Just Back from Japan and Watching our Watchlists
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Brand
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is a major car company in the U.S. When someone from Ford is involved in a car story, it often means the car has broader appeal beyond just enthusiasts.
Car
Pantera
The Pantera is a sports car model that people collect and talk about. In this episode, it’s mentioned because someone has one listed or featured. That usually means it’s a car enthusiasts recognize and want to see.
Concept
bid
A “bid” is the current highest price someone is willing to pay. As more people bid, the price goes up until the auction ends.
Concept
fake enthusiasm
“Fake enthusiasm” means pretending to be excited just to look good. They’re suggesting some people act like they love cars, but it might be staged.
Concept
big three
They mean the major U.S. car companies that have dominated the market for decades. The point is that the speaker used to not care much, but now they’re paying attention to Ford.
Term
1100 cc
“1100 cc” is the engine size. Bigger numbers usually mean a larger engine, and in racing it often determines which class you compete in.
Car
Toyota Century
The Toyota Century is a top-tier luxury Toyota in Japan. It’s the kind of car people recognize as “nice and classy,” not flashy.
Concept
backing into a parking space
Instead of pulling into a parking spot forward, you reverse into it. People do this because it can make it easier and safer to see when you drive out.
Concept
gold wrapped
“Wrapped” refers to applying a vinyl film over the car’s paint to change its color or finish without repainting. A “gold wrap” is often used to create a metallic or flashy look that can be removed later if the owner wants to revert to the original paint. It’s common on enthusiast cars because it’s customizable and reversible.
Concept
right hand drive
Right-hand drive means the driver sits on the right side of the car. That’s normal in Japan, so it’s a detail that makes the scene feel authentic. It also changes where the controls are from what many people are used to.
Term
slammed
“Slammed” means the car sits very low. People do it for looks, but it can make the ride harsher and tires wear faster.
Term
left hand drive
Left-hand drive means the steering wheel is on the left. Since Japan usually has right-hand drive cars, left-hand drive cars feel unusual there.
Term
dropped
“Dropped” means the car is lowered, typically via suspension changes. In this context, it matches the “cow look” Beetle theme and the enthusiast preference for a low, aggressive stance.
Term
stinger exhaust
A stinger exhaust is an exhaust pipe that sticks out farther than stock. It usually makes the car look and sound more aggressive.
Term
roof rack
A roof rack is the thing on top of the car that you can strap luggage or gear to. It can also make the car less efficient and noisier at speed.
Concept
Japanese license plates
Japan’s license plates come in different colors and styles. People who like cars can spot those differences and tell what kind of vehicle it is.
Company
Tamiya model car store
They went to a Tamiya store, which is a big Japanese brand for model car kits. It’s the kind of place where car fans can geek out over building and collecting models.
Concept
flagship store
A flagship store is a brand’s big, fancy main shop. It’s meant to look impressive, even if it doesn’t always make a lot of money.
Brand
Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton is a famous race driver. When he shows up in a certain car, it usually means that car is getting a lot of attention.
Concept
tuned car
A “tuned car” is a car that’s been modified to feel or look better than stock. In this case, they’re joking that using one to drive strangers around could be risky.
Concept
F1
F1 is the highest level of race car competition in the world. It’s the big international open-wheel racing series.
Concept
F1 race
“F1” is the highest level of professional race car driving. The hosts are saying you could plan your trip around a big race event like that.
Concept
slot car raceway
A “slot car raceway” is a track for miniature cars that run along a guided slot, typically used for hobby racing. The hosts mention it as a place to visit in Japan, tying it to the broader enthusiast culture around cars and racing.
Concept
street car
A street car is set up to be driven on normal roads. In this case, they’re saying this Cheetah is meant for street use, not just track racing.
Car
BMW Z1
The BMW Z1 is a quirky BMW roadster from the late 80s/early 90s. It’s famous for its unusual door design and it’s being highlighted as a very low-mileage car.
Company
Bring a Trailer (BET)
“BET” is the auction website they use. It’s where people bid on cars, and sometimes the same car shows up again later.
Concept
US ski team Subaru Wag
“US ski team Subaru Wag” is a reference to a specific enthusiast fantasy: a Subaru wagon associated with U.S. ski-team branding/era. It’s essentially shorthand for the kind of period-correct, lifestyle-oriented build that collectors chase—car + identity + era.
Car
Subaru Brat
The Subaru Brat is an old Subaru that’s kind of like a small pickup, but with a very unique style. People like it because it’s rare to find one that’s still in good condition.
Term
V8
A V8 is an engine with eight cylinders. It usually means more power and a distinctive sound. When people ask if a car has a V8, they’re really asking what kind of performance it’s built for.
Term
VIN
A VIN is like a car’s unique ID number. It helps prove exactly which car you’re talking about and lets people verify its history.
Term
clay barred
Clay bar is a step where you rub a special clay over the paint to pull off tiny dirt and grime that normal washing can’t get. It helps the paint feel smooth and look shinier.
Car
C5 Corvette
A C5 Corvette is a specific generation of the Chevrolet Corvette, built in the late 1990s and early 2000s. People like it because it’s a real performance car, but it’s not as rare or expensive as some newer Corvettes.
Concept
sold for 26 grand
That means the car ended up selling for about $26,000. Auction prices like this help show what similar cars are actually worth.
LIVE
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Bring a Trailer podcast, Alex Porter here
at HQ in San Francisco with Randy Nonenberg.
Hey, Randy.
Hey, man, I'm here, and we got some crazy stuff on the site to talk about.
Should have hit record before.
We've been talking about it all morning, so we might as well share it with everybody
else.
You want to start with Jim's car?
You were talking about Jim's car.
Carly, CEO of Ford Motor Company, FOMO Co., has a Pantera live on the site that he and
I chatted about when he was on the BET podcast.
You were also on his big boy podcast, too.
Yeah.
If ours is not big boy, his definitely is.
I mean, didn't you follow Serena Williams or something?
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know how I went into this cycle.
I must have been like, I was batting night, somehow Serena was batting eight.
Yeah, there were some other crazy folks that he has on his, like, super influencer.
And then Randy Nonenberg, and he's like, let me explain to you who this person is.
How many grand slam titles have you won?
Totally.
Totally.
This person has not ever played at Wimbledon.
So anyway, that was fascinating.
But he described for me, I was like, hey, what's like your most, I was going through his profile
on BET, and I was like, what's your latest thing?
And he's like, oh, I just picked up this Pantera and drove it home with my son.
And it needs this and that.
And we're going to have a project.
So it's a pre-L.
It's a cool small car.
72 yellow pre-L.
Yeah.
Super cool car.
And getting some love.
I think there's a little Jim Farley bump going on.
What's the bid at?
What's the bid at?
It is at 130.
It ends the day.
This podcast will drop, which is tomorrow.
We can let everyone know that we're recording sub 24 hours.
Absolutely.
We're time.
This is real time.
You think that's bad.
