Mike Houck aka @fouckhest
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Term
all wheel drive
All wheel drive means the car sends power to all four wheels at the same time. This helps the car grip the road better, especially when it's wet or slippery.
Term
TDI
TDI is a type of diesel engine made by Volkswagen that uses a turbocharger and sprays fuel directly into the engine to make it run better and use less gas.
Term
turbo 16 valve
A turbo 16 valve engine is a type of car engine that uses a turbocharger to push more air into the engine and has 16 valves to help the engine breathe better. This makes the car more powerful and faster.
Car
Volkswagen Mark 4
The Volkswagen Mark 4 is a model of the Golf car made between 1997 and 2003. Many people like to use it for everyday driving and also like to customize it.
Car
Volkswagen Mark 1
The Volkswagen Mark 1 is the very first version of the Golf car made in the 1970s and early 1980s. It's special because it started the Golf family and is loved for its simple and classic look.
Car
Volkswagen Mark 2
The Volkswagen Mark 2 is the second version of the Golf car made in the 1980s and early 1990s. It is better in safety and performance compared to the first version and many people still like it.
Car
Volkswagen Mark Four TDI wagon
This is a Volkswagen car from the early 2000s that has a diesel engine and a wagon shape. People like it because it lasts a long time and is good on gas.
Car
Chevrolet Camaro
The Chevrolet Camaro is a sporty car made by Chevrolet that has been popular since the 1960s. It is known for being fast and having a strong engine. Many people like it because it looks cool and is fun to drive.
Concept
four by four
A four by four vehicle can send power to all four wheels at the same time, which helps it drive better on slippery or rough roads.
Term
lifted four inches
Lifting a truck means making it sit higher off the ground so it can drive over rocks and rough ground better.
Car
Chevrolet Silverado
The Chevrolet Silverado is a big truck made by Chevrolet that people use for carrying heavy things or driving off-road. The older models from the 1980s have a boxy shape and are very strong. Many people like to make them taller and put bigger wheels on them.
Term
35s
35s means the tires are 35 inches tall, bigger than normal tires, which helps trucks drive better on rough ground.
Term
273 gears
Gears in a truck help control how fast or strong the truck goes. A 2.73 gear means the truck is set up to go faster with less fuel but might not pull heavy loads as well.
Term
four barrels
A four barrel is a part that helps the engine get more fuel and air, making the truck go faster but use more gas.
Part
airbags
Airbags are special parts that help a truck change how high it sits by pumping air in and out. This helps the truck ride smoother or look cooler.
Car
Volkswagen Gtis
The Volkswagen Golf is a small car made by Volkswagen that has a hatchback design, meaning the back opens up like a door. It is easy to drive and good for everyday use. Some versions are made to be sportier and faster.
Car
Chevrolet S-10
The Chevrolet S-10 is a small pickup truck that people often use for everyday driving or customize to look cool by lowering it closer to the ground.
Term
slammed
When a car is 'slammed', it means it has been made to sit much lower to the ground, usually to look cooler or handle better.
Car
Volkswagen Jetta
The Volkswagen Jetta Mk3 is a small sedan from the 1990s that was practical and had some sporty features.
Car
Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk3
The Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk3 is a sportier version of the Golf from the 1990s that was fun to drive and had a turbocharged engine.
Term
20 valve turbo
A '20 valve turbo' engine has more valves than usual and uses a turbocharger to make the car more powerful.
Concept
VW Vortex
VW Vortex is a website where people who like Volkswagen cars talk to each other and share tips or stories.
Car
Acura Integra
The Acura Integra is a small sporty car made by Acura. It is known for being fun to drive and reliable. Many people like it because it is easy to fix and can be made faster with upgrades.
Car
Ford Ranger
The Ford Ranger is a small truck made by Ford that is good for carrying things and driving around town. The older models have a boxy shape and are easy to fix. Many people buy them because they are simple and last a long time.
Car
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Beetle is a small, round car made by Volkswagen that has been popular for many years. It is easy to recognize because of its special shape. Many people like it because it is simple and fun to drive.
Car
Nissan R32
The Nissan Skyline is a fast sports car made by Nissan. It is famous for being strong and good for racing. Many people like to change parts on it to make it even faster.
Concept
daily driver
A daily driver is the car you use every day to get around, like going to work or running errands.
Term
fenders
Fenders are the parts of the car that sit above the wheels and keep dirt and rocks from hitting the car or people.
Term
OEM
OEM means parts that come from the company that made your car originally, so they fit well and work like they should.
Car
Audi S3
The Audi S3 is a small sporty car made by Audi. It is faster and more powerful than regular cars and has a comfortable inside. People like it because it is good for both driving fast and daily use.
Company
Malone tuning
Malone tuning is a company that helps make car engines work better by changing the computer settings.
Term
Vagcom
Vagcom is a computer program that helps check and fix problems in Volkswagen and Audi cars.
Term
tune
A tune is changing the car's computer to make the engine run better or faster, especially after adding new parts.
Term
pressure ratio
Pressure ratio is how much the turbo pushes air into the engine compared to normal air pressure. Controlling it helps the engine run safely and powerfully.
Concept
compound turbo
Compound turbo means using two turbos together to help the engine get more power at both low and high speeds.
Brand
Caterpillar
Caterpillar is a company that makes big engines and machines like fire trucks and construction equipment.
Car
BMW 550S
The BMW 5 Series is a comfortable and fancy car made by BMW. It is good for driving fast and feeling relaxed inside. Some people add parts to make it even more powerful.
Concept
one-trick pony
One-trick pony means a car that is really good at one thing but not good for other uses.
Term
VR6 engine
A VR6 engine is a type of engine made by Volkswagen that has six cylinders arranged in a special way to fit in smaller cars but still give good power.
Company
OZ
OZ is a company that makes special wheels for cars that are strong and look cool, often used on race cars and sporty cars.
LIVE
Oh, everybody, what is up? Welcome to the people's car podcast.
My name is Ryan Bealman and sitting right next to me is Danny Mercado. What's up, man?
So I am very excited for everyone to hear.
I just want to pronounce his name correctly. Mike Howe.
Yeah. Mike Howe.
He is Falcest on Instagram.
And a lot of people know him from a lot of cars that he's built, particularly
the wide body Mark four that has gone through a number of iterations.
It was a 1a turbo, then it was all wheel drive.
Then it was they were fucking around with compound turbo TDI stuff.
And that car was flat black at one point.
Then it was blue was on the image wheels.
And you know the car if you're a Mark four person for sure.
That was that was like the one of the pinnacles for me of like the time
where everything was just so good.
The Mark ones were cool.
The Mark twos are cool.
Like Mark fours are still kind of new and fucking awesome.
And everyone was doing all kinds of cool shit.
And Mike really tells some like inspiring stories.
If you're from around that time period.
Oh, definitely make you want to go out and build another one.
That's for sure. I thought it was a great interview.
Yeah, for like Mark four.
It's funny because like you look at like how they have like the stigma
of the Mark news back then. Right.
And as they got older, they just got like more appreciated
because of how great of a car it was.
Oh, 100 percent.
Because like now you can say about the new cars like these, you know,
Mark six, seven, eight, whatever, they're all kind of like the same.
But the Mark four was such a different car from the Mark three.
Yes. And to have someone take it to the levels
that he took it kind of, you know, at that time period,
doing things that nobody else did and kind of being the first on certain things.
It's it's it's cool to kind of go back and just like
have like a nostalgic kind of trip down memory lane
because like the stuff you saw, you know, when you're at H2O
or if you're at, you know, going on early days of solo or stuff like that,
which is really cool.
Yeah, definitely.
Um, we're getting some of these.
What are they called? Indian summers?
Yes. So it is warming up.
We had a big spring.
Yeah, we had a few really great days.
And that gets me excited for some of the upcoming shows.
