Ted Talks with Tory Alonzo

Everyone from Ted Bundy to billionaire drove that car.

I tried to buy that car.

Oh, stop.

Vance, of course you did.

I tried to buy that car.

I got outbid on it, and it went to a crime museum.

I think it's in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, or Pigeon Point.

OK.

Tonight on that car show, we've got a friend of the show,

Tori Alonzo, and we talk about a little bit of everything,

really.

Movie cars, Yu-Gos, Breaking Bad, Volkswagen's,

manual SUVs, Dodge Neons, and even Ted Bundy.

Stay tuned.

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Hey, it's that car show.

And if you are watching on video,

you are realizing you never know what you're going to get when

you tune into that car show.

But Lindsay's here.

I'm here.

Dan is out doing amazing things.

Michael is as well.

But we do have a really neat guy and a guy

that I'm excited to talk with.

And that's Tori Alonzo.

Tori Tori happens to be Lindsay's fancy,

but has an incredible car history of his own.

And I think it's why, you know, or how you two met.

And just really glad to have you, Tori.

It's good to see you.

Well, thanks, guys.

I appreciate you guys having me on.

Yeah, it's going to be fun.

We're kind of doing this one in a pinch

because I'm off to the Colorado Grand this week.

And so I'll be out of self range

and all that other wonderful stuff that comes along

with being on the on the Grand.

And what we'll talk about the Grand a little bit,

the car list, guys, this year is just fantastic.

Each year is just better than the last.

It's, you know, and the people, too, you know,

it is like all the car people that ever want to see.

Yeah, I told someone it was like the bohemian grove

of car gatherings, and then it realized

there are probably some negative connotations.

It is not that.

It's like nobody's getting naked without it.

I think we're good, right?

You're already ahead of the game.

But it's, no, it's going to be great.

But just some wonderful people, some wonderful cars,

and it looks like the weather's going to be fantastic as well.

But before we get any further to, I just want to say,

thank you, I just want to say Sasha to thank you.

I just want to say thank you to Sasha Celepinov, who was on.

I realized I pronounced his last name three different ways

on the episode.

That keeps it exciting, right?

Keeps it exciting.

What a hell of a guy.

That guy is so talented.

I think he's just getting started with what he's doing.

He's so modest.

The cars that he's designed, including Bugatti Chiron,

and, you know, all this other stuff.

And, you know, he's got this amazing Nelu 27 car

that is just because hot V V 12.

One thousand seventy horsepower goes to eleven.

If you didn't get the

didn't get the the connection there in the final reference.

Spinal tab. Yeah.

He's also a big heavy metal guy, too.

So that's all he appreciated that.

But it's a hell of a thing.

And like I said, it was a really good episode.

We watched it and I learned so much.

And I thought you just did a phenomenal job.

Thank you. You know, so the team.

Thanks to you, thank you.

He made it. He made it easy.

He's just, I mean, I could have talked with him

for another couple of hours, truly.

And he was very accommodating.

And hopefully, yeah, him on again.

And so, Tori, you are a Volkswagen guy.

That's kind of just scratching the surface.

Yeah. First and foremost, I've always been to old BWs.

That's kind of what sparked my whole car journey.

I guess you would call it.

But a lot of Porsche guys got their start with Volkswagen's as well.

So my journey is not unlike a lot of other people

that I encounter any given day.

But yeah, that's that's kind of what got me into Volkswagen's.

Originally was the first movie I ever saw as a kid

was Herbie goes bananas in the theater.

Yeah. And it was kind of over for me after that.

So I've always been into Volkswagen's.

I always loved vehicles.

And, you know, every now and then,

I'll like branch off into something weird.

Like I had a you go phase for a while at a phase

where I was buying Mitsubishi starians for a while.

Like I've gotten into weird things,

but I always come back to Volkswagen and Porsche.

Yeah. Would you go tree every so often?

But you also come back.

Is a conquest TSI too far from the tree?

Or is it?

No, I, you know, I was open to a conquest TSI, too.

But I never could.

It was for whatever reason, when I was living in Orlando,

it's way easier to find Mitsubishi starians.

Yeah, interesting, interesting, interesting.

Well, a little context here.

So, you know, we've been doing the show with Lindsay now

for the 25th episode.

So that's got to be some sort of

a congratulations deal or something.

I don't know.

But yeah, that's that's half a year, right?

Which is, which is something or close to it.

And somewhere along the line in, obviously, Lindsay,

I've known you for, you know, several years at the flight

beyond, you know, the show.

But yeah, we heard about this fiance

and we finally got to meet the fiance.

And then we discovered it was Tori and hell of a guy.

We all got along famously, but I didn't appreciate

this like amazing car history that Tori has,

not just as a car guy and a wrench and a collector,

but just the people he knows.

And I mean, you know, Tori is very well known,

not just in the Volkswagen community,

but really just in the car community in general.

And it's how you two first met.

And I won't ask you to tell that whole story.

But it's kind of amazing that we're just getting Tori

on the show now because Tori, you,

I guess one of the things I was impressed with,

not just your Volkswagen history,

but you've had some amazing movie cars, right?

I think you bring this back to Herbie.

I'll let you take it from there.

It does, yeah.

So obviously it's funny what sort of what you're into

as a kid, I think comes out later in life, you know,

when you're able to actually afford it.

And the thing that obviously got me into cars originally

was Herbie.

And so I always wanted to find out what happened

to these original Herbie movie cars

because they made quite a few of them over the years.

And so what I would do,

my move was always to track down the people

that had worked on the films.

Special effects guys are a wealth of information.

And they usually know what happened to the cars.

So I started tracking down the special effects guys

and I found out that there was,

the first cars that I found were in a junkyard

in California, north of LA.

And it was a guy that did a lot of stuff

with productions, commercials, movies.

You name it, you know, he was the guy,

he was known as the, it was the jackknife king

is what this guy was known as.

It was his name's George Sack.

And so anytime you see an 18 wheeler jackknife

in a movie, he was the guy that they brought in.

And he was the one actually driving the 18 wheeler

and he would jackknife and you know,

slide over a car or whatever it was.

If it was an 18 wheeler and then you had stun stun,

George Sack was your guy.

No kidding.

And so he was the guy that had initially bought

I think like four or five of the original Herbie's

after Herbie goes bananas wrapped.

And they just sat in his junkyard

and nobody had ever really done anything with him.

Another friend of mine who's in the movie car world

named Scott Velvet, he owns a museum in Branson, Missouri.

He's got literally everything like,

oh I've seen this guy.

Earlier, yeah.

Yeah, I've seen this guy on television.

Yeah, he's amazing.

And that's where I got the car from Better Call Saul.

Like he had the Suzuki esteem from Better Call Saul.

I went and you know, made a deal for that car.

But back to the Herbie's.

So Scott ended up buying all of these cars

and nobody had wanted to mess with them.

And I was like, you know,

I'd rather have a really rough original

than a really nice replica,

which is what I had at the time.

So I've proposed let me trade my replica for this car

that needs, I have to start completely over again,

but it'll be the real thing when I'm done with it.

Interesting.

And the replica is good enough for Branson,

right, in those crowds.

