Driven Radio Show #317: John Ficarra of Ficarra Classic

Welcome to Driven Radio Show, your home for car talk covering the latest news to the greatest

views on the biggest names in performance, sports, and just playing cool driving machines.

Let's rev up the conversation.

Time for Driven Radio Show.

Hey, all you gear heads and car fiends, I can't believe we're actually getting

started.

Yay!

20 minutes after trying to figure out what the hell is wrong.

Just believe me.

Just that face.

Yeah.

I hope nothing goes wrong.

Welcome to Driven Radio Show, your weekly automotive happy hour.

I am Brett Hatfield, here with my co-host and engineer extraordinaire, Mr. Mark Roves.

Yellow!

We are coming to you from the absolutely goddamn frozen Driven Radio Studios.

When was the last time you were down here?

Because Jesus, I didn't go use your bathroom, I used your glacier.

Yeah, it's been a while.

I had Jaden carry my computer down here when we got back from Monterey and cheese,

man.

It's really warm outside.

Walking the house upstairs, it's quite a bit cooler.

You walk down here, it's quite a bit December.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not the type of guy to ever complain about air conditioning.

Well, especially when you...

Thank you, Jesus, for making that.

Yeah, especially when you don't have AC and that fabulous XTERRA of yours and

you're driving around, it's 90 stinking degrees out.

I can reflect on my life at 80 miles an hour, it's really nice.

Then you come in here and for the first four minutes you're down here, you're thinking,

oh, thank God.

And then after that, you're thinking, oh, my toes are frostbite.

Crack the ice on my forehead and start the show.

I'm down.

It's all good.

You know, I got really spoiled.

I was in Monterey for almost a week and the high, the entire time we were there,

I think the last day was the hottest day and it was 74.

Oh, shut your dirty bottle.

Yeah, it's not awful, it's just terrible.

And it was wonderful.

Again, we did the, you know, the place on the beach and you open the windows when

you get there and you got that ocean breeze and you get a listen to the surf.

And our guest tonight drove down and stayed with us in the condo on the beach.

It's our favorite repeat offender, Mr. John Fakara, Fakara Classic.

He's an automotive historian, a marketer and a walking encyclopedia.

He owned a picture car company called Creative Film Cars in New York City and

ran an illegal cross-country cannonball event called the 2904.

He did that for a decade.

Allegedly.

Yeah.

Well, I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations has run out.

Thank God.

There you go.

He was the marketing director and in-house historian for Canapa.

He has been building and racing cars in the 24 hours of lemons for years.

Like I said, he owns Fakara Classic, a company that researches, restores,

and markets collector road and race cars.

He's a regular guest on VinWiki Car Stories on YouTube with over 30 million views.

Geez.

That's three with a bunch of zeros.

And he has his own YouTube channel that is growing by leaps and bounds.

John's work has appeared in magazines such as 0000, vintage race car, classic Porsche,

Speed Sport, and on the Lufka Golt website.

John, welcome back to Driven Radio.

Thanks for having me back, boys.

Doesn't seem like it's been that long since I saw you.

We were lucky enough to find a last minute beach condo for Monterey Car Week, as in

two weeks before.

That's unheard of.

I cannot do that.

And John and his cool friend Scotty drove down from Nevada City and stayed with us.

In turn, John had me drive one of the strangest cars on the road to Radwood on Friday.

John, how far was the drive from Nevada City?

Oh, probably in time, about five hours or so.

In distance?

Yeah.

In distance, like 170 miles or so, I think.

Alrighty.

And how did you get invited to Radwood this year?

Cindy Miley called me up and, well, she wrote me and she's a PR, automotive PR

person that I've known since Canapa.

And she's like, what do you got in the stable?

And I said, oh, I mean, list them off for you.

So I just fired them all off and she picked three because she was doing the

work for two different events, the Paddock and the other event was called

the Concorso Italiano, very appropriate for you, sir.

Oh, so I have so many Italian cars.

So but inside the Paddock event on Friday, they had a curated Radwood display.

So only they had to be selected.

You couldn't just like drive your Radwood car in there.

Pick 50 of the best Radwood cars to be shown Friday night.

Yeah.

And the car you had me drive over there, your name for that car?

The Strange Rover.

OK, what is it?

Where'd you find it?

Who built it?

Give us the rundown.

So the Strange Rover is a 1976 Range Rover six by four.

So it has six wheels.

And most people think, you know, when I drive it, they're like, oh,

did you build this?

I'm like, no, no.

These there were a certain amount of them built in the seventies.

Originally, there was a company called Carmichael that took that Range Rover

sent the chassis over directly from the factory.

Like this was as close to factory made as you could get.

And Carmichael would extend them and add a another axle to the rear

and turn them into like small airport ambulances and fire engines.

And the extra axle was to hold the weight of the water tank

or the medical equipment.

And then a few years later, they realized it was the civilian version

of this would sell.

So they started selling them to the Middle East.

And for a brief run in the seventies, there were like three or four

British companies that built these six wheelers in the most outrageous.

Like we had custom vans.

They built these six wheelers for these guys in, you know, the Middle East.

And they had falconing ones to the whole rear

roof would slide forward at the back.

So you'd have like a really huge because they have like an eight foot

bed in them with the extension.

They'd have two chairs that would rise up three feet out of the roof

and they would have a rack where they would have all their falconing things

and the birds would live inside so they could go falconing or hunting

or shooting from out back inside their range Rover with air conditioning.

And they were lavish and weird in seventies.

And I've always wanted one. I'm a six wheel.

I love six wheeled vehicles.

I mean, ever since my GMC motor homes and the

the the Tyrell P 34 six wheel F one car.

Yeah. You know, I always wanted like that's kind of my dream.

So all of these were in the Middle East or in Europe.

There were never any in the United States.

And I saw one in an auction that somebody sent me a link

because I always get these six wheel links people sent to me.

And they're like, in Paris, there's a six wheel range Rover for sale.

And this just happened to be right around April 1st.

OK. So what happened was I don't think the Europeans

understand what April 1st is, that it's April Fool's Day here.

So they did they did their big publicity push for this vehicle

on April 1st on the internet.

Nobody bit on it because everybody was like

and all like I have I've got copies.

I made screenshots of all the different websites, you know,

like Jalopnik and all that.

They're like hilarious April Fool's truck, you know, by a six wheeled range Rover.

So I called the I called up the the auction house and I'm like,

what's what's the real number on this?

And they're like, you actually want to buy it? I'm like, yes.

So so they talked to the owner.

The owner was a Parisian art dealer

and he would deliver art in the back of it because he needed a bigger bed.

You're kidding.

Serious, that's what it is.

And it drove around Paris for a good 10 years or so just delivering art.

So who knows what was in the back of this thing?

And it was I got I finally I found like when I got it,

I didn't know what the hell it was or who made it

or if it was a Carmichael or if it was another company's car.

I just had to have it.

And I got the history.

I actually talked to the guy who bought it in England and brought it to Switzerland

and converted it because they were all two doors.

So all Range Rovers were two doors until the ladies.

Yeah. And most people don't don't know that that that the four door

was kind of created for the U.S.

market when Range Rover came into the U.S.

market in the late 80s.

And so the body on the car is actually a 1989 Range Rover body.

So it's a four door six wheeler, which are very, very few

because that's totally custom.

Most six wheelers are two doors.

So this Swiss guy found this rotted out thing in England,

brought it over, put a four door body on it, did a nice job.