Finally, this has been a fucking brutal winter and I can't wait to get out of it.
New England dust off, dude.
Yeah, dust off is coming up. It's coming up.
So New England dust off is Sunday, April 26th.
Yes. And it's like, we're looking at the, you know, time period of things.
Like, oh, it's March, dude, we're almost to be in mid March here,
which means like April is around the corner.
So like you're going to have cookies in the woods coming up.
So it's like it's going to be like hitting us quick.
So like if you're looking to get a car out,
definitely get get wrenching on it because it's going to come up quick on us.
And we're going to be in the show season again, which is exciting.
It's very exciting.
And I can say this in confidence
because we have the right people that listen to this podcast.
I'm very excited for Helen once again happening.
We don't have any BMW douches listening to us.
So we can all be excited together.
And yeah, just Paul, thank you again for doing what you do and your crew.
And I know there's so much going on right now.
His head's probably spinning.
So many decisions to be made.
And, you know, he does it all for everybody to go out there
and have one of the best shows of the whole year.
So exactly. If you know, you know.
So like if you know, you know, if you know, you know,
get your stuff submitted that you need to get submitted.
If you're going to be bringing a car down
because you have to go through the process of getting everyone approved
and you're going to throw them a little cash for so they can keep this thing going
because, you know, everything it revolves around
making sure that all our T's are crossed and eyes are dotted with Helen.
So it's going to be fun.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
100 percent.
What else is going on with you before we get into the interview?
So because we have like this fake spring going on and stuff,
the weather hasn't been too bad.
And we actually we were on the fence about going to the CT Hot Dog 500
because we weren't sure if we're going to be able to swing it.
If we had some other stuff going on, right?
And my son does.
We have him doing baseball right now.
So he does clinics on a weekend before the season starts.
Sure. And we had a clinic on Saturday and it wanted getting canceled.
So we were like, you know what, let's go to do the Hot Dog 500.
And Kudos shout out to everyone I put that together.
It was a blast.
It was a lot of fun to do things, you know, other than like car stuff,
car related things with people, you know.
Yeah, that we always do usually just see around the show season.
So it was a lot of fun.
There is a lot of hot dog joints that like
you would never think that would be a place to stop and have some really good
hot dogs. I bet. But it was cool.
It was a lot of fun. Nice.
And, you know, it's cool because like
looking back at like even our area,
there's really not a lot of hot dog places that are just hot.
We have one place that's in next town over.
Right. And it's kind of it. Yeah.
So it's like it's actually, you know,
while you make a lot of money, some hot dogs in in this area in the summertime.
You probably could.
But now that was fun.
We also were so coming up this Saturday
is going to be its Pizza Hut cruise.
So Tony Grimo has put together this cruise.
So it's going to be leaving from like the Tannersville area, basically,
and shooting up to Tunkanic, which is about an hour.
So like in our general area, it's going to be
going up to one of the pizza classics in Tunkanic.
So in the weather, I think the weather is supposed
to be still kind of decent this weekend.
So with, you know, weather permitting, this should be a fun time
just to get out, rip up some halfway decent roads
and then like, you know, eat some pizza hut.
That's crazy.
And that's like one of the last few classics around, right?
Yeah. So we go to that Pizza Hut classic in Tunkanic
because we happen to get our Christmas tree up from that area.
Right. So we've we've known about it.
And it's cool that, you know, so the Grimo's went there, you know,
a few weeks ago and experiences, so which is cool.
Now that's not going to have a little cruise
to kind of start off the season, so to speak.
You know, even though it's still fake spring, right?
But, you know, crews are coming around around the corner.
And actually, you know, we're going to be into shows in here.
So nice.
One thing I wanted to touch base on a couple of builds
that are more memorable builds, noticeable builds.
So pay attention to keep an eye on for this upcoming show season.
And it's funny because we had a question from Mark James
and like you kind of just go blank when you kind of get put on a spot sometimes.
But Ian Frisch is Mark One. That's getting built.
I think Josh formerly of Nothing Leaves Stock also has a hand in this as well.
Yeah.
And we kind of touched base on this car before in the past.
But this car. Oh, I love myself a white Mark One.
I know you do. And that's the thing.
Like this is like up your alley, checks all the boxes.
It has a fantastic interior.
That's it's kind of California inspired.
This is me a car to see coming out of plaid seeds.
Yes, the red interior, the red stripes on the white car.
Yes, that that car like basically sat like that raw for many years for a while.
Now it's being completely redone.
Isn't it a turbo 16 valve?
I believe so. Yeah.
I mean, that that's a great car.
Yeah, this is going to be a really nice car to see when it comes out.
100 percent.
It's been being built for years.
Yeah. It's like up in Maine, right?
Yeah, up in that area, which I think that's actually where Josh is too.
Yeah, it kind of works out.
Yeah, very, very cool.
Yeah. So there's another one
that's been being that's being built currently also another Mark One, too.
It's more of like a track inspired car, bird cup car.
But being done like correctly.
Oh, yeah, it's got like forced depression system and everything.
I don't know how to say exactly the last thing, but it's Joe Zewoo.
I think it is ZEE UW on Instagram.
Like what impressed me about this build, like following it
is he custom made his own valve cover and he doesn't have a CNC mill.
He doesn't, you know, have like any way to do any of this, like, you know,
how you would normally produce a valve cover.
So he wound up just welding, you know, pieces of aluminum together
and shaping it to be a valve cover.
And it's just sick.
It's like it's such a cool piece on the car.
So this car, you know, I saw that the other day
and I was like, wow, that's that's wild.
Yeah. So he just like we're already silver, right?
Yeah. So like we're like
searching the interwebs for like these like rare valve covers.
And here he is just making his own, which is like sick.
So that's going to be another cool build to see come out.
That should be probably out this this season, I'm assuming.
So for sure.
So great to shout outs.
Yeah. And yeah.
So hope everybody loves this interview just as much as Danny and I did.
But we are moving on to Mike Howe.
Thanks, man, for coming out and, you know, being with us for the podcast.
But now on to Mike Howe.
Oh, Mike, what's up, man?
Ryan, how's it going, dude?
Good. We just want to say thank you for joining us on the People's Car podcast, man.
Glad you can make it.
Danny's here as well.
Hey, what's up, man?
How you doing, Danny?
Appreciate you guys.
Invite me on for tonight.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
So just like we always do, actually, this is going to be slightly different
because we don't usually do too much Mark Four content,
although even Danny and I are definitely Mark Four people.
That's for sure.
I think everybody is a closet Mark Four guy.
Their favorite daily driver that they don't want to talk about.
100 percent.
And unfortunately, some of the Mark Fours you see nowadays
is when you're talking daily driver are a little questionable.
You know what I mean?
That's true, right?
Especially towards us up here in the Northeast.
You know, it's funny that you said that because I remember there's one dude
and he was like this like cortical hardcore kind of dude that was like Mark One
all the way, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then like the first time I saw him, I like his house.
He had a Mark Four daily.
And this is like years ago and it was like he was a closet Mark Four guy.
Oh, I mean, so I've got two good buddies down here.
Both of them have old buying of Mark Two's.
One of them has a Gulf country as well.
And both of them have had Mark Four TDI wagon daily drivers for, you know,
forever now at this point, because they just keep going.
Absolutely. Yeah.
So, Mike, let's let's talk about some of the beginning times
of how you really got into cars before we kind of crack this whole thing off.
What got you into cars initially?
I mean, if you want to go back to whatever, you know, my dad was a,
you know, 70s hot rod guy that had, you know, chamelles and Camaro's.
So I always grew up as a old school American muscle car guy, you know,
his old 69 Camaro sat my grandparents, you know, garage barn,
whatever you want to call it and used to go out there as a kid.