Right, not for me though.

But it's weird.

You know, I've never been a casual sort of observer.

Like I can't watch a movie

and then just be fine with owning the DVD.

Like I have to know what happened to the car.

It's like, you know,

the same thing happened with Better Call Saul.

You know, I was like, oh, I wonder what happened

to the Suzuki esteem from that show.

And then of course I tracked it down

and all roads lead to Scott Velvet

because he owns so many of these movie

and television cars that he happened to have that car.

But yeah, it's weird.

Over the years I've just, I've been,

I've had a knack for tracking down original movie cars.

And you know, I got involved with the cars

from Ford V Ferrari after that movie had wrapped.

Just by a chance meeting,

I was connected to a guy named Billy Stabil

who was the picture car coordinator for Ford V Ferrari.

Long story short, he had signed all of this paperwork

saying that he could not advertise the cars

as having been used in Ford V Ferrari.

Oh wow.

Like he was charged with selling them

but couldn't mention that they had been

connected to the movie.

Interesting.

Right, and a lot of that, you know,

things have changed a lot.

Like back in, even as early as 20 years ago,

you know, you could get a movie car fairly easily.

Now the studios, because of lawsuits and everything else,

they've become really hard to get

unless you know somebody on the inside just for,

you know, if someone goes out

and wraps one of these cars around a tree

and kills somebody, they're afraid

that people are gonna come back

and sue the studios saying,

hey, this car should have never been put on the street

and a lot of these cars don't have Vins

and you know, they do it that way.

But I mean, as we all know,

Vins can be procured and next thing you know,

this car that you have a VIN is now on the street

at, you know, Cars and Coffee in Malibu.

Sure, interesting.

Interesting.

This car doesn't exist.

Which is really strange.

But so yeah, I got to sell a lot of the cars

from Ford V Ferrari and then I ended up

making a deal with him for one of the Porsche 906's

and so I had the 906 for a while

and it was cool because it still allowed me

to tinker with it.

Like I'm such a perfectionist in OCD with details

that like the fact that in the movie

they had like a Chevy lug pattern on the wheels

just drove me crazy.

Oh, God, yes.

See, now I won't unsee it.

Yeah.

Oh, and once you see this stuff, you can't.

You can't unsee it.

So of course I had to have like a legit set

of like Carrera 6 wheels made in the right,

you know, widths and I love that part of it.

You know, I wish I could have been involved

with the film when they were doing it.

I know they went over budget on their film cars

and that happens a lot of times.

So there's always this tightrope

to walk of authenticity and cost.

Getting it done.

And you know, in their eyes, it's like,

well, this car is always gonna be driving.

We're not gonna really see it parked.

So no one's gonna really notice that

unless you're like, you know.

This guy.

Got a magnifying glass on every screen,

you know, grab of the film, but.

But I notice it.

And it nothing drives me nuts more than watching something,

I don't know, like a period piece

if you wanna call it like Boogie Nights

or something set in an era

that's very much of that era.

And then you see a car that's like 10 years too new,

even just parked in the street.

Or it's got modern tires on it.

That drives me crazy.

Oh, totally.

Yeah, yeah.

Like in the brand new tires.

Cause you can't not see it.

Yeah, no, that's it.

And movies are weird too, right?

Because we get so emotionally attached,

but the movie business is a business.

And at the end of the day,

I'm sure, you know, for all these reasons

you described, these cars just get chucked.

And, you know, but I don't know,

we have a connection in some movies,

you know, the car casting is so good too, right?

Like some movies just get it right.

I think like Wes Anderson does a great job

of putting the right movies in the right,

you know, the right cars in the right movies

and that kind of thing.

But there's obviously this whole subculture

that exists, which I've never considered, right?

And to your point, you can't just,

you don't just find these cars for sale.

You've gotta know the right person.

You know, there's this, you know,

there's this scene.

And so.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, he excels at tracking these cars

down, I was gonna say,

he should tell us what his daily driver was

in Albuquerque up until very recently.

So, in Albuquerque.

In Albuquerque, I was like,

what is a cooler car to have than a Pontiac Aztec?

And I found one on Marketplace,

like it was just the most chance thing

I just happened to log on.

And it used to do the Breaking Bad RV tour

in Albuquerque.

And the guy, for whatever reason,

something happened to it,

the owner of the Breaking Bad RV tour.

He had to do like an insurance claim on it

because someone had shattered the windshield

and he just didn't have the money to fix it.

And so the car got auctioned off.

Someone bought it to flip it.

And then I ended up buying it off of Marketplace.

And that was my, like,

that was the most dependable car

I think I've ever owned, ironically.

I drove that car for like over a year in Albuquerque.

Really?

It was a fantastic car.

I hauled all kinds of stuff in it.

Motors, you name it.

It was the most handy car.

It's ugly as sin, but it was a great car.

Like, I never had any trouble out of it.

And when I left, I didn't really need it up here

because I bought the GT4 and I was like,

what am I going to do with an Aztec in Seattle?

You're the only guy in the world

that owns a GT4 and an Aztec, I don't know.

And I still miss the Aztec.

That's the sad thing.

I was like, I still find myself up here in Seattle

now that I live here,

going, wow, I kind of wish I hadn't sold that Aztec

because it's such a chill car to drive.

You don't have to worry about someone

putting a doording in it.

Like, who cares?

Yeah, it was a way ahead of its time, wasn't it?

I mean, it had a damn tent that plug on to the rear end, right?

And I saw that 10 years later with other brands, right?

I mean, that would be, if that thing came out today,

it would be like the Overlander's, you know,

favorite car, I think it's just.

It totally would be.

But it did suffer a little bit

from that era of like Pontiac plastic,

like those funky angular dashes.

And, you know, I mean, did it have a graphic equalizer?

I can't remember.

No, that mine did not.

There's some of the top trim ones did.

I mean, they had an all-wheel drive version

that was like called the rally that was all-wheel drive.

Mine was just kind of like the base model.

It was, okay.

See, I just assumed they were all all-wheel drive.

I didn't know that, you know.

No, not all of them.

Mine was just two-wheel drive.

It was just the basic one, but it was such a great car.

I honestly, I love crappy cars.

I mean, I went through, I think I told you earlier

that I went through this phase

where I was like doing yougos.

I was in a documentary about yougos.

Like we were trying to make it about the last yougo

to be imported into the US

and they were doing this extravagant road trip

all over Europe and then they were gonna bring the car over

to the US where I would take delivery

because I'd bought the car.

Amazing.

Wait, after it's been beat to shit,

you're gonna take delivery, right?

Is that how this works?

What's funny is it was like the nicest yougo

I've ever seen and it was a Zastava.

Like they were called the yougos over here,

but over there the model name was the Zastava yougo.

Should have called this Zastava here.

I mean, that's a much more exciting name.

What's funny is they make guns now.

Like a gun factory.

They don't make guns then too

and that's why they didn't name them that, right?

I'll be honest, I did not see that coming.

Jack of all trades here.

But, and it was a great car.

I drove it for a long time.

It ended up with a yougo collector in Ohio.

There's always another guy that's into them, you know.

What first inspired you?

