Revving Up with Classic Cars and the 2023 Toyota Rav4

Welcome to another In Wheel Time Podcast, a 30 minute mini version of the In Wheel Time car show that airs live every Saturday morning 8 to 11am central.

Live on the iHeart app and everywhere else.

It's the In Wheel Time car talk show Coming up.

We talk with Michael Witting about the waterfront car show and the classic car appraisals.

Don drove the 2023 Toyota RAV4 plug-in hybrid and he'll give us his thoughts on that.

Conrad has the cruising calendar and this week in auto history and will bring you the stories making automotive news headlines Just ahead on the In Wheel Time car talk show.

Howdy, along with King Conrad, delong, winnie Moore, jeff Seekin and Chief Engineer David Ainsley, who's sitting with us today On Armstrong, is off for the day and I'm Mike Mars.

We got a little along with it earlier in the show and we did get to Conrad's car clinic, so we're going to slip that in right now.

Well, we've been talking about engines as air pumps and last week we talked about air cleaners and stuff.

Let's talk a little bit about how manufacturers push more cold air into the engine.

So let's talk a little bit about air scoops.

Today, once the air scoop off a 55 to a 57 Ford Thunderbird and all that air generally went into the engine down in the air cleaner.

Next is the 63 Plymouth factory light weight and the air cleaner can do two things.

I like it.

You can push air into the engine through the air cleaner, but it also can push cold air around the engine to cool the engine down.

This one did both into the engine as well as around the engine.

It's got Kreggers on it the 67 Corvette the Stinger hood very popular looking hood on it.

That was available only on the big block Corvettes and that was primarily pushing air into the engine itself.

And then in a 68 and 69 Pontiac's Ram air feature, this again pushed air directly into the air cleaner element itself.

And they did this on the Firebird, the GTO and actually you could order that on certain Le Mans models.

It was like the T37 or something like that.

And then my favorite 70 to 72 Oldsmobile 442, the W25 hood.

Oh well, no, we'll talk about the B12 Chrysler's.

That was available on the 340s and the HEMI's alike.

Again, that was pushing air into both the air cleaner and into the engine to try and cool the engine off.

So the benefit of cooling the engine off is reducing the intake air temperature, because colder air is more dense, there's more oxygen, the engine creates more power.

So that was a lot of the purpose behind a lot of these air scoops through the 60s and 70s.

And then here is the 70 to 72 Oldsmobile 442 with the twin snorkels.

That option code was W25 and that was available on my car, the Raleigh 350.

Actually it was more so on the 455 engines and it was an option.

It came standard on W30s and the Raleigh 350.

And then Ford Mustang with the shaker hood kind of one of the more original shaker hoods that were out there.

That was all.

The air was going into the engine itself.

Very little of it was going around trying to cool things off.

And then Plymouth had the shaker hood as well.

That was on the 340s and 426 Emmys.

All of that air was going into the air cleaner assembly Very cool looking because the hood scoop kind of moved around as the engine moved around inside under the hood Kind of a cool feature and they did it for a number of years.

And then Plymouth had the grabber as well and this one was vacuum operated.

So when you whacked the throttle and all the vacuum went away in the engine, that little hood scoop would pop up and that again would bring cold air into the air cleaner assembly on it.

And then Chevrolet also did it with their cowl induction feature on the 70-72 Chevelles and they were drawing air from the base of the windshield, which is kind of a high pressure area, and when you whacked the throttle the vacuum would go away.

That little flap would open up and it would draw more air, cold air, into the engine.

Buick had their GS with these two little scoops here on the hood and those again were drawing air directly into the air cleaner itself.

Trans Am had the shaker hood which was attached to the top of the engine and it would shake.

Very little air came through that into the engine.

That was more a visual thing than it was a performance thing.

And now you move into the more current vehicles and you see these air extractors.

This is a 2022 Ford Bronco and you'll see it on Broncos, you'll see it on escalades and suburban, where what they're trying to do is they're trying to extract, get the cold air out or the hot air out from under the hood so they could lower the under hood air temperature and the intake air temperature on the vehicle.

And that's become quite popular today on lots of vehicles.

They also have those little side extractors on the Trans Am's and if you look at the new escalades and some of the new suburban and the new pickup trucks, they have basically those same air extractors again trying to lower the under hood temperatures of vehicles.

