Failure Is An Option? What happened to Mike’s GTO, The Triple Crown of Rodding, COMP Cams Camaro, Trivia, and more on the V8 Radio Podcast!

All right, ladies and gentlemen, automotive enthusiasts from all around the planet Earth

doesn't matter what continent you are on.

People like cool cars there.

You've done it once again.

That's right.

You've pushed the play button on yet another.

Kevin, another affable episode of V8 Radio.

Laughable?

Affable.

Eheh, affable.

Yeah, it means friendly or good natured or easy to talk to.

See?

Just like that.

Boom, bam, pow.

This is the V8 Radio podcast.

I'm your host, Kevin Osteen, joined as always by our esteemed co-host, Mr. Mike Q-Ball-Clark.

I'm here in live and in living color.

Doing great, man.

Doing great.

Happy to get back on board here.

Live and in living color.

Love to see it and hear it.

Right on.

How are you doing?

I'm alive and living in color.

All right.

We are simpatico.

Yeah, we're affable.

Yeah, we are that.

I'm good.

This has been a very busy time as always, which is great.

I'm very fortunate.

I'm here in the garage and the summer is just hanging on, which is a good thing for me.

Right on.

It's hot.

It's still hot.

It's unseasonably hot.

Yeah.

You guys have had some weather.

We had a little, we was warm up in the North Office yesterday, but not like what you guys

were getting.

Yeah, so we're recording this in mid-September and it was 101 yesterday.

Woof.

Yikes.

And I loved every minute of it.

You're right.

I do like the heat.

I'll tell you what.

I do like it.

Yeah.

Well, speaking of bringing the heat, for those who listen to this podcast with routine

frequency, which is, you know, everybody, you know, that we start off each episode with

an automotive trivia question in which we ask the question in the beginning and reveal

the riveting answer at the end of the show.

Have you prepared a trivia question?

I have prepared a trivia question.

So here we go.

So Kevin, our good friends at Dodge at one point produced a car that was designed specifically

for women buyers and was marketed as, quote, a distinctive car for the discriminating modern

woman, unquote.

My question is, what was the model name of this car?

And for the bonus, what model years was it produced?

That is a tremendous question.

And myself not being a discriminating woman buyer, I have to think about that one.

And so I do know that Chrysler, I don't know that GM and Ford did it, but I remember seeing

like some really cool fifties concept car stuff that Chrysler did, you know, maybe like in

the, in the Dodge line, like a Dodge, you know, 59 Dodge, whatever it would have been.

This is before the cornet, you know.

So I think that it was a special show car, but it was like dainty pink, you know, and

they literally said that.

And it also reminds me of that.

What was it, a Tex Avery cartoon that we all grew up with, where it was the cars of tomorrow.

Oh, right.

And it had a woman designed car that was done in pink with lace around it and everything.

So I was starting to think of those, but going a little bit later, you know, the story tells

it that the Mustang was actually designed more for a female buyer than not necessarily

not for males, but I think the Ford marketing execs literally called it a secretary's car.

So they wanted something like small and easy to maneuver and stylish that this like new

crop of baby boomer working women would be attracted to to drive to work every day.

So taking the nod from that, if it's like a Mustang size, I want to say it might have

been a valiant duster, maybe it, maybe it, maybe it dodged.

So the Plymouth valiant and dart, it was a dart.

Dodge dart.

Yeah, Plymouth valiant Dodge dart.

Dodge dart.

So I'm going to say maybe it was the dart.

Okay.

Possibly the duster, but I'm going to, I'm going to say that although the dart has a

very male name, you know, it's like, it's like the Ford probe.

So I'm having a problem with the name.

I'm just going to get this over with and say it was a dodge dart.

Okay.

And what model of years?

Unless it was a Barracuda with the mod top.

Oh, now, now we're talking.

But that's a Plymouth.

Well, it was a Plymouth.

I'm going to give you a hint.

This was specifically a dodge.

Yeah.

Huh.

Great question.

I don't think it was the dart, but I think it was a smaller, you know, type of car.

And I think it was that time period.

Dodge.

Now I'm losing like all of my dodge vehicle brand names from the, from the 50s and 60s.

Uncle Bill from the shop is probably screaming at you right now.

Well, he doesn't listen, but he would be screaming anyway.

Right.

I mean, in 59, you had like the Dodge Lancer and the Royal Lancer.

Again, both men, knights and horses.

That's what the Lancer was, you know, jousting.

That's not a female thing.

So you had the Plymouth Savoy, you had the Chrysler Seneca, right?

You had all those crazy dodge or Chrysler product names.

I'm just going to go with dodge dart.

Okay.

And again, what years?

What years was this marketed to women or what years did they make the car?

What years did they make the car?

The first time.

I'm going to say when the dart come out in 63 and that lineage went all the way to 76.

Okay.

So everybody yelling at your podcast playing device right now.

I hear you.

I feel you.

I'm just going to concede now and learn.

Educate me on what this is later.

All right.

We'll find out at the end of the show.

All right.

Duly noted.

All right.

What do you got for me?

I got an easy one for you.

Yes, says you.

All right.

Um, you know, they, they, they call different body panels, different things in different

parts of the world.

Yes.

So what is the scuttle panel?

Oh Lord.

What is the scuttle panel?

Oh man.

Um, are you allowed to tell me from what country that it's not female or male.

It's just, uh, um, yeah, I probably could.

But I don't know if it originated from, but it's used in, uh, in Australia.

Oh, okay.

Interesting.

Okay.

This makes me think of a trivia question from way back in the day that will live in infamy.

The Dutchman panel.

No, the dashboard.

Oh, that one too.

Yeah.

So I'm going to say that the scuttle panel looks like a day.

She goes, it's straight like a day back in the day.

It's not swoopy then.

Like it is now.

Um, I'm going to say a scuttle panel is a, as a dashboard.

Hmm.

Final answer.

You like, like that dashboard.

Well, I mean, it's, it's, it's been career defining for me.

All right.

Well, then you are duly noted.

All right.

And we'll find out later on in the show.

Right on, man.

So, uh, so much going on.

We just got back from a tremendous event, the triple crown of Roddy.

We certainly did.

What an event this is.

This is my second year, uh, going to the triple crown of Roddy.

It was a third annual event and they, it just gets better and better with each,

each, uh, iteration of it.

They, they've learned.

Even though it rained.

Even though it rained, it was still pretty cool.

Yeah.

Even though our pop-up, our little easy hub was destroyed.

Easy bound.

Easy.

Yeah.

Well, not too easy.

It went down swinging.

That poor thing.

It's amazing how heavy water really is.

Yeah.

But, um, but yeah, no, it was a great event.

I mean, Gary Case and Bobby Allaway put on a tremendous event and with all the support

that they get doing it and people came out in droves on Friday anyway when the

weather was great.

Um, Saturday was a little more sparse, but the, the diehards were there and the

people who knew that they won something, uh, certainly stayed, stayed around and

kept the cars displayed throughout the rain.

Um, but I mean, my goodness, it was tremendous and we had Ben with us, which Ben

and I kind of switched off, uh, running the, uh, running the video boards, which

allowed us to kind of walk around the show a little bit.

