Episode #206 - Drive Anything Good in 2025?

In a world with entirely too many shows about cars, this is another Pointless Automotive

podcast.

Hell yeah.

What's up?

What's up, big dog?

Hey, what's up, big dog?

That's the secret.

That's that code word that sets me off in my CIA training, and I unlocked my sleeper

agent status.

Holy shit, it's Chadwick-Born.

Yeah.

Did someone say big dog?

So bad.

It's so bad.

I'm doing all right, man.

I'm a tired big dog, but I'm ready to rack and roll.

I know.

How are you?

You look like you just stepped off out of a work meeting.

You got the fully buttoned up shirt.

It doesn't stop.

You got your hair is like somewhat kemped, and I'm just slumming it over here, drinking

some spin drifts.

Yeah.

Let me church it up a little bit.

How are you doing, man?

I'm good.

I tried to get it when you, I tried to time that when you had that awkward swallow effect

going on.

Yes.

This is ideal.

God, imagine when we, when we start recording our late night confidential episodes and

we're doing that, but like, it'll be with like a beer bong full of Schmirov ice

or something.

I thought you were going to say human semen, but okay, yeah, go ahead.

No, no, no, we wouldn't do that on them.

We wouldn't do that with human.

No, it's way too expensive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, resource.

But no, by the way, horrible segue real quick to lead off the pop.

So, God, OK, I feel like this was a quick rewind.

I this was a while ago trivia.

I did a trivia night thing with some homies.

And the question was, this was actually a long time ago, so I don't even

really remember what the answer was.

I think it might have been horseshoe crab blood.

OK, the question was, what is the most expensive liquid on earth?

And my vote and I and I answered it with racehorse semen,

like prize winning racehorse semen.

Yeah.

And they said it was wrong.

It was something else like horseshoe crab blood or I don't know.

But I still I still think I was right.

I protested.

I'm not I'm not like protest a trivia night at your local pub guy.

But like, I don't know, man, racehorse semen pretty.

Your answer tracks for two reasons.

What you said semen and it's you. Sure.

First track, second track, that seems like it'd be very expensive.

I get what you're doing because I know like breeding race track horses

is like very, very expensive, right?

So I'm assuming the semen itself has some some relatively high value, too.

But I have heard about horseshoe crab blood.

I think it's used in a lot of like ancient medicines,

like medicines and quotations.

I think my understanding is there's some work goes into gas station boner pills.

I can't one of those. Yeah.

But and it should.

Yeah, that's why I actually buy the Rhino 5000 pills

and just grind them over like into blunts.

That's that's what I do.

But no, the good. Yeah, good, good.

But like, no, I think I think the horseshoe crab blood thing is

wonderful segue, the horseshoe crab blood thing.

No, I think it's used in like some sort of pharmaceutical application.

Yeah, that's what I say.

Like a real like an actual.

Oh, really? Not like not like rhino horn or deer hog

or any of the like real pharmaceutical like it's for like blood pressure,

but it also helps you lose weight and makes your penis grow three inches.

And your hair comes back. Sure. Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Real pharmaceutical.

Yeah, and she'll like it, too, or whatever, that one with Frank Thomas.

Big heart. Yeah, the big the big squirt.

So how I how did we get here?

Let's let's I'm doing great.

That's what I'm doing.

Good. And it's not because I'm I'm

abusing smokable drugs with gas station pills ground into it.

It's because it's the end of the year.

It is.

It's about to be new year new me until then.

It's it's old year old me, I suppose.

Hmm. But yeah, like, I don't know.

We we we we sauntered into this.

And and I guess me talking about how you very obviously just came from work

illustrates the point that we kind of just like showed up today.

Yeah, without any topic.

And it was like, well, like we've got a whole year to draw on

the day that you're hearing this is New Year's Eve after all.

That's true.

Why don't we just talk about shit we drove this year?

Let's go 2025. Yeah.

Yeah, we drove some things, didn't we?

Yeah, we drove some things.

We rode some things, not the racehorse, but cars.

Largely just.

Oh, I don't know if we've put enough forethought into this to say,

like, what did we what was your favorite thing you drove this year?

But could call my backyard backyard.

My back is not tired of guys.

My backdrop video game for the day is need for speed V rally

the original PlayStation.

And that would be Colin McRae's WX on the cover.

There you go.

Wish I would have drove one of these.

I know.

A shame we never got them.

Right, right.

You can buy an overpriced RS and like have the image, I guess.

What what something fun I've driven this year or terrible

or just things that were like noteworthy.

I don't know.

Well, I drove something that fits into both those categories.

A Chevy Sprint turbo.

Frank, you mean this one?

I've always I you know, it's been one of those cars.

I've always looked at it's that.

So I put that on that level of the Nova Twin Cam is one of those

kind of like just yeah, like Chevy batched cars.

Then there's just something cool about them, right?

And you don't see them at all.

They don't they don't really exist outside of our weird dreams

and fantasies, but getting to drive that was a interesting experience

because I went in there completely thinking it was going to be dog shit.

And it it had a fair amount of dog shit like mixed in there

just based on the character of the car.

Dude, it is legitimately a fun car to drive.

Like I just I walked away.

Like, dude, even like what was it?

We did the review together.

And that's the first time I drove it.

And I'm like the first time I hit a corner, I'm like, oh, there's something here.

There's some like competencies buried beneath this bullshit.

And dude, yeah, deadly.

Sure. But like super fun, super fun car, man.

It's the power of no one's ever said power about that car.

I mean, kind of it'll dust it'll dust those tiny tires off.

True. Yeah, the cover of 12 inch wheels are called.

Oh, you're no, you had the pet loss elegance.

Loss elegance.

Why did that stick in my head?

I can't remember anyone important's birthday around me.

Yeah, exactly.

You have children and you just like don't remember.

I have. I have what?

Excuse me.

But like, no, it's just.

Simplify it out of lightness.

But like it's like it's like it's like it's like a it's like a GTI.

Got like in shitified a little bit.

But I don't know.

I think it's I think it's more fun to drive than a Mark one GTI.

Like, oh, yes.

Stock to stock.

That's a good.

Now, it's shitty in a lot of ways.

Yeah, maybe the brakes aren't better.

That's for sure. And VH.

