The Best and Worst Cars This Year — The Carmudgeon Show w/ Jason Cammisa & Derek Tam-Scott — Ep. 219

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Carmudgeon Show.

My name is Jason Camisa.

I am Derek Tam-Scott.

And we are driven by Hagerty,

an insurance company made for enthusiasts by enthusiasts.

But not of enthusiasts.

No, we discussed that a couple of weeks ago

and then we got a cease and desist letter.

Make this product out of enthusiasts anymore.

Yes, please, please cease to do so.

It's almost 2026.

Which means in this episode,

we'll talk about highlights and low lights of 2025.

Is low light a word?

I just made it a word.

Everybody knows what it means.

You know, when you're in Photoshop,

you have highlights and you have shadows.

Okay, highlights and mysterious dark spaces.

Good times, bad times.

Good cars, shit cars.

Yeah.

Anyway, highlights and non-highlights.

Of 2025.

Yes.

More of that after the clap and the jingle.

And we're back to shitty claps.

Yes.

It's the end of the year.

You've got to send it out with a whimper.

I'm just going to quote George Carlin here.

So we're going to go through this shit again.

Then what a way to end the year of car margination.

Which is fucking up.

I'm going to go through this shit again.

So I guess we're recording again.

Again, yeah.

Still, again.

Okay.

We've been gossiping for like an hour.

I think we're out of stuff to say.

So you want to just leave?

Or do we have to talk to them?

I think we should talk about cars now instead of, you know.

What, what cars?

You have a lot of cars in here, Jason.

No, only three.

Okay.

More than usual, normally we have one cars in here.

Okay.

Occasionally two cars.

Yeah. As you pointed out to me earlier,

I am using corporate property for my own personal gain.

Is that what you accused me of?

I think I stated a fact.

Yeah.

Okay. Listen, I am doing this for the benefit of Haggerty and me,

which camera, let me be very clear about this.

Haggerty, this benefits you because I've taken three of my cars

out of my warehouse and at great and considerable expense to me,

in terms of Ubers, brought them here to clear them out of the

warehouse where I am currently doing a VR6 swap on one of my other,

technically two of my other VWs.

So you wanted to get them out of the splash zone?

Out of harm's way, so that I may not have a claim.

Got it.

Also, for the record, what should happen?

For the record also, I bought a Mark one, Mark three cabrio

and a Mark three jet a GLX VR6.

If I take the combined total of what I bought them for and I double it,

that's about what I bought in other parts.

Thank you, FCP Euro and Tecdonics and ECS and eBay and everywhere else,

but mostly FCP and Tecdonics, bought a lot of parts.

So when this whole project is done,

that cabrio will be insured for a lot more than it is now.

So therefore, having these cars here will actually result in

Hagerty not only not having a claim on these cars,

but also receiving more in premium from me, thus helping the business.

So by, oh plus, there are wonderful background thing.

I brought Volkswagen Christmas lights here to sort of...

Don't hurt yourself from all the gymnastics,

the mental gymnastics you're doing.

It's early.

I don't know if you've stretched yet.

Now I need more room in the warehouse because I only, although,

I only have one car in there.

So I only have the cabrio a couple doors down as my friend shop

and he's got another lift.

And I thought, let me just put both one car on my lift,

one car on his lift, and then I'll just, I'll cart.

So you're just walking back and forth with...

Well, not yet.

So everything I've done so far, this is recorded in advance.

So if you've seen anything that contradicts this on Instagram, shut up.

But I bought carts from Barbara Freight.

And my thought is I'll just lower the subframe engine transmission,

suspension brakes, steering all of it onto a cart and push it down the parking lot

to my friend's shop and then do it and reverse.

And that's how I'll do this rather than dealing with getting cars on and off lifts

that have no wheels on them.

So Barbara Freight, years ago, bought my friend who owns a shop, a metal cart.

So this is our preferred way of dropping engines out when we have a waste.

And I bought him a metal cart and it was great for an M20 that we dropped on it.

But he was like, if you ever do this again, get one of the polystyrene,

this sort of, you know, plastic ones, he's like, they're actually stronger.

I might have proven that not true.

So the idea is everything is disconnected from the engine.

So, but I'm dropping the whole front subframe.

And on this, and then run the red car, I didn't even drain the coolant.

Like didn't drain the coolant during the...