And so this art dealer in France.

And then I had to get it.

And then then the story got interesting because

I was kind of him in a hauling and like, should I get it?

Should I buy it?

And Ed Bolian of Winnwicky was working on the one of his next

car tracks season 10.

They were going to do a bunch of off-roaders.

And he's like, what about if I buy it?

And we turned it into an overlander vehicle.

So we got it, shipped it to me.

Mechanic Matt and I worked on it for a few months.

Well, first we took it to Radwood.

As soon as it came off the boat, like literally a week after that,

we took it to Radwood here in California.

It won Best Truck at Radwood.

Oh, did it really?

Yeah, right out of the box.

And we didn't even do the overland stuff yet.

And then we brought it up here, made a custom rack for it.

The idea was to kind of make it.

Remember the old camel trophy trucks?

Yeah. Right back in the day, we tried to do that.

So I made a huge rack for the roof, which is actually two racks we put together.

Custom rack, custom lighting, two inch lift kit, bigger tires,

all kinds of lighting, a winch.

We did everything to it.

And I think we did it all in like a month and a half.

Oh, God.

And then we drove it down to

it was we took it to Monterey when they shot

Cartrex nine because we shot nine and 10 back to back.

And then we took it up to Oregon and shot

Cartrex 10 where Ed drives it.

And after they were done with it,

Ed took it home and then I was always kind of like, I still want it.

So he was doing one of his collection sales.

He just did one here.

I think he sold six cars on cars and bids.

And this was like a year ago.

He did another got a clear clear of the decks kind of sale.

So he put he put that up on Sotheby's Motorsports.

And

we came to a deal and I got it. I bought it.

So it's now mine.

It's now back here.

And I've been driving it around for about a year and it's been a blast.

So it's it's it returned to Monterey for the second time last week.

So you mean to tell me that Ed didn't fall in love with that truck and keep it?

Oh, so this truck.

I without a doubt is his most loath of the vehicle.

And he hates this truck so much.

You you just either either mention it or show a picture of it.

And you can see flames flickering in his eye.

It's just like he did not have a pleasant experience with it

during the filming of Car Trek 10.

It was just it it's not a six wheel drive vehicle.

So if you don't have it locked into four wheel drive,

it gets stuck a lot.

It is woefully underpowered.

It's got a three point nine liter Rover V8 in it,

which probably has a hundred and fifty horsepower or something feels like it.

So it'll do 70 all day long.

We got 14 and a half miles a gallon driving it.

But as soon as you see a hill, it just goes, oh, it starts slowing down.

Scotty drove it down from here and he did he did a great job.

As soon as he started climbing the the coastal range.

And I'm towing, right?

I'm telling the 928 I'm blasting up the hill.

He starts disappearing behind me as he's crawling like 45 miles an hour.

He's going up the hills.

So yeah, you know, Ed loves to put his foot in it.

And he just there was no there's no power.

I mean, he's an L.S. swap.

It needs a six by six bill, which is why I bought it back

because I kind of want it.

My goal really was to L.S.

swap it six by six it and then fly it out

and make him like it.

That was my channel.

I'm going to make you like the Range Rover Strange Rover.

And he's like, not a hope in hell is that going to happen?

Which is why I was starting to give him crap about it

when we were standing there eating lunch.

I know he doesn't like that thing.

And I just, you know, how many chances am I going to get to needle him about it?

Well, I think with 400 horsepower and real six wheel drive,

that thing would be a hoop. Oh, yeah, it would be real fun.

The one thing I learned driving that is a conservation of momentum.

Yes. You know, you just when you see people

slowing down in front of you, you take your foot off the gas

and you just kind of hover over the brake pedal.

Please don't make me push it. Please don't make me push it.

Please don't make me push it.

Just praying to God that you don't actually have to touch the brakes.

It's it's it's the only thing that that truck in Prius

having common is the hyper mile drive style, right?

Go through the corners, make the most out of the downhill.

Yes, just use that downhill, baby. Use it.

All right, you mentioned the 928.

Tell us about the Overlander 928.

What was the inspiration for it? Who painted it?

And what all you've done to make it off road ready?

Well, the hippie 928 hippie safari car

that won Radwood in San Francisco last year.

That was I had four 928s.

I bought one 928 because I've always wanted one in my life

and I wanted a first year car, manual, posh interior, European.

I had a whole list and I found it.

After I got that, I ended up with three more parts cars.

People just kind of threw them at me for cheap.

And this one was a 79 European car.

So the same engine for those who don't know

early on in the 928s life, the Euro motor

and the U.S. motor were very, very different.

And the output was the difference of like 35 horsepower.

So the U.S. is like 215 horsepower.

The European car was 240.

So European engine was much, much, much better.

So it was a good parts car, but it was an automatic.

And we had a sitting in my driveway for like a year.

And every time we went to start it and move it, fired up, moved.

The other two parts cars, not so much.

And I'm like, I came a day where I'm like,

I felt bad about scrapping it.

We start taking parts off of it. I'm like, this car works.

I can let's do something with it.

And this is right before Wrensport seven.

I figured just for fun, Wrensport, we should make some art cars.

So I painted my seventy eight.

Well, I didn't paint it.

Kelly Telfer, the fine artist, painted it Hasha.

And we started getting that ready.

And then we took the parts car, the 79 car automatic.

And we're like, let's do the hippie livery from the 1970 917 Lamal car,

which is one of my favorite liveries of all time.

Yeah, bright green, bright, bluish, purple.

And we flew out Christopher Michaels, also a Vin Wickey fame,

but also worked with Hot Wheels for a while and a fantastic artist.

So he came out and he just started like he rattle can the base.

And then he hand painted all the green shapes and the white outline.

I mean, in three days, he painted the whole thing.

He was out there all day, three days.

And the paint job came out awesome.

I mean, if you see pictures of it, it looks brilliant.

We were looking at it.

I'm like, you know what?

That's cool and all.

But how do we make it even cooler?

Hold my beer.

You know, the safari thing is really big with nine elevens right now.

And I was like, let's safari it.

I have a friend of mine, Greg at PRG.

He does suspensions for like Baja Trophy trucks.

And he actually does conversions of Cayans into off-road vehicles.

So I called him up. He's just down the road.

He's awesome, dude, and really talented.

One of those guys who could just take a lump of aluminum

and turn it into something, you know, he just goes, hold on a second.

He turns the machine on.

You don't know what he's doing.

It's like, you know, the wizard behind the curtain,

pulling levers and things that outcomes apart and it's finished.

So he's like, I can custom make a lift, a two inch lift kit for that.

And I said, yes, please.

And two inches is about as high as you can lift the car

before you start having to change a lot of geometry on other stuff.

So he made a two inch lift kit for it.

I got some bigger off-road tires for it.

And then what was left over from the two racks

that we built the Range Rover's rack out of

were the two or two ends of it.

So we put those together.

We made a rack for the roof.

We took the push bar and lights off the front of the cannonball ambulance

and put them on the front.

Then we got some Jeep lim risers and put those on the rack.

And it just started coming together.

And then this guy pops up on one of the 928 Facebook pages.

I'm on. He's like, oh, I got a 928 roll bar.

I'm like, who has what?

I didn't even know it existed.

He's like, yeah, free. I'm moving.

Anybody wants to come get it?

So I hopped in the ambulance.

I drove like 100 miles, picked that up.

So we put a roll bar in it.

We stripped out the rear seats.