Because I mean, you're a little younger than me

but I think you're old enough to remember

like when those were advertised on TV,

they were $39.95.

I believe the number was right.

Something really, really cheap like that.

But I mean, did you, what made you lust for one?

I mean, was it those sensuous, you know, curves?

What was the?

I mean, for me it was the speed.

Like just, you know.

Just the 0 and 16.

Being able to like, pull them by so many car links,

you know, right out of the gate.

I think that's more what did it.

No, I've always loved the underdog.

I've always been into the underdog

and I think it goes back to Herbie.

You know, you've got this little unassuming car

that everybody talks trash about

and it's like, is that really true though?

Like, is it really that bad of a car?

And I'm really good friends with Jason Torchinski.

He's to right for Jalopnik.

Now he's with the Octavian and he had a yougo as well.

So we used to help each other out with yougo stuff.

And I think he kind of likes the crappy cars as well.

So we've always kind of bonded over that.

But it was a great car.

I mean, again, one of the more dependable cars

I've ever owned.

Yeah, interesting.

I had a Porsche 928 that was my airport car for a long time

and that was one of the least dependable cars I've ever owned.

And it was a really nice car.

And it'd be worth a lot more now

than when I sold it back in the mid 2000s.

But you know, that was a car that I'd lusted over

since I was a kid from risky business days.

Oh yeah.

And that would totally never meet your heroes kind of a car

because I would never own one of those cars again.

I'm sure they're great if you have the money

to maintain it properly.

And if it's, you know, you rarely drive it.

But what a let down.

I mean, you have it built up in your mind

that this car is going to be so fast and so amazing.

And it was none of those things.

Turns out that's not correct.

No, it's the one Porsche people say,

no, the automatic is the one you want, right?

Yeah.

No, I haven't had the manual.

I was a 928S, guards red with the camel leather

interior, manual five speed.

I was so excited.

It was like the car I wanted.

You even had the right color.

Even that wasn't enough.

Well, so what?

OK, talk a little bit about what it

was like driving the Aztec in Albuquerque, like you can say.

Because share what you did with the wheels.

Oh yeah, so here's what's funny is like.

If they didn't get stolen, I'm sorry.

I know, right?

Amazing.

Hard to believe.

Well, the car blended in so well.

That's what was great about the Aztec.

It's like I never had to worry about anything with it

because it was just it kind of blended in

with the whole idea of Albuquerque.

And I'm sorry for anyone that listens from Albuquerque.

They're probably shaking their head, yes, right now.

It's its own vibe.

Hey, we've already dumped on San Bernardino, Albuquerque.

Right, exactly.

So Albuquerque tourism industry, sorry.

Go for the balloon festival and then go home.

But what's funny about the Aztec is when I had gotten it,

the guy had switched the wheels around.

And I was like, well, that's kind of weird.

Like one corner had a 17 inch wheel, the other three

were 16s, and I was like, that's strange.

So what I figured out had happened

was he didn't realize that one of the black steelies

was on that car for reason because in Breaking Bad,

he had a spare on in one of the, I think it was

the back driver side.

And so he had found, he'd gone to a junkyard

and bought just a 17 inch Pontiac wheel

and put it on and called it good.

So I went on eBay and bought like another steelie

and had new tires managed so everything matched

and whatever else.

But yeah, it's funny.

And ironically, like when I left Albuquerque

to move here with this one,

I ended up selling it back to the guy

that does the RV tour.

And so now like he will shuttle celebrities

from Breaking Bad to come back to Albuquerque

to do the tour in that, which is so cool.

That's amazing.

I gotta do that.

I mean, like about seven hours from Albuquerque

here in Denver.

Right, you gotta go do it.

It's cool.

I mean, I wouldn't go at night.

It'd be a little too realistic.

The tour or in general?

I think in general, I just wouldn't go at night.

Well, so the Aztec that you had,

Walter White's like Brian Cranston didn't drive that one,

but it was used in the show.

No, my, the esteem was used in the show.

The Aztec was used in the RV tour

and like for promotional stuff.

Okay, got it.

And the esteem is hearing the theme.

The esteem is real.

The esteem was a car that they actually pushed off

a cliff and that was like a challenge for me

because I love the tinkering aspect.

Like once everything's good and sorted,

then I kind of lose interest in it, right?

Yeah, but it had been pushed off a cliff this time.

It literally got pushed off a cliff.

That's the one that he owns.

Yeah, and so this car was in the show.

It was most prominently featured

in an episode called The Bag Man,

which was one of the highest rated episodes

of the show, all of them were amazing.

But they literally took it out

to like the middle of the desert

and pushed it off a cliff in this show.

And I was like, hmm, wonder if this would run.

And I, it's a shame I don't have more time

on my hands because that would have made a killer YouTube,

you know, will it run?

Like, I mean, Whoopi built his channel on stuff like that.

True, true.

That's very unbearable and see if it'll start in a year.

Yeah, yeah.

Whoopi's got a goal wing now.

So there's your...

Yeah, not exactly.

That's why I don't have a goal wing driving, you know?

Cause I'm not smart enough to do stuff like this.

But yeah, it was a challenge.

Like it was, you know, the car was full of like sand

and rocks and I mean, it was literally like

excavating a car.

You could have like, I don't know, packaged that sand.

Don't think I had, I did not do that.

Like I have not sold any yet,

but I took some and put them in Tupperware

because I know that there's enough people out there

that would probably want some.

Absolutely.

So yeah, I do have genuine sand

from the Estinian, from Tahajali.

Yeah, saved.

Well, I mean that's show.

Caved in.

Oh, go ahead, Lindsay, yeah.

The roof is caved in and he drove it that way.

Yeah.

Yeah, so...

So you can't...

Spoiler alert, I did end up getting the car running.

It took a while, I had to put like a new,

I put a new timing belt on it.

I went through the fuel system.

I had to put all new fluids in

because they drained everything because of the EPA.

It was on Indian reservation land I later found out

and they're like, yeah, you can dump this car here

but you have to take all the fluids out.

So the radiator was drained

and it was all corroded, so I had to replace that.

So long story short, I spent way more money

on an esteem than I should have

but it was worth it, driving it from

where I'd worked on it to the museum

which is called the Wheels Museum in Albuquerque

which that's where I left it on loan

so people can actually go see it

and now all these people that do the RV tour

that's one of the stops now is to go check out the esteem.

We should probably qualify what a Suzuki esteem is

because I bet there are more than a few people

listening of no idea what this car is.

It was kind of what you called a Honda Civic

sort of fighter of its day, tiny little thing.

Probably, yeah, really small.

Yeah, I would say probably competed more

with like a GEO, if GEO was even around.

It was a 98, it was a way newer car

than what people realize.

It was a 1998 Suzuki esteem.

They didn't make them for very long.

Impossible to find parts for, but I love a challenge

so why not?

The Swift was the hatchback.

The esteem was the sedan or the coupe, right?

Correct, and it's the same motor I found out

that they used to put in like GEO trackers

and Suzuki sidekicks.

So you can get engine parts

but body parts forget about it.

I bought a whole other esteem

just to use like plastic parts off of.

Oh, that's right.

And it got crushed when I left Albuquerque.