I got to see a lot more of it than I did last year, which was great.

Um, but yeah, man, just, just an unbelievable event.

I loved it.

What, what was your take?

Well, we were, we were busy.

I mean, we had a lot going on.

Uh, as per last year, uh, we were hired to do all the stage video for the, the

big screens that flanked the main stage.

Um, I was tasked with MCing along with a friend, Tim Strange, uh, doing interviews

and, uh, announcements and all that kind of fun stuff.

Did the music playlist for it again this year?

Um, and that's where you and I, and, uh, and of course, Ben Koopman, who

has rejoined the V eight team after a four, four year hiatus, um, on VATV

production side.

So that's really fun.

It is really fun.

I've been back.

Me too.

And, uh, out, out in the actual show as an exhibitor, um, we had a lot of our

other teammates, Kelly was there and, and, uh, Jeff, our painter and his

daughter, Meg and his wife, Christie and Joe, our sales guy and Ziggy was there.

Yep.

Uh, Isaac and his girlfriend, Isaac, our interior guy, because we had a, a

booth space with the, um, comp camps, Camaro on display.

Yeah, man.

That was pretty, pretty killer.

I'm glad we were able to bring something out.

Yeah.

Me too.

And, and you know, in, in this world, as soon as a car is finished, we generally

don't have the luxury of touring it around or, or, or futzing with it because

the owner wants it back.

You know, they've waited, they've, some cases they waited a long time to get this

car built and it's like, Hey, sit at home.

And we, we were on track to, to bring something else that wasn't quite finished

yet.

So by sheer happenstance, the comp camps, Camaro was back in our possession,

uh, having to chase down a power draw that was killing the battery when it was

parked.

And that was kind of a Sherlock Holmes project too.

I mean, I couldn't believe the answer that that turned out to be our mechanic team

nailed it.

For sure.

They're amazing.

Yeah.

So, you know, the, the caretaker of the comp cams, Camaro is deep in automotive

and is not, you know, unfamiliar with any of this stuff.

And the car kept going dead.

So he's checking all the usual suspects.

Is it a light?

Is it the glove box light?

You know, is a, uh, some kind of, you know, ECM is still running or, you know,

there's some strange on the battery draw and he couldn't, he couldn't get it.

You know, just kept putting batteries in this thing and putting on a charger and

taking off the charger and be dead in a few days.

And I think at the end of the day, what we learned is that there was a relay in the

starter circuit off the column that was stuck.

Right.

It had over time stuck in the closed position and allowed for a current draw.

Ain't that something, man?

It's like, how do they find stuff like that?

It's flipping crazy.

That would make me just lose my mind looking for something like that.

Well, it is a challenge and you really start at the end and you just narrow circuit by

circuit by circuit by circuit by circuit.

And then, you know, to me, I would, I would end up looking at the steering column like

it's a steering column.

Right.

If the horn's not blowing and the turn signals not stuck on, really what could it be?

Right.

They dug a little deeper and remembered, Trevor remembered, when we put that car together,

which was like, almost like 10 years ago now, that the column that was in it had a relay

system.

So we called the manufacturer to find out that they don't do that anymore because apparently

it might have been problematic.

Do tell.

Yeah, we got to update it with the current system and that took care of the leak.

Oh, good deal.

You know, so that was good.

Right on, man.

That car looked good out there, too.

That's why the car was in our possession.

And the Triple Crown of Riding is in Nashville, Tennessee, and the car lives in Tennessee

also.

Right.

Near Memphis.

That's where comp cams used to be.

So we talked to the caretaker of the car and said, hey, rather than coming all the way

up to our shop and picking it up and dragging it home, I said, why don't you just pick it

up from the event?

And he's like, sure, great, take it.

It was really, really cool because that was unusual for us to have a finished car in our

possession for a little bit of time.

Right.

And during that time, we had a potential customer who came to us with that really cool 69 Dodge

Charger and she wants us to build this car, but she's not super familiar with muscle cars

or these type of projects.

So by the grace of the owner, a couple of our guys were able to give this potential customer

an experience of some ride-alongs using the comp cams Camaro is an example of what these

things can be like.

And I know that, and she knows that a 69 Camaro with a 450 plus cubic inch LS motor making

690 horsepower on a custom subframe and four-link suspension and all that is not a 69 charger.

No, no, sir.

But she was hooked.

She had so much fun cruising around on that car and how could you not?

So as soon as it was Trevor and Ziggy and Joe gave her the ride-alongs, it did a bunch

of things.

It got her excited about the concept of having a special car like this.

And then it was like, well, what can we do to make it?

I don't want it to be as loud as this one, but I want it to be loud and this kind of

seat and whatever.

So she was really able to try something on and now we can tailor her project to what

she wants.

Yeah.

She's got some benchmarks and now she can work from that.

Yeah.

So that was really cool.

And Joe, our sales guy and I, we're kind of joking, it's like, it's almost the equivalent

of me saying, hey, I want to sail around the world and I'm going to spend a whole bunch

of money to have you guys build me a boat, but I've never been in a boat boat.

Right.

That just is a recipe for disaster.

So again, by getting her this ride-along, especially in such a cool car, it was great

and it allowed us to connect with her and get to know her and her husband a little bit

more and find out, you know, kind of really what she digs because, you know, it's not

always easy to tell somebody what you like, but if you're going around turns and giggling

and screaming and having some time, it's more obvious.

Right.

We got to make this one handle well.

Check.

Note to self.

Right on, man.

Yeah.

That was really a happy accident that we happened to have the car there and, you know, we were

able to do what we did for her, so I think that really helped us out quite a bit on that

job.

Well, and we were discussing, we didn't know we were going to have that car there when

this idea came up because it was supposed to go home and we're talking like, what can

we give her a ride in that we had and we did have a 66 charger on hand at the time, but

we all kind of agreed that this bone stock 383 66 charger, it's a great car, but it's

not a modified performance, you know, it's not going to blow your hair back.

Yeah.

Right.

I mean, it does, but it's again, a 66 does have bucket seats, but they're flat, you know,

and it's got the stock, this particular one has the stock suspension in it.

So there's, you know, body roll of a late sixties car.

We want to really kind of show her what was possible and not like, here's how they were.

Yeah.

Isn't this great?

Yeah.

As you, as you, you know, pick her up off the street from sliding out the door.

If you lumber down the road, going around corners.

Yeah.

So, but then when we learned that the, the cop car was going to be there was like, oh,

yeah, let's do that.

So that worked out well.

Yeah, man.

Yeah.

That car's been really, really good to us.

It has.

And that was kind of a long way of saying that, you know, it was on display at the triple crown.

So that was cool.

And that kept our team jumping, answering questions about that.

And then one thing that I really like about the triple crown is, you know, they've got,

I don't remember what the final number was, close to 170 vendors, I think.

Wow.

Oh, it's a, it's a load of vendors.

And that includes builders and it includes manufacturers.

But there's no like, you know, flea market tool guy.

There's nobody with like a face painting booth.

You know, it's all legit car and hot rod and muscle car builders and performance stuff.