Like one day that's going to be my my first car, but it was a, you know,
Western New York car. So I mean, it was a Swiss cheese is what you guys
are used to. Yeah. So, so then like, you know, you go fast forward.
It's like, okay, that ship sailed, started looking at stuff.
I grew up in Southeast Ohio.
So I think basically Ohio, West Virginia border at that point in time was
into like racing quads and stuff. And was, you know, I'm like, I want to,
I want a four by four pickup truck.
So my first truck was an 83 Chevy square body.
Nice. Silverado lifted four inches, 35s.
You know, just good old cruiser four by four.
What was the color combo on that dark brown on tan?
Nice. Yeah. Yeah.
It was, it was sick.
You talk about a car like, and I think I sold that thing in 1997 for 6,500 bucks.
And it's like, shit, that'd probably be, you know, it was,
it was cleaner than my dad's 1994 Silverado when I got it.
And he had had his truck for, you know, two or three years at that point.
And because the Ohio roads had destroyed it, that truck came from Texas,
had 273 gears in it and, you know, regeared it.
And it was, it was a freaking tank, but it's 17, 16, 17, you know,
put your foot down and you know, the four barrels kick in and that thing's just sucking gas.
So it's like, you know, you grow up a little bit, you know, in that time.
And it was, you know, I had some friends that were into low riders.
So pivoted very quickly from an 83 Chevy lifted truck to a 94 S 10,
which was the first year of the new body style.
And immediately, you know, slammed that thing like four or five did spindles
and springs up front blocks in the back.
That thing beat the shit out of you.
So then it was like, all right, airbags, ladder bars, the whole deal.
Was that, was that a four cylinder or two or a four cylinder or six cylinder?
2.2 liter four cylinder ring that thing's neck, you know,
riding back roads, throwing it sideways.
It was, it was a great little pickup truck.
Dude, I always wanted to get into that body style S 10 back in the day and slam one.
I never was able to at that.
At the time I had this family friend who was getting rid of one and just a manual one.
It was like dark green and he was, he was getting rid of one.
I just wanted that in the worst way.
I just couldn't make the financial move at that point because, you know,
I'm like 16 or 17 and I forget he wanted at the time like 9,500.
And I was just like, dude, there's no way I can handle it.
You know, right?
Yeah.
But that sounds awesome.
What color was that truck?
Bahama blue.
Okay.
That's cool.
Nice.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it was, you know, that, and that truck served me well all the way through college until,
you know, and that, that was where, you know, if you want to segue into, you know,
that was the, the truck that when I was, when I was in college, I, I water skied
competitively and, you know, I had some buddies that were into volts wagons that were on the ski team.
Both of those guys had mark three GTIs.
One of them was a red two leader.
He had, you know, new speed springs, sway bars, the P flow, the chip, you know,
melee miglia wheels on it.
Like it was, it was like quit essentials.
You could roll up to hot import nights and that thing or no fee and just be like the Euro guy.
Right.
So, and that's, so at this time you're, so you're, you're rocking your S 10,
your slammed S 10 and you're going to college and now your buddies have a couple of mark threes
is what you're saying.
Yep.
Yep.
So that, that kind of cracked the, actually there was a guy, if I, the, the, the first guy
that I ever drove a volts wagon was a, a mark three Jetta than a high school buddy of mine
that used to just kind of float around and couch surf in college.
He got that car and I drove it and I'm like, holy cow, this two leader volts wagon will
spank the living daylights out of my S 10 in a straight line.
Like this is kind of cool.
But, you know, so then we would go out back road and you know, the, you know, the, the
water ski guys with the GTI since like I'm doing everything I can to keep up with them
in the S 10, you know, just like, oh, you know, my, my S 10 is cool.
We know I'm going to outrun you guys.
But, uh, yeah, that, that planted the seed and that led right into about my senior year.
And it was like, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to go find a way to buy a car.
And, um, that, that led into the, I bought my, what became the wide body car basically as I
was graduating from college to be my, like, all right, this was going to be my next 10 year car
basically to be my daily driver when I get my real big boy job and all that fun stuff.
Okay. So this was more of a practical car in a sense almost, or was it like, did you have the
kind of the foresight where you weren't going to leave this stock?
It sounds like you don't really leave anything stock already at this point in your life.
No, so I don't know how old you guys are, but I'll see if I can date you.
This was like vortex wasn't even on my radar. I was a 20 valve turbo guy.
You know, that was the website you went to, you know, trying to figure out how you clamp
the freaking map sensor you throw, you know, a four bar fuel pressure regulator in there.
You manual boost control this thing and you crank it up and you go out until it pops and
then you turn it back a half a turn and, and that's how you tuned it. How old are you?
I will be 46 next month. Okay. Okay. A couple of years older than us. Yeah. So what are you,
44? Yeah, I'm 44. I'm 42 and like next week, a week after. So yeah, that's cool. So
right in that same, same ballpark. Yep. So, um, so let's talk about, I guess,
a lot of people know you for the car you're speaking of or what it eventually turns into.
What was that in stock form that car? It was a reflex silver GTI 185 speed.
Okay. You know, had the, you know, the kind of cool, like I don't remember if they were
actually made by Rekaro, but you know, the, had that, you know, almost looked like the same inserts.
I mean, they're kind of the seats that everybody wants to get to replace the cloths and all that
kind of stuff. Right. You know, super cool little car. It was fun, you know, through college, like
the last, you know, year of college when I had the car did three inch downpipe, three inch exhaust
from ATP, you know, GI AC chip manual boost controller. You know, once, you know, you
started, you know, there were ways to make money on the side and college that, you know,
helped, helped fund some of those modifications. And yeah, it was a, it was a fun little car.
And, you know, fast forward graduated from college and got a real job. I moved to Charleston,
South Carolina to, you know, chase my, my water ski dream of, you know, could I,
could I ever be really good at this? And, you know, still kind of played with the car a little bit
there. Ended up, it wore a full Oddinger body kit for a little bit, you know, had a carbon fiber
hood on it. And then, you know, that was probably, you know, getting the real job and going, going
into work and being able to sit at, you know, 5 36 o'clock in the morning and serve the vortex
classifies and, you know, for forum was like, you know, it was just a revolving door at that
point in time. Yeah, you couldn't be like on a page, like you post something on that and it's
like four or five pages deep and within a couple hours. Oh my gosh. It was hilarious, you know,
and now nothing on the vortex even moves. It's nuts. So let's, let's kind of like get, like wrap
our listeners into that timeframe, right? So you have the, you have the car. Now it's like,
it's got a body kit. You have some modifications to it. Your classic, like mark for kind of like
era, you have a big boy job at this point. So then you're going in and you're basically
just wasting all your time on VW vortex, just like everybody else was because it was just
the absolute best. What kind of scene was around where you were? Were you hanging out with other
guys? Like give us that kind of aspect of your life at that point. Yeah. I mean, they're, they're,
and again, it's weird, right? There was a little, a little group that was around
Charleston. They called themselves drunk dubs and like, you know, they kind of were,
I don't know, there were a couple of the guys that I got around, got along with. There were a
couple of guys that were kind of goovers in my opinion. And, you know, I actually hung out more
with some dudes that were like hot rod or low rider guys that, that still to this day run a
club down there called done to perfection. And like they've been around for, I mean, that was 20
years ago that I was hanging out with those guys, but like, you know, I'd go to wing night with
them and you know, I was the Euro guy and there would be, you know, everything from a laid out
pickup truck to a big Cadillac to, you know, the muscle car kind of stuff. Like they were just
an eclectic group of guys that, you know, old school, no P whatever. Like actually one of the
guys that ran with that crowd is still around and he's got a horrible at the Integra. I think
a DC Integra, like the older ones around headlights and it's full Mugen, Mugen everything. Like he
did, he did that car to the nines. Like he has to have so much money and it's ridiculous. But,
you know, that my involvement with cars would end up being more with them because the Volkswagen
guys weren't really doing anything cool. You know, there was one guy that had a Jetta and I
remember like, you know, I had the GI AC chip and he had the Revo chip. So it's like, you know,
he and I were the ones that, you know, we'd actually go out on the highway and do highway
pulls, you know, after we would have little get-togethers and stuff because we were in to
going fast and that kind of stuff and everybody else was just, you know, they weren't as into it.