Yeah, it felt so bad.

This was the genre or the, this competed, yeah,

like you said with some of these other cars

in like the Ford Aspire, ironically had like,

you know, or had the most ironic names of,

you know, all the car classes.

My sister had one in college.

That was her college car.

No kidding.

Yeah.

That really looked like an Easter egg.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Shoot.

Well, yeah, the parts car was,

he forgot to even have the parts car.

I forgot about it.

Why are you hiding all this stuff?

You have a barn?

That was in Albuquerque.

Still, my brother-in-law has a laboratory there

and he had this kind of bullpen on the side

and I didn't even realize until I was about to move.

Like, oh my gosh, I still have to get rid of the esteem.

I still have a car there.

Rewind five seconds.

Your brother's in the ABQ and has a lab.

Tell us about this lab.

I know, right?

It's not, it's not what you think.

He doesn't cook math.

He goes by Eisenberg.

It's a, he used to be a science teacher.

Now he's turned.

Okay.

Oh.

Yeah.

No, no, no, I'm sorry.

No, it's super boring.

It's like an environmental lab.

So yeah, nothing fun.

Yeah.

Not as fun as the most pure math

that comes with it.

And then he met a dropout student

who approached him one day

and said, yeah, I've got an idea.

Yeah, yeah.

Wow, that's amazing.

I've never heard of this story before,

but probably not.

You get royalties.

Your brother gets royalties each month.

Nice big fat check.

Speaking of royalties,

you really plugged into like the California scene.

I mean, I, every time I talk with you,

you surprise me about something.

Like you have a podcast or many podcasts.

Like what, what's

I do podcast sometime.

Well, I'm, I'm like a frequent,

you probably call me more of a frequent guest

than like, because we have a lot of guests.

So it becomes a little tumultuous to, you know,

have so many, you know,

like when you guys do a guest show,

you know, I'm talking to here.

So, but it's called let's talk dubs.

And it's about mostly air cooled Volkswagen's.

So I do with a guy named Bill Tegrenos in Las Vegas.

Really good front of mind.

He's tuned into the VW world.

And he's as interested in the history

and preserving the history of the VW scene as I am.

Like that's, that's always sort of what has driven my passion

is, is getting the story behind the story.

And where did all of these cars come from?

What happened to these cars?

Like right now our big rabbit hole is 80s custom cars.

Right?

Like the Radwood era,

but like in SoCal the Volkswagen scene in the 80s

was unlike anything anyone's ever seen.

I mean, there were tens of thousands of people

that would attend these shows in Orange County.

And all these cars were, you know, painted in pastels

and pink and purple graphics and just this crazy time.

And we don't have that anymore in the VW scene.

Now everything is very structured

and very much like the Porsche scene.

Like if you try to go outside of, you know,

how the car came from the factory

or you use a non factory color, you're ousted.

You have to go park over there, you know?

And so Bill and I are like really interested

in finding out what happened to these old cars,

bringing back some of that creativity to the Volkswagen scene.

And with the popularity of Radwood, you know,

I think there's a lot of people that grew up in that era

that now have the money to build those cars

that were in the magazines that maybe, you know,

I was 12, 13 years old back in the 80s

and I didn't have that kind of money.

But, you know, now that we all have jobs

and most of the people that have had kids,

their kids are kind of going off to college,

you know, they've got a little time and money

to do something like that.

So that's what a lot of us are doing now.

Yeah.

You know, obviously there's this Porsche parallel

and, you know, hell, Thursday I spent my day

down at the 356 registry annual gathering

down at Porsche of Colorado Springs.

And that was amazing.

I'd never seen 200 356's together.

So it was funny, like not to interrupt,

a friend of mine that I know from Ohio,

the car that they restored won Best of Show there.

It was a blue Peacester.

Yeah, his name's Pete Jackson.

Oh, that's a fantastic car.

Yeah, you know, it's Pete's custom coach building.

No kidding.

He's done work on my cars before.

Yeah, he actually, it was that car

that he had restored that won Best of Show for that.

That's awesome.

Unfortunately, they didn't get a great major day

for their Concorde, but I guess my point is,

like those cars are expensive now.

Used to, even 10 years ago,

you could get a cheap 356 and, you know,

a good 356 now is 80 or 100,000, right?

And it only goes up from there

if you want something like a Speedster or Continental

or, you know, all this.

So I think that just,

I think those Volkswagen's are really primed, right?

For, you know, a big blow-up.

I, you know, if they haven't already, you know,

it's just, I wanted nothing more than like a GTI

when I was younger, right?

Like, but I grew up with like the diesel dashers

and the Vogue in the,

Fox.

Rabbit.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, my sister had a Fox, you know,

made in Brazil, it had like 40 pounds of undercoating

for like jungle conditions or whatever, you know?

I mean, it was a whole other thing, it was a tank.

So I think there are a lot of us that have good,

good memories about those cars, right?

Absolutely.

Everybody's got a Volkswagen story,

whether it's air cooled or water cooled,

or, you know, you mentioned Rod Emery,

like his, his father built the first Baja bug

that ever was created.

And Volkswagen ended up using that

in one of their advertising campaigns.

They had a print ad with Gary Emery's Baja on it

that said, is nothing sacred, which is hilarious.

That's a fantastic ad.

Yes, I've seen that ad.

I had no idea that that was not a bad ad.

That was Gary Emery's car.

Yep.

Just, as he mentioned, passed away about a week ago.

And I actually saw Rod at the show

and his lovely wife and one of his lead guys

from the shop named Chris,

who I got to spend some time with

and just genuinely nice people.

Right.

And Rod, I think was the keynote speaker at the event.

I wasn't around for that.

But Rod will actually be coming with us on the grand.

He was there in part to deliver a car,

an Emery coupe to Tom Horan,

who's the chair of the Colorado Grand.

So we've got this beautiful Aston Martin green,

you know, I don't think it ever been done before.

And Tom and Rod are gonna drive that car in the grand.

And so I'm very excited to see it on the road.

And I think it just got painted about two weeks ago.

So I'm in Rod, despite all that was going on in his life,

you know, was able to get this car together

in time for the grand, which is pretty amazing.

It's a gorgeous, gorgeous thing.

It was amazing seeing all those 356s together as well,

because they made 356s for a long time.

I don't know, was it?

1950 to 1965.

So yeah, 15 years.

So you don't know somebody that knows that in Christ?

I would down that rabbit hole.

I'm shocked.

And I still want one.

I want one more than ever after I saw those.

And when you see all of them together

from very early cars to very late cars

and all these iterations,

and you see all the little year to year changes,

the little things, the headlights, the bumpers, right?

The trim piece is this kind of thing, the taillights.

And I've never been a patina car guy ever.

Never wanted patina.

I'm so against that fake patina and all that.

But there was some 356s there that just looked so good.

They looked better than the nicely polished cars.

These cars with history, they were one owner cars.

Original owners was not the youngest group

I've ever hung out with.

But it was amazing.

And the cars were amazing.

And I want one more than ever.

Well, and it's authentic patina.

I think it's different.

Yes, and that's, yes.

There was a lot of authentic patina that's gathering.

