Loud V8 drag boats a curse or a concert? Smashing teachers' cars punishable? Favorite type of automotive events. Is it OK to have different tastes in cars?
Cars The Podcast
Cars The PodcastNov 27, 2025
Loud V8 drag boats a curse or a concert? Smashing teachers' cars punishable? Favorite type of automotive events. Is it OK to have different tastes in cars?
Weight penalties mean adding extra weight to a race car to make it fairer against other cars. If one car is too fast, they might add weight so it doesn't have an unfair advantage.
The Chevrolet Corvette C2 is the second version of the Corvette sports car, made between 1963 and 1967. It is famous for its sleek design and powerful performance.
A water pump helps keep the engine cool by moving a special liquid called coolant around the engine. This is important to stop the engine from getting too hot while driving.
The Pontiac Bonneville is a big car that was made by Pontiac. It was known for being fast and comfortable, making it popular for both racing and everyday driving.
The DeLorean DMC-12 is a special car that has doors that open up like wings. It's famous because it was in a popular movie, and many people think it's really cool.
The Tesla Semi is a big electric truck that companies can use to transport goods. It's talked about because it can save money on gas and help the environment.
Steve McQueen was a popular actor who loved cars and racing. He starred in movies that featured exciting car chases and races, making him a legend in car culture.
'Bullitt' is a well-known movie from 1968 with a famous car chase. It features a cool Ford Mustang and is loved by car fans for its exciting driving scenes.
Dick Trickle was a NASCAR driver who became famous not just for his racing skills but also for his funny name. He was a popular figure in the racing community.
Patina is the look that happens to a car over time, showing signs of age like rust or faded paint. Some people think this makes the car look cool and unique.
The Chevrolet Beretta is a small car made by Chevrolet that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It came in different versions, with the Z24 being a sportier option.
Car
Pontiac Lumina
The Pontiac Lumina is a car that was made by the Pontiac brand. It was a roomy car that many families liked to use in the 1990s and early 2000s.
The Chevrolet Impala is a large car that many people like for its comfortable ride and plenty of space inside. It's been around for a long time and is often seen as a classic.
The Ford Mustang is a popular sports car that has been around for decades. The 1999 version is part of a series known for its sharp, modern look and strong performance.
The Volkswagen Rabbit is a small car with a hatchback design that makes it easy to use for everyday driving. It's known for being fun to drive and practical.
The Volkswagen Scirocco is a small, sporty car that's fun to drive and looks different from regular cars. It's popular among people who like a mix of style and performance.
The Triumph Spitfire is a small, sporty car made by a British company. The 1966 version is known for being light and having a convertible top, which means you can drive it with the roof down.
The Lotus Esprit is a fast and lightweight sports car from Britain that's known for being very fun to drive. It's famous for its unique design and performance.
The Pontiac GTO is a fast and powerful car from the 1960s that many people love for its speed and sporty look. It's considered one of the original muscle cars.
The Honda Civic is a small car that many people buy because it's dependable and doesn't use a lot of gas. It's a popular choice for everyday driving and is known to last a long time.
The AC Cobra MkIII is a small, very fast sports car that people love for its speed and cool design. It's famous for racing and has a lot of history behind it.
The Chrysler Daytona is a cool-looking sports car from the 1980s that's known for being fast and having a unique shape. It's a fun car to talk about for its design.
The Chevrolet Chevelle SS 396 is a famous muscle car from 1970 that has a strong engine and is designed for speed and performance. The 'SS' means it's a sportier version of the Chevelle.
The Ford Mustang GT500 is a fast sports car that is part of the Mustang lineup. It's known for having a lot of power, which makes it exciting to drive.
The Ford Mustang GTD is a super-fast version of the classic Mustang that people love for its speed and performance. It's a favorite among car fans who like powerful cars.
The Ford Bronco is a tough SUV that's great for driving off the road and exploring nature. It's popular because it looks cool and can handle rough terrain.
LIVE
Hey, everybody, welcome to the Cars Podcast.
Hey, from the shout-os of Matt Rainier, this is Cars, the podcast with your host Don Swear
and my new co-host.
And I'm Joe Black.
Joe Black.
Yeah.
How's everybody doing tonight?
You're here to turn the tables, aren't you?
I am.
I'm here to flip the script.
I'm going to put it on you.
I don't know.
I'm getting kind of nervous because you're like an expert crisis.
Would you call that crisis intervention of a guy?
Yeah, it'd be crisis intervention, but that's just like, that's only if you're in a crisis.
You're not going to put me in a crisis situation, are you?
You're not in one right now.
You're not in one right now.
You're good.
I don't know.
How do I trust you?
It's in the eyes.
People in your world are able to bend the facts, right?
Isn't that part of the deal?
No, we didn't bend it.
It's not good cop, bad cop.
All I know is from watching Adam 12 and Chips and I loved Adam 12.
It was great back in the day.
Yeah, Adam 12 is a great show.
Is that how you're kind of in this court?
And yeah, yeah, 12, 12, we have a yeah.
Nobody can remember the other guy's name.
187.
It wasn't Randolph Mantuth.
Was it?
No, that was emergency.
Oh, you know, I love emergency.
That was a great show.
We're aging ourselves here.
I used to watch this show.
That's a 70s show.
I'm not old.
You're not old.
What's old?
I don't know.
It's just not me.
I might be in trouble.
If I get old, I might not be here any longer.
So like we said that I got to find out a little bit about Joe
in the previous episode.
And Joe's going to do the same to me.
Maybe not the same exact questions, but I'm here to interrogate you.
OK, you know, if I say uncle.
You're a big guy.
I don't know.
I don't know what uncle means.
I'm worried you're going to hold me down.
Man, from my and rub my rub my head with your knuckles or something.
Hey, look at my hands.
I got small hands, man.
Well, I'm just saying they're strong, though.
They're just hands.
I'm just a guy doing my thing.
They're strong.
Well, I'm a little worried about this, but you got this, man.
Don't you tell me.
So do I have to start from the crib or what?
How does this go?
You start wherever you like.
I'm going to ask you some questions and we're in the crib.
This is the crib.
This is the ones everybody said.
Hey, I'll let y'all know this is a beautiful home Don has up here.
I'll pie up on the hill.
I feel like I'm very important to be here tonight.
Well, you are important.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
You are.
Yeah, a crib is not like I'm going like 20 years back or something like that, right?
That's like 20 plus years ago.
They did a country cribs, too.
I think like on CMT or something like that for the country artist.
Yeah.
Do you keep up with all the youth lingo?
Is that part of your I got to tell you, man?
I don't even know what some of the stuff means.
Like when they start print, you know, they they send you like the text message.
Somebody it's not just any it could be like a three letters.
I'm kind of like, what the hell does that mean?
I'm like, I have no idea what that means.
OK, like, oh, the the abbreviations for what if they say P N W?
P N W. Yeah.
Wow, you've lived here.
How's the Pacific Northwest?
I guess. Well, yeah, that's good.
Did I write?
I guess I wrote that abbreviation.
You did write that down there, but I knew what that was.
But I'm just talking about like, you know, they I don't even know.
I mean, I just got one the other day and it's like, are you and it has are you
something this I'm like, I figure out the are you part.
But I'm like, yeah, are you?
I got that the hell you say in HP.
Yeah, there's way too many acronyms.
There's some of that I learned and then I forget immediately.
I'm used to acronyms because of the military.
What's it? TLDR.
What is that? TLDR.
What is that? Or did not read the TLDR?
I don't know.
Too too long didn't read.
There we go.
I see you lost me already.
And I couldn't even read that.
And it's if you just wrote it out for me, I could have read it.
I'm officially Gen X, not Boomer.
So I know we're virtually the same age, but somehow I'm a Gen X.
It just depends on you. Really?
Yeah, I just I don't tell anybody my age is kind of like I'm like, I'm just like
a male version of a woman, nothing to be embarrassed about.
Well, you know, it's just the lifestyle.
Yeah. So are these going to be some of the same questions that I asked you?
Is that how that work could be?
But you know what?
You're going to throw a curveball, aren't you?
Hey, you don't even know what a curveball is because you don't like sports.
I just I said, don't like it.
I just don't you just don't correlate with them.
I can. Hey, sports.
I can name the last 45 World Rally champions.
Well, that's what I'm talking about.
I would have no clue that's a sport.
Yeah, I could have no idea who that would be.
Well, they're mostly Finnish people.
They could Swedes.
Yeah, I would have no idea.
That's OK. It's only it's my only claim to fame.
And you know, I would watch it. Sports.
I would watch it.
Yeah. It's racing a sport.
It's a sport. Is it?
It's a sport.
I'm just curious.
Well, I remember because they used to show that NASCAR.
They'd be like, oh, yeah, like Jeff Gordon weighs 165 pounds.
And he has he's lost seven pounds of water during being in this car during this race.
Things like that.
So I mean, you have to be physically fit to be sitting in one of those cars.
Yeah, those devices and strapping you in.
You can't barely move.
I thought you're going to say he lost seven pounds of pee.
And that's what they got those suits on for.
That's why they weigh the car before the race and after the race.
Yeah, you've lost too much weight.
You're disqualified, right?
Could be. It depends on the car.
It's like the smoky unit car where they do increase the weight of the car
prior to the race.
They would put ball bearings in the frame.
And then there was a little trap door.
Soon as they started racing, they could.
That reminds me, because you said that.
I used to have a shop teacher, right?
His name was Mr. Cleaver.
Mr. Cleaver.
Mr. Cleaver.
And remember, because we saw my I'm sure he heard a lot of jokes back in the day.
Is this Eldridge Cleaver?
You were thinking, yeah, you were thinking like Eldridge or the Cleavers.
The Wally. Wally World.
Yeah. And the Beaver, right?
And the Beeve and yet Eddie and whatever else.
But I remember seeing that show as a little kid black and white.
But he used to race cars also.
Why is it all shop teachers used to race cars?
I don't know. That's cool.
But so he says.
So you could actually listen to me.
He had some practical real world experience.
You should see his Corvette at the time.
And so he had a C2 Corvette, which is the second body style of Corvette.
Yes.
Did you know that all the best Corvette C1 Corvettes are convertibles?
You're right.
Is that why they call the C2 the Stingray?
Because that was that the coup.
Well, they came out with a little bit of the change of the body style.
Yeah.
But you could not get a hard top convertible to the C2.
OK. Yeah.
All C1 Corvettes are convertibles.
Wow. You could have a hard top for it, but they're all convertible cars.
So you learn something every day.
All right.
You could be a was it NCRS judge?
Is that to say that right?
Yeah, yeah, for the shows.
Yeah.
I'm not sure what NCRS stands for.
It sounds like a national Corvette.
I don't know. International Racing.
I don't know.
Actually, it sounds like I know what I'm talking about.
Yeah, you do.
I wouldn't have a clue.
I don't have any new balance shoes or.
New balance shorts.
They're good.
Jean shorts.
They're a good running suit.
OK. Yeah.
No, those those.
Yeah. So see he had a C2 C2 Corvette.
OK.
I think it was three six, three twenty seven, three sixty five horsepower.
Yeah. But anyway, so he was talking about some of the cars he used to race up
at New England Dragway and so there was a little trip back on the day.
So a lot of racers used to be like, guess what?
I'm not going to I can go faster and get more horsepower
if I don't run a water pump because you think about you're only going
a quarter mile down the track. Right.
So then like now you have to have a water pump, but Mr.
Cleaver's idea was OK, I have to have a water pump on the engine.
But guess what? I got water.
No, I can take the ball bearings out.
And it's and then it's not even a functional water pump.
So it's just there for it.
Just it's just for looks. Wow.
Yeah. And guess what?
Some of those races, however, they did back in the day,
you gain 10 horsepower or 10th of a year on your racing.
Every little bit helps all these little tricks.
And you know, you know, if you have seen some like the old gas or cars,
how like people see that how they punch holes in the frame.