We kind of made a rear deck for it so you can put in,

you know, we had the traction boards back there

and fuel tanks and all kinds of things.

It just started coming together out of spare parts.

And it got cooler and cooler and it ran great.

And we started taking it off road.

And honestly, it drives.

Fantastic off road.

It's stock shocks because they're so pulled out.

It just floats like a Cadillac.

Oh, the only thing it really needs

is probably the rear end needs to be regeared

a little taller so it can match the bigger tires.

Yeah, so it'll we just get a little bit more leverage.

But other than that, really,

we got the nice leather front seats out

of one of the other parts cars

so the interior came together really nice.

It was one of those just accidental cool projects

and we've had a blast with it and people love it.

People like it run one Radwood.

We took it to Monterey last year.

Motor Trend named it one of the top 10 cars of Monterey in 2024.

Yeah, it's been a blast.

And it is now for sale.

Anybody out there who's interested in a hippie safari Porsche 928.

I'm afraid that's going to be kind of a small demographic.

Yeah, you know, probably.

But for the right person, it's awesome.

Because yeah, we went through we went through the whole engine.

We like we did the the timing belt, water pump, oil pump.

We did all the stuff on it.

So all the 928 stuff's been attended to.

Yeah, it's been a great car.

Plus, you get a custom Christopher Michael's paint job

and you can go anywhere and you are the car.

I don't care if.

Well, unless it's parked behind the stranger over, in which case.

You know, it is a competition when they're next to each other.

God, look at that 928.

Holy crap, what's that?

That's got six wheels on it.

This stranger over definitely almost caused like three or four accidents.

Yeah, I know.

I know I was in it for part of it.

Yeah.

It is odd to see people's reaction

when you drive by in that thing and they're like, hey, look, what the hell?

So yeah, you do get that a lot.

You also brought what would in any other crowd

would be a really unique looking Porsche Cayenne.

Tell us a little bit about the Cayenne.

What's the car's history?

What's been done to it?

Does it make a good tow vehicle?

So the Cayenne was the third vehicle they asked me to bring,

which is perfect because I can tow with it.

So we towed the 928 with it.

It is a 2015 Porsche Cayenne turbo that was modified

excuse me for to drive.

This is something that at Bolian put together with his sponsored sway.

They built four of these things.

And what we were going to do was race from the top of Alaska,

Proto Bay, Alaska down to the bottom of Argentina

and try to set the Pan American Cannonball record.

So going north to south in North and South America.

And we had it planned out and we figured we could do it in 11 days,

which would destroy the previous record.

And unfortunately, storms in Colombia wiped out the roads.

And then politics got into it.

The people we had talking to at the State Department basically said,

it's a no go.

You're not going to be able to do this run for a couple of years.

Oh, the guys this way pivoted and said,

are we going to do something with these things before they get too old?

And they tricked them out.

It's like stock suspension, but they got a lot of sponsors.

Brake given bigger wheels.

It was really interesting trying to get wheels to fit over the giant

turbo brakes is tricky and off-road car because they have to be big

enough to get over the brakes, but small enough that you can have

a sidewall of a tire.

You have a big enough tire that also can go 150 miles an hour.

So like there were only two tires that we came up with that could do that.

So the wheels, it had roof rack spares.

It had a spare on the back.

They were being rigged up for this run.

So instead, we did a sponsored run to Prudhoe Bay to the Arctic Ocean.

So we drove them in 2023, two of them.

We raced from their headquarters in Montana.

Ed drove one with his team.

I drove the other with mine.

We ran up to the Arctic Ocean, jumped in the Arctic Ocean, said,

we're here, turn around and drove back.

Arctic Ocean, a little nippy.

It is a little nippy, but it's the amazing thing.

It's super shallow where we were.

So you can literally walk out hundreds of yards and you're only up to your waste.

Oh, OK.

No danger of drowning in the icy water, but it's cold.

It's cold. And we were there in the summer.

We drove up there in July or August.

So this is interesting.

The Dalton Highway is the run from that you see an ice road

truckers that goes up to the oil fields.

And normally in the ice roads, it is the ice roads are beautiful.

They plane them out.

It's all gorgeous and flat.

And apparently you can make the trucks can make the run in the winter

in like eight hours.

In the summer, it's like 12 to 14 because the when ice melts,

it's nothing but ruts and holes and dirt and gravel and mud.

And we had the most fun driving these things because there's no there's no cops.

Like you're driving flat out as fast as you want.

The only thing that out there are big rigs and we had sea bees

and we were like, hey, talking to the big rigs and they were cool with us.

And they thought we were, you know, we were being very polite with them

and they say, as long as we're playing with them, they took care of us.

We blasted up that thing.

Like just for Michael's phrases, it is running off the chain.

Like just like, well, there's no rule.

So you just, ah, there's no road rules.

You just fly.

It's like it's if you had your own private road on your on your land,

except it went on for 12 hours.

So we did that.

That thing was a blast after they finished with it.

It kind of sat up at their place and I think Ed got one of them.

He got number 23 as part of his deal.

And then I called them up last year and said, you have any of those left?

He's like, yeah, we got number 24.

I'm like, would you sell it to me?

And they're like, absolutely.

So they did.

They gave me a amazing price on it and considering all the work they had done to it.

And I picked it up and it's been my daily driver ever since.

And it does, yes, make an excellent tow vehicle.

One of the reasons I wanted it, because a cayenne, that that body,

which is also the Q seven and the Volkswagen.

Oh, that was a tour egg.

All the same rig.

They're rated at 7700 pounds towing and 750 pounds tongue weight.

So that's pretty much most stuff.

That's a single car trailer.

Easy.

And the the turbo's got five hundred and something horsepower.

So it's got all the power to pull and it pulls.

You wouldn't. I mean, literally, it's one of those cars.

We never you would never know there's something behind you.

Well, towing. Oh, terrific.

It's effortless.

You never feel like the trailer.

I was towing a 20 foot open single car trailer.

Now, you were towing a very nice open single car trailer.

I was I was super jealous when I saw it.

Yeah, that I got a deal on that thing.

That was when it was a covid deal.

Gentlemen moved out from Oklahoma, bought a brand new move to Nevada,

not too far from me and parked it.

And a year later, that's it.

He drove it once and a year later, he sold it to me.

Yeah, about about the only way you get a nicer open single car trailer

is if you get one of those featherlight aluminum deals.

I don't I like those, but I don't like aluminum

only because you have to have them crack checked every few years.

And mostly who buy aluminum trailers don't know that.

They they require inspection every few years because

they don't make any noise and they just snap.

And I've seen a couple of the aluminum featherlights.

They make steel trailers as well, but they're aluminum trailers.

Yeah, not so much.

Actually, the coolest trailer is that I'm afraid who makes it.

It's the one that lay lays flat on the ground,

like you push a button and the entire deck goes flat on the ground.

Oh, cool. And you just you just so you don't need any ramps.

You can drive a Lamborghini on there.

You push a button and the whole thing rises up.

Oh, I want one of those.

There's like 20 grand. I'm sure.

And for the open one, if you want the closed, they have a closed one,

which is even cooler with like a fabric closed body around it.

Oh, wow. That's like another 10.

That if I had all the money in the world, I would that's what I would buy.

But you're talking about 30 grand and that's another fun car.

Yeah, I mean, and this trailer cost me forty five hundred bucks.

So I'm not complaining.

No, that's that's the way to do it.

