Episode #215 - Automotive Grudge Match: Olds vs. Mercury

All right, welcome back to another pointless automotive podcast, Chadwick and Frank with

you again for another installment of this lovely little thing we do. Frank, how does

this evening find you? It finds me turgid and strategically swollen. How about you?

Hungry? Thirsty? I don't know how to react to that statement. I feel you. Yeah, well,

I'd like to. No, no, you don't. Anyway, let's get that out of the way. No, let's jump right

into it, man, because what are we doing? We've done we've done these and it's been a while.

I think we checked back. It's been it's been a significant amount of time that's passed.

Automotive grudge matches. We like to match and we're not. We're not. There's no scientific

like methodology to this. This is just us pitting two OEMs. Usually, I guess we could do models

and I think we have done that before, but we just kind of come at this conversation

and going at it again. No rhyme, no reason. Sinking into the madness. This one, my friend,

we have done. We have done some classics in Ford versus Chevy. We've done Subaru versus Mitsubishi,

Mercedes versus BMW, and that's all lightweight bullshit compared to what we're talking about

today, buddy. And I think this needs to be done. We're going to do Mercury versus Oldsmobile.

And yeah, dude, I think this is a reflection of us. I think this is a reflection of this podcast

because we're outdated. We're defunct. We don't have to pasture. Yeah, this anymore. And these

these two OEMs don't in Mercury and Oldsmobile. So let's fucking get into it, buddy. And

historically, I tend to do like I pick like a category or subcategory and I kind of pick

two models that are best representing that quality in that OEM and sort of hard with these

ones. So it is hard. I got creative and by creative, I mean lack of sleep, too much work,

and I kind of just wrote some bullshit down. Okay, lots of cocahina. I'm going to start off,

my friend. This is it. And I welcome your criticism of this breakdown. But Rad and obscure is how I

title this one. The Mercury Capri XR2 versus the Olds Quad 442. I mean, they're wildly different

cars wildly, but wildly both cool fucking cars in their own rights. You know what's interesting?

Both of these cars is I'm curious what production numbers are. If there are production numbers

out there on them. No. I see Mercury Capris of this era, which for the uninitiated is an Australian

built Mazda engines, front wheel drive, 2C convertible, although frequently sold with a hard

top in NA or XR2 turbocharged guys. Mazda as correct. Whereas the Olds Quad 442 is a front

wheel drive, two door, four seater, pseudo luxury front wheel drive performance, you know, dual overhead

cam quad four. So two very different cars. And you would think the practical, the more practical

when I should say the Olds Quad 442 would be the one that you would still occasionally see.

But for me, I absolutely occasionally see Capris. I don't know if I'm sure I have. I cannot name

a time that I've ever seen an Olds quad 442 in the wild. The quad 442s were actually pretty rare.

Any of the I can't remember seeing a quad four powered Oldsmobile, whether it be a Calais or

whatever, right in the wild to tell you the truth. And to be fair, I see Capri in Capri XR2s for sale

here and there, but I don't I don't really ever see them out in the wild. Oh, I do. I see them

occasionally. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I see a couple of year. Get out of here. A couple of year.

This guy. So apparently roughly 1360 is is the production number of a quad 442.

Insane. Although then this is around 2000 units. So who knows? But let's just say 2000 units.

And then they made like a high performance one with 204 produced.

But yeah, so yeah, pretty pretty uncommon thing. I'm such a sucker for that quad 442.

I've got to go with that. And I think I'm going to say that because it's

believe it or not, I feel like it's a more unique thing.

More wait time out more unique than the convertible front wheel drive turbocharged

Australian built domestic badged Japanese powered car. Yes. Hey, you know how many domestic badged

Japanese turbocharged cars were in the 80s. The Australian part. No one cares about the

Australian part. Australians don't care about the Australian. Yeah. The ghost of Steve Irwin

does not care about the Australian part. Two fucking soon. Come on. It's not like it got hit

by a Corvette Stingray. The thing is in the 80s, there were tons. There were lots of convertibles

from every manufacturer had a had a convertible.

Various sizes, two seaters, four seaters, whatever.

A semi luxury high revving twin cam manual domestic coupe. Yep.

It's a pretty rare bird. That's a pretty unique offering.

And then they slap on the 442 badge, which is like a throwback to the muscle car era,

which is totally like an anachronism to kind of the car. Hang on. But I'm in support of the

anachronism. I think it's dope. So Old Summable, you're picking for this one. I'm going, yeah,

because Quad 4 fires up the old, the old loins region better than just about any other power

plant out there. And the quads for 442 is probably like, is that pinnacle Quad 4 application? It's

right there. It's right there. Body cloudings. Production car. Yeah. I mean, there's the

Achiva SCX, which was pretty special. Yeah, we're talking S tier, right? On a tier chart.

The Capri XR2, though, I got to say a couple of things. Yeah, it's an alt for a Miata,

kind of. Front wheel drive, sure. We'll take it, but you get a 1.6 turbo. Yeah,

Lotus Salon, budget Lotus Salon, if you will. Back seat. It's got a back seat. Oh, it does?

Okay. Oh, you're right. It does. Yeah, it does. Was it optional or did they all have them?

They all had them. So I could chewhorn my kids to add another level of torture to their lives.

You just bust in the back seat. How fun would that be? They would fucking love it.

I don't know. It's got pop-ups. It's got a turbo. It's convertible. It's got a back seat. There's

so much to love about it. It's so unique. There's nothing else really like it. Mercury badge and

all. It's too much. Both of those cars equally want. I couldn't pick a winner,

but I just wanted to shout out how when you say Mercury and Oldsmobile,

you don't jump to these kind of cars, but how cool. Even though you picked Oldsmobile,

they're both immensely rad cars. Can I pick the next fighters in the battle here?

Yeah, round one or round two. Minivans. Shit. Here we go. You go in. You go in Silhouette.

You going... Come on. It takes a villager. Yes, thank you.

Mercury villager, which again is another re-badge. There's going to be a lot of re-badge battle

probably why these OEMs don't exist anymore. But yeah, we're putting that piece of the puzzle

back in there. I'm trying to think, were there ever... Because you could also go... You could also

go... Not quest. I mean, you could go quest. I thought you were going to say quad four powered.

Oh, that'd be sick. That's like quad swap. Okay, no. If I woke up with Bezosian

Monning, quad four turbocharged quad four powered swapped Silhouette. God damn, all wheel drive.

Yes, you do one in the rear as well. So you have a front rear dual quad four. Oh, boy.

God, that'd be cool. But yeah, no, minivan. You go in your Nautica villager or you go in

your Silhouette. They made that buttercup yellow color you can get with the singing doors that

play the little chime when it... I'm team villager because they had so many variants. You're right,

they had the Nautica, but they also had... There were a couple other ones there. I'm a real sucker.

I almost bought a really clean gold because you get two tones. It was gold and green,

that bright kind of forest green with gold badging option. And I thought that looks so

fucking good. So I go Mercury villager in this contest, my friend. I think undoubtedly the villager

is the better thing to own because it won't die as frequently. I think today you roll up into a

Carson coffee in a perfect villager or a perfect Silhouette. Either way, yeah. You are getting

the honeys, if you will, in the Silhouette. And by honeys, I mean men like us. If you roll up in a

perfect Silhouette. Oh, God, yeah, dude. I think... And at this point, that is really the only reason

you own one of these cars is to win the Carson coffee, as they say. So with that, I think I'm

going... I think I'm going to counter you on this. I think I'm going to go Silhouette. Silhouette? Yeah?

Yeah. Ooh. Have you seen the Silhouette of a Silhouette? It's... It's interesting. It's an

interesting Silhouette. It's like Adam Driver's Silhouette. You can't... Okay. I don't think we need

to unpack that. It's like Adrian Brody's Silhouette. Now you're stretching, buddy.

We've talked about stretching last episode. We're not doing that again. We're not going back there.