Like really, I didn't know that.
Yeah, like a big hole punch. Yeah.
Well, like if you took a little hole, OK, right.
Right. They used to do that to the frames on some of the cars.
Pontiac actually had an actual factory built one like that one day.
And it's it's like a super race car of like the 60s,
because a lot of their cars, the boulevard bruges is what I call them.
Be like race on Saturday night, church on Sunday. OK. Yeah.
So you take some of those big old Bonneville's and Catalina's.
Yeah.
Three eighty nine with a four speed with, you know, three deuces.
Yeah. And so you race on that three deuces.
That you know, three lingo, three carburetors.
Two carburetors. That's right.
And so you can't call it a six pack, because that was a that was a mobile.
You could call a six pack, technically, because I'm a six pack thing.
I just sound fancy for the cars. Yeah.
But yeah, you take that and you then you decide to go put that in a lamans
or a tempest and then that becomes the. Yeah.
GTO. You're right. The goats.
John Z. DeLorean's idea. Damn right. All right.
America right there, everybody, at least until you got to DeLorean.
I'm just trying to show off.
Oh, he's the he's the American muscle guy.
So I have to throw out the tidbits and all your teaching me stuff
because you're going to teach me about some of this rally stuff you're talking about.
So it is. So.
So what would you do for a living out of curiosity?
What do I do? You don't have to tell me where or anything like that.
But I'm just curious what you do for a living or yesterday for the last 20 years.
You retire. Well, I get to visit restaurants, visit and hotels.
Yeah. Do you get to travel for that? I do. I do.
I get to travel. Yeah. I guess if 70 miles a day is traveling.
I thought like you'd be like I'm rich and famous and you get to go to these
restaurants and be like, Hey, I'm Don. No, I'm here to eat.
I'm here to try. I'm a I'm a lackey.
I'm here to try this meal out.
I drive a semi truck, a commercial driver, and I get to train new drivers.
Oh, really? What? Yeah. What class is that?
I mean, like it's it's like ABC or it's class A. Class A.
Yeah. That means you can drive a tractor trailer and
double doubles, double trailers and that sort of thing, which I rarely ever do.
That's an art, though.
I guess so. It's just and it's like anything you put your mind to. Yeah.
I did. I would tell you I used to like the TV show B.J. in the bear.
You heard of that? Oh, yeah.
You know, Vietnam. Boy, that's a that's a time warp.
It's a 70 show. It is. Yeah.
It was, you know, B.J. Was it McKay?
B.J. McKay, I think it was or McCoy's McKay.
Yeah, McKay or McCoy, something like that.
And he was a Vietnam veteran and a Marine and he drove around
and tracked the trailer around the country, I guess, or maybe just one.
Do you ever see Moving On?
Claude Eakin, Claude, isn't it?
No, I did see it once, I think.
Yeah, it was it was old, this old rough Claude Eakin,
the same guy that was from Don't Tell Me, F-True, probably.
F-True, probably. Was he? Yeah.
He played a lot of movies, that guy, Claude Eakin.
But we used to be in the restaurant business and I met guys who do,
but I do for a living and they seemed pretty happy.
They were, you know, talked about waking up in the middle of the night
and they would see the see the sunrise and, you know, work by themselves.
Keep on trucking.
And it just sounded great to me and they talked about, you know,
that the pay was pretty good and it just seemed appealing to me.
That's like, I'm not sure it was appealing to my family, though.
They're that little sticker they used to have.
They used to say, keep on trucking.
I do. Yes, I lived through the 70s, too.
See, there you go.
Best times. I don't remember.
I was just a kid, but I definitely was the other one.
Convoy. Convoy, yeah.
Rubber duck. What what happened?
What's the 70s where we had all these.
Smoking the bandit and.
Yeah, it's it definitely affected some of us.
So so don't tell me what would you have been your favorite movie from the 70s?
Was your like a car movie? Is it like a James Bond movie?
Oh, God, cars from the 70s.
It doesn't even have to be from 70s.
It could be what would like car movie?
What would be like your favorite car movie?
You know, I got to admit, Steve McQueen Le Mans.
That was like from 1970, isn't it?
Somewhere around there, somewhere around there.
I do enjoy that. Right.
Same movie that made out bullet.
They same guy. I loved the reviews of it.
They said it's great, technically, and it really was.
It actually, you know, it was filmed during the racing.
There's a very Steve McQueen was a fanatic about.
Oh, he was about having things look technical.
But the acting part was really.
I saw a reviewer say the acting.
Consistent of like long stares into the distance.
You can if you ever seen that movie, he's like for a whole minute there.
There's a whole scene where he's just staring off in the distance.
I have never seen that movie.
Oh, it's it. I'm going to have to see it.
It's a classic.
You can go on and buy a disc set like through Amazon or someplace like that.
And you can buy so it has a movie bullet.
Yeah, it would have Le Mans.
It would probably have the Great Escape.
Oh, yeah. And name another one.
I guess, Towering Inferno.
Oh, yeah. I don't know.
So they put those movies together as a pack with Steve McQueen.
Yeah, quite the ladies, man, he was. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I just definitely kind of like
Le Mans, I would think would be like a modern day days of thunder.
Yeah, yeah, I guess I guess so.
I'm guessing minus the Southern accent.
That's right. And minus Tom Cruise's future wife.
That's right. Nicole Kidman.
Yeah, she was only there for a little a little cameo as in what she was like
the deputy pulls him over. I haven't I haven't seen that movie in a long time.
It's funny because I used to work at Sears Point
in California and Northern California and that summer that they were promoting
that the NASCAR races, I can't remember.
I think that summer when they had that race, it was kind of funny.
I think Ricky Rudd won the track.
I think he was driving the Kodiak.
Is that the most NASCAR name ever?
Ricky Rudd.
Cold trick. Could you imagine? Yeah.
Cold trickle.
I don't know. You can't be more American than Richard Petty.
Well, cold trickle.
I mean, they got that name because there was a driver named Dick Trickle.
Yep. Yep. They just let's flip it around.
It says a real name. Yeah, just flip it.
Guy, Guy Chainsmoke while he was driving around the track.
Do you know how many races Richard Petty won?
Somewhere more than forty three.
More than everybody else, right?
Two hundred. Wow.
Two hundred. And you know when his last race was?
That he won. What's that?
That he actually won the race.
You know, he's about the same age as my dad.
And dad doesn't run around with a big dead bird on his hat, does he?
No, no. Is that roadkill?
That's kind of like what Richard Petty walks around.
You sit there and see this guy. Mr. The King.
I'm going to guess it was in.
Gosh, the late nineties.
You got he know he got he got he had a personal phone call from President Reagan.
Oh, OK, so it was on the fourth of July, 1984.
OK, wow. And that's when he won his last race.
Two hundred. Wow.
I think I'm not positive.
It might have been a Pontiac.
It probably was.
Probably probably STP still was a sponsor.
Was that it did have the STP on?
I believe if I'm correct. Yeah. OK.
But I didn't see the race.
Well, this is a this is a real bird walk here.
How'd we get to?
Well, we're interviewing you and we're talking about cars. OK.
You know, that's why I got to have these questions for you.
You're you're just you're just trying to test my knowledge of American iron, aren't you?
Well, you know, I'm an American muscle and classic car guy. Yeah.
But, you know, I do.
And here's the thing with me.
I do respect the other cars.
It's just not my thing.
I mean, I got to tell you, man, some of those
outies, those BMWs, those Mercedes that we see at cars and coffee at Griers
and Saturday mornings.
Yeah, I mean, there's some phenomenal cars there.
I just don't want to know if I want to have to fix it if it gets broke.
You've seen the patina one with the beer can holder in the front fender,
haven't you? Which one's that?
It's a it's a 60s Mercedes.
Somebody drives around.
Is it the four door? It's a four door.
It's like, oh, yeah, it's got.
Is it is one that lifted a little bit and rusty?
They have a there's like a rusty roof rack on it.
And the whole car is patinaed.
Yeah, I've seen that one.
And the in the headliner, I think was made up diesel.
I can't remember.
Probably is. I think it's a diesel.
I think I have.
Yeah, I think the headliner is made of old license plates.
That's just, you know, that's perfect.
And the, you know, the beer can holder on the front fender is.
I thought about it. Nice.
You know, I thought about making some license plates.
Did you ever see the birdhouse license plates?
Oh, is it a it's a license or a birdhouse made of license plates?
Have you ever seen those? Wow.
They're not that difficult to make.
So when I was down in Florida, I thought it was a big thing.
I went to this place down in Venice, Florida.
Yes, I know.
It's south of Sarasota.
Yeah, they have a car's place there.
Yeah. Have you been there?
No. Oh, well, I was there with my brother in the spring of 1988.
How's that?
I don't know if that place is in a Chevy Beretta.
Oh, really? A Beretta?
Uh-huh. It's like the Z24 Beretta.
No, this was like a rental car spec.
Just a Beretta. Oh, so, you know, that was like the G-man car.
My brother and I were so young.
Is it a four door?
No, a two door Beretta.
Oh, Beretta.
Oh, I was thinking of the other car.
We call it the G-man car, which was like the Pontiac.
The Pontiac was similar to the Lumina.
That's what I was. Oh, yeah.
The Lumina. We used to call it the G-man car.
Okay.
He used to work for a company called Upjohn.
He was a salesman. Yes, I forgot.
Does that company still exist?
That's the one that, you know, basically,
for a guy like myself who's bald.
They say, hey, we have this stuff that you can buy
and you put it in your scalp, you just rub it in
and it's going to make your hair grow back, right?
I forgot about that.
And I used to, I always used to have those commercials
on TV and say, hey, the hair club for men.
I'm like, hey, I'm not just a client.
I'm a member.
I'd just be happy to grow eyebrows back.
That would be great for me.
Well, here's the thing that they said about that.
They said that the more you use it,
you had to keep using it because if you didn't,
you want to lose your hair. Oh, seriously?
But my buddy, he graduated UC Davis.
Yes, he was going to be a fireman.
Yeah.
He failed the test because by, I don't know,
by the time they put it on at 30 seconds
because when you have to put the ladder back on the truck,
he didn't push it all the way on, he didn't hook it.
You have to hook it on the latch.
Oh. When you put the ladder back on the...
They don't want the ladder falling off
on the motoring public.
Yeah, just maybe the hose just don't...
Sorry.
Just maybe some other parts.
I just got distracted on my way to...
No, I suppose he comes from a long line of firefighters.
His dad was a chief in San Francisco
and both of his brothers were younger than him,
both of San Francisco firefighters.
And so that's what he was going to do also.
But then he failed the test.
He's like, I don't care if I do that really.
His name is Pete.
And so basically what he did was he decided,
he talked to some salespeople or something like that.
They said, hey, you should be a salesman.
And so he went and did all the stuff he had to do.
They sent him to school, to the Midwest somewhere
for a pharmaceutical school or something.
But up John was just some of the stuff that they carried.
So if you don't want to share a funny spring break story
with you real quick.
So it's early nineties and he's got the Lumina.
We call it the G-Man car.
So we're going to Lake Havasu spring break
because his younger brothers were going to Sac State
and they have a big thing on Lake Havasu
with the house boats and everything else going down.
Yeah, yeah.
So we're doing an overnight drive.
Harker, Arizona.
Yep, and I'm going to, I'm driving
because I'm not drinking, but guess what?
The bar is open in the car.
They're having beer fights in the car.
But meanwhile, here's Joe.
I kid you not, driving down 57, I think it was
to whatever and down the freeway.
Going through the desert in the middle of the night,
we're doing like 100 miles an hour.
Didn't get pulled over, pretty lucky.
But anyways, we're going to spring break.
But he had the, we called it the G-Man car.
But let's get back to you.
I have lots of wild and crazy things going on.
I'm probably, you know, cause I'm a very conservative guy,
but maybe my past tells me differently.
I was going to say, I kind of be like that.