So this to me is really turning into a great B2B event.

For sure.

Definitely.

So many industry professionals are at that show yet not just builders, but suppliers.

And I've heard you say it and a few other people say it.

That is turning into like a mini SEMA show.

And I think that's a great thing.

It is.

Yeah.

For, I mean, especially for the builder and the business owner, it's, it's phenomenal.

Well, it's kind of an, it's a niche event.

Exactly.

Yes.

You don't have the all, I mean, the SEMA show represents the entire, the entire idea

of the aftermarket.

And this is hot rod stuff.

So if you're in the hot rod world, that's where you want to be.

Sure.

And it's also very cool because the SEMA HRIA, the Hot Rod Industry Alliance, does

a happy hour there at the Triple Crown.

You know, they, they, they're like, oh yeah, this is where our people are, you know, so

they want to be part of it.

So our friend Mark Bollard, Bollard Performance Transmissions hosts that where you can hang

out for a while and have a drink and learn, you know, connect with other HRIA people or

learn about what the HRIA does if you want to join and get involved.

So, so yeah, there is that professional, it's a professional great hot rod show for sure.

But then it's also an awesome consumer level event because all these companies are selling

stuff and, you know, you got the car show, you can bring whatever you got.

And, you know, Brian Wibbenmeier, our esteemed parts guy and his brother Kyle and his parents

came and, you know, they were, they were participants this year in the show.

Participants, yeah, they're, they're certainly part of our crew, but they brought their

own stuff, their own cars and everything and really had a good time and yeah, it was a,

it's a special event.

It really is.

Yeah.

Brian, he's awesome.

He, he says, I don't care how it happens, but I'm going to be at the Triple Crown either,

either, either I'm going with the shop or I'm taking vacation and I'm going on my own.

But that's where I'm going to be on these dates.

So plan for that.

That's it.

Yep.

It's been like, okay, okay.

And through him, you know, his dad loaned us his aluminum trailer that we used to haul

the Camaro with because our box trailer is in, in disposed.

So that was very cool of him to do that.

And then it was fun.

We all got to go out to eat a few nights and you picked up a new, new nickname.

Yes, that I did.

Let's see if we can set the stage here for this.

So we're in, we're in Nashville, end of the day, Friday.

The show is only two days, Friday, Saturday.

Brian has this ace in the whole barbecue joint that he likes to go to.

We've been there before.

It's really good.

What's it called?

Nick and Jax or something?

Something like that.

I can't remember the exact name.

So it's good.

Nick and Bob or something like that.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Two guys barbecue.

Right.

And we first make a reservation and they don't really take reservations.

So we kind of gave him a warning and we're like, yeah, we're bringing 14 people and Brian's

text response was the hostess accepted that, but there was no smiling in her voice.

There was no smile in her voice.

Oh, that's amazing.

So we halfway take this place over and we're all going around the table ordering whatever

we're going to order and it comes to Mr. Q ball who throws the gauntlet down and orders

the two pounds of ribs.

Yeah.

I mean, why not?

Yeah.

And Ben was right there with it.

So he got the same thing.

Well, that's funny because Ben didn't really hear the quantity I ordered.

He just heard ribs and so I said, I'll take the two pounds of ribs with a side of fries

and Ben's like, oh, yeah, the same thing.

I'm like, Ben, my man, so he also metered it across several days.

He did.

Hey, I ain't no quitter, man.

I'm the part of the clean plate club.

And that was impressive.

You did clean the plate and which point Kelly nicknamed you meat pie.

That woman looked me dead in the eyes like, how's it going there?

Meat pie.

Oh boy.

Good times.

That was pretty hilarious.

It was.

And it was good.

Oh, yeah.

You're like a trooper.

You know, you held it together all day Saturday the next day after.

Oh, for sure.

For sure.

That's what I do, man.

I'm a big truck.

I need lots of gas.

Yeah.

So Saturday at the event, it was pouring down rain until about one or two o'clock.

And in the afternoon, as you mentioned, on Friday, they pick the top 30 basically.

And then they all get invited back for Saturday where they're on display at which later on

in the afternoon is the actual award ceremony.

And we award the 15 or so celebrity pick awards and then the actual triple crown winners.

So street truck and street machine and street cruiser of the year basically get awarded.

And this event was cool too, because once again, there was a charity benefactor who

was the Gary Sinise Foundation.

Gary Sinise was even there.

The Lieutenant Dan Bann played a concert.

Yeah, man.

I wish I'd have got to see it, but we were busy.

We were busy.

Gary Case told me that with the auctions, the 50-50 and all the nonsense.

He said they raised about $77,000.

All right.

Yeah, huge.

Bigger than last year.

Yeah, not too shabby.

Right on.

Yeah, that's a lot of money for a two-day thing.

That is a lot of money.

So credit.

And it rained, exactly.

So I know they were trying to capture that lightning in a bottle like they did last year

for the auction that didn't quite ignite.

But I think the rain kept a lot of people away, so that was going to be tough to repeat that.

But we had a good showing.

And I know Chip Foose was auctioning renderings off.

And I know Dave Kindig wasn't there.

He was in England, but he recorded a video message encouraging people to give from the heart and take care of this foundation.

So that was nice.

Blueprint engines, again, gave away an S3.

Yeah, they sure did.

And they gave away the truck that was customized at Bobby Allaway shop.

Yeah, the Triple Crown itself gave away the truck.

Yeah, right, right.

Brand new, shabby, very cool pickup truck.

Yeah.

So yeah, lots of chances to win.

Of course, there was the pinstriper auction.

The crazy paint guys were there.

And that's really, it's something else, man.

I mean, all these pinstripers come from all over the country and they prepare these works on their own time, their own dime.

They don't get paid to be there.

They donate their pinstriping artwork, or you can hand them something and they'll stripe it right there for you.

Right.

And then auction that for the Speedway Children's Charities.

So it's just, it's a super generous group.

And it's good to see how much they raise because it's a, the Sinise Foundation is a great one.

And the Speedway Children's Charities is also a really, really great cause.

So, you know, it's kind of a feel good event for the whole family.

It really is.

Yeah.

It's like watching a full house marathon.

Way to go, Uncle Jesse.

Yeah, but a lot cooler.

Right.

So yeah, that was one heck of a weekend.

Yeah.

And our team that went, everybody was very inspired by the awesome cars and by talking

to different manufacturers, like you're saying, and connecting with people in the industry.

I know Isaac in the interior shop was jazzed up about seeing a lot of stuff.

Right.

It's fun because, you know, he's got a lot of great ideas and his time is being filled.

But it's great.

People call up or they go on our website at vhbshop.com and you just fill out the form.

And it's like, I want custom interior by Isaac and we'll make it happen.

You got it.

Simple.

Right.

That was a good time because he's super jazzed up with all these great ideas that he saw of,

you know, really top level high-end show cars.

Right.

Yeah.

Who did Isaac have to speak with somebody there that he really?

Isaac had to spend time with Adam Banks of Rad Rights.

That's right.

Adam Banks from Rad Rights.

And Adam is like from Planet Car.

Yeah.

Just from a different universe because he's the fabricator.

He's the upholstery guy.