Yeah, we are. But no, you can't lose. You can't lose. If you can find a clean example,

I'm telling you that villager... It was like a BMX off-road park and it was like these dudes

rolled up and they were younger. So it's like a family-inherited vehicle and you could tell

grandma's fucking treasured piece. And they were just like casually like pulling their bikes out of

it and shit. And I was like, what's the story, guys? And they're like, no, we can't sell it. I'm

like, fuck. It was... It was such a good combo, like that green and gold with the gold badging too.

Oh, brilliant combo. The gold wheels. Can you imagine? So it had the silver, you know, the

gold wheels on the inlay parts. Yeah. It was so clean, dude. Like didn't have a scratch on it.

Can you imagine the people that do come up to them about like trying to buy their car like you

just did? Just the most like unhinged, unwashed, like swath of humanity coming up to them. Can I

buy your minivan? You just perfectly described me, by the way. Yeah, exactly. I came out. I saw it

as I was going into the porta potty and I just about faced still pants half off. I just had to

make an offer, man. Yeah, as one does. By the way, I like how like heavy hitting. We've started out

with minivans and the quad 442 and the... Look, we didn't mess to represent on this grudge match.

It's Mercury versus Oldsmobile, my friend. This is as good as it's going to get and it's never

going to be this good again. But I'll see you thinking. So budget performance sedans. These cars,

these automakers both had two that come to mind for me. And I had the pleasure of owning one,

but so you're... I think you like this one more than the quad 442 a little bit because you mentioned

this one a lot. The Olds Cutlass Calais International, which you could get as a sedan because

this is a sedan competition with a quad 4 and a manual. And those are pretty fucking rare,

like to be brutally honest. Those are insanely rare. And I love how they look. I love... Yeah,

they're cool. They're boxy. They're upright looking. The competition, the Mercury Tracer LTS, which

smaller doesn't look as good still a sedan. But the Mercury Tracer LTS is hidden weapon is Mazda.

It's got a Miata BP engine, which would have been in the NA8 starting there with that 1.8

liter dual overhead cam screamer of an engine stuffed it in a small sedan with a Mercury badge.

That's wild. The luxury Touring sedan, right with a five speed manual and teal. If you shop

wisely. There's probably zero for sale in the country right now. Both of these are both rare as

fuck. Which one? I don't want to keep going back to the well, but I think I got to go Olds on this

one. I think I got to do the international series. It loses... Well, it's funny because it's got the

more luxurious accoutrements, but it still probably loses on NVH because of the quad 4.

It's like an old single cylinder BSA or something. This whole thumper is just rattling around.

But both of these cars don't look like they would have a high revving power plant and they both do.

You got to remember the Tracer LTS 7000 Redline, baby.

And again, it's probably the better car to own is the LTS. Reliability, 100%, right? Like

Mazda gearbox, Mazda BP engine. Yeah, so easy to work on. It's an Escort protege if you need body

panels and other parts. I also pick Oldsmobile, even though I've owned the Tracer LTS. I picked

the Cutlass Cali International. Such a clean looking car, dude. And to pop the hood and see

a quad 4 in that nice little thing. Yeah, it's like the red, the red, thinned valve cover.

So I'm curious what a... Do you think those are a 60,000 mile timing belt interval?

Yeah, I think they are. Yeah, I would say. I mean, there was some stuff in that era would be like

30,000 miles. Like I know 924s, I think are 30. Oh, yeah. 924s and 944s. Yeah, they're like...

Yeah. If that, right? They're even smaller than I think. 15. Whenever you drive the car.

Instead of oil changes. But no, it's both of those cars, like I said, the Tracer LTS,

still near and dear to my heart. I kind of missed that car because it was so

nothing else like it, right? No, it's a Miata-powered little sedan. Don't worry about it.

Like the guy that bought it, was he local? He or she local? Or are they far away?

So the story, I thought he got an update for some reason. He sent me an update. I can't remember

that one. But the funniest thing was him and his friends were doing a cheap car like road trip

challenge and it had to be a domestic for like under a certain price point because I sold it

pretty cheap. I got it for nothing. The thing was, it's kind of fucked because it's a Mazda,

right? Like he's cheating like big time because if everybody else showed up with like Cavaliers

and actual, you know, Ford made domestic parts. Sure. Or like a, I don't know, what else would

be horrible? A Dodge Shadow, which I love, but not a great car. Not a great car. Dodge Avenger

without a Mitsubishi power plant. Right. Yeah. So the Tracer LTS was kind of cheating and but,

you know, it is so obscure you can get away with it, right? Like your friends aren't going to call

you out unless they hear you hitting like 7000 RPM on a manual. No, it's a, it was an interesting

dude. Did it survive the drive? I think, oh yeah. I think he held on to it and he said something

like he sold us some other crazy guy that was like fiending for like fiending for one of these

things. And I'm like, yeah, drop, drop his name somewhere down below because we need to talk.

But yeah, no, it was a, it was a cool, cool sale. Okay. Can I, can I cook up another,

another matchup? And this is going to be a matchup of lineups. Okay. I present to you

the final debt. So the, like the death note year for each manufacturer. Oh, so would you rather

have the 2004 Oldsmobile lineup, which was the last year, or would you rather have the 2011

Mercury lineup? And let me read them to you. Unless you know, do you happen to know the lineups

for each? I can guess, I can, this is my shit-box knowledge base, dude. I think I could name a

lot of these. I bet there's a, there's going to be an intrigue, right? Well, okay. So let's go,

Oldsmobile. So you're going to start with Oldsmobile? So, okay. So 2004 there was not an

intrigue. Oh, they had just very intriguing, but no intrigue. So they had the, what was the

Grand Am counterpart? The, I could, I could draw the car right now. It's the, they offered it in

Coop Incident. They did. It's a Grand Am. It's a Pontiac Grand Am. The Oldsmobile.

Something. Alero. Alero. Alero. You had the Aurora still? No, Aurora was dead. Well, fuck them.

Aurora. No Bravada. It was a three model. They dare called it a four model lineup because they

broke the Alero into Coop Incident. But really, it's a, there are three models. The Alero is one.

No Bravada. Bravada is one. Okay. And then the Oldsmobile, did they keep the silhouette to the

end? The silhouette. Good. There's the 04 silhouette, which was a rebadge of the uplander.

Or was it the Chevy Venture then in 04? It might have still been the Chevy Venture.

Might have been. Yep. Uplander or Venture. The 04 Oldsmobile Bravada.

And Ford Escape. Yeah, exactly. I'm sorry. Not Ford Escape. The GMT360 trailblazer.

No, that's trailblazer platform. That's true. They switched, but yeah, that was along for a

long ways here. Yeah. And then the Alero. So would you rather have that lineup or can you

guess the 2011 Mercury lineup? Also three vehicles. Oh, Mercury. Fuck. That was not one of them. No,

the Mercury fuck was out of production. No, you did get fucked. They were out of

fucks by then. They have sold all of them. I think they kept the Villager, didn't they run that to

the very end? There was no Villager. Villager was gone. Mariner. There is a Mercury Mariner,

which they named after the main character from Waterworld.

I heard that movie really capitalized on its huge budget.

It did. They spent it all on Jack Black. Kevin Costner's sex drugs. I don't know.

Yeah, probably. It's got a rumor here.

That's why they filmed it at sea. So it's in international water. So we can do deeply terrible

things. Human testing. Yeah, okay. So yes, the Mercury, Kevin Costner's Waterworld Mariner.

Two others. Sable. Mercury Sable at the end, right? No Sable. We're Sable-less. The Milan, sorry.

Yeah, the Mercury Milan. Shout out to this year's Olympics. I can't remember my mom's birthday.

So I don't, I'm assuming it's pushed out by this knowledge base. So the Milan, how many vehicles?

They have like, you can get a five speed in them. You can get a believe even in a six

cylinder. You can get a five speed in those Milan's. That's not true. No, a six speed. It was a six

speed. It might have been only in the four cylinder, but you could get, you could get a manual. I've

seen one. Now I'm going to look. I've seen one. And then there's one more, the Mercury that would not

die. Was there an end? No, it's not. Not an endeavor. Why am I thinking endeavor? That's

a rumor. And again, just, just like the end of Oldsmobile, it was also platform shared with

something else. Mercury. Not that, well, the Mariner was deeply platform shared too.

