrote it

because really, I don't want you to read my writing.

If you're listening to this, you need to read the writing.

From the tens of thousands of people who commented

on the video of me being stuck at a broken charger.

It is the most incredible.

Look at this.

If you're dumb enough to buy an EV, you deserve worse than this.

I hope you're like, it's so bad.

I hope your life becomes so miserable that you move to a red state

specifically so that you can purchase a firearm.

And then I'm not going to get into it any further.

Oh, I just told you to kill yourself.

Yeah, he took it too far.

Took it too far.

He took it too far.

Dave Chungus Connery told you to kill yourself.

And I mean, I'm I'm from a land of no firearms.

But my understanding of America is you don't need to be at a red state

to buy firearms.

You can just, you know, buy them in a 7-Eleven or something.

So I can I can get a gun in California.

That's that's it. So yeah, absolutely.

So anyway, I can walk down the block

and buy a gun in five minutes off any street corner.

OK, I'm exaggerating, but this story, all this story,

all this was was just a 90 second video where I'm I'm just telling folks,

hey, I bought this Nissan LEAF, by the way, thousand dollars,

bought it for two thousand.

I'm getting a thousand dollars, one thousand dollar car for twenty eleven.

Well, you can see how I got mixed up for a minute

because you bought two crappy EVs. Yeah, very, very cheap.

So, you know, I apologize, I got mixed up in my little brain.

Well, and by the way, we're on vacation.

So, you know, my brain's still waking up and get back to work.

Oh, I feel that I feel that.

Yeah, so I bought this thousand dollar car.

And of course, it was a grand.

So of course, the battery, OK, it has no range.

But people seem to latch. Oh, there it is.

People seem to latch onto it.

Two point seven million views, I think it said.

Yeah, two point million views, fifty nine thousand likes,

a million comments, some supportive, many of them calling you a liberal

and then implying that your girlfriend would get you pregnant.

Oh, I think someone might have actually literally said that

just because I bought an EV and I meant I will say that there is a divide

in this country between electrification, like pro EV and kind of,

you know, carburetor tune in folks.

And it's just kind of we're in a weird spot on that front.

Oh, I'm glad we can bring people together and love both, you know.

That's right. Yeah.

But I don't I don't think that's an American thing.

I see that and I see that in this country as well.

And it's like if you if you like an EV or you have got positive things

to say about them, you're automatically some kind of tofu weaving

communist and not a real man or woman and, you know, vice versa.

And, you know, I mean, it's just ridiculous.

You know, I mean, I had that mini EV earlier on in a year on test

and it was great. It was so quick and, you know, makes perfect sense.

I mean, I got nowhere to charge it because I don't have off street parking.

But but yeah, it was a really, you know, it was a really compelling little car.

Yeah, so if I put a gun rack on my EV, does that kind of balance things out?

We should do that.

Where's the where's the Smith and Wesson edition?

What if you like me?

Let's do that. That's so round.

I mean, as a social media experiment, just to see what happens.

Well, we can mock it up, see what the reaction would be.

That'd be hilarious.

This does raise an important question.

And that is, is the Cybertruck right in the middle of the culture war?

Well, well, it's a great.

There are some substantial, you know, libertarian leading components to it.

But it's also, you know, an electric vehicle.

That's a fair point.

And the weird thing is, you can't can you put a gun rack on a Cybertruck

because it has that tono cover that has to be there at all times.

You couldn't put a gun rack on anything if you try hard.

That's right.

Yeah, the Canadian even knows that.

Come on. Yeah, you can put a gun rack anywhere on anything.

You wouldn't be able to reach in because of those big sale panels on the side.

So you could have your gun, but you could get to it.

Gun racks are usually as the only one on this podcast currently

who has a gun rack that I go in their vehicle, my truck.

The gun racks on the are on the inside, right behind the driver and passengers

head in the cab. That's where they're mounted so you can lock them.

So I think on Cybertruck, you still have that glass right there.

You could you could just sort of wedge it in the seals, maybe.

Anyway, on the other side of the spectrum from EVs, we have this,

a 700 horsepower Supercharged V8 story that Thomas wrote.

People really latched on to this.

Why is that, Thomas?

Why are people so interested in this truck?

It's just badass, you know, hot, nasty, badass American speed.

This is your, you know, basic work truck

with a metric buttload of power thrown at it.

And you can get it done off of your four dealer and it's 50 state legal

and it just kicks ass, you know, if you want to do burnouts for a block

and haul a bike while doing it, this is the machine right here.

And who doesn't love cheap horse power?

Exactly. Exactly.

It appeals to, you know, the value proposition for for all of it.

Yeah, cheap horsepower. I'm glad still clicks.

You don't have to write.

I want to point out something drove it.

Oh, man, that was so fun.

Easily will the coolest things have driven.

So 700 horsepower under an empty bed, I assume, if you put like your little

toe, your pinky toe on the throttle, it was smoke show.

Just supposed to do burnouts all the time.

And the best part is that work mounts like regular street tires on it.

Like rated for like 120 and it's like the truck has more power,

this brakes can handle more power.

This tires can handle.

It's just it's it's it's it's here.

You take this that's in the back and I'm laughing the entire time.

It sounds like it would almost make dry pavement feel like snow.

Oh, I mean, there's no there's no snow.

There's power here and there, but like you see sort of the highway and like

you know, yeah, I can take them and you can't.

I mean, I want them to fit.

You think maybe that's so yes.

I mean, that is pretty you pull up next to someone in a regular cab,

work truck and then just dust them.

I mean, that's cool.

I had 50 grand.

I would buy one of them.

Just to clarify, Mercedes is a little hard to hear because she's in the car

that is one of us owns that is most like a sound recording booth.

That's the worst for audio quality.

But but she's in motion.

The car is driving. She's not driving.

We've all checked someone else.

There we go.

All right. Moving on.

What's our any other stories that anyone wants to highlight?

Stories that they wrote this year that

were well received, just anything I want to talk about.

How about this baby Airstream we're all looking at right now?

That makes sense.

