The DeLorean DMC-12 is a unique car that looks different from most because it has shiny metal sides and doors that open upwards. It's famous for being in a popular movie about time travel.
The DeLorean is a unique car that has a shiny metal body and doors that open upwards. It's famous for being in movies, especially 'Back to the Future'.
A Rochester carburetor is a device that helps mix fuel and air in older cars to make the engine run. Tuning it means adjusting it for better performance.
The Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu is a popular classic car from the 1970s. It's known for being powerful and stylish, making it a favorite among car enthusiasts.
The Cadillac Coupe de Ville is a fancy car that was very popular in the past. The 1970 version is known for being big and comfortable, making it a favorite for special occasions.
The Plymouth Satellite is a large car that was made in the 1960s and 70s. It was popular for its size and performance, especially during the muscle car craze.
The Hyundai Satellite is an older, small car that was made to be affordable and easy to drive. It's not very common today but was part of Hyundai's early lineup.
The Chevrolet Vega is a small car that was made in the 1970s. It was known for being light and compact, but it had some problems with rust and quality.
The Ford Pinto is a small car that was made in the 1970s. It is often remembered for its safety problems, especially related to fires in accidents.
Car
Yugo
The Yugo is a very small and inexpensive car that was sold in the U.S. in the 1980s and early 90s. It is often joked about for its low quality and reliability issues.
The suspension is the part of a car that helps it stay smooth and stable while driving. It keeps the tires in contact with the road and helps absorb bumps.
The Mazda Miata is a small sports car that is fun to drive and very popular among car enthusiasts. It's known for being light and having great handling, making it enjoyable on the road.
The Mazda MX-5 Miata is a small sports car that's fun to drive and easy to handle. It's known for being dependable and many people like to customize it to make it even better.
The Toyota Prius is a car that uses both gas and electricity to run, making it very good on gas mileage. It's often chosen by people who want to be more environmentally friendly.
Car
Fiat Arqueta
The Fiat Arqueta is a car that's not very common, so many people might not know what it is when they see it. It's designed to be different and attract attention.
The Alpina B7 is a fancy car that is based on a BMW but made even better for speed and comfort. It's designed for people who want a luxurious ride that can also go fast.
Car
Geneta G26
The Geneta G26 is a type of sports car that is light and fun to drive, making it popular among car lovers.
The Volkswagen Jetta is a small car that many people like because it's reliable and good for everyday driving. It's been around for a long time and comes in different styles and colors.
A catalytic converter is a part of a car that helps clean up the exhaust gases so that they are less harmful to the environment. It helps make the air cleaner by reducing pollution from cars.
The Porsche 928 is a type of sports car made by Porsche that was first sold in 1978. It has a powerful engine in the front and is known for being both fast and comfortable to drive.
The Porsche 911 is one of the most famous sports cars in the world, known for its unique shape and great performance. It has been around for a long time and is loved by many car fans.
A dog leg shifter is a special type of gear stick in cars with manual transmissions. It places the first gear in a different position, making it easier for drivers to shift into higher gears quickly, especially when racing.
The Lotus Esprit is a sports car from the UK that looks unique and is known for being fast. It was made for many years and even featured in some James Bond movies.
The Opel Manta is an older, sporty car that many people liked back in the day. It's known for its cool design and is now a classic that some collectors appreciate.
The Mazda RX-7 is a sporty car that stands out because it has a special type of engine called a rotary engine, which is different from most cars. People love it for how fun it is to drive and its cool looks.
The Lancia Delta Integrale is a famous car that was built for racing and is known for its great handling and speed. Many people love it for its unique look and racing history.
The Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 is a really fast and sporty car that is designed for people who love to drive. It has a powerful engine and handles very well on the road or track.
The Audi TT RS is a sporty car that is fun to drive and has a powerful engine. It looks sleek and can be used for everyday driving while still being exciting.
The Renault Laguna is a family car that is designed to be comfortable and practical for everyday use. It has a lot of space inside and is good for families.
The Chevrolet Spin is a small family car that has a lot of room inside for people and their stuff. It's made to be practical and easy to use for everyday driving.
The Audi Quattro is a sporty car that has all-wheel drive, which means it can handle well in different driving conditions. It was very important in racing and helped make Audi famous for its technology.
The Bugatti Veyron is an extremely fast and expensive car that can go faster than almost any other car on the road. It has a very powerful engine and is known for being super luxurious.
LIVE
Welcome back to Listenerland.
You have found again to all the cars I've loved before your authoritative podcast on automotive
nostalgia, where every car tells a story, every car has a culture in.
That means it's time to plug in dust off and get a little grease under your nails and
slip on that favorite oil-stained car-themed t-shirt.
And I'm here in the Panhandle of Florida wearing a collar that makes me formal in these environments,
but my broadcasting partner here seems to have quite a springy t-shirt here.
What you got there?
Right?
Red, you're summoning the flowers and bees.