Yeah, and the brakes.

But I don't I don't know.

And who knows?

It's not like mine's like this factory fresh.

Sure, perfect example.

It's it's it's pretty good.

But like it's it's got its words motor mounts among them.

But yeah, beggars can't be choosers.

If you want to drive a Chevy Sprint turbo,

you don't you don't get that many opportunities in life really.

So right. Yeah.

So that honestly, that would that made my list

for sure of like exciting cars to drive in 2025.

Things I wouldn't never, you know, probably driven, right?

They're pretty hard to source and find.

So hell, yeah, it's funny.

So speaking of simplify and at lightness in the same ethos,

but wildly different performance,

envelope and everything compared to the Sprint turbo is.

So yesterday, oh, I got some.

A little bit aggressive, not like not in the right forum,

because I was just on like city like suburban streets.

OK, but not where one can do anything truly fun with.

But I got some good seat time in a it was a.

A Birkin.

Lotus seven like replica kit car.

Yeah, those are pretty dope.

With a a very well tuned

freshly coming off of nine thousand dollars worth of tune up

and and dialing in work.

Hayabusa swap with a with a sequential sequential manual.

Absolutely terrifying.

Was it still a change driven like a motorcycle?

No, it's got a drive shaft. OK, OK.

In a solid solid axle rear.

It's built in 04.

OK. And the motor is from that same era.

So it's carbureted.

It's got a manual choke.

But my understanding is like during the tuning,

they they they they got some numbers out of it.

And whether it was like a GTAC, I didn't I don't know.

But apparently they say it it it does roughly a three seven zero to 60.

And it weighs and it weighs, I don't know,

I don't know, it weighs twelve hundred pounds, maybe.

Definitely. Traction limit, right? Yeah.

One hundred.

I mean, I didn't the good news is like, you know,

it rattles, it's got like whatever, a thirteen thousand RPM right line.

Yeah. And I did not tickle that.

I probably ran it to ten a couple of times.

Safe. Yeah. But I'm running.

I'm you know, I got to like show a video and like you buy that car

not to like casually drive it around.

So you got to wind it out a little bit, which is tough on like a

pockmark 30 mile an hour speed limit.

Like, you know, by the Concord Park station road where you got you got to ring

it out, grab a second gear, but what a.

I don't know.

It's not a suicide machine because it's competent.

Sure. But like how scary that thing is just driving around

amongst other cars that are just like going about their daily commute on a Monday.

Yeah. Is five thousand pound, five thousand

pound soccer mom SUVs.

Yeah, they can't see me.

No, no, I can hear you running.

They could they could definitely hear you.

Yes. Oh, it's noisy.

It's it's it's side exhaust.

Like, I don't know, right about where your hip is on your driver side.

Nice.

Absolutely unhinged.

I way too much car for me.

I do not carry the competency to really do anything with that car other than.

Scare myself and potentially injure myself.

I'm not going to hurt anyone else with it.

It's it's, you know, the the dragonfly on the windshield.

But.

Yeah, what a what a terrifying, impossibly cool.

Every person that was like I would drive by in that thing or was in a car next

to me, like, what the hell is that?

And then one, one, one, just rabbit out.

That's cool. That is very, very cool.

I I got to say, I'm not a huge fan of a sequential gearbox.

Yeah, they're weird.

They're weird because it's got a clutch and it's a it's a bike motor.

So I'm used to just like smooth, you know, barely, barely

feed it any pedal and just smooth take off in a car.

And then this, you get, you know, give it everything.

Yep.

Twenty five hundred RPM and you're almost stalling it.

And so it's like it's.

They're great car, but sequentials are great for like race applications,

but for just cruising, I'm not a super, super huge fan.

I think, yeah, that's not a good one.

Yeah, it's just like I don't you don't cruise in that car.

You're not taking that to like the sock hop and putting the

crying the time out doll on it or whatever.

Like that's not that kind of thing.

But what a what a terrifying ball of just I was trying to think

of like people say like, oh, this car's fizzy.

Like it's got it's got the fizz.

That's bubbly and like I don't this is like it's like the

meant the Diet Coke and Mentos of the right analogy.

So it's very cool, very different, terrifying.

I didn't want to drive it and it delivered on the reasons why I didn't want to drive it.

But in the right setting, what an absolute.

Monster of a performance machine, that thing is and for not a huge amount of money.

It's not like it's going to sell for a hundred grand.

It's going to sell fractions of that.

So like, I don't know, just a fun thing for sure.

That is cool.

I drove. I drove a car I haven't driven in like 20 years this year.

I actually bought that car and it was like one of the most refreshing

like drives I've gotten on it for a while.

I went out and I took my son and I bought that 95 Geo tracker.

And I had not driven one of those in 20 years.

And we hop in, we're already like, this is going to be funny.

And the little test drive, we both were laughing the entire time

because it's literally a lifted Miata, especially in the guys I bought

where it's just a rear wheel drive and a five speed manual.

You can't get more simple than that.

It's literally like the Miata formula.

It's lifted a bit.

Take the top off.

It just God, it was good.

And we bought it in like up in SAC.

So it was like a good hour and a half drive home.

The entire time, talking about NVH,

the speedometer cable was fucking screaming at us.

You can hear everything on the road and it's just the best time ever.

Like we're just unbelievable visibility out of that thing.

And just it just felt like special.

Like when you're in it, it feels like spacious

because the roofs are pretty high.

But when you look back and you can see the rear of the vehicle

like literally over your shoulder because they're incredibly short.

Dude, it was like, you know, I think from the genesis of this podcast,

the Hyundai Genesis of this podcast is I've always said how much

I want to track or a sidekick and like actually making that happen

in 2025 is like one of my big, big, happy things.

And I still love the truck.

I know I got to throw a speedo in it and I'm going to enjoy

the fuck out of it before I pass it on down the road.

But just think just that drive alone was fucking amazing.

So we'll do a couple more fun drives with it.

But it's just it's cool to like think about a car for so long

and then actually make it happen.

And when it actually lives up to what you expected,

you know, the anticipation pay off.

Dude, that geotracker, that's on my list.

One of my best drives of 2025.

Yeah, they're cool.

And, you know, I know we've talked about these cars.

I don't want to say ad nautium because not really.