You know, it was kind of a weird mix of a crowd. That is really weird. You got to put me in your
mindset almost like you're coming from, you're basically like a GM guy when you're growing up
and then you're hanging, you're doing this truck thing and then you get a slam mini truck and
stuff and then you move over to the Euro thing and then you move down south and then you start,
even though you have like this cool Euro car, you're hanging out with the old hot rod heads and
stuff. And how does that not make you want to pick up something else and throw like, you know,
some kind of blower on a 350 or something? I don't know. Yeah, and you're right, you know, and it was
one of those things that the guys were all super cool and kind of, you know, it was, it quickly
escalated, but almost by a chance that in my, where my house was, I ended up there at somebody
at the end of the road had a little square body Ford Ranger that they had a for sale sign on.
It was like 500 bucks. And I'm like, I stopped one day and I look at it and they're like,
yeah, just stopped running one day. And I'm like, I think these things, like their non-interference,
whatever. So legit gave them, I think 400 bucks for it just because I'm like, well,
I don't know what's going on. How about you cut me a deal and buddy of mine and I towed it down the
street back to my house, put a timing belt on it. The thing fired right up. So it was like, oh,
now I have a daily driver. And, you know, at that point, like I was trying to figure out whether I
wanted my car to kind of be a show car or a go fast car or a little bit of both. And it was great
when like, you know, old school, worthy stuff was popping up, right? So you had like, there was a guy
up like the Pacific Northwest scene was really popping hard too, right? You had like Wyman's
car was kind of being built. The Capita guy, Winslow's car was being built and they were all
doing, you know, more poking stretch than a boner and sweatpants, right? So, you know, I go to
freaking, you know, Eastwood and I buy the fender roller and a set of hammer and dollies from Harbor
Freight. And I'm like, man, I'm going to do this, you know, I'm going to make the, you know, the
cool smooth fender thing. So the car went in my garage and like I start going to town and
like, honestly, like I, the car had had a set of new Beetle steelies on it. And when I started
doing that, I'm like, I'm going to band a set of steelies. I think that would be a cool look for
kind of like a crossover, like a little bit of hot rod run a little bit of stretch, but a, you
know, wide. So Bill, I think a set of like eight and nine steelies, you know, sent them out, had
them banded and started building the wide body around that. And then kind of realized that I
got a little out of control and the fenders went a little bit too wide. And I'm like, oh man, this
is, this is extreme and I had got into the quarter. So I kind of, all of a sudden had to pivot and
it was like, now I'm going to have to do the real wide body thing. And bought another set of fenders.
I actually, I'm trying to remember what the place was down in Florida. There was a scrap yard that
was like super sketchy, but called these guys and they legit cut the set of quarters out of an R32
that had been wrecked. So I got like the outer end of the quarters, got those sent up to me and
started grafting that in. And you know, that, that was kind of the start of the pivot from,
you know, I got too deep of what I was thinking I was going to do in a few weekends in the garage
and build like a, you know, a whole, you know, kind of just that whole worthy vibe of a car,
right? It's not just a, it's, it's the fenders that are shaved so you can run the stretch and
slammed and then you shave the bay and then you do big turbo and then you do like a cool subset
up in the back of it as well. And it's like the car doesn't really make any sense because it's all
of the things. Right. And then, you know, kind of a pivot in between all of that going on.
The company I worked for got a little shaky. I had some friends move to the upstate of South
Carolina, which is where I ended up moving. And then, you know, the waterski thing kind of stopped
because it wasn't as convenient as it was where I lived in Charleston because I basically lived
on a waterski lake where you did tournaments and stuff. So it's like, you know,
you live on a golf course and you can play golf four days a week. It's great. But when you have
to drive an hour and a half to play around the golf, it's not as fun. A little bit different.
Yeah. You know, it's funny you said about that, uh, that salvage yard down in Florida,
because they were doing a bunch of like 20s, GLIs, R32s. And like it's funny to just send
us a flashback because I think I've got parts from them once before also. And it was like
super sketching. I forget the name of that more. Yeah. It's killing me that I can't remember the
name either. Cause it was, it was like, if you, if you would have Googled them on board or like
searched them on vortex, you know, it probably would be an overwhelming, you know, screw those
guys and let you can drive there and pick stuff up. Right. Yeah. So before, before we get too far
into the, the Mark four and how you started doing it. So you were just, you were just going at this
yourself with never doing any other kind of like body modifications to a car like that. Like
were you just, just going blind and saying, you know, just, yeah, like kind of walk us through
that. I mean, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So in some of it, like it wasn't without some coaching.
So go back to the hot rod guys that I hung out with and did, you know, they called it family
dinner. Right. And most of it was there were, they would bounce between a few restaurants and
a couple of the guys that hung out with them also worked at, so the place that I worked in
Charleston was a fire truck plant. So they had some body shop guys there that were, you know,
very high end, like, you know, hot rod tour, you know, the, the mirrors under the cars,
everything's gold plated type stuff. So when I started talking to these guys about what I wanted
to do and showing them pictures, they were the ones that were like, go get a set of hammer and
dollies. That's what you're going to need to do. So like during the day, you know, well, start off,
I'm getting a little bit of a one on one, go home and start messing around, come back the next day
with some photos on my phone and like start showing them. And they're like, yeah, see how this looks
like this? This looks like this. Go get that other thing and go use the tow dolly versus the shoe
dolly or whatever they're called. You know, it's been too many years, but they're like,
this is going to make the metal do this. This is going to make the metal do that. And I'm like,
Oh, okay. So go home and start, you know, chipping away again.
No shit. That's awesome. So when you, when you realize that like you were going way too wide,
and then you realize like it kind of in a, I guess a certain way got like out of control or out of
hand or just away from you a little bit, then when like, did you, what did you think this, I mean,
it was obviously before you really had like the, I guess it wasn't like a final destination that
you had in mind. It was kind of like, we'll see how this goes, right? Yeah, it was like that,
you know, but pucker moment of like, oh man, did I just screw up my perfectly good car that, you
know, at that point in time, I'd be willing to bet that it had just over a hundred thousand miles
on it. So like, you know, it was a lot of miles for a four year old car, but, you know, my parents
were still in Ohio. I had been running up and down from South Carolina and we road tripped a
ton of that car for a year in college. And then it was my daily driver for a couple of years before
I went full into it down there. And so it was like, ooh, how do I fix this? And that was where the
well, if I buy it, like, I think I bought like, you know, some eBay fenders or something like that
for the front. And I'm like, okay, if I cut this here and put that flange back on like the OEM look,
maybe that'll get me close enough that it's like, okay, now it's going to go full race car,
track car, right? So like, maybe that's the next, the way that I kind of fix this and save it for
par, if you will. And so that that was kind of where like, okay, I got to at least make this
thing a usable car again, I'm going to kick my own ass if I just destroy a perfectly good vehicle,
because, you know, I got out of control here. So what like, let us kind of in on when it started
coming together started taking shape and you were like, oh, this is going to be good.
So when I'm when I moved up to Greenville, the car was down there for a little bit,
I'm going to say a handful of months, I was living with my one of my best buddy from college and his
wife, and like, the house was about to get rented. So I'm like, I need to figure something out. So
he let me bring the car up and put it in his garage. And I got back into it and started working on it.