Well, I'll tell you something too

that a lot of people don't realize as well

is when you restore a car, usually the smell goes away.

And I'm big on car smells.

And I know I'm not the only one

because when we did a documentary about Volkswagen's,

we had a whole section about how a VW smells.

And for so many people,

that's such a connection to your first experience as a VW.

Everybody always remembers the little cubby in the back

behind the window where they would climb when they were a kid.

And everyone always remembers the smell.

And 356s have a very distinct smell too

because they're using a lot of the same materials.

And when you restore a car, you never get that smell back.

And it's not the same.

Yeah, because you don't have the authentic adhesives

and fabrics and they've aged to a certain point.

I remember when I first became aware of that

was in high school because my family had a 60s Mustang at home

and there happened to be a 60s Mustang in the parking lot

and I was walking through and I got a whiff of it

and I went, what is that?

They all smell like that.

Because I was like, I know what car that is

even if I'm not looking at it.

Yes, yes, yes.

Especially if they've been sitting in the sun

for a little bit, right?

It just kind of brings it up.

I talked with Mike Coons,

who runs the Mercedes-Benz Classic Center

a couple of years ago on this.

Yeah, and I'll see him here tomorrow on the grand.

They always bring out some cars and support customer cars.

But that's one of the things I talked with him about

because I asked him, I said, straight up,

why does an old Mercedes-Benz smell the way it does?

And he said it was the horse hair.

And when they restore a car, they don't have access

probably for a thousand reasons to horse hair.

Probably frowned upon in the 21st century.

But that's really one of the things,

one of the strong notes, I guess,

you could say, in an old Mercedes-Benz.

Like a fragrance.

Yeah, like if you really want to break this down, right?

Because that's, I mean, it is such a big part of it.

What is the underlying, what do you want to call it?

Underlying fragrance or the base note, I guess.

No pun intended of an old Volkswagen.

So it's the same exact thing.

And it's not horse hair, like people call it horse hair.

It's coconut fiber.

That's what they used.

So like, because the first time I heard that too,

I was like, that's disgusting.

I don't want to be sitting on literal horse hair.

That's gross.

It's not.

It's a coconut fiber.

And there are companies that sell the same stuff,

but you don't get the 40 years of aging and sun baking.

So it doesn't smell the same.

But that's what it is.

With VWs, it's the same exact smell.

And you've got burning oil and fuel

and everything else that mixes together.

But that's definitely the top note,

as you would call it, is the horse hair.

You know the terminology.

I got to give Volkswagen of that era another shout out, too,

because as a kid, this is before cell phones,

before anything else, when we would take road trips

in these cars, we were playing that stupid bingo

with the sliding little red.

Yes, I remember that.

The real red plastic thing.

Made in Chicago.

Yeah, by the way.

But one of the other things that would keep us entertained

was I would read the manual, right?

And one of the things these old VWs would have,

they would have these great, these well-designed manuals.

And one of the things they did was they would explode

the car and the parts and all this and the lenses.

And I just was fascinated with that.

And I think it played no small part in me

becoming a designer later in life.

I just, you know, there was just, there was something,

it was a cheap car, but they sweated the details, right?

And unfortunately, I don't think Volkswagen's quite,

you know, probably not a lot of Tiguan talk

on your podcast.

Right, I own one.

Great car.

Not at all.

You know, you just lost your way, man.

Like, I'm not even a fan of the ID buzz.

It's kind of sad.

I had high hopes for the new Beetle.

The new Beetle came out when I was in college.

And I was so excited, because I was like,

finally, they're gonna do like another bug.

And it just, it was a dressed up golf, essentially.

Well, I love the design,

because it was free with comments, you know?

That's great.

But it just didn't, it didn't hit you with the same,

it didn't evoke the emotions of the older car.

No, no.

And I still don't think the ID buzz

comes anywhere near what the old VW buses were,

because I drove one of those in college.

And, you know, you would have people come up to you

and everyone has a Volkswagen story,

like, oh, you know, I lived in one of these for a while.

And, you know, we drove this from California to Maine

when I was a kid, and I was in the back.

And I remember all the windows in the top

and everyone had a story.

But like, I don't know,

I don't see people doing that 20, 30, 40 years from now

about the ID buzz or the new Beetle.

No, no.

Well, we saw, we experienced a little bit of that

when Tori was moving from Albuquerque to Seattle

because we towed his first bug behind the moving truck.

And we'd have people, if you remember the little old man,

we were filling up at a gas station and I got out

and there was this man,

and he was like almost overcome

because he had this funny smile on his face

and he's like, what year's the bug?

And I told him, and then he just kind of was like

lost in memory, because I was like,

oh, we could chat about it.

You know, it's got an amazing story,

like Tori's connection to it

and tracking it back down and all this.

And he just kind of was like lost in memory

and then just like smiled and he's like,

it's a beautiful car.

And then he got in his car and drove away.

You knew there was a story there.

Yeah, I was like, wait, tell me everything.

I love that.

You know, it's too bad they couldn't have made

the new Beetle with a rear engine.

I think that would have made it

really truly something special because it had the look.

I mean, that was, you know,

those were hot shit when they came out.

Everyone wanted one.

I had an uncle that bought three,

one for each of his kids or whatever.

I mean, they were, they were cool, right?

But it just didn't, I don't think, you know,

I don't think that's lasted.

And of course, like the Freeman Thomas's TT, right?

Like that's a design that got diluted over the years

and that kind of thing.

And it's just that car, that type of car,

I think what you're getting is that kind of car

that people's car, right?

I mean, just doesn't exist in quite the same way

where everyone's got a story, you know?

Everyone from Ted Bundy to, you know,

Billy and Erie drove that car.

I tried to buy that car.

Oh, stop.

Of course you did.

I tried to buy that car.

I got outbid on it and it went to a crime museum.

I think it's in Gatlinburg, Tennessee or Pigeon port.

But yeah, I was, so the lead singer of corn,

Jonathan Davis owned that car for a really long time.

For small tracks, this all tracks, yes, okay.

I found that car.

Did you want that in your home?

I mean, was that something you would have

immediately given, you know, loaned out to a museum?

I don't know.

Like the way I looked at it,

like everyone's super split about that car.

You have people that are like,

that thing should be crushed.

And I was always from the camp of like,

it's not the car's fault, you know?

Like it's a historic car.

I think it's part of history.

Like you can't just whitewash it like it never happened.

Would it be a little creepy to drive in it

because there's no passenger seat

because that's where we put the women's bodies?

Sure, but I don't know.

I think you get over that.

I didn't realize that.

You get over it.

I don't think Lizzie probably would have wanted to ride it.

No, there probably would have been some discussions

that it would probably be in a museum.

But anyway, we did the first time coming in.

I have a crush on the Saudin house,

the Lloyd Wright house that's in LA.

And supposedly, you know,

as I dug into the history of that,

that's got a checkered past or, you know,

at least the, you know, perhaps had a checkered past.

I don't know if anything's been proven,

but factored into the Black Dahlia case and all that.

I was going to say, I think I know,

and it was vacant for a while or something.

And then the people moved in, but didn't move in.

Something, now you can have a wedding reception there

for, you know, about 30 grand, I think.