Yeah.
This is from, I purchased it online, from Fresher Brothers, anti-cold-tugging repair in, I don't
know, since the 15th.
Greenwich.
Greenwich.
Greenwich, Connecticut.
Or is it Stanford?
Yeah.
It's Greenwich, Connecticut.
It's all much.
What a fantastic shirt.
Yeah.
Fresher Brothers, F-R-E-C-C-I-A, look them up.
So if you're in Connecticut in that area, they do it all, from upholstery to tops.
They'll rip it apart, put it back together.
All things air-cooled and just a little quick trivia, maybe not trivia, but yeah, they
got started repairing Volkswagen's when they were one of the original repair places right
near the Volkswagen dealer in Greenwich.
It's her dad, right?
Oh, her grandparents made it.
Yeah.
Yeah, grandparents.
I think the Fresher Brothers business has been around for over 100 years.
I think they got started painting wagons.
Wow.
Strong wagons, something like that.
Way back.
So the old cars.
Yeah, I like to have a full buggy restoration.
New horse and, yeah, one horse power, please.
Well, now it's all air-cooled, so Volkswagen.
Horses themselves were air-cooled from what I know, but yeah, I love it.
I've heard it.
I've heard it.
And tomorrow, sorry, tomorrow, if you're listening to this, depending on when you're
listening to this, but on April 1st, we are going to have that great interview with
Guinevere Fresher, third or fourth generation of that family, and she runs all the
social media for that family and that business.
And then you're not playing an April Fool's joke on us here with that.
No.
Nope.
You better not be.
We can't joke about that.
Guinevere is not an April Fool, no.
She's the best.
She's the April Queen.
Now, have you been in contact with her?
Because we interviewed her some time ago, and I know y'all kind of kept in touch.
She's really been a great friend of the show.
Yeah, just more on social media posts.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
And she's the power poster, like you said.
Yeah.
I did drop her a note yesterday, just letting her know that we're going to
hear her episode tomorrow.
Yeah.
And she handles all the media for that company and does a fantastic job.
Check them out.
Fresher Brothers, Google them.
And I did want to pivot quickly, welcome new listeners.
As we like to say, we're heard around the world, Paris.
Welcome to our listeners in Paris.
I think that's a relatively new market.
Welcome to our listeners in Jakarta.
British Columbia, Quebec, Bienvenue, Oslo, Islamabad, and Naples.
So all over the world.
And as you might imagine, environs around me in Florida, near Doug, in the Mid-Atlantic.
Also some places in California, the Midwest.
So welcome back.
It's great to have all of you.
And we're trying to read some reviews.
Let's see.
Let me pull some of these reviews from the new website.
Oh, yeah.
And I know you want to squeeze in some of the projects that you've been working
on.
You've test-driven a few cars recently, but, you know, I had a review up here that I wanted
to read.
Oh, George P. says, let me find it.
If you go to our website, carsloved.com, carsloved.com.
We have reviews in Doug work to get the, we totally redid the website.
And Doug redid it so all these reviews just kind of scroll by when you're on,
which is really neat.
So here we had one.
The review parcel.
The review carousel.
It's got horses and unicorns.
You'll love it.
From George P. says, Adam's episode was my favorite, mostly because I know him.
And of course he is Adam.
Joanne S. says, I checked out your site and podcast.
Excellent job.
My boss is 40 year info to a well-connected man in LA who happens to love cars.
Smiley emoji.
We take it where we can get it.
And then I see previous guests and in some that I don't know leaving reviews.
But I love what you've done with the website.
You haven't checked it out.
Welcome back and please do to give it a look.
So I want to toss it to you before we bring in today's guest.
Are there any new updates on any of the social media stuff, the tech stuff you've been working
on with the website and or car projects that you've been working on?
You can take them in reverse order to pick one.
The car stuff, given that now it's getting warm in Maryland, my DeLorean has been up in
New Jersey for a couple of weeks, transmission work and the guys fixed a bunch of different
things.
And it's kind of funny these guys, they're like, yeah, basically our job is to undo
what previous owners have done.
So they're like, why is it set like this?
I'm like, so and so told me to do it.
Why is it set like this?
I went to a different person told me to do it and they're like, yeah, we're going to set
all those back to factory and then you're good.
So hope to get it back soon in the next couple of weeks.
My 1990 300 ZX, which was my dream car in high school that I didn't own.
I bought it 30 years later, which has been sitting in my garage for a couple of
years, five different colors.
I got motivated, I'm putting a new starter in it.
And the plan is to have one of our previous guests, Matt Pratt, who is in the top coat
garage is going to paint it for me.
And I'm super excited we're going to go from it was originally black.
Now it's about five different colors and we're going to go to silver.
The Z of many colors.
Yeah.
I think they made a Broadway music musical out of it.
I want to buy a car that's just beat up with a destroyed finish just to bring to
that guy interviewing him was so interesting.
