Episode #220 - Actual Dream Cars as Kids
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Car
Porsche 959
The Porsche 959 is a very rare, very expensive Porsche sports car. It’s known for being technologically advanced and extremely high performance. The episode mentions it as a car most people can’t realistically afford.
Car
Chevrolet Silverado
The Chevrolet Silverado is a large pickup truck. It’s meant for carrying things and towing, and it’s also common to see them modified for off-road driving. The podcast mentions it because it was around in the speaker’s childhood.
Concept
cut the fenders and the quarter panels for tires
Cutting the fenders and quarter panels is a common off-road customization to fit larger tires and improve clearance. It’s often done when lifting the suspension or running bigger wheels, but it permanently changes bodywork and can affect rust risk if not sealed properly.
Concept
slot cars
Slot cars are tiny cars you drive on a special track with a groove. The track helps guide the car, and you can race different models like toy versions of real cars.
Term
glass packs
Glass packs are mufflers that usually make the exhaust louder and raspier. People liked them because they gave a “hot rod” sound.
Term
cladding
Cladding is the extra outer covering on a car’s body, usually plastic. On older cars, it can be part of the style, not just protection.
Term
motor was popped
“Motor was popped” means the engine failed badly. It’s usually not a small fix—you typically need a rebuild or replacement.
Car
Porsche 911
The Porsche 911 is Porsche’s famous sports car. It’s the one most people think of when they hear “Porsche,” and the speaker is saying they had strong opinions about it even back then.
Term
rust
Rust is when metal starts to corrode and flake. It’s a big deal on older cars because it can mean the body is deteriorating.
Term
Pop up headlights
These are headlights that are hidden until you turn them on. When you activate them, they pop up from the front. They were common on older sports cars and make the car look really cool.
Term
aftermarket wheels
Aftermarket wheels are rims you buy that aren’t the original factory ones. People swap them for looks and because they can choose different sizes to fit their car.
Car
Lamborghini Diablo
The Lamborghini Diablo is a famous Lamborghini supercar. It’s the kind of car people dream about because it looks wild and sounds/feels like a true exotic.
Car
McLaren F1
The McLaren F1 is a supercar with a special seating setup: the driver sits in the middle. The speaker likes it because it feels built around the driver, not just passengers.
Term
five speed
That means it had a manual transmission with five gears. Driving it would involve shifting yourself, which many people find more fun.
Concept
Gran Turismo
Gran Turismo is a video game where you race and collect cars. The host is saying the game influenced what cars they wanted in real life.
Term
burnout
A burnout is when you spin the tires while the car is stopped or barely moving, usually to make smoke and show off. The host is pointing out that the car was known for doing big burnouts.
Term
turbo
A turbo is a device that uses the car’s exhaust to spin a fan and push more air into the engine. More air usually means more power.
Car
2002 WRX
A Subaru WRX is a sporty car that uses a turbo engine and all-wheel drive. The 2002 model is an early version that many car fans got excited about because it was fast for the money.
Car
NSX
The Honda NSX is a high-end sports car from Honda. It’s not as easy to find as some other cars, so owning one was a big deal.
Concept
80s through the mid 2000s
They’re only using car ads from roughly the 1980s to the mid-2000s. Cars in that time period look and work differently than modern ones, so the ads give different kinds of hints.
Concept
cab forward design
Cab-forward means the driver and passengers are pushed closer to the front of the car. This can make the cabin feel roomier without making the whole vehicle longer.
Concept
features that were options are standard
Sometimes a car used to charge extra for certain features, but later they include them for free. That means the car can be better equipped without paying for add-ons.
Car
Chevrolet Lumina
The Chevrolet Lumina is another older mainstream midsize sedan. If it’s listed in a comparison, the ad is basically saying “we’re better than the usual choices.”
Term
speed control
Speed control is cruise control. You set a speed, and the car keeps it there for you, which is nice on longer drives. It reduces fatigue.
Term
bumper to bumper warranty
A bumper-to-bumper warranty is a promise from the manufacturer/dealer to fix a lot of problems for a certain time and mileage. It’s meant to cover more than just the engine. In this segment, they’re talking about a 3-year/36,000-mile type of deal.
Car
96 Dodge Intrepid
The 1996 Dodge Intrepid is a mid-size sedan. It’s known for a design style where the cabin sits farther forward, so the car feels different inside even though it’s still a normal sedan size.
Term
coolant
Coolant is the liquid that keeps your engine from overheating. It moves through the engine and radiator to carry heat away.
Term
mounted and balanced
Mounted means the tire is put onto the wheel. Balanced means it’s adjusted so the car doesn’t shake or vibrate when you drive.
Term
battery
The battery is what powers the car’s electrical system and helps it start. If you hear clicking instead of the engine turning over, the battery is a common culprit.
Term
belt
The belt is the rubber strip that transfers engine power to different parts. If the wrong belt is used, it may not fit right and can wear out or fail.
Term
VIN number
The VIN is like your car’s unique ID number. Some key services can use it to make a replacement key that matches your car.
LIVE
In a world with entirely too many shows about cars, this is another Pointless Automotive
podcast.
Oh, boy.
Hello, Chadwick.
How are you, my friend?
Frank, what's shaking, man?
It feels like it's been exactly seven calendar days.
Yeah, actually.
Miraculous.
And welcome, dear listener or viewer, if you have that proclivity.
Or do both.
Voyeuristic.
What is it like if, so, obviously, okay, so obviously, if you're a voyeur, you like
to watch people, right, doing whatever they do.
That's up to you.
Like clairvoyance.
Like clairvoyance.
The super power clairvoyance, right?
Sure.
You can see things that you're not presently in front of.
Potentially, yes, if you're like a remote viewer or whatever.
But what is it if you just like want to, like, listen?
Like you're an eavesdropper, I suppose, but is there something more particular?
So like for those of you watching along, hello, enjoy being a voyeur.
If you're just listening, what is like the listening equivalent of a voyeur?
Well, clairaudience would be the other aspect of that, being able to hear something that
you're not present at, right?
Like, so I'm assuming it's like auditory something.
I'm sure it has that as the base, right?
Like, yeah.
Auto voyeur, I don't know.
Me fail English?
That's impossible.
Yes.
So, all I'm saying is if you're listening, if you've got your ear to the wall of like
the thinly insulated motel room to hear the activities on the other side, and it happens
to be this podcast, welcome.
Yeah.
And thanks for being a classy bitch.
Yeah, that's right.
You heard the intro.
You know what we are.
Maybe you read the title.
I don't know.
But I had a thought the other day and I don't remember what put this thought.
I have those occasionally.
Jesus.
And I don't remember what put it there.
I was not thinking about Jesus Christo.
I was thinking about cars that I was actually into as a child and how, you know, it was
never the 9-11.
Oh, where I was just like 9-11, like who as a child, unless they're like grandpa had
one.
Yeah, actually was like, oh, like, I want to grow up and own a 9-11.
Like, I don't think the 9-11 was ever anyone's, not zero people, but exceedingly fewer people
was their like dream car, poster car as a child as compared to other things.
And especially as compared to now that are people that are like, oh, I'm an adult.
I'm middle age.
I'm having my midlife crisis and I'm going to go out and buy a 9-11 because that's what
I've always wanted.
And part of me thinks that's disingenuous.