You don't want to start revealing too much.
Just a wild and crazy guy.
Who was that, Steve Martin?
So what type of events do you like the most,
when it comes to vehicles?
Do you like going to shows?
Do you like going to, you know, races or is there any?
You know, I like where we met.
We met at the Griot's caffeine and gasoline trade line.
That's what I call it.
I call it caffeine and gasoline.
It's just something, I think we mentioned in our previous show,
it's their headquarters in Tacoma.
Their flagship store, yeah.
It's the only store, I guess they have.
I mean, they sell products all over the place,
but this is where they're based.
And the Griot's family is just so generous
to open up their facility.
Yeah, you used to be a Coca-Cola bottling.
Coca-Cola factory.
There was an ugly, kind of brick building.
Kind of funny, they kept the same kind of red
and white colors though.
I know, isn't it?
I was kind of like, it's kind of ironic.
This is amazing, this place.
Yeah, but anybody who was from Tacoma back in the day,
they wouldn't recognize what they currently did.
And the police station used to be right there
with that storage places right underneath it on that road.
Oh, is that right?
It used to be the police station right there.
It was just a nasty police station.
I mean, it's just like a brick building
and all beat up and stuff at the time.
And then they moved it.
Shocking at Tacoma.
Yeah, really?
I mean, anyways, get back to Griot's.
I love going to places where it's just,
it's a couple of hours early on a Saturday morning.
And it's officially eight till 10.
Correct.
But of course.
It goes longer.
It goes longer and it starts earlier.
People are jockeying for parking spaces by 7.8.
Yeah, when it's this time of year,
it's kind of like, you know, the darkness.
And nobody's a part of it.
And there's nobody to judge who's allowed in
and who's not.
Exactly.
Because I want to see, I want to see the, you know,
I've seen like people driving like a Plymouth Volare
from 1976 in there.
Like, how did this thing survive?
Exactly.
I mean, where you're from in New England.
Oh, yeah.
Really, that would have been a, all of.
That car was gone in five years.
From the rust?
Oh, yeah.
I mean.
They used to have a thing that kind of,
I don't know who came up with it,
but it was called Rusty Jones.
Okay.
Rusty Jones.
Yeah, Rusty Jones is like,
and basically it's like them stuff
that they put up on a rack
and they spray underneath the car.
So it wouldn't get rusty.
And it's like, that was the biggest bunch of BS.
Was that about old motor oil or what was it?
I don't know.
I have no idea.
They used to sell, you know what's funny?
Cause you were talking about my 70 Impala.
Yeah.
So I did because remember the lady I bought it from,
used to drive it to Florida.
Yeah.
And so Florida has rust.
People don't realize that.
If you're near the beach, right?
If you're near the ocean, no matter where you live,
everybody, you're going to have salt air,
which eats stuff up.
So in my trunk, I had actually a little bit of rust
in right where the fender well meets the floor
or the trunk.
And so they had some stuff that they used to sell
back there, back east.
I don't, it was like spraying rubber out if I can.
Yeah.
I don't know if they sell that stuff anymore
cause it's probably illegal,
but you'd spray it out and be like goop.
It'd be like a rubber thing,
like big old patches of.
Oh yeah.
And so then I would, I just sprayed that in there
and I painted the fender well back.
So you never saw that was in it.
Like any rust marks there.
But yeah, Rusty Jones.
You should start a career as a used car dealer.
That sounds, you're right up, right up their alley.
You know, I had a lot of cars and my buddies used to say,
you want a car, go see Joe.
Cause they used to have that famous Cal Worthington cars.
They used to have a song, I guess for it.
I was living in California.
Like you want to go, you want to buy a car, go see Joe.
My wife grew up in California.
She can tell you about Cal.
Oh yeah.
Probably like Earl Shy paint shops.
Remember those?
Yes.
The $99 all paint any car.
You know what?
Who has a really good deal on paint jobs.
I don't know.
So they're licensed differently and there's different people
that pick up being able to do it
for you, the company, which is Mako.
So good friend of mine.
Yes.
I'm aware of them.
So you're familiar with like,
cause you've been going to the Grios for a while.
I'm super cheap.
When somebody tells me it's going to cost $4,000
to paint my car.
That's not cheap.
That's not cheap.
Oh, cheap today, probably so.
Take that.
If you get that today, take it.
Okay.
Do you ever remember seeing like a coyote swap convertible?
It was black.
Coyote swapped what?
What kind of convertible?
Oh, at Grios?
Like an early Mustang with a coyote.
99 convertible.
Yeah.
What year?
99.
So the new edge.
Oh, that's right.
Cause they back then they had the mod motor
and then the coyote was came around about.
So yeah.
So 99 to 04 was like the same bodies that terminated.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The new edge.
Yeah.
That's what it is.
SN, what's that called?
SN95.
Yeah, there you go.
Which actually came out in 94.
Just trying to, trying to show off the limited American Iron
Native.
Yeah.
But my buddy had one.
Okay.
And he took it too.
So here's what happens.
You bring it to Mako if you find the right one
cause they're all everywhere.
Yeah.
He had his done, it was a presidential paint job
and it was painted.
What does that mean?
I mean, I guess they're top of the line.
And costing 1200 bucks.
Do they have a vice president paint job?
Yeah.
They might.
The old president paint.
So it was 1200 bucks to get painted, right?
Oh, that's.
And it was the tuxedo.
Tuxedo black.
Did they tape anything?
Or is it just?
No.
Did they cover the windshield?
I don't know.
I wouldn't believe it, but he won more awards
with that paint job.
Oh, wow.
And it was tuxedo black, which is a Ford color,
which is a metallic dark black.
Yeah.
Cause his car was black, but he just didn't do the door jams.
Didn't.
I mean, every show he went to because of the Coyote swap.
He would.
Oh, wow.
First place.
Distract people with the engine.
I tell people, Mike, that's what paint job was 1200 bucks.
That's the only thing he didn't do to the car.
We built the car together.
I helped do some of the stuff on it.
Hey, my family wonders what went wrong with me
because I don't come from necessarily a car family.
So they wonder why, why do I talk like this?
Yeah.
Would you like to dream about the stuff
that you're sleeping?
Must be, must be at something in the water.
You know that I grew up near the smelter.
Who?
The Tacoma.
Oh, you're talking about the Tacoma aroma.
The Tacoma aroma.
Well, you weren't here back in the day.
No, I was back in the 80s when I was in the range of attack.
Oh, you were.
So you remember the smokestack?
That's all you see is the fog.
It looked like fog.
It was a smoke.
It looked like everything was on fire.
So my brother and I, we were stunk.
You know, it's a good thing I'm not an axe murderer
because now there's people claiming that somebody wrote
a book about Tacoma that because of all the serial killers
from here, they claim it's they came from here.
Yeah, like the King River guy.
I got to sue the city of Tacoma for letting me grow up,
eating all this arsenic or whatever it was.
Now, now was a lot of it from the pulp mills
from the paper mill?
Not so much.
It was the other copper smelter out there.
Rusty.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was kind of that smell was really bad.
Yeah.
Because it was still used to be there for a long time.
Yeah.
Anyway, but my, you know, my folks had interesting cars,
but they weren't necessarily car people.
What would they have for a car?
What were they driving?
Or what were they pushing?
You remember way, way back in the 60s,
when Volvo's weren't square, they were round.
Yeah, they'll look like a little like many 55 Chevy's.
That was our only car.
Yeah, exactly.
Especially the little wagons.
Yeah, they look like they were cool.
They look like a shoebox Ford.
Yeah, those were cool.
Yeah, those are nice little cars.
That was that was our only car.
How far do you have to go with it?
Growing up.
When did they get a new car?
That was my question.
I knew.
I think well, they bought that car when I was born.
We added another car.
I think I was seven, probably seven years old.
They bought a little dots and pickup.
Oh, those little dots and pickups.
Yeah, like the not to try to remember what they're called.
We were the original import family
only because American cars had big V8 engines.
I'm going to say Don's from the United Nations.
I don't know.
Yeah, a Japanese car, a Swedish car.
Well, because your wife, isn't she Japanese?
Yeah, half.
Oh, half.
Yeah, the right half.
That's what she says to you.
You're my other half is what she says.
Yeah.
She'd be like, what are you talking about me for?
Yeah, yeah.
So now I'm getting in trouble.
Oh, be quiet.
She'd be like, Joe, what are you doing?
I'll be like, oh, I guess that's it for this show.
No, but I my love of American iron, just like your family,
our family had a cabin.
Actually, it was just a piece of dirt on a lake, right?
A four mile long lake.
And we happened to live at one end of that lake.
You know what a four mile long lake is in the 70s?
It's a place where you could run drag boats.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nothing wrong with that.
You be so my whole family.
We're getting to the end.
I was the only one in my family who really enjoyed having
those open.
People don't realize how fast it is on water.
That's scary fast.
Have you ever been in running like that?
I've not been in a drag boat.
I've never been in a drag boat.
That's why I'm still alive.
I'll tell you what.
So I had a 14 foot checkmate.
If you go look up online, checkmate, they're out of,
I think it's Ohio.
Is that like a dinghy?
Yeah, it's a dinghy that's fast.
With a wick kind of engine on it.
They look like miniature check, like cigarette boats.
Oh, OK.
Yeah, those ones are off like a Don's Miami or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it looks like that.
Mine was 14 foot and I had a 175 Merc in it in line.
A tower of power.
Yeah.
And so me and my son, we get on American Lake, right?
He was only three years old.
14 foot boat with 175 Merc.
And it's hidden underneath like it's a jet ski motor.
So most of them come with.
Oh, so it was an inboard outboard?
Yeah.
Stern drive, Merc cruiser?
No, no, no.
So it was under like what do you want to call it?
Under the bonnet.
If it was a car, but, you know, so it looks like just a little boat.
So it's under the back part of the hood.
Yeah.
And so they come with all different numerous motors,
but most of them are only like 90s in the Yamaha's and things like that.
Oh, OK.
OK, I know what you're talking about.
So they go to the wave runners, right?
Yeah.
Well, mine had a 175.
So I'd get on American Lake, right?
Me and my son, we like sitting there, we cruising along.
Look over at the guy with the wave runners and we just go peace out
because my son would say, go faster, Papa.
I would punch it, man.
And that those guys, we would outrun them.
They would just they come up to me like, what the hell you got in that thing?
I go got a 175 in here and they're like, oh, my God.
That's what what is a jet ski having it?
I don't or it's well, so many of the wave runners and jet skis.
I mean, now they have, I mean, they are cooking.
They are pretty damn fast, too.
I mean, that's what I'm saying.
That's why this they thought they could take me.
Yeah.
And because it doesn't send up that big old rooster tail like the like the jet
boats do, you know what I mean?
You get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But so it's just like, you know, and you can, you know, with those boats,
you can also go like a wave runner.
You can go in like, you know, only two feet of water.
Yeah. But you don't have a prop hanging down.
Exactly. You don't have to worry about losing that in any place.
But yeah. So that's that's it with those.
I mean, they're just fast, fun stuff.
And then I guess if you had a spin on my arm, you can rent them
and things like that and find out how fast you're going to go.
Oh, that's what smartphones are for now.
Yeah, you're right. You know, I never thought about that.
You could be on the lake and you'd be like,
what are you doing? I'm checking my radar, you know,
have the Pierce County Sheriff's Department because they cruise around
out there on their little waivers in the summertime.
Like, what are you doing?
Like, I'm just checking out, see if it works.
Yeah. You know, but it's scary, fast on water.
Yeah. I mean, it's like you don't even want to think of like all right,
wiping out or something like that.
Well, to this day, I still can't admit to my family that I enjoy the the boats.
My family still has that property.
Do they still do that in summertime right here? Oh, yeah.
Do they? Yeah.
I've watched it on ESPN before. That's it.
Yeah. I mean, it's not legal.