But like, I don't know, just the amount.

It sucks that there's no equivalent to that anymore.

Like, oh, and there there won't be a lot of reasons.

Yeah, there won't be.

I mean, I'm trying to think like what the nearest equivalent could be.

Maybe if like the slate truck thing was more.

Well, real, yeah, that it's complete vaporware yet, but you never know.

And more colorful than splash graphics and shit like that.

Like, I don't know.

I don't know. Nothing. Nothing in that size.

I mean, you can get like a two door Wrangler or a two door Bronco

kind of get you that kind of boxy two door roofless experience,

but way too big comparatively.

Yeah, that's probably it.

That's probably the modern analog to that the tracker and sidekick.

Yeah, I mean, you can get a manual.

You can get it pretty pretty analog, right?

Yeah, I'd like to see because we've gone so far down the.

Make vehicles enormous again, like swing of the pendulum.

Yeah, size is safety, man.

I know, but I would like to get it's not.

Well, it might be safety first occupant in it, but the world around.

Yeah, not even that.

Like you're sure, you know, your your dexterity and your your your ability

to handle the vehicle like exponentially decreases based on that.

You must not be used to handling big things.

But no, like honestly, though, like it's I would love to see.

And I and I hope that the pendulum eventually does swing back the other way.

And I don't see why, you know,

EV tech and hybrid shit can't actually help facilitate that.

When battery tech gets better and smaller and lighter,

and you don't have to weigh six thousand pounds.

And like and that shit, like, you know, miniaturizes a bit.

Like, I don't know.

Stuff gets smaller again and safety tech gets gets better.

And like we can have and maybe even maybe even eight

dash shit that I know we we we largely disapprove of.

But like I approve of it if the side effect is that like we're allowed to have,

you know, reasonably sized vehicles again.

Dude, I don't know. Hatches come back.

Like that'd be rad.

That'd be super rad.

You know, EV vehicles aren't like it's going away, dude.

That was just some propaganda started by the Chinese government.

Kind of like COVID-19.

It turned the frogs gay.

I don't want to get too far down this rabbit hole.

Sure.

But EV vehicles aside, you could we could have little ice engine powered,

a little turbocharged, little fun things.

But yeah, I think an ice like the immigrant.

Oh, yes, it could also be the ice.

It was going to run off that border patrol.

Ice engine, border patrol, big energy.

But no, it was carbon ice engine.

This car runs off of detained slave labor.

But it's like a indentured servitude.

So the problem is like we all we all want big vehicles.

And we think big is like safe.

Like we are joking, but it's like actually a belief in most people's minds.

Also being off the ground is safer, which it absolutely isn't.

And then you want to be grounded to the ground.

Everyone knows. Yeah, I tell you the camera, I see.

Final answer. That's right.

But of course they go to this.

So the thing is like you have like a kid and you're like,

I need a three row SUV.

And I'm like, no, you really, yeah, really don't.

I grew up in the back of 87 Ford Escort.

You know, so you can be done.

I think we just need to get that that thought back in place.

Like more isn't always better.

Like a small hatch provides a lot of fun.

It's way more economical to drive fuel consumption is better.

All that fun stuff.

But that would you get that mindset going.

But right now we're back in like early 2000s.

Giant SUV craze, basically, right?

Everything's a giant crossover.

Yeah, I need. Yeah, I just adopted.

I just adopted a a a Pekingese puppy.

So now now I wonder where you're going.

Now I need an excursion.

Oh, dude, that's the only way to get it to the dog park.

And and also for me to feel safe

for the incoming nuclear holocaust.

Sure. Right. Yeah.

Well, that's that one for sure is happening.

You can put a dog park in the back of your excursion and or suburban.

The size of those vehicles.

I mean, I own a suburban.

So I could do that. Yes.

There we go. We're there.

I need a dog first.

Yeah. Yeah.

You can put a few in there.

You put a pack of wolves in the back of your right.

Your suburban brothers in the wolf pack.

We're taking the suburban into C71.

We're going to go on a vision quest

to improve our masculinity and BLM land.

No, not that kind of BLM.

We're not woke here.

Get in, bro.

Cuddle me for warmth.

I love how you did the suburban commando Hulk Hogan accent.

That was brilliant, dude.

Unintentionally talking about a suburban with the suburban commando.

Suburban commando.

I think that's a that's a good film.

I haven't thought about it in a long time.

Is that where he he throws his skateboard literally in the space?

I believe. Yeah.

After the kids.

There's a better scene where he holds a guy up.

Is that the one where he holds the dude up and he shits himself

and he's like you smell like he's like I do keyed or something.

There's like this seed.

It's so bad.

And but then you go back and watch that.

And it's like, you know, you know, Hulk Hogan looks the way he does.

And someone's like, how is he 30 in this film?

Right. Yeah.

So yeah, that was and I remember for some reason, there was like a cat.

There was like a cat stuck in a tree and he gets a cat out of the out of the tree.

And it makes like weird, terrible, fake cat noises.

And be my friends used to make fun of it.

That makes sense.

It's a good time.

That's a good movie.

I think we remember all the key story line points on that one.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that noise.

The guy grabs himself.

The space shuttle sees a skateboard.

Get like float past low earth orbit and they're all confused by it.

Good times. Yeah.

But rest in peace, I guess.

I don't know.

Yeah, sure.

Problematic human being.

But are we all?

Yeah, yeah, ding, ding, ding.

God, what else not problematic or how about problematic?

What were some bad things bad?

Have you driven some dreadful stuff?

Not as many as you, my friend.

I'm sure you've got you've got a glaring one right there.

On the on the front load.

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, yeah, we talked about boy,

I had some seat time today in the 1977 Triumph Spitfire,

which believe it or not, I had a hard time starting today

because I went to take it out.

I was like, OK, because it's dirty.

I counted for.

What was that?

You paused.

I thought you had a stroke.

Oh, no, you did too.

But oh, oh, is this my internet connection is unstable.

All right, let's see what happens.

Roll, roll it, roll.

Let's roll the OK.

Here's the thing.

It's probably just engine compression, dude.

Don't overreact.

No, it's it's it's far sillier.

It's far more British.

So I had to move it.

This is a couple of weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago.

I had to move it, right?

It was in my driveway under car cover.