I think at one point I just I just lost all sense of time and script when he
started speaking about the paint process and all the wonderful.
Well, you you ask some great questions.
I can't wait for that episode to come out.
Go, yeah.
And that's a good point, too, is that if those of us out there that have
podcasts, you know, so we dug an eye took last month off, very busy.
But we have a whole bunch of things queued up, right?
And so they're waiting to go.
So even though we interviewed one of your a while ago, her episode is dropping tomorrow.
Of course, you'll hear this at some time in the future.
So, yeah, it's good to be back, good to be back speaking of.
I think it's time to bring in today's very special guest, Doug.
So could you get give us a little bit of a primer on how he came into your life?
Sure. Well, let's see, probably thanks social media, I think between
Facebook, probably a Facebook group that I'm a member of called
Katie's Cars and Coffee, which you and I attended.
But we got there too late a couple of weeks ago and everything was gone.
I found this gentleman, Ivan Katz, who lives in the Maryland,
DC, Virginia area and turns out he also has a awesome YouTube channel
called Drive and Ivan, and he reviews all kinds of awesome cars and different people
and goes goes to those big car shows, car shows, big and small.
And he's just everywhere and he owns, I don't know, 30 cars.
He and he comes from a car family.
And the thing I love, maybe it's just me thinking about,
you know, people being separated.
Six degrees of separation is his grandfather had a car radio business in Alexandria.
His grandfather was Morse cats and it was Morse cats and sons.
And my grandfather's name was Morse Katz.
And he sold radios for cars.
No, cars way back when didn't come with radios.
Sure. Ivan is all that.
I don't know when they were coming with it, but they were optional for sure,
especially on the early ones.
So I feel there's some connection there and we both love cars.
Ivan, welcome aboard.
Well, thank you so much for having me, too.
This is awesome.
And thanks for that kind introduction.
And yeah, my granddad's motto was ever since there were car stereos.
So, you know, moving on to, I guess, when they open the business
from the 60s, you know, cars came with radios.
Some didn't, like you said, but, you know, we got a lot of cars from everywhere,
porches, you know, people could drop their car off, head into D.C.
for their job on the metro, come back in a new interior or get a new radio
or get their radio repaired.
We repaired radios, crazy stuff.
And, you know, I'll throw it a little celebrity thing.
One day I was in there and this lady happened to travel with a recorder
and it broke on her and they said, where do I go to fix this?
Mara's cats and sons and Alice from the Brady Bunch was in there.
No way. You guys knew what that is.
Maybe that's after your time.
Very fantastic.
Alice from the Brady Bunch was kind of famous.
So just very, very, very far to the Alice of.
You guys don't understand.
You know, there were only a certain number of TV shows back then.
I'm not as young as I look.
So, yeah, I do remember Alice.
Maybe it was maybe it was in reruns.
We're we're closer in age to you than you realize.
All right, that's good. That's good.
But what kind of car did Alice have?
Well, she didn't, you know, she was probably getting driven
because she was in town for something or something else.
Oh, OK, rep. Yeah, gotcha.
A recorder and it was broken.
I mean, they could fix anything.
They really could. My dad could fix anything.
My dad could put on a convertible top if he wanted to.
The only thing I ever did, I know you're going to ask me about my first car.
One day on a Sunday, my dad could fix anything.
And my car was not running right.
And one day on a Sunday, we went there and we went to track audit.
It was closed on a Sunday.
And he said, Ivan, you see these hands?
And I said, yeah, he says, are clean and they're going to stay clean
because you're going to do this.
I put in the water pump in my 1970
Chevelle Malibu convertible with a 307
and a Rochester carburetor that nobody could tune.
And so that was my first car, 1970 Chevelle Malibu convertible.
And I believe pictures of this car are embedded in at least one,
if not more of your videos, I think.
You know, what does drive and Ivan drive is a very funny,
you know, it's a very that's a funny video, because it's the first one I did.
But yes, yes, yes.
There is also, I didn't tell you this story.
Maybe it's a good one in Old Town, Alexandria.
There were parades and we all had convertibles.
My dad was like, my dad had a we all had Cadillacs.
My granddad was obsessed with Cadillacs.
So we had a 70 Coupe de Ville convertible
and turquoise with white leather that I took my driver's testing.
And my mom had a 66 Dodge Dart convertible.
And she, you know, that was a very cool car.
We would drive in the parade.
I drove that car in the parade
and our dignitary did not show up that day.
We driven in so many parades.
My my brother went and picked up Art Monk, the Redskins player at his house.
Oh, wow.
It was a big Redskins fan.
So he was thrilled to do that.
But that day, no dignitary showed up.
And I drove that white Dodge Dart.
It was my absolute Ferris Bueller moment because I drove it.
I was like, I said, I had two pretty girls, my friends back then.
And I said, you on the back wave, you sit next to me.
And we just drove right through the parade.
And I that video is on YouTube.