He does the electrical wiring.

He does a lot of the design.

And they had their 36 Ford, quote unquote, Roadster, which won the Triple Crown.

It sure did.

One of the most amazing cars ever built.

Every piece fabricated.

There's no auto zone 36 Ford parts on there.

And Adam is just such a great guy.

Troy's a great guy.

The whole Rad Rights family are a great friend of ours.

But Adam saw Isaac kind of checking out the interior.

I don't know how much time he spent with them.

He literally just went up to them and started, they just started chatting about how he did it.

And, you know, all the questions got all the answers.

And we thank him for taking that time.

Oh man.

That was so cool of him.

Yeah.

I know Isaac was really jazzed about all that.

Yeah.

To be able to have at least an hour with a guy who's one of the greatest in the world.

Yeah.

For sure.

Yeah.

Just to hang out with and look at things.

And, you know, the great thing was Isaac was like, you know, zoned in on this car.

He was honed in on it.

It wasn't like, so you're in a banks.

Yeah.

Do you like baseball?

It wasn't that.

How did you just plead over here?

Right.

All that stuff.

And then meanwhile Troy at Japan year was sitting there chatting with Jeff or Painter and his

daughter Meg.

Oh, right.

And he was like, so Troy had worked with his dad, Jack at Rad Rights.

So he knows what it's like working with your dad.

And he looks at Meg.

Meg's been on our team for two years now in the paint side learning from her dad.

And she's killing it.

Doing a great job.

Jeff always does a great job.

So Troy's like, oh, yeah, you're working with your dad, huh?

And she's like, yep.

Yep.

And he goes, well, let's give this another year and a half or so when you get sick of

him, then you can come down to our shop.

Oh, man.

Jeff's like, no.

No.

She's like, nope, I'm staying.

Nice.

I like working with my dad.

And Troy's like, oh, there's something wrong there.

You people are crazy.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

That is so cool, man.

Yeah.

I didn't get to talk to Troy for like two seconds about super nice guy.

You know, greet you like he's known you for years.

So yeah, solid, solid cat.

So speaking of solid cat, do we have any update on the GTO?

Oh, well, a whole lot's happened to the GTO since the last time we talked.

So the last time we talked, the last time we had an episode, I had taken it to the

power tour, Juliette's stop, right?

The award-winning GTO?

The award-winning GTO.

That's right.

I had won my first car show award.

Right.

We're talking about the Triple Crown here.

I'm thinking maybe next year.

Yeah.

Well, we'll see.

So anyway, we've had an incident with the old GTO.

So last month or so.

Incident.

An incident.

Yeah.

It's not pretty.

So my wife texted me one day during the work day and she's like, can you stop at the

store and pick up, you know, XYZ for dinner?

I'm like, sure.

So once time rolls around.

Two pounds of ribs for you.

Yeah.

A couple of pounds of ribs, please.

A little of some applesauce and I'll have a salad.

So lunchtime rolls around.

And at the time, my kids were home from college.

Grace was gone doing something.

And Abby was borrowing my suburban and she was out with her friends.

So I'm like, hey, I'll hop in the GTO, fire it up, go to the store, which is just a mile

away, not a far distance.

So I fire it up.

And I think I detect, I think I hear a miss.

I think I hear it missing, but I'm not quite sure.

And so I give it a little gas to see if it'll, I don't know if it's a filed plug or something

to see if it'll smooth out, you know, maybe 12, 1500 RPM.

I run it up to nothing crazy because I just, I just turned it on and I don't want to, you

know, go to six grand right away.

Yeah.

And as I met that RPM, I just hear this loud bang and just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam inside

that engine.

And I shut it down immediately and I, I'm just motionless.

I'm like, what the heck just happened?

So I get out, I open the hood, I look underneath the car.

I don't see any fluids draining.

I don't see any, any, any new ventilation in the block or, or any other sheet metal or

anything.

So I'm like, this, and it sounded really, really bad.

So I just, I'm like, let me just see if I can turn the engine over.

I, I turned the key and the engine's locked up.

It's not even turning.

I'm like, well, this is not great.

So I go back in.

I'm like, I just forget about it for a little bit.

You know, I think I told you about it.

And the next couple of days I went out and just trying to figure out what may have went

wrong.

I started pulling the spark plugs out on the driver's side because those are the easiest

to get to pulled out.

Number one looked really good.

Pulled out number three and it's obliterated.

I mean, it's just crushed.

I'm like, well, I think I found my, I think I found my, my, my hole here.

I think I found, well, found what was going on.

So I took, I removed the valve cover and I took the intake rocker arm off and the exhaust

rocker arm was cocked over a little bit further than normal.

It was hard to get the socket on the adjuster nut to back it off, but I was able to do it.

And as I did it, I was greeted with an area where there used to be an exhaust valve, which

there, which there was no longer.

So I dropped a valve right in the cylinder at like 1500 RPM and come bluey.

It just went like a game of pachinko.

It was just ricocheting around in there.

Then I did a little more checking and I pulled the oil dipstick out and my oil level was

extremely high on the dipstick tube.

So that, that was a bad sign.

I opened the radiator, not a drop of coolant to be found.

So I'm like, yeah.

So something broke something.

Either I cracked the cylinder or punched a hole in the head or something.

So I don't quite know yet.

I started the process of starting to take things apart.

I drained the fluids.

You know, I have one of those big, like a big five gallon drain pan and I pulled the, the

radio, the lower radiator hose off and, you know, maybe a quarter gallon of fluid of coolant

came out, just what was left in the level of the block in the radiator.

And I pulled my oil pan plug out into my oil pan receptacle and I had about a good 30 seconds

of really pretty laminar flow coolant coming out of the oil pan.

Just draining away, man, until until I honestly got 30 seconds till the oil started coming

up behind it.

I'm like, this is bad news.

Yeah, that blows.

Yeah.

Oh man, that sucks.

It does suck, man.

So a valve keeper.

Yeah.

So I took a bunch of pictures in, you know, the valve keeper itself, it looked like it

just, just gave up.

You can see it's kind of sheared down where the ridges would be that are supposed to hold

the valve stem in place and they're just, they're gone.

And you could see where the top of the rocker arm, yeah, the rocker arm was imprinting into

the top of the retainer, that retainer cap.

So that valve had been slipping down and allowing that rocker arm to make contact with it, the

top of the retainer.

And it's, once you, you line everything up, it's a perfect puzzle.

It's, you know, the forensics are unmistakable as to what was happening.

So, so it's just, so it's just a part failure.

I mean, it wasn't a workmanship failure or anything like that.

It was just, just bad luck.

Certainly weren't over revving at it 1500.

No, no, not at all.

And that had a, and I never over revved it anyway, because I had like a 4500 RPM redline

set on the, on the MSD distributor.

So I never went crazy with that engine.

So, well, that's a bar.

Yeah.

It's not the greatest thing to have happen, but we're building you an LS.

Gee, look at the time.

I got to go.

No, but however, if I am thinking of opportunities to upgrade a few things.

So if, if it is the head, well, even if it's not, I want to get a set of aluminum heads

for this thing, I'll probably have to get a new set of pistons, which is going to mean

I'll probably have to bore the cylinders out a little bit more.