About hell of a building, but yeah.

I don't know if I'd want to live there.

I don't know.

It's a wild story.

It's kind of like the C.E.L.O. drive

from, you know, from the Sharon Tate murder,

same thing, you know, like it was a really cool house.

And what else is weird is the lead singer

of Nine Inch Nails, he had the door off of that,

Trent Reznor had the door off of that house

for a really long time.

He even repurposed it in his house in New Orleans.

And I think he sold the house

and I think they took the door off,

the door's still somewhere.

They still say like kill pigs or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, it was the door from the house.

Someone had saved.

I believe Trent Reznor had owned the house for a while

and then I think he sold it and they demoed it,

but he kept the door and repurposed it.

But talking about a good car movie,

once upon a time in Hollywood was a great car movie as well.

Yeah.

I almost bought the Carmen Ghia that Brad Pitt is driving

in that.

But it's got a Subaru motor in it, which is weird.

They, I guess,

that's a thing though, right?

Subaru motors and

Subaru swaps and VW is the thing now.

And especially with like the move, the 906

that I have from Ford V Ferrari, Subaru engine.

Well, which were some of the Ford versus Ferrari cars

had Chevy and didn't some of the Cobras

have Chevy engines or something?

No, the GT 40s.

So all of the GT four in this ticked off

so many Ford people, but the running joke was,

you know, everyone was like, oh, this is Ford V Ferrari.

Why do you have LS's in these cars?

And they were like,

because we need them to run and finish filming.

So they all had great motors and Porsche transaxles

and every single GT 40 that you saw in that,

except one, which was built by Super Formance,

which was like the hero car that they had show the engine.

Yeah, they all had LS's, which is funny.

I am fascinated to buy these boom cars

and things that they use in movies,

which is a rabbit hole.

I went down recently.

It's oftentimes it'll be like a Cayenne turbo

or something painted matte black.

So it doesn't reflect.

Then we'll have this, like,

that's a whole, that's a whole thing too.

I, yeah, yeah, that's-

Well, didn't you work with that one too?

Yeah, so I actually got to do,

yeah, I worked on a film

when I was still living in Albuquerque,

just as like something fun to do on the side,

not my airline gig.

And I was in a movie-

You are the most interesting man in the world.

We can call it.

I was in a big fish, very small pond by the end.

But yeah, they actually shipped one of those out

in an enclosed trailer.

And I've got pictures of it somewhere

and probably sent them to you,

but it was a Porsche Cayenne with a crane.

And the crane is remote operated.

There's a jump seat in the back behind the hatch

and they've got monitors and everything set up.

And I was a passenger in an RV.

I was photo-doubling an actor called Bobby Cannavale.

He's been in a lot of stuff.

Oh, sure, he's great.

He's in one of my favorite movies,

so I didn't erupt of all time called The Station Agent.

Oh, okay, yeah.

Yeah, so yeah, I know him.

Really nice guy, like worked with him

throughout the whole film.

So like when he couldn't make the shoot

or if it was something far away

where they were shooting from behind,

it was actually me.

You were his stunt double.

Let's say, yeah, you were his body double.

I didn't really do that.

Another guy for stunts,

but any time it was like a photo thing

or we were in a car.

So in this one scene, we're in this RV

and we spent all morning just running up and down

this abandoned highway that was closed off,

but this Porsche would come up and then pass us

and then the crane would be all over the place

and getting all these weird angles,

but it was all remote controlled

from the back of the Cayenne.

It's fascinating.

It was so cool.

As much as I hate cutting into a Porsche of any type,

I mean, that's pretty cool.

That's a Porsche with the story, right?

Yeah, and it was an automatic.

So it's not like it would have been worth 150 grand

or anything.

True, true.

How about that?

Was it you that posted that today?

I think everyone's celebrating about that today.

Okay, okay.

He definitely said it to all of us, but yeah.

Oh my gosh.

That was cool.

And like the comments section on that,

on the Cars and Bids post after the auction closed,

the comments are amazing.

Yeah, so those that don't know,

there was a car that closed yesterday

on the Cars and Bids.

It was like a 2014.

Yeah, was it a Cayenne or a Montreal Cayenne?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Green lift, Tannertier, I think.

$150,000.

I think it's $125,000.

Was it a GTS?

Oh, was that what it was?

I think.

I don't even think it was a GTS.

No, I didn't think so either.

And it was an hour long bidding war

that went back and forth.

Like it kept resetting, I guess.

Like, that's crazy.

I was like, some of the comments were like,

does it come with a Cayman in the trunk?

Yeah, right?

Is there 100,000 in the trunk?

Like, what are we doing?

It's incredible.

Manual, obviously, is amazing, but they're like,

at the end of the day, it's a decade old Cayenne.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't think those were known in their days

as being particularly wonderful or, you know,

hence they weren't very popular, you know?

I mean, and I know like manual SUVs are rare

and, you know, I am a big fan,

but like, that gave me pause.

I mean, do we sell your manual Lex 3 now?

Right.

I'm just saying.

Apparently, the market is hot.

I say, yeah, I say, go for it.

I mean, get on it.

Because there's how many people for 150 grand.

Well, I'm like, how many people been on it

that didn't win that might be very interested in manual X3?

Absolutely.

Like, you know, I mean, plus it's celebrity owned.

You've got a story and, you know, but it's got proven us.

That's GT3 money, right?

Might be a 991, but I mean, that's GT3 money.

Yeah, all right.

Yeah, yeah, I'll take the GT3.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, exactly.

Wow.

That's crazy.

That reminds me of, talk about the film,

what they did to put together the esteem for filming.

Yeah.

Do you remember the film car that like Franken esteem?

Oh yeah.

So Jason Torchinsky actually did an article on this.

Like, I sent him all these pictures

because my friend Scott actually owns the filming car

for the esteem.

So rather than use a Cayenne with a crane,

they grafted the front of a Suzuki esteem

so like a Ford wind star.

So they could put all the camera equipment in the back

and shoot from the back to see like the driver's point of view.

Wow.

The craziest thing also.

That's a hell of a thing, yeah.

But yeah, it's insane with the links

that they will go through to film with cars.

And what's, I think, what the craziest part about that one

is that they left like four inches

of the front of the driver's door,

like the back portion of the driver's door

and then the rest of the car.

Instead of like cutting it where the door like evenly.

So you have like this strip of door

drives me crazy when I see it.

My OCD just goes onkers when I see it.

Like there's so many other ways

that could have fabricated it better, but.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wow, that's, that's.

It was never going to be a thing of beauty, but.

No, no, no, that's wild.

That's wild.

Well, so what's in your garage now?

Cause you've now moved to Seattle.

You've.

Yes.

I have, yeah.

So here, I still have cars scattered all over the country.

I have, I still have.

It's better than having kids scattered

all over the country.

I guess.

That's true.

They just haven't found me yet.

But I'm just kidding, ma'am.

This is an army.

No, I still have the same room.

If you're watching, even though it's a split screen,

that's get real awkward.

Yeah.

Where do I look?

Yeah, no, I still have quite a few Volkswagen's I have.

So up here in Seattle, we brought the car.