I think that's timeliness.
No, it just makes my heart palpitate.
And Chris has to edit it tonight.
But it's a great car.
We've got some hero shots with the face of our buddy, Colin Comer, in them, former podcast
guest.
And Roxy's guys are all on the BET podcast.
That's right.
I'm telling you, you're building the dynasty.
CC350?
Yeah.
Anyway, we'll see what that Pantera does.
I've had a few buddies text me about it, and they're like, wow, Farley's Pantera is
live.
So anyway, we'll see what that car does.
Super cool to see it come back.
It's its third listing.
It features in the BET history module, which is my favorite feature.
You love that alumni tag.
I'm just going to talk about that all the time, the history module on the right side.
So anyhow, that car is a cool one.
We'll see if people dive on it.
I think it's going to be an exciting close tomorrow.
People love that Farley is like a real car guy.
I was telling you earlier, the Utopian wrote a piece about his history.
You could like see what he's bid on and the interesting things.
And it's actually like, it is actually a great Ford advertisement, because when you look at
all the things he's bid on, the man has taste.
Yeah.
Well, he's awesome and obviously an outlier, but you know what?
It makes me think that like all the others out there, their PR people ought to just go
randomly, like buy them an Integra type R and have like one shot next to it.
And all of a sudden, all the like a car journalist will be like, this person's authentic, you
know?
100%.
Have your PA who actually is interested in cars, your executive assistant, throw some
bids in on your behalf.
Totally.
Pick up like a GMC cyclone and all of a sudden, like the automotive press will adore you even
if you, whatever you do with the company, right?
100%.
But Farley's like definitely, he's actually interested in Rup twin engine go-karts.
He's a little legit, but like you never hear any of that kind of press for any of the other
auto execs, right?
Because they're all just like being driven around in an escalator or whatever.
They fake it.
It's like fake enthusiasm.
I don't even know if they fake it though, right?
You just get driven around and you fly on private jets or whatever, right?
I mean, there's no automotive it doesn't seem like.
It's not Gianni and Yelly anymore with his short wheelbase.
Totally.
On his Riva, you know, like ripping and you're just like, okay, I'm buying whatever that
guy's selling.
But yeah.
So anyway, I just think that's funny, but no, I mean, Farley gets so much press for
being a legit guy and he is and that's cool.
And I think that resonates with guys buying Broncos and Raptors and stuff, you know?
It resonates with me, man, like Ford has really become like, I was never a partisan for any
of the big three and now it's like all I really am interested in is Ford's.
It's even retroactive.
I look at the old Ford's.
We were talking about the other day with Max Wedges, we're like, oh, but what you really
want is the galaxy from 62.
Yeah.
I mean, but man, there's cool other stuff.
And yeah, my buddy Ralph from Solances, I mean, he's super legit and he's not CEO and
I don't think he wants to be, but he kind of carries that mantle of being like the car
person within the, you know, ivory tower that is now run by bean counters and people who
don't care, right?
So it's cool that these companies have those people and they get celebrated, but I was
just laughing when the Pantera came up because I mean, all you have to do is buy some enthusiast
car for your CEO and all of a sudden everybody thinks totally a company is that could be
a funny hack if they wanted to be like Ford.
So anyhow, that's a cool Pantera and one of many wacky things going on on BET at the
moment.
You know, one last reflection on this, there's always been a little bit of being counterism
or a lot, I guess I should say in the big three because, you know, even 70 years ago
or almost 65 years ago, Zora, Arcus Duntoff was like a maverick kind of breaking out of
that like kind of run out of town too, right?
Wasn't he?
Yeah, he totally wasn't allowed to do stuff and he was too kind of, you know, had to secretly
build test Corvette mid engines and, you know, they didn't want him to go run at LeMau, but
he did it anyways and won his class in a little tiny that was when he was working for GM.
I'm pretty sure when he won the index of performance and that 1100 cc Furman 550.
Anyway, I love stuff like that and car guys do too.
So you're totally right about it being a smart PR move.
Should we talk about some other stuff on the side or do you want to talk about Japan first?
You're fresh back from being across the ocean.
I went to Japan for the first time on holiday.
Yeah, no Skunk Works BET action over there yet, though we may need some soon after this
trip.
I went over there for seven or eight days with the family and Zach, who's often on the BET podcast,
obviously has been over there, has driven, has bought cars over there, has done more
car stuff than I could ever hope to in Japan.
I was like, well, what do I do over there?
Like, what's the hard part?
You had your fam with you.
So I have a fam.
So I wasn't going to go full deep.
My standard travel is like all sorts of car stuff.
This one was not that.
But the cool thing that he pointed out, which I found out to be totally true is he's like,
you'll be surrounded by it.
You like won't won't be able to escape, but you won't have to go seek out car stuff.
You'll just be freaked out every street you walk down because of the car sort of energy
and the cars they're driving and the rules of the road and just all of it.
And that and I was surprised and I kind of had a smile on my face.
Not long after I landed and adjusted to the time.
It's exactly that.
Like every once in a while, you'll see something crazy, which is really fun and like a wild,
you know, R34 scout.
No joke.
I saw R34 was driving on the right.
And you're just like, OK, well, that's wild.
But even just the like little K vans driving down the street and the way the tow trucks
look and the Uber you get in and what pulls up, right?
And the Toyota Centuries driving all over the place and the like hierarchy of what's
fancy and what's the every person.
I was totally struck by it and frankly compelled.
Like I kind of want to go out in that environment more.
And I'm not into the we sell a zillion of these K trucks and red firetruck
minis and like weirdo right hand drive stuff.
And and most of that isn't stuff that like fires me up.
I'm glad that it fires a lot of people up, but it's not really my
deal, even though I love Japanese cars.
And but over there, the modern K stuff, like I was pointing out to my kids,
I was like, wow, that Suzuki wrestler is like a super cool.
Oh, what?
Little rig, a rest, R-U-S-T-L-E-R.
Never even heard of it.
Of course.
No, nobody has, but it's just like one of many.
And my kids were calling out the funny like car names, all the minibans
and all the all the funny stuff driving around.
My parents call it Richard scary cars.
Like you get it somewhat in Europe, especially in Italy, you know, like they
look like the little I know I'm wearing the Richard scary shirt today, ironically.
But you know, everything's like little looks like a toy a little bit.
Well, there's a lot of that.
It's a it's a subset of what's over there.
Obviously, there's full size stuff too, but the small stuff is everywhere
and everybody backs into their parking space, which just makes me smile.
It's like little stuff that just makes you appreciate life and smiling
and these these folks that operate.
Can you imagine if everyone in Los Angeles tried to back into their parking space?
First of all, they'd all crash into each other.
Couldn't do it.
Cars are huge.
You couldn't crash into somebody.
Then they'd leave.
That's what would happen in America, right?
And you're just like, yeah.
First of all, they've never figured out how to do that.
And over there, it's like required reading.
It's like, well, of course.
And I pointed that out to my son.