The mythical, autopian, recreational vehicle

that's been happening for like two years and is no closer.

So absolutely, if anything, we're further away.

But yeah, no, Mercedes wrote about.

I love this story.

They wrote about this crazy Argosi GMC,

you know, Tornado based camber, which I love these.

But I've never seen one done up like an Airstream itself with the crazy,

you know, polished metal look on the outside.

And there is one out there.

And this is also I want to point out our second most popular post of 2023.

This one's over a million people at this.

And I get it, because this you just can't not see this thing

and then just kind of fall in love with it.

And it's the little baby one, too, which is super, super, super cool.

So this one is.

I think it's like a sprinter van.

Oh, do you see the one at the casket?

That's red. Oh, man.

All the flowers.

Airstream.

No, they made a Hearst version.

So that way, Grandmikin can still come on holiday with you.

It's all right, Thomas.

That's where Adrian goes, right?

Yeah, that's right.

That's every we're looking at a camper that has it's an Airstream

and it's a long Airstream.

And then in the back, there's a hatch that doesn't come straight out

of the back like you would imagine it comes out of the side.

And it comes out the wrong way.

Yeah, comes out the wrong way and there's a coffin in it.

And that's where Adrian is going to sleep in our RV and our perfect RV that

we have we are never over.

I think it's strange how Adrian sleeps all day.

It only gets up during the night.

I still haven't figured out why that happens.

That's that.

Well, yeah, that's why I'm wide awake now at nine in the evening.

That's what I wasn't telling you.

Yeah, I've been asleep all day.

Hanging upside down from the from the door frame.

By the way, just to just to go back to our original conversation,

it's only eight a.m. in Australia.

So come on.

You get up at eight a.m.

Jeez, get it together.

Lou and this is actually another Mercedes story.

This is our most popular story of the year by traffic.

All right.

Well, yeah, I don't know if you knew that Mercedes.

You want to tell everyone about this one?

Well, yeah, so for years, many, many years,

you had a car that did not have a title or had a sketchy title or,

you know, something was risky about it.

You could just bail a bill of sale and some money to Vermont

and get back a registration in the mail.

They could use it to decide.

And so, like, it's like found like a barn finder or a crappy motorcycle,

like five or five, so you can register Vermont for like 150

and then have a have a legal vehicle again.

Unfortunately, it's always going to Vermont.

A lot of people were using this like a scam

and using his own spouse ID fee.

And they were being delinquent and being people.

So they decided to shut this all down.

So if you find like a cold motorcycle or a barn finder,

you're kind of screwed now.

I mean, you could still be a bonded title, but one title costs more.

And there's a whole bunch of things going to jump through.

So sadly, Vermont tells you to shave old cars.

So how does Vermont compare to like Montana in this?

Is there any comparison there?

Because that's what I noticed.

Everyone wants to register their vehicles, Montana.

So Montana, hopefully you guys can still hear me here.

So Montana is where you want to go if you have an expensive car.

You don't want to pay taxes.

Yes, of course.

So different loopholes.

A different loophole.

You don't want to register a $1 car in Montana.

You want to register a $1,000 car.

So the Vermont loophole is gone.

So if I wanted to buy, say, a 1961 mighty might military vehicle,

which you're not allowed to register in California,

because it's a military vehicle, I'd be pretty much screwed then.

Yeah, I mean, you have to get a bonded title

and if you can't register in California, then you're just screwed by default.

So we can't like, like, like register our tanks anymore or anything.

What's up with that?

I think it might have had something for that,

like a bonded title or something like that, especially constructive.

But Vermont made it easy and now you can't ask anymore.

And it's such a bummer, too,

because thankfully we got ski class, our Mercedes snow wagon project,

which will eventually see snow if it ever snows again.

It's that one we registered and it's read.

I just walked in there.

I walked in to the Bennington DMV

and I just handed them a letter from Jason, an email from Jason saying

he can register this, register this car for this random California LLC.

And the title was also sketchy from Jersey

and it had been changed hands a couple of times.

And they were just like, this seems legitimate.

And they just gave me license like 20 minutes.

I was a little nervous because it seemed too sketchy and they just did it.

And thankfully we got it under the wire because never again.

Also, that's that car never got inspected

so it can never ever go back to Vermont.

So the one place it can't go, ironically.

All right, the irony.

Stephen, Stephen Walter Gawson is our wrenching hero.

Now that I've gone soft in California,

we need someone who can, you know, spin a wrench on some, you know, dirt.

Oh, who is this?

Jason Torchinsky, Jason Torch, as I live it, breathe.

How's it going?

Torch. Hey, it's not that.

I'm not. Yes, you're safe for sore eyes.

God, it's so good to see you, my friend.

How you feeling?

You do, bro. Yeah.

How's it going? What's going on? What is this?

By the way, just so you know, if you heard the sort of grunting sound

that was Matt vomiting on his keyboard,

because Jason showed us his his scar from his surgery.

Oh, I got more scar.

I got three weird little holes where they had hoses in me.

I got all kinds of.

I got I got some of those as well, but mine are probably not as good as yours.

I'm sure yours are good.

Yours are from the NHS.

Yeah, yeah.

Properly. Socialist health care.

Health care scars. Yeah.

Mine right now, the weirdest thing and the grossest thing

is one of the holes that had a hose in it has a scaven there

that feels like it would be so good to pull out like a little plug.

Oh.

Oh, you should be at it for a little while.

What? Yeah.

No, I take out of Jesus.

Take at it.

By the way, I haven't been able to look at or eat a bratwurst

since that one picture video you sent us.

Oh, yeah. This is this incision is actually way better.

It's not nearly as bad as it doesn't.

It doesn't. It's not like a sausage under there.

Did you I sent the video where they shoved the needle in there, right?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was scared.

I don't want you to miss that, because that was that was.

I don't think I saw that.

And taking in like a champ, by the way, Jason, I have to say.

Oh, yeah, you just you grow to love it.

It's become a part of your life.

Oh, so what happened?

We know of the some of the drugs

that have been making me like kind of sleepy during the day.