They all were. Yeah, they all were. Every one of these cars is a platform shared car.

Intrigue? No, that was, that wasn't Oldsmobile. I'm crossing my cross streams. Never cross streams.

I'm dead. I don't know. Give me a hint. I better get it. You're going to kick yourself for this one.

The Mercury Grand Marquis. True. Yep. Panther platform. Yeah. So would you rather have

11 Grand Marquis, Milan and Mariner, which are all kinds of M's, right? Grand, but Marquis,

Fair. Milan, Mariner or Oldsmobile, Alero, Bravada, Silhouette.

I think I go Oldsmobile because you get, you kind of get a truck, you get a minivan, and you get

a piece of shit. But Grand Ames are cool. I have a soft spot for Grand Ames. I can, I can

kind of get behind that. Honestly, like the Alero Coupe doesn't look too bad. No, they, it's, it's a,

it's a Grand Am without bodyclimbing. It's all it is. A little bit more sleek looking. Exactly.

You know, more leathery leather, I guess, grounded to the ground. I don't know.

Would you say Connelly leather? Yeah, not Connelly leather, not Rich Carinthian leather,

not harvested from children leather. Wheel penis. Yeah, not whale penis leather interior.

Your shout out to the darts prom brawn or LeBron. LeBron's leather. No, nobody wants that.

So Oldsmobile. I think, I think, I think I go Mercury. Really? I would get a Mercury,

Mariner hybrid feels like it would actually be a reasonably okay daily. And you get a four by four

if you really wanted to get crazy. Yeah, yeah. The Milan is a completely, I think, I mean, it's,

it's a, I think a Mercury Milan, a 2011 Mercury Lawn is a better nothing than the, than an Alero is.

No, get the fuck out of here. The Aleros, you could get the manual. That year you had that

three, four GM corporate V6. You get the, you don't want the three, the, the three liter

of Duratech. Come on. No, I don't. Come on. You don't actually don't. You don't want half an Aston

V12 as a bunch of clowns like to claim. Nope. I absolutely don't want that. And I think you

can get a hybrid in that too. Come on. Get some MP Jesus. Come on. Oldsmobile in this one, buddy.

You know what? Here's the thing though, death nail, the absolute slam dunk in my favor on this.

In Mercury's favor, I should say. Panther platform. Yeah, it's a good one. It's a good one.

Mercury Marauder was the best. It was, it was gone by 11, unfortunately. No, for sure, but

still the best Panther. Have you driven a Marauder? I haven't driven a Marauder, like so many Crown

Vicks, so many grand marquis. I want a Marauder and I need, I will not drive a Marauder without the

leather jacket on. I came with it with the, the kind of dope like Mercury logo, like the, the

side profile of Mercury Head. You can't, don't even come at me if you're wearing a Marauder jacket.

I mean, invitation is open. Don't come at me with a Marauder jacket unless you've caught at

least three domestic charges. Like that's all I'm going to say. Don't, don't fake that shit, dude.

Be real. Real, real, real Marauders. The real motherfuckers out there. Yeah.

You see, I just imagine you're like in some seedy bar in the middle of nowhere and you're

sitting there and all of a sudden you're like the, like the, the shitty half door flop open.

Yep. Some guy walks in and he's like putting a cigarette out on the fucking heel of his boot.

He's wearing a Mercury Marauder jacket. Oh, dear shit. Fuck. Look at that badass motherfucker.

Just like totally. Yeah. It's just like the, the baddest man in town just rolled in. It's so bad.

It's so bad. I have driven one not far. I just ran one down the block and back.

Kind of like outrageously disappointing. Of course. It just drives like, oh, I guess it

feels faster than a normal Grand Marquis. Like it doesn't, it's not sporting at all. But they look

cool. The bumper with the Marauder engraved is, it's fucking cool, right? Yeah. They look great.

I honestly think it would be great to, to buy one and then just put a, like immediately put

a blower on it. Not cheap anymore. Not cheap. I don't think they were ever cheap. Honestly.

They dipped. Yeah. Everything kind of dipped. I think, I think that was the car to buy in like

2012. I think you could score one of those, probably the bottom of that. And then people held

on to it. Right. Wasn't Matthew Marauder trying to save us from the end of the world in 2012?

Yeah, but not in Marauder. That was a major oversight by the filming.

They should have done that. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck them.

Well, they couldn't have done it in 2020. Yeah. Yeah. 2012, famously the year after

Mercury died in 2011. How about this? What you got? Bro. We'll call this one clone wars.

Both of these vehicles have near infinite amounts of like bad sharing, name changing,

exact platform sharing. Bravada. We have Bravada taking on the Mercury Mariner.

Oh, okay. But like full line. This is why it's called clone wars. So these are,

they're two like full on trucks, right? Like these are truck-ish. Sort of. For the, for the,

for the brands. The Bravada is far more truck actual body on frame. Correct. Then the Mariner.

But both of them represented SUVs during that initial SUV craze, right? Like, well,

not the initial one, but the second coming of SUVs in that time period. Would you,

what would you do? Would you take the S10 Blazer clone, the earlier Bravado?

Right. Bravada against the Ford Escape clone, which is the Mercury Mariner.

We're not talking about them. Don't get it mixed up with the fucking Mazda.

Do you think anyone, do you think anyone has ever actually been

in a Mazda tribute, right? Like sitting in a parking lot and someone comes up and is like,

hey man, sick Mercury, uh, you know, sick Mercury, uh, Mariner. And they're like, no, no, this is,

this is, this isn't, this isn't a Mariner. This is just a tribute. Do you think you've ever

ever pulled that off? It's brilliant. My buddy, a good buddy of mine that I'm still buddies with,

Steve from grad school, where I met him. He had a Mazda tribute, which we called the Mazda

Roddy, which is very fitting for a Mazda tribute. Um, no, I think he's the only one I've ever known

that driven, has driven one of those fucking things. You don't even talk about a vehicle. You

don't, there's a clean, there's a clean one on like right down the road from my, my kid's school.

And like when we, we walk to school on Fridays and we, when we walk, we walk right by it every day.

It's a green tribute hybrid.

Jesus.

Late run.

And, uh, the cool interesting, that, that had to have been Mazda's first hybrid, right?

It has to be, right? I think so. I don't know what else it would be.

And probably the only one for a while, because like, they have a CX, what CX five, CX 50 hybrid

now, which is actually just the powertrain from a, a RAV four hybrid.

Yeah. But those are all like super modern. Yeah. What, what did they,

that's a good question. Mazda was not, and still is not big on the hybrid game.

Didn't have it in a B2, 200. That's for sure.

No, that is for sure. Um, so we are going widely off script, which is what we do here.

Well, what are we doing? You doing bravada?

Mariner. I think I have to go bravada. I like them. I actually, I like that last gen Mariner.

Um, the boxy one. Yeah. That's just a, an appliance. That's what it's good for. They're

pretty well, like they're pretty well built. Those hybrid ones are actually pretty reliable

because it's a Mazda tribute to Mazda engine, but all the hybrid components are all licensed from

Toyota. Right. So, and then like, Oh no, a window regulator broke. It's like $11 because

it's just a Ford part and they sold those for ever. So I, as a, as I, an item to use in like,

as a thing, probably the Mariner, but I got to go bravada. Even the end run bravada, we just kind

of dunked on a little bit. Uh, the trailblazer stable mate. Good little truck. Yeah. Yeah.

Those are, those are reliable. Those 4.2 Atlas, six cylinders, pretty good. And then the earlier

ones, like the, like the four three, you know, those are like, talk about something that looks

dated today. Like those look, they're always in that like kind of eggplant meets burgundy purple.