That's this week in Conrad's Corner All right.

Thank you, sir.

Cool stuff, all right.

This is our guest this half hour, mr Michael Woody, with the Auto Appraisal Network and the host or the driving force behind Woody's Waterfront Rod and Custom Car Show.

Did it get all that right?

You did, I got close, I knew I did.

Thanks for coming.

Yeah, moving on, come back and see us anytime.

Yeah, I had a little bit of trouble getting hooked up this morning, but I think I got it working good in there.

Yeah.

I follow you on Facebook, woody, and you get some cool cars to go look at, whether it's classic cars or some of the high end exotic stuff.

You get an opportunity to go out and put your hands and, I guess, put your butt in the seat of some of these cars as well.

Yeah, there's other appraisal companies in the area, but they're you know, they hire young people with a checklist that run down the checklist and that's how they appraise the car and you get, you know, usually two pieces of paper that say this is what the car is and the rest of it talks about why the guy is such a good appraiser.

We go that extra mile and produce a pretty nice report.

We photograph and document the car completely and those things really help bring me more business because the appraisal is good around and it brings me those high end customers that you're talking about with the Ferraris and the Lamborghinis and so forth.

And then I get a lot of the high end muscle cars, hot rods, trucks, that type of thing.

So it pretty much runs the gamut, but it's usually all specialized and that's what those off the shelf services aren't able to supply.

Well, it goes with your reputation.

Yeah, I was going to say you know what you're looking at.

You've lived this street rod, hot rod lifestyle all your life.

So, these appraisals that you do for people are multifaceted.

Some of them are about insurance, Some of them are about depreciated loss after a wreck, but some of them increase the value of the vehicle for a customer because you have not necessarily certified the car to be what it is, but in your appraisal you're giving lots of information to validate the car is what they claim it to be.

And you know, everybody that's got a car thinks their cars work more than it is.

Absolutely Of course I do run across a few that undervalue them, but the majority think it's worth more than it is and what we bring to the party is give that independent third party value, so that helps us considerably Well.

Speaking of value, that was one of the things we wanted to ask you about.

You know, we can kind of see the price fluctuation in the used car market and the new cars Obviously they're always talking about those but the classic car world, the muscle car world, the world that you live in, that's kind of hard for outsiders to see where that is and where it's going.

Well, you know, the best place is to learn that kind of information is watch the major auctions, and I watch everyone that I get an opportunity to watch, just to see what's out there.

And you know the way Meekum handles an auction the day one and day two cars are a little bit lower quality and then you get into the day three and day four cars that are higher quality and I can tell you just recently with this Harrisburg auction, that they did.

I did see that the blue chip cars are there and they're holding their value and that's the perfectly restored 57 Bell Air fueling.

You know the 53 Corvettes, the Shelby series ones, the things of highly unusual nature are very collectible nature.

And somebody spent a lot of money 57 Bell Airs for a whole, though, have started to drop off a little bit in value.

There was a time that you couldn't touch a nicely restored one for less than $70,000, and you can find one now $40,000, $45,000 for a really nice car.

So that's pretty much.

I hate to say that the mid-range cars are seeing a slump right now.

Blue chips are holding their own.

So that's pretty much.

Size of the.

So do you think that that could be because of the interest rates?

And I say that from my perspective, you know, because for me to go out and buy a 57 Chevy for $45,000, I'm going to have to borrow some money and that interest rate being up around 7, 8% is definitely going to make a decision where, if I had the money to buy an $80,000 57 Chevy, I don't think I'd be as worried about it.

Yeah, because Mike doesn't have the credit rating.

Absolutely not.

Well, you know, the majority of these people that have these cars have been successful in business in some form or fashion and, you know, had a passion and a love for cars all along, and now that they've reached that pinnacle in their career and can afford whatever they want, they're the ones that keep those prices up there.

Okay, I do see, though, that the market's changing slightly, in that you know, I've got a 56 Pontiac, the 40s and 50s car.

You can't get rid of a Model A or a Model T.

I mean, you can't give them away.

Really, I've got people that's been trying to sell them for months and years.

Are you talking about original Model A's Original type?

car, okay, okay.