I don't think that's true.
And so I wanted to take a second and let's like, I don't know, like, let's talk about
the shit that we actually wanted as kids.
Like, what were your actual dream cars?
What were my actual dream cars, dear listener or voyeur?
What were your actual dream cars as kids, like children, like proper children?
You know, first off, I can't I can't agree with you enough on the 9-11 front.
I think if there was any spicy in my pantalones Porsche, probably a 9-5-9 gets me
the most excited, right?
Like, yeah, like the child.
And let me let me clarify.
I mean, I was a teenager then.
So I wasn't a child person.
I never really grew up.
But I mean, that car came out, what, 88?
Oh, was it that?
What am I thinking?
What was that?
What came out in 95 that I'm referring to?
It was at the, I mean, like maybe a 93, you know what I'm 93 turbo.
Yeah, I did like that a lot, too.
Yeah.
I mean, 99 turbo, that's, you know, the kills bugs, fast ad.
Super cool.
So dope.
But like the 9-5-9 actually is more because like you and I today have no
business, even like sniffing a 9-5-9 purely because we're adults now.
And we were like maintenance.
It's like the worst maintenance car in the history of cars.
Yeah, it's up there.
But as a child, right?
As your son, if my son, right, are various nine year olds, decide that
they like their idea of what a cool car is in a car that they are like aspirational.
Right.
Very different than that of an adult.
Right.
What are, well, what are your, like what would you think back to then?
Like, yeah, let's start out of like at nine.
Yeah, it's an exposure thing, right?
So I grew up, I grew up in the fucking boonies, like the real legit boonies.
So the biggest thing for me growing up that I was exposed to probably the most
automotive was, was fentanyl.
No, that was the brief fentanyl.
No, listen, we were early adopters back then.
The bleeding edge.
No, mudden, go and mudden.
So I grew up with a lot of like, you know, OG Broncos, like lifted mud
and romper tires, beat up old Silverado's F two fifties, because I grew up, I was
a huge, I was a huge monster truck guy in the mid eighties to late eighties.
So you go, you go in big foot, you go in grave digger.
What was an F two 50?
I was grave digger all the way, dude.
Bullshit.
Team big foot over here.
Get out of here.
That was like the preppy move.
Get out of here.
The preps, like the preppy boys would like the, like the Ford setup, but I
like that grave digger model with the red headlights and the killer
pain truck, so fucking cool.
But no, so growing up with the real shit box trucks, like that you could buy for
like a thousand bucks or less, 500 bucks or less, put some double the money with
like mud wampers and a shit exhaust and just go swampers.
So that's what we called them.
We had a little nickname for everything.
So there were, there's so much, like it's so easy to get off road back home, like
down, like forested, like woodlands and like all this open land, just take your
cars and go out there.
And there's, there was many a time where we're getting some really interesting
situations, but for me, that was kind of the thing.
So personally, I always wanted, I always wanted a first shed Bronco, like totally
set up to just bomb down trails and get out of some deep mud.
So like, so like when you were a kid, that would be the, that was like the
aspirational.
Yeah.
And then when I saw one, it would just be like, oh, I love it.
You know, and even though, even if it was on probably like 33s at the time to
to a child, you're like, that is awesome.
That thing can go anywhere.
And I'm still like that, like with our budget overland bills.
I'm like, I'm going to put AT tires on.
I'm going to be unstoppable.
But it's like, as a kid, I thought that was so cool.
And just being out in the middle of nowhereville, right?
And like just pushing your truck, which was poorly maintained and rusted out.
They were always rusted out back home and just being able to go in some insane
places, which just like an incredible feeling.
Like, I remember bouncing on the back of my dad's like beat up truck.
Like his Amigo, and he had a trooper.
He had an original trooper, like an 86.
And I remember just fucking bouncing my head off the roof and being like,
this is a good time.
Well, that's it.
Like if you think about it, if you're talking like, say the mid eight,
mid to late eighties, right?
Mm hmm.
A, an early Bronco.
That's just like a 10 to 15 year old shipbox truck.
Like that wasn't what it is today.
You have like, yeah, would you have, you know, all of these, you know,
icon, yeah, all these like rebuilders that are selling like
one hundred and six, seventy thousand dollar builds on the low end for some
of these trucks, completely, wildly different.
And so, yeah, it was just like a used truck, but like a cool one and one
that people modified and cut the fenders and the quarter panels for tires
and stuff like it was just what you did.
Yeah.
So I grew up around the shitty ones, but I always wanted a really nice one,
right? Like a totally done up one.
And I, that was always kind of like a fantasy.
That was my like fantasy vehicle as a kid.
You know, just getting one of those and like a rich one day.
That's what I'd have.
First thing I'd buy.
I probably still would, you know, I'd probably get a Bronco Raptor R or
whatever the top of the line is at the time.
But no, there was just, it's always always interested me and so cool.
So nothing was cooler.
You wouldn't get like the PTS
uh, 9-11 with the, you know, the, the, the special
colored stitching and whatever.
When they took the G 50 gearbox and no, no, and I wanted, I always wanted
to have my own off road truck is like an eight year old and it would always
be covered in mud, which is where the windshield wipers had been.
That's, fuck, that's perfect.
That would be perfect.
Yeah.
And it's funny because my, me thinking back to a youth, although I, you would
have been sick, like a, like a, an Aussie youth of some kind.
Oh dude.
Yeah.
But as a youth, the, I did like monster trucks, but some of the stuff that I
was thought was really cool.
So there were two things that kind of led me and I'm thinking younger, like
pre-video game era is I, I had a bunch of like the Tyco, um, slot
cars, hell yeah, slot car tracks and all, and all the stuff.
And I remember vividly, I had a few different ones.
I had, um, one with the then barely not new anymore.
280ZXs.
Oh yeah.
And one was, I'm trying to remember that there were two, there was like one big
track and they like went up and over each other and all this stuff.
And I had the little, the, the, um, different like trigger controllers.
And you had to let off on the corner or you flew off.
Yeah.
I was single time off or whatever.
A lot of fun.
There were two cars on that train.
There were both, uh, 280ZXs.
One was like a, like a, I think it was God.
Like Arco, gasoline livery.
And the other one was, um, camel with like a Joe camel on it and stuff.
Yeah.
This was the 80s, right?
This is just what, what it was.
It was, and it was from, it was from the early 80s.
Um, it was like used by dad came across it somewhere and I was playing with this
in the mid to late 80s.
And that was just what it was.
But I remember like, cause then you could go to, would go to like the local toys
are us and they had a whole little section with slot cars.
And these are the, whatever the one 64th scale, I don't know what scale they are.
Um, roughly this size of a hot wheel car.
And I got, but for me at the time was a fucking rocket ship.
And I thought it was the coolest car in the world.
And this was my aspirational car at the time.
And so I got it on a slot car, neon, neon, neon green with white stripes.
It's a C four Corvette.
That's killer.
And for me as a child, the C four Corvette was the, the cats box.
Like it was, it was the, it was the jam.
It was what you wanted.
And, um, they made them like basically my entire youth from, from I was born in
a 83, so effectively the launch of the C four coincided with my birth and ended
as I was like leaving middle school, effectively.
True.
Yeah.
Um, so it's just, it's kind of a wild thing.
And, and, and it just kind of evolved and changed and whatever, but it was,
that car was so fucking cool.