So I'm hoping my goal is by the first to at least get started back

on like cold starts and some some light blogging and then ease back into stuff.

So so when you say light blogging, do you mean you're going to be writing about lights?

Exactly. You know, hey, can you tell us what happened?

Yeah. What do you mean?

For those who don't know, you know, for the the podcast,

oh, sphere of folks who are wondering what we're talking about.

Oh, oh, right. Oh, this is this is a podcast.

Yeah, you're live.

Yeah, you're live, buddy.

The prize podcast.

Don't miss out on your social security number, Jason.

OK, OK, so what happened is my aorta exploded.

There we go, David's got it.

So I had what's called an aorta dissection,

and I was having a very normal day.

I even ran.

I like felt very healthy and hail, and I probably picked up a car over my head.

And that was your problem.

You went running, dude. Don't you don't do that?

It's not worth it, but what happened is

my aorta, there's a thing where like it's like the old

of my beetle or a lot of German cars had this fuel hose

that has this braided outside and a rubber inside.

And the rubber always decays in the inside and separates out.

And you can't tell anything's wrong until it's leaky.

That's kind of what happened.

My aorta, my aorta, the inner layer like separated and it causes like a fissure.

And I felt like this pop in my chest.

And then it felt like your pain that dropped down to my abdomen.

And the reason I learned later is because my aorta

ripped or what they call

dissected all the way down to my kidney.

So the whole thing just like ripped and there was basically blood flowing out

and I started to feel really weird and I texted Sally, I'm having a medical thing.

Or I think, oh, no.

And then I started like chest pain, abdominal pain.

Then like it was just it was getting bad fast.

And they said, yeah, very.

So basically, it was it was like when my Ferrari threw up its water pump,

but much worse and much more expensive as well.

Yes, it was like that.

And similar fluids in the wrong place.

Well, it's not getting where they need to be.

And because the blood couldn't go a little warning lights.

Fun. Yeah.

All the dash lights are on.

The check engine light is blinking vision, getting black at the edges.

Everything. Oh, removed.

And then I, you know, the paramedics came and they got me into the ambulance.

And then I'm on this weird I felt like a tray.

And that's when everything started to really feel like it was shutting down.

I shit myself lavishly.

And oh, well, that's normal.

And I covered I went to cover my junk.

And then the very angry EMT yelled at me.

She yelled like, hands off your penis.

And oh, it was bad.

But then at the time, you know, but then what was actually happening?

How many times have you heard that, by the way?

Oh, yeah. Well, yeah.

Like it's not Trader Joe's.

You can't tell me.

Yeah, but right there.

Yeah, from a woman in uniform.

I look like I'm calm in this picture there, but I'm not like in that picture.

I'm making like a big deal face.

But in my head, everything was very weird.

Oh, David. Oh, yeah.

David says it's like an I fucked up face.

And it kind of is. But that could have been your last photo.

That could have been the one that could have been. Yeah.

What's that in that picture?

Is that hands on junk or hands off junk?

Oh, this is three pants.

Shitting. So this is the normal amount of hands on junk.

Yeah, that's the normal amount, which is always, always nearby.

So, by the way, for me, this is hard to hear because I love you bad.

And it's horrible to go through.

But I have to ask this one thing, like, like what what?

How did you shit your pants?

I think here's what it felt like.

It felt like all of the things that make your body work were just turning off.

Like it was going bad.

And then like the part that controls, you know, the active part of your

digestive system, see from shitting just went, we're done for now.

And it didn't feel like regular shitting.

It just felt like everything's come down.

So you're telling me just let loose.

It just let you that the default state of the human body is to shit yourself

and that you have to have systems working to not work in.

And when everything when the system turns off, it just opens up and whatever.

Just relaxes. Yeah, yeah, just comes out.

It's a it's a distress reflex in a way.

It's, you know, I was talking about, you know, your incident with some family

members in the medical community and they they say, you know, first of all,

you are very lucky. And second, everyone says that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Like absurdly, absurdly, like, you know, by a power vaulting and lucky.

But secondly, you know, just shitting yourself is the normal response

to something like this. It happens way more often.

Yeah, it's the right thing to do.

And yeah, it's just it's involuntary.

It's just what the body does.

It was definitely involuntary.

I was not thinking the right thing to do now would be to really fill these

pants up just to just to crown off the boat.

Because there was no rest happening.

That's how to make this day perfect.

Those pants were filled.

It was but it was it just felt like everything shutting down.

And it wasn't even funny.

Yeah, what are you going to say, Sally?

So hi, everybody, by the way.

So when he when he shit his pants, the nurse gave me the pants in a bag.

She's like, take these home and dump them in the washing machine.

Don't even look at them.

Just dump them in the machine and I could feel them and they were super heavy.

And I was like, I think I'm just going to throw them away.

She's a good idea.

Which I don't know.

And yeah, what beats up out of nowhere.

And he's like, those are my good jeans.

They're not.

What pants? And he was like, oh, yeah, OK.

It's very because they were not my good jeans.

They were no longer your good jeans.

No matter what.

No matter what, because a man only has like one good pair of trousers.

Oh, that's that's that is true.

We're saying, you know, the rest of the way, you know, I have an abundance

of sweatpants because everybody was very generous.

And so I'm going to be spectacular.

So yes, they this and in hindsight,

I'm realizing this is a lot scarier for Sally and everybody around me

because I'm not perceiving that I might be gone.

I'm just everything's just kind of closing down and it's feeling weird.

And then they they had to cool my body down because the aortic dissection

has to be operated on immediately or you're done.

So it's like an immediate thing.

But first they had to cool my body temperature down to like 70 something

to all things from happening.

And I'm glad I wasn't awake for that, because that sounds terrible.

And then and then I went into like a three hour surgery immediately after that.

And they put a Gore-Tex sleeve on my

on my aorta. So it's now like a sleeve deorta.

And you're like, let's just burn them,

which is why it's a huge scar that goes all the way down to crack.

You open like a crab.