You can't give them away.

Nobody wants them, and the reason for that is there's nobody left alive that remembers what it's like to have one new.

Or even seen one on the street Unless it was a parade, and so that market the 20s, the 30s, the 40s and even the 50s now is starting to decline.

And what you see on the upswing is and I hate to say it because they were so pitiful in the day as far as performance is, the mid-range 70s through 80s cars, really, 77 transams, 87 grand nationals, you see 87 GNX is going for well over $100,000.

You know, bandit transams are up around $70,000 for a nice car.

So you see those prices rising and the other prices falling and people always ask that question what's the next collectible car?

If I wanted to make an investment car, what would I buy?

I tell them look back at the high school parking lot 40 years ago today.

Whatever the hot car was in the parking lot then, that's the collectible car today.

So a 78 Volkswagen Rabbit?

Oh yeah, it's got collectability.

Now, is it going to be a high dollar car?

No, but that's what allows people to get into this market in this world of collector cars.

Go into car shows, meet another white-minded people.

And some of what happens, because I too watched the Meekum and Barrett Jackson auctions and you really see this ebb and flow of valuation.

But you know, one of the things and I don't know that everybody realizes it is they're pumping a lot of free alcohol in these people when they're bidding and when they get somebody emotional bidding on something and you watch that the bid manager standing there, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

You know doing all of this with them, they can really raise the price of a vehicle on the emotion of the buy versus the true value of the vehicle.

That's their job.

It's purely their job, but I think it's hilarious that you know they are pumping lots of free alcohol of these people just to get a couple extra thousand dollars from them.

And I see that quite a bit and that's why I get hired quite often to go do the bidding for someone on a particular car.

I tell them when I go you know this is after I've looked at the car that the value ought to be this, and if it surpasses that, where do you want me to go?

So you drink a lot, so you go 5% higher or 10% higher.

Okay, so I'll get in the bid, and I usually jump in late in the bid when it's starting to stall.

You're one of those snipers, huh yeah pretty much.

I mean, that's just the way to get the car at the right price.

Yeah, I think I've seen you on eBay before.

So have you?

Have you gone to Meekum or Barrett Jackson for customers to do some bidding for them?

Oh, absolutely yeah.

Many times, Many times, I go to their spec cars and I go to bid on cars for people.

I have one gentleman from Louisiana that had me go look at a 1976 Pontiac Le Mans, but it was called a Grand Am or can't remember the name Can Am, can Am, can Am.

Yeah, have the shaker hood Very rare car they only made about.

They were supposed to make about 700, I think they made a few less than that, but it was a.

You know, it's basically a little dressed up lamans with a shaker hood, so they're hard to find and the car went way over what he was telling me.

It was his limit to pay for it.

So as I was walking off the stage and moving away, he calls me back and he goes hey, there's a bobber motorcycle over there I'm interested in.

So I go over and look at this motorcycle and I actually met the fella that built it and the guy told me he had an $80,000, $90,000 in bike and it was well built, bobber, carly Barber, but nobody, there was no bidders there for it.

So I ended up getting the bike for him for about $10,000.

Oh wow, it was a real steal.

But the kicker came.

He asked me if I would ride it to Louisiana in a foreign unique fly me home.

I said I don't think.

I said it was a road king.

I picked you up on it, but I don't think I'm gonna ride a bobber that far yeah, the Louisiana highways wouldn't be no fun, no yeah.

But yeah, everything's good.

We're talking about the car show a little bit.

It's gonna be the fifth year We've modified the show this year.

I don't know the last couple of shows and you guys have been there for virtually every one.

Yep, but we saw a brand new Tesla one of trophy.

We saw a brand new Corvette one of trophy.

We saw a brand new Mo-Car one of trophy.

And this is you can go down to the parking lot and see these cars any day, all day long, and if you got the pocket full of money, that's all you do is go buy it, drive it to the car show and one of trophy.

That's not what we're into.

I'm a hot rod, I'm old school, as you can tell, and so I decided this year to change the name from just Woody Waterfront car show to Woody's Waterfront rod and custom show, and we're doing 1920 to 1988.

So anything above 1988, you can come in, but you're not gonna be able to participate.