Hey, I wish, I wish they had, you could get a manual. That's the only like strike against the

the early ones. They're S 10 blazers. I wish GMC Jimmies for all your hardcore folks out there.

I wish you could get a five speed stick in them, but still that three vortex, quite a motor.

I wonder, and I'm going to try and search it up real quick. Could you ever get a Mercury

Mercury Mariner in a manual? I don't think I've ever heard of that being a thing.

Could you could get earlier early escapes? You could. Yeah. Base, base escapes. You could get

her the Manuel. I don't know if a Mercury badge vehicle would do that, but we have trace rail

TSS. So why not? Apparently specifically 08 and 09.

There was a very rare, like you could apparently actually spec one. You had like custom orders

or some shit. According to the internet. Yeah. Oh, six Mercury Mariner on motor trend on the review.

Five speed manual in the four cylinder only. It was available. Huh. I don't know. I'd like you to buy

me. I'd like you to buy that and try to get that hype train going. Guys,

I'm here with one of the rarest Mariner variants you could get. And then you have to subscribe.

Hey guys, welcome to Mariner TV. Like it's all like an only Mercury Mariner based YouTube channel.

Let's face it, it didn't get more traction than mine does. So yeah, I was fair. That's what I do.

You're like, not a lot. We do it in an interior like pan and then you go back to the manual and

you're like, smash that fucking button. Yeah. As I one guy in one jar, the manual shifter here in

my Mercury Mariner 2008, 2009 only. The market's going up. Yeah. No, it's not. I'm gonna find one.

And then you get them along. You are not. You get them along manual. I promise we can't find either

of those fucking vehicles, dude. They're gone. I've seen CardoNation got in a, this is probably

two years ago. They got in a manual Milan 25 4-cylinder. It was in decent shape, but I think

there was something terminal with it. Like it had like a rod knock or something. Both of those

vehicles. There's one no-name company that makes a clutch kit for it when your clutch goes. And

you have to use that one. I guarantee it. There's no... Knowing Ford, it's probably some clutch

kit for like a Ford Mondeo that they sold in droves in Europe. But not in the States. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. That's how I'm saying it. You're gonna find it. Yeah, you just got to order it from like

the UK division of Ford. Ford Europe, you got to like pay fucking tariff on it. Yeah. Horrible. But

yeah. Did you decide? Are you Team Provada or are you Team Mariner? I am. Yeah, for that reason

that 4-3 Vortex is like a better motor in my opinion. And the early ones were epoxy. I kind of

like it. I kind of like it. I can do it. I'm an assembler, guys. So do it. I'm into it. Yeah,

brilliant. Have you as your well run dry? Because I got another one that's kind of...

I do want to get another one. I'm just kind of debating, why don't you do yours first? Because

I just want to like... The one I wanted to talk about is just like the history of each brand.

Just pinning that. But I think that might be best served as like a dessert. So why don't you do

yours? Okay, let's do this one. This one's called Deliveries in the Rear. So this title, besides

being a layup for a grinder joke for you, pits two rear wheel drive cars. Like the piece of their

EMS. Of course. Yeah. They all hit all circles back to that, doesn't it? So rear wheel drive.

So both of these automakers really produced front wheel drive majority of their existence

in modern times. Well, the modern. Yeah. Yeah. What'd you get to like the 90s? Because before

that. It was really hard. Yeah. No offerings, right? But that's not true. In the 90s, there were two

vehicles and each one of these OEMs had one. You had the Mercury Cougar XR7, right? And then the

Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser, which was their Caprice rebadged wagon. Both of these cars,

rear wheel drive and very different. I think we can agree. But the last, these were the last

breaths of their rear wheel drive offerings, not counting like their base model SUVs, right? So

we're talking like just rear wheel drive cars. This is, this is what is, this is it, baby. The

last breath for these guys before they went full front wheel drive or wrong wheel drive,

is mostly wrong. Fuck, dude. Where are you going with this, dude? All right. If you came, if it

came down to it, like which one would you pick is the better vehicle and something you'd probably

want to own? Boy. And actually just really quick thinking back to the Bravada versus Mariner.

Do you can't let it go, Ken? Yeah. Well, no, I just just had a thought. Do you think the real

matchup should have been Bravada versus Mountaineer? That's fair. Like for the size.

For the size, body on frame. But it was called Clone Wars, dude. I think, I think the Mariner

definitely had more like rebadges. Right. Cause it was really just, well, I guess two

in, cause you had obviously Explorer and kind of the Navajo, even though that was earlier,

that was the first gen. Still counts. Still counts. Either way. Okay, task at hand.

Sorry, there's too many Oldsmobiles and Mercury. We thought this was a jerky grudge match. It's

legit. Exactly. Fucking serious, bro. Hey, I need you to lock in. Yeah, head in the game. The,

okay. So the XR7 question, they did, they did a variant. They did a Cougar variant of the

Supercoupe, right? You can get an XR7 with a Supercharged six owner. I believe so. And not

simply the, could you get there? You're referring to Thunderbird SC? Yep. Yeah, the Thunderbird

Supercoupe. I got to look this up. I hate to spend like a bunch of time just fucking googling

bullshit, but I'm going to, I'm going to do it. God damn it. Cougnut XR7 Supercharged. I think the

one I was referring to in the nineties was the modular four six, right? Well, they did both.

So you had the 5.0 for a while and then the modular was the end run. Yeah, you could. Yeah,

so they did the Supercharged XR7. Could you get a manual? And you could get that in a manual.

Yeah, so they just took the Thunderbird SC. Yeah, but they just made it, you know, restyled it.

So that versus, which is wildly different, wildly. See, the only problem you could have about the

V8 in a wagon. Yeah, the only problem I have about the Vista Cruiser is that that car only ever

got the 305, so the five liter V8. Whereas the Roadmaster, which didn't have the cool like glass

panels in the roof. Correct. But the Roadmaster you got with a little bit later, you got the LT1

in it, the 260 horse LT1. At the very end. Yeah, yep. So and it's not defunct brand Buick,

but pretty much. Yeah, I mean, it's beyond a zombie Buick. So I, I love, Vista Cruisers are

very cool. I think I got, I think I got to, I think I got to go with the Supercharged manual

Cougar. And I don't think I don't think I want to, but I'm gonna. Okay. I've never driven one of

those in Supercharged form. I've driven them in the five liter V8 or no, four, six. I drove a

four, six one. And it was utterly uninspiring. I think as an auto, I think the XR7 looks cool.

Yeah, I think it's kind of a cool looking car, right? Just like this, I think the Thunderbird

Supercoupes are fucking super cool looking cars. And they had the turbo one before that,

which was also pretty cool. I think a big car, big car, but yeah, cool car. I'm with you.

I'm with you on this one, man. I think personal luxury coupe Cougar XR7.

I think Cougars are cool in general and cars, but I think, right. Yeah. No, we've established a

couple of episodes ago that I think, you know, Cougars for us are now just like just our peers.

Yeah, exactly. Our wives are freaking appropriate individuals to court.

It loses a little glamour, doesn't it? A shout out though, and I know you're gonna go through a

history lesson here and I can't wait for it and I'm into it. But the new Cougar deserves a little

shout out too because that was probably one of the wildest design exercises Mercury did in their

modern like going out of business era. The 99, 2000, yeah. Which I think I would get a yellow

V6 manual and I would actually enjoy that car. Those are pretty sweet. I like they have like

denim blue. Okay. I think that would be like there's a denim blue, they have like a dark

metallic red that's pretty good. Okay. But I don't know that yellow just is it's so cool.

The two five manual, yeah. It's like he I'm trying to I try to be PC. It's really challenging for me

guys. But the I feel like it's a how do I how do I say this a an undeveloped second gen eclipse

in the style department. I think they tried to shoot for that, right? And it just it came out

a little a little behind the curtain under on the intelligence scale. But that being said,

I think they're cool. And I think they kind of pair well with that second gen Tiburon

V6 manual. I think those are a lot of that similar design. Yeah, a lot of a lot of overlap

in what you're looking for with those two cars. So yeah, no, those are cool. And I think

God, now I would like to get my hands on one of those supercharged for 38 manual.