Oh, it's not legal. Well, it's not legal.
I mean, there are races, but the the the lake my folks are on is.
OK, is is.
You know, it's surrounded by cabins, right?
And the people that they're not, they don't take too kindly to people going
80 miles an hour.
It's not so much and they're probably out there in the little dinghy out there.
They're a little sunfish, you know, like they're like, yeah,
they're on a little sunfish boat, like they're in Jaws or something.
You know, in the suntan.
Yeah, probably got their martinis.
Yeah. So maybe it's because I don't live there.
I've never lived there. Right.
It's you're the outsider.
It's fun to be out there.
And it's part of the fun that people enjoying
running over skiers and stuff.
I think, yeah, that's just too fast for me.
Yeah, I can't do it.
I'll watch you.
I mean, I've watched it on TV with it.
He actually had drag lights for him, like, you know, like a Christmas tree.
Oh, yeah. They have that for it, too.
I've seen it down. I don't know if you ever saw the one.
There's one down in Phoenix.
No, no, there was one of them down by in California.
It was like around the Lajo area.
Yeah, just a strip of water. Yeah.
And that's what they used to do. Wow.
What is the worst car you have had?
It depends on what you mean by the word.
Tell me, let's go.
Let's start with your best. Let's go.
The best car. God, that's the car you have had.
Oh, no, your favorite car you have had, or if you still have it.
God, this is this is tough.
That's a, you know, I can say worst.
As in sometimes the the worst car is one of your favorites.
By definition, it depends what you are.
I had a Volkswagen Chiraco.
Those are those are.
Yeah, little square ones, right?
Yeah. Yeah, it was like a kind of sporty van.
Yeah, it was basically a rabbit under the skin.
But it had a like a chopped off tail.
Yeah, they didn't make those too many years as I remember.
No, and they've all rusted away now.
But it was one of my favorite cars because it just it was just solidly built.
The engine lasted forever.
The transmission, you know, four speed manual.
But everything else fell apart fast.
Well, what was it?
Well, it seemed fast when you're, you know, going downhill.
What? Yeah.
When you come from driving diesel rabbits and Volkswagen fans, like I was.
You sound like a Volkswagen guy.
Our family kind of was. Oh, yeah.
So did you all ever have that big old, like 21 window bus?
We push out window.
Yeah, my folks had a couple of Volkswagen fans.
Really? Like I have the like, you know, the little hula girl on the dash.
Oh, no, we weren't that cool.
You know, because those those are like those things of money, man.
Now people want those.
I is not funny. Yeah.
AMC. Yeah, but I tell you what, you know,
how's the one of those around you?
You're maxing out.
I mean, everywhere you go, you're like a Formula One driver, right?
Just to get at normal speeds.
Yeah. But anyway, the Scirocco.
Arguably, I mean, I learned about master cylinders.
I learned about voltage regulators.
I learned about clutch cables.
I learned about what you're saying is you learned how to fix them.
Exactly. Yeah, that's yeah, you have no money.
And hey, you have time.
You always have a second career now.
And this was before YouTube, right?
This was back in the 80s.
Oh, so if you wanted to write it down, you have to use like what?
And that just gets.
Yeah. And it was a pretty it was a pretty cheese.
You know, a little sandbox TV.
Yeah, and I still make those.
I think. Yeah.
But I think the stuff inside was bad.
Anyway, I think that would that would be it.
I also had a triumph Spitfire project car.
What year? Sixty six.
Sixty six. Is that like 1147 CCs?
Is it 66 all the way up to the same?
Like the 74 spotty style, like convertible?
It was.
Yeah, like they didn't change much.
Yeah, I like those 70 to 74s or whatever.
Super late.
I think it was it was it was under 1500 pounds.
The.
But a pile. I mean, the British, you understand why I've never owned
another British car. Yeah.
If you own one of those.
Yeah, it's kind of like their dental.
It's one and done.
You're gone.
They should have learned with their dental program, right?
Yeah, I'm just saying.
I guess that's basically because of the water.
It's like they made the wheel, the wheel bearings made out of wood, too.
So when I was like with teeth.
So when I was talking about the dental, we're talking about, you know,
the hygiene part, but it's not really them.
It was, you know, the show airs in English and water, right?
That's not it.
It's all the same type.
I'm just saying it's like they don't.
They didn't use to put the same chemicals in their waters like we did, right?
Or they still don't.
Oh, well, I'm so glad you're here to teach me all this stuff.
I didn't know it's like, you know, like older and wiser.
I'd be wiser, but I might be a lot of things.
But, you know, like I'm trying to think of what the word is for the water
when they put the stuff into the water.
Fluoride. Fluoride. That's it.
Rat poison. Yeah.
The floor. No, you know, like, hey, Crest has fluoride.
Or is it ultra bright?
Jeez.
So that was the key word, fluoride, because they don't put it in the water.
So that's what they said.
That, you know, OK, that's why our teeth teeth are bones.
America are just so, so grand.
Yeah, I guess so.
But yeah, so, so.
So no more British cars for you.
I take it no more British.
One Swedish car, one and done.
And how to sob.
I used to love those TR sixes, man.
I can remember in high school, a lot of people put like two eighty
nines in those things. Yeah.
But leave it off stock looking, but have it like that.
Yeah, that's that's something beautiful.
Yeah, you know, there was one at Griot's recently.
The MG. No, it was a TR six, but they had.
I forgot the engine they had put a.
I think it was a small block forward was in it.
Was it TR six or was it?
You sure it wasn't the MG?
No, this was a TR six.
Not blue. No.
But I missed some of the MG's actually came with a V8, a little Rover V8.
Oh, they did, which actually came from Buick before I've been a Buick V8.
I have never seen that one.
And then Rover bought that engine from from Buick.
Strange, strange British American connection.
No, this had a I think it was a 260 or 289.
They were trying to make like I don't know why they didn't just
gone by a what is it called a Tiger Sunbeam.
Oh, yeah, Sunbeam Tiger was to that was competition for the for the Cobra.
Yeah.
And you can get those anywhere from a force along to to a yeah.
So I saw four of those when I went down to Long Beach.
Really? All V8 ones, too.
I'm going to have to get back there.
That that car show is that was amazing.
Yeah, this year, next year, we're camping it.
My buddy said, hey, because I mean, you cannot get a hotel within four
four hundred six hundred dollars within 100 miles for a hotel.
Yeah. And you have to do it a year ahead of time.
But they do have camping spots and places there.
But yeah, my buddy, he says, Joe, he goes,
he just told me, he goes, you could take him to my camper in my truck.
So Lance, I go, oh, we're going next year for three days.
Because I mean, they do it for the whole week.
Yeah, that's a huge show.
It was, man.
I mean, we only went there on Friday night this year.
We got there on Friday morning and we left about 830 on Friday night.
Yeah, this was the largest one so far.
Yeah. And it was fogged out like crazy.
Yeah. Yeah.
My friend Bill has a spot down there and he goes almost every year.
But I think I was going to tell people that you know how to work on cars.
Right. He's worried to say to let the word out because
that he'd be be flooded with. Yeah.
Yeah. The bell system. Yeah.
Yeah. Good old Alexander Graham.
Don't don't want to.
The bell system, I say bell system.
People have what the hell is he talking about?
We're talking like telephone for you.
You know, and that's what you're right.
It used to be called the bell system here.
And oh, did I hear on the West too?
Yeah, it was. Yeah.
Because my grandfather used to work for it when he came back from World War Two.
That's where he worked for the bell system.
I've got actually a little pin.
My grandfather, when he worked there for like 40 years or 50 years or something like that.
Did you hear in the news that you can now buy a phone,
a wall phone for your house if you have teenagers, especially keep them off of it.
And it has a cord on it.
It has a cord on it and you can you can actually block out calls.
It'll ring just like an old school phone.
I'm trying to make my regular phone ring like that, my my my cell phone.
You want it to sound like a James Garner, you know, a Roxford Files phone.
What was his?
He had an answering machine, but the show started with.
With the phone ring.
Yeah, but the phone rang.
That was the start of the show.
Speaking about that, do you know that they used formula fibers for that show?
Yes, that they they made them that gold.
The Esprit. So whatever they are, Esprit Esprit.
They were all Esprit's and that they said, but they were actually formula
fibers really changed them over the years.
You know, this is one of the ones that the hood scoops, right?
Yeah, they had the scoops on and they had it also on the wing, the rear spoiler.
And of course, suspension and stuff like that.
But did you know so since we're talking nerdy stuff, I heard that James
Garner didn't like the new nose that came out in 79.
No, that's why he kept the other one.
That's why he yes, why he kept the Rockford Files car with the same nose is ugly.
Yeah, that's that.
Yeah, the ones that were the 79 to 81s with a hilarious four square headlights.
Yeah, all in that Endura bumper.
Yeah, so did you know that so like car wise?
A lot of people don't realize this.
All this show is about cars.
No, it's about life. Oh, it is. OK, it's about just checking.
So so because the Transams became so popular because of smoking the bandit
that the formula firebirds were like kind of like just hidden
because nobody paid attention to them anymore.
So actually there's more requests to try to find formula firebirds
now than the Transams. Is that amazing?
It is because it's like I can remember my brother-in-law.
He lived in Maine and he he had one shipped from Texas.
He bought it on eBay.
Yeah, of course, everything's not what it appears in pictures.
But anyway, it's no rust at least.
Yeah, it was a formula for firebirds to transform into a Transam.
And so what happened was is he never went about doing it
because he's like, I'm not going to bother doing it.
And he kept trying to look all over New England.
I was even finding rust buckets.
And so he decided to sell the car.
And what the what happened was is the guy that wanted to buy the car,
he's like, I don't want to Transam.
He goes, don't you realize it's harder to find a formula firebird?
He goes, no, I didn't know that.
Even though they made so many form of fiber, it's unbelievable.
I don't know what the numbers crunched wise,
but maybe they were less than Transam.
But yeah. Now, OK, so so.
Visually, it looked like a an esprit.
Correct. Correct.
But it would have the the hood scoops and they would have the the rear
spoiler, OK, and it would have those dual exhaust tips on the.
Yeah, yeah, OK.
The ones that yeah, the two ones pointed down.
That actually came from the GTO.
Oh, oh, you're right.
Came from the Tiger from the 60s.
Yeah, because those actually had those exhaust first.
OK, we're going to have to have a show of just about the GTO
and the whole history of that.
It's pretty incredible. We could do that.
Yes, that would work. Not today, but.
Oh, any day is good. Any day.
Oh, any day is good.
It doesn't matter.
So do you like Grand Turismo all the Magato?
Almost got. Yeah, you know what?
Yeah, I always get that word wrong.
Yeah, I just like they just stole it from the Italians.
Grand Turismo. Oh, my God.
Yeah, there you go.
That's all I can say.
It's easier for me to say.
Yeah, so you talk about music, right?
So because I love music. Yeah.
Do you remember the album, Candio from the cars?
Oh, that rings the bell.
Yeah, and you from the 80s. I need you.
So I was asked people to say, what kind of cars on there?
They're she's sitting on top of a car.
So it's it's a model, but then the drawing of it's in red lines.
OK, it's a GTO. Oh, OK.
Of course, not the Pontiac GTO.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know a whole lot about the cars other than some of the songs.
That's a good name for a band. Yeah, all from Boston.
No kidding. Yeah. Wow.
A lot of music from Boston.
There is a lot of bands from Boston.
I mean, I grew up with that stuff.
I mean, right down the street from me, just another band out of Boston.
Yeah, trying to make ends meet from the band of Boston.
So that's a funny story because
rock and roll music in the songs is dancing in the streets of Hianis.
Yeah, right. And that's where the Kennedys are from.
Right. But there's a there's a place called the Mill Hill Club.
Route 28 is the most popular two lane road that goes through the Cape.
That's just the the highway, right?
No, no, because you have you have Route 6, which is the freeway.
Oh, no, Cape. There's a freeway.