Oh, it's going right back into another car.

So I just, the only open coolant lines...

The radiator is fixed to the subframe?

To the...

There's a front radiator crossmember that's bolted together with the front of the...

The front crossmember...

So you can pull the radiator out without breaking the cooling system?

I dropped the whole drivetrain.

So the only connection, the only fluid connection, if you don't count the R134, the AC,

I disconnected that.

But the only fluid connection is to the heater core.

And that's two hoses and I pulled them out, put them together and done.

So there's no fluids leaking anywhere.

That weren't already leaking?

Not that engine.

Spotless, 70,000 miles and how...

It's a 96 to the math.

30 years.

20, 29. something, thank you.

9, 9, 9, 9, 9.

So it was pretty funny, but so the idea is get everything disconnected,

use the lift to lower the car, basically onto the cart with a little bit of weight

of the car onto the cart and then zap off all the subframe bolts.

There are 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 on each side and then lift the car up.

And the engine and the whole driveline stays behind and the car goes in the air.

So we get the lift lowered and it picks up the front of the car.

So I'm like, okay, so now I know all of the weight for the engine

because what you don't want to do is pull a bolt down and have the whole thing fall.

So I'm like, oh, everything's fine, but I couldn't get to one of the bolts.

We had to lift it back up again and then reposition it.

And when we did, there's a little bit of a floor regularity.

And whereas because there's a ceramic tile, so one of the wheels was slightly elevated.

And I think that really pissed the cart off.

So we start lowering it down, lowering it down.

We did this huge pop and we're like, where's that?

And we look around and we just can't see, it definitely came from the cart,

which was all of 129 bucks from Harbor Freight.

But like we're looking around.

I'm like, we can't see the, it's just plastic making a popping sound.

Like it'll be fine.

So lower the car onto it.

And I know it's got a good bit of weight.

You see it sort of bear down a little bit.

And you can actually see the frame of the car start to flex a little bit,

you know, as it's, it's the front forks are being pushed up.

And so there's maybe a couple hundred pounds of car on the car.

And kaboom, like it fucking exploded.

Legs everywhere.

I have the funniest pictures that I'll show you guys.

Just sitting there on the ground.

The motor, did it fall on the ground?

No, no, it was still attached to the, it was still attached to everything.

Largely.

No, fully.

I mean, well.

Minus the one you had pulled out.

So plan 27B.

It took about an hour of laughing and other ideas.

But what the card is is, you know, it's a lower sort of tray and then an upper tray.

And it was the legs that snapped that were holding the upper tray up.

So what I did is took the lower cart.

Actually, I took the upper cart, which was unscathed.

And I put wood in it, like two by sixes to evenly distribute the weight around the whole tray.

And then put it on a furniture dolly that's rated for a thousand pounds.

And it was furniture dolly is how I usually.

This is a big, like, you know, two and a half or three foot part.

So it was great. Yeah.

Came right out.

It is amazing to me, as someone who is not from California or the West Coast,

that I could take a car with 70,000 miles on it.

That's 29.99999 years old.

And not one bolt was difficult to get out.

It just came apart like it was nothing.

And I dropped the rear subframe, the rear trailing arm,

which is rear suspension and brakes all together as one unit,

dropped the exhaust, and the whole front powertrain,

which is pretty amazing to just to see the whole thing on the table.

And it's done.

So now I have to go back and do the same on the Jetta,

today or tomorrow, whenever I do that.

And then the art of putting them physically back in is super quick.

The idea is that, you know, they'll be on the cart,

and I just lower the body onto it and six bolts and it's in the air.

But I'm refreshing everything.

All coolant hoses, all like, you know, easy to reach gaskets

and fully new suspension.

So new control arms, new tie rods, new ball joints,

new, not doing axles, but basically everything else, brakes.

So pads and rotors wall in there, new brake lines.

So that'll take quite a bit.

So maybe you'll do a new year's drive in it.

I'm hoping, I mean, it could be running by,

so right now we're recording this inside baseball

10 days before Christmas and I could have it running by Christmas.

But it all depends on what work does.

We have another video that's in final.

So we have work, I have actual work to do.

So this comes in second place to the actual work,

but I'm very excited.

I can't wait to drive this car.

I also can't wait to get rid of the fucking Jetta.

So if anyone wants a Jetta, I mean-

It's like a functioning car?