Those are a car though, I bet. Boy, those would be hard to find though. I bet you they're hard

to find. And there's a lot of cars that are hard to find. And when you find a good one,

they're like, probably more than you want to spend, but not like unhinged. Sure. I've got a

feeling that every one of those XR seven manual, late run Cougars, like a 97 or whatever, 96.

Every single one of them is probably owned by someone who I know what I have and they want

$28,000 for it. No way. I was going to say like eight to 10. I was going to say eight to 10 for

drivers. They should be like a perfect one for like eight, but there's going to be someone who's

got like, you know, they only made like however many of these and this one's got 66,000 miles.

And it's in the one, it's in the red color over tan, which with the polished wheels were only,

you know, like it's going to go full Corvette Corvette. And so it's going to be, yeah, that's

going to be the same owner. And it's going to be the same ass like, Oh yeah, like I know what I have

and they've had it for sale for like 17 years. Yeah. Those for quadruple, what it's for Cougar

manual. God, I bet the take rate was so low, dude. Like, right? Yeah. But it doesn't mean I don't

want one. And I would love, I would love a great one at eight grand and drive it around for a year

and then sell it for eight grand. That back flat glass kind of like a Chrysler New Yorker. It's

got the absolute like fucking up and down perpendicular rear glass. I love that shit,

they'll never do that again. Speaking of which, oh, what do you got that? So that's, that's part

of what I wanted to discuss. It's like some of the more a some of the more classic stuff,

but then just the general history of each brand, like which, which, you know, CV, if you will,

from each manufacturer. Okay. Do we think is like the superior one, right? And you mentioned that

upright glass because there was a chunk of time, I got, I want to say from like 63, like 68 ish,

somewhere in there. Yeah. Mercury had their, have you ever seen these? They call it the breezeway,

where on, I think, most of their models, I don't think on the comments, but on like the

the mercury Monterey and on like the mercury meteor and on the mercury

Park Lane and some of that like shit that like neither of us really know anything about, right?

They would have, if you've ever seen one, it's bonkers looking where it was the rear glass. So

you'd have like a sedan, right? Like a pillarless sedan. And the rear glass wasn't just completely

vertical. It was actually canted forward a little bit, like, like it kind of checked back in and

it would power recline just down into, but like behind the rear seat. So you would have your door

runner almost, right? Exactly. But in a sedan with a, like where the bottom is sitting farther forward

than the top. It's wild. And so it can't forward and you power recline it. And it was the breezeway

because the concept was you roll the wind, all the windows down, you roll that down and you're

just air through kind of like on a forerunner. And it's a very cool thing. And both of these

companies in the sixties, seventies and way earlier have some really crazy stuff.

Yeah. Oldsmobile, whether it's like rocket stuff, it's ADA, all that kind of crazy shit.

Yeah. And 99. Yeah. And the turbocharged, like the old jet fire, which together with the Corvair

were the first production turbocharged vehicles. And back earlier. So like old started in, I went

like 1897-ish. Right. Yeah. And I want to say Mercury was like 1937-ish, maybe a little later.

I think late thirties. And until, you know, until their demise, you know, almost 100 years later

and over 100 years later for, I guess, for old. So like, there's a lot to unpack there of the

stuff that we didn't discuss. Right. Where they were talking the actual, like the, like a 1968

Hearst Olds, you know, like 442 or a Mercury Cyclone or the Mercury Comet or the fucking

Olds AeroTech. Yes. Content for which I am obsessed with. I love like fucking out of control.

They had like, they made like a few different ones, like longer tail, shorter tail. And they

set, what was like the bonkers speed record they set in that thing? It was like 170.

It was the Bonneville Salt Flats too, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With a turbocharged Quad 4.

So cool. And just like the body of work, like both of those, when we talk about, you know,

the 04 Olds and the 11 Mercury and how kind of like middling and sad those lineups were,

as compared to all of the earlier accomplishments, it's easy to forget about how impactful and

powerful those brands were for like a hundred fucking years. Yeah. So like, what do you, like,

if you had to just pick a body of work of like this versus that, what do you, what do you think?

It's, it's tough because like you said, there's, there's some pretty good stuff there. I got to

go Oldsmobile, man. I think I just think they've got the wider breadth of design was wild. But just

they've been around so long. They did so well. And then even the Aurora couldn't save them.

Even Tiger. Tiger Woods couldn't save. Couldn't save it. Maybe he was driving one.

His wife said golf club strikes wouldn't have been as critical. Could have been. Yeah.

Critical damage. Yeah. I give Oldsmobile, and I think psychological damage inflicted.

Oldsmobile won it for me anyway, by the way, on this competition. I think they

edged out Mercury. I, you know, in, in like thinking back and where we started off with

the obscure stuff too, I, I like, I like what both these companies did in their oddball,

like 80s and 90s stuff. And then it was absolute just garbage after that, right? Like they just,

they stopped, they stopped being inspiring any degree. I mean, I'm saying like, I like an Aurora.

It's cool. It's a grand am. Technically, the original one is not an Oldsmobile.

Technically. Right. Right. Just like the original Comet for like the first couple

of years was just the Comet. It wasn't a Mercury. The Aurora. The Aurora, right? Was one of those

like the Buick Riviera? Same kind of thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. And want to put the badge on there?

Yeah. So I think, I think I have to agree. I think I have to agree. Because you had like,

even like, like pre-war shit, which Mercury didn't participate in. I mean, technically,

I guess like whatever, 39. But pre-war, pre-war, you had like the curved dash

old and drove like a tiller and like crazy shit and like brass era stuff. Yep. And then, you know,

as I said, with the turbocharged and, and, you know, the diesel stuff, which gets a really bad

wrap. And a lot of that is very earned, you know, but like the Oldsmobile diesel stuff

is certainly interesting and was as flawed as those were. They were, you know, cutting edge

for, for, for their time. Good stuff. And, and yeah, until like the, the, the AeroTech and the

Quad 4 and stuff like that. So, you know, as much as it's like, not like talking about like the old

cutlass, like rebraged, you know, the fucking Malibu or, you know, the Delta 88 and run stuff,

the Malays era, you know, both of these manufacturers were a pretty bad spot in the

Malays era. And then they kind of flashed in the pan for a moment in the late 80s to mid 90s. And then

yeah, a sad, a sad ending to two powerful brands. But yeah, I think I got to go, I think just on

innovation, I got to go with our, our friends at Oldsmobile.

And I'm with you. This grudge match started off kind of a joke. It ended as a joke,

but it's, there's still some cool cars to be harvested out of these two OEMs. And I'm not

talking during heyday. I mean, historically, yeah, they had some legitimately, like these were two

recognizable brands that did well, right? But there was still during our lifespan,

some pretty cool offerings wearing the badges. Now I'm not here to check the DNA

to tell you whether they were actually from that OEM or badge engineering operations. But

at the end of the day, we can agree there are some pretty damn cool cars that wear these badges and

go get yourself a Mercury link links XR2. Come on. XR3. That's what I meant. Sorry. XR3. Yes.

God damn it. XR2 is the, I've had one saved on my marketplace forever. That's an Escort GT,

first gen. That's silver one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's been sitting in a motton. I've seen it.

Yeah. It's been in a while. I saved it day two because that's my jam, Escort GTs. But the, it's

just, you know, I think you can still find something fun with these automakers and they're

not going to make anymore. So secure them now, bring them back, have some fun with them because

they're gone. They're gone forever, guys. We should do, we should do a resurrection episode

at one point. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. We don't have. Yeah. Not an erection episode. That's on the

late night confidential. You got to pay extra. That's going to save every episode for me, but

okay. Fair enough. Yeah. Well, no, that's, it's the reveal, if you will. Or like, um, it's a,

it's a short for me. But you ever see like, um, where, um, God, what is it called when you do

like a, like a bear with me? We don't have a choice. Maybe not when you, but when people,

they do like a rub. And by that, again, bear with me. Where you, where you get like, what is it?