And that's really when I figured out like, basically got the fender, you know, the OEM
look lip mocked back up on it. I'm like, okay, you know, you can push the car outside the driveway,
put a bumper on it, like I, you know, had bought an R32 bumper sectioned it to widen it, you know,
just, you know, you go get the backing tape for drywall, you get the blue goo that, you know,
goes in there and you start patching that together. And it's like, okay, this, this doesn't look as
bad as I think. And this is a 16 inch wheel with, you know, a 45 series tire, whatever it was,
that's got a little bit of stretch. So I'm like, if you go to a 17 or 18, this is going to look
pretty cool. Right. So that was like a, all right, I feel like this is okay.
Through at that point in time, we were still trying to water ski a little bit. And one of the guys
that we skied with actually worked at like a custom hot rod shop here. And so he put me in
touch with some guys that did interior at that shop, but then they did bodywork on one, like he
and his brother did bodywork on the side. So when I got it to that point, I was like, all right,
guys, you know, what do you think you can, can we figure this out? And I can't exactly remember,
but I feel like there were like, you know, because it was new job that I started with. And then I,
like, I worked for a company up here for like four months and got a better offer. So it took,
so like, I had stacked like two sign on bonuses that I was like, okay, you know, I've got like,
you know, 10 grand cash in the bank account. So I'm like, then take it to the professional body
guy to weld it all out. And, you know, they finished it and brought it back. And then so that
kind of rolls right into first solo, you know, my shaved Bay I had done like all the swirly
aluminum in it, which was like my touch back to the fire truck days, because we always,
they call it machine turning or engine turning. So like that was my like, you know,
bow to my boys at the fire truck plant that had helped me kind of learn a bunch of stuff.
And it was just that, you know, kind of, it was just high build primer at that point in time and
went to went to Helen, you know, and was like, ended up winning like the club choice award,
you know, it was so low at that point, right? 2009. I was like, wait a minute, how does that,
how does that happen? Like, you know, I'm just some idiot that, you know, threw this car together
in his garage. So it, you know, you all of a sudden get the bug of like, Oh, this could be cool. And
it was like, as soon as, you know, that weekend happened that I won that award was drunker than
damn it didn't even go to the award ceremony. We were out partying somewhere and I've got friends
that are like calling and like, where are you, dude? You won. I'm like, what are you talking about?
One one, like, you know, I didn't buy a raffle ticket. I don't know what you're talking about.
And then it was like the S3 magazine feature. And like, after that, it was like, you know,
you just get sucked in and realize, oh, you know, this could be fun. And it just, you know,
it just, it snowballed from there, to be honest. You know, when, so this was still like that flat
black. So that was so the guys that it no more than got done with the, but so that was May of
2009, then shot the car within a couple of weeks of that. Sam Dobbins take those pictures. No,
Ben, oh man, I'm going to feel horrible that I can't remember his name. His name's stunna ben
on, on all of his social media. Yeah. Okay. But he shot the car because he, he had shot for S3
for Jonathan Woolley, you know, for a while. So Ben shot the car and it was like, as soon as
that was done, it went back to the guys because I knew I needed to do something because it couldn't
live in high build primer. That was just like a stop gap to get it through the winters when I,
when that specific winter, when I shaved the bay, did the big turbo set up on it. And then, which
go back to your, you know, original, one of the comments about being a hot rod guy, when it was
a shaved bay, the, the engine block in the one AT was painted GM like bright orange, you know,
you know, 350 color, whatever. I think it is. Yeah. That's what I was trying to think about.
So it went back to those guys and, you know, basically it was a glass out, you know,
respray with the, you know, that's just a, the flat black is just an epoxy primer.
Okay. Because it was like, let's get it an epoxy primer, the flat things kind of cool right now,
get that done, drove to H2O that, it was that whatever, September it would have been was in
the Unitronic booth. Yeah. So bring, bring, bring like the, maybe some of the newer listeners
into the time of Mark Four's when there was this kind of weird thing that was going on where it was
like it, you know, there was the, there was like the clean quote unquote, the clean like Mark Four's
that were very, very, very like OEM plus looking very, very clean. A lot of people would walk by a
car like that and not know, you know, maybe any different if it was just like a normal, you know,
bystander or whatever. But then there was this other part of like the Mark Four scene. And I,
I think it was more prevalent in Mark Four's than kind of anything else. Or it was like
some of the flat colors were coming out. And it was like, you weren't the only one,
you may be under different circumstances, but you weren't the only one that was kind of doing
like a hot rod of theme to Mark Four's. And that kind of was like a thing for some cars.
I don't know. It was very interesting. Yeah, you're right. Like, you know,
so one of the ones that was kind of crazy way back even before I got super this deep down the
rabbit hole was, I can never remember his last name, but John, Mr. Euro down in Florida, like
that dude used to rattle can his car, you know, a different color, you know, every six months or
something. And, you know, he had flat paint. He had like a Hooters theme paint. He had like a silver
and purple, like almost camo, you know, right around the same time that I did my car, Mark P,
that was in Florida. He flat blacked his car that was called Fat Bottom Girl. Then you had,
you know, kind of an interesting mix of, well, actually then at the same time, you had Mike
Olsen up in Minnesota. So Tattoo Mike and I have been tight for years. And, you know, he did
probably one of the first like kind of performance, but very detail oriented, flat black or flat
silver car, matte silver. Yeah, yeah. Because that car was a reflex silver GTI as well. Then
you had Rudy up in and Philly ish area that he had that super nice white Cadillac, you know,
pearl white. Oh, the satin white R32 or whatever. Which it was gloss. It was a gloss.
It was almost like a cream, pearls, whatever first. And then after Mike sat in his car,
Rudy sat in his car, which that was like the blend of like OEM plus with a little bit of that flat
color in it. And then he had like fully done interior, you know, those dub Audi guys. They
didn't they didn't screw around back. Absolutely. They went hard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they didn't
that's and that crowd runs so deep. It's it's just funny, right? Like Jason Whipple, JJ Larson,
you know, those guys are some of the original ones. Craig Olstein, like, you know, Craig built a
Mark four like Werther C style back before anybody was doing it. You know, he two toned a 12 valve
GTI, you know, when no one was doing resprays, let alone a respray and two tow, you know, crazy
two piece welded wheels. Like, you know, and I think those were kind of like a hot Roddy,
you know, like mini truck almost style wheel, if I remember right. Yeah. So yeah. And then,
you know, after I had done my car, Ben Thorner up in Ohio was building his car that was just
stupid, stupid low that was hammered on the work equips, you know, crazy stretch, but just the
typical, you know, very just pull offender type thing. And that was a hot Rod flats like red
oranges color. Yeah, you know, but then to your same point, you know, that was one new kind of
style. But then I'll go back to the guys in the Pacific Pacific Northwest, right? You've got
Travi with his Oh, yeah, the 20th, 20th Wyman built the Jetta that my car ended up with the
wheels off of it from, you know, that car was just, you know, big money car at that point in time.
Right. It's it that that was such a special time, man. There the mark for it. That's that's when
I was like giddy about Volkswagen's. And I really think, you know, we've been talking a lot in the
many episodes of just how Volkswagen has really kind of lost its way and how it kind of just
downright sucks lately. And it just it is what it is. But like, when that all that
shit was going on, that was just like the, you know, these mark fours for these cars to like
aspire to be these these cars were like something where, you know, you saved up your money, you
know, and then everyone was putting their own flair on it. And it's just not the same anymore.
These are some high end builds you're talking. And I love that you're bringing up names and specific
cars, because, you know, it's kind of painting the picture. A lot of people I'm sure are listening
and kind of it's it's triggering their memory. But it was just truly like a really cool, fun time.
