A Dodge Challenger is a performance car with a big, powerful engine and a sporty, classic design. People talk about it because it’s meant to be quick and fun to drive. The podcast mentions a blue one because it’s an eye-catching example.
A classic car restoration program focuses on returning older vehicles to a correct, functional, and often show-ready condition. Instead of training primarily on modern vehicle electronics, it emphasizes traditional mechanical skills and period-appropriate techniques.
An ECU unit is a computer in a modern car that helps control how the engine runs. It’s one of the key electronics that makes today’s cars operate correctly.
Term
upholstery work
Upholstery work means redoing the interior fabric and padding, like seats and trim. In restorations, it helps bring the car’s interior back to how it originally was.
Welding is a fabrication process that joins metal parts by heating and fusing them. In vehicle training programs, it’s commonly used for structural repairs, fabrication, and restoration work where new metal sections must be attached safely.
An aftermarket speed shop is a shop that upgrades or modifies cars using non-factory parts. The hosts are saying there are jobs like that for trained people.
Term
restores
“Restores” means restoring vehicles—fixing up an older car or bike so it looks and works the way it should. They’re saying training in that leads to real job opportunities.
The McLaren 650S is a very high-performance supercar. It’s built to be fast and exciting, not like a normal daily car. The podcast mentions it while discussing which versions someone has.
This is a Chevrolet pickup truck. The speaker is basically saying they bought a 2008 Silverado 1500 new and then used it a lot, and it didn’t turn out as well as they hoped.
A Chevy C10 is an older Chevrolet pickup truck. The speaker is using it to explain the family’s truck background and why they were drawn to Chevy trucks.
A “six cylinder” engine has six combustion chambers. The speaker is talking about whether choosing a smaller engine (instead of an eight-cylinder) would make the truck last longer.
Term
inline Chevy
“Inline” refers to an engine layout where cylinders are arranged in a single straight line (an inline engine). The speaker contrasts an inline configuration with a different engine choice in their Silverado, implying the inline setup would have been more durable for their use.
Term
treks
“Treks” sounds like a type of decking board/material. The speaker is saying they used that material to build a center console inside the van.
Ice racing is motorcycle racing on ice. Since tires don’t grip like normal pavement, riders use special studded tires and steering/body control to stay in control.
Studs are tiny metal spikes added to the tires for ice racing. They help the tires grab the ice so the bike can accelerate, brake, and turn more safely.
“AMA runs” means races run under the American Motorcyclist Association’s rules. In this case, the rules affect what kind of tire studs you’re allowed to use.
Flat track is a type of motorcycle racing where the bike often slides while turning. The host is saying ice racing can feel similar in how the bike moves.
Countersteering is how you start a motorcycle turning—your hands steer the opposite way briefly to get the bike to lean. The host says it still works on ice, even though the bike slides.
A 1985 C4 Corvette is a specific generation of Corvette from Chevrolet. In this story, the car is an L98 “tune port” version, meaning it uses a particular fuel-injection setup designed for that engine.
“Tune port” is a type of fuel-injection system. It helps the engine get the right amount of fuel at the right time, which can improve how the car runs.
The Porsche Cayenne is a Porsche SUV, meaning it’s a bigger vehicle than a sports car but still built to drive sporty. People mention it because it can be comfortable for daily use while still feeling quick. The podcast brings it up as a personal car someone owns.
Term
digital readout
A digital readout is the screen on the dashboard that shows numbers or messages. Here, they’re talking about what the dash display keeps doing.
“Piston sideways” describes a severe internal engine failure where a piston has shifted or damaged in a way that prevents normal operation. It typically points to catastrophic damage (for example, a mechanical interference or broken components) rather than a simple sensor or electrical issue.
The Dodge Charger is a performance-focused car that looks like a sedan but is built for power. People often talk about it because it can be modified and tuned. In the podcast, it sounds like they’re dealing with some kind of car electronics or troubleshooting.
A battery charger powers up a weak battery so it can start the car and run the electronics. They charged it overnight to see if the problem was just low battery voltage.
A power antenna is the kind of car antenna that moves up and down using a motor. On some Corvettes, the antenna mast can break and the motor may keep running, which can drain the battery.
A drivetrain swap is when someone replaces the car’s main moving parts that make it go. It’s a big job because the parts have to be made to fit and work together correctly.
A Corvair is a classic Chevrolet that’s known for its unusual layout compared to most cars. Here, they’re admiring a specific Corvair and talking about the owner’s experience with it.
They’re talking about how they found a classic car in Texas and how far they had to drive to get it. It’s the kind of story car people love because it shows the effort behind the purchase.
A valve seat is the part inside the engine head that the valve seals against. If the seat fails, the engine can lose compression and run badly, and it can even lead to bigger damage.
An air-cooled engine uses airflow to keep the engine from overheating, instead of coolant flowing through the engine. It’s a different cooling method than most modern cars use.
An electric fuel pump is the part that pushes gas (or fuel) from the tank toward the engine. Where you mount it under the car can affect how safe and reliable it is.
Concept
fuel pump failure during a drive
They’re talking about a fuel pump problem that caused the car to stop working. If the fuel pump isn’t working, the engine can’t get fuel and the car can’t keep going.
The Jeep CJ is an older off-road Jeep designed for rough terrain. The CJ5 is a specific version of that model line. The podcast mentions it because someone learned something from driving one and is sharing that lesson.
Term
mitigate the weight problem in the front
They’re talking about fixing a front-to-rear weight imbalance. If the front is overloaded, the car can handle worse and feel less stable.
Suspension is what helps the wheels move smoothly and keeps the car stable over bumps. If it’s rebuilt, the car usually drives much better and feels more controlled.
The Toyota Supra is a sports car that’s known for being fast and popular with car enthusiasts. The podcast mentions a “90” and “parts,” which usually means someone has an older one and is collecting parts to keep it going. It’s a common kind of project car for people who like to work on cars.
A service manual is a step-by-step repair book for a particular car. It tells you how to fix things and what to check, and here they’re saying one of the manuals wasn’t very helpful.
An “LS swap” is when someone takes a GM LS V8 engine and puts it into a different car. People do it because the LS engines are affordable, powerful, and there are lots of parts and guides to make the swap work.
A “third gen Camaro” is a specific older Camaro generation from Chevrolet. The point here is that the person sold the engine and a friend put it into that Camaro.
Concept
Roadkill vet kart
A “vet kart” is a silly custom project where you make a go-kart out of a Corvette. The host is referencing the “Roadkill” style of cutting and rebuilding cars into something totally different.
The Morgan Plus 4 is an older-style sports car made in the UK. It’s known for having a distinctive look and a fun, old-school driving experience. The podcast mentions it while talking about parts from related Morgan models.
Term
T10 4-speed
A T10 4-speed is a particular kind of manual gear box with four forward gears. The hosts are saying it’s paired with extra shifting hardware to change how the car behaves at speed.
Overdrive is an extra gearing mode that helps the car cruise with the engine spinning slower. They’re saying this overdrive is controlled electrically and can be a problem if the special parts wear out or aren’t available.
Transmission filters are parts inside the transmission that help keep the fluid clean. If the correct filters are hard to find, it can be difficult to keep that transmission working properly.
The clutch is what lets you smoothly connect and disconnect the engine from the gearbox. If it’s worn out, shifting gets worse and the car may not pull as strongly.
“ZF6” is a name for a 6-speed manual gearbox made by ZF. They’re saying even with that transmission, the job is still difficult and not a big improvement.
Brake fluid is supposed to look clear. If it looks cloudy, it can mean water got into it or the fluid is breaking down, which can make the brakes less effective.
The slave cylinder is a small hydraulic part that moves the clutch. If it’s not working right, the clutch can feel delayed or sluggish when you press or release the pedal.
The differential (diff) is the part that sends power to the left and right wheels. The “Dana 44” is a specific, well-known differential model people talk about when they’re upgrading or swapping parts.
T56 is a popular six-speed manual transmission used in a lot of performance builds. People like it because it’s strong and there are lots of parts available to make it work with different engines.
The Dodge Viper is a loud, old-school sports car built for drivers who want a very direct, no-nonsense feel. The conversation here is about which Viper years and versions are the best to buy if you can’t get the earliest ones.
“Nannies” is slang for the car’s computer safety features that step in when you’re driving too aggressively. The point here is that the Viper doesn’t have as much of that, so it feels more raw and direct.
ESP is a stability control system. If the car starts to slide or rotate the wrong way, it uses brakes and engine control to help bring it back under control.
“Swaps ends” means the car loses grip and spins around. The back end comes around so the car ends up facing the other direction.
Concept
"magical year" (1986) for option/system changes
They’re saying 1986 is a special model year because it lines up with certain factory features. For car people, that can matter a lot because those features can change how the car starts, brakes, or what’s easier to modify.
VATS is an anti-theft system that stops the car from starting unless the key has the right coded information. It’s basically an extra security check built into the ignition.
Term
ANF stuff
They’re talking about another factory system/feature that came with the car around the same time as the anti-theft setup. The transcript doesn’t fully spell out what ANF stands for, but it’s clearly tied to that model-year change.
The Cadillac Escalade is a large luxury SUV. It’s made to be comfortable and roomy, especially for families or long trips. The podcast brings it up as one of the big luxury choices being considered.
“Repop” is short for “reproduction,” meaning aftermarket tires made to mimic older, period-correct tire sizes or styles. The speaker is saying there aren’t good reproduction options for the wheel/tire size they want.
“14s” and “13s” are shorthand for how fast a car runs in the quarter-mile—like 14 seconds or 13 seconds. They’re bringing it up to explain what tire sizes people can realistically get.
Term
engine and trans
They’re talking about the main power parts of the car: the engine and the transmission. Together, they determine how well the car can handle hard driving.
The 2002 Chevrolet Camaro SS is a performance Camaro that came with a manual transmission option. In this conversation, the big deal is the gear ratios—especially the overdrive gears that help the engine spin less on the highway.
Gear ratios are the “multipliers” between the engine and the wheels. They affect how hard the car pulls in each gear and how fast the engine spins when you’re cruising.
Final drive ratio is the gearing in the rear differential that helps determine how fast the wheels turn versus the engine RPM. A “4.10” style ratio usually makes the car feel punchier but can raise RPM at highway speeds unless you have tall overdrive gears.
First gear is the lowest gear used to get moving from a stop. The ratio of first gear affects how easily the car launches and how it feels when you’re accelerating from low speed.
Concept
building a combination
They’re talking about putting together the right mix of parts and settings so the car drives the way you want. It’s about trade-offs—what you gain and what you give up.
Load sensing is how the transmission “feels” how hard the engine is working. It uses that information to decide the best time to shift so the car doesn’t feel jerky.
Concept
"does this one run?"
They’re basically asking if the car actually starts and works. It’s the simplest “can you drive it?” question.
A transmission is the part that helps the engine’s power get to the wheels in the right way. It controls how the car speeds up and how smoothly it drives.
The Pontiac Fiero is a small mid-engine sports car. Here, they’re talking about working on its transmission, and the point is that older, less-common cars can be tough to keep running because parts are harder to find.
A transaxle is basically the transmission and the final drive put together in one unit. It’s common in cars where the wheels are driven from the front (or sometimes the middle), and it changes what parts can swap between cars.
Transverse means the engine and transmission are mounted sideways. That layout is common in front-wheel-drive cars, so it influences how the drivetrain parts are arranged and swapped.
Synchronizers are the parts inside a manual transmission that help gears “line up” in speed before you shift. They’re important for smooth shifting and can be a compatibility issue when mixing parts from different cars.
Bearings and races are the precision components that allow rotating shafts to spin with low friction and controlled alignment. In transmission swaps or rebuilds, they’re often reused only if wear is within spec, because mismatched or worn bearings can cause noise, heat, and premature failure.
Iron Duke is a name for a GM inline-four engine used in older cars. It’s mentioned here because the transmission being discussed was originally connected to that kind of engine.
Fuel injection means the engine uses electronically controlled injectors to spray fuel. It’s a different system than a carburetor and can change how the car runs and how the drivetrain was designed.