So it took a couple of weeks.

I started and I found it was ice cold, not the tension center ice,

but regular icy cold here in the Bay Area, which is mid 40s.

It's about about as we run here.

And it was at that temperature to start it, right?

Put put the choke on the rudimentary thing, start it.

And it's a David Carradine joke right there.

Is that what that?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I do.

Hey, it was weird.

I had to get naked to use the choke.

But hey, why was it in the closet?

Exactly. No, that's that's our Kelly.

The what would happen was you have to hold it on crank.

Please, you have to hold it on crank past run a little bit

because I would kept started with start and then die, start and then die.

And I'm like, what's going on?

And so I kind of held it in place for a little bit

to where it wasn't engaging the starter, but it was still kind of over.

And I held it there for like 20 seconds and let go and like

and it held and then I moved the car and I put it back and it was fine.

So doing the same thing today, right?

Cold again, had to move it, went to start it

because I was going to go get it washed and take photos

because it's going to rain for like two freaking straight weeks.

Right. And I want to get the sink up and listed and sold

prior to the freaking smog expiring

because someone in California buys it.

No one's going to pay three grand to ship this and cover it across the country.

So it's probably going to be a little buyer.

And so I want to get that done.

They can title it with time to spare.

We've already burned probably three weeks since I smogged it.

So I don't want to burn a ton more time.

It was doing the same thing.

And I fought it and fought it and fought it and eventually got it.

To run and it had never just like once I got it to stick.

I've never had it just fail, right?

But driving around, I figured out later, it's actually

I feel like I'm giving away my my PCP, but here we go.

Yes, this is PCP.

There's actually like a weird, like almost like there's a there

should be like a detent where it rests in to stay in the run position.

But for some reason between the crank position

and where it the sweet spot where it wants to rest in the on position.

If you're in that middle ground, it kills it.

For reasons lost to time, you would think that it would be

there would be continuity between those two positions because it should be.

It should be giving power to the ignition system during that time.

So you need a new ignition switch, I'm assuming.

Probably our friends at Rock Auto don't have one in stock.

And I haven't done for a second.

It's actually shocking to tell you the truth.

I'm actually shocked by that.

You know, it's like British Leyland.

So it's probably the same for like a Humber super snipe

or some bullshit from like 1952.

Right. And they they killed it off in, I don't know,

some some Catholic and some Protestant got an argument.

So they stopped production in in 1993 or so.

Originally used in the Spitfire.

Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah.

Yeah, I went down with, I don't know,

but that Mount Batten guy that got killed by the IRA.

But yeah, that's Bono.

So I haven't been yet. No, the edge.

No, but I'm the.

But no, so there's this weird thing.

But it's like one of those, like no matter what happens,

everyone's going to be upside down in this car,

maybe potentially even me.

So in the free car, so I'm just going to be like,

here's a quirk and driving it around.

It actually drives better than you would think

because every touch point and every interaction

that you have with the car otherwise is awful.

The shift knob is like flaking off like black paint

on their hands for some reason.

Nice. There's like first gear and reverse.

There's like this weird like driveline lash.

Second gear is a little crunchy.

The sink rose, like you kind of got to go slow.

Otherwise it'll bite.

Rear end makes some awful noises.

There's some other miscellaneous rattling noises.

But like it, you think it's going to be dreadful.

And it's like, oh, like I just drove 15 miles

and it didn't stall and it didn't feel like it.

Like that's not a high bar.

I understand. Right.

But like just sell it to some British guy.

He'll be like, right, man.

This thing draws just about proper.

No, the problem is they know, they know how bad it is.

They know it's a piece of joy.

Right. Yeah.

But that's why they'll buy it without haggling.

You know, they'll be like, yeah, this checks out.

This is a, this is standard.

Yeah, I did events.

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I think we'll just, I kind of like the concept of like,

this might sell for $800 and everyone loses.

Like I kind of like the high risk, almost certainly no reward gamble

that would be just running a no reserve auction with it.

Like it's going to be kind of fun.

And like, I don't know, it's, we'll see.

But driving it around, like it's certainly one of the worst

things I've driven this year.

Like, no, full stop.

That said, it's still like, maybe it's kind of endearing.

It's so shitty.

I was going to say kind of endearing.

Yeah, yeah.

For all the wrong reasons.

Like a, like an abusive relationship with just like one feature

about that person that kind of just gets you through the day,

you know, but the rest of it's just pure mental and physical views.

But the feature is something like really bad for your own like mental health.

Oh, it's horrible.

It's like, they're like your drug dealer, right?

Like, right.

It's either, no, but even that has a concept of like thrill.

I don't know that there's thrill here.

It's bad.

They're, they're killing you though.

Eventually it's more, it's more like you're dating them

because they're the boss's daughter.

And now you can't like, you can't, that's why you're still in this

relate.

You hit everything about it, but you're like, oh, I guess it pays the bills.

And like that ends when you get rid of it.

I don't know.

Or potentially, you could potentially lose a bunch of money on it

or everything will be okay.

And we're not going to notice and know until it has a no reserve

auction and sells for $1,100.

Well, something to swing us back to positive speaking of the

potential swing.

I mean, have you been think terrible?

Let's go terrible.

Have I driven anything bad?

No, you know what?

Have I driven anything terrible at all?

It was a good, you know what?

There was one kind of terrible thing.

So I drove out to see another bucket list car of mine this year,

2025.

Turned out to be just a bucket.

It was an absolute garbage heap.

And the more it was one of those things when you're like 20,

I'd say 20 yards away.

It looked, it looked every bit the fantasy piece,

but the second he started looking at details,

it just fell apart.

And that was that 1990 grand pre-turbo that I looked at.

Those are fucking unicorns.

Is that still on Facebook?

So no, some other guy bought it for like,

it had to be around $5,000.

And then immediately listed it for $8,500

without fixing any of the issues.

It might, I think they even talked about that.

Yeah, yeah, we definitely brought it up.

So I went to check this car out just for those that

might not have listened.

And 90 grand pre-turbo, really cool car.

Really cool car, V6 turbocharged Pontiac.

I love how those cars look 1990.

I think they aged incredibly horribly.

But I love, I love how they look.

I'm just a sucker for that cladding.