I was like, look how everybody's backed in perfectly.
And he's like, that's crazy.
And then the types of cars.
And then, yeah, I can go down the laundry list.
And I was also stoked.
Another, I don't know if you saw it on our internal threads with the staff,
but another one of our staffers was in Japan and posted a bunch of cars that he saw.
No, I missed that.
Carl was over there.
Oh, cool.
And he's rad.
Carl is.
And thinks about weird cars to spot.
And he made me feel a little bad because he snapped great photos of like every cool car he saw.
And he found some weird stuff.
And he found way weirdo stuff.
And then I, you know, noted a bunch of cars that I saw, but I didn't take pictures of most of them.
I got a few good pictures.
But no, just to rattle some off.
I mean, I told you, I saw like a gold wrapped R34 Skyline, which is crazy.
I saw a HAKO.
I saw a HAKO.
There's debate on this on whether you call it a HAKOSUKA or a HAKUSKA.
Oh, I've always HAKOSUKA.
Yeah.
That's what I thought.
My buddy says it the second way, which is kind of like.
HAKUSKA?
Oh, interesting.
I don't know which is right.
Yakuza.
It's like a gang.
Neither of those, I know how to say properly.
So I'm not going to really try.
But it was one of the, it wasn't a GTR.
It was a either a GT or just like base, but it was two door silver, no flares, like the modest.
What do they call that car?
KGC 10?
I forget what the body.
I can't remember the chassis designations, but anyway, they are the legit.
Early skyline base and this guy was cruising underneath an overpass and like sitting up
with this awesome posture, right hand drive, no tin on any of the windows.
You can see right through the greenhouse, just comes driving through in Tokyo.
And I was like, that's an awesome moment.
Nobody else saw that.
And I just saw that modified.
No, 0% modified.
It was like a factory.
Was that that would that mean steel wheels and stuff?
If it's like a base one, I don't know if they're called C 10.
You're right.
Because it's C 110 is the kind of angular one that comes out of the Kenmari.
Correct.
So it was the first one, but I was like a rear three quarter view.
Honestly, I didn't really see what the wheels were, but they weren't like modded,
aggressive.
I don't know if it had one knobbies on it or whatever.
If it just feel like everyone I see is like, yes, slammed on once.
So this one was very much not high, high sidewall, high ride height.
Anyway, that car was 10 out of 10.
That's my favorite car I saw over there, but then this will blow you away.
So I saw two cow look Beatles left hand drive.
One of them was like candy apple red.
And one of them was like primer, like dilapidated, but they were both dropped
with it with a tilted rear lid and a stinger exhaust and the big torque
thrust looking wide fives down.
They look like they were out of VW trends from the nineties.
Left hand drive cars.
And I was like, wow, that's a that's a deep cut.
So Zach always says that when you see a car like that in Japan,
it looks extra cool because it's kind of out of place.
And it's in that back your car in to a parking spot culture.
So seeing that, it's like your brain is out of whack.
Like if you saw that here, you'd be like, oh, that's fairly cool.
Or I mean, California spoiled, right?
Like you'd see something drive by like that, like somewhat regularly.
Right.
And I mentioned it to you because you had your gear, but in two totally different
towns, they weren't together or whatever.
I saw them in two different random instances and they're not with buddies
and they're not cruising and they have this rad posture and they're just
kind of cruising through town.
That was an eyeopening moment.
I call those people are cool in general.
Oh, I mean, Cal look, it used to not be my favorite beetle look.
And now I appreciate it.
Well, there's nostalgia for it because it's also pretty old.
It's a pretty long time ago.
Turns out all that stuff has aged.
Yeah.
All that stuff has aged narrowed beams, narrowed beams, all the things.
You want to make your Volkswagen ride even worse?
Do that.
Yeah.
Big subs in the back, roof rack.
Venetian blinds in the roof.
All of it.
Give me all of it.
But they look really cool with it.
So Japanese license plates are cool on everything, right?
There's green ones.
There's yellow ones.
There's black ones.
There's white one.
My kids are license plate geeks like me.
So they were calling out different license plates.
And then, yeah, some, you know, Japan only type stuff was cruising by.
So Tommy Mackinen, addition Mitsubishi Evo, one of the early ones that we didn't
get, right hand drive, red comes cruising through town.
Saw a fair amount of Land Cruisers that were weird spec that you never see over here,
which I like most people wouldn't care.
Saw some of those weird, like, you know, those micro cars that they make look
like vintage Jags and stuff.
You know, that's a weird sentence to say out loud, but they actually do that.
Interesting.
Carl spotted one of those.
I spotted one of those.
Saw a couple people have causing trouble with loud exhausts and stuff on
like Tokyo Drift type rigs cruising around Lexus Sands with big exhaust race,
way down negative camber, all that stuff.
But they're not ratty.
Not a lot of people drive ratty ones.
Like you'll see that stuff around California and it'll be some of them are cool,
but some of them are like junk around over there.
They're pretty shiny and like nice and clean and like cared for.
So that was that was cool.
A couple of supercars for Ari's driving around.
Oh, I'll McLaren's driving around.
Saw a GT3 RS like driving straight through Tokyo,
echoing off the building sort of with the pop-up.
That was three rad unnecessary, but rad, right?
I was like, OK, that was cool.
And then, yeah, and then we were on a bunch of trains and stuff.
Other than that, we bullet train.
You ride bullet train.
Oh, for sure.
How was that?
Ray had his phone app open with this pedometer.
So he's like showing me like live feed of 300 KPH more than 300 KPH.
It was close to.
I think he showed it to me when we were I don't know if we were going through a
town or something, but yeah, we were going 160 miles an hour.
So that's that's starting to get up there.
So that was fun.
It was very fun just seeing.
Oh, man, a great FDRX seven with a bigger wing on the back
than we got in the US was one of the late ones where they have.
I don't know if it's a special edition, but it was a dark blue.
A lot of them are in white, which I actually don't care for when they're
the modded ones.
It was like a really subtle modification.
I'm Japanese played on it and a dude sitting right side and it was on an
elevated expressway and he came around us.
And I was just like, I was in a cab and the cab driver is like, why are you
taking a picture of that car?
And I was like, that car is.
I'm a little out over my skis, but they made them longer there.
Maybe like into the early 2000s, something like that.
And it's called a spirit or something.
I've seen them in that dark blue with the big wing and they have like the
headlights are maybe fixed open instead of anyway, that's a rad car.
Yeah. The only thing I don't like about those, the Japanese ones,
don't they mold the plate holder into the front?
I think that's right.
Yeah, I've never liked that look, but I know other people do.
So that was cool.
We went to the Tamiya model car store.
So it got to geek out on cars there.
Went to that was kind of a dream of yours that lives up to expectations.
My nine year old self, I was kind of like the ultimate part of that journey.
So that was cool.
Is it like a flagship store?
Okay, cool brand store that they're losing money on.
You can tell there's not that many customers.