Custom fabricate means making a part from scratch or modifying existing parts to fit a specific application. In automotive contexts, it often comes up when a discontinued or hard-to-source component needs to be replaced or adapted.
Term
threads
Threads are the spiral ridges on a bolt. They’re what let the bolt screw into the matching part securely.
Term
thread count
Thread count is basically the spacing of the ridges on a bolt. If it doesn’t match the nut or hole it’s meant for, the bolt won’t screw in properly.
Car
1972 Honda 250 XL
This is a 1972 Honda motorcycle with a 250cc engine. The “XL” name generally means it’s meant to be usable both on regular roads and on rougher surfaces, like dirt.
A 1975 Ford LTD is a big, classic American car from the 1970s. Here they’re talking about one specific 1975 LTD that’s been customized, especially around the engine and the parts underneath.
Cubic inches is a way to measure how big an engine is. Bigger displacement often means the engine can make more power, and in this story they’re saying the engine was modified to be larger than stock.
“Bored over” means the engine cylinders are enlarged by machining. That makes the engine’s displacement bigger, which can help it make more power—though it’s also more work and can affect longevity if not done correctly.
Swing arms are parts that hold the wheel in place while still letting it move when you hit bumps. If they’re painted, it usually means the person cared about the suspension and wanted it to look (and function) right.
The Mazda RX-7 is a sports car famous for using a rotary engine, not the usual piston engine. That’s why it feels and sounds different from most cars people drive.
Bias-ply tires are an older tire design where the layers are woven in a crisscross pattern. They can make the car feel like it tracks along road grooves more than newer tire types.
The Lamborghini 400 GT is an older Lamborghini grand tourer—basically a classic “long-distance” sports car. People talk about it because it’s rare and important in Lamborghini history.
“The Cyclone” is the name of the weird, standout car they’re talking about. The big thing they’re pointing out is its exaggerated front-end styling with big chrome bumper ornaments.
“Dagmars” are those big, rounded chrome bumper pieces you sometimes see on older cars. They’re basically decorative (and sometimes tied to lights), and they scream mid-century styling.
“Radar control” means the car uses radar (like a sensor) to detect things around it. The host is guessing that the pods might contain tech that helps the car understand what’s in front of it.
The Volvo P1800 is an older sports car, shaped like a small coupe. It’s the kind of car people collect because it’s uncommon and has a unique look. The podcast mentions it because it’s sitting among other classic cars.
La France is the name associated with classic fire trucks. The hosts mention it because they like how the trucks look and because someone used to modify them into a smaller two-seat setup.
They’re describing a custom modification where someone takes a big fire truck and removes parts to make it into a smaller car with just two seats. It’s a special build, not something you’d usually buy off the shelf.
Auburn refers to Auburn Automobile Company, a historic American car brand known for distinctive styling and early-20th-century performance and luxury models. The hosts mention “Auburns” as part of the vintage lineup at the show.
Car
852 Supercharged Speedster
This is an Auburn Speedster with a supercharger. A supercharger helps the engine make more power by pushing extra air into it.
The Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 6.3 (W109) is an older luxury sedan that was also built to be very powerful. People talk about it because it combines comfort with performance. The podcast mentions it in connection with a long restoration and a competition win at Pebble Beach.
LIVE
Hey all you gear heads and car fiends, welcome to Driven Radio Show, your weekly automotive
happy hour.
And we find ourselves finally at the umpteenth annual McPherson College Auto Restoration
Students' Car Show on the McPherson College campus.
We're set up right over by Brown Auditorium, but that doesn't mean anything to you because
you're going to hear this once we're long gone.
We've got a great location, great shade, nice people all around us, already chatting
with people walking by.
They got an us-sized space for us, the easy up fits right here, we had power, this is
fantastic.
So huge thanks out to Christopher Paulson for getting us set up, we appreciate it.
Thanks to the fellows running the knick-knack table next to us who helped us get things
set up.
What's your name young man?
Anthony.
Anthony.
Anthony has no last name, they've just been calling him Tony for his whole DM life.
Tony the hero.
Tony the hero.
And I see somebody we need to be speaking to right over there.
I'm going to have to go retrieve that young man.
Let me wrestle him away.
Mark, take it.
Got it.
Uh, sitting here at the car show, it's a beautiful day today.
It was raining a little bit last night.
We were a little concerned, but this morning is stunning.
So with the sunlight, we've, we take, took a, a quick walk.
There's a gazebo where you get all this stuff and around the gazebo are cars that you won't
believe.
I, I had to geek out a little bit.
So I had Brett, uh, grab my camera.
There's a Tucker and I got to take pictures next to a Tucker, an amazing machine, uh,
race cars, classics, the whole, uh, ball and game all right there.
And then I'm looking across, I was very excited because there's a beautiful blue challenger.
Um, I think it's, oh good Lord, I don't even know the year, uh, it's big, it's old and
it's gorgeous.
And I was telling Brett that I, I really got to go look at it.
He's like, that's the students cars section.
So they've got, uh, they've brought in some amazing classic cars that, uh, Brett will
fill you in on in just a moment.
And then the, the rest of the cars, the students here have, uh, a, a corral basically barns,
more or less, uh, think of, uh, sheds that are storage sheds where they get to bring
their cars and work on them while they're learning here.
McPherson college, uh, is an amazing setup.
And I, I wished to God I'd known about something like this when I was a kid.
The, um, the classic car restoration program is phenomenal.
This isn't the type of program where you come in and you learn how to work on, uh, multiple,
you know, ECU units and all the electronics that go into modern vehicles, uh, you learn
about the classics and you can learn in several different categories, uh, whether you want
to learn about the business side, whether you want to learn about the rebuilding side,
do you want to do welding, do you want to do body work, uh, upholstery work, interior
work, you go through the whole program, learning all of these parts, and then you can specialize
in a certain section of it and take that education forward with you.
And these are jobs that are open and available right now.
We need mechanics and this, uh, uh, and restores.
So when you come in with this type of classic education, you learn everything about vehicles
and then you can parlay that into, uh, restores into garages that specialize into speed shops,
into aftermarket speed shop, the, the amazing amount of jobs that are out there for people
who can go hands on, look at something, you know, dropping ear down into a, uh, next to
an engine and go, Oh, that's this. Uh, this is the type of place where you get that education.
And it could have been this young man or even me and both of us decided to take non restoration
jobs sort of introduce yourself, sir. Thanks for having me on. I'm Kyle Smith and I graduated
McPherson college 2013 and currently editor at Haggerty.
See, nice stupid scribblers.
They can't get rid of us. Yeah, well, it's, uh, it's, it's much easier to keep the grease from
underneath your nails. Although you go work on the Corvette, you go work on the Corvette.
I want to ask you about your Corvette, by the way, it's a luxury. I get to work on both sides.
You, you turn Greg Engold into a dirt bike weenie. I at least got him on Honda XRs.
I'll give you that. The XR is a superior dirt bike, but, uh,
after you've had a few, yeah, how many do you have right now?
It's either seven or eight. Okay. If I knew for sure, I'd probably be a liar.
Do you have any 600, 650s? Did you get any big bikes?
I've got a 600. Okay. That unfortunately it ran last fall.
Ranwin parked. shut off.
Apparently self machined itself to no compression. Oh, yeah. Well, I know what causes that.
I believe we just had an oiling problem or a machining problem on the piston rings.
Abuse. So put it, put it together, got 500 miles on it, shut it off,
not enough compression to run it once it cooled off.
Oh, wow. You're usually are a 250 guy. I'm
Why the 600? Did you have something specific in mind when you got it?
You know, it's a always wanted one for a number of years. Had ridden 650Ls, had had a 650R,
a water cooled race boat and wanted to go a little bit older.
My pocket is 1986 and 1989. Yeah. And 600 is kind of a king bike at that time.
I would even back off to 1983. There's good bikes back there.
Just so I could squeeze an XR 350 in there. That's totally fair.
Yeah. I'm not going to argue with that. I've wanted a 350.
And if you could find an XL 350, but those are like Hen's teeth, they just don't exist.
They're getting tough, but absolutely would have gone back. I've had two XR 250s and also
oddly a KDX 250. That one bit me bad. I've always been a fan of the KDX's,
but it's no different than Ford trucks. Apparently I'm a Chevy guy. Whenever
I have money in my pocket, I never buy a Ford. I don't have anything.
I thought I was nothing but a Chevy guy and had Chevy GM, lots of Pontiac, everything else.
I've had seven Ford trucks in a row now and not because I went to a dealership and picked one
out. I just, I, 77 of them and several of them I've just happened into. They came through
the dad filter. That makes sense. There was a lot of that makes sense, but also had a white
E 150 work van with the inline 300. I mean, you know, I'm a van guy. It couldn't get out of its
own way, but that's cause I had it so overloaded with construction crap. In fact,
once I finally got rid of it and when took out all our tools out of it and all the materials
and everything else, it was pretty quick. It was, it was not bad cause it didn't have anything to
haul around finally. I brought it. I bought a 2008 Chevy Silverado 1500 off the showroom floor
and drove it into the ground. Right. It was an unfortunate thing. My dad was always a Chevy
truck guy. We always had Chevy trucks. He was a surveyor. They all had the big, you know, what
was it? C 10s. They just massive Chevy to four by fours. And I was like, I'm all give me that.
If I'm, I have a truck, I'm all have me a Chevy. Probably not the best way to go purchase something
cause it had the six cylinder in it. I mean, could have had that eight and I'm like, no,
the six cylinder is bulletproof. It'll be fine. It's not bulletproof. It's not. No, it likes bullets.
If it had been the old inline Chevy, probably would have been okay. Yeah. It was, it was,
it didn't quite live up to my expectations. God bless it, but at least it leaked oil. So I've,
I've had a good luck with the 43 Chevy, but all of mine were 300,000 miles and I expected
it to last three weeks. So maybe my luck was entirely dependent on it. It's, it's the story
book of lowered expectations. That's how you got to go with that. It made it six months. I was over
the moon. I now stand with it a new way, a new way to buy the E 150 I bought. I bought with 130,000
miles on it and it had never turned an easy mile. It had been full of crap. And I bought it from the
developer that we were building for and in order to, to get it from him, I had to explain to him
because he, I asked him if he would sell it. He said, yes. And I said, how much? And he said,
well, how much is it worth? You're the car guy. And I said, tell you what, Paula, explain it to
you this way. Your handyman has had possession of this van since you bought it. No, it's too old
to ride off on your taxes anymore. And you have to pay tags and insurance on the sucker every year.
He says, how about $1,000? I said, sold.
It's a tin can full of fast food farts.
You paid $1,000 for that.
And then we made, are you familiar with the, with the decking material treks?
We made a center console out of treks that had a door twice the size of this notebook.
The door weighed 43 pounds. I didn't take your fingers clean off.
Yeah. So it was full of taco bell farts and misery and regret.
There's nothing like a van in terms of utility. You can't beat them,
but you have to get over yourself to be seen. Oh no, no, no. It was white and beat up. And my
cousin Danny and I took blue painter's tape and wrote free candy down the side. When I bought my
Express, my wife had one rule. She said, not white. I don't care about anything else. I understand
you're buying a van. I can't talk you out of that, but not white. I didn't have a choice, man.
I felt like I didn't have a choice. You know how hard it is to find a not white van.
I bought the sucker. Nothing for $1,000. I bought it for a grand and it already had
ladder racks on it. Hell, you were in for the win. I hit that out of the park, man.
I felt like I got lucky. So you're hauling bikes all over the country going to events.
What's your first, have you had your first event this spring?
Not really. No, we're just thawing out up in Northern Michigan.
Not well. Yeah, you do live in the ice cube. We're in the Iceland. Didn't do any ice racing this
year. So finally getting a few bikes started up. So explain ice racing to me because I don't know
much of anything about it. I assume that you've got tube tires and before you put the tube in,
you run screws. Yeah, little spike things. Yep. So we stud them out and actually stud them from
the outside going in. Oh, really? So they look like a sheet metal screw. Yeah. And the crown,
the sixth side of that crown is actually just a little bit higher. Okay. And so that's all your
grip is razor sharp edge. So how tall is the stud? Is it like three eighths of an inch or so?