Alrighty, we haven't we haven't done a shop update with you in a while.

So let's start with the the one that's got me most interested

for the uninitiated.

What is the Rocky Aoki 9 11 limo?

How's it progressing?

We started to talk about the engine the other day

and then you and I got sidetracked by something.

And so you have to tell me that story that you started.

So the Rocky Aoki 9 11 is a 73 9 11 Targa limousine.

So it was cut and stretched or feet.

Because why wouldn't you have a Targa top?

No, so it's a twin Targa.

There's a Targa over both doors.

It also has a nine five nine

fiberglass body kit on it.

And Rocky Aoki, who was the founder of Benihana and also a real maniac.

Was into racing limousines in the One Lap of America event,

which was the which came after the cannonball.

Brock Yates ran it in the 80s and 90s.

He raised limos.

So you could race back.

So the original one lap, the one lap America now is run by Brock Junior,

who is fantastic in his events, amazing.

And I highly recommend it.

But what it is is you race from racetrack to racetrack.

And you do it as a cumulative time event.

And you do the both ends are at the tire rack and it's a blast.

I did it.

I did it a few years ago and I had the best time.

But when it started, the One Lap of America was originally a lap of America.

Rocky Yates would go to for he drive his car

to four different corners of the Knights of the Continental United States

then set times and then you had to match his time as close as possible

without knowing what it was.

And so a limousine made sense

because you'd be in the car for days.

It was a real in car endurance event.

And Rocky originally did it in he was trying to promote

Benihana microwave dinners.

So he had a Rolls Royce with a microwave in it

and they ate Benihana dinners the whole way around.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Imagine the gas.

I'm not going to experience that.

That's kind of what I'm trying to picture.

Oh, my God.

It was the car muster reeked of sulfur and cocaine.

Oh, I could say.

That's one of the levels of hell, I'm sure.

Or heaven, depending on who you're at.

I mean, seriously. Oh, wow. Oh, God.

So he had he had limousines built after that.

He had a Volkswagen Bug Limousine built.

He had a Corvette C3 limousine built.

So this was one of his limos.

It was he used it in 1991.

And then it was kind of abandoned at a body shop to be restored in LA.

And then this artist bought it in Los Angeles and Silver Lakes.

And he got it for years.

And every year or so for about 15 years,

it would pop up on Craigslist and then Facebook Marketplace for sale.

And it was kind of this ghost legend of the Internet that this thing existed.

And a few I guess it's been a year now that I've had it.

A couple of years ago, people sent it to me.

They're like, you this is what you need to buy, because I'm sort of an expert

on nine five nines or pour some a nine eleven guy or some a weird car guy.

No, this had this.

So Ed Bolian, another Ed's name comes up a lot in some bad decisions.

So he comes up.

He does seem to kind of encourage your behavior in nature.

In the best in the best possible way.

He he's like this.

You should get this thing and turn it into a YouTube thing.

I'm like, yeah.

So long story short, I bought it.

I brought it home.

The amount of people that when I posted it were like, this thing's real.

Like you bought it and it's real, really.

We took it apart and it is as dreadful as you can imagine.

Nineteen late nineteen eighties.

Cocaine fuel limousine building techniques, as you'd imagine,

just like the worst welds, the worst construction.

The floor was like corrugated, galvanized steel from like somebody's shed.

No, the outside of the car was the rolling

embodiment of the Peruvian marching powder.

Oh, my God, the nine five nine body kit is amazing.

So the goal is to restore it and build it a little build it back better.

And so it's kind of sat for the past six months, maybe even eight months now.

Because I've had a lot of client projects in the garage, we had to finish up.

And those are now completed now that Monterey's over.

I can get back to it.

But before we we put it on to the side, I had this, I had a couple of things done.

One was I bought a Porsche 930 motor.

And of course, that's a turbo engine.

Yeah, I got it.

So the intercooled turbo motor from the crazy junkyard auction arms,

junkyard auction LA and we took it apart.

Tom Aiman, who is a master Porsche engine builder for he's built two engines.

I asked him how many he's done.

He said, I did two engines a month for 45 years.

That's right.

You and this is what we were talking about.

And I never what was the yeah, yeah, yeah, go on with the story.

But the the end was did you get to pick it up?

The engine. Yeah.

So yeah, I'll get to that.

So we we we redid the trend.

Oh, that's we got the transmission in the engine.

Transmission was still it was still it was the only thing in the car.

The car came without an engine.

The some mechanic is stolen it years ago.

The transmission we rebuilt, which has and this is why this thing is so special.

The last four digits of its serial number are 2904.

You're kidding.

I'm not joking.

We freaked out for those who don't know it.

The 2904 was the cannonball event that John ran for a decade.

So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it was an omen that this thing had a cannonball again at some point.

So Tom and I rebuilt the 915 transmission, but he has all these tricks.

He raced 935s and 911s.

So he's actually put 930 motors into regular 911s.

And he's like, we can build a 915 transmission to handle 450 horsepower.

So we we put some 930 parts on it and he rebuilt that.

Then we tore the 930 motor down and he's like, this thing's in great shape

because this probably has 40,000 miles on it.

It probably came from a crashed car because part of a couple of things

were bent on the side and it was a junkyard.

So he's like, this is in great shape.

We took it all apart.

He's he's like, here are all the people to send it to.

So I sent out all the parts of the machine, the heads and all those bits.

And the machinist goes, yeah, how these done in two weeks.

And that was five months ago.

So oopsies.

I picked them up.

I picked them up last Friday, Friday.

No, no, no, no, no, I picked them up this Monday

after I got back from Monterey, drove back down the barrier,

picked them up 151 days later.

He's like, not apologetic, just like, yep, that's how long it took.

I'm like, he's like, and he's like, and it's going to be more expensive

because it was tougher to do than I thought.

I'm like, oh, my gosh, here's the here's the problem.

The side note is that all these skills, these machinists

and and interior guys and fabricators, they're all this

just just like this guy, Gary's like 73 still works.

Yeah, 10 or 12 hours a day.

They're going to die at their machines and they have had taught nobody how to do it.

And I've I've talked to like I talked to Tom Amon.

He's he's 70 now.

He's built tons of Porsche motors.

Guess how many people were interested in learning from him? Zero.

We can change that.

We need to change that.

We can change that.

That's where the MacPherson College connection comes through.

And I need to get you in touch with Amanda Gutierrez

and we can change that because there are kids going through that program

who want to know how to do this stuff.

I here's the here's the problem.

McPherson's fantastic, but it is one school in the middle of the country.

We need a dozen of these schools.

Yeah, yeah.

We need one here in Northern California.

I've got I've got enough instructors.

The retired guys alone that have left Canapa, that have aged out of Canapa,

their interior guy, he did.

He does like on the side now.

And he's he's in the 70s on the side now.

He does four Hubble Beach cars a year, makes two hundred and fifty

thousand dollars a year.

You know, and there's no kid that wants to learn how to do that.

The one of Bruce's fabricators, he's he's fantastic.

He's a half an hour for me.

He's helping me with the the the Iyoki car.

And he does side projects in his house.

No apprentices.

Nobody cares.

He'd loved it.

All of them are like, I'd love to teach somebody.

Amanda Gutierrez, if you're listening.

And and she very well may be there are.

The I think the problem is there are more shops than there are kids to send.

And I think it's it's awareness.

I think kids have to know that this is an option.

When I was working at Canapa, giving the tours,

I'd walk the kids around and be like, guess how much this guy makes?