Oh, yeah. I mean, it like it was wild. And then like, you know, when, you know, after my car was
H2O, then, you know, a few of us, like I think it was that that winter was when I bagged and
all wheel drive to my car, you know, all in one fell swoop. And myself and good buddy of mine
from down here, like, you know, John Hannah, like he's one of the guys that I was talking about,
that, you know, has one of the buying them cars. He and I hopped in the wide body car,
put a roof rack on it with tool kit, spare tire, a whole bunch of shit. And we drove up to Cincinnati
to meet Ben Thorner and another guy called Nate Little that he had the 1552 Jetta coupe.
Oh, okay. We stayed and partied with those guys for a night. Then we all three loaded up and we
drove to the twin cities when Chris Clewell was still doing the show up at grain belt brewery,
drove all the way up there for that show. So it was like, people were still jumping in cars and
doing road trips. And it wasn't in like my, you know, mark 7.5 or 32 that makes 700 horsepower
tune and a bolt on turbo. Like, you know, I'm jumping in a, you know, a wide body, you know,
mark four that, you know, it barely out of the, barely out of the garage and hopping in and, you
know, rolling for a 24 hour drive. 100% dude. That's so awesome. Yeah. So what, what is that one? So
the mark, it's, I'm kind of thinking of the mark four forums again, and there's the one photo where
the car's still like flat black and it's, it's backed up to like a basically like a trucking,
like a, like a dock. Yeah. Like a dock. I'm looking at that picture on the wall.
Okay. Dude, that's like one of those photos that, you know, just, there's so many of those like
mark four iconic photos. That one is definitely one of the standouts that like you always remember.
So you'll remember that 20 years from now even, you know what I mean? That's just like, it was so
iconic at that point. And that dude, that was awesome. Like that was so funny because that was
post Helen Dobbins was in town and Dobbins was so young at that point in time, but I'd known of
him and his photos from just the internet, right? No, no social media. None of that. It was like,
who is this guy that, you know, he's a banker, but takes these just
taller photos. And he was, we, the Sunday after Helen, we all come back. We're at John Hannah and
his wife's house. And there was like a cool cul-de-sac down there. Dobbins shot Wyman's car
there and then we took off to go to dinner and he had told me some point in the weekend. He was
like, Hey, I want to shoot your car. Well, I'm in town. I'm like, okay. So we get done. We get
ready to go to Quaker steak and lube to go have wings and Dobbins like, All right, I'm riding
with you. You go like, you know, I'll never forget like he gets in my car and like straps into the
four points and we're getting ready to merge on the highway. And he was like, go, go, go. And I'm
going to drive on and plaster it. And like he's giggling like a school girl. So we take off,
I think, somewhere after we got wings and he's like, pull over here, pull over here. Nope. I
couldn't tell you where that place is to this day. I had to save my life. Right. He was just like,
this looks like a cool area. Drive around here. He's like, Oh, pull up there. Just park it. Do
this. You know, classic Dobbins, like one eighth of a turn of the wheel. That's so awesome. That's
sick. So, okay. So that was that iteration. Let's move on to the next iteration of the car.
Yeah. So that was like, at that point, I was, I was kind of like, man, I'm over this. Like
you know, 180, you know, you're, everybody's got a 180 big turbo. Everybody's got a 24
valve with a turbo or 24 valve with a shaped bay. Like what's not been done. And I got talking with
one of like the Southeast kind of OG guys, his name is Rodney Huss. And you know, Rodney's been
around for years upon years, done everything from drag racing to show cars. He ran like,
he's of the age of, you know, like rest in peace, Jeff Bynum. But like, I met Rodney through the
crowd here, but he's a handful of years older than all of us. And when we were talking about stuff,
I was like, he, he used to drive past my exit for work. And you know, again, one of those,
I don't even remember if we were texting or messaging, but he's like, let's, let's just stop
and have a beer one night. Let's talk through what you're thinking. You know, I know you're out
there or whatever. And he's like, you know, what about doing a twin turbo something or whatever?
Like, you know, I've been kind of thinking about it. And the new diesel is kind of cool looking,
the late diesel, the BEW, he's like, well, you could do a twin charged or a compound. I'm like,
ooh, that's kind of interesting. So, you know, then Fred's TDI page enters the chat,
the performance stuff. And, you know, basically just got looking around and found an engine.
And, you know, one thing turned into the other. I've got a buddy that lives in town and his
brother is a big, like basically a JDM, like he made tons of EVO manifolds and stuff. And
my buddy Lee was like, you know, he knew what I wanted to do. And he's like, listen,
my brother's going to come for Christmas. Let's just get the turbos. I think I had already bought
the turbos or something like that based on some guys on TDI club. He's like, all right, Jesse's
going to be in town. Here's your shopping list. Go order, you know, the Welldells go order the
flanges, this kind of stuff. And we hunkered down in the garage for a weekend, got that manifold
tacked up, knew where the turbos were going to go. And, you know, it was a hard fought, you know,
two years of just in the garage nonstop of, you know, basically building a custom turbo set up,
building all the intercooler piping. And then, you know, had reached out to Mark Malone when he
would still own Malone tuning. And it's like, hey, you're kind of all, all things are pointing
to you for tuning this. And he was super on board with it. And, you know, that's cool, wrote the
tune, revised the tune, and we would go out and, you know, laptop with Vagcom and record this and
do three or four polls, send it to Mark, he would tweak it, do this, we're trying to figure out how
to control the pressure ratios between the two turbos, you know, had two different gauges in it,
one for the high pressure, one for the low pressure. And, you know, it was, it was a science project
that, you know, never really knew what I was getting into, because it was like, oh, I'll just
figure this out as we go. And, you know, but it was something no one had done. And it was kind
of like a blend of, you know, you know, big diesel trucks do all day, all the time. Yeah.
Yeah. Like when I worked at the fire truck plant, we saw compound turbo caterpillar engines all
the time. Sure. So it was like, you know, that would be a kind of a neat thing to do. And then,
you know, it actually ended up being kind of quick, you know, it was a weird, like, oh yeah,
this should be pretty fun. If you make 300 horsepower, 500 pound feet of torque, like that,
that would be kind of neat. And never, never could get it to dyno, right? Because gas dyno's and
diesel dyno's work kind of backwards, you front load a gas or a diesel dyno, whereas you backload
a gas dyno. So it was kind of a hard way to tune on a dyno. So we always street tuned it.
One of the years when some of the Minnesota guys came down, there was a buddy of mine that had a
an R32 turbo was actually the turbo engine that came out of Mike Olsen Silvercar. So it was a,
you know, a three to half mil bore over, you know, kind of your standard bolt on 62 62.
And we're out taking photos with D tech Aaron. Okay. I don't remember who else was even there
with us. But we go to take off and, you know, Max goes and hammers on his car. And it's like,
I'm on his back bumper. I'm like, Oh, okay. Wow, it's wild. Were you were you like a diesel guy?
Were you in the diesels or even diesel trucks? Or were you just like, we have to do something
different. So you were all about it. It was just something different, right? Like the only person
that had ever done anything cool with the diesel is a guy named Arno. That's like, I think he's up
in PA. Yeah, we know Arno. Yeah, he's in Delaware over there. Yep. He has a good deal. Yep. So
Arno did the white car many, many years ago. I remember seeing it at H2O and it was an ALH and
it just, it wasn't sexy looking from a shaved base standpoint. And I wanted that facet of the
car still to be there of like, you can have aesthetic and performance that go together. You
just have to figure out how to, you know, melt the two together. Right. Yeah, that's dude. That's
wild. So then was this already like once you guys figured that all out, did you think you were going
to repaint it or was it already repainted? Or when did that happen? No, it was just wrapped.