Quarter inch is AMA stuff. So if you want to run American Motorcyclists Association runs,
that's all quarter inch studs. Okay. And that's pretty good until you get a little bit of chaff
on top of the ice. When you peel it up and get some of those chips, real hard to ride on the
chips, but you get on clean ice with quarter inch studs. It's like riding on Velcro. It's amazing.
You can countersteer. It slides just like a flat track
bike. Chuck your hips, baby. Yep. You got to trust the thing. If you can trust it and point towards
glare ice, the strangest part about it is you got to go to clean ice. Okay. So if you run 250s on
those, I've run 250s on ice. Yeah. Okay. And had a lot of fun. The problem is where we're up at
a lot of the hobby racing that I do, I just end up in an AMA event and we don't really have a
vintage class. Well, you're a thinner guy. So is a 250 the sweet spot? Is that the magic bike?
It's a lot of fun for me. It's just enough power that I can get in trouble, but I got to try.
Okay. It's a little bit more forgiving. Whereas the 600 will get away from you. You start to get
tired. It'll really beat the snot out of you. Okay. It is still vintage bikes. They're 40 year
old bikes. So if you take a guy like me, can I do a sportster or? You can do whatever you want.
You don't ask me for advice because I will go and I will happily run last place all day.
It's me out on an old bike and a bunch of modern CR 250s coming around me on the outside.
I assume they run them in engine classes. You run 250s and then what do they run? 400, 600?
I think it's just 450. So you have a 250 class, your lights, and then 450s A and B.
Okay. Separate out a little bit of talent and then an open class if they get enough people.
But open class is pretty rare these days with the exception of side cars and side cars on ice.
Those guys are having a riot. Well, open classes, big guy lunatics. Yeah.
Cubic dollar races. Yeah, there you go. So, oh boy, they're the go of the business cards.
Everything flying away. I hate when that happens. That's just free advertising. So it's not literally
it's free advertising. Let's discuss the other interest of yours of which I am also interested.
Let's talk about that Corvette. That thing is uglier than sin.
It is. It is. It's an $1,800 1985 C4 Corvette. It was an 85. So it did have a tune port.
Yes. So it's L 98 tune port car. Okay. Right in the perfect pocket. And it was an entire impulse
purchase. I was down in the office with a few friends who owned C4. Yeah, but 1800 bucks.
1800 bucks dead car. Facebook marketplace ad says turnkey nothing happens. You cannot
do anything. It's bricked. Bring a trailer in the old school term. Oh, wow. And they didn't.
They put a new battery. They put a charge to it. He put a battery in it,
backed it out of the garage, left it a day, came out, turned the key, nothing happened.
He listed it for 2200 bucks on marketplace, got inundated with messages. Really? Yep. Oh,
just hammered. And I sent him the laziest message I've ever sent. I have a trailer,
I have cash, I have no further questions and I can be there Sunday. And that's a week.
Yeah. I was like, he's going to sell this in between here and there and Friday comes around.
He dropped the price. You went from 2200 to 1800. You're like, now I got more cash.
Is this still like, I know that's the worst message to send on Facebook marketplace.
No one will take you seriously. Why would you drop the price? He's like,
there's so many people reaching out to me. I don't think you know how to sell a car.
I don't mean to be rude, man, but if a bunch of people reach out to you,
don't lower the price. And I hook one and really mean it.
Ain't nobody going to tell me how much I got to charge for. What the hell with you?
What's a bidding war? If you show up, I'm dropping it to 1600.
Mimic Shell and here at the car. So I follow up with the same message. I have
$1800 cash. I have an empty trailer and I can be there Sunday. He said, you know what,
that sounds really nice. And he just bit and that was it.
Drove down. He signed the title over. I winched it on Jonathan Klinger's trailer of all people.
Barred a trailer from a friend and took it home.
We saw Mr. Klinger this morning. Yeah, he's rolling around.
Yeah, he is. He is a bunch of phone folks here. In fact, I think he was in one of Luke's cars.
I could believe that. Well, Luke, have you seen Luke's golf cart?
Oh, is that the Hudson thingy? No, he has a literal golf cart.
And he's very proud of it. Of all the people I would expect.
Like an AMF golf cart. No, but he comes hauling up his driveway yesterday when we were over there
getting ready for the cookout. And I took one look at him on that thing, wearing his hat.
And I said, you ain't got a hair on your ass if you don't put bull horns on that.
To go from his T chassis to a golf cart. He loves it. I'm sure he does because it's the
T chassis without being dangerous. And have you been over to Luke's yet?
Not yet. He got his tractor done. It's exquisite. It looks fantastic. I'm very excited about this.
He did a really good job rattle canning that.
It's the most appropriate paint for a tractor.
Yeah, it is so green. It is so John Deere green and yellow.
He did a really good job. It looks fantastic. And he's very proud of it.
He should be.
I walked right by it three times and then he goes, see my tractor. I'm like, yeah, I bumped into it.
I can't avoid it. It looks really good.
Lot of stuff, man. You should see the cookout this year.
It's going to be a good one.
That big fridge is 100% completely jam full.
It's out of hand now.
Well, he says he's expecting 250.
It's that event to me is the picture of if you want to do something cool,
just start doing something.
Yeah.
Because all he did was invite some people over.
Well, for sure.
Years ago, 25 of us, nobody 50 and tapered off.
Well, I showed up one year ago.
I didn't even know he was doing it. I was on my Harley and I just went for a ride.
I wound up down here and I was like, oh, crap, Luke's having a cookout.
Let's go to Luke's house.
And it was enough of us.
We sat around in that circle in his backyard and that was all of us.
It's going to be 10 times that now.
10 years ago, he kicked a stump on the fire at about 2.30 in the morning.
I recall and I walked over and I was still burning.
Yeah.
I walked over to Janelle and Bruce's as the sun was coming up and they're like,
oh, did you go back to your hotel?
And I was like, I stayed here.
I was sleeping on your couch.
And that is McPherson in a nutshell.
And you come back here and it's just the salt of the earth.
You know, it's, I'll tell you what's kind of saddening is our resident stray dog,
Ken Yon, isn't here this year.
Oh, that is a bum, right?
Yeah. Well, somebody kicked open his front door and he left.
Tracks.
I hear he's in Colorado with Bart goofing off.
It wouldn't surprise me if he was in Germany.
Well, he'd been in Mexico for several weeks before he went to Colorado.
Makes sense.
It doesn't surprise me.
Maybe they asked him to leave.
I still need to go bicycle touring with the man.
That's right.
Of all the things to do.
Oh, hey, by the way, I've got one of his recumbents.
Oh, no.
And a Schwinn, I think it's a newer version of the Paramount.
It just has aluminum on it.
Hang in from my garage ceiling.
If I ever get my stink and knees redone, I'll start pedaling towards victory.
Get your knees redone.
What are you waiting on?
Diabetes.
Okay, I'll accept that.
I gotta give you the brimly none.
I'm gonna tell you about Beaters.
It's gonna give you a hard time about having to give up stick shift cars, but
all right, fine.
No, no, no, no.
Not doing that.
That stingray is still safe.
I was gonna say you drove the mid-year out last year.
Did you drive anything out this year?
Yeah, Rhonda's Cayenne.
All right.
Hey, look, the one that beeps at you when you cross 100,
I only got four of those on the way down.
Sounds about right.
Yeah.
200 miles, you got to break it a couple of times per.
Well, you don't even know it.
You paled me last year going home.
Did I?
Yeah.
I ran out to Emporia and was taking 56 and sure enough, they're right.
Just a little glare in the rear view mirror and I wonder what that is.
And then it turned blue and then it blew right by me.
And that was you.
Right.
So apparently somewhere north of 55, the speedometer in the stingray goes bats.
And it reads 65 when I'm doing 80.
All right.
So of course, I crank it up to when it says 80 and Rhonda's like,
I'm not going to actually get a ticket you jackass.
I'm curious, one of the more fun things about that 85 Corvette I bought.
Yeah, that's where it comes in full circle.
85 mile an hour speedometer.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah.
That's right.
Wow.
And it's such a fun novel.
It just blinks at the top of the thing.
The digital readout at the bottom keeps going.
Yeah.
But the bar graph just flashes and the tack only goes to like 6,500.
Well, I've got a cam in it that's good to 73.
So it's going to be an enjoyable thing.
So what was the problem when you got it home?
It was already bricked.
What did you discover that was the issue?
Piston sideways.
I still can't believe it.
Put it on a battery charger just because put a voltmeter on it had like six and a half volts.
Or I think it was in the eights.
So dead cell.
Okay.
Pretty lucky on that.
But it was a new battery.
Had a relatively new code on it.
I'll just put it on a charger.
Let's see what happens.
Charge it overnight.
Turn the key fired right up.
You're kidding.
I can't make it up.
I can't make it up.
It's absolutely absurd.
And then you pulled it out?
Pulled it out, drove it.
Just same day.
So the lucky thing in it,
those Corvettes are some of the early ones with power antennas.
And I feel sorry for the guy.
I bought it from Ron.
And if you're buying a Corvette, you buy it from Ron.
Well, that's a Corvette guy name.
You go, you buy your Corvette from Ron.
That's just a factual thing.
Oh, by the way.
For mutual Corvette ownership, we've had a uniform shift.
We're getting away from George's and New Balance.
We're going to Cargos and Tevas.
Oh, no.
Cargos and Tevas.
I don't know if I'm prepared to talk to you Costco.
Well, and here's the upside.
Cargos give you more place to stuff your little Corvette
knickknacks.
Okay.
That is nice.
That's room for snacks.
And I'm here for that.
There you go.
I need car show snacks.
Cargo shorts is going to be cargo snacks.
You've got to have sugar to drive you.
You want to keep that hostess double glazed honey bun
so bad.
Jammed in one of your cargo pockets.
Little Debbie.
Ah, I had her belted at two in the afternoon.
Oh, yeah.
Hostess is here for you, baby.
98.6, the perfect temperature for a honey bun.
I didn't have a microwave.
So I just left it in my pocket.
Oh, it's so true.
It's so true.
But so I get the thing home.
It fires right up and I'm just over the moon because I
didn't think that was going to happen.
And I feel bad for Ron.
But at the same time, Ron had his fun with the car.
You didn't call him back and tell him I'll give you $400 more.
He bought it with 8,000 miles on it in 1988.
I bought it with 118,000 on it.
I saw.
And it had tires from 1998.
Did you at least send him a video of you doing a burnout
flipping off the camera?
I felt too bad.
Hey, Ron.
Bye, Ron.
Love you.
I mean, I really appreciate it.
And I didn't have the heart to tell him when I bought it
what my plan was because he asked.
Kyle's facing the camera, flipping it off, going 1,800,
Ron, 1,800, love it.
And you know what it was?
I feel bad for him.
Like a typical Corvette owner.
And I don't mean this in a derogatory way.
It was the power antenna.
The mast on those C4s.
It's a plastic mast that goes up and down and they break.
There's three things.
And he shut the car off.
And he couldn't hear that that motor didn't stop.
And it just drained the battery all the way down.
Three things on Corvettes.
Power antenna.
Abida.
Oh, man.
Alarm on newer ones.
I could believe that.
If you let it sit long enough, clock.
Oh, I absolutely believe that.
If you let it sit long enough, especially on old ones
with analog clocks, you let them sit long enough.
Clock will eat it.
100%.
It takes a while, but it happens.
It adds up.
Well, ask a guy who's got the same red Corvette I had
when I was here 20 some odd years ago.
So, yeah.
And I, and I'd had that Corvette for more than 10 years
before I got here.
So how much does it cost to fix that antenna?
I would have no idea.
I just asked for it on $400.
That is spot on.
He had a new one in the box.
If only that antenna is stuck at half mast
and it will be there forever.
I'm never going to pass that thing.
As you get older.
There's no chance.
You need to put that up above the work benches.
I've done an entire drivetrain swap on the car.
That antenna is still untouched.
Offering to the Corvette gods.
Something.
All right.
You have probably one of the slickest Corvares I've ever seen.
And I love the inky wheels that you got on it.
The thing is badass.
How's the Corvair?
It's got to have been out this spring already.
It's warm enough.
Things are melting.
You haven't had enough yet?