And that was like, that was my, I had a Jose Conceco poster and I should have
right next in my bedroom and on my bedroom, on a bunch of pennants and stuff.
And I should have had, I didn't really have that many car posters as a kid.
I should have, and I should have had a C four.
That I would have, that's what I want to want.
The C four Corvette right next to it.
Oh yeah.
It was not a nine 11, nine 11 was a dentist car.
Um, it was, it was whatever.
It was not, it was not what a, a, a, an 80s kid to 90s kid wanted in my opinion.
Right.
Um, there were some other, and I didn't hate Porsches.
I thought nine 20, nine 28s were sick.
I was, they were pretty wild.
I thought they were dope when I was a kid.
I was like, now that, that's a good looking car.
That thing is sick.
I, I, um, but yeah, the C four Corvette was probably chief among them as a,
like, dude, such a cool age child.
Yep.
Still looks, still looks great today.
Like there's no other, there's no other decade where that design comes out.
Right.
Like square eighties, like by the numbers.
Um, I actually did this exercise by like my age as I increased it.
Yeah.
So I never got out of the mud.
It's not like I left eighties behind.
I just kind of like focused more on one or the other.
Uh, I'd probably say in that, that nine, 10, 11, 12 year old range, I kind of got
into like what I would consider cheap American muscle.
Cause you know, I'm, I'm a few years ahead of you, right?
I was born in 1980.
So for me, I was coming into that age when the Fox body was really, really
hitting and looking real good.
And at the same time, you still have the, the F body Camaros and especially in
Iraq's the format I met, I remember this would be me riding like the middle
school bus and there was this one house.
I was always so excited because I knew they had a bright red I rock.
See, just like absolutely pristine.
This was like maybe a two year old car, one year old car at the time.
And I just was like, I need that.
Like everything about it, like the graphics, just the, the tea tops, everything
was just to me as a kid, I thought I didn't think you'd get any cooler than that.
You know, it's funny because like me thinking back, I did not like this as a kid.
I didn't like those cars at all.
Same with Fox bodies.
I just, they didn't do anything for me and I grew to love them later.
Well, so for me, like the older kids, like at high school, you could
afford like an early model by the time, you know, think, think of like, this is
like what 1990 I'm talking about at that time, you could have an easily afford
like an early Fox body Mustang, right?
So the kids in high school would have those with like cherry bomb exhaust
and glass packs and all that fun shit.
And I thought as a 10 year old, I'm like, that is everything I want.
I want something stupid and loud, you know, speed be damned.
I know they weren't that fast, but as a kid, you're like, I don't care.
It's all about the attitude.
Yeah.
And you don't really know.
I mean, you think, you know, what, what, what speed is and fastest.
And that's changed over time and always will.
But like, you know, you don't know, you just know what like looks, what looks
cool and what doesn't.
And what did you not think an IROC Z I'm still cladding.
Like that's how much of an impact that generation of cars had on me.
I still think cladding looks sick when I go back, especially now.
If I see a clean IROC Z, I still think that's a very captivating car to look at.
Yeah, it's funny because I think, I think back to that's I'm just
thinking back to that same age range for me, right?
Call it 10, 10, 11, where a lot of the cars that I was like, Oh, that
thing is cool.
I would love to own one of those one day.
Wasn't like new shit at the time.
And maybe that, but it was just stuff that like I would see around, like in
the neighborhood or around town or was like, Oh, that thing is cool.
I'm like, I remember there was down the street, the house I grew up in, where
my parents are still, there was a house like four doors down and across the street.
And there was a 260Z that was parked in front.
And I was like, Oh, that thing is cool.
And I remember asking my dad, I was like, So that's a 260Z.
I've seen 240Zs.
I've seen to eight.
Like what is it?
Well, the 240 came first and then there was a 260 and then there was a 280.
And I was just like, And then there's the displacement of the inline six.
No, he didn't go that far into it.
He's not like really a car guy necessarily.
He's had some interesting stuff when he was like in high school and just at
high school, he had a he had a his first car was a 72 Spitfire trial Spitfire.
And then he sold that this is in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
So it's a dog shit car to own in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Oh, yeah, that thing was rotted.
Yeah.
He then ended up with a 72 Corvette.
Mm hmm.
That he got.
How did he come across the Corvette?
It was something weird.
He got it cheap because the motor was popped on it.
And then he had his dad had a friend who had a shop and came across an engine
that came out of a truck that fell off a train or some shit.
Some crazy story like that and put a motor in it and he got it.
He got it for relatively cheap.
But again, a dog shit quality car for
Scranton, Pennsylvania.
So he sold it and he got like a then new, I think it was a 76 Mercury Cougar.
OK.
And then he sold it to move out to California.
And and nine months later, I was born effectively.
So.
Of that same era.
So just seeing stuff around the neighborhood.
And so I was like those early two forty to sixty two eighties was not a new car at all.
That was a deeply used car in the era.
But because I saw a couple of them around and I thought they were really fucking cool.
That was it.
And side note is funny because I mentioned bagging on Porsche.
Specifically the nine eleven.
I remember at my elementary school, the principal drove a buttercup yellow three
fifty six coupe. Oh, wow.
And that's what he drove to school every day.
That was his daily.
And this would have been.
Yeah, this would have been in like the whatever the mid eighties, late eighties.
And a different world. Right.
That was just 20.
That was just a, you know, a 25 year old car at the time.
So, you know, they'd be like showing up.
It'd be like teacher showing up in like a fucking nine, nine, six right today.
So I don't know, but it's funny.
Yeah, it's I don't I don't think it was really until a little bit later.
That like automotive marketing got its hold on me.
And then it was really interesting brand new stuff back then.
It was like, what am I seeing around?
Saw a lot of C four quartets.
Saw that two sixties.
It was a guy down the street with like an eighty five Esprit.
That was dope.
See, yeah, that's you got to remember, though, I lived in a place that was still
mostly dirt roads.
So it was like if I saw something that wasn't 50 percent rust, I was like really
impressed, you know, but that I rock stood out against like, you know,
an early chivette, like, you know, primer gray with half its rocker panels
around it off and then to see.
And he literally washed it every other day.
So it was like the bus would stop and I would just I would just.
Yeah, ogle it.
Uncomfortable. I would address it.
I'm not gonna lie.
Well, you could look what a crazy looking car, though.
It's it's about the backdrop, right?
But so moving from that as a young teen, that's when I started to get into
like the Japanese stuff and start to notice these really cool cars showing up.
Yeah, dude.
Tent, a horn, hentai.
Yep. The dream of the fisherman's wife.
Yeah. So DSMs were like really cool to me when those were out
because they were like for the price, they were super cheap, right?
Like a super attainable fast car.
The first gens, especially folks started getting those and I was like, God damn,
that's that is such a like what a radical looking car compared to the boxy
stuff before for the 80s.
I thought they were so cool.
But as far as poster cars go, 3000 GT VR for to me
was such I'll never forget, I saw my first one when I was like 14
and I was just like with that fucking spaceship just flew by and no one
even noticed like right just unreal because, you know, it had kind of
that Corvette effect where it was wide and low, but the active arrow
and just the design of it and the Mitsubishi badge.
I was like, that's that's the coolest thing I've ever seen.