Oh, it was vinyl wrap. So okay. I didn't realize that. Yeah. So like when that car got done,
like Dobbins knew about that car. I had tried to take it to Helen that fell apart. So I took a
couple months off. It was when Dobbins and Anna were doing more than more and you know, kind of
heavy into that. So I went up to, I towed the car up to,
what was the show in Jersey? Waterfest. So it was in the more, the more booth right beside the
gangstown guys when they would have their booth up there. And like legit, the first miles that I
put on that car were up and down English Town Raceway. No shit. That's wild. We unloaded the car
and I was like, well, I've never driven this car. So I'm going to go burn some laps on the drag
strip and just did that for probably 15 minutes. Like, okay, parked the car, you know, was done for
whatever. And then met Corey Sterling at that show and he was all amped about it. Like, I've never
seen anything like this. I put on a show, please bring it. I'll put you in the madness on the
midway thing. So at this point, like I'm still amped that like I built something that people
think is cool because I built it because I thought it was cool and it was different. Right.
And I can remember being at madness and like the guys that judged it were all the, what was that?
The high end paint shop custom guys that did the Chrome shop that always judged there.
Anyways, like they were like picking stuff or like somebody was picking something about like,
oh man, that's a really shitty paint job. Like, well, it's either a really shitty paint job or
it's a really good wrap and just kind of walked away. I didn't have money to throw a $10,000
paint job on it. So like, you know, at that point in time, a wrap, I think I paid 1500 bucks for
that. So it was like smoke and deal. Yeah. So, you know, it was just kind of, you know, the wheels
that were on it, like I never wanted those wheels, but I had bought a set of soup. I had bought the
faces for the Super RSs to build it, but you know, it basically run out of money. So it was like,
you know, could buy the wheels from Wyman that still had tires on them and slap them on the car.
Those were the image wheels? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I feel like it all came together
so well. Like I feel like that car at that time, first of all, I was like thrilled to see that
that I remember it being built and just being on the forums and stuff. And I remember seeing that
it was a diesel and I just thought that was like diesel and, and, you know, all wheel drive and
blew with the images. It just like all came together, especially like at a mark four at that
time was just, it was kind of like pushing a lot of limits at once. Oh, definitely was.
Yeah. No, it was, it was, it was a weird, like, you know, you just kind of walk through a few piles
and somehow end up coming out smelling like a rose in some ways. This could have ended really
badly, but somehow it, it worked itself out in the long run. Yeah, 100%. So let's just touch
on a couple more things. I know you have kind of a hard out in a little bit, but so I remember,
you got to walk us through somehow during that car, like that car then got pushed to the side. And
then there's like an R32 that comes in turbocharged R32. Like what's that all about?
So it's funny, right? Cause I was always telling you about trying to tune the car and we were
continuing to try and we're trying to like, you know, refine the tune and figure out how to make
it better. And I had had a cylinder head built for the car. So that winter I pulled the car in.
Actually, I think it wasn't even winter at that point in time and pulled the car into the garage
and pulled the engine to pull the head. When I pulled the engine, I started to pull the turbo
package off and the high speed turbo, the little one had basically eaten itself. The impeller
was basically gone. Oh wow. Hold the head. I was like, wow, that sucks. Yeah. That's a $2,000,
you know, 2256 VTK, like just super expensive turbo. Like that's going to be a real kick in the
junk. And then pulled the head off and I looked it down in the cylinders and all four of the
pistons had basically eaten themselves from running too rich. Like, oh, that's another really
expensive because those were two liter pistons that had, you know, both the tops and the skirts
coated. Like, okay. So then, you know, start looking at the engine block and the blocks
cracked basically all around where the head studs were in the thing. I'm like, wow. I'm over this.
So the car basically got my buddy that helped me, his brother helped me make the manifold.
He was over one day. He's like, all right, let's just take a break with this car for a while.
He's like, we'll get my brother to make you a turbo manifold for the R32. Let's boost the R.
And that's a recipe that, you know, you can make work, right? Yeah. We've got a known manifold.
You go buy a nice Garrett turbo. You throw a set of 550s in it. You get an off the shelf tune from,
you know, United Motorsports and it's done. Okay. Well, that sounds great, whatever, you know,
for as easy as it knock on wood should be. But it's like, all right, well, step one is relocate
the battery so that then I can get in there and make sure the car works the battery in the back
and then, you know, put enough miles on it, pull it into the garage and we know we're going to do a
shave, babe, because I'm not going to build something that doesn't look good when you open
the hood. Like I despise turbo setups that just look like you'd, you know, open the box and dump
a bucket of bolts in there and get everywhere. So, you know, I wanted to learn all of that. I
wanted to apply all of the learnings from the wide body car because it was the diesel engine,
because it was a nightmare to work on. Like you couldn't get to anything. Every bolt was difficult.
So, everything about the R32 was always if I need to work on it, I can. It's not going to be a pain.
So, like just bought nice components like the intake manifold, the first intake manifold wasn't
that nice, but, you know, bought the nice exhaust manifold, bought the nice turbo charger. It was a
GTX 3582. So, it was just a super nice turbo that had all the possibilities in the world for,
you know, more power than you would need. Right. And yeah, like that thing just became
an evolving obsession for a lot of years. Got you. And this whole time,
the whole time you were screwing around with that, the wide body car was sitting
basically down and out, right? Yeah. I mean, I basically looked at every good part that I had
from the diesel and sold the airbag setup, the air management setup. Like I called Will from
Bag Riders because, you know, I think, you know, Will and I had gotten pretty tight over the years
and I'm like, Will, I just got this new AccuAir, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know,
I'm probably going to touch this car in another five or six years. You know, what, what do you,
should I keep it? He's like, no, there'll be something better in two years. So just get as
much out of it as you can. Gotcha. And, you know, sold every piece part that made sense out of that
car to fund the R32, you know, for, within reason, right? You know, I kept the, you know,
the alien head, the, the Perlon seats that were in it. You know, I kept the wheels, kept, kept some
random little things from it. But yeah, for the most part, it was like, take all the goodies that
could be gone and, you know, sell them off or apply them to the R32 and so make that thing into a,
you know, basically at that point, it was like, I want something that I can go to the mountains
and rip around it and have a good time. Yeah, exactly. Kind of like an odd, yeah. Kind of
like the opposite end of the other car. In a weird way, because the other car wasn't like
totally like show car. It was kind of like rip and go to, but like the R32 is more like business,
you know? Yeah. No, it was more like, this is going to be purpose-built. It was, it was a weird,
it's kind of like the way I wanted it to be like my version of like a GT3 and a Volkswagen. This
is the only way to get comfortable seats and all that kind of stuff that's like, you know,
it's still practical enough. It's got air conditioning. It's, you know, you, you don't
have to worry about the defrost, the windshield defrost area, you know, fogging up and all that
kind of stuff. You know, I want the creature comforts. I want to be able to drive it to work
on Friday, but I don't want it to be a daily driver and I don't want it to be a, you know,
like you said, it's not a one-trick pony, but the wide body car was a little bit more of a,
you got to be intentional about when you're driving. Yeah, that makes sense. It's funny to
say GT3 because like the one like stripe on the side of the car that had like a,
it was like the R32 T is like kind of like inspired by that a little bit, I think, right?
Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, that was, you know, just one of those continue to change it up
and you know, I had stumbled across the, the RSI wheels at some point in time, which, you know,
I wish I would have never sold those, but I was, I was selling parts when I parted that car out
to fund my garage build and like, you know, all those, you know, yeah, all happens. I remember,
so there was one time where Danny and I were at, I remember exactly the moment. It's just funny how
like certain things. So it's like 2014. Yes. 2014, H2O, Danny and I are standing at the Corrado
meet and I, I hear a VR6 and I turn over and it's your car with that small golf livery that was
like at the bottom of the car with the, the black OZ's and shit. Dude, my jaw, like I thought that,
I thought the look of that car, I thought that was this like the absolute best iteration of
that car. I thought it looks so good like that. It was so simple, but it was so effective. I don't
know. And it works so well with the blue of the car too. Yeah. And for me, like my grandfather
had a golf station back in the day when I was a kid. So I was like, Oh dude, this is sick.