I got, I got storage problems.
How long have you had that car?
I bought that sight unseen pre Facebook marketplace.
No crap.
Out of a out of a Corvair owners group.
Okay.
In Texas and drove it here in 2017.
Okay.
So it's almost 10 years now.
All right.
Which is insane.
I didn't think I'd ever own a car 10 years.
Oh, you're going to have that Corvette forever.
It's not going anywhere.
You're going to have the Corvette and the Corvair forever now.
You've you've committed to the book in since.
Now that I have a wonderful 65 Hermine white Corvair,
I have an 85 black Corvette and they're absolutely split
personality.
I love that you get it's perfect.
I love you've got another 65 Chevy.
We can hang.
Yes.
So tell us a little bit about the Corvair.
You said you found it in Texas.
Found it in Texas.
What part?
Because Texas is big.
It was two hours north of Austin.
Okay.
Okay.
See, it was a pretty good drive.
It was a decent drive.
So I flew one way.
Okay.
Shipped a set of tools to a friend, a coworker was living
down in the area and I sent him a message and I said,
Hey, I got there's a car down there and the guy won't sell
it to me unless there's someone there and hands him cash.
Yeah.
I was like, is there any chance that you'll go hand this guy
cash for me?
And I don't know, just park it out front of his house or
something.
I'll put an insurance policy on and figure it out.
I think I paid him four grand.
Oh, Kyle.
And that included the original motor that had dropped a
valve seat and he'd put it in the trunk,
which was a really bad idea in hindsight.
Well, it does jack with your handling.
Put an extra 300 pounds in the trunk of a Corvair and
you're going to slap the cross member off every bridge
about me here in Texas.
Yeah, because for the uninitiated Corvair air cooled
engine in the back trunk is the front.
It's up front.
If you're sticking the engine in there, well, we've screwed
with the suspension, the handling, everything.
Yep.
And the gas tank is right above that cross.
Oh, criminy.
Yeah.
So if you mount an electric fuel pump, you put it right
on that cross member.
Yeah, you're catching up to where I'm going with this.
I'm already there, baby.
I can hear it.
And then so that friend that went and picked it up,
handed him cash, had to drive it back to Austin,
park it in an apartment parking lot.
Oh my God.
Two hours in that thing.
Rip the fuel pump off on a bridge.
Well, glad you shipped the toolstone.
Right?
And I'm like, this is a guy that does data for Haggerty.
Wonderful, dude.
Cars isn't the guy to do that.
Yeah, but you're never, ever, ever cutting him an inch
in any article from now on.
No.
No, I still owe him things.
He comes in and out of my life from time to time.
And I'm just like, I think I owe you dinner every time.
How far did he have to tow it?
He ripped it off two miles from his apartment parking lot.
And he called me the next day.
And he's like, yeah, for the last little bit,
it smelled like gas.
And I was like, hey, I don't mean to be rude, man.
But when you're driving an old car, if it smells like gas,
you stop.
You stop right then.
I learned that with a CJ5 a long time ago.
And he sends me a picture right there in the parking lot.
And there's just the largest slick coming out underneath it.
He's like, yeah, it still had like a half a tank of gas.
And I was like, it doesn't anymore.
That is return to the earth.
But it's not in his parking lot.
You can't recycle dinosaurs.
No, it doesn't work very well.
Start of the asphalt now.
If you flew down to get it, how did you get it back home?
Drove it all the way.
So I timed it out to where I had two days to get here
to McPherson, which thankfully I figured if I could get it
from Austin to McPherson, there's enough people and tools here.
You could dump it with Luke or something.
I can either abandon it here or anyone here
will rally and fix that car to get me to Michigan.
So did you put in a new fuel pump, right?
How did you mitigate the weight problem in the front?
Or did you just drive green on the floor?
We hoped that our luggage in the back seat,
the fold down back seat between my sister and I,
we're like, we'll just balance it out, I guess.
Which was not a winning strategy.
I'm not going to tell you that was a good plan.
No, it wasn't.
It works.
But thankfully I rebuilt all of the suspension under that car.
All of it was bad.
I bet it works ish.
It works ish.
It got me there.
I'm not saying we had a good time.
Yeah, that's fair.
I've had a few of those.
I've had a few of those.
Even in hindsight, when I picked up the stingray,
I bought it in U of the city by Sacramento.
And then immediately drove to Monterey,
so I could goof off for two days when nobody was there,
because the only time I get to see Monterey is in August.
And this was in May of 21,
and they were still doing COVID protocols and all that stuff.
Yeah, I stayed in the intercontinental
for less than $200 a night.
Can't even be the way to do it.
Oh, it was glorious.
And I've looked at rates now.
I was like, I can't even afford to take round it back there.
That's less than I paid for the candle wood this week.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
I feel like I shouldn't say that,
because now I'm telling their rates.
No, it's okay.
I think they'll be okay.
I ran out all my IHG points making reservations for people.
Ped Stan Grottis.
Well, I feel bad.
I always stay with Clarys.
Yeah.
Whenever I come through town,
I always forget to call her.
So it's like Tuesday before the show,
she sends me a text,
hey, by the way, the couch is still open.
I'm like, great.
I'm middle-aged.
Like I'm 36 now.
I really shouldn't be crashing on my friend's parents couch.
Welcome to it.
But that is what car show is.
Everyone comes back to town and you sleep on couches.
And by the way, you're too light to know yet.
But couches will become the bane of your existence
in the next few years.
It's only time.
You'll lay down on one and you'll go, no.
No, no more of this.
Nope.
All right.
So did you bring anything interesting with you?
Or did you just, would you drive down?
I drove a 2015 Chevrolet Express.
Oh, your van.
Extended.
Okay.
Red.
Yes.
With a hammock in it.
So it's like a one of 250?
Probably.
What are you selling out of the back of it?
Is it like Mexican blankets?
That's a lot of van for one guy.
Usually when he goes state to state in a van,
it's got three Hondas in the back.
It's true.
And I came down totally empty.
Wow.
Right?
You're expecting to take something back.
Okay.
See, that's, I love the peer pressure.
I need to find something.
I got a Harley.
It's the Justin Case.
You don't want to waste a trip.
I mean, I got 12 feet behind the seats.
I got a Harley in Kansas and Kansas City.
Why don't you just sleep in that?
I have the, I have all the parts to finish and I'll go cheap.
I'll pull a run.
Killing me.
I'll go cheaper as we get closer to home.
If I can make it to Kansas City, the price gets lower.
Oh, you can't believe the bike you would get and the money you'd get it for.
I got storage problems.
That's why the Corvair is not out.
I got, I got a two car garage.
I got 24 by 30.
Okay.
I got eight bikes and three cars.
Okay.
Wow.
It's just not happening.
So you got your Corvair in there.
You got,
So I got, I got the Corvette at home.
Yeah.
And I got the wife's car inside for the winter.
Yeah.
We're just coming into spring.
So I get to bring something else home out of storage.
Okay.
And it's probably going to be my 30 Model A Ford.
Okay.
It's the Model A's in there.
Model A's.
Corvair's in there.
Corv's bears.
Got the Corvette.
Wife's car.
Wife's car.
Van.
Van.
Don't forget the van.
It's a collection.
Big lung.
It's a, it's not a great collection.
It's a collection.
And 19 bikes.
I'm trying to thin it out.
I'm trying to sell them.
How many bikes are you up to now?
I'm convincing anyone I know that they need an old Honda.
Uh, what are you?
Hawking.
What do you got?
Maybe we can work a trade store.
Here on Tradio.
Yeah.
Right.
Is this swap shop?
It's Saturday morning.
Welcome to Driven Tradio.
Caller two.
You're on the air.
Favorite thing.
Saturday mornings in the garage.
So what do you got?
Dirt bike wise.
I got an 86 Honda XR250R.
I got an 89 XR250R.
That was the six ways bike.
Okay.
On the Haggerty project.
I got the 88 600R.
Got an 86 TLR 200.
Oh.
You familiar with those?
Yeah.
Weird stuff.
Yes.
Yeah.
I like Honda freaks.
Honda.
Do you have any Honda street bikes?
No, unfortunately not.
Okay.
If only.
And then 05 KTM Adventure S.
950.
Okay.
All right.
The car, the car champ.
Wait.
250, 250, 600 TLR KTM.
We're getting close to the number I shot at you.
Two XR200s.
86 and 889, if I remember right.
I had a 200 once upon.
What am I forgetting?
There's something hiding in plain sight.
That's seven.
What's sitting in front of the Corvette?
I've got a 90.
I've got a 90 XR250R, but it's parts.
I don't know if that counts.
It's a frame that I'm dis-swapping one or the other.
See how I'm holding my finger here?
That's a half a bike.
But it's your middle finger at half staff,
which is impressive.
I didn't know you could do that.
I didn't either.
It's always been this.
So you're seven and a half in bikes.
Okay.
I'm down to three Harleys.
They're selling books and I'm dying that I'm sitting here, man.
I really want to go in there.
I had to give away, I just gave Mark a moving box size box.
Oh, Stephen King.
Full of Stephen King.
Specifically.
So I could make more room for car books and magazines on my shelves.
Yeah.
And I'm Jonesing to go to the library here.
Oh, he's having a car book sit.
That's what we're talking about.
And I'm going to walk through.
I'm good stuff for sale.
I know they're in good stuff.
Well, when I was here as a student, Kasey Maxson and I,
I'm going to say Kasey Maxson created that automotive collection.
I was manual labor that shopped for Volvo.
You were lifting.
He says, put that there.
A night Volvo shopper.
I scrolled a lot of Craigslist.
I'd stop by the street corner and find a Volvo.
So I should have been cataloging a lot of things.
I was scrolling a lot of Craigslist.
That did not improve the story at all.
Not at all.
Not at all.
That's how I see him singing when he was working for Kasey.
When we were putting that collection together,
it's so many great donations and so many wonderful people over the years
have given such fantastic material to the colleges reference stuff.
And a lot of it is duplicates.
And it's tough to say.
So it's weird to hear that we're selling stuff out of there,
but you need to understand a lot of it.
When I go, I will leave all the magazines and all the books to the library.
And what becomes of them, if they sell them for a fundraiser
or they use them for a bonfire, it's all good.
I hope my service manual collection is worth something to someone at some point in my life.
You got an 85 Corvette in there.
You might want that rascal back.
That's one of the least helpful service manuals I've ever used.
Crap.
Is the 80s Chevy service?
Well, and then you get the supplemental CD thing that goes with it.
It's not a DVD because it was 85.
But you get the supplemental crap that goes with it.
And you're just like, this is like stereo instructions.
It's horrible.
If that car would have been truly dead,
if it wouldn't have started when it did,
my plan was to part it out.
Got it.
It was always going to be an LS swap or I was just going to part it out.
Just 1800 bucks, you can get your money back.
So you pulled the 098.
Pulled the 098.
What'd you do with it?
I sold it to a buddy who immediately dropped it in a third gen Camaro.
See, I would have put it in a go kart.
I would have made a go kart in a hot mess.
I wanted to put it in a square body Chevy.
In fact, you could have done a vet kart,
chopped everything like they did on Roadkill.
Oh yeah, that'd be pretty fun.
Roadkill vet kart would be awesome.
I'm too lazy to weld up a cage.
And I feel like a vet kart without a cage is a really bad idea.
Bring in here.
The early steering so bugger weld it, but it'll be fine.
It could be fine.
It'll also be very not fine.
I'll have a bunch of little solder bubbles in it, but it'll be all right.
And it almost made it.
I dropped in an OQ4.
So I pulled the L98 and the Dugnash 4 plus 3, which...
Oh, the 4 plus 3 is...
That was part of the reason I wanted by the car.
Really?
I've heard so many things about the Dugnash 4 3.
Oh, they're so regrettable.
And all the majority of them were bad.
Yes.
And I wasn't willing to share that opinion without making it myself.
And so I gotta go buy one.
I gotta go buy one and experience it for myself.
And if it's really bad, I will happily tell everyone it's really bad.
Okay.
And?
It's pretty bad.
I gotta be honest with you.
It's not bad.
Illuminati confirmed.
It's not the worst transmission I've driven, but that's a pretty low bar.