Pop up headlights and it's still I still think when I see a 3000
GT VR for like clean in traffic, it still stands out incredibly.
So that was actually my poster car as a child.
I mean, I know we laugh at it now because it really never saw the appreciation
of all the other big, big Japanese sports cars.
But God, I think that I think that car is way past due for like
way more recognition, right?
Yeah, I mean.
Oh, it's so good right there with with regards to
how my interests kind of changed in that same era.
We're talking mid 90s.
Yeah, yeah, at least for me, right?
Mid 90s, say 95, 96, 97.
Where, you know, I was in middle school.
I was far more paying attention to what's kind of I'd always paid attention
to what's on the road and all that, but more of like what's in the media
and what's new on the marketplace, what's being released and things like that.
And at the time, it was kind of impossible.
If you were paying attention.
In that era, to not absolutely think that the the the powerhouse
offerings from Japan were the coolest fucking cars, dude.
Like they were like for so long, too.
Like I grew up, like I said, in the boonies.
So like the Fox bodies and Cameras sounded amazing.
They were comparatively quick.
But I'll never forget when a local guy got a first gen DSM was Eagle Talent TSI.
And it just he would just dust like all the Fox, but even though you could
just hear the V8 rumbling, but the the Eagle would just fly by.
And it was like not even a competition.
All wheel drive, like launching.
It was just, you know, it's funny.
In period, I hated those cars.
I thought those DSMs were piles of shit.
I always loved them in period.
I was always just like, why, why would you buy one of those?
Anything when you can get, dude, you can get a Mark III Supra used
or you can get an MR2 or you can get, you know, an RX seven.
Performance for dollars.
Right. Right.
But again, this is as a child.
Yeah. And I was like, they're getting, you know, the the motor is going to blow up
and they're unreliable and they're they're piles of shit.
And partially that was like partially true, because like the way you would
mod one of those is like you'd get Home Depot parts and make your own fucking
boost controller and just crank it up to 11.
Yep. Yeah.
Yes. And so yeah, you'd go on like early like Internet 1.0 days or 1.1
and like figure out, go on like forums or like news groups or crazy early Internet
shit to try and like figure out how to mod your car.
And that's it.
Go to some Angel Fire website.
And and you would ask Jeeves and Jeeves would tell you how to like butcher your car.
Dude, so fast, though.
But yeah, I this was like at the time where yeah, my poster child poster child
was the Mark IV Supra and that's no stranger if you've listened to this before.
And I've talked about that a bunch, but like that car, the SW 20 MR2
FDRX 7 I really had I really had the worm had kind of turned from like earlier.
It was more like, yeah, the C4 Corvette.
And, you know, when the Viper came out, cool, the Viper was just like, look at that.
Look, like how are you?
How does a 10 year old not think a nine year old not think of Viper
is the coolest fucking thing on the planet?
Yeah. And like younger, like the DeLorean.
I want to DeLorean like that's like that's little kid shit.
But right middle school, the hormones are flowing and you want something dope.
Mark IV Supra.
I at the time, I was like, oh, I, you know, those are cool.
That's a new thing. Maybe maybe one day I'll have a Mark III.
And I always had this dream of like getting a Mark III turbo.
Boot shitty boost controller, painting it yellow.
Bear with me.
Not bad.
That's like 13 year old me.
Yellow Mark IV with you.
Do you remember those the Momo?
This is back when you'd get like a sport compact car
and you'd have like the page of like all the different aftermarket wheels
and like how much more and everything and what sizes were available.
They had the Momo.
They were like the F 50 style wheels.
Well, you can get like a yellow center cap.
Oh, boy. That's that was like, oh, this is fucking cool.
In retrospect, it'd be disaster, just absolutely unmitigated.
Trash, the 13 year old me who was like, you know,
anytime I'd go anywhere that had a magazine stand,
I'd be like looking at like sport compact car or whatever
and just like thumbing through and and that was that was kind of it would be.
Yeah. And really, I also I thought the, you know, oh, the 3000 GT,
it's an overweight pig.
It like doesn't, but it's only like more than the four.
It's like, not that right.
But, you know, like that's the technology is what's won me over.
Right. Like because the Fox body and F body were fucking archaic by comparison.
Right. Like because we had, you know, there was the 300 ZX twin turbo,
but I just gravitated to the 300 or 3000 GT because it looked it looked so different.
Right. I think I think the 300 is a very clean design that's aged.
Absolutely. Incredibly well, but the 3000 GT just today,
when you come up behind one, how wide and low that car is,
it's just incredible.
All wheel drive twin turbo pop up headlights, active arrow, active suspension.
It's just like active exhaust.
It's just that it's like a technology platform.
And I thought that was, I remember just poking around inside of one.
And I was just, this is fucking, this is the future, man, 1991. Let's go.
Yeah. I don't know.
We abandoned the domestic stuff and we kind of went to the Japanese waters
for a bit and the one that would like, would have pulled me away in period
because I was never and maybe because a lot of it as a kid,
it was like what I would see around.
It'd be like, oh, that is cool in person. So I want that.
And so I wasn't seeing and I would see 9-Elevens, but you know, whatever, didn't care.
The only one that would.
So basically I was never super, super attracted to super cars
because they weren't like they were too unattainable.
Sure. Yeah.
Kuntosh was cool.
The gold one in was it super cop?
What was the Jackie Chan one?
Oh, he drives it under the hovercraft with like knives coming out the the butterfly doors.
I think that was it. Yeah.
Or was it wrong with the Bronx?
Would you take Kuntosh over Diablo, though?
Because I would take Diablo because that's I agree.
I was kind of what I was getting to was those cars were always super cool,
unattainable, but then the one that was like, oh, that's just too damn cool.
It's too good.
Was the Diablo.
And and it's still I'm with you on that one of me a little bit.
I just I'm not going to own one.
But like the heart wants exotic wise and young and impressionable.
Frank, what was your exotic?
Would you say it's the the Lamborghini Diablo?
Yeah, Diablo Diablo.
Really, you know, nine, five, nine, whatever, didn't really do anything for me.
Ferrari land.
I mean, F 40s and F 50s were pretty fucking cool.
Pretty. But I.
It didn't.
Those cars didn't tug at me like like a Diablo.
Like that was young, impressionable me.
It looked fucking it looked crazy.
It sounded crazy.
It was in video games.
Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunn had one.
J.K. from Jamiroquai had one.
And so like that was that that was just like, God, it's and every time you would see it,
it was it was just like chef's kids.
It's it's cute.
I like that super car.
McLaren F one for me in that it was too unattainable.
I mean, they're all unattainable for a child.
But like, right.
So in Creighton Brown, that kind of was called purple, like faded purple.
I would put bronze wheels on it and I just I was so captivated by the fact
that this car was so focused on being a driver's car that it had a center driver's seat.
And to me, I'm sorry, that was it, man.
The McLaren F one will always be the exotic.
I even today, if I had to pick an exotic, I think I go McLaren F one.
Just like the driving dynamics are insane.
And maybe that was part of this for me was like.
It's too much the right answer.
And really, for every question, if you can have one car forever, money,
no object or whatever, right, insert.
You think so?
I think F 40 is up there.
I think you get a lot of F 40, F 50 answers in that question or like.
Yeah, but I think I think if you were to pin someone down to it,
hey, you get to pick this or that.
Dude, it looks so one is going to every time.