And because every kid can up is near the Bay Area.

Every kid's like, what do you want to do?

I want to do a program or make three hundred thousand dollars a year.

Like, yeah, odds are that's not going to happen again.

But how about this?

If you're not some computer genius and you like to work with your hands,

you can make two hundred thousand dollars a year specializing in something

nobody can do anymore. Yeah.

You know, like the like the Dozenberg, the first Dozenberg that we restored

each part of that had to be hand fabricated.

It had a wood frame for the body,

which is the first class they make you take in the restoration program

as a woods class, so you know how to do the wood frames

and all the woodwork and prewar cars.

It's and if you don't know how to do it,

you know, if you don't learn how to do it, I'm so happy that place exists.

But I think it's only the first step in

in keeping our cars alive for the next generations.

So anyway, I'm dealing with all these

seventies and 80 year olds who take six months to do things

because they're working alone in their shops.

Oh, another guy I got a great was from

I was I was reached out to a few people because I had to build a new floor

for the Aoki car. Mm hmm.

You didn't want to go back or get it.

No. And I found this old dragster guy

who built dragsters because I was thinking about like who lengthens cars,

right, limo people do it.

But usually, awfully, they're just doing it on a budget

and they have to look good.

I said, who builds who lengthens cars and they have to do something.

And my dragster guys do.

They're always stretching because the longer it is, right?

You know, less than those people, they build all these special gassers and things.

So I talked to him and he's like, oh, I'll build you a floor for that.

Is it great?

And he came over and measured a bunch of things.

And I said, OK, give me some drawings.

And I'd love to see the drawings and we'll work on what the design is.

He goes, absolutely. Sure.

Week later, he shows up with his truck and he's made the floor already.

Just by looking at it once, it's eighth inch steel.

And it has a boxed center section like he would where you would have

like a drive shaft, but obviously have it.

That's where all the cables and shifting and everything goes through

the middle of a nine eleven.

It'll create essentially a box from the front of the car to the back.

It'll act as a third member to the rockers.

He's all this ain't going nowhere.

He's like, because you this will be the strongest part of the car.

He's all that because you don't need anything above it

because the floor itself will be so rigid.

And if sure enough, we put it in the car and it goes

and fits perfectly with within a sixteenth of an inch.

Wow. Wow.

I get that would I would have gone through three or four sheets

of steel doing what he did without really looking at it.

So of course, I want to learn from these people, but I'm in my fifties.

Like I'm me learning this stuff is pointless, except for my own,

you know, edification, you know, a 20 year old, a 30 year old needs to learn this stuff.

We could send them out there to learn, but I understand all of them

are figuring out how to put clutches in ZR ones.

Stop. Stop it right now.

Coming for you. So I'm going to punch you in the neck next to my seat.

I told you I'd work it in.

And I hate that car.

I hate it. Hate to see four car back.

I'm so proud of myself for that.

Oh, wow. Just just waiting, just waiting.

It took a while to figure out where to get it.

Yeah. So we're going to look, we're now at Monterey's over.

We're going to start shooting videos again and start doing more content.

We'll get the nine eleven.

Well, what else is in your shop besides that nine thirty?

That thing takes up a chunk of room.

It's not a short car.

So I got that. I've got a sixty six nine eleven

that I is has a RSR body kit on it.

So it looks like it's a short wheel piece.

RSR is a kooky little car.

Don't tell. Don't be less.

Seven S motor in it that revs to like seventy two hundred RPM.

Yeah, don't tell.

Oh, it's so cool.

I love it. So we're fixing that car up.

We're selling that. That's for sale.

I've got a nine nine six cab that we just redid the engine on.

That'll be for sale pretty soon.

That was belonged to like a lifelong PCA member.

Do you like working on nine nine sixes?

Oh, what's your opinion?

I have no desire ever, ever to touch a water cooled nine eleven again in my life.

Well, you got a nine twenty eight, John.

You're kind of going to have to.

Well, you know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, I want to talk like a nine eleven, a water cooled nine eleven.

No, thank you. No desire.

Anything I I the usually the rule for my shop is

is nothing with OBD two or newer.

Yeah, I don't want computers or anything like that.

So if it's if it's analog, I'll work on it.

It's much more fun that way. But no, no desire.

So we got that. I'm getting the Soprona race car running again.

We got new turbo for that.

So hopefully you'll be racing that at the end of November.

It's a 1970 Toyota Corona that has the subframes from 87 Toyota Supra.

The brakes from a Mustang Cobra R

and a one JZ turbo straight six.

And flared rear fenders made out of what?

License plates.

In fact, the front air dams made out of license plates.

The rear deck spoilers made out of license plates.

The front box flares have license plates on them.

That's been kind of the fleet, the theme that just happened.

Was my friend was it because you had the license plate sitting around

and you needed cheap metal or how did that happen?

I've always used license plates, because they're they're inexpensive,

quick aluminum things you can cut up and use the block holes

and stuff like that on race cars.

And we just started getting carried away.

And then Travis Bell, my friend in Indiana,

who owns celebrity machines, you should go to their website.

They've got every every license plate

from every movie or TV show that ever existed.

So he's one of the kindest, coolest people on the planet.

He is called.

I said, hey, I'm doing more license plate stuff.

He's like, say no more.

And he sent me a box of their kind of.

Damaged license plates like once it didn't meet quality control.

And honestly, I'd say that 90 percent of them,

I couldn't even tell what was wrong with them.

So we that's what we.

So I've got license plates from on there from Caddyshack,

Magnum, P.I.

Eatenville, Knievel, Rocky, the Avengers.

Like I've got it's so much fun, that car's a blast.

So we'll be racing that hopefully again in November.

You cannot overstate what's going on.

What a sweet heart of a human being, Travis Bell is.

If if anybody should win the Nobel Peace Prize,

it's Travis Bell for Travis Bell.

Like if there was an automotive category for the Nobel Peace Prize,

like the kindest, helpful, you know, he's just one of those people.

He's a hub of happiness.

Yeah. And he just he just helps anybody who needs help.

And he he runs these fantastic events at his house.

Like he's having not this weekend, but I think next weekend

he's having his Holden.

Yeah. Best of all at his house out back in the Midwest.

He did the backyard four hundred go kart race in the back of his house.

Oh, just all for all.

Radis, because he just would like to have a good time.

And he's cannonball.

He built the best replica of the cannonball ambulance from the movie.

Yes, I got to I got to drive that

in a cannonball attempt, which to this day is still one of my favorite drives

of all time. We were blasting through New York City, leaving New York City.

I was driving.

Travis is running the lights in the siren and we're blasting through,

you know, 31st Street heading for the tunnel in this 50 year old ambulance

with the lights going, people looking terribly confused.

We had the jackets on from the movie, the whole thing.

Oh, anyway, I'm privileged to know him.

I think anybody else who's ever met him or worked with him

knows the gratitude we have towards Travis Bell.

Yeah, the world is a better place because Travis Bell is in it.

Did you see the news blurb online today

about the Movie Car Museum in Colorado that's selling off its inventory?

I did. In fact, this is people were sending me that

starting a few days ago.

Yeah, I did. I did.

And I guess he's he's going to open up another museum somewhere else and do it

again. I don't know what the whole story was, but I saw some of his cars.

Few of them are.

Respectable.

You know, most most film car museums are crap.

Yeah, you know, it's sometimes not even the right.

Like he's got a Ghostbusters thing.