Right now it's currently at 35 over and 35 over pistons really aren't readily available.

These were, these were special order and it took forever to get here.

So if I have to board over 40 over, which I know a competent machine shop that can get

the work done for me.

That's right, man.

Yeah.

You can do that.

How about that?

So if I bring it down there, I, I was never really happy of how of the, the quench height

there are the compression height of the pistons in this engine.

They were, I think like 20, 24 thou in the hole.

And it's just way too much.

I wanted it to be down there.

Yeah.

Most five thou in the hole is what I wanted just to give a good quench and get a good

efficient burn.

And so this will let me at least get a different set of pistons.

And I, if I have to deck the block, I can deck the block a little bit to get where I

really want it to be and really get this thing styled in the way I've always wanted it.

So, so some good can come from this.

It's just going to take some time and a little effort and a little money.

And that's just how it's going to be for now on.

So.

Well, so the nice thing about that is you hit the nail on the head.

You can bring pieces to the, to our machine shop, to our engine shop, you know, one, if

one time you want to bring the heads down and one time you want to bring a long block

down or whatever, because being having an in house engine shop at the place where you

work, you know, certainly store your stuff there during the build process.

Right.

And the crack team of, you know, Kerry Kelly and, and Ethan Han down there can can get

the work done, which would be even cooler to have you come down there and do it with

them.

Yeah, that would be cool.

That's that thought has entered my mind.

Yeah.

They just finished up a big Pontiac motor.

Yeah.

Finishing up.

Yep.

Finishing up.

So, yeah, big 428 that's been stroked in board.

It's a 462 now.

Yeah.

That's a cool engine.

So, so yeah.

So yeah, I still have to, you know, take it all apart and figure out what's what I got

it.

I wanted just to pull the engine out, but I can't rotate it because it's locked.

So I got to pull the intake and the least the driver side head off and remove the valve

so I can at least rotate the engine to get the, the torque converter unbolted and all

that good stuff.

So yeah, so I've just been kind of putting it off a little bit.

It's just been still a little bit bombed, but I'll get motivated here shortly and get

something going.

So by our next show, I'll have a little, have some more updates.

That's right.

Do, do you know, do we have any other Pontiac core engines at the shop right now?

Yeah, we do.

But they're, they're, they're no good.

They're, I think they were all from late 70s.

Firebirds are trans Ams and they're all low compression 400s low compression 400s with

thin mains.

Yeah.

But my point is, what if you threw one of those in to just drive it around while your other

are built?

That's, that's an idea.

Not a terrible idea.

You know, not to say that seeing an open hole under the hood is a good motivator, you know,

and if the car still drives around, you know, it's not quite as much of a motivator, but

I know that these things take time to build the resources to be able to build them.

So if, if that's an option, that might be an option.

Yeah, that might be.

I thought we had two or three of those 400s.

Yeah.

I think, I think we do.

And they were complete.

They were just carved to pan takeouts.

Right.

And I think we're going to have another one pretty soon too, because we're going to tear

down another Trans Am pretty soon doing an anniversary car with one of those engines we won't mention

as good.

Yeah.

The engine that shall not be mentioned.

Well, you know, it sucks, but it's.

It's life, man.

It happens.

So it does happen.

And you didn't, God bless, didn't have a crash or nobody got hurt.

Yeah.

It's just a failure.

Just a failure.

Yes.

Yeah.

So this, this past weekend, I got a little time to, to work on the galaxy.

Did you now?

Yes.

And that deck, this car, it's right behind me.

So I say this, it's getting better and better.

It's just, I'm in that refining process, you know, of like little annoyances, just kind

of knocking them out one by one.

And, and I think since we last talked about this car, one of our previous conversations

was that I was very happy with the tilt column and the Borgeson steering box.

Yeah.

And how it drove and steered and which I still am.

But I did notice that it had, it required a little bit more assist than I wanted.

Okay.

You know, the steering was, it's super tight.

And so you got to understand, there's a difference between, you know, precision steering and

the amount of assist or effort you have to put into turning the wheel.

Right.

So like your GTO, a lot of GM cars from the sixties, in fact, this car, when it was new,

you know, I had that one finger steering.

Yeah.

It was real.

And you felt kind of disconnected from the, from the road because you had a, a steering

gear ratio that took a lot of turns, couple that with low effort.

And it's just kind of like, you're just driving down the road, like, you know, steering a

ship.

Right.

Pretty much.

And the, the Borgeson steering gear is a faster ratio.

So it tightened that up.

Plus it's new and precise, there's no slop in the steering.

So when you make a movement, something happens, but I did just feel like I wanted a touch

more power assist and talk to our friends at Borgeson, Mr. Jeff Grantmeyer, who steered

me in the direction of one of their pressure control kits.

So the, the, the pressure valve has shims that you can add or subtract by, by adding

the shims, it reduces the pump pressure.

And by taking shims away, you increase the pump output pressure.

Hmm.

So I ended up trying a couple of different shim combinations and eventually just, I removed

them all, which makes this pump now generate 1,350 PSI at, at full squirt.

All the pressure.

Yeah.

And then I went one step farther and our friend, Paul Clark in Hydrotech brakes had told me

once about the orifice size.

So the hole in that valve in the, the output and, you know, kind of what you want for a

street car versus, you know, the trucks have like a, a large size orifice and the cars

were, you know, eighth inch or so.

So I upsized that orifice by basically one, one drill bit size.

So I think I moved it from 125,000 to 12850.

Okay.

And then took those shims out and you'll be proud of me.

Before I went down this road, I enlisted the power of a artificial intelligence engine.

Oh, I told it or asked it.

I said, well, if it, the rating at the 125,000 orifice size was supposed to be 2.1 gallons

per minute at 1,000 PSI.

So Borgeson supplies a chart that says this shim gives you 900, you know, the whole stack

of shims gives you like 875 or something.

And then you take the shims out and you're at 1350.

So I asked Grock, the artificial intelligence tool, if I'm running 1350 PSI and I up that

orifice from 125,000 to 12850, what's my GPM flow rating?

Oh, it did all the math and it said, you're going to go from 2.1 gallons per minute to

like 2.35 or so, which was great.

It's just enough.

I just want a little bit.

Because you start to get up near three and it's overpowering.

Oh, OK.

You meant you're back to that wonder touch power steering effort.

Or you're blowing hoses off or you're doing stuff you don't want to do.

So I drilled it out, took the shim out, put it all back together again.

And I also took the opportunity because my steering wheel wasn't straight.

And the steering wheel wasn't straight because my last project in the column was fixing the horn.

You remember that story?

Yeah, I do remember that.

So I put it all back together, took it for a drive.

The steering is absolutely perfect.

Nice, man.

Is perfect.

Ah, I love it.

The amount of input.

It is super precise.

You can drive it comfortably, but it's predictable.

You know what's going on.

It is that's the spec for the known universe right now for me.

Right on.

I mean, it's that good.

I'm like, this is wonderful.

It's like a brand new car.

It's better in many ways.

Well, good deal, man.