Search Drive and Ivan 1966 Dodge Dart or Old Town parade.
It's so funny because the announcer
doesn't have any idea what's going on.
And I got to drive through the parade with no dignitary.
And the car was hilarious.
But anyway, so another Alexandria story.
Where did that first car come from?
Oh, did I jump in front of you, Doug?
Did you jump in?
That was the same question I was going to ask.
Green in your mind, same wavelength.
Well, again, this is an interesting story about the business, too,
because somebody came in, I think at the time, a new top,
a new top on a car was like seven hundred, nine hundred dollars.
Yeah. And the guy came in with this Chevelle
and he was like, I could sell it for that.
I'm not going to spend seven or nine hundred dollars on the car.
I could sell it for that.
And it was I think my dad or my uncle, somebody bought the car
and my dad drove it home.
And it was it was a sky blue was a light blue at that time.
And by the time I had it, I painted it a little dark or whatever.
I did a lot of stuff to totally ruined it.
And the selling of it was a good story, too.
But anyway, it was driven home.
And my dad was like, oh, you're never going to have this car.
I I I was given the car pretty, pretty quickly after that.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, yeah, it was my first car and it was bought from a customer
probably for somewhere around seven or nine hundred dollars.
Nineteen seventy Chevelle Malibu convertible, three oh seven.
You know, but still how much does it work today? Right?
Yeah. How much did they sell it for?
That's the question.
Not a not a bad car for a teenager.
Yeah, it was it was pretty cool.
You know, convertibles are cool.
I love convertibles and we have.
Yeah. So my brother did.
My brother didn't like him and he had a.
Plymouth satellite like from the B fifty two's planet, Claire.
Yeah, it's as big as the whale.
Yeah, that one. Well, that's another.
So that's yeah, that's yeah.
Cool. Yeah.
So and they had both my brothers had Vegas.
So to Vegas and, you know, I got to drive Pinto's.
I got to drive you goes.
I mean, I drove a Pinto very early and that was one of my first car driving.
Now, when did you go?
I don't want to hop in front of Doug here.
That's OK. You got the bug for European cars pretty quickly.
So how did that happen?
Was it were you a student of design?
Was it happenstance?
I did my homework and I saw you guys.
You guys have an RX 7 video out there, don't you?
You just recently did a podcast on an RX 7 or something like that.
Or correct. You covered the RX 7, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
And even the car that you were talking about.
But when I was really little, I was in the car and I was at.
It's still there.
The Seminary Road and 395 Exit at the entrance to the highway.
It's a roundabout.
And that is when I saw a guy in probably a 70s RX 7 and probably had just come out
and he was about to enter the southbound 395.
And he was in an RX 7, you know, five speed manual, obviously.
He chucked it sideways and just took off.
I mean, he was a beautiful.
It wasn't even I wouldn't even say it was a drift.
He just, you know, he just threw it sideways and took off.
It was beautiful.
And I was like, the cars that my dad was driving and, you know,
the American cars we were driving were super cool and I grew up with them.
But I wanted to do that.
I want to drive sideways.
I love to do is drive a car on the edge.
I'm very fortunate to live near twisty roads.
And I could take one, two, three cars up a day within five, 10 minutes.
I could experience magnificent driving.
That was the first car that showed me the way.
I mean, RX 7 is an incredible handling car.
You got to it's the seventies.
And, you know, yeah, American cars, if you threw them sideways like that,
the body roll, you know, it was only in like chips and like, you know,
the shows we watched back then to be driven like that.
Because otherwise bouncing back and forth and just, you know,
you would lose it because the suspension was so loose.
And again, there's a place for that.
I love Cadillac suspension or a Lincoln suspension for back in the day.
But I, at that point, was so intrigued by
a car that could handle like that.
It was incredible.
Like your Z car, your 90 Z car again.
I don't know if yours is a turbo or not a turbo, not non-turbo.
OK, but still, that's I drove one of the very early on.
And man, you could get that thing loose very easily.
It had a lot of work.
Yeah, well, especially if it's been raining.
Yeah, no, it's really good in the rain.
But they're they're wonderful driving cars.
And that's what the Z car did.
I mean, a neighbor had an early 70s.
I started, you know, I remember the first Z car showing up.
I remember the first Mazda Miata that a four star
Admiral lived on my street had.
I remember that it was paradigm shifting.
I mean, you know, all these all these kids and everybody
that loves Miata is in everything now.
And we love to trick them out and do this and do that.
Just the stock Miata having something reliable
like a Z car and RX seven.
It was generally more reliable than an MG or a Tri for, you know,
consider a lunch or a lunch, you know, I've always been one for trouble.
And, you know, these cars, that's why my daily driver is a Prius.
Honestly, I love to have a video of Prius, the best car in the world.
Now, you know, speaking of videos.
All right, let's hit pause here for a quick second.
Take our breath, breakneck pace that we're going here.
I want to ask about all right.