That's awesome. Funny. My grandfather had an ESO station. Oh, nice. Cool.
But, um, yeah, man. So, okay. So what, like, what kind of power were we talking in the,
in the R? Um, the, the one time I dino, like the, the only time I dinoed it, it made
four set, call it four 75 and four 33 to the wheels. Nice. That's healthy. Nice. Yeah. I mean,
it was, and then like after that, you know, it wasn't anything that probably would have
changed too, too much, but you know, continued to kind of tweak with, you know, I got a better
air fuel gauge and, you know, put a, actually I bought a really nice intake manifold from this guy
over in, in Germany at some point in time. And I'm sure that was much better than the cast,
you know, CTS reproduction that was on it. So I'm sure the car ended up flowing a little bit
better. But at that point in time, I was so into just driving it that it was more of dialing in the
you know, where I live right on the North Carolina border. There's some pretty tight twisty roads
that, you know, everybody wants to, you know, doad over the tail of the dragon, which the tail's
fun, but we've got some back roads here that are, you know, much tighter, decreasing radius, like,
you know, just way more intense to drive. And, you know, even in low boost, if you got into that
car too hot and heavy coming out of a corner, it's just going to light all four up, just pulling
you up to the hill. So, you know, it was, it was more than you would need. Now, running the highway
and you dropped the thing down into third gate, you know, third gear and you just want a hammer
on it. It was a ton of fun at that point if you're in high boost. And then where did the 337 come in?
So the 337, I'm glad you asked, is it really a 337? It's an R32.
Really? No shit. I had no idea. Yeah. So because my wide body car was a 2002
180 GTI five speed reflex silver. Right. I always wanted a 337, but when I bought my car,
they were like $5,000 more. And it was just like, it's, it doesn't make sense to pay for that at
that point in time. So, and then the more I got into cars, I was like, man, they kind of missed
the boat on the 337 because then they did the R32 a couple years later, they could have done the
all wheel drive and so I was like, I always talk shit to myself that if I ever built a 337, I
wanted an all wheel drive one. Yeah. So it's a, it's an R shell with a TT 225, you know,
basically drive line and had the R rear end, but same thing. Because I never thought I'd
heard a VR come out of that car. I've been down in Helen, you know, you drive and buy and stuff,
but yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it was a little bit of a, when I was doing, so I moved into my current
house back in 2017 had started my MBA rate before that. And I was like, I need something to tinker
with the wide body car was too much to deal with the R32 was pretty well sorted. And a local guy
had picked up a reflex silver R32 that some guy had basically pulled the engine to do the chains
in a clutch and got himself way too far down the rabbit hole of taking it apart.
So this guy picked it up to basically part out. And when I found out about it, I was like,
hold on, stop, don't sell anything more off of this. Let me come look at the shell,
went and looked at the shell and was like, I need this. And then, you know, ensued the hunt for the
TT rate when Brian Port was opening one love. So I was on the hunt for 337 bumpers and skirts and
all that stuff. So, you know, was jumping in the car on Saturday mornings. I drove to Philly to
go actually drove to Philly on a Friday morning, took phone calls the whole way there, got to
Philly Friday afternoon, went and met Brian Port at his first shop, went and stayed with my buddy
Joe Cleary that has the like 800 horsepower R32 got back in the car the next morning, drove home,
and just started assembling this car. You know, I drove down to basically the very bottom of Georgia
by the Florida border to pick up the seats. Like it was one of those like, I know that these cars
are like Legers, right? You know, I know Mark Ford's too well. Like I should be able to put all
this shit together and it's just going to work and it did no shit. Yeah. So well, that's awesome.
That's like the most fun I think too is getting the parts for a build because like you're sourcing
this stuff, you're driving here, you're driving there. The satisfaction when you get like another
piece of that car to put together is I think that's so much fun. Yeah, it's, you know, that and I
unfortunately love that car way too much like and I actually, I don't know, you know, if I don't
think I've really posted too many photos of it on Instagram, no photos of it, but like stories,
but I had the whole interior redone in it from like end of last summer through just picked it up
right before Thanksgiving time, I think that's awesome. Nice. Yeah. So before we close out,
are you planning on getting back to the wide body car at all? It's on a lift and I'm looking at it
right now. No shit. Cool. Nice. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So it should be a, it should be pretty
fun. I, I'm pretty excited. It's going to end up being, you know, it, well, it will be basically
a tube chassis car for the most part. Oh, that's going to be sick. Is that still be a diesel car
then? No. Okay. It's, it's, it's going to do smoky burnouts. Nice. Nice. It's cool that you
still have that too, especially like, you know, so many iterations that it's gone through and other
cars that you've picked up since then, like you could easily just roll it off and like, you know
what, I'm just selling it, whatever, parting it out and that's it, but it's great that you're
going to actually get back to it and then do something with it. Yeah. There's been many times
that I've thought about cutting the quarters out of the back of it and just scrapping the shell,
but you know, the, the Vin is the first new car that I ever bought. Right. Yeah.
Really. Other than a random Mark five TDI Jetta that I bought when I lived in Charleston, it's,
it's still the only new car that I, it's the only new car that I still have, you know,
one of two that I've ever bought. And yeah, it just, there's too many memories in it. That's
for sure. Definitely. No, that's cool. Well, Mike, man, dude, this was an awesome interview.
I'm glad you, I'm glad you came on. You never know how these things are going to go because
I've never really met you and we'll be down at Helen this year again. I don't know if you'll be
there. Absolutely. Okay. So we'll have to meet up and, you know, actually talk in person, but
damn, you're, you're certainly like, you inspired me. I wish I hadn't sold my last or 32 a few
months ago and like me be having the R 32 wagon and I have right now. It's like, it's just been
a fun car. And like, I keep kicking myself back and forth. Like, am I going to keep it sell,
keep it sell? But like, just talking to you makes me want to keep that car because it's just a fun
car. Yeah. I mean, it, it, there's just something about them, right? They're, they're, they're weird
and like, I don't know. There's a little bit of the, I'm not going to say it's, it's kind of
frustrating, but it's a little bit. I've gotten cynical of like, you know, there's this weird
draw the line at 2000. And I, I love the fact that Arno took his 99 golf TDI to Roots last year.
And it's like, it's pre 2000. Like you can't kick me out because I'm a Mark four. And he,
and he read the line. Yeah. And he redid it too. Like he put more time into that car. That car is
beautiful. It's kind of brought it back. So that, yeah, that was awesome.
Yeah. No, no, I, uh, yeah. All right. So, well, guys, we'll certainly have to link up in Helen,
Greg and I swoops and I will certainly be hosting the mark for me. So sweet. So definitely come by
and see us. Yeah, we'll come out. We'll check it out and we'll, uh, we'll say thank you to bring
the brown car. So yeah, should be fun. That'd be cool. All right, dude. Thanks so much for
coming on. We appreciate it. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for the invite, guys. Take care.
All right. See you. All right. Later.
About this episode
Mike Howe, known as @fouckhest on Instagram, shares his journey building iconic Volkswagen Mark 4 cars, including his famous wide body turbo and all-wheel-drive projects. The hosts reflect on the evolution and appreciation of Mark 4s over time, highlighting Mike's pioneering modifications. They also discuss upcoming car events like New England Dust Off and Pizza Hut cruise, and spotlight notable builds such as a California-inspired Mark 1 and a track-focused Mark 1 with custom-made parts. The conversation blends nostalgia, community updates, and deep dives into unique VW builds.
Original notes
We had a great conversation with Mike Houck. Mk4 Heavy content! We talk to Mike about notable cars and people in the scene, and touch on a few of Mike's awesome mk4 builds. Check it!
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