But you can see it from there.
I can see it from there.
It's a very interesting trans.
Enjoyed on it.
Okay.
So what is it about that makes it...
So yeah, you got a T...
I believe it's a T10 4-speed.
Yeah.
Fung in front of a power glide.
You have two transmissions mated together.
So you have a 4-speed that you shift...
With an electric button on top...
To shift the power glide.
Wow.
So it's a 4-speed with an electric 3-speed overdrive.
Yeah.
Let's just make it more complicated.
It's so strange.
The guy told me when I bought it, he said the overdrive does not work.
That's extremely common because they are unique parts.
I think the filters stop being available in like 94.
Because they're crap.
But we've saved so many not good cars over history that I think a few of these need to survive.
Just so people can laugh at them.
But if you want to talk to somebody about the most frustrating transmission ever put in a core bed,
you need to talk to John Fakara about doing the clutch on a ZR1, on a 4th gen ZR1.
Fakara hates 4th gen Corvette because of that.
I pulled everything out myself.
The L98 and the Trans.
That's a big, long, heavy Trans.
The ZF6 is not that much better.
It's a Trans with another Trans for the overdrive.
Anchor.
But I got the thing shifted.
I couldn't believe it.
Apparently Ron's just a liar because he said the thing's broken and everything worked.
Maybe Ron was had other stuff on his mind.
Ron of DeWitt, Michigan.
You're a savior.
He sold you a Corvette dirt cheap and it ran and moved.
And now I sold it to me.
You know what he did is he sold the headache.
Oh, absolutely.
Whether the car ran or not.
And it's like, you know, for $1,800, yeah, it's off my blood.
I didn't put it together until I was all the way home and probably a couple of weeks into it.
I bought a long stored car.
I thought it had been running recently.
No.
And then stopped running.
No.
And instead it was something that came out of storage immediately had a problem and he washed it off.
The three quarters of an inch of dust on the interior kind of gave it away.
That's the wrong color for oil type of situation.
I've never seen brake fluid so opaque.
Is that milkshake?
That's a milkshake.
The clutch had like a timed release.
You could move your foot faster than the pedal would come out.
It was really bad.
It's a slave cylinder.
So naturally we took that autocrossing twice last year on the stock drive train.
And had an absolute riot.
The ringer car against me out is if I break it, what am I really out?
What am I out?
120,000 miles C4 go drive the thing.
I can still part it and get more than I paid for it.
I still got a Dana 44 diff.
That's where it's like 900 bucks right now.
That's half the car.
Yeah.
Okay.
So you've LS swapped.
LS swapped went to an LQ4 secreter iron.
Okay.
And you've got a, what's behind it?
A six speed.
Six speed T 56.
Okay.
T 56.
So the whole concept of it was I really want a first gen viper and I can't afford a first gen viper.
Well, they hit bottom one went the other way.
They hit the bottom.
I couldn't afford them at the bottom and then I watched them sail away.
Yeah.
Well, I'm not bitter about it.
I could afford them at the bottom, but if anything is more tennis shoes with tall socks
and jeans shorts, if anything beats a vat, it's a viper.
It's even with even the two pay cars.
I would take a two pay car and I like weird and they're just awesome.
But if you, if you get the early ones though, if you get the 92 to 96 RT 10s, the two pay cars,
they are, they're making a two drop tops.
They're incredible to drive.
They are.
They're a blast to drive.
And it is, it is the closest thing to a modern day Cobra because there are no nannies.
There's nothing to save you.
Yeah.
There's no ABS.
There's no traction control.
It's a very raw car.
Certainly no ESP.
There's none of that crap.
And if you screw up, it swaps ends on you.
You get to see where you've been.
There is where my wife worked at that time when those first came out.
It was a couple of younger guys owned the company.
They were making a, you know, an ass ton of money.
And so what does he do?
He goes buys that, you know, six months later when he came back from the hospital and rehabilitation.
Yeah.
They, they had two things.
They liked fast cars and perhaps a bit of the orthopedic surgeons, powdered sugar,
should I say?
Oh, okay.
He was ripped, went out there, flipped it.
The Peruvian marching powder.
Ground off a bit of the top of his head.
He got a two pay out of the deal too.
So, uh, yeah, it, uh, it was a mess, but God, that was a beautiful car before he
surfed in it.
Skull skin and hair.
There's such neat cars and I watched them sail away price-wise and I was like,
well, all right, let's look at this.
Can I make one?
What, what do I actually need to get this?
And you're like, well, I need 450 horsepower.
No nannies.
An insurance.
And four 10s with not enough tire.
Well, in the 85, you just removed the ABS module and you're there.
Doesn't even have it.
Oh, wow.
Oh, it did 86 was the first year.
86 is the first year you're right.
All of the VATS technology, all of the ANF stuff, all that's 86.
So the one year I was sitting in the office.
That is the magical year.
Saw the 85 for sale.
I was like, man, that's a dead car.
That's a horrible idea.
And you couldn't, you couldn't bottom buy for it the bottom for 10 times that.
No, not even close.
Not even close.
And two of my coworkers looked over my shoulder and went,
Oh, I think that's the one to get.
You might have, did Ron have another car?
What car do you think Ron had?
Let's call Ron right now.
Look, there was a car in the driveway parked next to the Corvette
and there was a car in the garage.
And I want you to guess what one of those cars was
because I think you can get one of them right.
Well, one of them is going to be an escalade.
Ford or Cadillac,
but it was definitely a Cadillac.
Okay.
Okay.
Well, then a CT five.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nope.
Couple of years old.
Okay.
It was going to be one of those.
And it was either that or like a 2008 Chevy truck.
Well, I was going to say it was, it was that or a Silverado.
Yeah.
I wasn't going to specify here because, you know, it just dartboards.
But yeah, I was thinking maybe Ron had leveled up, got tired of the Corvette,
gone to first gen Viper and, you know, it's 35.
No, it's 32.
I'm glad you're here.
It's 28.
No, if only.
Hell yeah.
That would have been fantastic.
Figured it'd be fun to try and build my own Viper.
And I think I'm going to end up with a better car.
That's cool.
That's cool.
Easier to find parts.
Easier to find parts.
Not, not tons, but, you know, first gen Viper is real limited production.
Not a lot of them out there.
Plus a lot of dumb asses like me jumped in one,
slammed it going around a corner.
It's true.
And so there's not nearly so many as were produced.
Can you do a 85C4?
There's a lot of them out there.
This is not a precious car.
That's the other fun thing about it is I bought it and I was like,
ah, this is probably going to piss off the Corvette people.
No, it's one of 10,000.
It's always fun to have a car that you get a hood out of and then you can park anywhere.
If you take it to dinner and you're not looking outside,
trying to make sure it doesn't get a door gank or something.
The paint's falling off the door.
It's not in great shape.
Is it red or black?
It's black.
Okay.
Well, mid 80s Chevy red or black.
It didn't matter.
It didn't matter that it was in Kentucky.
It was the same crap formula.
Doesn't matter.
And it just happens to drop right off.
Yeah, no.
So it's losing a bunch of paint.
It's got ugly C5 wagon wheels because I found them for 50 bucks nearby.
Because you can't get a good tire for the 16 inch wheel.
The salad shooters are really cool, but there's not a good repop tire.
16s have gotten to be like 15s.
They're just not out there.
God forbid you got a car that runs 14s or 13s.
And that's like 90s Honda stuff.
Those are still very usable cars.
Yeah, no kidding.
But I had that 63 in Palo that was running 14s and had the Corvair wires on it.
And the only white walls I could find with it were trailer wheel.
Trailer tires.
Oh yeah, the Max's trailer tire, right?
Yeah, so that's what it wound up with a set of.
And that's what it drove.
And you're right about having a car that you get a hoot out of,
but you don't give a damn really what happens to it.
And plus the 1800, I'm guessing you had two times that in the engine and trans.
Easily.
I had more than that in the T56 by the time I figured it out.
I'm sure.
Yeah, to get a Tremac T56 is kind of tough.
That's a nice trans.
Yeah, I was the thousandth dude in line for a good deal on a T56.
Okay, fantastic.
Managed to find one while I was down south.
I was at Barber Vintage Festival down in.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I was headed home and it's about 14 hours straight north.
Wow.
And the entire month leading up to that trip was like,
maybe I can find a trans on the way.
Yep.
Just keep expanding the radius.
Go further and until I'm searching 2000 miles from Traverse City,
Michigan.
What's my plan here?
And I found one in St. Louis of all places.
So you just.
I ran from Birmingham, Alabama to St. Louis via Chase Bank somewhere in between
and managed to snag that trans and it added maybe five or six hours to the drive home.
Yeah.
But it was radically worth it.
Yeah.
Radically worth it because it's 2002 Camaro SS gearing as well.
Oh, nice.
With the T56, a lot of people don't realize that there's a lot of different gear ratios.
You can get a T56 and the 02 Camaro SS is a 0.5 overdrive.
So you get a double overdrive.
Nice.
Both fifth and sixth, you get a 0.72, I believe, 0.62.
You get a 0.62 over in fifth and a 0.5 in sixth, which is just huge.
That's fantastic.
So you're turning 1800 when you're doing 65.
I'm turning 1800 doing 76.
Are you really?
With four 10 rears.
Wow.
Right.
And a 266 first gear.
So it still runs like a scalded dog through third.
Yeah.
It's great.
It's a perfect.
It's a it's the example of building a combination.
You don't have to electric overdrive.
Drive into the next transmission.
Please no more electric overdrive.
It was really fun feeling it shift in because it had load sensing and whatnot.
So you could put it in and if you afford it, it drop out of overdrive.
The thing that gets me about the 43 I know it seemed like a good idea at the time
or at least the best compromise they could come up with.
It was a good compromise.
But they did it 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, and then 89.
Which was the crossover.
You got the newer interior.
Yeah.
You got the newer interior and 89.
No.
Wait.
I think or was it 90?
New interior and 90.
Six speed and 89.
Yeah.
New interior and 90.
Right.
New front bodywork and 91.
Right.
That was the reason.
LT one and 92.
That's it.
That's it.
See, sometimes I remember stuff.
Look, I just bring it up.
You're the Corvette guy.
I'm not the Corvette guy.
You are a Corvette guy now.
It's a crappy Corvette, but it's got a great drivetrain.
It's fine.
I finally own the car that Google thinks I own.
Because every time I would start typing Corvair, they're like,
no, no, you mean Corvette.
Yeah.
No, I actually own a Corvette.
Well, every time I type, I don't think it's real.
Every time I type Corvette, it gives me Corvair first.
So at some point we switch spots.
I gotta get one.
Okay.
Now let's talk a little bit about what you do for a living
and how you wound up there.
We've, we've talked about this before,
but we got new listeners.
Absolutely.
What do you do in Haggerty World?
So I am an editor on our digital content team.
So that means I get to write and tell all kinds of fun,
weird, and wonderful stories for my travels in the industry.
And the fun part about that is the car world is just huge.
There's so many fun things to talk about.
Yeah, but I notice you haven't printed any of the super
interesting stuff I've sent you.
Look, there's too many good ideas.
There's too many good ideas.
If I come up with two good ideas a day, that's too many.
That is, that is a slippery answer.
As you could have come up with.
I'm getting into politics.
I'm really proud of you.
So what is it you've been writing about lately?
What is it you're seeing from your other contributors?
So you can check me out.
My column is Mechanical Sympathy.
Been writing that for a few years now.
It's a lot of fun.
Mainly talking about stuff in the garage,
the DIY stuff that a lot of us do.
Not the high end, not crazy.
It's 24 by 30 shop.
I've got three cars in it, and I'm trying to work on stuff.
Got a couple of work benches.
It's real world.
It's a lot of fun.
And so it's a lot of DIY content, building cars,
talking about the technical stuff,
talking about working in a small shop,
and just doing the thing in a real genuine way.
I should have been doing this swear words and all
with all the Harleys I've been working on the last couple of years.
Well, I seem to have a sickness.
And the bikes follow me home like stray dogs.
And I just, I'm in the garage with something new,
and Rhonda walks out and I look at her.
I say, can I keep it?
And you put on your sad face and your big eyes,
like in the 70s paintings.