So the YouTube videos, if you're not aware of driving Ivan's content,
check him out on YouTube, so many wonderful videos.
He he he'll review a car, talk about the cars that he owns,
talk about the questions everybody wants to ask.
What are the costs associated with these old exotic automobiles?
He'll go to all kinds of car shows.
I forget one of your videos that was just recently posted where it was,
but so watchable.
And the fact that you did this professionally for a long time really
comes through in the quality of the videos.
I really want our listenership to give it some time.
Go on YouTube, check it out.
And oh, here was my question.
You talk about driving through these winding roads.
And from the videos that I've seen, do you still live near there?
Because I know that you took some of your cars
through these winding idyllic country roads.
I mean, it looks like an Audi ad. It's beautiful.
You still have access to that sort of those environments.
I like I said, I'm currently down in Florida where the roads are not so exciting.
Yes, I live.
I live in an area where there are very twisty roads and it is absolutely awesome.
Yes, incredible.
You know, my drive to Katie's coffee is great.
It's fun.
It's a little longer than it used to be when I lived in in the D.C.
area proper. But yeah, I'm very spoiled.
It's it's going to be hard as some day when I want to, you know,
sell and be someplace warmer or something.
I love I love it down here down south.
But I am very lucky to live where I live.
And yeah, the roads are incredible.
I can take a car or two or three up there a day.
And it's nice.
Interesting. So so are you are you snowboarding in a way?
Some time down here, some time up there or I'm kind of snowboarding.
I came down here jealous.
You guys know what day it is.
I've been down in Florida for a while, and I'd already been down here once in January.
Gotcha. But yeah, I'm down here for the Amelia.
The Amelia Island.
It's called the Amelia now, Hadard is Amelia.
And they are very, you know, it's a great event.
It's well run.
Next year, I'll probably hit the one that's in Miami and then hit that one.
So yeah, I like to get out of the D.C.
area when it's cold, because I'm just I'm like, I'm over this.
I hear you. Yeah, totally.
Totally.
Being kind of someone who realized a long time ago that I was
unemployable, that I had to work for myself.
Fortunately, I have the time and the freedom to do it.
I've been into Europe.
I've driven the Nurburgring.
I drove all over Ireland.
I've driven all over England.
You know, many I bought three cars back in the summer of 23 from Europe.
And I just bought two more cars back from year England, really,
in the summer of 24.
So I like driving a car that nobody else drives.
Yeah, you get less travel.
The look, the thumbs up.
I'm with the thumbs up.
I said, you get all the looks, the thumbs up.
The I picked up my Fiat Arqueta from the port and I literally
within like two minutes, someone's like, what, what is that?
What is that?
Yeah, no one knows.
And it has like the European Fiat emblem, but it's not really.
It just is Fiat in America.
So people didn't know what it was, a Fiat Arqueta.
And actually, I don't want to advertise, but I've got to sell some of these cars.
And I do have a Fiat Arqueta for sale.
So I literally bought that car right now.
It's for sale right now.
He I wanted that car for the hard top that I could put on my car.
I have a blue Fiat Arqueta.
You can see it.
And if you see the silver one in my videos, the silver Fiat Arqueta
with red leather, that's for sale.
And so is my Geneta G26 and maybe my Alpina B7 BMW.
Well, where can we find about out about these these automobiles for sale?
We just got to ask you or is it on YouTube or do you have a say on where
you do a walk around or sometimes they'll be on on the internet.
Gotcha.
And yeah, I'll usually put a video up and you could contact me
on my Instagram or something like that.
Drive in. It's the same as my YouTube drive and Ivan and leave off the G drive
and Ivan cats IV and ATZ and drive in without it without a G and drive
and Ivan cats on Instagram, you know, whatever.
So well, the real drive and Ivan on TikTok.
Love it.
Yeah, we'll get all this in the show notes here.
And I know Doug wants to kind of proceed with the with the
cavalcade, the parade of your first cars.
So let's talk about selling the first car to get into the Launcia.
Yeah, well, I didn't.
I didn't sell the first car to get into the Launcia.
I just I bought the Launcia.
It's funny, I bought a I think I could barely afford this car.
I think I paid eight hundred seventy five or nine hundred dollars
from the first car and it was red.
And then I spent the money at a establishment in the in that D.C.
area that I won't mention because they I spent a good amount of money
a lot more than I had spent for the car and fixed everything.
And then I was driving at my college girlfriend at the time.
I ran into the house with my cars on fire because she comes out
with a thimble of a thimble of water to put it out.
And the flames were shooting up like 20 feet.
The the fire department said it was the worst
car fire they ever put out.
It burned. There was a Volkswagen Jetta in front of me.
It burned that a little bit, too. Oh, no.
The catalytic converter seized in that first Launcia.
And it was just blown away.
So I got the insurance and then there was a friend of mine
who was a dentist, her dad, her dad was a dentist in town.
And I said, if you ever want to sell this car, it was white.