We want to get the guys that put the effort and the time into those cars to win these trophies and through the years you've had some pretty cool cars show up.

I remember Greg Ender's pickup truck, well-deserved show champion truck.

He got best show, yeah, and then was it?

We had the Ozoneville.

Last year you had the George Barris.

Yeah, Oles Oles Tornado there.

That was part of a Canadian oil company.

Purchase one of George Barris.

Yeah, outstanding vehicles, so you draw a good crowd of vehicles.

So, yeah, I'm kind of glad to see you kind of change it up a little bit and restrict the awards to the older vehicles, the custom and hot rod cars, as opposed to showing up with a brand new Corvette and winning.

Well, I'm hoping I didn't cut my own throat, you know, because attendance pays helps me pay for a lot of the things that I Produce at the show, like the videos and bringing you guys on board and the different things that I have to pay for.

Well, I'm gonna say we probably had 30 35 Brand-new model cars.

So I'm not gonna have those year, those this year.

That's a significant chunk of income to help pay for this stuff.

So I'm really hoping the hot rodders out there got their ears on Checking the websites that we have out there.

We're on car show radar, we're in the Street rod Association magazine.

There's quite a few places that the show has been posted.

So I'm hoping everybody's paying attention and, and I hope, the weather.

I start praying.

The week before and it seemed to work pretty much every year.

I mean we even had a Hurricane come through on show three that wiped out most of the show field when the cars are.

Yeah, yeah, the guy that owns the venue.

You work 24 hours, seven days a week.

The next week you get it ready for the show.

So I got to send kudos out the top water drill and Robert for those efforts.

But we've got some good sponsors on board this year.

We've got Michael Kamens back with the Kamens fun motor cars.

We've got mo must.

Allowton Conroe is coming on board this year.

They've been on one on one other show but they come back on board.

We've got the loss and auto works.

We got a mirror crane.

I've got a friend down there that I grew up with that Runs these big, huge crane.

You know that do concrete tilt wall and stuff, yeah, and so they sponsored and they're probably gonna bring down a crane.

I had it there one year where we put a huge Texas flag and a huge American flag up on the crane.

Oh yeah, you can see it all the way to Gallister, yeah, oh, you ought to have them hang the 56 Pontiac from it.

Yeah, it would draw some attention.

Absolutely, absolutely Well, yeah, we're looking for a good show.

You know the foods great there at top water and the weather usually cools down a little bit by that time, but we always have the breeze down there and and for you guys, for you guys.

After your broadcast, y'all can come visit in my hospitality sweet.

Check my idea.

We've got the girls coming back this year.

There's gonna be some different young girls and they're gonna do the 50s the body socks and the polka dots, curves and the white tops and the cruising around.

You get pictures of them with your car.

It's just a great show.

There's a lot to do.

You get boats to look at girls and bikinis on the boats and just all kinds of good stuff.

16.

Oh, get you money.

Yeah, we're looking forward to it.

I can assure you we're looking forward to it and we're gonna talk to you again About it a little bit more.

We get a little bit closer to it, but what do you?

Thanks for joining us today.

I've posted it up on our Facebook page, as well as auto appraisal network.

Thank you much.

Have a great one.

See you soon.

I see you guys.

All right, don's not here today, what's?

But he is in spirit.

He is a spirit.

He is in spirit Maybe, so we're drinking he also.

He can't left us his car review.

Yeah, he did, and we need to.

Run on, here we go.

Hi, it's me, the voice from your past, and I'm here and we're going to talk about the 2023 Toyota Rav4.

Remember when the rav4 first came out?

It was it.

Well, guess what?

it ain't no more.

There are two trim levels available the SE and the XSE.

The review trim level is the XSE all-wheel drive, prime.

Okay, seats up to five people.

Obviously, the driver would be included in that.

Exterior changes from last model year none, it was all new in 2019.

I think that they've got a new revision coming out, but we're not going to talk about that.

Exterior features sporty, sharp looking with angular edges to it.

Mine was black and white, very good looking.

It was good.

Look we truck.

We talked about it.

I like the trim up accents.

Yeah, me too.

Both trims have unique wheel designs.

Tailgate has a Very good look to it and it is a wide, open maw back there.

In other words, you open the tailgate and you will see the sides of the back of the cargo area back there.