My wonderful wife, I love you Natalie.
The bringing home motorcycles, not a big deal.
No, that's fine.
She thinks it doesn't take up much space
so it couldn't have cost that much.
But sitting on the back patio and I was like,
what are we doing this weekend?
She said, I don't think we're doing,
we'll go kayaking on Saturday.
That sounds great.
What are we doing on Sunday?
I don't think we're doing anything on Sunday.
Well, I think I'm going to go buy a Corvette.
Okay. Yeah. Have fun.
Oh my God.
Right. Yeah. No, I love the dream.
I figured out the secret to this.
And this is what you do.
And I promise you this works.
Every day, when you're going through bring a trailer
and cars and bids and a Hagerty market,
and everything else,
you just holler to your wife through the house,
hey, can I buy X, whatever it is?
Hey, can I buy a Ferrari?
Can I buy a 928?
Can I buy another Corvette?
Can I buy a Harley?
And you just inundate her with this crap.
And you say it so frequently that eventually she starts
saying, yeah, whatever.
And she just says, yeah, whatever.
This is my try out as a Corvette person.
I'm going to try out being a Porsche person next.
And eventually you say, hey, I'm going to buy a Porsche
and she's okay.
And she blows it off.
And then you show up with a Porsche and you're like,
you said it was okay.
I don't know why you're surprised.
You said this was okay.
And you do that enough.
Then when you show up with something new,
you look at it and you said it was all right.
And she's like, God, I think the exact question was,
does this one run?
And who knows?
No, I can never, I don't think that's a qualification.
I get to put on things.
In Mark's case, the last couple of classes,
they ran great when advertised,
but somehow when you get them home,
there's some magic quality about me that says, oh,
shit, stop running.
Oh, that's it.
They give up.
Your car hospice care.
They're like, I take care of them so well,
and they all tie on me.
Palliative automobiles.
That's me.
You've heard, I call my garage now.
Hatfield's home for Recalcitrant Harleys.
Oh, no.
And we've added hate filled now in there too.
That tracks.
Yeah.
Well, it does.
It does.
Kyle Smith, thank you so much for being with us.
Thank you guys for catching me.
I thought we'd talk for 10 minutes.
Yeah.
And here we are.
Well, that never happens.
10 minutes is not a thing.
That's the show.
It's not a thing in our world.
10 minutes is not a thing.
And by the way, I'll talk to you for 10 minutes at Luke's.
Of course, man.
Of course.
I'm looking forward to barbecue.
Well, did you season?
What did you season this year?
What am I going for?
Ribs, chicken, and then sausage king.
All right.
Sausage king.
Sausage king in person.
Oh, by the way, have you seen that grill?
No.
Oh, my Lord.
Luke got me a new grill.
Are you mixing drinks again this year?
No, Rhonda is.
Okay.
Fantastic.
Right, right.
That means I'll be able to drive home.
But she Luke got me a 37-inch Weber Kettle Grill.
Oh, boy.
The ranch.
Oh, boy.
Yeah.
I'm not going to know how to cook nothing.
We call it the dog pound.
It's huge.
That's a lot of sauce watching.
If the lid wasn't so heavy, you could use it for an umbrella.
Suckers big.
All right, Luke.
Kyle Smith, thank you for being with me.
I was just thinking I'll talk to you, Luke's man.
All right, we'll see you later.
Well, we might have a margarita there.
Oh, absolutely.
Or two or yeah.
Thanks, Kyle.
Thank you.
So for the crowd, please, the audience, introduce yourself.
Yeah.
So my name is Chris Moyer, a 2013 graduate of McPherson College,
AKA'd as Turbo.
And a very familiar face.
Chris, I understand you taught a class here.
I did.
This last semester.
I did.
Yeah.
I adjuncted in Templeton Hall there in drivetrain restoration.
You do that with Luke?
Yes.
So Luke was my mentor and my guide through the entire process.
And without him, it probably wouldn't have been possible.
He had me come in and sit and answer questions of one of his classes,
raw with no prep.
And my roddog, I don't know if you guys discussed it afterwards.
I just hope I didn't screw it up.
Well, no, I'd actually didn't.
I don't remember if I heard about that or not.
But in my experience, he kind of gave me his curriculum.
And I was able to work off of that.
So the technology part wasn't a big deal because I'm used to that in the industry.
But when it came to the history, which of course, he's a big time history buff,
I had to do a lot of hours of studying on my own just to be prepared for
lecturing on that topic in class.
Yeah.
He said on the historical stuff that our good friend Ken just kind of put it in his lap and said,
best of luck.
I think fortunately for Luke, I'm sure he's pretty up to speed on a lot of that history as well.
I think he is too.
But I also think he was, he felt a little overwhelmed first.
I think everybody in Templeton has been a little bit overwhelmed this semester
with their workload, which is why I'm here as well.
The school is growing.
It's growing fast.
It's growing quite fast.
If you recall, when I was here, and I was here 10 years before you were,
and when you were here, we were about 400 students.
That was about it.
And that's where we stayed for a really, really long time.
And then the last few years, it's just, it seems explosive.
They're up close to what, like 900 now, which for a school no bigger than this,
that's pretty impressive stuff.
Yeah.
Well, along this I-135 corridor, there's a ton of small private liberal arts schools,
and many of them are not doing well.
But McPherson is growing and growing rapidly.
I've talked to some of the students here too, just about what they're learning,
growing with, because we, with this show, we're very, very focused on the car restoration program.
And there's so much more around that.
I blame you.
Yeah, that's all my fault.
The smartest guy in the room about cars.
But I was just enjoying a wonderful conversation with a young man about religious philosophy.
Yeah.
And, you know, between, and he's a student here, and that's what his program is in.
And I'm like, this is, this is really cool.
I'm sitting here talking to this, all these cool cars.
Well, the school does have a strong partnership with the brethren church.
Yes.
And they have for a very long time.
And in fact, convocations used to be part of the curriculum.
I don't know if it is anymore.
Yeah, I couldn't say.
But I have often prayed over the cars that I've bought.
I, I, I often prayed I could get through the classes here.
I, I came and I was a little, I'll say jaded or possibly had my own opinions about things
because I came back to school when I was in my early thirties after I had a career and I'd
been in the Navy and everything.
Worked in Lumberyard and construction crews.
Worked in horrible places and just had, I'd, I'd had a little bit of life experience when
I came back.
And then before my third year and hell, you probably still heard stories about it.
I kind of freaked out, got rid of my first wife, found another one, bought a Harley and
started wearing nothing but black t-shirts.
And funny, I still got an awful lot of black t-shirts in my closet.
I had a midlife Chrysler.
Well, because I've always had cars and especially Corvettes, my midlife crisis was
Harley's and I just, it's stuck and I never got rid of them.
And like I said earlier, they follow me home like stray dogs now.
So how did you happen to be invited to teach a class?
Did you apply for that or what was the process there?
Well, so officially you have to apply for it.
The colleges accept some kind of state funding and so there's some rules and guidelines they
have to follow to actually be a faculty member.
So, but otherwise I was invited to apply by Luke.
He called me out of the blue one day and I was like, I don't know what Luke Chennell's
calling, I wonder why.
And, and so I answered the phone and he told me that there had been some staff change over and
or some faculty change over and the department was kind of being overworked and they all had
a pretty heavy class load and they just needed some help and they wanted to know if I'd be willing
to step in and teach a section of drivetrain.
Had you taught before?
I had never taught before in any official capacity.
Okay.
In my professional life, which has mostly been involved in like the heavy duty industry,
fleet management, fleet maintenance management, that there's been many times in my career where
I've, you know, had to show people things or tell people how to do things.
But this seems a little different for them being in front of a classroom.
It is much different.
And it's interesting because I have, in the professional world, I have very high expectations
of people and I have to remember I'm working with students that may or may not have.
So there's a, it's a completely different.
Why didn't you do it this way?
Right.
You know what was it?
The first three weeks is how to hold the damn flashlight.
Right.
Exactly.
Got it.
And, and, you know, and sometimes it needs to be that elementary.
There's, there's some people who come into this with less experience than others and,
and because somebody might have painted a car before before they, before they come to the
club and done both.
Okay.
And so, so it is.
Well, and we do a bit of everything in the program here.
Yeah.
You know, there's a reason they start out with interiors.
That's usually the thing that the fewest people have touched.
Yes.
Yes.
And they show you that you can do something you've never done before, which makes the
psychology for the rest of the program kind of roll along.
So what did you do to prepare for this?
I mean, you had to be a little flipped out.
Yes.
So like I said, Luke gave me his, he gave me a Google drive with just the entire curriculum on it.
So I went class by class, you know, and it was, it was kind of an outline of a schedule,
which got, which got completely broken by the third week.
And so whenever, but it says in the schedule, you shut up.
And so for each individual section, and it was kind of guided by the textbook that we have.
By JD Halderman.
And so for each individual section, I read the entire chapter, which I'm sure most of my students
did not do.
Okay.
But I read the entire chapter and I made myself lecture notes.
And there was also a PowerPoint that Luke had already put together.
And fortunately for me, Luke had taught during COVID and during COVID.
Oh, wow.
Purely Zoom.
Right.
And so during COVID, they add all their PowerPoints dubbed over with their voice narrated.
Oh.
And so I listened to every one of his PowerPoints over and again until I basically
had it memorized.
Oh, cool.
And even rehearsed it in some cases.
That would have been fantastic.
And you do prank phone calls now in his voice to banks and old people.
There were certain sections, especially that were very history heavy, where it was,
it was just so much content.
And so what I would do is I'd play his voice over for the class and say,
now guest lecturer Luke Chennell is here.
And so it was really, maybe appreciated it.
You can't have him as a guest.
So it was, it was cool.
And, you know, they were, the faculty at McPherson College was tickled pink to have me
and help relieve the workload a little bit.
And so they were very supportive in every single way.
So are you considered an associate professor now?
I am not.
I am considered an adjunct lecturer.
Adjunct lecturer.
And are they having you back?
Hopefully.
I have applied.
I've been to the interview process.
So I haven't had the official yes yet.
Do they want you to get some kind of teaching certification?
They want me to get a master's degree, which I don't currently have.
Wow, me neither.
But not in that anyway.
I have some time, I believe, from what I understand, to actually make that happen.
I might have other master's degrees in nothing you'd want to brag about.
It's kind of like when we get to the end of the interview and we ask you,
what's the dumbest thing you've ever done in a car?
And Mark's asked me several times.
And I'm just like, oh, God, how do I narrow it down?
Because there's so much.
Yeah.
There's just, there's so stinking much.
And what would you pick?
Well, you know this one time.
So there's a lot of those.
So it sounds like you're excited about it.
I am.
Would you come back and teach the same thing again,
or would you teach something different?
It would be the same thing.
Okay.
And so, and they also plan on adding on to the drive train courses,
historically speaking, they've never had like an advanced drive train course.
Okay.
Or they haven't taught automatics.
And so from my understanding, that would be what is added to that work.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, automatics are a whole different critter.
They are.
They are.
They absolutely are.
Okay.
And you got a stranglehold on that critter?
I have a pretty good grasp of the concept.
My actual industry experience diving into and rebuilding on a regular basis
is probably not as strong as I'd like it to be,
but it'll be pretty strong very quickly after doing it.
And, you know, practice in class for sure.
Okay.
What's the worst one you've worked on?
What's the suckiest thing that's like,
oh my God, why was this ever made?
Wow.
That's, there's a lot of them.
There's a lot of them.
And you're talking about drive trains specifically?
Transmission.
Transmissions.
There's a Mercedes on there somewhere.
Yeah.
So actually just this semester, one of our, we call them live projects,
where the students bring in their own projects to work on in class,
usually in the tail end of the semester.
And we had a group that brought in a Pontiac Fiero transmission.
Oh, no.
For all intents and purposes is obsolete.
Yes.
So that was a little bit challenging.
Well, so is the car.
Yeah.
So is the car.
And so that was a little bit challenging.
How do you source parts on something like that?
eBay.
Really?
Find, find transitions that just are, you know, take out salvage.
So the setup for it, is it a trans axle or is it transverse?
It's a trans axle.
Okay.