Like everyone like and rightfully so.
And in video games and everything, because that's the only way I could
experience it as a teenager, because that came out in 95.
It always seems so big.
And then the first time I saw when I was there, they're not the fuck.
They're suit like it's like your belly button is the roof line.
It's like an incredibly compact car.
But there's something just the design is brilliant belly button.
Yeah, the interior, you should get that look that the interior was brilliant.
The sound was brilliant.
The speed was unimaginable.
I just something about that will always be the car that I was like,
yeah, that's fucking special.
That's it's a special car, right?
Yeah, it is.
But just something something young, young, impressionable.
Frank was just the Diablo was just like.
I mean, it's win win, right?
Like either one of those is so good.
And then like you get Alexa cellophane might be comparable to that.
Like one of those a lot, but no, McLaren F1.
Still my answer.
No, it is.
It's the right answer.
Oh, I liked it.
But that purple, though, that purple was so I'm going to call it purple.
I know it's a brown, but it's it's faded purple.
And then what about like, what was a little bit later?
Like once you got in the high school, obviously, you had a high school car.
It wasn't a McLaren F1 unless you're holding out on us.
Really burying the lead 200 and whatever episodes.
And right, but like.
I don't know that you're by the time you got to high school
and you started hanging out with high school friends that had high school cars
and what they were doing or not doing.
I know my my taste pivoted in a different direction for a while.
Yeah, what about you?
Like what was your high school?
I still love them.
Well, the McLaren came out when I was in high school, right?
So that was kind of kind of it.
But like we were driving shipboxes.
I got into like trucks again.
I think that's always been there and I still enjoy that.
But yeah, as far as like what I what I dreamt about or what be a poster car,
we're still talking like mid 90s.
I got a high school in the 90s.
Jeez, I don't know, man.
I think I think at that time, we started to see like things like the NSX.
We're starting to get more like attention.
I've always loved that.
And, you know, getting to own one was like actually like a bucket list item.
You know, I don't know.
I think I was starting to get into like the because that was like the Gran Turismo years.
So I started to like dream about like STI's and Evo's and things of that nature.
That's when I started like gravitating towards that stuff hard.
And I think it's still there.
Like I would love an Evo four or five so hard.
And I know they're super attainable and I, you know, if I got my shit straight,
I could probably scoop one up for a good price.
But it's like, I don't know.
I really was really digging on those like WRC based like GCA, Impresa,
STI's and Evo's like that was my thing.
Yeah, you know, it's funny because.
I'm right there with you on a lot of it.
But but then.
Like pretty much up until I bought my first car, my Barracuda,
very much was led and I was looking for a Japanese car.
Yeah, almost specifically for my first car.
So I'd almost bought a Mark two Supra with a seven seven M GTE swap
from a Mark three turbo.
OK, for my first car, which would have been fucking crazy.
But it didn't run quite right.
And it was about ended up being a basket case.
So it would have been a brutally bad choice for my first car.
Then I, you know, a 76 Celica lift back in my neighborhood.
Five speed, eight hundred dollars.
My parents are like, I think it's a piece of shit.
And they weren't wrong.
No, but still the desire was there.
And yeah, part of that was Gran Turismo.
But like looking at just like more like aspirational.
Yes, the there was one video I remember specifically.
And it was like on a racetrack in like Australia or some shit.
It was an R34 Skyline doing like fucking like turntable doughnuts.
All wheel drive spin just just whipping it.
And it was like, that was insane in period of just all wheel drive
turbo big power and just that much control was like things cars didn't do.
And so that was really like poster child shit.
And then it pivoted.
Then I was like, oh, what is this old barracuda?
And so I bought my barracuda.
So they got way into the muscle car scene for a while. Got it.
But those were as aspirational necessarily.
I was like, these are available and I got this one.
My car was thirty five hundred dollars when I bought it. Right.
And so like and I had saved up a bunch of money.
And my parents chipped in some money for for Christmas.
And I sold some bullshit that I had and like, all right,
I scraped together thirty five hundred dollars to buy this car.
But the aspirational shit was very much still led by Gran Turismo.
And and also this was like early days of like you would get like.
Street fire like.
Oh, yeah, yeah, like videos of like car shit.
You know, there's a guy with an L.S. swapped Black 240Z.
That was like pretty infamous.
It's a huge burnout and stuff.
And just that era, you would download it off a fucking Napster or whatever.
That that changed shit pretty significantly.
Very nice. Yeah. Yeah.
And now we're back to shipbox.
And so yeah, we've come full circle.
God. Yeah. No, yeah.
Good stuff. But it is funny.
It is funny, like you're kind of like subjected to like certain things
based on where you grew up, right?
Like the environments of fact there and the people around you,
what they like is kind of bakes into what you like.
But yeah, that exposure, right?
Like coming on like where that, you know, like starting off in 1980,
like there was no internet.
And plus where I grew up was like 30 years behind the rest of the country.
Let's be honest.
So like, you know, for me, like that Iraq was a spaceship to you.
But when I when I started getting that Japanese stuff,
like just watching and I was like, how can a four cylinder beat this,
you know, V8?
And it was like, let me tell you about turbo.
So I'm like, nerdy dude to put his hand on my shoulder.
And I'm like, this is fucking awesome.
And like ever since I've still been into that stuff, right?
Like that's how that's how impactful that stuff was.
So I still get a kick out of it, right?
Like I still think those cars were like talk about cars that changed the landscape.
I mean, we always talk on the pot about, you know, the first WX we got here, right?
Like an O2.
And it really did change.
It changed a lot for me.
Yeah.
But like the DSMs did it decades earlier.
Yeah, right.
They really did.
Yeah.
I mean, I graduated high school in 2002 and there was one kid who at our school,
he managed to get a 2002 WRX.
What a first for him.
It was a blue sedan, right?
It was like the the one and it was like this lucky son of a bitch.
It was just like it was like pretty far in a way, the nicest car in the high school
parking lot, which I mean, what, that's a $23,000 car.
And it's not like I went to this really high fly in high school.
But that was like huge.
Like that was absurd that this kid had this car.
What's what's funny is the gap between us is small.
But at the time I was in the military full expendable income in well into my
military career, like a few years, three and a half years.
And we were buying I had a few friends buy new WRX when they came out.
But at the same time for that same price, Mark for Supras, everybody has
there's so many Mark for Supras.
And we had a one guy had a NSX, which was a little harder to get your hands on.
But Mark for Supras were super available.
3000 GTs were still super available.
So all these cars were just in 240s, like Nissan 240s X's.
I remember someone bought it was like, yeah, like 2,500 bucks.
Like the cleanest S 14.
I was just like, yeah, think about I'm thinking back.
And I looked at, I found some old pictures of our friends.
We used to go like do car meets and like hang out and go on drives.
And I was just looking at the cars and I'm like, we literally made below
minimum wage, but we were all driving what are all these fucking cars.
Yeah. Yeah.
Wild. It's like a 300 CX twin turbo, six to eight grand.
It's like, or that Mark for Supra.
Yeah, it's not a hundred and fifty thousand dollar car.
Yeah.
And you could score a great one for 20 grand in 2002.
Right. Yeah.
I just I mean, unbelievable, dude.
Yeah, it's it's it's bonkers.
And, you know, there's other.