There's a lot of lookie-loos and it's in a very expensive, beautiful building.
You can tell I was like, man, you can't sell enough hundred
dollar models to pay for this place.
Well, I brought the bag back.
I did buy something there and I brought the bag back to the hotel and like the guy
in the lobby that worked at the hotel.
He was like, oh, he was like, oh, that's cool.
Right. And I was like, he knew.
And I was like, you know this.
And he's like, oh yeah, we know that brand.
And I was like, wow, that's cool.
Because he deals with a bunch of stuffy tourists all the time,
but then got to geek out on like toys coming through.
So that was kind of fun.
I can wax on kids.
They get they have fun kids loved it.
They're adventurous into weird food and riding on trains.
Yeah. So they know that we didn't rent a car.
A lot of people ask for anyone.
What are you going to drive?
Are you going to go do crazy stuff?
So they here's what we didn't do it.
And I kind of wish that we did, but I'm going to do it on a subsequent trip.
If we could get any feedback from BAT listeners, you can book like a too fast,
too furious tour, like somebody to show up, you know, you know,
wrapped like decalde up car and take you to like the car meat.
Which they say happens like seven days a week at this parking lot.
Did you see recently the Lewis Hamilton pictures of him in his F 40?
I saw a little during the Japanese GP.
He took it at 40 because he's Ferrari guy now.
And he took it to this meat that happens on Saturday night.
And I guess it happens on other nights.
And so you can pay one hundred and thirty bucks for three people
and somebody will show up with a four seater.
They like load you in and some random person in their tuned car,
which sounds like a recipe for disaster to me, will go drive you to the movie
locations and then drive you to this meat, which sounds just like.
Man, should we start that business in San Francisco?
Take you to the bullet locations and stuff.
No, totally. I bet people would do it.
Of course they would.
Wow, you just said a great business model out loud.
I shouldn't have said it on the radio.
And now everybody's going to do it.
We could buy Robert Duvall's tan LTD.
And a green fastback and a charger, of course, and you pile people in
and you go drive the route.
Unfortunately, the route is all around the city.
But anyway, we didn't do it.
Either a couple of moments like they'll come pick you up at your hotel
at 10 o'clock at night and go like drive.
Oh, because a lot of that stuff happens at night.
It's all right. They won't do it in the day.
They do it in the nighttime.
So I'm kind of like I almost wanted to try it was it felt a little cowboy.
You like pay for it through some sketch interface.
Is there a special request section where you can say I need underglow?
I mean, yeah, I was like, can I specify the vehicle?
Exactly. Right.
I was more worried about like who the random driver is going to be that shows up.
But I bet there's some reviews online and stuff.
I bet somebody that's listening maybe has done it.
And I got a sack about that.
That's one that I didn't do, but I would like to go back and do.
I would like to go back and do F1.
I would like to go back.
There were flyers at the Tamiya HQ about the Honda Museum.
They're doing some collab on the Twin Ring, Motegi facility.
That's where I would like to go, the Twin Rings.
Yeah. And the manufacturer museums and then go see a factory of cars being put together and that sort of stuff.
I wish we could have done that, but that was not on the agenda.
That's all right. You did plenty.
You captured lots of stuff.
So you've spent a fair amount of time in Europe and you've never said it's not like it's like the U.S.
there, but it doesn't strike you as so different.
And Japan feels considerably different than the United States, the car culture.
It feels really different.
Europe feels different the way they treat their cars.
All the car models are different.
I always find that super stimulating.
And even like Central America or South America or Africa or wherever you go, like everything's different.
And it's just even the pedestrian stuff is fun to look at.
Totally.
You lose that in the U.S.
where you're just or wherever you live because you're just used to it, right?
Go into a different country to see how stuff works.
Yeah, they pull up to a stoplight and they turn their headlights off.
So they don't shine other people.
It's very like courteous.
Some people do that in Europe, not very many people, but a lot of people do that in Japan.
That was cool. My cab driver did that.
And I love observing stuff like that.
Yeah. And then the cabs are riding around.
A lot of them have like lace lined interiors.
Of the little the doilies all over them on the seats, on the door panels.
It was like integrated into the door panel on this Toyota.
I think it was a century. It wasn't Lux.
It was like kind of a dog, actually.
It'd be like a high end Tercel here, but it's like a nineties era car, right?
I mean, it's been around the block a long time.
And we were driving on that.
My kids are in the back.
I rode shotgun right hand seat, right?
Because we were full.
And I was like touching the dash and like looking at it the way the guy drove.
He would shift into park with an old Toyota automatic at every stop,
which I was just kind of fascinated.
I was just kind of taking it all in.
And yeah, the gauges are like in my 94 Toyota pickup.
Yeah. And the whole thing's just sort of old,
but I loved it all and the way the door is open and the trunk.
Anyway, so we were driving around in these just funky Japanese cars.
And the sensation of doing that was so different than just a normal day here.
Do you use subway too?
Lots. Yeah. Tokyo subway is supposed to work.
Tokyo, Kyoto.
Yeah, we were underground.
I mean, it's expansive and there's a lot of food offerings there
and long distances to go.
We had a rain day, so you like try to be under as much as you can.
So we were navigating the city through a bunch of the tunnels.
It was cool. Awesome, man.
Well, it makes me want to go.
My son really wants to go very badly, so maybe we've got to put it together.
I recommend it.
Yeah, go over there, whether there's an event happening that you lock into
like an F1 race or a driving thing you can do or sport you can attend.
Or if you just go and just show up in Tokyo, you're pumped.
Nobody has gone and not enjoyed themselves that I know.
See, it seems like it. Yeah.
Yeah, it seems like it.
So a lot of people like it, I would say.
Rad, dude.
There's a lot of other good stuff on the site that I thought we could talk about.
I have some questions of the week to hit you with, too.
We did that a while ago and people have been absorbing those
and various VAT social media channels.
But I thought we could run through Watchlist and other stuff on site.
You mentioned something that I hadn't even heard of right before we pushed record.
I was like, we got to push record and I can't even remember what it was.
What did you mention?
There's goodness.
Brat. You said a really good brat.
There's goodness on the site right now that people need to be all
navigate away from the slot car raceway that is Alps inspired.
Oh, do you see that?
You saw the cheetah, right?
We had an excellent cheetah.
Well, we had a result.
Yes, we did.
Printed, as Anthony Sarah would say.
We printed the result.
That's right.
Bill Thomas, tell me your knowledge of Bill Thomas.
I just know that it's kind of Corvette.
I mean, you may have to tell me a little bit.
No, I'm not baiting you.
I don't know that much.
I think the cheetah is the idea.
So it's our first one other than we had a cut down cheetah kind of roadster
that was cut down in period.
That was at Road America last year, I think.
It was sold on VAT and then was at the where you were racing at the Road
America event, I'm pretty sure.
But this is the first one that's in kind of the classic coupe shape.
It's a street car version.