And I I really hadn't seen a white mine was red.
They're most of them were red and black.
There were some that were white, some were blue, some were black.
There was a special edition of black, but this one was a white.
And I just think sports cars look good in white.
Thororites look good in white.
So white Launcia is a God.
And one day he just called me and said, if you want it,
it's yours.
And he said 1750, I think, $1750.
It was far better than the car I had before.
Yeah, because he bought it at American Service Center
in in Arlington, Virginia, which is also a Mercedes dealership.
And it was I have the original receipts
and everything about 12,950.
It was like $13,000 in 1981.
That was a lot of money.
Yeah, that was a heck of a lot of money.
Was it 1981?
I've been 1981.
Yeah, the 80s had the different grill, similar to my Delta
into Crowley. So yeah, I had that for many, many, many years.
And then I sold.
I can't remember.
I think I sold the Chevelle first.
Did you want to hear that story or?
You know, I don't know.
There is so much to get to in time, this melting way.
Yeah, let's hear it.
I mean, it just just real quickly.
It was at the shop because it was I think they were getting ready
to close the shop down in life in the 2000s sometime.
And it was horrible by that time.
Nobody could ever tune it.
It needed everything. It was terrible.
Yeah, but Chevelle's were coming up in value.
And there was a guy he was sitting out there every day.
He started contacting me every day or so
and offering me more money.
He was offering me a thousand dollars more a day.
And finally it got to a point where I was like, all right.
And I can't say no forever yet.
Like I said, I, you know, I'm in real estate.
I've renovated houses, been a realtor.
And I use the money for the Chevelle
to put my down payment on my first investment.
Which I still own.
And I call it my Ferrari fund
because some someday I'll sell that and buy a really cool car.
I learned that Chevelle, my first car into a condo
and then turn it into a really cool car.
We'll get there for sure.
Yeah, love that couple.
Can I hop in, Doug?
Or did you have something to ask?
Yeah, OK, so what to ask about a couple of cars?
So do you still have the 928?
Yes, I do. It's my second one that I don't.
This one's a five speed manual.
1978, first year in the US.
Yeah, it's it's not a, you know,
I don't believe in buying super clean cars.
It's just not my thing that I know that people love that.
I like to buy drivers.
This one is definitely a driver.
I bought it from a guy in rural in the rural area of the D.C.
area, and he maintained it himself.
And I like a funky shifter on it.
You can see it in the video.
It just serves drive and Ivan and Porsche 928.
You'll see it.
But this car, in fact,
I'll tie it back to Morris Kesson's the car stereo shop.
Please. I was fascinated by sports cars.
And this Porsche, a Heishman at the time, was in Alexandria.
And they came by with they had a 928 and a 911.
And the salesman was like, oh, the 928 is so good.
It doesn't even I was like, it's an automatic.
And he's like, it doesn't matter.
There's so much torque in this car.
It's amazing.
And so I owed an eighty four automatic.
And he's absolutely wrong.
Unless you're talking about a later car.
Eighty seven, the S or one of the later cars.
Or even an automatic.
However, having both now, the five speed manual
dog leg shifter, the dog leg is the best.
You know, first is dog leg.
And that's because nobody wants to be in first gear on a racetrack.
You know, whatever.
It's incredible.
It is the absolute German Corvette.
It is so fast. Oh, wow.
So much torque.
It's kind of a dog.
You know, I don't care.
It's not perfect example.
But man, I love to drive it.
It's a really cool car.
How often do you drive it?
It's been, you know, pretty regularly, but it's been acting up.
You know, I get up running and I drive them.
And this one had a key issue where you stuck the key in and it was really hard
to start, so I had that fixed.
And then I started driving it all the time.
Now, I think it's got two fuel pumps, I think, and one of them's acting up.
So, you know, it's always when you have this many cars
and that's the thing is why I want to tell them something's always breaking
and they all break once and it's just it's hideous.
So, you know, I'm experiencing a bit of that.
And what do you do?
What is your go to when you have an issue like that?
Do you kind of troubleshoot it yourself?
Do you kind of go to an independent garage with some things?
Do you take it back to a dealer specialist or the dealer for for other things?
How do you handle that on a car?
I have my local guys that do stuff for me.
And, you know, I'll say to your viewers, I mean,
it sounds like you guys are more crafty than I am.
You probably do a little more work on cars.
I hate working on cars.
I hate it. Like I said, I've done it in the water pump.
I did the alternator on my 911, my air cooled 911 and my starter on that one.
But it takes me forever.
I'm not. It's not what I specialize in.
So knowing people in the clubs is good.
And if you know, some of that likes to work on them and they say,
you would when you could give them a little bit of money or something.
Why not?
That's been especially helpful with me with the Lotus.
I have a Lotus Esprit and I have a friend that has a Lotus Esprit
and a Europa like I do.
I have an Esprit and Europa and he's an incredible mechanic.