You get like a crayon and you put it on its side or a chalk and you like put a piece of paper on

you like rub over it so you can see the outline. I'm blanking. I know exactly. I think it's called

like a, like making a rub. I think it is a rub. Like you could do like a maple leaf would be a

standard one or a gravestone or something. Anything that has any kind of like dimensionality to it.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's, yeah. So that's how we're going to do the reveal is we're going to do a

rub. I usually reveal more after a rub. Yeah. Not during.

It takes a while nowadays. My friend, right, right, right. Fair. They make pills for that.

If I remember, remember, um, if you, uh, rub for more than four hours, um, with no results,

consult a physician. Fair enough to seek medical attention. Um, speaking of seeking medical attention,

hopefully I will not need medical attention after this, um, uh, game what we're going to play,

because I will get it right and I won't be so sad at myself for getting it wrong.

That I make poor decisions and will require medical attention. Um,

they call that a segue, uh, for our game chat. Do you have something ready and, and I'll can.

I do. Uh, walk, please walk our, uh, wonderful listeners and viewers if you're on YouTube.

Hey, how you doing? Walk them through what we're about to take a magical journey on.

Ooh, come with me and you'll see, um, a game show that we're going to play, uh, called our print ad

quiz game and what, uh, Chadwick has already found, hopefully, uh, an ad from some sort of, uh,

publication, uh, print ad from the eighties nineties to the two thousands. He's going to read the type

copy from this ad. I will then have, uh, roughly 10 minutes, roughly three guesses.

I get hints in between if I need them to try and figure out deduce based on the type copy

and the conversation and details they're in to come up with the make, model and approximate

year of the car at hand. I'm ready. Chadwick is ready. Are you ready to your listener? I don't

know. Play along at home. Let's go. It's good fun. Um, yell at your TV. Yeah, beat Frank at this. Uh,

so my friend, here's what I got for you. Two page spread. You deserve nothing less. Uh, vehicle

is kind of front and center. We got passenger side, three quarter angle, uh, cool shot behind it,

chalk drawing, kind of like pastel crayons. We have bicyclists competing in a race and

swimmers competing in a race. Oh, and it says, are the swimmers racing towards an egg? It's,

it's human ejaculate and cement. Oh, good. Absolutely. I saw the, saw the bicyclists oddly.

How do they get there? So the tagline is get in the game. So I, this, this print ad is horrible

quality. So I'm going to be, uh, put the old peepers on because we're not getting any younger.

What do we get in here? Um, so it is a two pager and it says, oh my God, this didn't make it any

better. Uh, hello microphone. Come to me. Uh, every great team needs a serious starter. So that's

the reference to the, uh, the little, uh, team based relay and the blank is one ambitious competitor.

Did they not want to call it an anchor? Well, that would have been because here in the anchor

position, you're the fastest. The anchor is always the fastest. I know, but they didn't say,

they didn't want to call their product an anchor. They didn't, they didn't want to say,

hey, every team needs an anchor. You know, who could do that mercury mercury could get away.

Exactly. Yeah. They're at the bottom of the sea from car batteries. It's taught in parentheses

like a toy. Good. No, I just, I made that part upside. Uh, it's taught athletic exterior to

a flexibly spacious interior. Okay. Question. Is there any way that you can do it more into the

mic while also reading that? Is it that quiet? I'm sorry. This is a little bit. Let me try to read

this. This is going to be this note. I can't let me see how far my microphone can go or I can

hold my other laptop up. Okay. Here we go guys. This is, yeah, there we go. It's just, it's just

sexier. Do you need me to start over Frank? No, no, no, you're good. Okay. So we'll start off the

last one. I'm going to say Todd again. Uh, from it's taught athletic exterior to it's

flexibly spacious interior. This nimble three door coop is that's interesting already is cross

trained to handle almost any event with grace and style with a tech specs incoming 1.9 leader

engine tuned for more power. And I'm going to leave the pricing up for now. Okay. That's

right on the mark. The blank is a perfect. Pardon me. There is some, would I show you this? It's

perfect for active individualists who individual take something, take their fun and their value

seriously. Wow. I will not read the tagline because that'll give it away. So we've got

some stuff there. That is the ad Frank. Okay. Wow. Not a lot. I got a 1.9 powered. We've done

worse. Sorry guys. Oh, for sure. That was challenging. 1.9 leader, three door coop. It

didn't say sports, but sort of. And it's for the, the adventurous rugged individualist

who also enjoys a value. Yeah. So when I hear 1.9, I immediately think of score GT 1987.

Kind of. Yes. So I think of Ford. How dare you in the escort. I think of Mercury in its links.

There's not a lot of 1.9s. I can't think of a Toyota or Honda product. That's a 1.9. I can't

think of a Mazda product. I can't think of anything from Japan. That's a 1.9.

I think in the spirit of, I can't think of any Chrysler products. I can't think of any GM.

1.9 is such a, such a small, it's a unique, such a small pool to draw from. There's like

Nat buzzing around. Came out of nowhere. John Cena, Nat. I think I'm gonna get in the spirit of

out of nowhere. I'm thinking I'm gonna go, I'm gonna say Mercury. I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say

this is a 1986 Mercury Lynx. I didn't feel, it didn't feel sporty enough for me to lean into the

aforementioned XR3. So I'm just gonna say this is a 1986 Mercury Lynx LX. I guess. I don't remember

the other, the bass drum. Final answer, Bob. This is not a Mercury Lynx. That would have been great,

though. What if, what can I do to help you? Let me see if I say anything. I can help direct you.

Without asking too much. I mean, I just like pretty, pretty blatantly assumed this was a

domestic manufacturer. Is that correct? You did. You did do that. It's, it's not. Okay. We're not

domestic, my friend. Not domestic. So a 1.9. I can't think of a Volkswagen that was 1.9. There was a

1.7. There was a 1.6, 1.7, 1.8. Don't think they had a 1.9. Well, they might have. And then the two

liter forever. I can't think of an Audi product that had a 1.9. I can't think of a Mercedes Benz

product that was a 1.9. I can't think of anything from,

God, was there a Volvo or a Saab that was a 1.9?

I thought I got it. Was there a B19? I can't think of one. I don't know. B20, B23, B18,

Volvo products. So could it be Japanese?

God, is this like an obscure Mitsubishi, like the, like the ghost of the Mitsubishi Cordia?

Three door coupe too, remember? Yeah.

Mitsubishi Priestsies, however, I never knew how to pronounce that thing.

Which, God, it could be,

could it be a Hyundai XL? I don't think that was a 1.9. Riddle me this.

I mean, I, the entire, like this entire exercise is dependent on me knowing 1.9.

It is. Well, it leans in. It's, I will say this car only came in a three door coupe configuration.

Sure. So that, that helps a little bit. It's also leaning on a sporty attributes.

Sure. Man. 1.9. 1.9 is interesting. The displacement is very interesting.

But you are, I will tell you, you're missing some 1.9s for sure. I, clearly. Not just this guy either.

Boy, I mean. You got two strikes left. I'm trying, yeah, I know. And I'm trying to think if there's

a Volkswagen, if, if I frequently forget about Volkswagen in their catalog, I'm not a Volkswagen guy.

You're kind of famous for that. I'm not anti-Volkswagen. I just never, and there's some

stuff that I would love. I just haven't, that's what anti-Volkswagen people say, by the way.

This is true. Yeah. They're called not Nazis. Wait, what? Antifa. Big. Antifa is anti-Volkswagen.

Oof. Boy. I'm just going to have to, I'm,

is this a? Golly. Is this a Volkswagen? Is there, trying to think if there's some Volkswagen

golf, if there's some dumbass golf variant that somehow is, has a 1.9 in it.

Because I wouldn't be a GTI. It would be more sporting and injected and bullshit, I think than this.