That's not even the right vehicle.

It's not a Miller meteor.

It's not close.

It's not. It's not a 59 Cadillac.

It's not it's not, you know, but a few of them are pretty cool.

And I mean, if you just want it something cool that you want to drive around,

that's great. And like their reproductions and if you can get some good money

for them, that's fantastic.

You know, and I got to say, like even the.

The Barris, I think it was the Barris Museum in Tennessee,

whatever that little

tourist town is there.

It's got all this stuff in it.

We went there.

They had this kind of crazy film car

or car museum there.

And we went in there and this is all Barris stuff.

So it's like the the coffin dragster from the monsters,

except it's not.

It's a really crappy.

I'm looking at it going, this isn't right.

And they've got a picture from the TV show behind it.

And you're like, well, this, this, this and this.

And they've got, you know, they've got a generally.

And you can tell that the wrong wheels are on it.

And if you're a geeks like us,

this place and a former film car guy owner, like it drives me up a wall

to most civilians, they love it.

You know, they, they don't know any better.

Yeah. But, but, oh, man, this place is driving me crazy.

I have no temptation to buy any of that stuff at all.

Have you ever been tempted to start another film car company?

No. No.

You can only film car companies only work in New York or Los Angeles.

They don't work anymore.

You have to have a density of production.

I guess they might work in Georgia now, since production is really high there

or to it or maybe an effect, maybe Louisiana, maybe, but

in order to to to be able to pay for all the vehicles,

the maintenance, the upkeep and all the hassle, yeah,

you need to be ours every day.

Like in New York, we had jobs every day or two or three jobs every day.

And that paid the bills just fine.

But most cities, there's not enough production to do it.

Or they bring in their own teams.

Big movies will have their own transportation divisions.

Yeah. That will be vehicles in themselves.

Yeah. Yeah.

So this is a question I've made you answer a bunch of times before.

So I will narrow the focus.

What's the dumbest thing you've done in a car in the last couple of years?

Well,

that's always such a hard question, because everything.

Well, because it's tough to narrow it down.

What is because I just do so many

questionable things with cars or buying cars.

Like, I guess one of those things is a purchase of a car

that I would say half people thought was a great idea

and half people thought was a very bad idea.

I bought a 1982 Aston Martin Lagonda.

Did you really?

Yes, it's on a container right now.

It should be here September 14th.

All right.

It was they have to ship the electrical manual separately.

So for people who don't know, it was the first production car

with a digital dash.

That's what you're making fun of.

And most of them failed.

They were cafe route, ray tube.

The early ones were cafe, ray tube, the later ones were LEDs.

And the eighties, seventies, really technology.

They spent a fortune creating these things like NASA level money

to create these dashboards.

And when they failed, nobody could fix them.

And that was always kind of the people made fun of the Lagonda.

And the Lagonda fell in price rapidly because of that.

It was one of the most expensive cars you could buy.

It was the ultra luxury sedan that anybody could touch

in the late seventies and eighties.

But so for years, the nineties, nobody could fix them.

Two thousands, nobody could fix them.

But come the last 15 years and how inexpensive electronics are

and how easy it is to program stuff

and how inexpensive LED stuff is,

there's guys making the complete retrofit kits for those things.

No kidding, because that's been the hurdle

on those cars for a long time.

So this car was the Geneva show car for Aston Martin.

And then in 19, in 2013, it was purchased

by the National Automobile Museum of France.

They restored it and they had the dash completely restored

before they put it on display.

Oh my.

So that's how I'm buying it.

Painted interior was done, the dash was done,

and then they put it in the museum.

So it was pickled and put in the museum.

So all I got to do is unpickle the car

and hopefully most of it will work.

If it doesn't, I've got plenty of resources to fix it.

And it's, it is,

either people think it's the ugliest car ever.

No, no, they're cool.

It's the same design language as the Lamborghini Countach.

Yeah.

It was a study in what they call the folded paper design.

Dick Endini, who did it?

Oh, I can't, I'm horrible.

I should really know that by now, but I don't.

I'll learn it.

It was a British guy who did it.

And it was a stud.

Just the way the Lamborghini is like a study in trapezoids.

This is kind of, and the wedge front and the pop up headlights.

And oh, I think it's the coolest thing.

And this thing, it's lime green.

So if you go to the Wikipedia page, the main photo is this car.

Oh, cool.

Is that the same one on car and driver too?

It has an 82 Aston Martin Lagonda on it.

That's if it's it's mint green.

That's it.

Yeah, it's, wow.

Isn't that fun.

Harjeet Escalze.

Does that ring a bell in his 1982 Aston Martin Lagonda?

Oh, that's the guy who he's an interesting dude.

He's one of the guys who he's a tech dude, bought one, restored it from scratch,

knows nothing about cars, has taught him everything.

And he's one of the guys who created the new dash.

The interior is wild.

Yeah.

He just taught himself how to build all that stuff.

And he's one of the resources people have now for those cars.

So that's definitely one of the most questionable things I've done.

Another questionable thing I'm about to do is

next week, I'm going to go pick up a V16 Marine engine.

And it's 917 horsepower twin turbo diesel V16.

We think the engine weighs maybe 5,000 pounds for what?

Well, one of my Porsche guys, again, one of the old guys,

he runs Pacific Fuel Injection in San Francisco.

If you need a RSR fuel pump rebuilt or any of that stuff,

he has the original equipment.

Gus is amazing.

He's turned, I think he's 80, 81 now.

He does have an apprentice.

His shop is filled with the craziest stuff.

And this thing was sitting under some boxes.

And I'm like, what the hell is that?

He goes, oh, yeah, that is old boat motor.

And he's like, do you want it?

I'm like, sure.

Who wouldn't say yes to that?

Yes, yes, I do.

So I don't know.

I think what I'm going to do with it,

because this is quite popular now,

is to turn blocks, engine blocks into tables.

It's that's got a monster engine block.

That's got to be huge.

It's eight feet long and three and a half feet wide

or four feet wide.

You could turn that into a pool table.

Yeah.

I'm going to turn into it like a giant conference table.

I'm going to get it.

I'm going to get like an inch and a half glass top

for the whole thing.

That's brilliant.

I love that idea.

You better have a good floor.

Not putting it in a car, obviously.

But it's like, yeah, it's it's so close.

I'll send you a picture of it.

It's it's so cool.

It has like a Porsche at its individual heads.

So 16 individual heads on it.

That's interesting.

It's fascinating.

I've never really looked up diesel boat motors before,

but it turns 1800 RPM and puts out almost a thousand

horsepower.

And I guess the later versions were like two or three thousand horsepower.

This is one from the 70s.

But I guess the ones made in the 90s made double that or more.

Oh, God, I love it.

Are you sure you can't find something really stupid to put that in?

Why am I going to put a five thousand pound engine into something big?

I believe me.

I had the lemons question.

I'm like, oh, I just put it make it a mid engine marine diesel van.

Right.

It's only the stat.

Like, wait, wait, wait, wait.

You didn't finish the thought, though, John.

It has to have twin duly axles in back.

Well, I handled the weight.

Yeah, I'm putting it.

I'm not putting it in the strange rover.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

No, you get an old Akana line and you stretch it and you put twin duly

axles under it and then you put it in the back.

I am a maniac, but I am not that.

I think I think that guy lives in like Wisconsin and like it's it's cold out

and he that's always doing in his shed for three winters is that and

swallowing lining coogles.