But I missed with my steering wheel again.

Oh, no.

I must have been like about two splines or so off the other way.

So I'm looking at this thing and I'm like, how did I miss, right?

And then I do a little more research and find out that the hub adapter for my

grant steering wheel to my I did it column.

Yeah.

Needs a modification.

I actually have to drill a hole in the wheel so they can clock it in a certain way so that the

cause the other problem was the turn signals weren't canceling equally.

Oh, dude, I have the same problem that makes me nuts.

Yeah.

So mine, you'd have to go like if the steering wheel straight at

at nine and three, you know, your hands are at three, you'd have to

to make the turn signals cancel on a left turn.

You'd have to turn like your right hand from three o'clock all the way back to like 11.

Oh, my. And then it would then it would finally click.

But if you're going to turn right, you could move the steering wheel

like one hour, you know, just like from nine to 10.

Yes. Right.

Yes. Yeah.

Mine does the same stuff.

Yeah. Well, it's because you got to synchronize your column.

Clearly I do.

And when you look at.

So you have a stock column, but you've got an aftermarket wheel, right?

Yes. And that grant wheel, yeah.

Yeah. And what I learned is that the hub adapter.

It's a little deceiving because it's got it's it's a cast aluminum piece, in my case.

And it actually says top with an arrow pointing up.

But if you put it in that position, the steering wheel doesn't square up.

So you got to rotate the the adapter a little bit.

But the manual says.

Where the horn connection is the little spring and the horn contactor

is supposed to be like at 10 o'clock on the clock position.

But mine was like at one PM.

It was on the other side because of the way this thing laid out until I read

deeper and found out that, no, you got to drill a hole in the steering wheel.

And then you can turn that thing back to where the cancel mechanism is at 10 o'clock.

Really?

So once I did that, I could put the wheel on straight and I could.

I got equal turning signal cancellation rotation degrees.

No, nice.

But I kind of eyeballed if my wheels were straight or not.

And I missed.

So the the steering wheel is still off instead of being nice and level.

You know, it's probably an hour and a half off on the.

OK, position. Not terrible.

So you can live with that for another 15 years before you decide to really fix it, right?

Well, this I'm not going to do because, you know, I have a new attitude.

I'm going to take it to the shop and put it on the alignment rack and have Danny,

our our alignment guru, square the whole car up and check the alignment

and make sure tire pressure is all correct.

And then we'll pull the wheel off and clock it.

All right.

Being documented electronically with laser precision accuracy.

Oh, my goodness.

Hawkeye four post alignment system.

Who is this man doing things the right way?

Oh, my goodness.

It's not that I didn't do it the right way.

It's just that I didn't really have the time.

And like you say, you get to the point where like, ah, that's fine.

And I really don't like digging into it, yeah.

But the new attitude part is, well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to live

with it for the next four days or whatever it is.

Contact the guys at the shop in the, in the, in that quadrant of the building

and get on the schedule and say, hey, at lunchtime or something, not the disturbed

workflow, that particular rack is a very popular one.

And there's always something on it.

So I'm not just going to push things out of the way.

So I'm just trying to get in the rotation so that we can get this

thing straightened out literally.

Well, cool, man.

And then it will be visually perfect as well as performanceally perfect.

So nice.

Yeah, very cool, very cool.

You got to share with me what to do about that, um, that hole that you have to drill.

Maybe I need to do that as well.

You might.

Yeah.

And I found it on the Borguson website under the universal adapter instructions.

And it literally calls out the Grant steering wheel adapter kit.

Cause this column, even though it's an afford, it's a GM head.

So it, it's probably the same one.

Oh, I got you.

Yeah, maybe.

Huh.

Interesting.

But it was a nice little victory.

Cause you need those every once in a while.

Yes.

Those little victories are very sweet, right?

When they, when they happen, when they need to happen.

Yeah.

So good deal.

Congratulations.

I'm glad, uh, you're back on the road just straight and true steering.

Yeah.

And so here's another fun one.

Several years ago, we, we talked about how the, the amplifier and the

under seat subwoofer in my 70 Buick quit.

And I couldn't figure out why and it turned out that the aluminum, the

copper plated aluminum power wire had corroded.

Do you remember that story vaguely?

Yeah.

So the right at the battery connection, if you open the hood and you looked at

this, you're like, this is fine.

It's got this heavy gauge, red stranded audio gauge, audio, you know,

quality power cable.

What's the problem?

And just like trying to figure out that Camaro steering column thing, I'm

running the meter and, and from, from the, the power post right past the

beginning of that cable, there was nothing.

Oh.

And I'm looking at the cable like, how could this be nothing?

How could this not be conducting?

We're eight inches into the run and I stuck a power probe into the, into the

into the wire and there's no current going through it.

Oh man.

Well, what had happened is it was cheap aluminum wire with copper coating and

all the aluminum corroded inside.

Well, I have no connection at all, right?

And so I just snipped off like, you know, a couple feet of it and jumped it

out and it worked perfectly.

So eventually I changed the whole wire to some actual stranded copper.

So the reason why I bring this up is in the galaxy under the back seat is an

amplifier that I installed probably 25 years ago that quit at one point.

And I brought the van home because I, I wanted to do some work on the van and I'm

planning an audio system for the van and I've got some of the stuff and this is

one of these deals where the van is the size of an apartment building and there's

no place to put anything in it.

Oh yeah.

That's brilliant.

It's really hard to explain, but there's nowhere to put amplifiers because the whole

thing is open except for the upholstery and the seats and the stuff, you know, and

there's no room for the whatever.

So I got all these, this audio gear on the shelf and I thought, you know what, I've

always been curious, my galaxy is a convertible and it's got speakers in the

doors and what happens if I put a couple of subs in the trunk?

Are they going to do anything?

Are you going to hear them?

You know, what's, what's the story?

So I had this dual 12 inch sub enclosure with an amp that I got for the van.

So one day I take the sub box and I throw it in the trunk and I take a TMI back seat

out of the galaxy and I'm looking at this amplifier and I'm like, why don't you work?

Because it quit.

Well, it doesn't work because the same thing happened.

The copper wire corroded.

Get out of here.

Yeah.

The aluminum wire.

So I ran a new, new piece copper wire.

Boom, amp comes right back to life.

Well, well, well, exactly.

So I connect the speakers in the trunk and put the seat back in and take it for a drive.

And it's, it's there.

It's not like what you'd expect.

I mean, I don't know what you'd expect, but it's not like the sub is pounding, you

know, like, you know, right?

It doesn't feel like it's got two 12s in the trunk.

Okay.

It's not rattling the license plate or anything like that.

No.

So then I realized that I probably have the input level mismatch.

So I do some research on this radio that's in the dash.

It's this Sony thing that I bought at Kelly and I bought at a Best Buy on a road

trip and installed in the parking lot in 2010.

And I look up the, what's the output voltage of the subwoofer output?

Well, it's two volts and I didn't have the input sensitivity set to match two volts.

Okay.

So I crank it up.

I can't see because I don't have my eyes sock with my, I wear contacts to see distance.

So up close, things are hard to see.

And I didn't have my little cheater glasses with me.