It's sporty, but not that sporty. This is not a G60 Corrado. I don't think it's a

Scirocco. Fuck. Three door, quote unquote, coupe. This is making for impressive listening,

I'm sure. Yeah, it is. This is a tough one. But you are missing quite, I'm not saying you're missing

like some niche 1.9s, but you're missing some big ones. You really are, buddy. They're not that

good. Golly. Take a stab, Captain Stavell.

Bold proclamation. Unless it is a diesel.

That'd be fucking weird if they never mentioned it was a diesel. They just call it a 1.9.

Okay. Is this a

1996 golf Volkswagen Golf?

It is not a Volkswagen Golf. It is not a 1.9 TDI, which is the very common Volkswagen diesel

engine. Yeah. This vehicle, rural drive. Oh, that's a big drop. It did not mention that in the ad.

So we're not domestic. It's not a fucking Volkswagen. And it's certainly isn't a real

drive. 1.9.

Although tech, I think technically Volkswagen did make a 1.9 real drive. Is it the very

earliest still air cooled van again we got, I think was a 1.9 before it was the Wasser Boxer.

But that's before a 2.1. That's before our fair game, right?

I think 81. Oh, was it? Okay. But also like, no.

But definitely not a three door coupe. Definitely not a three door. Decidedly so.

Yeah, like Brazilian, Brazilian market. So, rural drive. 1.9. What the fuck am I missing?

Not domestic. Not Volkswagen.

And this is one of the ones where you kick yourself after. Am I going to curbstomp my own

genitals in a fit of rage? We've done this to each other multiple times.

No, we've only curbstomped each other on genitals once. It only takes once, but it feels like a lot.

Because it is. 1.9. You're getting up against it on time.

Rear drive. I promise you I am.

What am I missing? It's a Mercur Scorpio. No.

The big block in that one. That's right.

Wasn't that a 2.9, actually? Yeah. Six cylinder. Yeah. The

1.9. Three door coupe. Rear drive. Almost out of time.

God, is this like an early 626 coupe?

I think those are two liters.

And then a 2.2. What am I missing? It's not a Honda, clearly.

I'm just going to... It's a fucking Cordia. This is payback for what he got me in the Mitsubishi

Cordia, which I don't think was the worst thing you ever stopped me on.

With those front drive? I'm going to need a final guess, my friend.

I'm going to say... This is wrong, but I'm going to say this is a 1983. It doesn't read like it,

but I'm just flunking out. I'm going to say 1983 Mazda 626 coupe.

Flailing answer. It is not a Mazda, my friend. What are we talking about?

What am I completely forgetting in existence? What if I said, did you know BMW had a bunch

of 1.9s in the 90s? In the three door coupe? 318 Ti. That's right. That was a 1.9, huh?

It wasn't a 1.9. I am so shocked that you didn't jump on this one.

We are talking about the 1990. That's right. That's the M42 powered car. 318 Ti.

Yeah, I completely... My brain was like...

The ad is cool as fuck looking. There you go. Oh, that's a good ad.

Yeah, it's killer. The font is horrible. It's like the resolution is dog shit.

Yeah, 318 Ti. We've talked about these cars a few times before. You could also get a 1.9,

wouldn't be a three door coupe, but you could get a... Well, technically,

the Z3 base came with a 1.9 as well. So BMW had that motor. Yeah, but not the coupe.

But still, it was a 1.9, right? But yeah, 318 Ti, my friend. Yeah, yeah.

You know what's really funny? And this is purely based on naming scheme.

In my head, obviously, an early Z3 has a 1.9.

Correct. Not as much obvious in my head is that the 318 is a 1.9. And I know it is a 1.9.

It's that same exact engine that's supplanted the M10. It is the M42, right?

M44. It's the 1.9, okay.

But yeah, somehow that naming scheme breaks my brain, which is not a lost thing on those cars,

because the Z3 2.3 is a 2.5. Correct. It's fuckery. It is all fuckery.

Yeah, damn it. Cool car, though. We both like those. Yeah, those are cool.

Those are cool. Yeah.

Yeah, the California roof with that little cloth section, right?

That folds back pretty well.

And Death Trappy would one of those be with anything swapped in it, like that last one.

S52, yeah, death instant. I'd like to say good job, but you know.

No, bad job.

You let yourself down this time.

I absolutely did. Yeah, all of this taking a rub print of each other's genitals,

really kind of threw me for a loop. Didn't get my head in the game, or did it?

Could you save us Admiral? No.

Admiral, Admiral Akbar, and it's a trap, the 1.9.

The 3.18 was a trap. That's fair.

Naming convention didn't make sense.

Any PCP, which is project car progress for any narcs listening on your end?

Abusing some PCP. I have just like mild PCP.

Okay, so microdosing.

Yeah, exactly. We're close enough to Silicon Valley.

We can microdose hallucinogens for the sake of productivity.

For the sake.

Okay, so Focus SVT. I put it in the air.

You know, I often forget that you have that car.

Same. Where we last checked in, cooling system is officially sorted.

However, I still have that terrible wiggle wobble hucking over in freeway sweepers kind of

motion coming out of the rear end. It really feels like there's something super worn out.

So I put it in the air, checked up all the bushings.

They all look pretty good. I got a, I got a, I didn't have a pry bar,

but I just got like a big flathead screwdriver. It's what I had on hand.

I borrowed a lift, put it up there and just prying around on stuff and like stuff feels,

stuff feels pretty good. I don't see anything completely torn.

So maybe it is just the rear and they look to be the original shocks in the rear.

They might just be like hammered. Weird.

Which it doesn't feel like that. It's not like I've got wheels hopping up and down.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't have any weird tire wear on the old tires. They were just really old.

No banging over like imperfections or anything like that. No.

I mean, you drove behind me when I was in that car and you saw your butt.

Yeah. The waves coming out of the back of that thing and it's not.

So I was just like, okay, well, let me just put rear shocks. I hate to do only the rears and not

also the fronts, but I'm not to the slippery slope. I'm going down. It's like,

I've already done both front axles, outer tie rods, sway bar end links in the front.

And I don't want to like pull all that apart now to put struts in it. I'm just not going to

in the fair. But in the rear, if it keeps it from like killing me or the next owner, I'm going to do.

Worth it. Yeah.

What's interesting is going, part shopping on this,

like there's some parts, like I can cross reference part numbers, but on any parts catalog,

it basically is just like the fitment will only be like focus and it will just specify like

wagon or like standard, right? Or like, you know, it'll just say like...

God, because they had wagon hatch and sedan, right?

It'll just say like three door, five door or to say wagon and all these different manufacturers.

And some of them will say like SE trim, ZX3, ZX5, nothing like you go to rock out of the

entire catalog and there's a billion offerings. SVT specific. SVT isn't listed anywhere.

Fuck dude.

In anything. It never mentions like SVT as if it exists. And then even looking around online,

there's not a whole lot of information. Like anyone who has an SVT and they're putting shocks

and struts on it, they're doing like KYB HEXs or they're doing Bilsteens, they're upgrading.

And so like, oh, buy these, they're not like buy this like stock equivalent replacement.

And if I'm only doing the rears, I'm not going to put like Bilsteens or like

AGX adjustable and just the rear.

What were the stockers on that KYB or conies probably for the SVT?

I don't know.

You should see if you can see a manufacturer like print on it and see what this man...

So what I did find is the only thing, the only thing, so what I deduced a little bit

going through the rock auto catalog, there's one offering on there because I'm a rock auto

truther.

I am too.

They do list one motorcraft offering for the rears.

Not even for the fronts, but they have motorcraft for the rear.

And the only specifies on there, it just says with heavy duty sway bar,

which would speak to me as SVT.

Sure.

Click through and you can get on there, they'll do a part number cross reference.

And there's a part number cross reference, which is to another part number for the SVT,

which has then been superseded by a more modern part number.

So like kind of going like following the breadcrumbs, it looks like this is the

motorcraft SVT fitment for a factory equivalent rear shocks.

Then they were the SVT specific.

Were they the same for the SVT's sedans and coupes though?

All of the...

Four door, two door, sorry.