Oh, God, he's he's got he's always got a keg of line.

He's on tap and he's figuring out.

Oh, yeah, that'll go right in there powered by cheese.

Those are some of the more questions.

That's freaking awesome.

I love it.

That's the fact that you're even bringing it home and you thought,

you know what, table table, you could put that under a snooker table.

That's monstrously large.

It's way too heavy to bring into my house.

So I'm going to literally have to like,

I think a business or like like one of those car clubhouse places.

Sure.

Would love that.

Like I know Bruce Cannup is building a clubhouse storage place next to his place right now.

Oh, sure.

So I might pitch it to him.

I'm like, if you want a conference table, a V16 conference table for car condos.

Right.

Perfect.

Absolutely perfect.

Serving your buffet on a V16.

Why not?

Do you get why I'm friends with him?

Yeah.

That makes sense.

He ain't right.

And we bounce really horrible ideas off of each other.

And I like that.

I like that a lot.

I like that more than I should.

We've been speaking with John Fakara of Fakara Classic.

John, please tell us where we can find you online and on social media.

You can find me on YouTube at the Fakara Classic YouTube channel.

Also on Instagram, Fakara Classic and FakaraClassic.com.

And for all of those, that's F-I-C-A-R-R-A Fakara.

Thanks always for being with us.

And also thanks for coming down and splitting the condo with us.

We had a ball.

It was a lot of fun.

I explained the stain in the back seat of the truck to the people at Enterprise

and they didn't seem to care.

I even told them all about it.

It's all about the pie.

It was a little sticky.

That pie was sticky.

I'll tell you about that when we get down with this.

John, that was a lot of fun last week, man.

We should do that again next year.

We will.

And I appreciate your hospitality.

That was awesome.

John, thank you so much.

I appreciate it, man.

My pleasure.

Take care, guys.

So John and Scotty get down to Monterey.

Okay.

North of Monterey.

We rent condos at this little place on the beach about a half hour north of Monterey.

I'm not going to tell you the name because then everybody will show up there next year.

Just want cheap lodging.

Fair.

And we got condo and not everybody wants to go out to eat for every stinkin'

meal.

It gets really expensive doing that.

So we go to the grocery store and we buy a bunch of stuff.

Sandwich stuff and buy some beer.

Some other stuff.

And we're walking around in John's buddy, Scotty.

God bless him.

We're walking through the bakery and he picks up this pie.

I swear to God, Mark, the thing felt like it was made out of lead.

It's the heaviest, most dense pie you've ever had in your life.

And I'm walking by with a cart and Scotty goes,

feel this, one is the pie.

No, just pick it up.

I gotta pick it up.

It weighs two to three pounds easy.

It's a regular-sized pie.

Regular, but it's heavy.

Okay.

And you look at it and it says apple pie and berry.

All right, whatever.

We buy it because, you know, why not?

You do it just to try it out.

And we had an F-150 for a rental.

And I'll tell you how much I dislike this F-150 later.

But we put it in the middle of the back seat just because,

you know, it's really dense.

You don't want to get it squished.

You don't want it to go anywhere.

We get back to the condo.

This thing has seeped fruit juice, like fruit filling juice

into a cloth back seat on this.

And it ain't coming out.

Oh, no, no.

And I'm thinking, I rented this damn truck.

I'm going to have to explain this to somebody eventually.

And we drive the thing for the better part of a week.

And that's staying, it won't dry up.

It won't come out.

It's not, it's, it is, it's, it's own fluid.

So we get back to turn the truck in

and I tell the people at the rental place,

hey, listen, there's a bit of a stain in the back seat.

It's not real big, but I don't know if we did it

or somebody else did it, but the damn thing is there.

The guy takes one look and he goes,

ah, no problem.

And just walks off.

Nobody, nobody charged me a nickel more.

Nobody gave me any grief about it.

Nobody asking any questions.

Nobody said, hey, what the hell is this?

None of that has turned the car in.

Hey, no problem.

But this is the first time I've seen a rental car

that had almost 40,000 miles on it

and it hadn't turned an easy mile among them.

This truck has been hammered on

and there are scratches all over the bed inside and out.

Oh, wow.

Like somebody moved to king size bed

without taking the frame apart, that sort of thing.

Yeah.

And it was a hybrid, an F-150 hybrid,

so it's, you know, got part electric drive

and then the other parts.

I assume it was a V6.

It didn't make V8 sounds.

And really strange.

You'd get in the truck,

get in the truck, you put your seatbelt on

so it won't bong at you.

Stick the key in, turn it on.

It does nothing.

It just says ready.

You've got, the dash in front of you is all,

it's not, they're not digital anymore.

It's all just electronic.

It's like an iPad in front of you.

Okay.

And then there's a second bigger iPad

in the center of this dash stack.

There's no owner's manual in this sucker.

The owner's manual is in the dash.

You have to go through all the electronic crap

in the dash to try and figure out how in the hell

to work the truck.

Oh God.

And there's a whole bunch of stuff on the truck

that I wanted to change.

Like the, you know, that thing where new cars

do auto off at stop lights,

which I still think is the stupidest thing

anybody's ever come up with.

You can't turn that off.

It just does it.

Yep.

It switches between the hybrid electric motor

and the gas engine.

But what you would think would be a seamless transition

and the truck goes dunk and is a really sharp jerk.

Oh God.

So every time, you didn't want to be drinking anything

in this damn truck because you would wind up wearing it.

And it's an F-150.

I've had a bunch of them.

I like Ford trucks.

I don't like these.

I'll quit buying them when, you know,

that I'll figure out what year it is.

They did that and just buy nothing

but trucks made before.

It's the FU-50.

Yeah.

It's exactly that.

It's every bit of that.

It just was so not smooth.

Yeah.

It wasn't a smooth transition.

Now, I assume it's because some, you know,

it's been beaten on for the last couple of years

and 40,000 miles.

I'm not kidding.

I've never seen a rental car with that many miles.

The only thing I've ever rented that had

that many miles on it was a U-Haul.

True.

And I wanted to like it because

crew cab, you could stick five people on it.

You could throw all manner of garbage in the back and we did.

You can, you know, I figured getting,

I've rented a couple of pickups instead of cars

when I've been on trips before

because you get out of the airport,

you walk across and you get into your rental car

and you throw all your goddamn bags

right in the back of it

and you don't think about it at all.

You just throw all your stuff in the back

as long as it ain't raining, you're fine.

You know, as long as it's not raining

and people aren't climbing over the truck bed

it stoplights to steal your stuff.

Yeah.

But if you, you know, if you pack like Rhonda does,

good luck to them because they're going to,

they're going to wind up being fitted for a truss after word.

How about that, Hernia?

But anyway, I really wanted to like it because

and it was a four-wheel drive.

I didn't even ask for a four-wheel drive.

Pretty nice inside, just lots of, lots of screen.

Lots of screen.

And I'm still, you know, I'm kind of like John.

I still like analog stuff.

I still like gauges with needles that are analog

and, you know, do all that stuff.

But nope, nope, can't have that screw you.

No, not anymore.

Everything has to look like an iPad.

Yep.

And it does.

Yeah, it does make me kind of sad

because a lot of the older cars,

even though I whined a bitch about Sybil,

you know, there was one electrical thing

that was really odd and the rest of it is just like, okay.

And it's all mechanical or something doesn't work.

There's a reason for it.

And the rest is fire.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I can't even imagine working on modern cars

now plugging it into something and hoping that it guesses correctly.