So the setup on a trans axle has to be similar to a front wheel drive car.
Very similar.
So are there, are there things that are exchangeable?
Can, can you use parts from other projects or other cars?
Sometimes there are.
Sometimes, you know, some of the gears might have been used in another transmission
or some of the synchronizers.
Sure.
Some of those parts, bearings and races.
However, this was in a Suzu transmission.
Oh, for the love of God.
And to my knowledge.
And what was it hooked to, an Iron Duke?
You know, actually, I think it was hooked to a 3.4 liter V6 or a 3.7
They did a 2.8 in those.
Maybe a 2.8.
That's towards 87, 88.
I think they were fuel injected.
The car was actually kind of sprightly 135 horsepower in a car that weighed 2,100 pounds.
Right.
Right.
Yeah, it held its own in that era.
Yeah, not bad.
Yeah.
But so to my knowledge, that transmission wasn't put in anything else.
So produced by a Suzu, just only used in the Fiero.
So it's getting a little kind of, a little difficult.
Now, do you work in any like, I watch a lot of videos and I've seen guys in India who
like, just, you know, do a sand casting, pour it, use some monkey parts, and then
suddenly they've got something that works.
And they get 24,000 miles out of it.
Do you ever like, custom fabricate the parts?
Or is it like, I got to find this somewhere else?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Now, we have not done that in class yet, but then again, this is on my first semester.
So now we have fabricated bolts, you know, that didn't exist the right length or the
number of threads that were on there.
Sure.
You know, we've had to do that.
Is any of it printed or is it cast?
How are you doing it?
Well, so when we made, well, the bolt itself is usually an existing bolt that we've just
continued to thread on and then cut it to the length that we need to do.
Yeah, turn on the lathe or, and then we've also made a lot of our own tools to like,
drive out certain bearings that are in different spots.
That's cool.
Yeah, a lot of tool making.
That's really cool.
Okay, Chris, what's in your stable right now?
What do you, what have you got at home that's interesting?
So I actually do have a 1972 Honda 250 XL.
Very cool.
With about 5,000 miles on it.
You know, we talked to Kyle about 250s and XLs and XRs a lot.
Right.
And it was a gift from a friend whose father passed away and had a bunch of Honda motorcycles
and he had some Jeeps and I helped them liquidate all those from his, from his estate.
You should have called.
I got a thing for both.
And it actually even has its original tires from 1972.
Wow.
That's incredible.
Do you actually ride on those?
I do.
I ride around the block every once in a while.
I don't, I'm not a, I'm not a big motorcycle rider.
I do have a few bikes oddly enough, but I just don't, I just don't spend any time on, on bikes.
But so I keep it running and I, I intended on bringing it to the show this year,
but because of the class added onto my day job, that just didn't happen.
And then I also have a 1934 model A.
Do you?
Oh, nice.
Awesome.
And it was purchased by my great, great uncle Cornelius Schmidt of Gossel, Kansas,
which is 24 miles from here.
In 1930 in Hillsborough, Kansas.
Oh wow.
And so the family car.
So it's, it's always stayed close.
It stayed close.
The Cornelius Schmidt mobile.
Yeah.
The Cornelius Schmidt mobile.
Hey, don't give me that Schmidt.
Yeah.
And it's sometime in the, in history, it got plaid seat covers installed.
So yeah, you gotta keep those.
Cornelius was feeling very saucy that day.
Froggy.
I need a seat that looks like a blanket.
Here it is.
So I'm, before we get to the final question, you're teaching this in addition to your
regular day job.
You work in 40 hours and I'm doing the class.
That's correct.
Yeah.
Wow.
Look at you killing it.
You know, that's being an adjunct.
I was an adjunct assistant professor at Johnson County Community College for three years.
And, you know, teaching at night.
For communications.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Actually for radio production.
Well, because I'm going through my head.
Okay.
What could he possibly teach?
What could this numb nut actually teach?
I didn't want to say it out loud.
That was it.
And yeah, it's, it's a, you know, it's a lot of work, but it can be, it can be gratifying.
I did that exact mistake that you were talking about is walking in with the expectations of
I'm going to teach you stuff.
You're going to be able to walk out of here and get a job.
That's not what they were looking for.
And you know, they were looking for a taste.
Not a, oh my God, I am now employed.
Yeah.
So, there's a lot more to it than what you hear over the radio.
Oh yeah.
So, and this is a level 100 course.
So it's, it's the very beginning of the program as far as like their skill set.
That guy's got my hand.
So it, it, it does have quite a bit of trial and error, you know, and from what I understand
every class, even though he's teach the same section every year, every semester.
It's different.
It's different every single time.
Yep.
Different group of kids, different young people, young adults.
Well, that's cool.
I'm happy you've come back.
Yeah.
That's fantastic.
I do live close by, so that was a part of the reason for inviting me.
Okay, that doesn't suck.
Well, that works.
Yeah.
No wonder he didn't call me.
The commute's kind of stinky.
I had a phone interview, a phone interview from a gentleman here at the college and
he said, so where do you live?
I said, well, I live in Gossell, Kansas.
He says, well, commute to McPherson, Kansas, be a problem.
Doesn't know where Gossell is?
Well, I said, well, one, it's not that far away too.
It's Gossell, Kansas.
There's 560 people.
So you don't live there and not commute.
Okay, that's fair.
Coming to McPherson for Chris is considered going to the big city.
You got a Walmart precisely.
Holy crap, man.
They got a Casey's too.
I grew up in Branson, Missouri.
When we moved there, there were 900 people.
So when we got a Walmart, it was a big darn deal.
It was also not that big a Walmart.
And getting to McDonald's was like, ooh, a restaurant.
I remember the Walmart in Harrisonville.
Nothing to write home about, but it's what you had.
That's where you went.
Okay, Chris.
The big question we ask everybody, and you've listened to this enough,
you ought to know where it's coming.
What's the dumbest thing you've ever done in a car?
Oh my goodness.
Again, probably have to sit there and narrow it down.
Yeah, there's a number of things.
That's what happens when you ask anybody in the program here.
And it usually involves some grain grenades.
And then, oh yeah, we had four guys or 17 of us stuffed in an El Camino
or something like that.
And also think statute of limitation.
So yeah, yeah.
Anything recent you should just keep to your own self.
Well, let you hang on to that.
Well, so you and I have a mutual colleague, Chris Wyand.
Yes, yes.
Friend and colleague.
And he's a longtime friend of mine.
And oh God, I'm so sorry.
So in Chris is 75.
Chris, I'm sorry, pal.
I'll see you in like an hour.
I'm sure I have other confessions that may involve the two of us as well.
Yeah, well, he's the pit boss this afternoon.
I kind of got to be nice to him.
Well, I was telling him earlier, just a little side note.
I was saying, you know, you might be the single most important human being
in McPherson, Kansas, today.
Between the hours of two and six.
It's very possible.
But I'll tell you what, he doesn't have an apron that says
Sausage King in McPherson County.
That is a major fragment.
Yeah, that's true.
Anyway, so him and I, in his 1975 Ford LTD.
Yeah, baby.
Fine iron.
Two door, four door.
Four door.
Oh, yeah.
Land, landow.
Land barge.
A beautiful car on its own, right?
Had red painted wheels and 31, 10, 50 tires on it.
CB radio and saws.
Tell me he had a giant whip and tan on that thing.
He had a giant whip and tan on his side of bridges.
With a PA, so he could.
Oh, my God.
That is Chris, though.
He had a 351 modified that was kind of bored over to 400 something cubic inches.
Either way, we're out here in the McPherson County countryside.
And he had just painted the suspension underneath the car.
Just painted all the front end components, the swing arms and everything.
And we're out somewhere on a dirt road.
And we hit a low water pass at somewhere around 9,500 mile an hour.
Oh, no.
And when we finally got out of the car, and it was a high speed run,
but when we finally got out of the car and looked,
all that paint was completely sand plastered.
That's just one of the many, but.
From time you left planet Earth, to time you re-entered planet Earth,
how far do you think?
Oh, my goodness.
It had to be well over 100 feet.
Yeah, in my mind, it felt like 20 feet, but everything was going so fast.
Yeah, well, you're doing a buck.
Yeah, it was quick.
It was quick.
Yeah, so that was a good time.
Okay, airborne in something that hadn't been FAA certified.
Right.
It was experimental category.
I wish I could say I've never done that.
But I've done that too.
Probably not to that degree though.
So congratulations.
That is monumental.
Yeah, and had I known I was going to talk to you today,
I probably would have come with a list of them.
Chris, listen, in about four hours, we're going to be full of ribs and margaritas.
We can discuss all of this at length.
And generally, if you put a couple of marks into me,
the memories come and the willingness to discuss them greatly increases.
Things that would probably incriminate ourselves otherwise.
Suddenly details rise to the surface like dead fish.
We moved into that new house three years ago, new to us house,
and we were moving back into Olathe.
And I was crapping about it because at one time every cop in Olathe knew my first name.
And granted, it's been more than 30 years.
And I'm still a little worried about running into some long time cop.
Hey, you're that little jackass who had the white Camaro.
They're just letting you from the hand cramps they got writing your tickets and the details.
Well, I have a story from whenever I got pulled over one time in my Jeep Cherokee.
Okay.
And a buddy of mine was sitting in the passenger seat.
The whole time he was like telling the police officer,
he said, write him a ticket, ticket.
He shut up.
And so I was talking to the cop and he said, well,
have you ever been pulled over before?
And I said, well, actually, yes, I have.
He's like, well, what were you doing?
I was like, well, I was driving my RX-7 because my first car was a Mazda RX-7.
And he's at the RX-7.
I can outrun one of those with my Crown Vic.
I was like, I know.
He's like, what?
I found out.
Was that one of those F around?
And yeah, yeah, yeah.
I had a lot of those before I graduated.
So obviously living at home, I got a letter addressed to me from the Department of Revenue.
And of course, my dad gets the mail.
I never caught the mail.
The mail, the driveway was a quarter of a mile long and the mail came after I got home.
So he'd grab the mail on the way in and he gets the mail one day.
My bedroom was downstairs.
And I just, he had this booming voice.
Oh, no, man.
Oh, no.
And I had doors on the front of my room and I honestly considered just walking outside
because I knew it wasn't going to go well.
And he'd ask you really damning questions or stuff like,
why don't you tell me about how you drive?
Oh, wow.
And you can't tell him the truth because, you know, he doesn't want to hear,
hey, I'm a little a-hole.
And so you ask him a question.
He gets furious.
Don't answer a question with a question.
Tell me how you drive.
And then he start holding up this letter from state of Kansas and you're like,
oh, crap, this ain't going to go well.
Oh, no.
And apparently getting a dump truck full of tickets and just paying for them,
I didn't understand that the state would be displeased with you.
Isn't it weird?
I figured it's like paying a bill.
Just pay it and everything's cool.
Yeah.
So I had to go to state-sponsored driving school before I graduated from high school.
And I've told the story before.
This kind of led up to how I got the Red Corvette.
Which is just so weird.
Yeah, he had given me a budget to go look for cars.
I was looking at 1988 RX7 GTUs.
The really lightweight stripped down had nothing in them.
And, you know, he's going to look at it and go,
doesn't even have power windows or shit like that.
And I'm like, yeah, it's super light.
You can't believe how it handles.
It'll go around corners, you know, all that crap.
And so I got him the invoice from the dealership and I brought it to his lumber yard.
He showed it to him and he called his insurance agent because he was going to put me on the
blank policy for the lumber yard, you know, just another car.
And his insurance agent looked up my driving record.
Crap. I didn't know they could do that in 1988.
They sure as hell could.
He needs to be in a Ugo.
Yeah, he needs to be in a wheelbarrow.
And he's offhandedly to my dad.
And if I could ever find this loose lip insurance agent, I would kiss his ass.
But he said to my dad, it's going to cost so much to ensure him in that he may as well
be in a Corvette and my dad owned that 60 Corvette.
Well, my dad instantly thinks, I can say 15 grand.
I think I am king stud of the universe.
Look at me.
I'm awesome.
And that's how I wound up with a 60 Corvette for graduation because my dad figured he was saving
money and little did he know I would keep the damn thing.