Well, good. Yeah, it's it was.

Yeah, it was an exciting surgery.

It was the surgery.

Oh, the surgery was eight hours. I'm sorry.

It was a lot. Yeah. Oh, geez. Good Lord.

You did three hours.

But I'm like, no, David and I were like, oh, he's going into surgery.

And it was late at night and I kept checking my phone like every hour

and waking up to see how you were.

And then it was morning.

It was just morning at some point.

And I was like, what the hell?

And it wasn't until I feel like 10 or 10 30 or 11.

It was like super late that we got the all clear

that you would come out of surgery and you were going to be OK.

So we were sweating it for like eight or nine hours, David.

Yeah, I not Sally.

Sally, I'm sure also probably had a problem with it.

But I did tell Sally to go home, though.

We had that conversation.

Yeah.

The nurses like this is going to be about a six hour long surgery.

So you can wait here if you want, or you can go home.

And Jason kind of wakes up out of nowhere and he's like, go home, sweetie.

Get some sleep.

I'm going to be here for a while.

I'm busy. I got things.

You're such a sweetheart.

It just seemed wrong.

Like, why should you wait around there?

Jason, it was Jason, I don't remember much of that.

Yeah, if this was karma,

who did you piss off most in the year 2023 in your blogs?

Well, I think I have a guess.

There was Bugatti.

Is the Bugatti people there was who was it?

Well, there's Bugatti.

Definitely the Bugatti Veyron people and they would have the pole.

Like Ferdinand Pike could have made this happen, probably with a phone.

What about the Robo truck?

Look, oh, the Robo truck guy.

Oh, yeah, although I

I was going to say a whole year of Elon Musk stories.

So yeah, he is the richest man in the world.

He is either.

Yeah, he could make this happen.

He could he could push a button on a laptop.

So so either one of these two guys, it could have been is what you was what we're saying.

Elon definitely has more resources than these guys do.

Well, they would have done a lot cheaper in a lot of cheaper fashion.

That it would have been, I don't know what it would have been.

But yeah, when are we going to do the follow up story

to see how many deposits they actually got?

But then we could interview who left him a deposit if they got one.

Oh, yeah, I just find that we left a deposit.

It would be a great story, actually.

So we're talking about A.I.

Tech's it's just company, if you want to call it that,

that brought a fake looking Cybertruck to the LA auto show.

And Jason and I, we walked over there with cameras rolling

and we looked too closely at this truck, which is to say,

with we got within your feet of it.

And we know we have dare you look at a truck

that's out in public at an auto show for shame.

Never mind.

It looked like they just put fiberglass panels over a Toyota Tundra or Tacoma.

And then poorly, I don't know what it's kind of way of saying.

It's worse than that, because like I did better

bundle work as an actual child than I've seen on this vehicle.

Anyway, it was genuinely horrific.

The the the original door handle to open the Toyota's door

is under the fiberglass exterior panel.

You just have to check out the story.

I love that you could just kind of peel back and look at two.

Oh, God, I feel back.

That was just looking in.

That's just how it was.

I didn't have to pull anything.

It's just how it was.

Oh, yeah, you know, see, it's just like that.

Oh, Lordy, who here cringed when they saw this video for the first time?

Like, it was all bad.

It was how could you not?

Oh, it was so strange.

And I felt kind of bad, like I felt kind of bad.

We were like, you know, digging into him so hard.

But they were taking they were taking deposits.

They were taking people's money.

Like this is our job.

That's what we do.

So yeah, they asked to put something positive.

Did you find a positive to put?

Hmm.

That's where that's a nice hat.

It would be.

Yeah, so it's certainly one of the vehicles of all time.

Is that you haven't seen this video yet for you listeners?

The articles titled they brought a crappy Tesla Cybertruck clone

to a major car show.

We interviewed them and it got insanely awkward.

And it's just Jason and me looking at this.

Looks like he looks like a high school shop

class experiment at the LA Auto Show and the two representatives.

Well, one specifically trying to defend it.

And it just got so bad it was bad.

I don't mean to harp in this, but I'm just realizing this story

published a week before my aorta exploded.

And it's just so hard for me to wrap my head around how much shit changed.

Oh, I mean, you know, I mean, when I as a as a designer,

when I see stuff like this, I'm just like, oh, my God, you know,

because it's not even first year grad stuff, standard of design.

But I mean, even like the model to bring that out,

or if you can call it that to bring that out in public, you know, it's just,

I mean, it's just unbelievable.

You know, it's so, so, it's just, you know.

Well, that's the curiosity of this whole thing. Yeah.

I mean, we when we have stuff in the studio and I mean,

both you will you will notice because the guys you have building customs and stuff,

you know, it's just you wouldn't show something like I mean,

you wouldn't even be close to having something this bad.

It's just, you know, it's just ridiculous.

I mean, even even like the earliest models you have in the design process,

like, you know, a hundred times better than this is awful.

I don't know what you mean.

You didn't show it.

Oh, go ahead.

So you didn't show a truck that had stick on headlights.

Well, well, I mean, no, I mean, no, to be honest,

in the studio, you would because like the first thing you would do, you would have

well, even before that, if you're not sure you want to spend like three or four

days milling a clay, you would do a speed foam, which is like, you know,

like if you buy artificial flowers, you have that soft foam.

Well, you can mill a whole like body out of that in like a matter of hours

just to get an idea of if it's going to work.

And, you know, literally, yeah, just photocopies and wheels and some lights

and just stick them on with tape just to get an idea, you know.

But you would never, ever show that in public.

You'd never see pictures of anything like that because, you know,

it's just to the untrained eye, it just would look amateurish and unprofessional,

which is, you know, this is a tab in the middle of the LA show.

And it makes you know about who in the LA show is vetting and

getting this stuff.

I don't know, like, how did it end up here first?

They all know I'm not talking about it.

So it's pretty clear.

Yeah, it's a check cleared.

Exactly. Well, that in itself seems like a miracle.

Yeah, the clear.

Yeah, I don't think this made the article.

But the craziest thing that happened that didn't show up in the video was afterwards.