Both the Corvettes, both the Impalas,

all the stuff that we, between the two of us,

hell, your XTERRA, it's fuel injected, but it's still...

It's still pretty basic.

It's a five speed four by four.

It's still, I mean, it's not an insult to say

that the thing is mildly agrarian.

It's easy to figure out.

You can work on it.

It's not that bad.

I couldn't even figure out how to shut stuff off on this truck.

I couldn't.

Now, the one really good thing I will say for it,

it got incredible mileage.

Yeah.

Big, full-size F-150 crew cab, four-wheel drive,

21 miles a gallon for the week.

No kidding.

Not too bad.

That is a surprise.

And we ran the AC plenty.

Yeah.

And yeah, it got really, really good mileage.

So, there's the upside to that.

The rest of it is Dave Kinney, who we talk to frequently.

And Dave gets a new F-150 every couple of years.

I saw him Thursday morning.

I was in that truck.

I said, hey, can you tell me how this works?

And he walks out to the truck like you're a moron.

I'll fault fix this thing right up.

25 minutes later, he's like, I don't know.

Did you reboot it?

I said, I don't know.

What do I unhook the battery and hook it up again?

I don't know.

I don't understand.

Crap, man.

My luck.

I'll do that and it won't work at all.

So anyway, interesting stuff.

It was such a good week in Monterey.

This is the first time I've ever been to Car Week

that I haven't had an assignment.

Yeah, you went there just to see.

I didn't have a job that I was supposed to do.

And it was a lot of fun.

And all the stuff that I'd made that laundry list of

that I was going to do, did about a third of it.

We wound up goofing off.

We didn't even check it.

We ate a lot of seafood.

We looked at seals that were making a lot of noise

over on Fisherman's Wharf.

Rhonda's got a great picture of an otter eating off

its belly outside of one of these restaurants

because right on the ocean.

Yup.

And it was really, really nice.

It was really cool.

The weather was fantastic.

We got to see a lot of friends.

Didn't quite make it around to everybody.

We just had a good time.

God, I needed a vacation.

Nice.

First non-working vacation in six years.

That's a way to do it.

So really, really needed it.

Nailed it.

Decompressed.

I'll probably be all messed up by next week.

And that's absolutely true.

Thank you so much for spending time with Driven Radio.

We love what we do.

We really do love doing this.

And we wouldn't be able to do it without the support

of our listeners.

You can find us online at DrivenRadioShow.com.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

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If you have a story you would like to tell

or someone who can fix my stupid laptop,

please contact me at Brett at DrivenRadioShow.com.

I am so sick of this damn thing.

At it.

Just had it.

I am Brett Hatfield for Markel Groves.

Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time

on Driven Radio.

We've known Rick Hunter and the gang

at Hot Rod Express and Blue Springs for years.

We first saw their work at car shows

and then we had to buff out the drool

that we left on their work at the car shows.

And we've had Rick on both Road Muscle Radio

and Driven Radio Show several times

to talk about cars and projects

and the other cool stuff that was going on

over at Hot Rod Express.

So when disaster struck

in the form of the sweetest little lady in Overland Park.

Aw, she's a doll.

Oh, God, you can't let your mom.

Who did I turn to to do the body repair

on my 65 Corvette Stingray?

Hot Rod Express.

These guys did a hell of a job.

They aren't the cheapest and there's a reason.

They're the best.

They made the body look better than it did before.

That is not an exaggeration.

And they even sourced the right emblem

so that it was model accurate.

Hot Rod Express has crawled under the hood

to fix weird and dangerous alternator issue

that tried to burn the car.

And they've recently installed new running gear.

Well, new suspension.

Both ends of it.

And it rides so much better and it drives better

and it's not trying to rattle my eye teeth out.

And I still have the fillings in my teeth.

Yeah, I was kind of happy with the ride we took in it.

That was nice.

Yeah, well, I'm telling you,

it's not quite as harsh as it used to was.

Since 1995, Hot Rod Express has been doing

Concord Caliber frame off restorations,

award-winning resto mods and everything in between.

In fact, after they painted the Stingray,

they had it down at Bartle Hall for World of Wheels.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

My car won first place for domestic sports car.

Oh, my God.

Jesus Hot Rod Express.

So when we say award-winning restorations,

that's not an exaggeration.

Your first hand.

I got one of them.

So if you can dream it on four wheels, they can do it.

Visit hotrod-express.com or call them at 816-224-9597.

Ask for Rick and tell him Driven Radio sent you.

Don't worry, he won't hold that against you.

They're super easy to talk to and they've never met a stranger.

Hot Rod Express on Forty Highway in Blue Springs, Missouri

at Hot Rod Express, then make friends fast.

Straight shooter, great communicator, honest mechanic,

champion disco dancer.

One of these descriptions is a flat-out lie.

The rest accurately described Daryl Ossipic, owner of Ossipic Automotive.

Yeah, we've been teasing him for a long time.

Daryl has been a really good friend and a personal mechanic for me

for longer than I care about.

Geez, man.

He's been working on my stuff forever.

I've taken my vintage Bronco in there.

I've taken my Corvettes in there.

I even have had the Schadenfreude Express in there.

You got him to work on that?

He's worked on that 99 Mercedes S600 and done a really good job on it.

Mark's even gone to Daryl for car repair.

Yeah, that's 64 Dodge that I whined about.

He was the one that got it running and moving after I bought it

and it ended up not running and moving.

It was a little different than the test drive.

Don't get me wrong.

It ran good for the test drive.

It was great then.

Plus, he put the transmission in that I bought for that

my 2000 Nissan XTERRA 4x4.

Ossipic Automotive does maintenance and repair on foreign and domestic

petrol-powered autos.

He also works on some diesel stuff I've seen in there.

If he can do it, he'll tell you.

If he can't, he'll tell you.

But I haven't found anything that he can't work on yet.

The guy works on cars.

He works on a giant offshore raceboat.

He can do about anything.

And he'll tell you up front what he's going to do,

how we're going to approach the problem, what he thinks it might be.

And if he can't do it, he'll tell you who can.

He's an internal combustion whisperer who thinks running sucks for exercise,

but he rules behind the wheel.

And he's also got some fantastic taste in his own personal stuff.

Oh yeah.

You would never guess at looking at him.

He looks like a mild-mannered mechanic.

He's got interesting stuff of his own.

Ossipic Automotive doesn't have a website,

so you'll have to look up the reviews.

4.9 stars out of 5 on Google, 4.8 out of 5 on Yelp,

called Daryl at 913-831-3613.

What's that number?

913-831-3613.

And you got to remember his motto,

Ossipic Automotive, where they'll fix your car,

no matter how much it costs.

He's going to kill me.

Going to kill me.

I promised him I wouldn't tell anybody he says that.

Oh, and where is he?

We know where to go to be killed.

5920 Merriam Drive in Merriam, Kansas, 66203.

Driven Radio Show #317: John Ficarra of Ficarra Classic

About this episode

Nissan XTerra

Land Rover Range Rover

Mercury Monterey

Porsche 928

Toyota Prius

Porsche 917

Porsche Cayenne

Chevrolet Corvette

911 Porsche 930

Porsche 911

Porsche 935

Toyota Supra

Ford Mustang

Aston Martin Lagonda

Lamborghini Countach

Cadillac V16

Ford F150

Renault Wind

Chevrolet Impala

Corvette Stingray

Ford Bronco

Honda S600

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