In fact, my Opel Escona is at his house.
I have a 1972 Opel Escona and that's for sale, too.
That's got a Manta front end and that's for sale.
Somebody buy that for me.
It's ready to go.
Opel Escona.
He's been making it reliable, been working on it in his spare time.
So where do you find
these? You mentioned that you find them abroad and have them sent over.
Is that what happens to most of them or just to these car clubs?
You're always buying.
I'm just started doing that.
I mean, that's the thing.
This is like real estate.
It's like real estate.
When do you make money?
You make money on the buy.
When you buy something, you make the money.
You don't buy it right.
I've gotten so lucky.
The Lotus Esprit, I had a friend call me out of nowhere.
You know, the 1988 Lotus Esprit, the second one.
Is that for sale? Is that for sale?
I'll buy it from you.
I mean, it might be.
But, you know, it could be.
We'll talk about the first show.
We're going to talk about it.
I'll be quiet. It's not one of the first ones I want to sell.
But the 928 Christian.
That's sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
Yep.
But do you want more on that?
Because the Esprit was a cool story.
But anyway, it was friends even telling me about cars back then.
When I was in my buy stage, I'm not I'm not really buying anything.
I got to sell stuff.
I got too many cars.
It's ridiculous.
I finally sold my I bought the cheapest supercharged Jag.
That's one of my most popular videos.
I think it's got a quarter million hits or so.
And I just sold that car because some guy, it doesn't really run right.
And I just sold it for next nothing because it went to a good owner.
And he's going to enjoy it.
Probably flip it, but I don't care.
You know, there comes a time, you know, how many cars do you own?
I know I said 30, but I'm guessing I think it dropped to 29
when I sold that Jag, actually.
OK. Wow. Wow.
It's a problem. Don't have this many cars.
Kids don't have this many cars.
I would like to get it down to a very manageable 10.
Do not try this at home. Yeah. OK.
It's it's they sometimes eventually things own you.
Well, that's what I was thinking when you said that you did, you know,
wasn't your favorite thing to work on cars.
The first thing that popped into my mind was you have such a fleet
that if you did that, you would never have time to to travel or visit
or, you know, do all the other hobbies.
The job also, again, you know, and this is a thing of I try to buy cars
that are in decent shape.
And even though I don't care how they look, I can't have they run.
I can't have an alignment and things like that.
But the thing is, is when you have that many cars,
even if I drive it a lot, if I drive it up and down the mountain
and that's how I get my kicks, you know, that's fun for me.
So, you know, it's literally like I'm putting like six miles in the car.
You know, I put six miles on it at a time.
And if I drive it to a car show, what am I putting?
You know, I put a lot of miles on the cars.
I'm not wearing through breaks.
I'm not wearing through tires.
The problem is the time, you know, the tires will dry rot
by the time I wear them out. You know? Yeah. Yeah.
So what would be you've owned a lot of, I guess, dream cars
and the ball is probably always moving the target.
What would be your dream car now?
It's funny because lately, you know, there are a lot of cars.
I mean, you were talking about the JDM cars.
They're so fun. Yeah.
To me, lately, it's almost like the one I just bought.
You know, I mean, I'll always, you know, there is nothing
like any of our cool Porsche 911.
They're valuable for a reason.
They're incredible in early RX-7.
They're really cool.
The Lancia Delta Integrale, the Citroen is so weird.
There are special cars to drive and they bring, you know,
they bring something that is special.
The 928 is a special car to drive.
It's the German Corvette.
It's front-engined, rear-wheel drive engineered way over
in the year. And the reason I bought, the reason I sold
my C3 Corvette, I had a 77 Corvette, my first favorite
car because of the shape.
And I bought one, my blue one.
You could say it's a popular video.
But I paid all the money to have it, the alignment
done, the steering done, the brakes done.
And if you compare that 77 Corvette to that 78 Porsche 928,
the Corvette, you should be ashamed.
You go to your room.
It's beautiful.
I appreciate it.
It's beautiful.
They drive it very different.
The C3 Corvette was a dog.
I mean, in terms of handling, it's less like it's one
of those, you know, I rock ones or, you know,
one of those are really cool.
But you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
It had to have a suspension to handle.
Correct.
Yeah.
They didn't.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that's that's Porsche over engineering, right?
Yeah.
You know, that's the thing.
Everybody always asks me, what's the best car?
And I toured the Porsche Museum.
I show you just like you said, my video is where I
show everything.
Got to watch that Porsche video.
The Porsche Museum, the Mercedes Museum, especially
Auto World in Brussels, Belgium.
I show you every car.
The Volt, the Peterson Volt, because, you know,
they're just Porsches.
We go back to the Porsche Museum.
They engineer them to drive to the track,
drive on the track and drive them home.
And have I done that?
Yeah.
My 996, my 2000 Porsche 996 that I just drove last time to.
To Florida.
Yeah.
2,500 miles in a 25 year old car.
