Shake it Up! 414

Guess what, guys?

It's time for no driving gloves.

It's a time of year that we get a lot of changes in the automotive world, and no driving is going

to be no different.

We'll cover that in a little bit, but let's talk about some of the changes that I see

happening and people are objecting to.

Something that came across my Facebook feed just a few days ago is that billionaire

Rick Hendrick is tarnishing a NASCAR champion's legacy.

Now, who could this be?

I mean, Rick Hendrick has won a dozen NASCAR championships with him and his team and

his drivers.

He's out there.

He's successful.

He's known for what he does.

He's very generous donating to charities and taking care of his car collection and hosting

people and car clubs and car events.

What could he do to tarnish a NASCAR champion's legacy?

Which one of his drivers could this be?

I can't even remember everybody that's driven for him.

Jeff Gordon, Jimmy Johnson, maybe?

Is it?

What the hell?

It's not even one of his drivers.

Rick bought Alan Kawiki's old shop from the shop Kawiki used in 92 when his underbird,

which we covered in a history episode a couple of years back, won the national

or the Winston Cup championship.

Back when it was called the Winston Cup and I'm not afraid to call it the Winston Cup.

Maybe today it's the Sprint Cup, the Nextel Cup.

I don't know.

It changes every couple of years.

It's NASCAR racing and, yes, Kawiki overcame the odds and the big money and really

was one of the last successful independents to win this championship.

He has this shop that kind of was forgotten about for years.

I'm trying to think, was it 18, 20, 21, not quite sure what year that was, but he

it's 21.

Yeah, it was 21 that Spire Motorsports was reviving the shop to honor Kawiki's number

seven underbird.

And yes, I'm saying underbird because that's how Kawiki raced.

He removed the T from Thunderbird and somehow Hendrick has now bought this and

instead of demolishing the building, which is probably cheaper, instead of this

building falling down, Hendrick's going to do something to help preserve the building.

I'm not saying he's not going to remodel it.

He's not going to paint Hooters all over the word Hooters from the restaurant.

If you can remember the restaurant's Hooters, that was Alan Kawiki's sponsor

all over the building.

No, he's going to use it for his business.

Sometimes it's fun to walk into these businesses and even though they're not the

business that you remember, the history that's there.

Back in the mid-80s, one of my dad's durable medical equipment stores was in a 19-20s

Cadillac dealership, massive building, huge ceilings, and it was still always

fun for me to imagine as a car person the Cadillacs that could have been sold there.

I'm not even sure when the dealership closed.

Eventually the building burned down.

The dad moved out of the building.

It was purchased by a hospital and during the demolition to make a parking lot out of

this massive building, I mean the shop in the back would have probably held 20, 25 cars.

The showroom was massive and the chandeliers were still in the showroom.

They were hidden by a drop ceiling because this thing would have been expensive to heat or cool

with this.

I mean it had to have 25-foot ceilings, gorgeous balcony, just a great little place,

big place, but it was fun to remember.

And that's what you could possibly do with Kawiki's shop.

At least Hendrick's going to do something with it.

You're not sure the article I was reading doesn't say what he's going to do.

They're saying he may make it a potentially make it a performance center,

possibly make it a sub-dealer, might make it a full dealership.

Hard to say, but they're going to do something with it.

The building's going to survive and isn't that the point is the memory's still there

and you can go in and you can fantasize about what happened.

It's like when you're watching one of these videos lately that are popping up and I'm

reminded because I might head down there tomorrow between nine and three here in Birmingham,

Alabama, Nebraska and Cheater's Speed Shop.

They've slowly been selling off their inventory and selling off their inventory

and I think this might be one of the last weekends they're going to be open trying to sell

every bit of inventory.

The Speed Shop, it was on American Pickers.

I think that's what kind of brought it back to being known, but Rosco and Cheater's,

it was founded by three, I think it was three brothers.

Maybe it was just three friends and they had a true hot rod Speed Shop.

I think Moon Eyes, I think SoCal Speed Shop, but this is in Birmingham, Alabama.

You went there and you bought your gears for your, I think I saw something,

it was some ridiculous gear set, 756 or something.