So I just kind of turn the screw, put everything back together, take it for a ride.

I get, it sounds awesome.

I mean, it's, you can feel it.

You can hear it, it quits.

Ah, damn.

So I'm like, well, now I blew it up.

Right.

What ended up happening is I decreased the sensitivity way too far and I was

pushing far more voltage into the amp than it could get rid of.

So I put my glasses on, reset it to the right matching voltage and thankfully I

could put a fuse back in it and it works again.

So just, just a blue fuse.

That's fine.

Yeah.

But now we're back to, I can't quite hear this, you know, whatever.

So I'm kind of looking at the acoustical layer of the land.

And yes, it's a giant convertible with the top down.

How much are you really going to hear?

But when the convertible top goes down, it goes into what they call the well, the top well.

Sure.

Which now is like, if you took a bunch of moving blankets and filled them up, that's

what that is like.

It's like a sound deadener.

Yeah.

So I opened up the trunk and I took, I had some cardboard boxes laying around that

I folded both ends inward.

So it retained the box shape, but the, the ends were open.

And I slid them under the convertible top.

So now that there's, there's a passage that goes from the trunk.

No kidding.

Into the, just as a test, you know, into the cabin and it doubled the subwoofer

volume.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So, so that was kind of cool because now it's like long term, you know, I just need

to make a shelf that the top folds down onto to keep some airspace so that the sound

waves can go through into the, into the, basically into the, into the, into the back

seat at this point, but the galaxy had a single speaker in the rear seat that the

speaker is no longer there.

So that's like a port that's, you can't feel it.

But you can certainly hear it coming through that.

Okay.

So here I am, you know, this thing steers straight.

It sounds good.

The horn works.

Turn signals cancel properly.

The turn signals cancel properly.

The idle is spot on because I clean the mask, mask sensor.

This car is doing good.

Nice, man.

It's almost ready to completely blow apart and restore.

Yeah.

Here it is.

Well, well, we'll have to get you into the rotation.

All the mechanical is like almost, almost dialed, you know,

man, we'll have to get it up on the rack and do a full inspection on it.

And then we'll, we'll tell you how good the mechanicals are.

Well, it had a weird rattle.

I remember one day I sent you a video clip of a rattle.

Yes.

And you're like, it sounds like exhaust.

Yeah, it turns out an exhaust hanger bolt fell out.

So that was an easy fix.

Good deal.

And yeah, the valve train got quiet.

I put 2050 in it and that quieted the valves down quite a bit.

So I mean, these little, little things make a big, big difference.

They sure do.

They pay big dividends, man, especially when they work, especially when they work.

Yes, that's the clutch right there.

That's the key.

Oh, boy.

Ah, well, that is good, the, the, the stupid two barrel on the van is trying

to just drive me completely out of my mind.

Oh, that's still giving you troubles.

It's the second one.

It's been rebuilt.

They've all been rebuilt too many times and I had it perfect.

Choke was perfect.

Started.

You could let the thing sit for a month.

Give it one little push to the floor, turn the key.

It would light.

It would run at high idle.

You'd start driving.

It would come down off idle as it warmed up exactly.

It was supposed to step on it.

I reengineered the accelerator pump arm.

It didn't stumble.

It was like golden.

Nice.

And then the next day, it's not.

Oh, jeez.

Oh, man, sputtering and farting and just not running.

And I was like, really?

What the hell?

And, you know, the first thing I found is that the distributor

cap was loose, so I'm surprised it ran at all because it was like

half off, put that back together again and then take it for a cruise.

Runs great again.

Next day, nothing.

And it was not the distributor cap the second time.

It's the, this carburetor, it's so loose from being rebuilt so many times.

You know, they just, it doesn't have any precision to the linkage anymore.

Oh, that's a bummer, man.

Yeah.

And you got to take the doghouse off and the air cleaner and, you know,

all that stuff to, you can't just open the hood and reach in there.

So, yeah, it's got more engine inside than outside on that car.

Yeah, really?

Yeah.

I think we had discussed at one point on this show.

I don't remember, but I'm kind of thinking my long-term plan is to find a 98

through 03 Dodge Van.

Right.

With the aluminum head, 5.9 roller motor.

There you go.

With the overdrive.

And if I buy a used van, I get the mounts, I get the tranny mount,

I get the drive shaft, I get all the stuff and then resist the urge, you know,

probably take it apart and, you know, depending on what I find, if I find

some with 50,000 miles on it, it probably won't touch it.

But if it's not more, we'll run it through the shop, ring it, seal it, whatever.

So we'll see.

That sounds like a nice plan.

Me likey.

We'll find out.

Yeah.

We'll find out at the end of the show.

Oh, Lord.

Yeah, for sure.

Well, I will kind of leave you with one more quick thought.

And that is, we've made some improvements to the website at V8SpeedShop.com.

And I'm not going to lie, some of the AI technology on the visual side

has been very helpful.

To me, you see people that like create these images of cars that it's like,

what the heck is that?

You know, it's like a GTO with two headlights on one side and one on the other.

And the words, the badges are all in some language.

It doesn't exist.

And, you know, the profile just doesn't look right.

But I found a utility where if you give it an image of a car, an actual car,

it will create that car accurately.

Yes.

And the creative side is now knowing what to do with that.

So there's a few cars that we've built over the years that I was never happy

with some of the imagery.

We got great pictures, but I didn't get like the like an, oh, wow, kind of picture.

You know, I got like, hey, that's cool.

But what I want is like a setting that you just want to be in.

You know, like I love that car.

I love where it is.

I want to be there.

I want that life.

Yeah, exactly.

Right.

That's what we all want.

We got this fantasy of like, I'm going to be cool in this car and here's where I'm

going.

So we've created a few of those type of images on the website.

And I'm not going to say where they are.

You have to find them.

But some of the landing pages of a few of the cars we built.

And I'm happy to report that the car is dead nuts to the real car.

For sure.

Just in this environment that we had never put it in.

So, and this is the way the automakers do it.

You know, if you're going to go buy a new, you see a car in a commercial,

that's not a car.

That's all digital.

So it's not misrepresenting anything.

It's taking this actual thing and just putting it somewhere where we haven't had it yet.

Yeah, the car does exist.

This is just a representation of it.

Right.

And then right after that is the video of us building it and then the 5,000

pictures of it.

You know, right?

Yes, exactly.

It's legit.

It's just yet another lens that we can portray it in.

And that's been a fun project.

Because it's been fun to kind of create some of these scenarios and park these

cars in fun places.

Yeah, it is kind of cool.

Yeah, you turned me on to that.

I was, I've been messing around with it a little bit too.

It's been really fun.

So.

Yeah.

So go to V8SpeedShop.com and click the photos tab and have a look around and see

if you can spot them.

And report back.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, some of these things are like, you can't tell.

If you didn't know, right, you wouldn't know.

And again, not trying to deceive anybody, but just trying to enhance the, what

that experience would be, you know?

Yeah, definitely.

The ultimate goal would be to take those cars and put them in those actual

fantasy experiences that I've been coming up with.

And you saw my Facebook page.