I think there's another there's another episode in the future of stupid car shit
and bull and stuff we got into.
Oh, there's that. Yeah.
That might be a late night confidential soad, but teaser.
Yeah, it's it's funny
because it's like, I don't know what are kids into now?
What's aspirational for kids now?
I know Mike, my son, he's nine and he's he still thinks like
Hellcats are the dopest thing, like challengers and chargers are like the school.
That's cool. Yeah.
Fiber trucks, which wrong, but whatever.
Like that'd be like me saying, oh, God, DeLorean nine year old me,
like a DeLorean is it's really cool and it's kind of a pile of garbage.
Very strikingly similar comparison.
But yeah, like I don't.
So that's where he's at.
So so Teddy's not too far off.
He's like into the muscle stuff like he's hoping so this car show
we might go to tomorrow, he's he wants to see a Dodge Viper,
which is his like favorite semi-modern car.
But he loves like Shelby Cobras.
He's like really into the concept between
or behind this lightweight car with a big engine that's like impossible
to drive at speed.
And so and the Viper is really just a more modern interpretation of that.
So that's that's all he's into right now.
He's like, what's the closest we can get to that?
I'm like, well, we cannot afford either right now.
But you know what it is?
Got by force.
Yeah, one.
Oh, we see about that.
We got one of those parked nearby, I heard.
But yeah, dude, he's just like into that stuff, which is kind of cool.
Like that's like us being in the I guess.
So that's the analog of us being in the muscle cars, right?
Kind of. Yeah. Yeah.
No, it's it's it's cool.
It's fun. But like, yeah, just like other kids that are out there,
it's funny because it's just like she just changed so much.
She's like just thinking back now and thinking of like a kid today
being into, let's say, that Mark for Supra that we were talking about now.
That's an old ass car.
That's like you or me being really into like three in an SL going.
Right. Yeah. You know, it's it's it's it's a kind of a wild
deal to think about stuff that's like semi-modern and and shit
that was available new.
And we remember, oh, yeah, you know, so and so got this brand new.
That's a deeply old, old car like super dinosaur car for kids coming up now.
So it's it's just kind of it's interesting to see and what kids are up to nowadays.
Like the 95 GeoTracker I drive daily that came out when I was 15.
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly. Wow.
Wow.
Yep. Should I read magazine ads at you?
Yeah, you definitely should.
Why don't you post something out of your collection?
That's a I will.
What do you think the spicy index is on this one?
Oh, I don't know why I asked this because I kind of I fucked myself up
mentally when you you go, oh, this one's a two out of ten difficulty.
This one, let's see.
I actually have a few sitting here.
It's just which one do I want to pick?
I'll get to make some match them.
I think that I'm going to go with
got it. They're all annoyingly not that difficult.
I'm going to go.
Well, don't tell me.
All right. Well, let's just let's just I'm just going to read you.
How about how about this?
How about I just read you an ad?
Yeah, let's do that.
This is our this is our dare I say famous
automotive print ad quiz game show where we each take turns reading
advertisements about vehicles fair game is 80s through the mid 2000s.
We omit anything that gives it away.
The other person has three guesses to figure out what the hell we're talking
about. You can ask for help depending on who's playing.
It's me guessing.
So Frank never helps me.
He's a horrible person.
Just take notes, guys.
He's he's really brutal at this game, but 10 minutes on the clock.
Got to figure out what car we're talking about.
Definitely play along at home.
This is this is super interactive and you can yell and be like,
what's wrong with you guys?
Exactly. We're cool with that.
But yeah, Frank, roll that beautiful bean footage.
Oh, boy. OK.
So this is a one page ad.
We've got the vehicle in question at the bottom.
I don't know, 40 percent of the ad.
It's a slight Dutch angle and we're looking.
It's it's on like a looks like some wet tarmac.
We're looking at the front, you know, front passenger three quarter view.
And then it says in large script,
except for the windshield, the wheels and the price.
Things are pretty much where you'd expect them to be.
Because of blanks, it's a weird just just roll.
I'm with it. I'm with it, dude.
Because of blanks, cab forward design.
You won't find the windshield in the usual place.
It's leading edges move forward and down to enhance visibility
and aerodynamics.
The wheels are pushed towards the corners
for greater stability and increased interior room.
And this year, many features that were options are standard.
So now the price of a well equipped blank may be lower than you'd expect.
While the resale value is higher than Taurus, Lumina,
Camry and every car in its class.
And then it says it's eighteen thousand nine hundred ninety five dollars
asterisks well equipped.
And then it shows a list of this equipment underneath.
For that much money, you are getting standard three point three liter
sequential EFI V six engine with one hundred and sixty one horsepower
standard speed control, I'm assuming that's a cruise standard power windows
and door locks, standard 16 inch touring tires.
Yes, you do get tires.
Standard fog lamps, standard power heated outside mirrors,
standard airbag for driver and front passenger, standard air conditioning,
standard AM FM cassette and center console with storage,
more passenger room and trunk space than Taurus, Lumina or Camry.
Better resale value than Taurus, Lumina or Camry.
Hmm, customer one care, three year, thirty six thousand mile bumper to bumper warranty
and three and thirty six roadside assistance for more information.
Call one eight hundred a link.
Yeah, that's that's that's what you got, my friend.
So tech specs, it's three point three liter V six, I'm assuming.
Didn't really say it, but it did.
Yeah, V six, V six, OK.
If I hundred and sixty one ponies, electronic fuel injection.
So I can't forward, can't forward, it's kind of fun.
Start the clock, we're clocking.
Dude, awesome comps, though, right?
Like, yeah, yeah, it tells you what it's fighting against.
Camry was the only car worth a shit on that list.
Oh, I hate on the Lumina, come on.
Yeah, I am.
Jeez, dude.
What is it, Lumina, Camry and Taurus?
Well, for Taurus is a perennial champion of cars.
This would not be the I don't think we're in.
I think we're going to be.
Cab forward was 90s.
I think we're in the mid 90s even.
Let's just go.
I'm going to shoot my shot because I have a good feeling.
Shoot a baby is this is going to be in cab forward.
It's brilliant.
It's so brilliant that was that might be the biggest hit in this entire.
Yeah, I've owned some cab forward designed cars from this period.
I think I had the smaller version if I'm going to be right of this car
and the windshield is raked insane and there's like so much real estate
on the dashboard that it's it's fucking feels weird.
Let's go with a 1993 Dodge Intrepid final answer.
Oh, oh, God, oh, fuck, I lost it.
No, it's actually a Ford F-150 because of Dodge Intrepid cab forward design.
You both find the windshield in the usual place Intrepid,
the new Dodge, a division of Chrysler Corporation.
It's a little bit later, but that same generation.
This is a 96 OK Intrepid.
Earlier years, some of those.
Items were optional, but they're standard on this.
This is a good call.
Secular year.
Yeah, 96 Dodge Intrepid, the cab forward and then the 3.3 liter
pretty much give you everything you need to know on that one.
Exactly. That was all of their.
All of their marketing push was into the cab forward design
and and and it was like kind of everything.
You had Edward Herman doing all those dodge
commercials all wearing a suit and tie and that's right.
I had a so I in the wonderful line of cars I've owned in my life.
I had a 96 Dodge Stratus with the Mitsubishi four cylinder.
Same same thing just shrunk down, right?