There is a freeway. I didn't see.
I've never been there just to go a little bit faster.
Yeah. But in this also Route 6, a which is the old freeway.
OK, two lanes. Yeah.
You know, one way, one car going each way. Yeah.
And but 6A, I think, is up to two lanes.
It could be up to three lanes now going one way. Wow.
But it used to be that, you know, turn your headlights on
because this could be a little monotonous for a little bit.
There's accidents with cars coming straight at you.
So they would paint the bridges, different colors, the overpasses.
One would be pink.
One would be just to keep you like awake.
But yeah, so dancing in the streets of Hianis, anyways,
that's in the song from Boston. Yeah.
And this is a place up there called the Mill Hill Club.
That's where they used to play.
There's a lot of a lot of famous stuff in Boston.
A lot of night clubs in Cape Cod, especially.
That's where a lot of bands started from.
A lot of a lot of mass holes.
Yeah, there's a lot of mass holes. That's what they call us.
I didn't even have that name when I was there.
I'd be like, it'd be kind of wicked.
That was that wasn't that wasn't a term back then when it could have been.
I don't remember it. I remember it's Jaws. OK.
You know, the movie Jaws came out and nobody wants you on the water anymore.
Yes. And that was that was filmed at Martha's Vineyard.
Oh, but, you know, it's a check this out.
So, yeah, yeah, no, Martha's Vineyard.
And part of what's the other jacket?
Yeah, it was another island, too, I think if I'm correct.
But I remember the movie came out and I was just a little kid.
But this was probably about five years ago now.
Maine actually had its first person being taken by a great white.
Oh, really? And the legend is true.
The legend is the great whites have been going around there for years.
And it's just never been reported.
People thought that's awesome.
They didn't see it, this and that.
But what happened was is so this was on a place called Bailey Island,
Bailey Island, Maine, they called lands and they called lands and because
if you're going across, you're going across the pond.
So there's that's the open Atlantic Ocean.
OK, sure. But in one of those little places, like their macro cove,
there was a there was a woman and she was very famous.
I think she was married.
Her husband was part of L and L bean. Yeah.
If you're familiar with L and L bean.
L and L bean is only one L and L bean store.
Free Port, Maine. Correct.
And open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day worldwide.
And the only place that was bigger than them when they started was Sears and Roebuck.
But, you know, all outdoors kind of stuff.
Anyways, well, the woman, what happened was is there's a very famous
handbag company and they're made out of
because what are you doing with the sales after you're using for sales?
Yeah. Well, she was the creator of that company.
And she was divorced, I guess, from her husband that worked for L and L
bean, who was a big like CEO, whoever it was at the time.
My dad knew who that that that the guy was and her.
Yeah, my dad's from Maine and things like that.
But anyways, she was the one that was swimming with her daughter.
And she had on a wetsuit.
Her daughter did not.
And that can you imagine that you just see and she looked like a seal.
Yeah. Oh, that's it.
Guess what? So that don't look like a seal.
It literally flopped up in the air and this is it right now.
Important consumer information we're learning today.
So don't wear the skin to everybody because those those those damn fishes.
They don't see too well.
But, you know, they said it probably took her for, you know,
these are seal because there's a lot of seals.
But yeah, I didn't mean to tell such a tragic story on there,
but it just reminded me of me.
Yeah, this is happy.
Let's have a down moment here.
Just way to bring us all.
Well, they used to have the tuna tournament there every year,
which was kind of cool when I was a little kid.
So, you know, they they don't have it for like three days
and have this like big gold tuna tournament.
OK, and you have seen like the the TV show with the tuna on it.
So they had that one big show on TV of I forget what it's called.
Anyway, so these guys go out there and tuna,
tuna is an expensive fish, man. They're big, aren't they?
They are big if you get the big ones.
But, you know, you get one that's like the 300 pounds, right?
Yeah. Well, because the Japanese.
I was going to say the Japanese thousands and thousands of dollars.
Yeah, that's about all I know about tuna.
Well, you're talking about like like a 300 pound fish is like two
like $20,000. Yeah, that's and these guys go out overnight
and they're like, oh, let's go catch us some tuna.
You know, it's it's a it's a
damn, I wish I wouldn't remember the name of that show.
Oh, maybe whoever's listening can remember the name of the show.
Yeah, but it's all about tuna fishing.
Yeah, let us know it.
Parts of the podcast at gmail.com.
Yes, and it's not chicken by the sea.
It's tuna fish.
Because everybody loves a tuna sandwich, I guess.
I don't know unless you're allergic to it.
So so what are drives when you go for a drive?
Is there a favorite place like you like to cruise or like, you know,
someplace with a mountain? Of course, we have a mountain here.
But is there some place at a certain time of year,
like you and your wife like to go for a drive?
Or sometimes I mean, I know you do a lot of driving because you're a trucker
when you're kind of I don't want to drive. I just want to sit home.
I'll tell you what, have you you've been over Highway 410 Chinook Pass?
You know what? I've never come from the other end.
I've only gone from the one side going up to to Paradise.
Oh, OK. Oh, man, you got to I never flipped it going the other way.
It was close for a little while, though, right?
This highway. Yeah, they close they close in the winter time.
Yeah, it's too high.
It's I think it's.
I think it comes close to 6,000 feet at the summit.
Higher, huh? It's higher. Yeah, it's higher than Paradise.
Yeah, really? Yeah.
I've never been that high.
No, it's it's a great road, especially the other go go from here to Yakima.
I mean, Highway 410 is just over here.
Yeah, I saw that when I was driving.
I was like, oh, if I follow that, if I'm going to take me out.
Probably means you can't get to right now.
The bridge is down.
Yeah, I saw that they were doing a lot of car stuff to try to.
Well, the Enumclaw one, which is yeah, cruise the coal.
Oh, yeah. And so that I guess you have to go
35 miles to go all the way to that.
So I didn't go to the last one. Yeah. Yeah.
But anyway, that's a great road.
And there's another town.
Was it carbonado or something like that? Yeah.
They also have a bridge they got taken out.
We're just. Yeah.
And then we're just talking about crazy.
We're just like, yeah, we're just off the rails.
Hey, you know what?
You know what?
The mountain is still here, everybody.
So come visit the mountain.
We're going to be on an island pretty soon.
All we need is a big explosion of the of Mount Rainier of Lahar.
And we're going to be on an island.
And we'll have some sea ocean front property.
But exactly. Yeah, like Arizona. Yeah.
Yeah. So so you like doing that for 10 is what you're saying.
Yeah. In the fall, especially this time of year.
No, this is the perfect.
So if they haven't closed the pass yet.
Is he think we had snow up there yet?
They're talking about it.
Are you serious? Yeah.
And that's too early.
I mean, it's raining tonight.
And the other great road to take is Hood Canal,
which for people who don't know, it's not a canal.
Is that part of the river?
And it's not anywhere near a hood.
It is part of Puget Sound.
Really? There's Highway 101.
If you go north of Shelton.
Yes. Go from Shelton all the way up to
Squim on Highway one.
I have not done that one.
I have not. Oh, man, you're you're in for a treat.
I didn't know if it looked like it looked like it's a squim.
You have to know how to pronounce it first.
Yes. So it's I look like sequim.
Sequim. Yes. Is that how you say it or squim?
How long did it take you to learn how to say Puyallup?
Puyallup. Pollyop.
It's an Indian name.
Yeah. Yeah. If anybody anybody.
I think it was nice to hear.
It's a quim. It's a quim.
Squim. It's just, you know, when I look at a glance
at the first time I thought it was, wait, I thought I said squid.
Well, there's a driving like if you're driving,
there's also a ton of the out nearer.
If you keep going past squim, there's a city of.
Yeah, isn't like that's a PSHYP or something.
Yeah. What the hell are people?
Oh, I know.
They have a mayor and there's a hammahama
and there's a hump to ellipse.
Do they have a mayor?
Dosey Wallops.
Hump mayor of what?
And do they have a mayor in like a police department?
Probably not because I'll be like, oh,
you're going to apply about the first time.
Yeah. Like, hey, where do you live?
I'm walla, walla.
No, what?
But man, if anybody wants to visit here, you're just,
we probably have, we probably have a better road here.
Just two miles from this house
than the whole state of Florida has.
I mean, I don't understand.
I've been to Florida and there's people that drive
in Lamborghinis and all these exotic sports cars,
but there's nowhere to go.
It's flat and straight.
You got to do the one on one.
Why?
Like, you know, California dream.
Yeah, but why did people own these exotic cars in Miami?
Is it just to?
It's all showcasing, man.
Yeah. What?
I just showing you the greenbacks right here.
I got all the money.
That gets all.
This is what you work for is this car.
So you can only go 10 miles an hour.
I don't get that.
Have you ever, what's the furthest you ever driven
on the one on one?
North or south?
Like, yeah.
Oh man, all the way down into California.
Oh, you did like I did then.
Just about, I skipped a part.
I did that. I went out the one on one here.
Oh.
And I drove all the way down Santa Cruz.
Oh, seriously?
Yeah. Wow.
I mean, of course, it goes to route one in a little bit
here and there.
It goes back out a little bit and that's that.
But through some of that coast down at Oregon,
that's beautiful.
Oh, yeah.
We stayed at a motel down there.
And I don't know where exactly where it was.
This was many years ago.
And it was like, like in the 60s.
Yeah.
But you can see the water from it.
But I mean, the whole hotel room was set up like in the 60s.
Like the furniture.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Everything else.
I thought it was great.
Yeah.
So I got to do the route 66 someday.
That's what happens when you're if you're if your motel
gets too old.
Yeah.
You just now your retro.
You change it out.
Yeah, you change it out.
I want this new stuff.
I want the old stuff.
Yeah, I'm surprised to find out you don't have more
of a checkered past in in cars as a teen that I do.
What kind of cars?
I wrecked a bunch of teachers cars.
Teachers cars?
Yes.
Well, like driving school in high school in all in one day.
What did you do?
Like you, I took auto shop.
Oh, so you broke their cars.
I well, you crash into them.
I got to work on some pretty cool cars.
I worked on a like a 1959 MGA that a teacher had.
Yeah.
And did you like take out the brakes or something?
So crashed or what?
You're saying you said you took out the cars.
I wrecked.
No.
That's what I'm saying.
And another about some teachers.
Another teacher had an Alfa Romeo GTV from the 60s.
And those are like super valuable now.
Oh, yeah.
And I got to do just, you know, maintenance stuff on it.
But yeah, one day, the shop teacher had a.
Do you remember his name?
I do.
Mr. Henkins, great man.
OK.
You end up working for Toyota for a while after he left.
He left the school system, right?
Maybe because I I feel like I'm responsible for it
because of my actions.
So you failed the teacher.
I might have.
So you might have said.
Your teacher got an FB.
Enough of these.
Yes, you're responsible.
Steve and he had to be.
He was running the shop program, the vocational program
up at a I think a shoreline community college for years.
Right.
I hope to see him someday because I want to maybe I'll give him
some PTSD.
I say, you remember that kid back in the.
Yeah, he was going to say to you the 80s who gave you a black mark.
Yeah, he's going to say to you.
You can say you know what?
Punch me in the face.
You can say, you know, you think the best thing
never happened to me.
He got I got the hell away from all you kids.
Exactly. No, anyway, now you're all trying to get back to the story
here of me wrecking the cars.
Oh, you did wreck some cars.
I did. See, that's what I was getting at.
I did wreck the teacher's cars.
OK, well, I was walking by the shop, you know, which I was.
I was a regular in the shop.
I mean, I lived and breathed in the shop, OK, which I was kind of weird
because I was also kind of an egghead, OK?
I was the egghead who also wanted to be around cars.
I heard you like referring to like a nerd.
Yes. OK, I never heard a kid.
I was like in the AP classes and that sort of stuff.
And but I I loved cars even back then.
Yeah. So the shop I saw Mr.