38 years.
I still have it.
It's still sitting at home.
Sure.
And I still feel like king stud of the universe every time I drive it.
Well, the beauty of it, even as a teenager, you didn't rag it out, you know?
No, that's not really a no power steering, no power brakes.
I did take it out one time to see how fast it would go.
And it was so terrifying.
I would, I never did it again.
It's funny.
And those, those old bias plies, they all make fun of you.
Yeah, they just kind of follow whatever track in the road.
And I had the hard top on it and I took it out and I did what the car said was 125.
Holy Jesus.
I don't know how happy the, you know, old speedometers, they get kind of happy up high.
I don't know how fast I was really going.
I do know that the front end got greasy and decided to change lanes on me.
And I decided that was a nuts.
And so we shut her down and a buck and a quarter is all I ever saw in that poor car.
Now it was a 283 230 horse with a power glide.
I guarantee you it wasn't going 125.
I promise you it was going as fast as I ever want to go in that car ever.
Right now going slow, crawling around.
Yeah, seems perfectly fine.
So yeah, can certainly appreciate that.
And it all started with a story about a ticket.
Right.
So the RX-7 thing, how did that wash out?
What'd the cop finally say?
Did your buddy talk him into writing you a ticket?
He did not.
I had, I had this way with police officers and getting out of tickets.
I've been pulled over dozens of times.
You cry.
Emotional blackmail.
The only times I've ever received a ticket is whenever I...
Truly deserve it.
If I truly deserve it.
Well, it's whenever I have my children in the car with me.
I'm not speeding by an enormous amount,
but it's enough that I am indeed by definition breaking the law.
And, and they, and rightly so, they give me a ticket.
And so I just pay it to go on, but...
I think maybe old age is starting to catch up with me a little bit,
or maybe I am just the luckiest SOB walking.
Both.
Because I haven't gotten a speeding ticket in probably eight years,
which is, I used to be good for one a year, easy.
And I've gotten out of so many tickets.
Now, I'll tell you how off air, but...
Private investigator, lewd photos, and blackmail.
Allegedly.
Allegedly.
Allegedly.
But anyway, yeah, I've gotten out of a few.
Chris Moyer, adjunct...
Lecturer.
Adjunct lecturer.
That's right.
At McPherson College and the restoration program.
Drive train demigod.
Thank you very much.
That is the coolest damn thing.
I would do that in a hot minute if they asked me.
It's fun.
It's fun.
I feel like I've made it to the automotive big leagues.
Well, I'm proud of you.
You've more accomplished than I am.
That's fantastic.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I love it.
And I'm happy for you, man.
I hope they invite you back.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Fantastic.
Okay, let's pack this crap up and go eat.
Let's do it.
Chris, thank you so much.
Thank you.
See, this is what happens when I bump into my friends.
We just get into completely nerdy crap.
What was funny is, yeah, we've talked to two people
and what a fun couple of conversations.
Yeah.
Well, we talked to two people and we got two hours to see them.
Exactly.
That's awesome.
Now, in my defense, I haven't seen Kyle.
I don't know that he was here last year.
I hadn't seen Kyle in a while.
Yeah.
Chris, I see here every year, but I wasn't aware
that they'd had him teaching here.
That's really cool.
It really is.
The being able to be an adjunct is a lot of fun
because you can also...
I don't want to say play, but...
Well, yeah, if you don't act like a professor.
You can act like a professor and you get to share some stuff
with people and when you actually see somebody go,
oh, oh, that's the best part.
Well, and they listen to you like you know something.
Yeah.
You just have to have a pointy beard and...
I'm working on it.
I'm growing it back up.
I'm growing it back up.
You're almost there.
Almost there.
I'm going to have to start carrying a pipe around, man.
Well, yeah.
I'm going to be smoking mine this afternoon.
Well, yeah.
I think I got some horn-ringed glasses.
These are the chiefies I got at the gas station.
So, McPherson College, this is...
You know, you've told me for years about it
and I almost made it one time.
And this is what a wonderful day,
what a wonderful weekend.
Oh, just gorgeous.
I couldn't...
The weather couldn't be any nicer,
but the other thing I kept trying to impress upon you,
you see stuff here, you don't see anywhere else.
Yeah.
And I'm pretty sure that's the first time
you've seen a 48 Tucker.
That is the first time I have ever been even,
you know, in the same state.
Or a Lamborghini 400 GT,
or a Jaguar D-type,
or that really cool 59 Cadillac concept car.
That freak show.
I love it.
The Cyclone.
It's got Dagmars for days.
Yeah.
What were they thinking?
And I don't care.
I love it.
Well, it kind of took it from the women's undergarment
in the street.
Oh, well, it's Dagmars.
Yeah.
But on that thing, it's ridiculous.
It's Kardashian Dagmars.
It's beyond stupid and I love it.
I think...
No, I could be missing, I guess.
I think it was like radar control, cruise control,
or something.
There was supposed to be something in those pods
that would help it read the road.
You know, it also reads weather forecast.
It's like if George Jetson got divorced
and started smoking,
well, that would have been his car.
Well, it'll get prime video.
That bubble top.
You just want to go...
Well, the thing with the bubble top,
I always look at those and it's very cool
and you get complete green house.
You can see in every direction and all that stuff.
But you got to think on a hot day, that's going to cook you.
Oh, my God.
That's going to be like a giant lens.
What was it?
The Ford...
Was it Skyliners?
What was the name of the ones that they had
that kind of clear top?
Oh, the Futuras?
In the like the mid-50s,
they had a number of the Crown Vicks
who had like the front half of the top of the car.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was Clear Plexi.
Ori was kind of tinted green
and it would turn it into a blast furnace in there
and it would just cook you royally
and you couldn't escape it.
You can go get that dealer installed AC though.
Yeah, you better because it was brutal.
So I can't imagine what it's going to clear bubble top like that.
And then taking care of a plexi-class scrap
that you're supposed to look out of.
That thing's a piece of history, man.
Yeah, all that aside of the ridiculous nature of its design.
It's 67 years old and it looks friggin' awesome.
I'm sure it's been restored at some point,
but it's just fantastic that it exists.
You'll be able to find pictures of that on our Facebook page too
because you gave me the opportunity.
You were talking actually to a long-time listener.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, super cool.
Brian.
And while you were talking to Brian, I excused myself
and then ran around taking a whole bunch of pictures.
So we'll put those on the Facebook page
and you can see this card that I'm both in love with
and making fun of.
There's lots of cool stuff here, lots of stuff
you just don't see anywhere else.
And for a town no bigger than this is,
this is an amazing turnout.
This is, yeah.
Luke said that they were somewhere between 400 and 500 entries.
Wow, that's a lot of cool stuff.
A lot of cool hardware in one place.
And we're about to leave the show
and go to where the concentration of the car geeks is.
It's the alums and the people associated with the program.
We're headed to the cookout here in a minute.
At Luke Channel's place.
At Luke Channel's.
Got a pimp, Luke.
And just this is, I've said this a bunch of times.
I'll say it again.
This is my favorite weekend all year.
And there's a little bit of melancholy that goes with it
because when the weekend's over,
I know I got to wait another year to get it.
Yeah, that's true.
I got to wait another year to come back.
And I just love being here.
It's my home away from home.
And I'm so thrilled that you finally got a chance
to come down and experience this with me.
Yeah, I was been delightfully surprised and charmed by what's here.
You look at the vehicles here.
And I mean no dispersion against any of the modern car shows.
But when you walk through here,
you're not seeing a whole bunch of 2015 plus stangs, etc.
There are some really modern cars here.
There's a few, but the vast majority of it.
All the vast majority, yeah.
And it's a little bit of everything.
There's everything here.
Yeah.
I mean, there's a tiny little fiat sitting next to a BMW
and a Volvo, one of the P-1800s.
And then right over here, we've got a couple of older BMWs
next to a white Bentley.
And you can see some Mopars down that way.
Oh, yeah.
Tri-Five Chevy handyman wagon.
And if you look over here, there's that sexy Lamborghini.
I just love that thing.
Look over your shoulder mark.
There's a little Porsche Speedster.
Yes.
A 50s Speedster, not an 80s Speedster.
One of the original ones, one of the James Dean Speedsters.
There's an entire line that you can walk past of.
And then it makes its own little circle too
of Model A's, Model T's.
There are a couple of fire trucks.
There's a, well, not La France.
Hell, I can't remember the name.
Big massive fire truck.
Old.
It is La France.
Is it La France?
Yeah.
Is that the name of the company?
Yeah.
And one of the reasons I even admire and remember the La France
is not just because they look super cool,
is because there was a guy that we talked to,
this was years ago, that would take those, strip it down,
and turn it into a two-seater.
Gary Wales.
Yes.
Yes.
And I'm like, oh, this is that guy's stuff.
And then, but this was original.
And there's even a, there are like four Auburns here.
Original Auburns, not the 80s Auburns.
Yeah.
An 852 Supercharged Speedster.
Oh God, that thing.
I just stood and drooled.
The 48 Tucker.
Yeah.
The 48 Tucker.
Where are you going to see one of those?
And the Jaguar D type.
And it's here at McPherson College.
By the way, you can look at, as we continue talking about,
McPherson.edu, M-C-P-H-E-R-S-O-N.edu.
And make sure to check out the restoration program.
There's nothing like it anywhere else.
Yes, it is.
It's the only college in the country that has an accredited
four-year degree program for auto restoration.
And let's not forget, a couple years ago,
took a second in class win at Pebble Beach with over
Mercedes 300.
It took years for that Mercedes 300 to be done
through multiple graduating classes.
Seven years.
And yet they came in second at Pebble.
Yeah.
They were able to keep that going.
And the kids that were coming in, the new kids,
were able to continue that level of work.
And you really have to attribute that to Brian Martin.
He spearheaded the entire project.
And you talk seven years, you're talking classes of kids,
came in, graduated, new kids coming in,
and managed to maintain that level of workmanship
across multiple years of students coming in.
So just fantastic.
I think that does it for us here.
Yeah, I'm feeling very ribby.
Very ribbous.
Very sausagey.
Very sausagey, very, very meatful.
Yes.
And in great need.
And we're going to have to scoot so we can get down the
street.
Luke, I am your feeder.
Yeah, I got a lot of cooking to do, kids.
So as we wrap up here from McPherson College and the,
God, I've lost track, 22nd annual, 23rd annual.
It's up there.
Cars show.
And thank you, McPherson College, for allowing us to be here.
And thank you for allowing us to be here.
And cars as college auto restoration students,
students put this on the students organized at the
students.
You guys are rocking.
This is awesome.
They did a fantastic job and just can't say enough good
about the program.
Want to thank everybody for listening.
We wouldn't be, we love what we do.
We wouldn't be able to do it without the support of our
listeners.
You can find us on Facebook and let's see.
Where else?
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Instagram as driven radio
show.
You can find us on LinkedIn as driven radio show podcast.
Phone numbers are on a stall at a nice 70 rest stop.
Oh, there's a couple down here at the road.
Yeah.
Third stall from the left.
Yeah.
Make sure you check it out.
If you have a story or someone you think we should
interview, please give me an email at Brett.
That's B R E T T at drivenradioshow.com.
Thank you for listening.
This is Brett Hatfield for Mark L Groves.
Yo, we'll see you next time here on driven radio.
About this episode
McPherson C.A.R.S. Show 2026 blends a lively campus car-show walkaround with deep shop talk. The hosts admire rare metal like a Tucker, a blue Challenger, Corvairs, and early Corvettes, while also digging into McPherson College’s auto restoration program and its hands-on training in welding, body work, upholstery, and drivetrain work. From ice-racing studs and T56 gearing to power-antenna failures, LS swaps, and a bargain 1985 C4 Corvette, the conversation keeps bouncing between show-floor eye candy and practical garage problem-solving.
Brett and Mark welcome 2026 McPherson C.A.R.S. Show attendees and Restoration Program alums Kyle Smith and Chris Moyer to discuss the show, ice racing motorcycles, creepy vans, cheap Corvettes, jumping a '75 LTD at speed, mid-life crises, and being an adjunct lecturer. All this and much more on this week's Driven Radio Show!