I can't remember really what it was, but they have very rare classic parts,

but this building, the owners retired because of, I mean, 50s, they were probably in their 20s,

maybe early 30s, add 70 years to that.

They're in their 90s and I believe not all of them are still with us.

The family is selling off this stuff because, guess what, Amazon's there, eBay's there,

that's where you buy these parts and the family doesn't have the time or I don't know what the real

knowledge or lack of knowledge is that they're not doing a selling stuff on eBay or online

auction or whatever, but they're liquidating this and my fear is while the building's there

and it still says Rosco and Cheater's, I mean, it's dilapidated.

It's not in the best area of Birmingham anymore.

It, once all these parts are gone and they've, I'm going to say we swept the floor,

but I don't even think they'll sweep the floor.

At one point they'll say we're done with this, locked the door,

sell the real estate, it'll all get demolished in one big thing.

And then we get a drive by a vacant lot and go, oh, you remember Rosco and Cheater's?

I don't, it's changes, changes happen in the automotive world.

It's on the opposite spectrum or maybe a different spectrum, but I don't know if it's really changes,

but there's been news in the last couple of months about Honda.

They're going to start a classic car parts program.

They're going to begin with the NSX and then there's always remembers what's the next cars,

what's the next cars.

Damn well, it's going to be a prelude or a CRX.

I'm biased towards the CRX parts, it'd be nice.

Honda's going to start remanufacturing these parts for the classic Hondas that are out there.

Think of what manufacturer made restoration parts are like.

This is the likes of Porsche, Mercedes Benz, but Honda's going to do it.

And then I just saw a couple of quips, not even an hour ago,

Toyota's going to be doing it with the, what was the Corolla from the mid 80s,

a little sport hatchback.

They're going to start manufacturing engine parts for it.

They're bringing a crate engine, it's the 3.6, 3.8 liter, help me out guys.

Inline six, that goes in the Highlanders, goes in the Toyota pickups and that of the

80s, late 70s, early 80s, mid 80s, to help restore these things.

And one of the podcasts I just listened to, I listened to the Making It podcast,

one of the guys on there has a Toyota Land Cruiser and he just spent three years dealing

with a shop trying to get a motor built or rebuilt.

And guess what, if this crate motor would have been available three years ago,

he would have had three years of driving pleasure for probably similar money to what

he's got into paying to have this motor rebuilt by some machine shop.

I mean, it's garage, I guess is pretty reputable.

He speaks highly of them.

The machine shop just never got around to it like machine shops do.

But if you can just start knocking this stuff out, we're going to keep our history.

And it's kind of, I guess, I think a Hendricks place like a Resto Mod.

We're taking the bones of something classic and we're updating it so that it stays running

and stays on the road.

And that's what I think Hendricks is doing with the Kawiki shop.

And I mean, I could go on and on, but it's been a very hectic couple of weeks.

And this is the part of the show that I didn't want to get to.

No driving gloves.

Since we do this every fall.

And Derek and I have had episodes talking about we lose a little bit of interest in our cars

and me, I'm getting a little bit excited.

I've been shopping cars, looking at different cars and hell, let me throw out a car review

in here to give you a little bit of car information.

Keep you on the hook boys.

What's happening?

But yeah, got my mini in the shop.

Believe it or not, some kind of motorcycle hit me and then at the door.

Been a fiasco with the insurance company.

But if I was dealing with just a straight insurance company,

we would have a no driving gloves gloves off approach to the automotive insurance industry.

But my agent has been fabulous.

He's been working with me.

He's been fighting my insurance company also.

And why everything is not going to go my way.

It's decent and it's going on.

But while the car dropped the car off in the shop and picked up my rental

and they were going to give me some Tahoe UGM SUV.

And oh, this is the greatest thing in the world.

No, it isn't not when you drive a thousand miles a week.

No, they said, well, we got, I said, I want what I reserved, which was a Corolla.

Well, we don't have that.

You can have an Ultima or a Sentra.

I'd almost rather ride a horseback than drive a Nissan.

No offense.

Nissan's made some great cars.

But rental car company Nissan's just don't do it for me.

Everyone's always not been impressive.