Hankins moving cars around inside the shop.
And there was this.
I thought he was trying to pull the car out.
Anyway, he left this.
It was a 53 GMC pickup parked at the.
The entrance to the shop.
And I thought he wanted that moved out of the way so he could move these other cars.
Right. So I thought, oh, I'll do in my favor, I'll hop in this old pickup.
And it was idling, sitting there idling.
It was it was weird.
It was a V8 automatic.
This was like a like a 53.
So it was probably one of the first.
It's 53 or 63.
It was a 50.
Whatever you would.
I think it was a 50.
Somehow there was a V8 in it.
I should have had a V8.
Should have had a V8.
Maybe it was a 55.
Whatever the year, the small block Chevy came out.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I, yeah, I get what you're saying.
So it's probably a power glide.
Anyway, it's automatic V8.
Ugly old pickup that was donated to the shop.
They always get the best donation.
I get in and it was rare.
It was an automatic.
So I step on the brake pedal, put it into reverse.
And I didn't realize that it didn't idle very well.
So the teacher had put a can of paint between the brake and the gas pedal.
So when you step on the brake pedal, it's depressing the gas pedal.
And so, and the brakes were really weak on this thing.
Rev at the red light.
So in reverse, pushing the brake all the way down.
But it's backing up faster and faster.
So I'm pressing the brake pedal harder and harder, which all it does is.
Depresses the gas pedal even further.
So I'm speeding in reverse, not knowing what, what to do.
Did you spin the tires?
More than that, it slammed into one car and then it pushed into another car.
So I basically sandwiched three cars license yet.
Yes, I did.
Oh, I'm just curious.
I mean, you could have been 15 years.
And so this was my this was toward the end of my senior year.
Oh, and you're not graduating.
Well, the vice principal did come out there.
And I told them, maybe this should have been my senior skip day.
And he kind of goes, yeah, yeah.
Probably would have been good, good day to skip.
And one of the cars was a brand new Honda Civic that a teacher had just bought.
So yeah, who picks up the bill on that anyways?
Well, it wasn't me.
I mean, it was it was negligence, I guess the school.
Yeah. Hey, sign a waiver.
Put your car in the shop.
So like I say, a good, a good man, he could have been much more harsh with me.
But I think he saw that I was on my way out, gave you an A minus.
I'm not giving you an A. I'm giving you an A minus.
You know, I actually did get an automotive award.
See, yeah, but it wasn't for that.
No, I think the award was decided before I like they tried to rescind it.
I yeah, I'm sure maybe it's a scratch from the records now.
But his name became crash.
Yeah. Nickname.
But that's that's the automotive trouble I got into when I was.
I don't know if you want to hear this story.
I got a story, too.
This is this is an illegal activity.
I want to hear it.
Remember, we talked about good cop, bad cop.
Yeah, I did some bad things as a kid.
You know, I did things I wasn't supposed to do either.
But I always say I was an accessory.
I didn't do it. It's a good thing.
We're in a confession.
Yeah, that's the state.
Hey, father, please forgive me.
I am Catholic, by the way, just in case.
So I'm forgiving them.
So my friends, he has one of my friends in high school.
I was I was I just graduated.
So he was a year. No, he's the same year I was.
He always had to lift it up four wheel drive trucks, big trucks.
Yeah. Well, his dad used to have a plumbing company.
So he used to work for his dad.
But he always had the nice ones.
What era was this?
So we're talking about 80s GMC's jacked up.
I'm talking about with that was pretty rare back then.
Yeah, but not for us back.
Remember, we come for the rich place. Oh, OK.
Not with you have one of those with thirty eights or forty fours on it,
you know, and just high off the ground and everything else, right?
Well, he wanted his to be perfect.
So him is a pavement princess, I assume.
Yeah, that's you there.
So they'll call him on the concrete cowboy. Yes. OK.
Same thing, which means you never take it off the road.
Yeah. So because the only place you could take it back.
He's would have been where we lived on the beach.
So anyways, I will say the name of the guy.
I don't remember the body shop or anything like that.
The name was Jimmy.
Jimmy had been in trouble with the law before.
And Jimmy was probably you got to think we were only 18.
Jimmy was probably in his forties.
He was a Corvette guy.
So anyways, it was Columbus Day weekend and, you know, it's extended.
So on Saturday night, I guess they decided to go scope out some vehicles
to do what with to take it.
Oh, we're not talking about just like out of your backyard.
So back in the day, they used to leave the keys of the vehicles
on the on the car in a little lock box on the window.
They did that back here.
I do remember that.
Yeah, it's like a little yeah, yeah, like a little lunchbox on the side.
It's just attempting you.
Yeah, just to say, oh, I'll knock that box. The keys are right here.
So we're we're like, I guess they coped it on Saturday and say, hey,
we got a truck on Sunday.
They're like, we got a truck. I'm like, what do you mean, you got a truck?
Which needs right to go get it. I'm like, what a ride to go get it.
So we went up by the dealership as GMC Chevy dealer and looking at the truck,
it's like we're going by it, but nobody's there.
It was closed because it was Sunday.
And so I guess they had already got that box off of the window.
They broke it off.
They took it back to the shop.
So what they did, they took the keys out of it.
And so I guess, Jimmy, not me.
I wasn't a part of it at that point.
And I was like, oh, they're like, hey, we need you guys to help us.
Well, I had a Nova at the time.
And I'm like, hey, you're going to get some money out of this.
If you help us, I'm like, help you help you do what?
So they drove the truck into the body shop.
It probably around nine o'clock at night.
I can tell you this and it was a small body shop,
but there was only enough to get like three vehicles in there and had a lot.
By six in the morning.
You that truck was gone.
It disappeared.
The whole truck.
Because everything dismantled it.
Everything's identifiable by a new vehicle.
Yeah, you're talking about the fenders, the rear end, everything.
We even have tags on them.
Even they can trace it to the tires.
Well, the the they took some of it and they threw it in the dumpster.
What they could do like they chopped up the body part for the the cab,
things like that.
They cut that up into pieces.
All the fenders, engine, all the other stuff,
they're going to park that stuff out, all that and sell that stuff.
I got the wheels and tires off of it.
I had a Nova, so I don't know what they were doing.
I need a new battery for my car.
So I got a battery out of it.
Some other guys got some other stuff.
But like I said, that whole thing was gone.
And the rest of it was up in the awnings and the police had found out about it.
They were looking for it, but they couldn't find traces of it.
They actually walked into that body shop, I guess,
like in the next week or two, for some reason, because they knew Jimmy.
Jimmy was a guilty man.
I guess he'd done some prison time.
And but they already knew they were watching him from before for stealing cars
because he was a Corvette guy.
And like I said, we just kids, we didn't know any better,
but he knew what he was doing.
And but like I said, you could walk into that shop.
The whole vehicle was still there.
It was just up in the loft.
I'm talking about the engine.
I'm talking about everything.
And so that was like right before I was almost going in the military.
I was like, so have you ever done anything illegal?
I'm like, no, sir.
I mean, I didn't do it.
But I mean, I technically could have gotten in trouble for it.
Yeah, I mean, I was just a kid, you know, I just turned 18 years old.
So that would have been pretty foolish on my part.
But just one of the crazy stories, you know, I didn't take it.
But who knows how that would have worked out.
Isn't it good?
We're we're young and dumb at the same time.
And somehow we mature out of it a little bit, a little bit.
So I think you get older and then you kind of go back.
It's kind of like, you know, it's like, you know, when you have your parents,
yeah, your parents take care of you and bring you up and raising the world.
And then it turns around and you're taking care of your parents.
I did way more dumb stuff before I was 20 than I've done.
Right. All the time.
Yeah, just creating grief.
Like, like when we say trouble, what is the kind of trouble we're talking about here?
I'm not at liberty to say.
Oh, you can. You can tell us.
These people from all over, they're not going to know what you're talking about.
Just don't mention where.
Just don't mention.
So what's what's the statute of limitations?
There is a statute of limitations, believe it or not.
And it goes to a lot of things, even like in California,
it goes for like, if you murder somebody, there's a statute of limitations.
You're in the business. So you would know.
Well, most of my law enforcement stuff came through California when I took,
you know, a lot of my law enforcement classes at the time.
That's only for the state of California, though.
Yeah. But it's like, people don't realize like, oh, 50, 150.
What do you know what that means?
What 187? Well, we all know that from Van Halen. Exactly.
But, you know, 187, you know, this and this.
And then when I moved to Las Vegas, 50, 50, 150.
Is that criminally insane? What's the OK?
Pretty much. And then.
But then when I moved on in Nevada, you know,
they try to keep things similar to California because they're so close.
Yeah. But it's like, I used to remember all the codes.
I used to remember all the different stuff or different things.
You know, but it's just just interesting.
So if I sweat out a confession to you, does that if you tell me?
Yeah. So what am I going to do?
But you're sworn to have to.
So here's that. No. To turn me in.
Do I sound like a priest?
Have you done? Have you taken bodies or anything?
It's like this. If you did, I'll be like, hey, Don,
I think it was nice meeting you. Well, we got to go.
I just blame it on the city of Tacoma and the smelter.
There you go.
And you'll just wash your hands clean.
But it's like, yeah, you just there's a lot of statute of limitations.
I don't most things, believe it or not.
It's like this is what I always tell people.
It's like, hey, I was a young kid. I did things.
I've done dumb things and foolish things.
It's like, you know what? I'm nobody to judge anybody.
I was like, you know, so it's I don't.
The human mind is a very, you know, amazing thing.
It's like, you can't understand.
I mean, like you go to anything in the news media today
and you're kind of like, what did that happen? Who did this?
What happened? You're like, you just stuff you hear.
Like, how is that even possible?
You know, I try to tune it out.
It is. I mean, a lot of people don't even watch the media anymore
because it's like, you know what?
It's like watching the TV on. It's just negative stuff.
You know, any time there's there's negative news on,
that's why I turned to podcasts, right?
And especially audio podcasts because
you can control it.
Yeah. And I can control what I listen to and I get to listen to.
And what you want to talk about. Isn't that great?
It is. And it's like whenever there's bad news, I mean, you can just
I can be totally tuned out for a whole day or a whole week.
Yeah. And especially if it doesn't, you know, in fact,
you know, affect you in any certain way.
Yeah. You know, directly.
Yeah. You know, compared to like, oh, this person did this.
Isn't this now this is going to happen or say even political wise?
You know, I mean, yeah, I don't want to hear it.
I don't have time for all that stuff.
You know what I mean? It's like life would be bliss if we didn't have to,
you know, focus and you ever get a time where you're just worked up
about something and you realize it's it's your own fault for tuning in.
I used to at certain times, you know, I mean, like political wise,
you know, just different things.
And it's like, you know what? We're
we're all, you know, we're all we all have different identities,
different thoughts, feelings.
Yeah. You know, and all you can really try to do is like, you know,
respect other people's. Yeah.
You know, even if you don't agree with them, you know, and that's that's OK.
It's OK. It's OK to disagree.
Or agree to disagree. You know, it's it's OK.
You know, but within that's what I want you on here.
Common sense. You know what I mean?
Because I know that we disagree on stuff.
So I'm looking forward to what you're talking about.
You tell me you haven't you have you have no idea.
You say no idea. And I'm saying to myself, oh, yes, I do.
This is this is a car podcast.
That's right. It's all about the car.
I have had American cars, by the way.
So I know.
And it's like, well, so what's it?
OK, I say, Don, tonight I'm giving you a gift.
We're going to go shopping.
Oh, I'm going to let you pick out
whatever muscle car American muscle car you want in this world.
Tonight, it's yours.
And I have the means to give it to you, which I don't.
But I'm pretending I do. Wow.
What car is it that you're going to choose?
You know, it might be a you have to come down to one car tonight.
It's OK. You know what?
I'm going to I'm going to pick a.
I've never driven one.
Oh, you don't have to drive them
because I haven't driven a lot of them either. OK.