And they had a turbo engine at the time

and they were just kind of neat.

They had a lot of weird features.

The interior was wild.

The steering wheel was like a fucking calculator.

Giant buttons.

So if you've gotten an accent, you would literally have,

I don't know, like radio adjustment,

knob button imprints in your face.

Really good stuff.

But it was a cool car.

ASC McLaren had their hands on it too, right?

So there's a lot of neat stuff going on there.

Really cool car.

Dude, absolutely garbage.

Every piece of that thing was like cracked or broken.

Like the headlights, the taillights, all bespoke too.

You have to find like the grand pre-turbo version.

And the worst thing was someone had taken off the intake.

Like the entire air intake system

and put it like an aftermarket cone and filter.

And was it amazing to drive a Pontiac from 1990 and hear like noises?

Yes, absolutely wild.

But would never pass smog.

And that speaking of bespoke parts,

you can't find that air box anywhere.

God, I feel like you would have to find,

you'd have to get one off of just like a V6.

And just like not even close, dude.

I know, but just like carve it up and like maybe just keep the lid

and just like make it just like look.

So we can like live wildly like a 15 year old to get by a visual.

So how my brain works is the closest thing I found was

like a Toyota Yaris had almost the exact same diameter box.

I did the box diameter measured against other OEM cars.

Trust me, I did my work, Frank,

because I did all the math of what I would take to get this car like decent.

And it was, I was upside down no matter what,

but it was just like a passion project.

But anyway, the real deal breaker was dude,

show me clear California title.

I'm looking over the vehicle and in the door jam.

What the fuck was it? Illinois, Indiana, I don't know.

Michigan, something like that.

Yeah, like fucking salvage.

This car has been like totaled.

Like the official sticker and I'm like,

Hey, what's the story with this?

He's like, Oh, I've never seen that.

And I guarantee, I guarantee that sticker

disappeared right after I did.

So yeah, and I was, he's like,

what's the lowest you'll go?

And he was trying to get like eight for it.

And I was like, I can't go, I cannot go below four.

And even at four, I was fucked.

There was no way I was bringing that car back from under 10.

And it still would have been like a question mark with the intake.

So I think he sold it for five.

He let it go from five.

And then the guy immediately turned it and listed it again.

And it sat on marketplace for another like three months.

And I think the guy pulled the ad down.

So that was a let down.

Did it, it drove.

So there's an air, the ABS system on that car

uses some weird air pump thing and it always fails.

And it's rock hard pedal and I couldn't stop like three

times and had to like slowly half the car

through an intersection and stop and just look around.

Like, yeah, this is, I meant to do that.

Did you guys hear the blow off?

But it's so bad, dude, because the brake system had failed.

So that needed to rebuild.

It drove like kind of horseshit too.

It wasn't, it was not clean.

But anyway, yeah, that was a super, on top of that

was a super let down to find I had like a completely

total salvage title at one point.

So bummer.

Yeah, dude.

Boomer, Dan.

Yep.

Haven't seen another one of those for sale since.

So don't play a new either.

No, I just, I just looked on marketplace.

That one's gone.

It hasn't come back yet again.

Although I did see, because I just, the algorithm

then feeds me other Pontiacs that I'm aware of.

I think I maybe mentioned to you, I found almost the

Holy Grail of bad cars that I want.

1983 Firebird.

Iron Duke.

Three speed auto.

In San Mateo.

Three speed auto.

That's what you want.

You want to get the worst.

I want, yeah, but that's like, if I can get the

Iron Duke was just the four speed.

Nope.

You got to commit Frank.

You got to, the worst thing would be that three speed.

Did I send you the ad?

No, you can view it in real time while I discuss it.

I thought you were going for the worst of the worst.

You need that three speed auto GM.

Fucking horrible slash box.

I mean, it's bad.

And the condition is not particularly great.

Like it's, it's white with a blue interior.

That's kind of cool.

It's got, but like half, like the fenders are

pretty fucking hammered.

There's like surface rust on some of the paint.

Like the, it's got the blue and yellow plates.

Yep.

Which is great, but like the front one, it looks like it's been

like hammered back flat with 17 times.

And I eat, because I didn't say what motor was.

What's this price?

I messaged them.

I'm like, does it smog?

I'm like, yeah, it smogs.

3500.

If it was a, honestly, if that price, even with the warts,

if it smogs.

30,000 miles, that's not right.

I'm sure that's not right.

It's a five digit auto.

So I'm sure it's like two, two, two revolutions.

Yeah.

It's an Iron Duke.

So it's gonna, it'll always run, but never run well.

No, no.

That transmission will fail.

That might be the worst of them.

Yeah.

What is it?

Was that the turbo 200, I think?

Yeah.

I don't, I don't, it's been up for like nine weeks

or something.

So I kind of want to be like 18 cash and like at 18,

it's such, it's almost

being worthy.

There's no money on the other end.

Zero at all.

Yeah.

No.

I'd have to like Earl Shibb the whole car white again,

but it's got the stock wheels, the passenger fenders hammered.

It's got a trailer hitch on it for reasons lost of time.

It's got louvers that are.

Is the interior clean?

I think there's a couple of photos that are garbage.

Yep.

One shows there's like a cover on the driver's seat.

It's all vinyl, like vinyl seats,

vinyl buckets, auto, I don't know.

God, like it'd be like driving an S 10, but like

with no utility and less reliability, probably.

Yep.

Probably.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I just, anyways, that's a tangent.

Should we, should we shut it down?

I think we probably should before we go on more.

We're going to end up talking about more animal semen.

And I'm not prepared for that right now.

It's been a long day, but it hasn't been that long.

We saved that.

We saved that for our non-existent Patreon tier.

What do you want to do?

I say we do a little thing called our,

we've done a few of these in 2025,

our automotive print ad quiz game show.

I'm going to dig up something nasty for you.

Why don't you describe to our fine listeners

what we're about to embark on?

Yeah, let's do it.

Oh boy.

So this is our poorly named print ad quiz game.

In today's emasculating episode,

Chadwick here has found presumably an ad from a print ad

for an automobile from somewhere in the 80s and the 90s

up until around the mid 2000s.

And he will read the copy from this ad

while verbally and manually redacting out.

I love that that's a term that everyone's

deeply aware of now, redacting.