So we're walking out to the car.

I said, hey, what about the Prius?

Yep.

Car guy, John, you know me weird.

They said, well, it just got returned.

It's going to be an hour for us to get that cleaned up for something.

Trying to dissuade me and just take the Sentra and go on home.

And then I'll wait for it.

I'd rather sit in your lobby and wait an hour and get a Toyota than a Prius.

I've always wanted to try to drive.

I've got an acquaintance from college out in Colorado that for the last few years,

he's, and I think I've mentioned him on the show, has driven a Prius as his daily driver.

He's had some cool side cars.

I think now he's in an Aston Vantage or something like that, just as a toy car.

But he drove a Prius for years and years and talked highly of it.

He had to put two or three battery packs in it over the years.

And it wasn't that difficult or nor that expensive

when you consider the savings and stuff that a Prius brings to your life.

So I've got this car driving it.

Let me, let me next episode, we'll give you a full review.

I was initially impressed.

I'm not exactly impressed.

And I'm, you know, my hybrid experience is Prius and my Maverick.

And I'll be honest, I really enjoy the hybrid drivetrain in the Maverick much more than the

Prius and it could just be my love of Fords.

And I just can't, I've never clicked with a Toyota.

She has, my better half has a Toyota and while it's a nice car to drive, I just don't click with it.

Not like I do the Mini, not like I do the Maverick.

Not like I might do with my next toy car.

So I haven't decided whether I want to replace my Fiesta that we talked about in the last

episode and how it went away.

Been looking at a lot more Fiestas.

But I'm also looking at a couple of other options.

It's a lot of things are changing.

And you know, part of it's me, I'm launching the hustle and heritage business.

It's curated gifts for men.

You can find it at hustleandheritage.com if you're in the Birmingham area.

We have a brick and mortar location inside of the painted tree, just off Highway 280.

In the Target Shopping Center, we have our antique flea ball over at the Bama Flea Mall Center.

And we're looking at a third location here in Birmingham.

That's keeping me busy or actually more leads also.

But that's keeping me a little bit busy and a little bit distracted from the podcast.

But I enjoy being here to talk to you guys.

And I enjoy doing this.

But sometimes we have to step back a little bit.

And that's my sad news is Derek recruited Dave to come on the show.

And Dave's not out.

I just don't know where to put Dave right now because he has a very distinct

car vibe and car knowledge that does not quite fit mine.

And Derek's a little diverse in where he can go and where he can talk

and with his museum background.

And Dave comes from a different background than me.

I don't know if him and I could actually produce a really good podcast for you.

But I'm working on alternatives with Dave.

And while I'm saying Dave has a place at No Driving Gloves,

and we're going to figure out where he belongs and how he belongs,

Derek's going to have to step away for a while.

He's got a lot going on with his family.

I mean, No Driving Gloves started in 2017 in July.

We really miss having Will Posey on the show.

But Will ended up with a TV show.

He's building the second or third additional building to Big Oak Garage right now.

So in less than 10 years, he's expanded and expanded.

He just had a car run through Meekam out in the Monterey Car Weeks.

Dirty Martini.

I mean, Will's life just blew up.

And Derek's is kind of doing the same thing.

When he started with the show, he had just joined the Corvette Museum.

And we all know that he left the Corvette Museum to go to the Lane,

which may or may not be a better fit.

But we don't get into talking a lot about the bads of our jobs or the goods of our jobs.

But Derek's also, I think, I hope that we've talked about it.

I mean, he's brought it up.

He's adopted two children.

So he's become a father and adopting two young children.

I don't think he realized how much of his life that takes away

the additional commute to work, some of his side projects.

I mean, he built this gorgeous barn and garage for his projects and his restorations,

and he's been acquiring stuff.

But he just hasn't had time to do it.

And he's asked if he could step back and take a break.

And I have no problem.

We like to pretend we make a lot of money with no driving gloves, etc.

But we really do this to talk cars to you guys every week.

And there's going to be the first change for the short term.

We'll probably fix that again.

And I'm thinking is we'll probably bring Dave onto his own show.

And you'll have two shows a week, or you'll have two entirely different shows with no driving gloves.