I think I think it would be one of those.
It would have to be before the bumpers were ruined on cars.
I think I'd probably go in American muscle car.
Does a does a 66 Shelby GT 350.
Does that count Mustang? Yeah.
Yeah, as long as the Mustang,
because Cobra doesn't really count.
That's like not. I mean, you could.
But I always look at so like AC Cobras, right? Yeah.
People don't realize like when you go to car shows,
most AC Cobras, believe it or not,
from from a company called Factory Five,
and they're based out of Massachusetts.
Is that right?
That's where Factory Five is.
That's where Factory Five is at.
There's another company now
because the two guys that started that company,
one went off to another way
and he's doing the same thing.
But those bodies of those cars
actually come from South Africa.
Yeah, super performance, right?
Is that I'm not sure what the name.
Oh, OK, super performance here in the US.
But that's where the that's where the the bodies themselves
come from, yeah, from South Africa.
Is that the same outfit that makes the GT 40s?
Yeah, so Factory Five has like five different versions
of those cars.
And those those ones are really nice, too,
that people don't realize, you know, the one,
the rounded back ones like a coupe.
Yeah, yeah, looks like the Daytona coupe.
Yeah, those are really nice, too.
Yeah. So when you said the Mustang, of course.
Well, how generous of you so I can have a.
Yeah, I would say the Cobra wouldn't be realistic because it's like as in a toy.
I mean, they're all toys a lot of times now.
But AC Cobra, because everybody always asks me,
it's one of my favorite cars.
I mean, of course, the kit car, you can put whatever,
you know, drive train you want into it.
But I'm kind of like, is it realistic?
Is it something I can go from here to Florida in right now?
And I'd say no, it's not, you know, trunk space.
Yeah, don't have a roof for him.
No, but you know what?
I did meet a guy at one of the car shows and he and there's a couple guys.
One of them had he's actually rallied the car from coast to coast
in some different road, you know, road rallies.
Yeah, yeah. So he's done this one.
It's a blue one and he's done it like three or four different years.
But there was a gentleman that I met at one of the Mustang shows
and his was a copper color.
He bought this car in, I think it was Daytona, Florida.
Yeah. And it is a kit car also.
Yeah. But they guaranteed the car and everything that they did for it,
warranty-wise this and that, he said.
And so he bought it in summertime.
He drove it all the way down from through Texas all the way back up to Washington.
And I was kind of like, because nobody ever drives those.
No roof for it and everything else.
But you can get like a soft top for him.
Yeah, it's crunched in there, but he drove it and he broke down in Texas.
And so he's like, cars here in Texas.
And he talked to the place that sold it to him and whatever they did to it
and have it fixed this in the state, take responsibility for it.
But that wouldn't be a comfortable car.
I when I was a kid, I used to always say I would have a Corvette, you know,
and I don't like the new Corvettes at all.
I think they're like space rocket ships.
I'm like, I'm all the way up to C3 Corvettes, pretty much from me,
unless it's a C4 that would be like people don't realize that.
Which ones is it?
The ZL ones, some of those ZL ones of the 90s.
Yeah, those are actually four inches wider than regular Corvettes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's your one.
Yeah, yeah, it's just a totally different performance package.
People don't know anything about them.
I like those, but that's pretty much as far as I would go.
But for me, it'd be a C3 Corvette, sixty eight to seventy two body style.
Well, actually goes higher than that.
But in my head, it was always like a sixty eight.
Four twenty seven before they ruined the nose on him in the tail.
Yeah, sixty eight, four twenty seven big block, four thirty five horsepower
Marina blue with a white top because it's cooler for the
that, you know, depending where you're going to live.
Well, yeah, and with black interior and it used to be four speed,
but now I'm like automatic instead, because I don't like shifting gears no more.
I'm just lazy, you know, getting old and lazy.
Yeah, just I would love one of those.
But I mean, I don't even know why I started going to the Corvettes
because we were talking about the AC Cobras.
Yeah, but that wouldn't be my car.
But so that's your car, the GT 350.
I think if you if you forced me to buy an American car with a V eight.
Oh, and I know I went to the Corvette because I still have Corvettes.
But realistically, when I got older and I first moved to California,
I was like, OK, say if you and your girlfriend and your wife, whoever it is.
Hey, hey, let's go to Tahoe for the weekend.
OK, so I got two seats in it.
Right. And you've got very, very much no room for luggage.
But if you have a four seater like a Mustang,
I mean, you can put more people in if you wanted to things like that.
So that's why I kind of got away from the Corvettes.
But if I had my choice.
I'm going back to 1970 Chevelle SS 396 big block.
With a four speed, of course, one of those, maybe, I guess, maybe.
But I the 454 became, you know, everybody wants the LS six, you know,
450 horse ones and stuff like that.
But it's like, I just I was gone back to the I'm like, you know,
I wish I had one of those plane, Jane, whatever color.
You know, see, where would you find an LS motor?
I can't think of. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah, the GTO out there.
It's in the dark. I can't see it.
Yeah, nobody nobody be missing that.
Yeah, that's just yeah, that's that's that's all the glory.
I was like, now you can go up to the LS seven.
You know, you can buy them from the factory.
They got like 700 horsepower and 800 horsepower and
just the humanity of it all for the craziness of the cars.
Super fast.
Well, I look forward to upcoming episodes where we
talk about some current events and I hear your take on things too.
So, oh, you want my crazy stuff going on out there.
There is there is crazy stuff going on out there.
Yeah, it's a crazy world that we live in.
Yeah, there's there's AI that's being used for things.
Yeah, we need to talk about that, you know,
it's for the business with Hertz and the no dive too deep in it.
But you they have AI cameras that scan the car.
Oh, you know what?
I just saw this where somebody was complaining about this
because they said it had a scratch on it. Yeah.
Somebody rented a car.
It was on Tik Tok or someplace.
And they were like, I am not paying the four hundred and something
dollars because a scratch I could not see on the car
when I go and sign for it.
Yeah, as somebody who's in law enforcement, yeah, you would get this too.
They even check the tires.
They can tell, yeah, like fingerprints on the tires.
They can tell if these original tires.
Yeah, because we're talking about Hertz.
Do we have to get off here right now?
Or do you want to get off here?
It's up to you.
I mean, you want to go rent a car?
I want to Hertz rent the car.
I want that Mustang.
Hey, everything hurts when you get to this age.
No, but you know those Hertz, those Hertz rent the cars
for the Mustangs back in the 60s.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you know how they used to steal the motors out of me, right?
You heard that, right?
How how could they not foresee that?
I know, right?
And it's like that is crazy.
But did you know that you could?
I don't know, too, but up till the GT 500 recently,
last few years ago, you could go rent the brand new GT 500
from Hertz rent the car.
Were they black and gold?
Yes, they are black and gold.
Yeah, and it's about a thousand horsepower.
This big cities that have them would be like Las Vegas,
Detroit, certain cities and you could rent them.
I think it was like 499 a day or something like that.
Yeah.
But can you imagine that?
It's like, oh, yeah, I want to rent that.
Take that for a spin.
And up in the ditch.
They're probably out of the ditch now, right?
Like every other Mustang.
Yeah, it's like you just want to put it in the closet
and just or the garage and just hide it.
No, but it's it's just I think that would be a good topic to.
Yeah, but AI, man.
Yeah, it's crazy.
I mean, I mean, I just saw a movie not so long ago about AI.
It's like the guy basically hooked up with his AI girlfriend.
I'm like, well, they're made with AI.
I'm like, yeah, what in the world?
Well, we experienced AI just recently test driving a car.
You did?
Yeah, except neither of us drove the car.
Really?
But we went out 10 miles.
How'd you do that?
AI.
Really?
That's crazy.
I just don't understand it.
I mean, I understand it, but it's kind of like, man, it's just
getting kind of overboard.
We tried it in Phoenix, too.
So AI, there was nobody behind the wheel.
Oh, you're talking about like kind of like the Tesla
driving itself kind of stuff.
And the wave. Yeah, I know it.
I'm kind of like a control freak.
I don't know if I can do that, man.
You know what I mean?
It's kind of like when I've had.
So I used to be a driver's instructor for the EVOC,
Merged Full Emergency Vehicle Operations Course.
So I used to be an instructor for that.
Really?
And so you learn how to do the J-hooks.
You learn how to do crazy stuff, right?
And I used to have to teach the other people how to do this stuff.
And I'll tell you what.
Man, to some people, you don't want to drive in cars.
It's just as simple as that.
Yeah.
Well, that's where these white knuckles came from.
So yeah, the white knuckle drivers, huh?
Yeah.
Well, and and being a passenger when people are learning how to drive.
Oh, yeah, because the big rigs.
Yes. Oh, jeez.
Yeah. I don't know, man.
I've seen.
I've seen more than I want to see.
Yeah, I the one the one that I did have fun with it was,
I was also an instructor for my soldiers in our units.
And they used to come into the unit
when I was in part of the National Guard in California.
And so we would have to take the Humvees.
And we'd be down at Camp Roberts, Hunter Liggett and all these places.
Yeah. And so I'll be like, all right, let's go.
We're going to show you how to drive this thing.
So we take the Humvees and we'd be doing like river crossings
going up hills and stuff like up and down like you would never believe, you know.
I didn't even show you the bags goodies yet.
You're supposed to go through the bag.
The bag. I was there more.
Is there more? Oh, yeah.
This bag. Oh, my God.
You can ask me questions too, if you want.
This is about you.
But let's see this.
I was just trying to come up with some stuff
that we can keep talking about.
Well, never run out of stuff.
Oh, yeah. So once again, Joe brought a a goodie bag full of stuff.
Yeah. Wow.
This looks like a it's a Monte Carlo.
I call it the Dale Earnhardt era.
Yeah, US Army car.
When the Army and the National Guard like Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
Yeah, used to be but responsible, you know,
sponsored by the National Guard.
Yeah. Air Force.
Are they all different?
A bunch of racers in NASCAR had sponsors.
Yeah. Because people don't realize
how much the sponsorship is for cars
and how much that money it cost.
Yeah. So that was the US Army car with Martin Martin.
And I have a newfound appreciation for NASCAR.
Did you ever go to the LeMay Museum?
Yeah. When they had the NASCARs
and they had them lined up.
The year. Yeah.
The only one. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Downstairs on the ground.
And to see, you know, of course, they were stock.
Yep. Originally.
Yeah. The more modern ones,
it's pretty incredible what they.
Yeah. Long ways.
I mean, they're a quote simple race car, but.
Column simple is an understatement.
And it's funny because in like NASCAR,
all the bodies are the same.
It's just the rap makes it look like it's different.
Yeah. But like that one there.
My wife was very disappointed when I pointed that out.
Like those are decals.
Yeah. Because that's one hell of a pain job.
Yeah. But so when I got after 9 11,
I got I got called back into the army again.
And I was basically back in the military for four years.
That was why I have the 01 car. Oh, because, you know,
they were that was the all army car.
Yeah. So is this from 01? Yeah, it is.
I tell my wife, I can always remember our first date
because it was the day that the Dale Earnhardt died.
Oh, on that Sunday. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I remember. So you know that.
There's pictures in there, too.
Yeah. I'm not sure my wife appreciates me because my saying is that way.
Hey, the most important thing is that you remember.
Oh, so am I supposed to identify what this is?
Oh, you can just ask me what if the pictures are if you show me.
I'm assuming that's Cape Cod. Let me see.
That is not that is up in Maine.
OK, it looks like Gilligan built it.
Yeah. Yeah. That's just like that is up on a beach.
That's the people on the beach built that.
Huh. It's a little lean to.
I'm kind of like, I just thought it was cool.
Yeah. Yeah.
I just like, OK, I'd like to hang out in that thing.
Is that your son? That is me. Oh, that's you.
That is me when I was doing imp,
which is the International Police Mountain Bike Association,
which there's a school for that.