I care the most about the last one I would ever sell,

but it was my very first car.

It was a 66 bug.

You own your very first car.

I do.

I tracked it back down.

My dad sold it when I went away at college,

and it was to save the house and make the mortgage payment.

My dad had fallen on hard times,

and the car was in the garage for safekeeping,

and I came home to do laundry one weekend, and it was gone.

And it took me 20 years, Ryan, to find that car,

track it back down, and get it back.

So that's my number one best car story.

We could do a whole podcast just on that.

Tracking down your first car and finding it again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Also, how did that conversation go?

I love the thrill of the hunt and finding it again,

does it live up to how good it was when you remembered it?

Sure, sure.

Oh, we should absolutely do that, because I-

It's great, it's great.

It's amazing.

That's what he picked me up in at the airport

in Albuquerque when he was moving,

and it was like, it felt very perfect.

That's amazing.

So I've got that car.

I've got, obviously, the GT4 that Lindsey and I just picked up

that we went to see you in.

Yeah, you go to see it.

Yeah, yeah.

It's come a long way since you've seen it.

I've done a lot of stuff to it.

It was pretty great when I saw it.

Yeah, no.

I've got some Manti racing wheels that

are going to be going on it soon.

But I have to change so much stuff on it.

I have to change.

Well, they're 18s, right?

Yeah, so going from 20s to 18s, the calipers

that are on this car won't fit, so you

have to put a 996 GT3 front caliper on it,

which is like $3,000 for the pair of those.

I had to buy some Porsche Motorsport tow links

for the back, so they'll clear the back wheels.

But those will be going on probably this winter.

But I've got that car.

I've got another car.

So we were talking about the 80s VW scene earlier.

I've got a car that I'm putting together right now

with a friend of mine in Reno that

was one of the best show car builders for VWs back

in the 80s.

His name's Steve Connect.

And this guy is just.

These guys in their names.

I mean, they're killing it.

Oh, man.

This guy is so good.

This guy is just a master fabricator.

There's nothing this guy can't do.

And he wanted to do one last show car.

And I found a car that he had started working on in the 80s

and never finished.

And Lindsay actually had seen pictures of this car

before we were kind of like a serious couple.

Well, before we were dating.

And she'd screenshot it, which is so weird,

because it was such a cool car.

And our daughter loved the colors.

And so I've got this car now.

And we've been building it for the last nine, 10 months,

specifically for a car show that we're

going to be having in Las Vegas in October.

I've literally got three weeks to help Steve finish this car.

It just got painted.

The graphics are getting painted on it right now.

It's total, like, 80s.

It's like lavender with pink and purple graphics.

Amazing.

It looks like neon tubes.

It's going to be so cool.

I mean, if Radwood was a car, if Radwood or Trapper

Keeper was a car, it would be this, right?

There you go.

It looks like a Trapper Keeper.

But so I have that car.

That car will be finished here probably

in the next couple of weeks with any luck.

So it's going to go to Vegas.

And we'll see it there.

What else do I have?

I have a Porsche that's still in Ohio at a friend of mine

shop that has a factory 935 nose and wing on it

that was someone's track car back in Florida, back

in the 80s and 90s.

Facebook Marketplace, the weird find that I still got.

So I got that car.

Looks like something from Bruce Myers's collection.

But it is not.

It is not.

But it's a Porsche.

You know Bruce Myers car.

But didn't the front end go to Le Mans?

So yeah, the front end is actually a factory front end.

I got that from a guy who had a bunch of spares

from a real 935.

And that is the real front end off of the Intrascope 935

that raced at Le Mans.

That's incredible.

That's more a real Porsche than some of these old vintage

Ferraris, I think we see rolling around.

Oh, 100%.

They have a Vinplate or whatever.

I mean, that's incredible.

Exactly.

And it's built on a 911 or what?

It's built on a 1968 912.

912?

No kidding.

But what's crazy is so that originally

would have been a short wheelbase car.

Whoever had this car in the 80s,

they must have had a crashed like an SC or an early 80s 911

because all of the suspension was upgraded to that stuff.

It was lengthened like it's legit.

But the coolest part of that is

it had a methanol injected Corvair motor in it.

And the Corvair motor is still in it.

I still haven't decided if I'm going to run that.

But I mean, it's like a Monza Turbo methanol injected.

So if you're going to have a Corvair motor,

that's the one to have.

I guess that's what you stick it in.

I don't know.

I mean, it's pretty good.

That was the American 911 after all.

Yeah.

So I still have that car.

That's on the back burner until I get the roadster done.

I've got another 80s show car called Bad Temper

that will be in Vegas.

I just trailer that thing from Albuquerque out to Vegas.

Man, I got stuff everywhere.

It's a problem.

I've got a Baja bug still in Albuquerque.

Do you really?

Yeah.

I've got there's just stuff in the lab.

Yeah.

Exactly.

It's not going to get crushed.

It might get stolen, but it won't get crushed.

It's like trying to name the seven dwarves

when we start counting the cars.

I mean, at one point, she and I had like tallied it up.

And I think we had like 12 or 13 cars at one point.

But then I sold the Aztec and we're down a couple now.

I crushed one of these teams.

They're dropping like flies.

Yeah, they are.

Yeah.

Wow.

Good thing Pontiac got that name and, well,

they still could though, too.

I don't think you could call something the Aztec.

Probably not.

I don't know.

Although they're not really around to complain.

No, not really.

It's just a terrible joke.

But you know, somebody would get upset on their behalf

from the way things were going.

It's so weird.

Like, you know, I watch your show, obviously.

And you guys will mention a car and then immediately

like I'll see it.

It'll manifest itself.

But like the other day, like you're

talking about the Saturn skies.

And there's like a Saturn sky like in our building

like down in the parking garage I'd never seen before.

And then like yesterday, I was driving to go get a pizza

and there was a first gen TT that drove by.

Really?

Oh my gosh.

Like we're just talking about Thomas.

Like, yeah.

You don't see first gen TTs.

You don't see anywhere.

Anywhere anymore.

But we didn't talk about this on the show.

But what was the Honda we saw yesterday?

Oh, we saw CRXSI.

I'm not the.

Tell me it was yellow.

Second gen.

It was red.

But it was beautiful.

A little window in the back.

And again, they don't make cars like that.

I just that was such a cool car.

Although they're bringing the prelude back.

Did you see that?

I saw that.

Lynn Woodward just posted about that.

Yeah, OK, OK, OK.

What do we think?

What do we think about the looks?

Because I mean, I have a prelude was a prelude

and had the pop-up lights until the later cars.

My prelude was was.

It doesn't strike me as very prelude-y.

Yeah, that's kind of what I thought too.

I think it's another.

It's sort of a new beetle-esque.

Like there's so much nostalgia and hope attached to here.

Yeah, it's just a name.

Yeah, I mean, there's an element of like,

could anything live up to the sort of hope of like,

you're not going to recapture what it was in the past.

No, no, no.

So it has to be its own thing, but it's going to be different.

I will say Honda and Acura by extension

is really about the only brand that still feels

kind of like they did back in the 80s or the 90s.

Right?

They still feel like a Honda.

They're true to themselves, for sure.

They know their place in the market.