We actually were talking about this before Derek made the decision to step away.

And it became an ideal time for him to step away because we were going to shift up no driving gloves.

And maybe have a show that focuses strictly on older vintage cars with Derek and Dave.

It might become Dave and Clayton.

Clayton was on as a guest when I had to step away a month or two ago.

And the numbers from that episode are phenomenal.

It reminded me of kind of the old Derek, John and Will days.

We had great numbers again.

The conversation was riveting.

So I'm not against doing that.

I've been thinking there's...

I obviously have a slightly different car fandom geekdom than Dave and Derek.

Derek's always been pre-war in this antiquated stuff.

And Dave's really good 40s through early 60s.

And I'm good post-war sports cars.

And Radwood and Malise.

And I mean up to brand new stuff.

That's the stuff that excites me.

And I enjoy buying brand new cars.

I enjoy selling brand new cars.

Actually, I just think I enjoy shuffling through cars.

So I'm going to focus a little bit more on some of the newer stuff.

And some of the new stuff that's happening for the old stuff.

And some of the legal stuff that's going on.

I mean, it was atrocious this week when Leno's law got killed.

It was going good.

And then it was going okay when they started to put a lot of restrictions on it.

And then it didn't even...

I believe the California Senate passed it.

And it was in committee to go to California House.

And it didn't even make it out of committee.

They just decided too many people were going to take advantage of Leno's law.

Which would allow for cars basically pre-1986.

Right now it's pre-1975.

Pre-1986, maybe 87.

Because the rolling thing was only going to go for a couple of years.

And it was going to cap out.

I guess I think it was cap out at 89.

If I remember correctly, my numbers get jumbled.

And too many people were, I guess, going to go out and get 50 Mustangs and drive them to work

every single day again.

And all of a sudden pollute the skies and Los Angeles would become like it was in the 1960s.

That's basically what they said is too many people would abuse this law.

They would all have to go out.

They would have to buy a brand new car.

They would have to have their old car.

They wouldn't drive their brand new car they're making payments on.

They would have to have classic plates that limit the usage of this antique car or this pre-1989 car.

And have collector car insurance on it.

And that's why they would have to have the brand new car.

Because they can't have collector car insurance unless you have a daily driver.

And then a lot of the collector car companies have some sort of prohibitions on use also,

in addition to what the plates allow you to do.

But too many people are going to abuse it.

So the bill got killed.

And now, hey, you guys live in California.

He's not a big popular person anymore.

But do an Elon Musk and move.

You know, get out of the state.

It's there.

I am such a car guy.

And there are so many great jobs I see in great potential in California.

And I've just never had the desire.

Whether or not I could ever get a job with Leno, I don't know.

But through people, I've known Leno's secretary.

I know Leno's, I know Bernardo runs Leno's shop, things like that.

So I do have an end to talk to him.

And it's not to say that I'd work for him.

But I imagine I could get a job doing cars in California.

I just don't want to live in California and own a car in California.

They take all the fun out of having a car.

No, I live in Alabama where it's more than 25 years old.

I don't even need a title to sell it to you and register it.

It's just one of these things.

So changes do happen.

I feel bad about the Leno's lawn.

I got a little sidetrack.

I'm going to focus on the show for the time being.

It's definitely going to come out every other week.

I'm going to try to have other shows pop up in between.

Where I was going to go with the Derek and Dave transition,

which unfortunately now is not going to happen,

I was going to start looking at more interviews and kind of guest hosts,

viewers and listeners to the podcast that want to come on and chat cars.

That's what no driving gloves is.

As we've always said, it's a gloves off approach to the automotive hobby.

We're going to talk down and dirty and be honest about how we feel about things

going on in the automotive hobby.

But it's also three guys sitting around having a beer chatting cars.

And guess what?

If Derek Will and I went to a bar and you came up to us,

we're going to invite you to sit at the table.

And that's kind of what I want to do.

I'm inviting you to sit at the table.

You want to be on the show?

Let me know.

We might do a pre chat, see what you're going to talk about.

Make sure we got a little bit of chemistry.

But it'd be like a first date.

Maybe it's blind dating, podcasting for car people.