So I'm certified.
So people don't know this, but Seattle PD.
Yeah. It was one of the first police departments to have.
You're right. Police.
I were in the 80s. Yeah.
And so they rally bikes.
Yeah. And so that course was in Spokane.
It's a one week course where when you get to that course,
take half of this room right here.
There'll be four bicycles in that. Yeah.
In that square. They're going to tell you,
you, all four of you are going to ride around in a circle in that square.
We're like, what the hell are you talking about?
How are we even going to fit in there?
But you learn how to do all these things.
You learn how to jump crates.
You learn how to go downstairs, up and stairs on bikes, all the trials.
Writing. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
And I learned how to do it all.
Well, that was it. That was that school out in Spokane.
Nice. There's a Fox body Mustang GT from about.
That is my very first Fox body.
That's a 1990, 1990 Mustang GT.
Yeah. Yeah.
Definitely remember that.
Yeah. That was one of my nice ones.
Wow. And that was my.
So that's me and my son right there.
And people were like, hey, you look like that guy.
Like, really? What guy is it now?
So Dana White.
Oh, yeah.
That's what I tell you, you look like.
So Dana White.
I get the Dana White.
I get the Joe Rogan.
I've had lots of others, depending on how old I am or what my weight is.
But I used to get that.
I used to get that before I was in law enforcement.
I'd be get that like, hey, you looked like that guy.
I mean, literally, I was in Santa Rosa Mall one time.
Yeah. You know, my girl from walking through the mall
and this guy obviously was a convict.
I wasn't even in my law enforcement at the time.
Yeah. And this guy says, I'm so-and-so.
He thinks I'm this officer.
Next thing you know, we're in the lingerie department.
Laundry is flying up and down through the end.
I said, hey, call a call security, call law enforcement.
This guy's getting a fight with me.
He thinks I put him in jail.
And we're rolling around in the lingerie department
because I looked like that guy.
I wasn't that guy.
Geez. Wow.
That's yeah. Yeah, it's crazy.
I know. It's crazy.
People out there, man. Yeah.
Yeah. I don't want to be misidentified.
There's a 96 through 98 Mustang GT.
That's the 96 you can't see in that color.
That's the mystic. Oh, my God.
Yeah, I remember that. Change his colors.
That was the first.
Those were the first cars that had that, yeah.
Color changing pain, a chameleon.
1996 mystic cobra and a man.
You did have a ton of Mustangs.
What the hell?
That's just a few pictures I grabbed.
Yeah. There's a nice LX notch back.
Yeah. That's the notch box.
You know, it's funny about that car.
That car, it's Calypso.
Yeah. Color.
That's a 92.
That car was actually here in Washington.
That car was used as a
for an insurance fraud investigation car undercover
for state of Washington.
Oh, oh, so it's a police Mustang?
Well, it is actually so it's an SSP,
which is a police car. Yeah, yeah.
But you tell me what color that.
How's that going to be an undercover car?
That color.
Well, you would.
You wouldn't expect that's a police car.
Exactly. I mean, the wheels aren't the original wheels on it.
There was a there was a strange era in the early 90s.
Yeah, they had this.
They had that that that pinkish color.
You could even get a Ford F-150 in that.
It was a raspberry like like frosted raspberry color.
Yeah, there's some rare colors on the on the on some cars,
like for Ford, especially. Yeah.
They had a tangerine for a for a Mustang.
Yeah. And they had there was another color, too,
which was really rare.
What the hell, man?
You're like you're like Mr. Fox body here.
It looks like about an eighty seven, eighty eight.
It's the same body style.
So basically eighty seven to ninety three, but that one's a ninety two.
Ninety two. OK.
I bought that in Shelton.
Ah, I bought that off a couple in Shelton that bought it brand new.
That is that even had, remember,
Pioneer Supertuners.
Oh, Pioneer. Yeah.
The little one with the round gauges in the cassette.
Oh, OK. He stick underneath the dash.
That had that in it.
Still had the the TRX box speakers for Pioneer in the back seats.
I should have kept those, man.
So such that you're a I know.
I love super tuners, man, since I was a kid.
And they look like weld wheels here on a.
Yeah, that's my box body.
That's my seven up convertible.
They made forty one hundred of those.
And that was my race version of that one.
So what's it looks lowered?
Oh, it's lowered. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
It's not low. It's not slow.
But it has a better stance.
And I took that car to the driving right there up and so that right there,
that would be my so when I was doing
certain things in the military back when I first got in. Yeah.
So at the time, JBLM used to be a logistics.
So what happened was when I was in there in the 80s,
they used to took all the new military gear,
anything from clothing to vehicles like that.
Well, I was in a special unit and I was actually an instructor for that course.
That's looking like it's camouflage right there.
I was going to say, is that some sort of like that's out in the woods out in South
Rainier? What's like a goonie suit?
What's the? Oh, a ghillie suit.
Ghillie suit. Yeah.
So the vehicle, it's a fav.
Is that what this is supposed to be?
It's a fast attack vehicle.
So on there, you can see there's a 50 cal.
Oh, my God. Yeah.
And yeah. So it's like this was the bad area to do that.
So you ever see the movie and you might not have it.
What is it called? Mega Force.
Oh, yeah. Chuck Norris. Yeah.
So this was before those actually came out for real.
OK, so they saw the movie and they said, hey, you know what,
we need to make vehicles like that.
So I was taught by the instructors of Baja, California,
how to drive those things.
We used to be out in Yakima,
and that's where the test training those vehicles at.
But what is this based on?
It looks like a VW.
Oh, it is. Yeah.
So it's, yeah, it's it's basically a cold.
Yep. Off-road vehicle.
It's a twin carburetor.
Yeah, like sandrail. Yeah.
It's got twin carburetor VW engine with five speed transmission.
Actually, it's four speed.
A lot of guys couldn't drive manuals back then.
But either way, even then.
Yeah, that's a lot of guys.
And they never drove manual transmission before,
but they were those were vehicles were set up at the time.
Race vehicles and they were valued at the time about $25,000,
not counting the military equipment on them.
Yeah, because you're putting it well over, you know,
$250,000 worth of weapons on those. Wow.
We had tank weapons on those to shoot down tanks.
But what happened was is there's a unit down in California,
Fort Irwin, which is National Training Center.
They have an OP for which is opposing forces.
So go back into the 80s.
Well, what happened was is this unit had never been beaten before
because they take on the Russian atmosphere.
And that's what we train against at the time.
So you go out there and they have every type of weapon and vehicle,
everything else because you're playing war games down there.
Well, we went down there with those vehicles.
They had never been lit up so fast and taken out
and they had no way to keep up with those
because they were they were so phenomenal.
Like you go up, you get to the edge of a ridge hilltop.
You stand up and you can see over down where we look at.
They can't see you. You fire down on them.
Next thing you do, I drop the e-brake on and put it in reverse.
We take off or somewhere else
because they go those things would go, you know, 100 miles an hour.
I'm the last guy you'd want out in a battlefield.
I'll tell you what, it was fun.
It was all infantry tactics and those things,
but it was a fun vehicle to do and some memorable stuff with those vehicles.
The other thing was an autograph from Lynn Sorensen.
He's from the band Bad Company.
Yeah, they was at a car show up in Renton. Oh, no kidding.
So he's the base player that used to play for the original in bad company.
They've gone through numerous, you know, health issues and this and that.
Yeah, he's still in the area.
So he plays a lot of clubs up in Tacoma.
And so the lady that ran the car show, real wonderful woman, she gave that to me.
She goes, here's the signature one.
I'm like, but I was like, you know what?
Sooner or later, I'll send it to one of my viewers or something.
And then, of course, you know, we have
the South Squatch Bigfoot Betty right there.
She's she's of course, it is cancer survivor month right now for breast cancer.
She does. She's a breast cancer survivor herself.
And so she does this year round. Oh, that's cool.
And so she does a big four wheel drive and a Jeep thing.
And so they do their own cars of things off-roading.
And oh, man, this sounds super familiar.
Yeah. And she does it.
And you can have that car too. You can keep that when I got more.
Oh, no kidding. What she does is like they will go to someone
that they can't go to the appointments. Yeah.
So they'll provide hospice for the people.
They will help take them to appointments.
She will also do like, like, say, you know, do like a event for them.
Yeah. Four wheel drive event or just have a bunch of Jeeps come by her house
on a Sunday morning or something like that.
She would put these programs. She does. That's what she does.
You've got to have little ducks in the window though, right?
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
If you've been ducked, I didn't know what that was until everybody's telling me,
like, why the hell is it a duck?
I find the Google that after I like saw it.
Yeah. So it's like, if you see somebody with a Jeep and you've been ducked
and you take these little rubber ducks and you stick them on their vehicle.
So if you want to really be a rebel, you don't have any ducks in the window.
Is that I died?
You don't have to have them in the window.
I mean, it's just kind of a duck thing. So people collect them.
I've got like five ducks.
So what are Bronco people put in their windows?
I don't know. Maybe a little horses.
They'll put some horseshoes on there.
We'll figure something out.
Bacon strips of bacon.
Yeah. Don't give me any ideas.
Oh, no, they can't keep up. Yeah.
But yeah, I got nothing.
You got nothing. I got nothing.
Well, I guess that's what we're going to end this today.
Yeah. Tonight, I should say.
Yeah. And it's good to get to know you better.
Yes, sir. I appreciate you.
And I appreciate you having me on here.
Yeah. And I'm I'm glad you're not using your crisis intervention skills on me.
Are you OK? How much more makes you all right?
Well, I know you you talk people off the ledge.
Now, never talk.
I've talked some other situations, but not off of the ledge.
Fortunately, not off a ledge. Not yet.
Hopefully, you have to go out on if they were if there was a ledger.
Would you have to walk out on it?
That's up to you if you want to deal with.
You want to try. I mean, it's, you know,
it comes down to individualism at that point.
Well, you know, with a lot of things with people, you know, and mental health.
With that dulcetone voice, I think you could walk anybody off the ledge.
I mean, I've talked to a lot of people into certain things like, hey, you know,
there's a better way. Yeah.
You know, it's nothing could be this bad.
No. And unfortunately, some people don't have any other way to see that, you know,
and depression, yeah, and bipolar and things
that go on in these world with people these days.
And sometimes I personally think they overmedicate people.
Yeah. It's just easier to do it that way.
Well, one of my favorite phrases is flawed, fallen and forgiven.
You know, it's funny.
You reach well over halfway point in your life.
You realize you'll never be perfect.
You'll always be flawed.
And it's nice to know that they were forgiven.
So, yeah.
Yeah. You have to be.
You have to be a people person.
You know, it can't be all about you.
I mean, most people, it is about them, but, you know,
when it comes to everyday life or like what, you know,
things I've chosen to do, um, you have to really care about people.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm task oriented.
Not people are needed, but I like people.
I can't.
I can't. I look at it like this always.
I said, I'm nobody to judge anybody.
There's only one person judges everybody.
I said, I'm, I'm just, you know, I just try to help people out
and do the best I can do, you know, and hopefully that's enough
sometimes for what goes on.
You fight traffic to get here and that's helping me.
So.
That's OK.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, man.
This wonderful setup and this beautiful home
that you have here and well, you can have, you can affect my wife.
Hey, folks, please give us some topic ideas.
We're going to be, like I said, we're going to be changing
the show up a little bit.
We can be reached at cars, the podcast at gmail.com.
And signing out for this week, Don Swear.
I'm Joe Black and I appreciate you all.
Thank you.
About this episode
Loud V8 drag boats spark a lively debate about automotive tastes and preferences, while the hosts share humorous anecdotes about their past car experiences. From discussing the merits of different automotive events to reminiscing about their favorite cars, the conversation dives deep into the world of classic and modern vehicles. Listeners will enjoy the banter between the hosts as they explore the nuances of car culture, including the impact of AI in the automotive industry and the importance of personal connections to cars.