I could be wrong, but my understanding is cheetahs are kind of Corvette
running gear and then what's the smallest package you can wrap around
Corvette running gear to go very, very fast.
This one's a street car.
It has a small block with hillbord or Rochester injection on it.
I don't know if you looked closely at the list, but the way, all the way it set up,
the distributor is kind of back and under a hump in the hood.
So when you're sitting in the cab, you can see the distributor through the windshield.
This was offered by 911R, one of our power sellers.
And I talked to Matt Crandall about it a little bit and he said,
boy, does it feel like there's not much there?
He's like, I can't imagine driving one of these 200 miles an hour.
We've also joked about four-wheel drum rallies like where you can only come
with cars with four-wheel drums.
This car has four-wheel drums.
No way.
Yes.
But what's, is it a 64?
It's a 60.
So this one, so hard to do the history on these.
Our writer, shout out, and I did this one.
She's a sign no going to an upcoming event with you.
She did an amazing job on this one.
It is believed to be one of the last one assembled, depending where you go.
This is, I love this kind of stuff about cars, depending where you go.
There's either 29 of these or 12.
And everyone claims they totally know.
But factory burned at one point and a few cars were assembled after the fire.
And this is thought to be one of those.
And it was always a street car.
There's a factory fire story in the Cheetah story.
I didn't know that.
It's not the Coventry story, right?
It's the same with D-types.
Totally.
Factory always burns.
And then no records.
Right.
No records.
That's important.
So then you never know.
And then people can say whatever they want.
And then there's always at least two experts who don't agree with each other.
And they're like, no, I'm right.
The other one's like, no, I'm right.
Anyway, a really cool car.
$520,000 result.
It's always hard to know what cars like this are going to sell for, right?
Because there are so few of them.
They almost never come up for sale.
There's a lot of Cheetah replicas.
But sorry, we're back to what did we list it as year-wise?
Most of them.
It's 66, which is late for a Cheetah.
So why didn't they put discs on it?
Because I think it's like early C2 running gear on these.
I think a lot of the, so let's see.
They were built from C2s.
It's so easy to upgrade to discs.
This was commissioned without a drivetrain in 65.
Took delivery in 66.
Same guy had it for a long, a second owner had it for a long time.
I'm confused on the drum choice.
But okay, I mean, I'll take it.
Well, 63 is when they come out.
So, and that's, of course, vets had discs by 65.
So that's the weird thing.
But it's not in 63, right?
That's true.
That's great.
I was actually talking with Ryan Huber today about
one of the fastest cars with four-wheel drum brakes.
And where'd you land?
I mean, the Cheetah's probably the fastest.
Okay.
I mean, maybe there's something else, but Gulls.
Gulls are a four-wheel drum.
Early vets are four-wheel drum.
What else is fast that it has four-wheel drum brakes?
Oh, man.
A late, I don't know.
Like, yeah, like a fuel-y 63 vet is pretty fast for four-wheel drums.
You put discs on yours or you kept it drums?
On the vet, I put discs on.
You put discs on.
That was part of the deal.
Yeah.
But a 63 stock would have drums all around.
Yeah.
This one had magnesium American mags on it, which is so good-looking.
That's pretty hot.
Yeah.
Great-looking car.
Anyway, stoked to see that one.
Okay.
You mentioned a good brat.
Yeah.
Are we going to my wacky watch list?
Let's go to your watch list, dude.
Wacky Arnold.
Wasn't that Arnold's nickname?
Wacky.
Jimmy Farley's car is on my watch list.
There's a zero mile, actually 65 kilometer,
but I'm going to round that down to zero.
BMW Z1.
Oh, I saw that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's real weird.
I don't know how that's being documented.
Are you pro Z1?
I actually am.
People pick on that car like it's kind of like a non-performance car.
It's like a WIMP, but it's so weird.
And, man, I have to think when would be the last time I saw one.
This is the last time you saw a BMW Z1.
I mean, it's at Monterey, at like a Legends of the Autobahn.
I haven't seen one of those on the street in decades.
Yeah.
And it's got, you know, it's got pedestrian, it's an E30 underneath, right?
So for sure it drives fine.
And they're kind of dull, but I think they're cool.
They're so unusual or so seldom seen that I think that makes them pretty cool.
So anyway, that's cool.
What else we got here?
I love anything that is weird that you get to kind of win the cars and go.
That's why I like Mazda Cosmos.
Did you see Appropos?
There's a second generation Cosmo on the site.
I don't like those.
Do you like those?
It's not very good looking, but it is.
They're weird, though.
They're really weird.
I'm not sure I'd ever really absorbed that car before.
So that was interesting.
No, what I really want is a first gen.
We actually sold a nice first gen in Canada a little while ago.
I would like to drive one of those.
I've never driven a first gen Cosmo.
There is a certain Dino on the website that used to reside at BETHQ, the old XBET Dino,
which was a fun car from the early days of BET that we sold on BET in, I think, 2016.
May 31st, 2016, my first day on the job.
Your first day had sold.
I did the video driving around with Zach in the car.
He was holding an iPhone, and that was the early days.
Before, there was Power Cellars on BET with ProVideos.
There was Zach holding an iPhone inside a Dino to record it, and that was awesome.
And it sold well last time, and it's back, bidding on that to add $200,000, which is kind of wild.
It's really fun reading the old listing.
I like the style of old listings on BET, so that's kind of fun.
There is a slot car track that's mayhem five days to go.
Alps inspired Carrera Digital Slot Car Raceway.
I wish that was in BETHQ right now.
We'd be playing that.
Oh my God, I'd miss this.
This is huge.
It's huge.
We've sold a few of them that are huge, and they all have themes.
This one is trying to be like Alpine Rally or something.
14 feet long.
Of course.
Man, this is cool.
So that's very cool.
There's an original owner, 82 Brat Silver, which is a great spec.
It's got the chairs in the back.
I really like that.
You're a Brat guy.
You'd like to have one?
I'm a weird Subaru guy, so going skiing, growing up, going to Tahoe.
You know how there's locals that live in town, and they always get the best ski days,
and they work at a...
I mean, they're like bartenders, or they do whatever they can.
They're ski bums, right?
So they don't have expensive cars, but they have cars that can get them to the hill.
So they all drive Toyota trucks and old Subarus, right?
So when I was a kid, like 80s, Subarus were scattered all through Tahoe,
and they were kind of rusty, and they were kind of interesting.
So I actually really like the sedans and wagons even better than the Brats.
The Brats get all the love nowadays.
But if I could have like a US ski team Subaru Wag from back in the day,
I would love that, or any of the early Subaru variants I think are really neat.
But the Brat is iconic, and you rarely find them in good shape.
So...
He's got kind of knobby tires on this thing.
I've also never seen these panels over there.
They're like removable.
The roof?
Yeah.
No, it's got glass teatops that pop out, and they tilt up like bird wings, right?
It's like weird.
Yeah, and you can drive around with them popped up like that?
Like, wow.