Right. The guy goes, the guy with the, we'll just say, interesting haircut.

Goes goes, oh, man, this is a scam.

You think this is a scam?

No, no, no, Lordstown Motors.

That was a scam. I used to work there.

That was. Yeah, that's right.

It's something something along those lines.

Yeah, he said something along those lines.

Oh, yeah, when he when he said he worked at Lordstown,

I was like, maybe you don't tell people that.

That's maybe not the.

Yeah, at least they actually actually built some vehicles that don't sound

like that there were some actual trucks more than that.

Oh, did they?

Yeah, they did.

Well, they. Yeah, they had a couple of vehicles.

They get like five or something more.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Around that number.

And before that, I think he was at Faraday Future and then he was.

Oh, never mind.

By the Lord, you know,

a couple of years ago.

Yeah, they yesterday or the day before I drove by the plant

and now it's all Foxconn because Foxconn bought it.

So it says Foxconn everywhere on the old.

Well, they were going to build those along with the Fisker

and then Foxconn is the one that I don't know.

They can see me pedaling backwards these days.

Fisker, do you have a Fisker boat?

Do you have one?

I don't have one currently,

but one was brought by and I got a chance to drive it briefly, though.

So not enough to do an evaluation,

but we can we can get one for you at Galpin.

I just say the word and we'll have it brought by.

I haven't seen them around.

I think they look good.

They look really good.

The interior, I thought was really handsome.

Hey, Fisker is a brilliant designer,

but it drove really nice.

I was pleasantly surprised and it's got some cool

I want to say gimmicks about it,

like the the rear little window that rolls down.

That's a little window for the dog.

And, you know, he's always doing things in there.

There's a dog window. It's so great.

I don't know why they don't advertise the dog window.

Everyone go crazy for the dog window.

But it's it's actually very well done.

Yeah, and even beyond that, I mean, the the sports now shipping

and that's the ocean sport.

And that's now what about 40 grand?

You're saying that's a lot.

Yeah, it's a lot of EV for the money.

Yeah. So.

It's happening.

So where's the dog?

Can we see the dog window on this in this image here?

So that you scroll down.

The very rear window, the small one there.

Oh, the rear quarter window.

Oh, that's right. Yes.

Oh, now that dog's off the very back,

but see that little tiny window?

Yeah, right. There you go.

Oh, the other one.

The one next to that.

Wow. I feel I feel torch has something to say

about the tail lights on that.

Well, they're doing the thing.

They're doing the bumper tail lights, which nobody likes.

And they have the ones that are confusing

because everybody wants to look at the upper ones,

but all the actions actually happening in the bumper.

Kia has shown that everybody hates that.

And I think that's a bad trend.

So what are the upper ones for then?

I think the upper ones are just the tail lights,

like just a tail light.

So the lower ones are brake indicator in reverse.

So the side repeater on the pillar is a running light

and an indicator turn signal.

Oh, is that a turn signal up high?

Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting.

On the pillar. Yeah.

So maybe there's no indicator.

So maybe just brake lights in the low part.

And reverse the reverse.

Yeah. Reverse you can get away with down there.

But why don't you use the upper area for the brake?

I wonder if it has to do with the minimum surface rules.

Probably, but they could have made them bigger.

Well, they do have that huge chimsel up here.

Is it huge chimsel?

Those are the indicators.

There is.

Well, I mean, there is legislation

about the total size of the lit area.

Yeah. And I don't know what it is, but I could probably look it up.

But then just make the stop at the tail light slightly wider.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, oh, no, we're going to have these really narrow,

like, slit tail lights.

And then we must have an entail with everything else.

We're just going to chuck it on.

Where have we got a bit of space?

And there.

Ah, so God, tell us about your favorite stories from the year.

Well, first of all, I'd just like to say a big thanks to Bo for having me

and all of us here and also for Jason for being here and for, you know,

joining us today and just being awesome in general.

Well, for me, yeah, I see you got the match

putting the Buick up on the screen right now, the the Park Amino.

You mind reading the headline for us, Stephen?

I bought a 29 year old Buick with 68,000 miles on it to prove the haters wrong.

You know, I chose that that that headline because Matt had bought his five series.

I think the day before or right around that.

And he published a piece right before that that said he bought

a five series BMW to prove the haters wrong.

So I said, let's just keep that theme going.

And I'll do it with the the Buick Park Ave.

There it is. Exactly.

Matt proved his haters wrong.

And I tried my best to do the same with the 94 Park Ave,

which because there's a lot of them out there.

Eighteen sub- eighteen hundred dollars.

I love that. It's an important price class sub- eighteen hundred.

You know, this is so way below that.

So did you choose it?

Did you did you show them the wrongness of their ways?

You know, I think I think that's a the jury is still out on that one to be honest.

It's pretty shitty. I got to be honest.

It's pretty bad.

You might have you might have actually strengthened the haters with this one.

Yeah.

So what's going on with this thing, Steven?

Can we go back and look at that sun visor again?

Yeah, it looks like part of the Dead Sea Scrolls or something.

Is this thing underwater at one point?

Like what's the deal with it?

So what happened with this car was the

GM made the moonroof drain lines out of this plastic

that eventually just gets brittle and then it dumps all of the water

any time it rains right into the headliner, as you could see right there,

which turned into a Petri dish.

And then even when you pull the headliner out,

it then just dumps it right onto the interior.

So the seats are soggy, the carpets, the insulation.

The whole car has been soaked since, you know, I think I did the math.

And since I think David was in high school,

was when this car started getting wet and it's been wet since.

So there's some grounds in the funny thing is that the both fuse boxes

are at the bottom of the A pillars.

So they've been taking quite a shower as well.

So we're working on that.

So they say, Steven,

it's you cannot spell Superfund without Superfund.

That's right.

This thing is a Superfund site.

No question.

And I'm sorry, what did you pay for that?

I think I got it for the princely sum of $400.

Oh, OK. Oh, that feels better when you said 1800.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, because it's in the subhead for $400.