Like dimensions, but the real estate,
when you're driving one of those cars, it's so weird.
You have two and a half to three feet of dash.
Yes. So it feels open, but it's absolutely unusable space.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And unless you want to throw through some Thomas guides up there
or or whatever, some you could throw some, I don't know.
What were those beanie babies?
Something yes, a period.
Correct. Yeah, some beanie babies.
Some goddamn heavy metal magazine.
It wasn't a shit car.
That car, I mean, it was a shit car, but it was like,
fuck, I want to say I paid like eighteen hundred bucks for it.
But it was good motor.
That was a Mitsubishi four cylinder was responsible.
Oh, yeah, good ad. Good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, decent. So well done, sir.
I figured you would get that one.
And that was actually more difficult than the other ads
I had that they were even more like lay upy.
So yeah, hopefully you played along at home and had fun with that, dear listener.
Speaking of fun at home, no, not edging.
PCP, whether no matter how or what type of PCP you do recreationally,
have you done any PCP in the form of project car progress?
I'm glad you asked, my friend.
So I actually I also been terribly swamped,
but I did have like an entire weekend day to do some work on the budget overlander.
That would be my 2008 Nissan XTERRA off road trim.
First thing you have to deal with,
if you read anything about second gen XTERRAs is SMOD,
the strawberry milkshake of death sounds delightful, really horrible.
Genius engineering move where they integrated
a transmission cooler within the radiator.
Pretty typical, right?
But they had a manufacturing defect where the inside would fail.
You'd have no idea until and you actually wouldn't know until you
started to experience the issues, which is it was too late in the game.
So yeah, why is there coolant in my transmission?
Is that good? No, it's horrible.
So a transmission would be expensive.
You could also lose an engine because it could work the other way around.
You could get transferred bleeding into your coolant lines.
And that's not good. Neither one of those is good.
It's game over. It's game over.
Game over, man.
So that's known as a ticking time bomb on these.
And there are reports of these things failing at like 30 K.
Like so my vehicle at 180 K.
I was super pumped to see a calisthenic OEM radiator
still on the truck.
Somehow at 180 K had not failed.
This is you guys know my budget's tight, right?
I infamously spent everything but $200.
So no brainer.
First thing I had to do was the cooling system.
So while I did that, I pulled the radiator out.
Got a new coil rad for like 80 something bucks or low 90s shipped.
Or is there so affordable for this platform?
That's the other thing.
I don't know if you bought parts yet for your XTERRA, but super,
super approachable price.
I've been I've been looking at stuff. Yeah.
Dude, when it when a truck is like super capable
and way below what it should be in the market
and the parts are attainable and cheap, buy them now, guys.
I'm not I'm not even messing around with this.
The XTERRA is a fantastic option.
But anyway, so I bought the thermostat.
Got an ASIN unit, got a new radiator cap to go with that radiator.
And I did the plastic coolant lines.
So fun thing about these plastic coolant lines,
if you guys remember my Volvo V50, they will fail you
when you're doing a competition.
So this it's a nightmare and it's like a game over thing.
If you can't repair it on the spot, because it literally will just bleed
your whole coolant system dry in a matter of minutes.
So this one was weeping.
I would I would consider it weeping.
It wasn't tripping.
It was kind of like weeping a little bit with collect every time I drove.
And I was like, that sucks.
So when I went to remove that plastic piece, which they now there's
aftermarket metal ones, dude, it literally when I pulled the rubber,
like it took the plastic neck was still in the hose.
And then the rest I just crumbled in my hand.
So like I could picture us like two, two like hours
into a fucking muddy trail and that happening.
Oh, game over.
So all that replaced new coolant and now I'm future proof, right?
Like and it didn't cost anything, dude.
Like the like for the radiator, that little the coolant piece was like $9.
The thermostat was like 20 bucks and the radiator cap was $6 for a Gates one.
Yeah.
So you can do all that for nothing.
And it's like you're in like 20 bucks, basically.
Yeah, dude, to have your your XTERRA be like the biggest issue ever
presented on the second gen to be taken care of is super pumped.
It was a no brainer.
My first big step forward, like having a reliable truck.
So that's what I've been up to.
I couldn't be more happy how it came out, dude.
And you know what?
Working on the truck, pretty easy, pretty straightforward vehicle.
You're going to be coming down to
genuinely dollars and cents to make this budget.
100 you just like cut the plastic out of the old radiator
and just have the aluminum and like scrap the aluminum portion for like 40 bucks.
I'm not there yet because the super beneficial thing in is
I do have an update about selling some parts.
I do have some parts I can sell.
I don't want to I don't want to spoil that yet.
But I do have that brush guard,
which is really nice with a light bar that will unload very easily
if it has no ruddy and my wheels and tires that came with it.
Because even like for shit wheels, people will pay
because they'll just paint them or put them on their shit truck.
Dude, the price people charge for like even shit wheels.
If you ever get on Marketplace is a joke.
Yeah, like it's looking a little bit where it's just like, oh, if I can find
because my wheels and tires, the prop like I was originally going to be like,
oh, I can just get it like a set of takeoff wheels with some good tires on it
for like 500 bucks.
And now I've got good tires mounted and balanced ready to go.
But like it's just not the case usually.
And you'll see.
They've like, oh, they've had this listed for like four months.
And they won't buy a new message.
Yeah, you send them a message like, hey, you're asking $800 for the set of wheels.
You just have been rot.
They've been rotting away in your side yard.
Hey, it's an 800.
I'll give you like 625 and I'll come get them.
It's like, no, like, all right.
Well, keep sitting on a homie.
Like, I don't want to and it's like a uniform thing, right?
Like wheels are very pricey right now.
So I was super pumped that I got the OEM ones.
I still haven't mounted the new tires to them, but that's another another battle.
But yeah, that's where Matt, man, I did some cooling system over
a complete cooling system overhaul on the XTERRA overhaul and tight.
Good shit.
But I have not done a whole lot.
I was gone.
I was on vacation, family vacay to Sedona.
Got to see some lovely scenery landscape and a lot of it's very like
outdoorsy and there's a lot of they do all the Jeep tours there.
There's a lot of off-roading trails and stuff, which kind of just
really made me want to fire it up.
Yeah, it really made it jump and got me kind of sprung to get on it.
But I just have not had time.
I did have a little bit of time.
So before I went on the trip, I moved it in because I've just been street parking it.
And the tags are out.
And so I was like, yeah, I'm not I should probably get it off the street
with deeply expired tags because they're like 10 months out.
Oh, I went to start it up.
Battery set.
OK, batteries from twenty twenty three.
I jumped it, but it was dead.
Dead. You ever have like when you put a jumper box on something
and there's not even enough juice in the box in the battery for the jumper box
to even realize that it's connected?
Yeah, it says like you're fucked.
No, you just connect it.
And it's like, how come you're not connecting me to a car battery?
I'm like, no, homie, I am.
Yeah, certain ones below a certain threshold won't.
Yeah, it just thinks it's like touching the ground or something.
That's so that's how dead the battery was.
But I don't know if that's because the battery's it because I had had it.
I waited a week before and I started it right up and moved it.
Oh, but with the key broken off in the ignition, it's like super easy
to like, oops, I left it in like accessory and not all the way off.
Because true, you're just like turning it with enough.
It just needs to feel the read the transponder.