That's how big it is, so swallow up almost anything.

Front grille Does not overpower the front end.

Thank you, toyota.

What I liked about it?

The overall design gets an A plus.

There is, by the way, an off-road style option.

No, I take that back.

There's not, and it needs to have one.

It does not have an off-road style option.

It has the XSE and the SE not off-road.

I wouldn't think.

A RAV4 is an off-roadable.

Yeah, but you have a beach and light, dirt road scene.

Well, you would think listen, you don't know about the marketing, you don't know about the design stuff and all the thought that goes into all of that.

What are we gonna go after?

I think that they've done a very good job.

It just doesn't have an off-road thing to it, kind of like the Subaru Outback, which is a growth of the Subaru in present and they've made a new model now.

That's an off-road looking thing and all it is is body cladding on.

Okay.

Moving on Interior highlights overall comfortable cabin, well-placed controls with the infotainment screen atop the center dash.

It also has the EV and traction control on the center console Seating.

Attractive and comfortable Cargo and trunk room.

As I mentioned to you, a wide, open mall allows for lots of big stuff to fit in, especially with the back seats down.

What I liked about it?

The cabin friendliness.

It's easy to use, it's easy to get it out of you know where, everything.

It's just easy.

It's a great design.

It has a 2.5

liter hybrid engine that gets 302 horsepower rating combined.

So when you use the gasoline engine and it couples up with the electric motor on it, 302 horsepower, this thing will get out.

Oh man, and it's.

You know, it's not a race vehicle at all.

But that's the, it's the center D drive.

So it's that evolution of Prius as it has expanded to other platforms within the Toyota brand.

And here's an interesting factor every time and it's well proven efficient and effective.

Here's the interesting thing this is the second quickest vehicle in the entire Toyota lineup.

It's only behind the GR 86.

Oh, wow, oh, but there it is, the GR 86, it's the quickest.

I didn't know that.

When I was driving it, I knew that it was fast, but I didn't know it was that fast.

Has a CVT transmission.

The battery mode will take you approximately 40 miles on the charge.

Get this combined.

Combined, wait, it gets 94 miles to the gallon.

Wow, keep the battery charged and you get 94.

The gasoline only gets 38 miles to the gallon, and you got.

I don't know, because I couldn't figure out how to read it.

I would assume that it's somewhere in there.

How many miles divided by how much Well?

I know, but I couldn't get in there.

But you said you never put gas in.

No, no, no.

I gave it back to them with, I think, three quarters of a tank of gas.

What I liked about it?

The get up and go.

We could use improvement.

Optional hot rod screen All right, and the instrument cluster, Well, why not?

It's the thing.

that's the quickest thing they got.

Let's have some fun riding handling both easy riding and non-aggressive handling.

So it's an easy car to drive, great road tripper, seriously.

Seats are comfortable.

It's great.

And smart enough not to put a third row in.

Thank you.

God, yeah, they would cramp it up.

Base trim price $46,210.

That's the base model price.

Base model price.

Base trim price $43,000.

90 so you can get into it for 4390 prices.

Tested 51 918.

It ain't cheap, no.

And the RAV4 originally was see, I thought it would be less entry level.

I did too comparisons Hyundai Tucson PHEV 37.5

, so it's about five grand more than that.

Kia Sportage PHEV 38 690.

And then we had to throw in a third one and the Volvo XC60 T8 extended range 62 545 but yeah, well, there's that coming back.

There is my review of the Toyota RAV4.

Yeah, very good, thank you the in-wheel time car talk show is available 24 7 through the iHeart radio app just look for in-wheel time car talk and we also offer video stream on Facebook, youtube and the in wheel time dot com.

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Revving Up with Classic Cars and the 2023 Toyota Rav4

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Toyota RAV4

Ford Thunderbird

Chevrolet Corvette

Oldsmobile 442

BMW 340S

Ford Mustang

Chevrolet Chevelle

Lucid Air

Chevrolet Suburban

Ford Bronco

Cadillac Escalade

Ford Model T

Buick Grand National

Buick GNX

Volkswagen Rabbit

Pontiac Le Mans

Subaru Outback

Toyota Prius

Toyota Gr86

Porsche 918 Spyder

Kia Sportage

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