They don't try to be something that they're not.

Yeah, and with the, you know, the Si's and the Citix,

like they still have like the kind of pocket rocket model

that they offer, the Type Rs.

Like that's all cool stuff.

I appreciate that.

Well, and I've fallen in love again with the NSX

just in time to see them skyrocket to the moon.

Of course.

That's how you know you have good taste.

Yeah.

Well, then it was, I heard that the Peterson Museum bought

one of those two Type Rs that were, you know, at Car Week.

I don't know which auction it was from.

I think it was the one maybe from Broad Arrow.

It's a white one.

So I guess, hey, maybe we're onto something

if the Peterson puts their stamp of approval on it.

Scooping them up, man.

Yeah, that's cool.

That's a good parameter.

Well, that's just like the Mark IV Supras.

You know, when I lived in Orlando,

one of the top tuners for Toyota Supras

was in Orlando.

It was called Titan Motorsports.

OK.

And so you'd see a lot of the Mark IV Supras there.

But I mean, you could still pick up a Supra for like $25,

$30,000 when I lived there, you know?

If it had mods, $40, $50,000.

But I mean, those things are six figures all day long

for like a really good one.

And good luck finding when it's not been modified.

I think that's going to be the challenge.

If you can find a car like even a WRX or something

that's not been modified, like an STI or something

like that, I think those are the cars

that people should be looking for and hanging onto.

And you know, I had a friend in college

that had an ACR neon.

When's the last time you saw one of those?

Well, I mean, yesterday.

No way, did you really?

Mark not too far from me.

I think it's the same guy that owns about five different Audi's

and various, you know, I don't know, states of drive,

I guess.

And it's a black one.

And it looks, you know, 40 damn.

Those were very, very quick because those had,

was it a 290 horsepower little turbo four or something?

It was also that same motor was in some other stuff.

But again, never see those.

I see one every day, but a forgotten car otherwise.

And they're really, really cool.

Well, like all the SRT-4s, remember the SRT-4 was made

to compete with the SI Civics and stuff like that.

And those just got modded and blown up.

And people are throwing manual boost controllers on those

and you turn them up to 26 and they're popping them.

And you don't see them anymore.

But the ACR, is that what it was called?

So the ACR was the, I think the one that my friend

in college had was like the first gen,

but it was like an autocross from the factory kind of car.

Yes, yes, OK.

And I misspoke, this is not that.

The ACR, I remember that with the happy headlights

and all that, that was.

No, the SRT-4, I think, is what you're thinking of.

Yes, yes, yes.

Because that was the turbo.

It was like the turbo that they were using for everything.

Like they used that motor for all kinds of stuff.

But they were fast.

Yeah, absolutely.

You just don't see those.

I think, yeah, that was a weird era for Chrysler

or whatever they were calling themselves at the time.

Well, I got to say, people, I think, sometimes

call us a Porsche podcast.

And we have really cast the net far today.

We've talked about all sorts of oddball stuff.

I mean, all of the Suzuki esteem enthusiasts

are rejoicing right now.

They're like, finally, like more moments.

That car's had since it was new, you know?

And I feel like we could talk all day.

Somehow we're at 55 minutes.

I don't know how we've done a show.

I would love to keep talking.

But I've got to head off to the grand.

But again, Tori, we could talk to you all day.

We're against just scratch the surface.

And I'm really just so glad to see you and Lindsay get

together.

I feel like it was meant to be.

Cars bring people together.

Yeah, quite literally.

Be careful who you DM on Instagram.

You may find yourself getting married.

Yep, exactly.

Well, for me, it's unfortunately a lot of old men

who probably don't have a lot of interest.

In your case, we found podcast partners.

So that's what we have to do.

That's right.

So the good thing is we know where Tori lives,

so we can do this again.

Yes, absolutely.

No, I'd go far.

Yeah.

Well, I think as I think we went into this thinking,

hey, this will be kind of a holdover episode

till we're all back and we can all, you know,

get the team, you know, the band back together.

But this was a fantastic episode.

Thank you, Tori.

You're a hell of an interesting guy.

We even talk about the airlines and all that.

Oh, that's a whole other podcast.

There's so much more for next time.

So plug your podcast.

Plug, apparently you've been in 10 or 12 documentaries.

Where did we find, so Netflix, you have an IMDB page?

What's?

You know, I never kept up with the IMDB.

I probably could, even with the stuff I did in Albuquerque.

But no, if anyone wants to watch it,

I think it's available on Amazon Prime.

You might have to pay for it now.

But Adam Corolla actually distributed our documentary.

It was called The Bug Movie,

The Life and Times of the People's Car.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's probably about 10 years old now,

but it's still pretty relevant.

Absolutely.

It's a great documentary if anyone ever wants to check it out.

It should be on Amazon Prime.

The podcast that I do sometimes is called Let's Talk Dubs.

I'm sure Bill would appreciate people checking that out.

And then if anyone's interested in hitting up

that show in Vegas, it's gonna be October 2nd to the 4th.

So, real close.

And you can go to Let'sTalkDubs.com.

And we've got info on the car show there.

It's gonna be a good time.

And it's called One Crazy Weekend.

One Crazy Weekend is gonna be the show.

And we're doing it at the Orleans Casino.

Okay.

So, it should be a fun time.

And yeah, look for the Bright Lavender Volkswagen.

A lot of it.

Yeah, probably pretty close by.

And where do we find you on Instagram?

So, on Instagram, I am VDubber4, the number four life.

And Tori's the guy behind these wonderful vignettes

of around the podcast.

He does them for us in Spikes Car Radio.

I think in a couple of other outlets.

And they're really, really excellent.

Well, they're so much fun.

I enjoy listening to the show.

And it's like, that's funny.

That's a joke.

So, yeah, it's cool.

It's kind of become my little obsession.

That's your thing.

Well, and we realized a few weeks ago

that that is actually how we initially

first got connected was through the Recaps.

So, thank God for the Recaps.

Recaps, that's what we should call it.

That's amazing.

So, find Tori on Instagram.

But no asking for dates or anything.

Like, he's a very handsome guy.

I mean, you know, I was just complimenting him

as here before we got on the show.

And so, but Lizzie, I'll let you wrap this up.

I've done way too much talking.

And he is your fiance.

And he is, that's true.

Now, I appreciate him coming on.

And I think this was a super fun conversation.

Obviously, there's so much more to talk about.

I mean, as we saw when we all had lunch,

we couldn't stop talking.

Yeah.

But yeah, thanks for joining us.

And remember, always be driving.

Thanks.

Thanks, Tori.

Ted Talks with Tory Alonzo

Dodge Neon

Aztek Pontiac Aztec

Porsche 928

Honda Civic

Suzuki Sidekicks

Porsche 356

Ford Mustang

Mercedes-Benz Mercedesbenz Smell

Volkswagen Tiguan

Volkswagen Id Buzz

Volkswagen Carmen Ghia

Ford GT40

Porsche Cayenne

Porsche Cayman

Ford Wind Star

Porsche 911

Chevrolet Corvair

Toyota Supra

Toyota Tuners For Toyota

Subaru WRX

Alpine A290

About this episode

Original notes