So maybe I left it on.
I don't I don't know.
And I dare not lock the car because if I lock the car and the battery is dead,
I don't have a way in because the only key.
Oh, it's broken off in the ignition.
Damn.
So that's a thing.
I was able to double jumper box it.
So I put one jumper box on it and then I put the other one
that had less juice on it.
But that was enough juice to tell the other jumper box, oh, I'm connected.
And then I was able to start it.
Nice. Put it in the driveway.
I let idle for like 10 minutes and then it was like, run, run, run.
Click, click, click, click.
So I'm probably going to get a battery for it.
Fine. I did register it.
OK, they looked at the signature like that's weird,
but whatever, I'm not going to judge this person's signature
because this homie just wrote in all caps just the last name on the signature.
Oh, well, what is an artist?
We don't know. Yeah.
So six hundred and something because it's about to it's about to be out for twenty
six, so I'm tagged all the way to twenty seven.
Oh, but not actually tagged because I have to get this past smog.
That's right. Paid.
They accepted everything.
They don't give you the sticker, though, do they?
They don't give me the sticker.
They don't even read you a title yet.
They just hand me the title and everything back with the things stapled.
It says, hey, RDF in progress, OK, you've paid your dues.
They gave me a one-trip moving pass
in theory so I can like drive it to the small shop.
Right.
Right.
So I got to do a battery.
But and then I just started poking around under the hood like, OK,
let me like spend a little bit more time under here.
Some good stuff and some stuff I don't need to address
because it's remarkably clean under there.
Yeah, like it's been like this for a day.
Hailed, but like I start looking around.
It's like, OK, there's like a lower
just like a lower radiator hose.
It's got a metal bracket with a bolt that like bolts to
I suppose it's like a lower timing cover
like on the front of the motor and the bolts just missing.
So the brackets just like hanging out the breeze.
OK, battery hold down.
It's gone. OK.
OK, there was what did I see on the other side?
Oh, one of the brackets that holds the bottom of the air box,
which is on the driver side of Interfender.
The apron is just like not connected to the air box.
It's just lying down.
OK, the bolts missing. Not that big of a deal.
So there's some tiki tax shit like that.
And I did notice where the somebody had bypassed
and relocated the knock sensor already.
Yeah, you were saying that like it's like half disconnected.
And for some reason, one wire just ground it.
Instead of going to the sensor,
it's like disconnected from the sensor and just grounded.
Which I don't know why somebody did that, but they did.
That's weird.
I'm just going to like put it back
and hopefully that cures the knock sensor code.
But then if you look to where it goes into the harness,
it goes it goes into the harness.
There's a pigtail connector.
And then that connector then goes into the main harness
on the main harness side of the plug.
There's about, I don't know, an inch and a half of that same wire.
But on that side, the main harness side of the pigtail,
where it's just bare, like the the sheathing is just like cracked and pulled away.
Oh, so it's just in the breeze.
Now, it's not touching anything else.
Still, but it still needs to get addressed.
So whether I depen it and then just put some shrink tubing over it and repen it.
I could do that. I can clean it up.
I don't want to just wrap in electrical tape.
That's a little hokey.
But as long as I keep it insulated,
figure out a way to do that.
I don't know. It's a little little insulation in it, you know, in a can.
But like, it still looks really good.
The water pump is super new.
Not that is there.
But I will say that I was looking the the supercharger pulley.
It's not its own pulley.
It actually runs off of,
I think, like maybe the AC compressor and the crank pulley.
And then it's got like an idler.
So it's not its own thing.
So it's just like a regular width belt.
Well, probably the outside towards the front of the car, 20 percent.
It's just missing.
It's like like a like a strip peeled off and it just disappeared one.
There are a sharp sharp pulley somewhere in there.
I don't know.
Not that I can see just like taking a peek.
Yeah, I haven't like pulled anything off and pulled the fan off or anything.
But it's weird that it was like,
it had to have been fairly new for that to happen,
because you don't like do the water pump and then put like that shit belt back on.
Or do you? Or do you? Right.
I don't know. There's some weird stuff that like I've seen crazy weird.
But like, well, maybe they ordered the belt for the non supercharged one,
which is way more common and went to put it on and said, fuck it, it doesn't fit.
We've got to put the old one on.
Yeah. And then also, if you notice, remember before I reported it, like,
hey, it's leaving, it's leaving a little bit of oil under it, like, you know,
a good amount of oil, like maybe about this big of a puddle after a park for like a week.
OK, that's significant.
I did notice the power steering fluid is is probably an inch below the minimum.
So I'm hoping it's just like leaking out of leaking out of the power steering system.
And it's not like over your main seal or input shaft seal on the transmission or something.
That's as much digging into that that I've done.
Oh, and then I also did figure out Nissan can cut me a fresh key off of the VIN number.
Oh, that's killer. That's so assuming the car hasn't been re keyed in the past,
which with this car is a bold assumption. Yeah.
They can.
But I still want to talk to a locksmith and see if they can get that one out,
the broken piece out, because if they can just pull that out and I just.
Get a couple of new keys cut that's way better than spending $200 on an ignition.
Oh, yeah, I'd much rather do that route, too.
I agree. Yeah.
So that's not a whole lot of progress, but, you know, slow march of time.
Hey, XTERRA flavored PCP for all.
Yeah, let's shut it down like super quick style.
Thanks for tuning in, guys, whether you're listening or watching.
We appreciate it.
Real quick mention.
Patreon is their APA pod.
Yeah, look us up. Check us out.
Join and give us some horrible beverage options.
We go off of recommendation and we do have a growing support now, which is cool.
And it also means we're going to drink some horrible stuff.
So I love that for the late night confidential episodes that open up once
you're on there. So it is kind of cool.
But anyway, we do appreciate you guys tuning in.
As always, check us on YouTube to subscribe, watch the videos on there.
If you want to follow my personal stuff, auto obscure garage, rescues,
restorations, reviews, XTERRA content has been coming out.
I think I've seen might have three by the time this is released.
Yeah, it's been it's been fun.
Frank, where can they follow you for your world class photography?
Oh, boy, you should just follow me here, honestly.
Yeah, but otherwise, yeah, if you want to see what I'm up to on the
photo side of things, that's the photographers garage.
But yeah, hopefully we'll just see you back here in another week.
Patreon dot com forward slash APA pod.
And yeah, I guess until next time, yep, we'll catch you then, guys.
As always, take care.
About this episode
The hosts trade childhood “dream car” stories and debate how adult nostalgia can feel disingenuous—especially when comparing kids’ poster-car fantasies to what people buy later. One side grew up in the boonies chasing mud-and-trail Bronco dreams; the other remembers the C4 Corvette, then pivoting through 90s Japanese tech icons like the 3000GT VR-4, DSMs, and the Mark IV Supra. They also run an ad-quiz game, then shift to project-car progress: a budget overlander Nissan Xterra cooling-system overhaul (SMOD prevention) plus a dead-battery and minor under-hood discoveries.
Original notes
Frank has a theory that most kids of a certain age, didn't ever really dream of owning a Porsche 911. Does Chadwick agree? The dudes kick back and reminisce about the cars that they actually dreamed of as children, what they were and how that might have changed how they feel about cars today.
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Another Pointless Automotive Podcast
Frank Harrington IV and Chadwick Atkinson
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64:18