I took the Galaxy and I parked it at this mid-century modern, you know, roadside

motel that's got a pool and the doors are different colors.

And there's a tiki bar and there's a Saturn V rocket.

Yes.

I mean, that's your dream scenario, man.

It's pretty close.

Yeah.

A couple of vintage surfboards.

Yes.

Oh, it's amazing.

But the car looks exact.

You know, it's.

Yeah, that's my car.

Yeah, it definitely faithfully reproduces it.

So, yeah, it's definitely that.

And it's your thoughts on there.

It's your creativity that's displayed, not something made up.

Right.

And I think that's the difference.

So like one of these images, I recreated a studio shot with like a light

paint type thing.

And the way the car is lit, it looks awesome, you know?

But I was able to do that because I know how to do that photo in reality.

I've taken those kind of shots.

I understand lighting and light painting.

So I just have this tool do what's in my head.

It just does it much quicker, which is cool.

Sure.

No, I get it.

And you won't see any three IGTOs or anything.

That would be helpful.

Well, speaking of that, it's time to let the cats out of the bags.

All right.

Trivia questions.

Let's do this.

All right.

So, Kev, I asked you, Dodge produced a car that was marketed toward women.

What was the name of the car and what years was it produced?

And you don't tell me it was a Belvedere.

That's a Plymouth.

Yeah, you're right.

See, so it can't be a Belvedere.

So you would guess you just just gave it up and said it's going to be the dart

and the dart was produced 63 to 75.

So all of that and I'm done.

So as you might have guessed, unfortunately, that's not quite correct.

So the Dodge LeFemme was a two door hard top produced in 1955 and 56 as a

spring special version of the custom Royal Lancer.

See.

And you even said Lancer and Royal Lancer too.

I did.

Yeah.

You, you tap danced around it.

The LeFemme had a two tone Heather Rose and Sapphire white paint scheme and gold

LeFemme fender badging with lots of chrome and the interior was entirely pink with

wood trim and came with a handbag, powder case, lipstick, comb, cigarette case, hat

and a Macintosh, which is a waterproof raincoat.

It had all that stuff.

That's killer.

I saw, I didn't know they actually produced that one.

Yep.

Yes, they did.

Cause I remember I've seen that LeFemme and I didn't, this is where my mind was going.

I was seeing that car, but I was, and I even said, like, there was some 50s things.

That's what I was thinking of.

And then I got confused with the cartoon.

Maybe that's not it.

So then I went newer.

That car was bitching.

I remember seeing pictures of that thing.

Is that right?

Yeah.

It's cool.

Have you ever seen one?

I've not seen all of them.

Oh yeah.

It's like pink and very, very light pink, basically the Rose and Scarlet, whatever

they call it.

Yeah.

Well, it's a great looking car.

Beautiful.

I'd drive it.

Yeah.

And I guess it had the, the super red Ram, Hemmy V8 that powered it.

And the legacy notes here said the LeFemme wasn't a huge success, but it made

automakers realize the value of women car buyers.

While the idea of a gendered vehicle seemed strange today in the 1950s, it was

considered forward thinking.

For sure.

Yeah.

And of course, Dodge had the forward look right after it did.

Yep.

Um, I think it was expensive also.

Probably.

I think that was part of the problem.

And I kind of think they were thinking like, again, in that 50s, you know,

mindset that this would be like a car you'd buy your wife.

You know, this wasn't like, not like the Mustang where it was like somebody

entering the workforce.

This is an option.

This is like, no, no, no, no, you know, homeboys got an imperial in the garage.

And now he's got the little, little little woman's got a LeFemme.

Right.

Warden June, you know, they got there.

Yeah.

That was a great question.

Oh, thank you.

Appreciate that.

But of course, you know, Mopar then had two, two names for the same color pink

going forward on the, on in the high impact line.

The in seven, 69, 70.

They had two, I'm sorry.

Say that one more time.

Two names, two names for the same color, Dodge.

Oh yeah, Dodge and Plymouth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they were.

Well, oh gosh.

Panther pink.

Yeah.

And Mulan Rouge.

Yes, that's it.

Well, it wasn't like, like all the impact colors, just different names on both

side, like sassy, sassy grass green was something else on for Dodge or something

like that.

Yes.

Sassy grass was, of course, you put me on the spot.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Every one of these.

Yeah, like lemon twist is like, yeah, lemon twist and top banana.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Go man go was hemi orange, I think.

Could have like go man go, you know.

Oh, gotcha.

Nice.

Or that was it was plum crazy and inviolate.

Okay.

Tor red and hemi orange were the same.

Okay.

Tor red, torred.

Very nice.

Anyway, yeah, that's fine.

Great question.

Thanks.

So we'll zip over to this one.

Zip over to the scuttle.

What is a scuttle panel?

And you said the dashboard because you're favorite part of the car.

It is, it is.

Dashing meat pie like yourself.

Oh, God bless America.

Dashing meat pie.

The scuttle panel is unfortunately not a dash close.

It is the panel at the base of a car's windshield located between the windshield

and the engine bay.

Oh, and it serves the channel water away from the engine and passenger compartment.

Also known here in the good old us of a is the cowl cowl panel.

Well, well, well.

So I guess it scuttles the water away.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

That's great.

Yeah, I was I was thinking I even further back in the horse and buggy days that it

would scuttle the dirt away from, you know, how it would in the states, it would

dash away the dirt and then the things you'd kick up because that was the dash,

was that panel and the scuttle would do the same thing.

But in Aussie speak, it's pretty imaginative.

Yeah, yeah, that's how I am.

So maybe next time we'll find another name for Dash.

Maybe I think Durye is Dash.

I thought as far as you're concerned, Durye means F you.

Oh, man.

Well, all right, man.

Good question.

Yeah, yeah.

No, yours is really good.

Now I'm going to I got to look that car up now.

You should look it up and check it out.

It's cool.

Yeah, actually, I was one while we were talking.

It is pretty cool.

I think with the trim and stuff that if they did those in different colors,

so it didn't just have to be pink.

I mean, if there was like a two tone blue.

Uh-huh.

Oh, it'd be killer.

It would rock.

Yeah, for sure.

All right.

Well, something to think about there.

Yeah, man.

Well, this was fun.

I appreciate catching up again.

Yeah, likewise.

Yeah, we let a little too much time slip away from the last episode till now.

And it happens this time of year.

Things get busy, but we'll work on that for the next one

because there's a lot more coming, friends.

So make sure you hit the subscribe button so that you don't miss

whatever the heck word for Dash would come up with next time.

Yeah.

And so for Mr.

Mike Neat Pie, Q-Ball Clark, Kevin Oste inviting you to keep the shiny side

up and we will talk to you next time on VA Radio.

Failure Is An Option? What happened to Mike’s GTO, The Triple Crown of Rodding, COMP Cams Camaro, Trivia, and more on the V8 Radio Podcast!

Ford Mustang

Dacia Duster

Plymouth Valiant

Ford Probe

Plymouth Barracuda

Mitsubishi Lancer

Chevrolet Camaro

Dodge Charger

Toyota Crown

Audi S3

Pontiac Firebird

Ford Galaxy

About this episode

Original notes