Anything overly identifying, such as the make,

model and year of manufacturer,

because that will be my job is to guess

or just know what the year make and model

of the vehicle in question in this ad is,

I get three guesses, I get approximately 10 minutes,

I can ask for hints in between,

misses on my guesses, but I won't need those.

Please play along at home.

Take notes if you want, Chadwick.

What you got for me?

I got you somebody.

One page ad vehicle, passenger side, three quarter,

kind of a Dutch angle, a little twisty twist to it.

Looks cool.

A wet surface, some mist coming up from the tires,

headlights on, a little bit of opposite lock going on.

Oh, damn.

But don't let that confuse you,

because the car is not anything like that.

So the, I'll be the judge.

You know, fuck it, let's just read everything.

The not so minivan.

Because it has so much true.

It looks like a minivan,

but when you consider everything blank has,

including its bigger truck like feel,

minivan is a misnomer for starters.

A driver's side facial airbag is standard.

I've never seen that in my life.

I've never seen that terminology, but is that,

is that like the Peter North edition?

It's like moisturizing lotion.

From now on, I don't say airbag.

I say facial airbag, by the way.

So our four-wheel anti-lock brakes add optional all-wheel drive,

and you have an extraordinary range of safety features.

The engine, question mark.

Blank comes with a four.

Wait, wait, hold on.

It says the engine?

The engine.

It does say the engine question mark.

The facial engine.

Blank comes with a 4.3-liter V6.

The largest V6 you can buy.

Okay, just in general.

I don't, in the world, I don't know.

Honestly, I mean, that's a big,

that's a lot of displacement.

This is the 90s that we're talking here

based on what I've gathered so far,

and like probably production at the time.

Like probably, I don't like,

yeah, I can't name one off the top of my head.

You're really good at V6.

Yeah, you're really good at figuring out car decades

based on the use of the term

facial in the airbag commentary.

It was, it was no, I guess it was like,

maybe the genital airbag.

Well, maybe just like the concept of Bukake

had not made it over the pond yet.

Well, it's not Japanese.

In 1993 or whenever this ad is,

and so you can use that term

and have it not be just like

deeply off-putting and unusable

in an automobile commercial.

So it's, yeah.

Clearly, we're not talking about a Previa.

But okay, so yeah, that 4.3-V6,

you can, blah, blah, blah,

post exclusive optional Dutch doors.

Rear swing out half doors

for greater driver visibility.

So if you're looking for a van

that's not so many,

the one you should look at is Blank.

From Blank, the most dependable,

longing-lasting trucks on the road.

Blanker rock!

Okay.

Does it say like a rock?

God damn right it does.

Okay, I thought you added that in.

You have no, that was not

creative expressionism.

That was me reading.

Go ahead and tell me

what vehicle we're talking about today.

Got it.

Don't even belabor the point

because you know what this fucking thing is.

Well, here's, yeah.

Well, here's the thing.

So when you first said just like,

you know, truck,

truck-like, truck-based,

I mean, that kind of immediately

brought us to

AeroStar.

Yep.

As an option.

GMC Safari.

As an option.

Chevrolet Astro Van.

As an option.

Did you say,

you said four-wheel ABS?

Did I?

I don't remember.

Did I?

I don't know.

Does matter.

I mean, four-three.

Facial?

Facial.

Spinal.

Four-wheel anti-lock brakes.

Because I think,

I think the AeroStar was rear-circuit only.

Dodge Mini-Vans for

Intimacy.

Unibody.

This is not in a Kotoline.

Four-three.

It's got to be a GM product,

especially when we're like,

like a rocking it.

I think I'm going to like a

rock you,

Obama,

like a wagon wheel.

I'm stretching.

It's been a long day for everyone.

Let's just say,

this is a,

ooh, let's go.

Nineteen.

Ninety-four.

Chevrolet Astro Van.

Final answer.

The not so many van,

because it has so much.

Chevy Astro Van.

1993, my friend.

Okay.

And the old wheel drive was cool

because it had a little red

old wheel drive after the Astro,

which is kind of a cool badging thing.

And the safaris,

I think a lot of those were

old wheel drive too.

Yes.

Which is kind of cool.

They didn't have an old wheel drive badge,

but they just,

they're the same vehicle.

Let's be honest.

I'm curious,

I'm curious like,

you know,

big Chevy Astro GMC safari heads get in,

get after us and let us know.

But it beyond like

basic styling cues,

you know,

like I wonder what the actual

true differences between them were.

Like if some of them are like,

oh, well, the, you know,

the Astro,

you could get the mini fridge,

but the safari you couldn't,

but you can get like the bike rack

or I don't know.

Like the GMC.

So I'll stop you right there.

I've done a little bit of research

because I sent you,

I sent you an example already

because we've,

Frank and myself have talked about

cheap van life challenges.

And I, of course,

I'm going to go full pedo.

I'm going full pedo bear on this one.

Oh, you're going to put them like

popping out of the back window.

Free candy baby.

But the,

so the GMC safaris obviously

have a better interior

for the most part.

And that was like a GMC thing

during the nineties.

So what I've seen,

they're the ones that we can get

the optional like fake leather

and like the,

all the trim is kind of different

on the door cards and the ceiling.

These things are fucking cool.

Like I'm actually,

like I know we're joking about

like doing an insanely,

not going to probably work

cheap van adventure van challenge,

but these things are incredibly cool

vehicles.

If you think about it,

like the,

and now the prices

between two and five K

you can get a running one.

And it's a lot of vehicle

and that motor,

let's talk,

we definitely need to talk about

that four or three is

maybe three or five

missing a couple of cylinders.

Yeah.

Maybe one of the better

engines,

GM's ever cranked out.

I mean,

it's,

what's funny is like

if you talk about a three or

five,

nobody gives the Chevy three or

five the time of day.

Like,

which they should burn oil

and they're no,

they're no good.

And like the fuel injection,

you know,

the,

you know,

the TBI's and

Yeah,

because you have to say 350

to get a get an erection

out of those.

Exactly.

But then like within the same

breath,

people will be like,

oh, they got a four,

three is like a great motor

when it's

closer to a three or five

than it is a 350.

And it's,

yep.

It's,

but,

but I agree.

Yeah.