Or maybe they'll fly off, but you can try.
You can drive slow.
I bet those seal really well.
I bet you get dripped on a little bit, but hey, that's part of the...
This car is rad.
Great listing, too.
Really well done.
That's a really good listing.
There's a super weird boat that's made it off.
I'm sorry.
I take you to my watch list.
My watch list is...
It's delightful.
...total schizophrenia.
This is in Windermere, Florida, but it's a boat made in Austria with Volvo power called a Froucher.
You're never going to know what this is.
I didn't know what this is, but this is one of those that comes...
I'm subscribed to the boat category.
So this thing comes across BAT, and I'm like, what?
It's actually good looking.
It is, but it's weird, dude.
The rear fin has an elegant design, but everything else is super weird.
Yeah, the back looks like a 50s boat almost.
Yeah, the motor, you can't sit in the back.
You can only sit in the front anyway.
It's a center console, too, which is really weird, dude.
For sure.
Right.
I don't know what these are.
Is that for driving around in the Baltic?
I have no idea what this thing is, but somehow it made its way to Florida,
and then it made it on the trailer.
That trailer shop looks great.
It does.
It's really good looking.
The rear three-quarter looks really neat.
But anyway, so that's super weird, though.
These are the kind of things that haunt my dreams and live on my watch list,
and there's an ex-Milamilia 47 Healy Elliott.
Do you know what that car is?
Nope.
It's like this weird, enclosed, low-headlight, Healy-associated car that's in
Mokina, Mokina, Illinois.
Oh, I saw this car.
It's got the Miele photo in the...
Wow, we've listed it three different times, including in 2013.
Yeah, this is not a bad looking car.
They're weird, but I mean, it's cool.
It's esoteric and unusual.
There's a Lotus Esprit S1 in white with a plaid interior.
That's a Bond adjacent car.
I actually love those earliest sprees.
I think they're cool.
I've talked to our, shout out to our buddy Steve Meyer.
I've talked to him about these before, and he's always a little bit like,
will it break your heart?
But you know how much he loves a Lotus.
They absolutely break your heart.
But they're very, very cool.
Did you see...
I pulled up the Healy page.
Look at that.
Did you see that?
I was talking to somebody about this car the other day.
Did you see the Nash Healy Le Mans with a V8?
Do they all have V8s?
Sorry, it's a Rebel.
It's like a bigger 327.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Like a Chevy?
No, it's a Rambler.
Rambler V8.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Oh, that's fascinating.
I've always liked Nash Healy Coupe.
I actually think those are neat.
I actually like the Roadster too.
I've always liked the inboard headlights.
I do too.
Those are cool.
I think it's a really good looking design.
Featured prominently in a vintage movie, the original Sabrina.
Oh, really?
In the modern one, the Playboy brother drives a 355 Ferrari convertible,
and in the 50s one, he drives a Nash Healy Roadster.
Isn't it?
The irresponsible brother.
Really?
Isn't it Harrison Ford in the remake of Sabrina?
That's not the original thought.
No, no, no.
But that's the responsible brother.
The irresponsible brother is Caneer.
Oh, it's great.
Caneer, that's right.
But the vintage version is bow-garded from way back.
Yeah.
It's Catherine Hepburn.
Sorry, Audrey Hepburn.
Yeah, correct.
So anyway, whenever I see those cars, I think of that movie,
because he pulls in very prominently with the front end
with the inboard headlights.
I think it's pin and free in design, I'm pretty sure.
Could be.
Anyway, back to the watch list.
82 Renault 5 Alpine Turbo, Front Drive Turbo, Renault 5.
I've actually never seen one of these listed on BET.
And European buddies of mine all think these are swell.
And this is the GTI they wanted as kids.
I always wanted a Mark II GTI.
They all wanted this car.
I've never seen one listed.
You've talked about these quite a bit, though.
So this is knocking around in the old Nadenberg noggin.
Yeah, but these are weird.
I'd rather have the non-turbo, like the dumpy-dumpy spec of these.
But European, we saw those when you and I were together in France.
That really nice yellow one.
Remember that happen?
Yes, I do remember that car.
That's what I want.
But anyway, Maple Groot.
Yeah, because it makes you just want the real deal
when you look at it.
Because the seats and the wheels and everything.
I showed my son this.
And he's like, yeah, the flared rear fenders are cooler.
And I was like, that's correct.
That's the correct take.
But these are still kind of neat.
And the seats are like a lesser version of the seats.
Yeah, but they're close.
But yeah, they're not quite there.
Yeah, you're totally right.
The Le Mans class, winning 934, is back.
Yes, that person.
Interestingly, that exact car in its previous livery,
I was looking at the listing today,
in its previous livery, is the subject of a Tamiya model.
One of the first Tamiya models in 1976 is that actual car,
which is cool.
I remember when this car was on site,
whatever, it was a couple of years ago.
But I don't think we had the period valiant livery
quite as prominent.
And like that's like, yeah, it's really cool.
But it's not valiant.
If you look at how you spell it, the I comes before the else.
Valent.
It's a violent or valent.
What is that?
I don't know.
I had the same thing because I was looking at the model car
and it has the same.
So anyhow, crazy stuff on BT.
And then this, you want to talk about these?
Oh yeah, sequential VIN.
These just went live.
There's two 1965 Porsche 911s,
which are interesting to begin with
because they're 300 series cars.
Chassis 300717 and Chassis 300718
are being auctioned together in the same lot.
One listing.
And I think that's going to freak people out.
And one of them was purchased on BT in 2019,
which I think is really neat.
And then he found the next VIN and decided he had to buy it.
And now he's selling both of them together.
And they're both two liter early 65 cars.
And both Polar Red and both came out of the factory.
What did he say?
He said like April 9th, 1965.
Yep, that's correct.
They came rolling off.
I mean, with those chassis numbers,
it's the 70017th and 718th 911, I would presume, right?
I think that's right.
There may be some wiggle room at the beginning, right?
With what cars getting crushed or whatever.
But yeah, isn't that wild?
I love it.
We've actually done this a couple of times before with
Hellcats and demons that are like, you know,
but where it's like people are going to want them as a pair.
But I want a 65911 bad.
I don't know if I need two, but...
I don't know if I need two either.
Same color, same spec.
And will you get a group buy price here?
Like do we both buy one of these when we get it for a dealer?
Maybe you're going to go for amplified price
because they're sister cars.
But man, I wish I was standing at the end of the assembly line
on April 9th, 1965 to watch these things come rolling off.
The older I get and the more I think about 911s,
which I love the simple early one with steel wheels
and hubcaps like that's the car.
I want the original iteration of the car.
Yep.
Both of these have fogs hanging under the front bumper,
but that's about it.
Other than that, it's chrome steels with chrome caps and...
Black interior.
Good luck to you.
Totally, right?
Totally.
I love it.
Good luck to you.
I think that's a pretty fun listing.
Frisbee Steve selling that out of West Bend, Wisconsin.
