The MG MGA is an older British sports car, typically a small roadster meant for driving for fun. It’s known for its classic look and open-top style. People often talk about it because it’s a well-known model from MG’s earlier sports-car lineup.
This means pushing the engine to higher RPM. Older engines can feel weak if you don’t rev them enough, so the advice is basically “keep it in the power band.”
Term
50 horsepower
Horsepower is how much power the engine makes. If a car only has around 50 horsepower, it usually won’t feel quick unless you rev it harder.
The Ford Mustang is a sporty car made by Ford, usually offered as a coupe or a convertible. It’s known for being a popular, performance-focused model. People bring it up a lot because it helped make Ford feel more exciting again.
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I love her a lot.
I have a very significant issue with her characterization later, but I do think that wearing a 60s mod
dress and naming an MGA is very much a- that is also my gender.
Let me go to my notes, let me go to my notes, it's later in my notes, what did I write?
I slandered my dear co-host, what did I say about you?
Oh, I said, I said this period clothing was gonna make you just cum your camo.
Unfortunately, that is not standard because it is true, I do love- I have 60s dresses,
they're so good.
Of course you do, I was going to say that you missed the big point of its opening which
is the movie immediately telling you that Christian Bale is a horrid dickhead because
of how he big dogs the guy who comes in asking for his money back because his MG is running
like shit and then Christian Bale has to tell him that he's being a pussy and not
revving it high enough which like- that was correct advice, you did need to rev the shit
out of old motors or they- like old performance motors or they'd gum up but like, you know.
I also do- having driven an MGA, if you're listening miles high, which is a little-
From hell!
Genuinely love that car but it's really hard to imagine being able to do Los Angeles speed
limits without revving the absolute piss out of it, it has like 50 horsepower but in any
case, like what we establish here is that like, you know, Ken Miles is a cool car knower
who knows how to rev cars and his customers don't know how.
His wife names a car and he makes the Obama not bad meme face at her.
He's making that face for most of the movie!
This is the one thing I cannot- Christian Bale is a good actor even if he is a- do you
know what Terminator Salvation clip of him losing his mind at someone who got in his
eyesight on stage?
I know, I know, I've never- I've never- I don't know anything about Terminator Salvation.
That's fault time, you're right, that's fault time.
Yeah.
Those are the fault years.
This was like 2009.
Anyways, he's very famous for absolutely losing his mind, it's cussing out a- just
a stage hand, that's not what you call them on a movie set but Christian Bale's channeling
his- the real man he is for most of this movie but he's making the world's dumbest face
the entire movie and I don't understand because it like, sure, but Ken Miles maybe did that
a little bit, there's one photo but it looks like Christian Bale imprinted on one photo
where Ken Miles was making a kind of weird like, let me see how much I could put my chin
in front of my nose.
It's- ObamaNotBad.jpg It's- I hate looking at it.
It's one of those things where I like this movie a lot but it is such a nightmare to
just like, dude I want to shake him and go like stop making that fucking face Christian
Bale please.
So from after we've set up that Ken Miles is a real man in the context of the language
of this movie if you will.
We move to the Ford Motor Company where- The Punisher is Leigh Iacocca?
Yeah, the first time I realized that it's just like John Berenthal.
Yeah, this time Leigh Iacocca who was famous for running most of Detroit at various parts
of his life but he is FOMO Co. Vice President and he is played by John Berenthal who yeah
I immediately was like holy shit it's the Punisher and my wife was like what and I'm
like no that's the Punisher and she said something along the lines of well yeah they
have the blue line sticker on the back of all their trucks.
They have his logo there.
My note is, is the Punisher Leigh Iacocca?
My wife would like me to point out the Ford Motor Company's history with the Jewish people.
Yeah, no that's totally fair.
That's totally fair.
There is a lot of, so one of the things this movie then gets into is like there's a big
scene where they shut down the factory that they're working in as Henry Ford II who is
the CEO of Ford at the time.
The Dunes.
The rates, everybody there, the rates the entire factory as a means of getting at his
management staff about not having enough ideas and the fact that their sales are slumping.
This is 1963 so it's right on the heels of like the entire Edsel disaster.
Ford is like, Ford is not doing great.
This is right during the lead up to the Ford Mustang which sort of revitalizes the company
but this is well before that.
About this episode
The hosts kick off with a scene featuring an MG MGA, arguing that older engines really do need to be revved higher to run right—tying that driving advice back to Ken Miles’ know-how. They then pivot to how characters are portrayed in Ford v. Ferrari, including a quick Ken Miles reference before discussing Ford Motor Company and Leigh Iacocca. From there, they zoom out to Ford’s corporate timeline: a 1963 factory shutdown under Henry Ford II, right after the Edsel disaster, leading into the Mustang turnaround.
Hello! On this bonus episode, Victoria and Jordan have watched Ford v. Ferrari (2019) and here to break it down for y'all on what we thought of it. This is not a commentary track; ideally, you can listen to this without ever having seen the movie and still sort of get an idea of what the movie is and what we think of it (imagine our friends over at Be Gay Solve Crimeor Kill James Bond!)
As an aside, for our own workload and sanity, we are switching the format to four total episodes per month - i.e., this bonus episode takes the place of this week's main episode. Having burnt out before with other creative projects, we're both trying to avoid doing that with this one, and one episode a week is much more sustainable for us for both recording and editing. We will be back next week with a free episode about Everything That Has Happened!