What could possibly go wrong?
That video is something went wrong.
Watch the video.
But I drove that to the track and I picked up a lady
friend and took her out to dinner on the way back
with the top down.
And it was 95 degrees that day.
Uh-oh.
Show me a car that can do that.
Yeah, I was not driving slow on the track.
I was eight, nine tenths.
And they're amazing cars.
They really are amazing.
Love that ending segue here.
So as we ramp down and guide the podcast
gently to the off ramp here, one last reminder
to our audience, you've got to go check out
these YouTube videos.
But I forewarn you, set aside a period of time
because they're compelling and watchable.
And you'll be under the hood for quite a while.
But I got one last question for you on the way out, Ivan.
Let's go back to the Audi TT, your 2001 Spyder.
And OK, so you have it in, see if I get this right,
Laguna Seca Blue, which is the BMW racing color.
But I want to hear about the baseball glove leather.
Is that the interior?
Is that what you're referring to for the top?
Baseball glove leather was an option.
If you want that, it's going to have
to be that kind of that gray color that looks a little wet still.
Gotcha.
I think they did another one.
But the first edition was it was like gray and it looked wet.
And that's the only one where you
could get that baseball glove leather.
The stitching on the side, it's the color of baseball.
I see, I get it.
Yeah, it is so cool.
I was just saying, if I had to sell every one of my cars,
that thing is all wheel drive.
It's a two seat convertible.
You can spin in place in that car.
I watch my video, watch my review of that car.
Just search drive and I have an Audi TT.
You can, and I have two other videos in the snow,
but the review contains that.
So you can literally spin in place in that car.
It's not an Audi Quattro, little trivia for you.
It's a Haldex.
And where else will I find a Haldex all wheel drive
system in the Bugatti Veyron?
So that's a wheel drive system.
And so it's incredible.
That car is incredible, so fun to drive.
And it's a Volkswagen to maintain.
You will replace every part of them
because they're terrible out of warranty.
Audi's, they're terrible.
But you will want to because it drives so incredible.
And with that custom Laguna Seca blue paint,
it's such a beautiful car.
Beautiful.
Ladies and gentlemen, you are only
going to get these insanely quirky nuggets
from Drive and Ivan.
And I got to tell you, it was a complete pleasure
meeting you, and Doug and I have been talking
about having you on for months.
So this was really a bucket list thing for me.
I want to thank you for making time
and thank you for being here, my man.
We had a blast.
Thank you so much.
Really appreciate it.
We'll have to have them back.
Can we have you back to talk about more, Carly?
Any time.
That's the problem with this guy
is that 35 minutes into the discussion,
we're only getting started.
And I can feel the energy and juices just starting
to explode, but we got to land it.
We'll have you back at a future time.
Again, Drive and Ivan was a pleasure.
Thank you.
Enjoyed it so much.
Thank you.
Rock and roll.
We will have you back.
You have just heard the high revving, low mileage,
late model heard around the world podcast
on authoritative automobile.
Authoritative podcast on automobile nostalgia.
You can tell we haven't done this in a month.
He's Doug.
Reach him at Doug at CarsLove.com.
I am Christian.
Reach me at Christian at CarsLove.com.
You know how to get ahold of Drive and Ivan.
He's all over the place.
It'll be in the show notes.
So please follow and tell a friend
if you'd like what you heard.
Go to CarsLove.com for all of our coordinates.
I'm sure we'll see you at the next local car show,
showroom, race strip or concourse.
We appreciate you listening
and we will see you next time.
About this episode
Drivin' Ivan shares his incredible journey from owning a $900 Chevelle to amassing a collection of 29 cars, revealing his passion for automotive culture and nostalgia. He discusses his early experiences with cars, including memorable stories about his family’s automotive history and the unique vehicles he's owned. The episode dives into the quirks of various cars, the challenges of maintenance, and the thrill of driving on twisty roads. Ivan's engaging anecdotes and insights into car ownership make this a fascinating listen for anyone interested in the automotive world.
"You make money on the buy." That's the philosophy that took Ivan Katz from a $900 1970 Chevelle Malibu convertible to a 29-car collection — and why he says "eventually, things own you."
In this episode, Drivin' Ivan shares how growing up in his grandfather's car radio shop in Alexandria shaped his obsession with cars that handle. Why his first Lancia Zagato ended in the worst car fire the local fire department had ever seen — and why he came back for another one. How he compares his 1978 Porsche 928 to a "German Corvette" while the actual C3 "should be ashamed." And the unexpected way that Chevelle became his "Ferrari fund."
From air-cooled Porsches to obscure Italian sports cars to imports nobody in America recognizes, Ivan holds nothing back on what it really costs — in time, money, and sanity — to maintain a fleet this size.
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Listen on your favorite platform and visit https://carsloved.com for full episodes, our automotive blog, Guest Road Trip Playlist and our new CAR-ousel of Memories photo archive.
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