One of my favorite things to do lately
is just to look at where cars are listed
because it's always just...
I mean, who could guess, right?
This...
I love it.
I actually love our functionality,
which people asked for for years,
where you can just click on the thing on our website.
You go right to the Google Maps and see where it is.
I do that all the time.
I did it today.
I love it.
I absolutely love it.
So anyway, going through my watch list is all over the map.
E30 wagon is in there.
There's a GSXR 1100 that I'm watching that's being sold in the UK.
That's kind of cool.
There's a beautiful F-250, couple 930 turbos.
Are you on that blue-green color one?
Of course.
Yeah, which I had never seen before.
And it's got the garage doors behind it,
which I think means it's local partner Seattle.
Is it Griot's?
It's Griot's.
Yeah, that looks like a Griot presentation to me.
Beautiful car.
That means they will have clay barred the finish without a doubt.
Yeah, yeah.
It's unfortunately a repaint,
but I think that is the correct color.
It's a petrol metallic blue or something like that is the name of it.
Still makes me happy.
It does.
It's great looking.
930's, man.
I want one really bad.
I've rewatched the movie.
Have you seen Air?
The movie about signing Michael Jordan to Nike?
It's a Ben Affleck movie.
And he also plays Phil Knight in it.
And he drives the purple 930, which was like a real thing.
And there's a part where he's giving like a guru speech,
you know, like, oh, clear your mind and like go for a run.
And Matt Damon kind of lashes back at him.
He's like, oh, yeah.
Did the Dalai Lama have a great Porsche turbo?
Is that right?
Yeah.
But it did again make me,
because the cars featured pretty prominently in the movie.
And I was like, God, damn, I love 930s.
They're so great.
They're so great.
I don't want a purple one.
I know you don't either, but still pretty great.
I think we should drive one of those.
Can I just mention I can't.
What's on your list?
Yeah, I know.
I can't go without my list.
I can't go without dropping one.
Well, some of the Farley Pantera on mine,
that petrol blue metallic 930 on mine.
A cord, a very weird cord.
I can't, I always have to look every time an Auburn cord comes up.
This is a 1935 cord.
There's only a hundred of them.
These were hand built early cars that they had to make
to be able to get the cord into a,
I think the New York auto show.
Like you had to have some certain number.
They never put power trains in them.
They're handmade.
They're very rare.
They're slightly different.
They have some very minor tweaks from the later cars,
the main one of which is the famous louvers around the front
are hollow.
So when you look at the front of it,
you can see into the engine compartment
because they're kind of hand built.
That's cool.
Anyways, the owner was a big three auto exec
and found this car, no powertrain.
I don't want to say in the seventies
and had a Oldsmobile Tornado front.
So it remains front wheel drive,
Tornado powertrain put into it,
but he put a smaller Oldsmobile engine
behind the front wheel drive,
automatic transaxle.
To make it fit.
Right. It's a 307.
Correct.
It also doesn't fit the radiator.
So the cooling system is under the back seat
in the back of the car.
You have photo evidence of this?
I do have photo evidence of this.
My dad remembers seeing this and I called him of course
and he was like, oh yeah,
this car used to come to the national meat.
I've seen it before.
It's pretty well done and it's an automatic obviously.
So it probably runs and drives a lot better.
I do wonder about the cooling on it,
but super interesting car, great color.
So here you can see the coolant lines running to the back
and then the radiator positioning.
It's like flat in the back under the car.
I can work with that.
It's got electric fans on it.
Dual fans on it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is the only place they could fit it packaging wise,
but it's a good looking car.
I like the color and that model.
That's that model and the color are the ones that I like.
It's like mine.
It's the, you know, the original just sedan,
which I think is the prettiest one.
Yeah.
And it doesn't have the bustle trunk or anything.
It's got a lot of trunk.
It's a 35, which is weird.
Pretty cool car in 35.
Don't you think?
Spaceship.
Yeah.
That's why I love them.
Front wheel drive and unibody and pretty fast.
I gave Ryan Huber a ride in mine in Auburn last year
and he's like, it drives pretty amazingly.
I'm like, yeah, for a...
Got to get it up here, man.
We're still waiting for that.
I know.
And the RARI to show up.
RARI going to get the RARI in four days.
No, let's see.
What is it?
Was it Thursday, Friday?
So yeah, four days.
Can I have that back here?
We would like to see.
Can you stomach two porter cars in the office a little bit?
Absolutely.
Three.
Yeah.
Well, I'm going to swap the Porsche for the Corde pretty soon.
Shoot.
We wanted three.
But okay.
That's all I have.
That's all I have right now.
I already have three old cars.
I have them all here.
That's about all I got that's super interesting on my watch list.
I've had cars that I have wanted for a long time.
There was a really good C5 Corvette non-Z06 hard top,
fixed roof coupe.
Those are very hard to come by in nice shape.
Non-Z06, they did the coupe in the non-Z06.
Yeah.
There was like a dream spec of one of those on the site recently.
I tend to think of all of those being blue.
Well, that's what this one was.
You spit it around and it's blue.
Look at that.
If it's a non-Z06, if it's a Z06, I think they're all yellow.
No, not that a lot of those are.
But no streak on the side.
Really simple, low-mile, great color.
I would have liked to have that.
You drive that car?
Yeah.
I would like to have that car as a track car.
Okay.
They're all Z51 packaged, those fixed roof coupes.
Okay.
That's live right now?
No, sold for 26 grand.
26 grand.
I think it's kind of a bargain for like the nicest one around.
It's a pretty cool track car.
I think you were on this episode of talking about what are the cars
where you can buy the best example in the world for under 20k?
Yeah.
I'm really into that right now.
SHO Taurus.
Totally.
Give me a bug guy.
I almost want a bug guy.
This is live and I'm kind of obsessing on this.
50s cars.
It's a 2-door Rift.
Yes.
Uh-huh.
2-door is good.
I know.
And Nailhead, early Nailhead, come on.
That's really good.
I know.
Tell people what you're looking at.
It's a 58 Buick Century Riviera 2-door.
That's a great car.
I know.
Salmon Metallic.
Salmon Metallic, the early 364 Nailhead,
which is like one of my favorite engines of all time.
I know.
That's a big, heavy car.
It's a little different than the 56 I have downstairs,
trying to think of the other Buicks that that fell into line with.
58.
58 is not everyone's favorite because it's so much chrome and everything.
It's so much car.
I mean, it's dual headlight, right?
It's so quad headlight and it's big, heavy rear fin.
And back on the Fin, just a ton of chrome.
But the Fin went one more notch crazy.
Yes, it did.
59 Buick is also really out of control.
I mean, look at that thing in profile.
That is a good looking car.
The sideline chrome, the fallaway chrome that goes down the side of it is really cool.
Yeah, wow.
You've got your big 50s car.
I want one so bad.
I do.
But you got a cord.
So I don't know.
I know.
There's some overlap.
There is.