There's the later ones,

the vortex.

I mean,

they made those until

shockingly recently.

And they're good.

They're stout motors.

They make good power.

Not great on fuel,

but like it's an astro van.

Yeah.

It's a truck.

It's basically a truck,

right?

Yeah.

I did see a guy,

this is a while,

I think a couple of years ago,

it was a guy who on YouTube.

Don't remember the channel

or the name or whatever.

But he had set out to

basically like homebrew

himself a GMC

cyclone.

Okay.

And so he had an S10

and he pulled the

transmission

and front diff

and the all wheel drive system

from like a junkyard

all wheel drive astro van.

Nice.

Put it,

bolted it into his S10

and like maybe I'm sure

like the subframe and stuff.

I don't know if he did a

frame swapper.

I don't remember.

And then he got like a,

like an Alibaba turbocharger

and like cobbled it together

and put down huge power

with like not a ton of work

and like it worked.

It was like,

oh shit,

I did it.

And I was just like,

that's cool and all,

but you sort of just

build all that into the astro.

Like you just turbocharged

the astro van.

Would have been so cool.

And it's so dope.

I'm sure,

I'm sure people have done it.

I'm sure people have

LS swapped astros and stuff.

It's way more of a

dick to access everything

in that though.

Maybe I'm sure it depends.

You know,

I haven't played with one

enough to know

like if it's,

you know,

you pull the doghouse

on the interior.

You do.

But you still have that

firewall separation

where it's like a,

if you're doing like a

turbocharger on a vehicle

that doesn't have a

turbocharger,

that's when you run into

those shitty issues.

I love,

I think these things are cool,

man.

And I honestly,

I would target one of these

for an adventure van

because

get a mild lift kit on there

with the

all the drive system,

some off road tires,

throw a mattress in the back.

You're,

you're there.

Yeah.

And kits are out there.

Like they make kits for them.

It's like you can,

you can do that without

a ton of,

ton of pain.

Yeah.

The four threes up there

in the GM Hall of Fame

with the Buick 3800

to my favorite

NV6s.

Quad four.

The quad four is cool as fuck.

I don't know if it's

reliable,

but we love it.

So we'll go with that.

I feel like they didn't sell

enough of them

for us to ever truly know.

Yeah.

And they're all

that are the rest of the

car fell apart

around the motor.

You know,

that's a hundred percent

true.

But they didn't,

they didn't sell them

in iron Duke volume

for us to,

to know.

God damn shame.

Good times.

I mean,

I've kind of

good job with that,

by the way.

Oh, thank you.

That was a neat,

that was a layup.

Yeah, of course.

But I feel like we got to

go, we got to get,

I don't know.

We're running out of cars.

It's a freaking problem.

Yeah.

But we,

although what we did,

we did a CRX

that we had never done

in four years.

I know, right.

Kind of fucking shocking.

I just, yeah,

I don't know.

Maybe we're just unoriginal.

True.

But the,

I mean,

speaking of unoriginal,

like I haven't done shit.

I mean,

I did,

which is the the,

the freaking,

I shot my water early,

like the airbag deployment.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Talking about the 77 spitfire.

So yeah, I think,

and at the end of the day,

I got it washed to the super dirty.

And I was going to go take,

do photos with it.

And I thought it was just dirty.

No, it's just brown

and like half the paint

is like super flat.

That was a shit.

That was just like,

am I going to spend the energy

to polish this thing out?

I was like,

it's kind of worth,

like if I'm going to,

if I'm going to do the,

if I'm going to do the thing

and polish the turd,

I should polish the turd.

Yep.

And so,

there's a,

let's just say,

inexpensive,

but pretty decent

detailer

that I have access to.

That is just,

was able to like,

oh, I can pick it up today

and bring it to you

like at the end of the week.

And if I,

and I just said like,

hey, just like,

make the black rubber

because it's got the big bumpers,

the huge bumperettes

and dump stuff

because it's a 77.

I was like,

if you can just find a way to make,

make the black plastic-y stuff

shiny and black,

and make the,

what you can of

the,

the dead paint

shiny

er,

because I grabbed,

just like rubbed on it a little bit

and looked like it would come back,

some of it.

I'm like, all right,

just like,

that's fine.

That's all I need.

So 150 bucks,

he's going to do a full detail on it,

which is like,

I'm not going to spend any more

than that on,

on this,

this car is like,

dollar store edition.

And so,

that's kind of where things are at.

So,

Okay.

And he got it today.

So we're going to find out,

hopefully,

I can dodge some raindrops,

get it shiny,

get it shot.

And,

and yeah,

that's,

that's really all the progress I've made.

Other than to confirm that the Lexus

ES 300,

that we've both have

perpetually abandoned,

yeah,

since buying it,

as a little project car here.

I've confirmed the battery is well

good and dead.

Get a fresh one in there.

That's all the progress there.

You know,

throw a fresh unit

and bring it to you

sometime soon

and we'll,

we'll go from there.

Yeah,

I need that.

I've,

I've finished.

You need more,

you need more projects.

I do,

because the tracker,

so I did put the gauge cluster in it.

We talked about this.

So,

I didn't talk about it on the podcast,

but,

dude,

when you have to find a gauge cluster

for one of these trucks,

this is when you run into like

nightmare scenarios

and it's any car with gauge.

These are known for like

speedometer issues.

So,

there's like so many variants.

There's all wheel drives.

There's rear wheel drives.

There's different years.

They had a 16 valve and an A valve

and they all came,

based on packaging,

had different gauge clusters.

So, sometimes you got attacks.

Sometimes you didn't.

Sometimes it was a five digit.

Sometimes it was a six digit

odometer.

So, there's in the thing is,

in a lot of vehicles,

you can interchange them.

They kept OEMs,

kept like the same connections

in the back,

because it was the same stuff.

Not with these geo trackers

and sidekicks,

you have to find the exact one

for your car.

Right.

The only one I could find,

and mine's a low mileage.

Mine has like a hundred

and I want to say 105.

It could be 104.

I don't know.

Something like that, or 108.

Right.

Some are very low mileage

for the year, 95.

The only one I could find

had 200 and something thousand miles.

So, that sucks.

It sucks that I have to swap that in.