Don't care if you're a man, woman, giraffe, monkey.

Doesn't matter.

Whatever you identify as, me, I identify as a seven foot two, never mind.

But we're going to do that.

We're going to have that.

I've been going through lists of friends and acquaintances of people I might want to invite

on to potentially fill a co-host role.

I don't know.

I thought, I mean, when we launched in July of 2017, I had been working on this podcast for

well over a year trying to determine what couple of friends and acquaintances did I have

that would make for an ideal podcast.

And I got damn lucky because the first two choices I had were the two that agreed to do it.

And we had a great mix with Will and his hot rods and Derek with his antiques and me with my modern.

And we could have good conversations about everything.

We talked electric cars.

We talked electric hot rods.

We talked carbon fiber.

We talked traditional metal shaping.

We talked about, I can't even remember the funky carburetors and stuff that Derek uses

and clincher tires and all that fun, fun stuff.

And maybe we were too broad.

We had great audiences, but COVID happened and things.

But I think it's better.

I'll be your common person here.

The podcast was always my idea.

Sometimes I'd become a little tyrannical or whatever.

But that's just the way it goes.

So be looking for no driving loves at least every other week.

Possibly more often, hopefully more often, we're going to get a little bit better on the radio show

or the audio podcast releases.

I'm trying to talk to a couple of video producers.

And if I can get a good video editor, I've got one in mind.

He's fabulous.

I've worked with him in the past and I'm thinking of bringing him on as a paid employee.

So I can go to car shows like we've always said we would do some filming,

do some interviews, have him cut it and be able to release it to the YouTube channel

or the Instagram.

We're going to get more active there.

We're going to get more content out in the no driving gloves thing.

I'm sorry to do this to you guys and tell you that this is happening.

No driving gloves changes.

But unfortunately, unlike Matt Ferris, Spike Ferrisen, Matt DeAndrea,

this podcast doesn't pay our salaries.

This podcast doesn't support us.

To be honest, this podcast doesn't even pay for itself.

We do it for fun.

We watch you here for fun.

And we said this podcast is now being paid for as a promotional tool with Hustle and Heritage

Incorporated, which is My Men's Oriented Gift Shop, which the Brick and Mortar launch

just a few days ago.

And I am astounded by the numbers we're doing in these first few days.

And it can only get better as people learn about the location.

And we get closer to Christmas, January and February are going to be terrifying.

But as I've said, when Derek and Dave were here, I'm starting to put more time towards the

podcast.

Unfortunately, a lot of that time I put towards it.

Got chucked out the window with the host changes.

But if you have, I want to say if you have ideas, I may listen to them, I may not.

I just said I'm a tyrant.

But if you want a guest on here, if you want to talk about your car, come talk about your

Corvette.

I mean, we get a lot of people in the chat sometimes did not pre-announce the show.

Be honest, I had notes for the show, but I just really was actually going to do the

show tomorrow night.

But you expect me here on Thursday.

I'm going to be here on Thursdays.

Hopefully I can get a couple of these new guests to kick the tires, take them for a test drive,

see where we can slot in.

I've been looking at one guy, one friend really, really hard.

And I haven't sent him the invite.

But I think he would be a fabulous fit for no driving gloves.

So maybe we'll get Derek on for a goodbye show.

But he's just, he's got a lot going on.

He's overwhelmed.

Dave wants to get back in here.

Just like I said, don't know how to, I don't know how to slot him in.

Tell me what you'd like me to do.

Dave enjoys doing the podcast and says ties to the automotive hobby.

And we got some great people that come see him.

But with that, I'm going to make it a short one tonight.

We've talked 30 minutes about the changes that are coming.

And it's, you know, getting to me that time.

We'll talk to you, guarantee you in two weeks.

But I'm really hoping I see you next week.

So as I say every week, it's time to get off your ass.

Go burn some gas because John is out.

Shake it Up! 414

Honda NSX

Honda Prelude

Toyota Corolla

Toyota Highlander

Toyota Land

Chevrolet Tahoe

Nissan Sentra

Toyota Prius

Ford Maverick

Chevrolet Corvette

Ford Mustang

About this episode

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