There is.
There's the debate of whether American cars were at their peak
and right before the war or right after the war.
But both are great.
Cool, man.
Anything else you want to talk about site-wide,
anything you want to plug?
We got an event coming up in Delaware.
We've got an event coming up in Florida in just a couple weeks.
People should come see us there.
That is at our local partner bullet motor sports.
We really like them.
So that's exciting.
Quite a few BAT staffers going to be out there.
So hopefully people will come out and see us.
That is announced.
And I guess I'm putting it on blast here.
Delaware coming up the month after that's only a little over a month away.
BAT events are ramping.
Dude, we're doing a lot this year.
We've done some unusual ones and some new locations, which I think is great.
It's really fun.
It's fun to get to go to different local partners and showcase them.
It's fun to just be in different areas and see different audiences.
A lot of people are saying, can you come back to the one you did last year?
I missed it.
Can you come again?
And I'm like, you guys, if you want to go to these events,
like there's no guarantee it's coming back the immediate next year.
Sometimes it takes a while and we like shaking it up and go into Florida,
go into Delaware, go into Wisconsin, go into other places.
And we got even more stuff coming to announce.
Yeah, we do.
More about that next week.
We've got people everywhere.
We've got local partners everywhere.
We're over a hundred of them.
So the one in May, as you know, very well, but also at a local partner at McQueen's,
our guy Peter, out there in Delaware.
It's our first time there.
And yeah, it's hard.
Even when you're doing, I mean, we're going to get close to 20 events this year.
And even then, it's hard to like get everywhere you want to go.
Yep.
SF cars and coffees.
Oh gosh, that's happening too.
Yes, that's happening.
Hype that, dude.
That's being announced right now as we're talking.
I saw it.
Yeah, just came out and we're popping it on our site like right now.
This is our friend's motoring club, Motoring Coffee, I should say.
We were at one of their events here in San Francisco a couple of months ago.
They're doing another one.
What date?
That is the 20...
It's next Sunday, or next...
26th.
26th, correct.
April 26th.
April 26th.
Marina Middle School, San Francisco.
Be there, be square.
9 a.m., 8 a.m.
I don't remember.
7 a.m.
You just show up.
How early do you show up?
We're kind of tagging along to their thing.
We're bringing the BAT community out to the Motoring Coffee deal.
So it's really their show.
They do a nice job of parking everybody, queuing them up at this school.
But I'll be out there.
That's why I'm going to fetch the Ferraris to bring it to that.
This one's Italian themed.
Okay, cool.
So bring your Italian cars, bring any car you got.
Terrific.
Lots happening.
Yeah, lots spinning.
I think that's good.
Let's sign off and tell them people about those events.
Tell them to get out there.
If they have other events they're going to, to reach out and let us know.
We're going to hear where people are going.
Take alumni cars.
If you're taking your alumni car, grab a photo and send it to us.
We'd love to hear what you're doing with cars you bought on BAT.
My other favorite thing, as you know, is hearing where BAT alumni cars are going
or end up or are being built into or whatever else is happening.
So keep us in the loop.
Send those to podcasts at BAT.
You love it.
You love it when one shows up that you know about.
You always get so hyped.
I'm totally hyped.
And I love it when I don't know about it, right?
If they're like, I bought this on BAT.
I'm like, that's amazing.
Let's go.
The sequential VIN Porsches, I had no idea that one of them was sold on BAT.
So we made sure we highlighted that in the listing.
And yeah, whenever you can see somebody driving a car,
obviously it makes us all feel good if you bought it on BAT
and now you're driving and having a good time.
We always love to hear about that.
Get out there and use it.
Well, thanks, Randy.
Thanks, everyone, as always for listening.
We will catch you next time.
About this episode
Randy and Alex kick off with a flurry of Bring a Trailer activity, led by a Jim Farley–owned 1972 Pantera (pre-L) that’s drawing big attention and could make for an exciting auction close. They then shift to Alex’s first trip to Japan, where car culture feels unavoidable—tiny kei cars, right-hand-drive oddities, immaculate builds, and even parking habits that seem almost alien to Americans. The watchlist rundown follows: a rare Bill Thomas Cheetah with four-wheel drums, a BMW Z1, multiple esoteric classics, and sequential-VIN 1965 Porsche 911s. They wrap with upcoming BAT events and community shout-outs.
Original notes
This week on our little podcast, Alex and Randy talk about the Jim Farley Pantera and great PR advice for other auto execs before moving on to Randy's recent trip to Japan. He describes the general automotive vibe there: multi-generational Skylines casually out in the wild, tiny Kei cars everywhere, the cultural norm of backing into one's parking space, Cal-look Beetles, multicolored license plates, Mitsuokas, Tokyo Drift lookalikes, a ride on the bullet train, a visit to the Tamiya model store, and a missed Fast & Furious-themed opportunity (to be remedied next time).
Next up, the pair go over highlights from their watchlists, including a former resident of our very own BaT HQ, some early Subaru love, a Sabrina pull, a matched pair, an odd but compelling boat, and an odd but compelling Cord.
Follow along! Links for the listings discussed in this episode:
0:25 Jim Farley’s 1972 DeTomaso Pantera
0:36 Ford CEO Jim Farley on BaT Podcast Episode 112
2:00 Revisiting Colin Comer, Adventures in Shelby
21:54 1966 Bill Thomas Cheetah Coupe
22:14 1964 Bill Thomas Cheetah Cro-Sal Special Roadster
25:51 65-Kilometer 1990 BMW Z1
26:41 second generation Cosmo
27:04 1971 Ferrari Dino 246 GT
27:50 Alps-Inspired Carrera Digital Slot Car Raceway
28:13 Original-Owner 1982 Subaru BRAT GL 4-Speed
29:52 2007 Frauscher 686 Lido
30:48 Ex–Mille Miglia Storica 1947 Healey Elliott Saloon
31:14 1977 Lotus Esprit S1
31:40 1953 Nash-Healey Le Mans Coupe w/Rambler Rebel V8
32:45 1982 Renault 5 Alpine Turbo
33:40 Le Mans–Class-Winning 1976 Porsche 934 Race Car
34:29 Sequential-VIN 1965 Porsche 911 Coupes
36:45 1992 BMW 325i Touring 5-Speed
36:47 1986 Suzuki GSX-R1100
36:53 1979 Porsche 930 Turbo
38:20 Oldsmobile 307-Powered 1937 Cord 812 Westchester
40:49 35k-Mile 2000 Chevrolet Corvette Fixed Roof Coupe 6-Speed
41:54 1958 Buick Century Riviera 2-Door Hardtop
42:59 Florida BaT Meet-Up—April 25 with Bullet Motorsports!
44:21 The Motoring Club Presents: Cold Start—April 26 in San Francisco, California
Got suggestions for our next guest from the BaT community or an idea for our next game episode? Let us know at [email protected]!
Bring a Trailer Podcast
Bring a Trailer Auctions
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46:18