I mean, it's what the scrap is about, you know, probably close to that.

So by the way, that's, you know, as a car dealer,

you know what that is, right?

That's that's what they call a hundred dollar car, man.

And that's big, very generous.

Yeah, yeah, because because it costs us more to have it towed away

and then we have to junk it and all that because it's

that's pretty bad.

How's the black mold in that thing?

Oh, terrifying.

Can't be good. Yeah.

It's the kind of car that you don't feel bad about cutting the roof off

and trying to make an El Park Amino ranchero out of it.

I haven't heard of it.

It would have been better off had no moonroof

and you just left it out with the windows down.

Adrian's not pleased.

Pretty good.

Classic evaporation. How can you you guys are just you see,

when I see a car like that, I think, oh, my God, this is amazing.

It must be saved.

And you guys are like talking about cutting the roof off.

And and yet for me, as a European, I want to see like that mint

sitting in the middle of galpin autos on a turntable on a vellum.

This car.

Because it's because it's because it's so alien and exotic to me.

Like, look, let me check off the checklist of of of American crap.

We got like a huge engine making no power.

You know, it's got a column shift.

Yeah, it's like Vella on every part of the interior.

And, you know, I mean, look at those gauges.

I mean, it's just, you know, it's magnificently cracked.

But to me, it's it's like so different to a European car.

And I just think that to make loose,

even got the classic GM key that goes in upside down, you know,

and I just think this, you know, it should be how many,

how many more are there as another podcast says, you know, find another.

This car is so boring.

It's fantastic. It's majestic.

I don't even. Is this a regal? What is this?

A Buick Park Avenue Park.

It's a park.

Yeah. Supercharged Park Avenue.

You could find a decent shape all over the place.

These are not supercharged as well.

Oh, my word.

Well, Granny had a hot rod.

Well, I mean, the average owner age of these vehicles is somewhere between old and dead.

So, you know, they're barred all across the country.

That's pretty messed up, Stephen.

Well, what was that when you took his car?

Did what was that?

Was Shrek mad when you took his car?

Shrek, yeah. Yeah.

I grabbed it from the swamp.

He was, you know, he thanked me because he got an extra parking spot now.

So he's he's looking for something to replace it with.

Yeah, he should have paid you. I've got to be honest.

Yeah, right. Exactly.

Even did you look at the story with the TikTok video

with the guy power washing the inside of his car and think, you know,

maybe that's the way to go.

Oh, you know what?

Yeah, I think you're out of something there, Pete.

Yeah, that video went viral.

Someone someone just started to power wash the inside of their car.

And I think Lou and wrote wrote about that.

Basically said, don't, which is about the only advice you can give on that.

Yeah, something from the bed still.

Yeah, stupidity from TikTok.

I mean, I know that's a shock, but yeah, some TikTok stupidity there.

But, you know, going back to that, I think we have a saying we have a saying

in the UK I've taxed worse and that means, you know, when we have to go

and pay our registration now, probably, you know, probably had worse.

So yeah, yeah, I do understand Adrian's point

because I'm sure there's there's some crap that he would roll his eyes at

that I would find fascinating.

So well, like like something.

Yeah, well, something that popped up on

another friend of a friend of the of the site today, who has his own car

selling site and he got a Mercedes A-Class.

And it's like 11,000 dollars.

And like all of all of UK car Twitter is like, Holy shit,

you can buy these all day for like a thousand pounds on eBay, OK?

And nobody wants them.

Oh, he doesn't even want that car.

The funny thing is he spent like 11,000 dollars on it and he doesn't want it.

And he doesn't like it.

I called him and I was like, hey, man, because he usually he he often

will will drive pretty long distances and connect coasts.

And I'm like, oh, man, are you going to drive?

Are you going to drive the A-Class?

We're talking about Doug for the record.

Doug DeMiro, yeah.

Doug bought an A-Class because he thought it would be great.

And then it was not.

And yeah, he was just like, he was just like, no, I'm not driving

this car across the country. It's it's so much worse than I thought it would be.

You see, I feel like it would have been cheaper for him to fly to Europe,

drive it, find out and then just not buy it.

Because the answer is what you want is the Audi A2.

The Audi A2 is the good one.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I have a question for Adrian.

What's the worst car in England?

And we'll see if if Torch digs it.

Wow. That's a.

You mean like the worst car you could buy new or just now use like this piece of

shit? Yeah, the equivalent of Steven's.

Yeah. Yeah.

OK, so that would probably be like some kind of, I don't know,

I would say like the 90s Rover or something.

I think you guys got you called it the Stirling, didn't you?

It's like the Rover 800 space.

So I actually like those.

I think there's still a few of those around.

They were, you know, the ones that had the four round lights that had like the

tops cut off of them is like that era of Rover.

Oh, no, later.

No, that that one, you're talking about these are great.

These are awesome.

I almost bought one this year.

Oh, my God, Matt.

See, so so this was just filled with mold.

We would be all over it.

So I would be to Adrian.

100 percent.

I feel like I feel like, you know, a Rover 800 or what not.

Would it would be worse than a dodgy course?

But I'd rather be seen in the Rover because of the implications of the box.

Oh, oh, these are all.

But the thing is, actually, those were 800.

So this is a Montego.

We're looking at this.

There's actually very few of them left on the roads now.

So, yeah, so actually, they are rare and worth worth preserving.

I mean, I still think they're dross, but, you know.

Yeah, I'm looking for red just for the pinstriping part.

Look at the cool like the D pillar window that these things have.

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

OK, it's kind of cool.

We have to find a Rover 800 or Rover Montego when we go to Silverstone

or so we go to Goodwood for the festival speed.

We should just try to get the worst British car.

Don't even. Just to piss off Adrian.

Just find. Well, yeah, you say that.

But I could probably find, you know, I can get plug into a UK car

Twitter and find one so that we can have a go in.

So, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, come on, I drove a 1990 Mark Vesco a few weeks ago.

So, yeah, you know, I love that story.

Speaking of Adrian's stories, Adrian wrote a bunch of great stories this year.