Yeah, all of the, yes.

Okay.

In short, yes.

And they were not profoundly expensive.

I think they were...

What were they, like $48 a piece or something?

That's not bad at all.

Yeah.

And so I ordered them and they will be here this week.

I'm excited to hear this turns out.

Yeah.

Because I don't...

They don't fit and they don't take care of the butt wobble.

They'll definitely fit.

Well, here's the thing.

So I ordered them, they were like $38, $48 a piece or whatever.

I also got replacement upper mounts.

Nice.

Yep.

For the rear.

Because it's got like a triangular hockey puck kind of mount on the tops.

And then a standard just round single bolt for the lower.

On the suspended, whatever, trailing arm side.

Yep.

Um, it should be pretty easy to...

Pretty easy to knock out.

Famous last words.

So that's...

So I've got that coming and then I'm hoping...

Because here's the thing.

If we're gonna move on to the next challenge of the overlanding,

I kind of want like space and time and money to do this, right?

You just can't keep collecting the APA challenge vehicles, Frank.

Right.

You can't do it.

Exactly.

So, um, yeah, so we'll see.

It's the usual land here any day.

I also got new oil filters for my daily, the Lexus CT200H.

Because the moment I finished changing the oil in my wife's car,

I got my service reminder on my daily.

So it's time to do that.

And so I threw them in.

I was already paying for the shipping.

Three oil filters so I can have some on stock on hand.

Added zero to the shipping.

Nice.

Because they're light.

So yeah.

Same warehouse, all the same thing.

So coming in hot.

Sure.

That's awesome.

You know, you get the Lexus Toyota OEM ones at Walmart

for the CT200H.

It's so damn cheap, dude.

Like it's kind of wild.

Yeah, for me, continuation of the tracker drama

that's been currently unfolding.

So I got everything back together.

It's always fun to take your engine apart

just to peek at your timing belt and then put it all back, right?

Put the radiator and put the coolant back in.

It's still there.

What's the last time you used the timing light?

It's been a while probably.

Been a long time.

Yeah.

So I think it's super fun.

I love.

Blinky blinky.

Talk about a lost art, dude.

That in 20 years, no one's going to know

what the fuck a timing light is.

Oh yeah.

But let alone back in the day,

we think you have like the big huge box on wheels

tune up thing.

We have like.

The tune up.

Yes.

Yeah, the sun.

The sun.

Tuner and you have to like,

you're like setting dwell and shit on like mechanical points.

So fucking cool.

Yeah, those are fun.

But you know, timing lights are pretty straightforward.

You just have to find out where to connect it to,

whatever spark plug it is at one or four,

depending on the kind of engine.

But then you go ahead and shoot it on the tracker sidekick.

The eight valve motor anyway from this vintage

is at eight degrees for top dead center.

And as long as you're there, you should be good.

Now to vibrate like mine is the ignition timing

would have to be terribly off.

Right.

Would you be shocked if I fucking told you

I fired it up and it was dead on.

It was of course dead on.

So before, and when I had the time belt off,

I had perfect access to mark on the,

you know, the timing cover and do the eight degree line

and everything with a marker to make it nice and easy

because it lights up with that strobe really nice.

Perfect.

Ignition timings.

Perfect.

The valve lash.

A lot of people are like,

dude, when you do the valve covers,

you should adjust the valve lash.

So I check because what I don't want to do

in every valve cover gasket job is like show people me

putting a fuel or gauge under every.

Because it's time consuming and it's boring

if you don't have to adjust.

So that someone was in there

because everything was adjusted perfect.

And those engines tend not,

it's not like a Honda motor from back in the day.

Remember you had to do it every time.

Dude, timing's per ignition.

Timing's perfect.

So timing belt's perfect.

Ignition timings perfect.

It's got to be the other motor mount.

It's got to be the one, there's two more, right?

There's the transmission and there's the passenger side.

The passenger side's a pain in that dick.

So unfortunately, I think I'm there.

I think I'm there where I'm going to have to do that motor mount.

And it's, dude.

Well, that's the car behind me.

Like I've, I've, you can see on the roof

if you're watching video home,

that is a new transmission torque arm in a box.

Fuck it's hard on some of these cars.

It's not packaging.

Super difficult to do on this car.

But the one that came out of it didn't look that bad.

I pulled it out and it wasn't catastrophically pricey

to just buy a new one.

So I'm doing it.

But like I'm, I, I truly think I'm going to put it all back together.

It's an aftermarket mount and all the other mounts look really good

and they're new because the motor in this car is not super old.

And like, but they're aftermarket and you can't get new, like,

so it might just be a function of the aftermarket mounts.

I don't know.

And maybe you're going to run into that too.

Right.

So, but the one I did replace the reason I did the driver's side

is because it was cracked.

Like the whole, all the rubber was like, it had the stress cracks,

which anything over 10 years will have, but it had huge cracks

and huge gaps and I could move it around.

So I'm like, this is definitely the culprit.

Usually when you do your bad one, it's, it shores up a little bit.

It's just as bad.

So you could play the whole chasing game.

And like on the NX 2000, I did all the motor mounts by dropping

that little subframe and putting them on the subframe and putting it back.

Took like an hour.

Now on this vehicle, you have to drop every bracket.

There's accessory brackets you need to discuss.

Take your accessory belts.

It's a fucking nightmare and it's a bad access.

It's hard access, right?

Because it's a very small hood area on the GeoTracker Suzuki Sidekick.

So it's one of those, you know, some things are easy.

Like I could do all the spark plugs in 10 minutes, but motor mounts,

which are easy on most cars are on a nightmare on this one.

It's just every car has its thing, right?

So right now I'm going to start the chasing motor mounts game,

which you're right.

Parts are cheap, but the labor can be a real pain in the dick.

And thank God, dude, there's no rest on this vehicle.

Because motor mounts, those download motor mounts and throw.

We've got it so easy on all this stuff.

Back home, you're cutting those fuckers off.

I'm not saying there's GeoTracker still back in the northeast

because they're all gone.

But yeah, dude, no rest because it's a pain in the dick.

But that's what I'm doing.

So hey, man, timing belt's good.

Ignition timing's good.

Yeah, motor mounts.

I love old diagnostic tests.

That's right.

And your check engine light that tells you everything is okay is still okay.

Stayed off, stayed off.

So there's no, there's no faults.

The engine's running.

Vehicle feels great.

It's just, and I don't have a tack.

So I can't tell you, except when I had the timing light on, right?

Because I have one of the digital ones that has the tack.

And I'm like, it's exactly where it needs to be.

But you can usually tell when you're surging, right?

You can, you can hear it and feel it.

So let's go.

Motor mounts.

All righty.

Mount up.

Speaking of mounting up.

Thanks for tagging along.

Yeah.

And yeah, if you want to continue to stalk us, please do listen along or watch along.

If you haven't checked out the YouTube, check that out.

If you're tired of staring at us, which you should be and you want to just listen to us

as a more palatable way to consume what we're putting on the table.

Great. Listen anywhere you listen to podcasts.

We also, we've got a Patreon now.

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If you want to watch us abuse terrible alcoholic beverages, pay for our Patreon.

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We spend that money on terrible liquids to drink for your watching and listening displeasure.

Because you get access to a bonus episode or late night confidential episodes.

And those are fun and they're great.

So please play along and support us.

So one day we can stop losing money on this awful business venture.

Chadwick, if people want to, oh, also, yeah,

if you want to stalk me outside of this, you shouldn't.

But if you do, I'm at the photographer's garage on all the things.

How about you, Mr. Chad to the wick?

Yeah. Auto obscure garage, mostly on YouTube,

rescue's restorations, reviews, tracker EGR, possibly tracker,

more motor mounts coming up.

It keeps feeding me more content, but that's all I got.

But thanks for checking us out, guys.

And we'll catch you in like a week, something like that.

Yeah, give or take, give or take.

All right. Take care, guys.

Episode #215 - Automotive Grudge Match: Olds vs. Mercury

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Lexus CT200h

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