But again,

the functionality of having

a working gauge cluster

outweighs the fact

that I don't want to sell it

without a gauge cluster

that works.

Right.

Damn.

Just a pain in the dick.

I'll have to,

obviously the mileage

is all on the car facts.

You can see all the mileage history.

You could just do a

mathematic formula.

I could put a sticky note on it.

Well, all kinds of things to like,

you could get the right mileage.

Because it is a true low mileage vehicle.

But it's just,

dude, that kind of so pisses me off.

But installed that,

which is always a dick.

I hate, Frank.

I fucking,

I'll take an engine apart

any day of the week

versus messing with gauge clusters.

Everything is so fragile.

Old plastic.

Come on.

Yeah.

Like 30-year-old plastic,

just trying to wedge it in there

and just not break it.

At least they're pretty smart.

Like you can do two bolts

in the steering column.

Sure.

Have some flex to it,

which is very necessary.

Of course, the hazard button

can be pulled off too

because they put it right there.

It's just shitty all around, man.

And I don't want to talk about it too much.

But anyway, the trackers done.

So I'm ready pretty much.

I need to clean it up a little bit

and we need to image that one, too.

Sometimes it should be kind of fun.

Yeah.

That'll be a lot of fun.

I think that'll be a crowd pleaser.

Yeah, that'll be a fun track.

And that one, too.

You know, I talked to a friend of the pod,

Mr. Doug Demiro.

And he's down the clown with that car

and do content with it, which.

Oh, cool.

Yeah, which will be fun.

I think it's interesting enough

for everyone and getting the bump

and views that that would bring,

I think, is good.

Because it's a nice car.

It's a great example.

But it's a very good example.

It's got to be one of the nicest.

The interior is like a 9.25 out of 10.

And it's cloth.

Oh, man.

Yeah, and it's got the cool confetti pattern.

And everything's good.

And it's simple.

It's the most simple.

It doesn't have a tack.

You know, five-speed manual.

It's got a tack.

It does not.

It's got a tack.

I swear.

I swear it's got a tack.

Mine does not have a tachometer.

Your tracker.

Oh, sorry.

I was thinking ES300 in my head.

Oh, oh.

It's a track.

Had the tack.

I was like, it's got a tack.

Okay.

Does the ES300 has to have a tack.

There's no way.

Yeah, it's got a tack.

It's too fancy.

No, the tracker does not.

But anyway, yeah, well, yeah.

Well, I need to get you to get that thing out.

I need to get you an ES300.

Uh-huh.

That's what you need to bring.

We probably need to get your ass out of here.

We need to.

Oh, let's go to bed.

I'm tired.

We need to pull the plug before someone pulls the plug on us.

Hopefully you're still listening

and haven't pulled the plug on this particular episode

of the podcast.

Thanks for listening along.

Chadwick, you want to close this out here?

You want to take us home?

Yeah, let's do it.

Let's close up this shit show.

So yeah, thanks again for listening, guys.

Again, if you haven't yet by some weird reverse

miracle, review us on any place you,

whatever your podcast medium of choice is,

go ahead and write a nasty review.

We don't care.

Any press is good press.

Let's go with that.

Let's sell that.

But yeah, go ahead.

Leave a review.

Also, every episode it's put on YouTube, guys.

Check us out in there.

Subscribe.

We are over 100 subscribers, Frank,

which is officially 100 more than we deserve.

But go down there.

Leave some comments.

We do get comments on there, which is awesome.

I actually get a kick out of that

that you guys are watching it on.

Why?

What's wrong with you?

What's wrong with you people?

Yeah.

Like, come on.

Jesus, guys.

I mean, we're not judgy or anything,

but come on.

But no, get on YouTube.

Check us out there.

Follow us on our Instagram,

which has always been nearly abandoned.

I don't know why.

It's not like life support.

Like it's on some fucking battery backup

that no one's worried about.

People message us, though.

Like people tell us some shit.

It's on a battery tender in the backyard,

rusting away.

But check us out there, APA Podcast, guys.

Another pointless automotive podcast.

Frank.

Oh, let me do myself first before I forget.

Auto Obscure Garage.

Check it out, guys.

I need to put some fucking content.

It's been almost a month since I posted.

That's how busy I've been.

I got some Volvo content coming up

and some tracker content coming up.

And a review of a really cool V50 T5

Oble Drive wagon coming up.

So Auto Obscure Garage.

Frank, where can the good people

follow you for your world-class photography

and hopefully some Volvo content?

Excuse me.

Oh, Volvo.

Yes.

And that one.

Yeah.

So The Photographer's Garage on all of the things.

Mostly Instagram, also occasionally on YouTube.

But really, just like, find me here.

This is a place to kick it.

Real quick, because you mentioned

Volvo.

Yes.

And don't do that real quick.

You don't make friends that way.

But no, I just typed real quick into Google.

It's giving our podcast an AI overview.

No, it's hilarious.

And it's pretty, pretty accurate.

Yeah.

Should we, you know what?

Let's do this.

Let's, I feel like we'll just tease that out there.

Google it.

Yeah.

I'm not going to read it.

Check it out.

I'm not going to read it.

Google it, because maybe it'll boost some,

there's some algorithmic bullshit

that'll help us out.

But it's funny.

I was like, oh my God.

There's, AI knows about us and it's pissed.

But no, like honestly, thanks for tagging along.

Big AI doesn't want you to know this one secret.

Exactly.

This one weird trick.

But yeah, no, it's always, thanks for hanging out.

We've got some fun stuff coming up, so stay tuned.

I know we've been teasing that for a long time,

but there is a light at the end of that tunnel.

Until then, sleep peacefully and don't get an airbag facial.

It's not good for anyone involved.

Happy New Year.

Oh yeah.

I hope your 2026 is cool.

Cool and good.

We hope to spend time with you in it.

So yeah, we love you guys.

Take care as always.

Yeah.

Ta ta.

Farewell.

Episode #206 - Drive Anything Good in 2025?

Chevrolet Nova

Mazda MX-5 / Miata

Hyundai Genesis

Jeep Wrangler

Ford Bronco

Ford Excursion

Toyota Yaris

Pontiac Firebird

Toyota Previa

GMC Safari

GMC Cyclone

Chevrolet Tracker

Volvo V50

About this episode

Original notes