But I loved the escort.

Everything I write is great.

Yeah, it's like Shakespeare and then it's made.

You know, I mean, there's a truth to that.

Yeah, so I'm going to highlight a couple of.

Yeah, as far as we're concerned, you are our Shakespeare. It's true.

Oh, yeah. Oh, you.

Adrian's just drinking it in.

Absolutely.

You know why there's so many comments on my articles

just because half of them are me. So.

Actually, that does help.

Also, this story did better than I expected.

Yeah, we did. We didn't want to run it, David.

Yeah, we agree. Yeah.

So.

Well, I love our absurdly long headlines.

We're just so this is one of our longest headlines.

It's amazing.

We need to have a newspaper, so this could be the headline.

I need to let me get my my best BBC accent.

Here we go.

A car magazine convinced me the 1994 escort was trash.

Now that I've driven one, I'm here to defend it from the class system.

Wrongheaded editors of the October 1990 issue of Auto Car.

See, this is a story that I love just because it's

where we're really sticking it to 1990 Auto Car, which I feel it.

Yeah, I mean, the guys who probably wrote this are probably dead now anyway.

So that's what I was thinking.

Did you find out their widow?

You know, they're they're their widows next to the kids.

Yeah, by the way, your dead husband was wrong.

Suck it. Yeah, exactly.

Oh, so I like to have a couple of other great stories

of the year, including the one where Jason used a chainsaw to cut a battery

out of his Chang Lee, probably unrelated to my health issues.

Yep. Oh, I also know, Adrian, your story about the Aztec,

where you described just how easily a great design can turn to trash

and sort of the mechanics behind that was awesome.

Yeah. And then you know, Thomas wrote about the Dodge Hornet,

all the crazy stuff happening on the forums, which was did incredible.

Hit that hornet's nest, man.

And it's just everywhere, you know, just pouring out.

Apparently, the Dodge Hornet is a pile based on

people's complaints on forums.

That was awesome.

Then there was that piece about why driving short distances

can kill a newer Honda CRV.

People are really interested in like those Achilles heels that Thomas has been writing.

It's been a great year.

We need to figure out some predictions for 2024.

So, I mean, I don't know exactly, Matt, what were you going?

Atopian number one automotive site in the world.

There's a 2024 prediction.

Well, we're already there in terms of the quality, but you're right.

Size wise, you've got to get big number one in viewerships.

There is a nonzero chance that there will be another

mashing pair of cars in the Atopian fleet, other than the shared

of the next days between you and Rob and I3.

Wait, we have two E39s now.

Oh, wait, we do.

Sorry, a third pair.

And and also Mercedes has a sign IQ and Bo has an Aston Martin signet.

And those are like 90 percent the same.

All are on that subject.

How objectively terrible this dome light is.

It doesn't move around.

It's cool.

No, it's not the spotlight.

It doesn't blind me.

It's not useless.

It's a directable dome light.

I think it's great.

That's great.

You can read two words at a time.

You've got to move the light every thing.

But there's no glare on the driver.

You just say it does like an aerial or something.

Yeah, that's right.

Any other predictions for 2024?

Auto industry predictions for this upcoming year.

Well,

the future will become fair day past.

Oh, fair day, fair day past Mercedes.

That's a pretty good one.

Bo, you've got your pulse of the auto industry.

What's what's coming up this year?

What can you predict?

Well, I think it's been said a lot.

And the 2024 is the year of the consumer back in control.

You're going to see larger inventories, more incentives.

I think interest rates are going to come down this year.

Pricing has come down dramatically for used cars and for new cars.

And I see that trend continuing.

So I think it's going to be a great year for consumers

and and hopefully a big year for sales, being that I'm in the sales business.

But I think it's a it's a time of of optimism.

And I wouldn't have been up.

I wouldn't have thought that six months ago, but strangely, now I'm I'm thinking it.

So we mean, two cars are coming back.

Well, I think the cars that exist will be cheaper.

But, you know, even Mitsubishi is getting rid of their cheap car.

I mean, there's not going to be many, if any, cheap new cars anymore.

That's that's difficult.

But the cars that are out there are getting cheaper.

I mean, we are going to have a shortage of off off these cars that start next year.

So that's going to kind of screw with the market a little bit

because we have a literally a fraction.

I mean, it's probably single digits of lease return vehicles compared to

you know, three years ago because of, you know, leasing going away in 20

in sales in 2020 and leasing going away in 2021 in 22.

So you're going to see a lot less recent used cars.

And that's going to affect the market as well.

But anyway, it still should be very good.

And again, prices are coming down.

Yeah. And like to sort of, you know, add to Bo's note, I mean,

a lot of Americans shop on a payment rather than an outright price.

Oh, everybody, they do need to try as well.

Yeah. Yeah.

So with, you know, the rate holds, you know, looking to be locked in

potentially through 2024 and use car interest rates, you know,

not being the most attractive ever.

Maybe that shortage of three year old off lease models, some of that

flat can be taken up with deals.

Like I'm seeing Mazda is doing 0% to 60 months on the CX-5.

I'm hearing I'm seeing 0% on Ford edges.

I'm seeing 0% come back to the marketplace.

Wow. That's right.

Yeah.

And that's what they're using to attract instead of the leases,

because leases haven't been as attractive lately.

But again, but leases are coming back as well.

And, you know, again, I think the the car companies are going to need

to step up next year.

And if we get some rate cuts, it'll be really great, which I think we will.

What about mergers?

We see any mergers happening in the industry?

Any weird shit from from Tesla that we need to worry about?

Yeah.

And Cybertruck is going to be big news throughout the year as people

as they start to go out into the world and how people use them.

I think we're going to see, because I don't think it's going to be

that great for just truck stuff.

I think loading it is difficult.

It's all a truck for truck people.

No, but it's a truck for Silicon Valley.

Want to look like they have an active lifestyle type people,

not proper heartland.

We're going to truck.

I think we're going to see everything stuff.

Like as people try to use it for things,

I don't want to say anything necessarily good or bad,

but I think we're going to see plenty of stories from that.

I think I like to say I saw the first one

driving down Sunset Boulevard.

Yeah.

It it looked amazing.

Yeah, it really did.

It's it's so cool.

I hate to say I could go around.

This is the most ghastly, awful looking design I've ever seen in my life, too.

Oh, shit.

That thing is fricking cool.

Driving down the street.

I am very striking.

And I agree it's not a work truck, but it's a cool truck.

I hate to say it.

That's my competition.

I'm complimenting.

I'm going to be a bit I'm going to be a bit controversial here.

And I'm going to say that my prediction

is that the biggest Tesla story of 2024 will not be the Cybertruck.

But instead, we are due for a refresh bottle.

Why that is one of the most popular vehicles in the world.

You know, if they take some of the stuff

they learned with Project Highland and the Model 3,

take some of the stuff they learned from the Cybertruck, you know,

that could be really, really interesting,

especially as they already have production lines.

They're able to ramp.

They're not building some complete scratch.

So I think that might actually be from a consumer standpoint,

the bigger deal of 2024.

And also Tesla emerged with Dihatsu.

That's my other guess.

Oh, boy.

Well, yeah, that's going to be a big.

That's the big story for next year, too.

Whoop. Yeah.

I've got the ropes.

They're on the ropes.

Yeah, they're not cars now.

Here's the thing.

That story bothered me that they're not making cars

because they were genuinely one of my favorite modern car makers.

They make interesting stuff.

Well, to be fair, they're falsified safety records.

Yeah, it's fine.

They're still kind of making cars outside of Japan.

Like they've been off and on.

Like it hasn't been completely universal, but it is.

It is. It is weird.

And I'm curious, David and I had a long debate about this.

Like how much does the Indian because Dihatsu is so focused on

on outside of Japan, Asian markets and other by the way,

we're talking about a scandal involving Dihatsu

and like sort of neglecting certain safety protocols, etc.

It was always for the last 30 years, though.

They have to look at their footprint in the United States, zero.

Their footprint in Western Europe, zero.

But it is. It's like the rest of the world, you know,

the bricks type countries where they do actually sell cars

and what are the implications there?

We know their safety standards are nothing like, you know, Euro and

they're not. Yeah, and they still had to falsify.

So yeah, man, you do not want to run those cars into something.

Yeah, they look they're their lineup.

Their Japanese lineup is so good, though, like stylized.

They're so good.

I'd happily risk being in a death trap for a blog.

A Jason blog. That's a great. It's a great blog blog.

That's your first first blog back.

I would I would die to live in it now that I've already cheated death once.

You're immortal, immortal now.

Exactly. So I mean, I I mean, I just want to say that one,

Jason couldn't let me have my going to the hospital in the back of an ambulance story.

Couldn't even let me have that, man.

You had to I just want to get that out in public, you know,

you had to outdo me there.

And the second thing I'm glad he didn't die because I didn't want any

of the shitty cars anyway. So because I know if I die,

you're all going to be fighting over my Ferrari.

So yeah, I'm having to bring Jason another car.

I mean, you could probably he doesn't need any more stress, David.

It's Toyota.

It'll be fun.

Yeah, but it's in that story.

The power kind of short like power is totally reliable.

I just happen to hit the ears in it every now.

Yeah, well, you know, you're warning that your heart exploded.

It's a dear magnet that week.

Yes. Anyway, anyway, you know,

a David Toyota is not like a regular Toyota.

You know, David's standards are not quite there.

It's five hundred bucks, but I'll be doing that in a couple of weeks.

So you expect that for 2024?

I'll be delivering a five hundred dollar two hundred forty thousand

mile Sienna to Jason and we're going to fix my truck, right?

Yes. First, I have to fix the van.

It's in St. Louis.

I have to do the struts.

Then I have to drive it to Jason and where it will be his most reliable car.

And then I have to fix your truck, your RV, your.

I'd rather get the needle and see his first.

If we just get the truck, I'll hope that the RV.

The RV sounds right at my alley.

Anyway, my prediction for 2024 is that none of Jason's currently

inoperable cars will change and become operable.

That's my prediction.

I mean, the Sienna, isn't that Sienna coming up to its second timing

balance? Yeah, it'll be fine.

What were you going to say, Matt?

I was going to say my prediction for the years that we do not buy an RV,

though, we will talk about it, but it won't happen.

But the most fun is the shopping.

Let's be honest.

He's mine to take mine.

Yeah, we should take his.

We should we should get his running.

And, you know, it's in fact, Torch is the new David now, isn't he?

Because, you know, David has, you know, moved to LA, got rid of his

front yard full of cars that don't work.

And, you know, now, now, now Torch is the guy with the yard full of cars

that, you know, hit Dears and don't work and.

Well, I can tell you that 2024 at the Atopian is going to be fire.

You're going to see more wrenching content.

You're going to see lots of great engineering, deep dives, news.

We've we've got we've got Peter on board here.

He's hasn't really said a whole lot.

But get used to him because he's a wonderful addition to our team.

A true car nut.

The brilliant mind who has been tweeting from our account for well over a year.

So if you've been laughing your ass off at our Twitter, that's Peter.

And, yeah, he's Peter.

Yeah, say a few words, Peter, so that people know your voice.

Hello, and thank you.

I am thrilled to be part of the Atopian team.

I worked very hard to become part of it.

I just kind of got one little toe in and I was relentless about getting

to where I am right now, being part of this group.

And it's a blast and so much fun.

And let me assure everyone watching and listening that

the level of a cool that the team here seems to have, they actually have.

They are this nice and this fun and it's great to be around.

And I'm really thrilled to be here.

Yeah, and we are thrilled to have you.

We're going to kick ass in 2024.

We've got women in Australia to make sure that we were just sleepy head

that we don't get to be on news over.

And then when Jason comes back when we fire it on all cylinders,

get ready for some incredible content.

Twenty twenty four.

Thank you for listening.

This has been the Atopian podcast.

Hey, buddy.

0:00

67:56

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