No.

I mean, I sold-

Are you going to put the 2.0 in it?

The 2.0 will be in it.

So here's the deal.

And in all seriousness, my deal is I don't need to-

I don't have the time to part out everything.

There's a ton of great parts on this car.

It is a 193,000 mile black Jetta.

Three of the doors have been sold

and almost the whole interior has been sold.

But I did drive it a couple of times,

put a seat in it and drove it around.

The deal is I'm going to put the two-liter in

and then the rear suspension on.

So it will be on all four wheels, four-lug, four-cylinder wheels,

with the four-cylinder in it.

But I'm not going through the trouble of hooking up fuel lines

and swapping the engine, the chassis side

of the engine wiring harness and hooking it all up.

If somebody wants to, it's great.

But it's a 73, 72,000 mile, might be three now, whatever, car.

And all the components are 70 something thousand miles transmission.

So for 500 bucks, you get a perfect lemons.

Like basically if you want to make a lemon's car, a car.

No doors.

No doors, but safety third.

Should improve the power to weight ratio.

And Lord knows the two points low needs it.

They need a cage anyway.

Just put a cage on the whole thing.

Yeah, no.

And so I don't know what else to do,

but I don't want to deal with, oh, I need this part for 30 cents.

Will you please send it to me?

I would love to.

I don't have time.

So my thought is, let me make it a $500.

Like it's a complete car.

That's just needs to be hooked back up.

And the reason I'm doing it that way is, again, time.

Like I don't want to pull the engine transmission apart.

Sell the transmission for 100 bucks.

Sell the engine for 200 bucks.

Sell this is not worth it.

500 bucks, you get a complete ish car.

Complete ish.

Comment below or DM me and then write,

hey, fuck face in the first line of the DM.

Otherwise I won't see it.

That's my love language.

Okay.

Well, more second scheming here also.

Well, yeah, lots of VWs here.

So there you have it.

Congratulations.

Don't congratulate me until that thing starts.

I've never done this wiring before.

Scared.

What could possibly go wrong?

Everything.

How much trouble could it be?

I'm so scared that I'm going to wind up with two 2,500 pound non-running bricks.

So, I mean, at some point it can't be, I don't want to say how hard could it possibly be,

but it is, you know, it is just an engine harness and it should be two or three wires

that you hook up and that should be it.

We'll see.

Good luck.

Little scared.

Anyway, what have you been up to any other?

I haven't talked to you about cars.

Any other vehicular adventures?

What have you bought?

I have not bought anything actually.

No motor swamps, nothing else you can say to make me feel better about my life choices.

I mean, I just, I sell cars for living, so we have certainly plenty of that happening.

You know, we get to experience lots of different things.

Sometimes we even make money, but that's not always guaranteed.

It's, I know, I mean, in all seriousness, I'm very pleased with how this year's gone for the

business. I'm, you know, we set out to do this now two years ago and it's always a little bit

scary, but I'm happy with things keeping, keeping on happening that are good.

And, you know, there's like an element of imposter syndrome where you're like, wow,

I can't believe we did a deal on a F-50 or an F, career GT or something like that.

And then you're like, oh, well, that was just a one off.

We got lucky and then sort of keeps happening enough.

We're like, huh, there seems to be a pattern here.

Like maybe we might know what we're doing or something.

That's great.

So that's been a fun adventure, but always something painful too.

I mean, the last few months have been a lot of like sort of excruciating, painful deals

where it's like, you know, part of it is demographic shift, which is something we

talk about a lot. And we were very strong at Ferraris from the 1960s and those cars are just

really painful to sell because there's just not enough people who want them for how much

they cost right now. And so getting those moved can be painful and buyers know that

there's not that many buyers out there so they can be picky.

And then for every one of those, there's something that's very contemporary that's

doing well. Like all the Hot Boy Ferraris, like 360 CSS and Scuderias and 599 GTOs and

any Spiccialli, you know, those are all going just absolutely off the rocker or whatever.

So those are very easy to sell. So it's just been interesting to see the market

shifting and watch the center of gravity shift away from the places that used to be sort of

the coolest stuff you could do. And there's just not enough people doing it anymore to sustain

the value. So, you know, watching that shift unfold and making sure that we're consigning

cars rather than buying them so that we're not exposed from the risks of cars. So it's a time

of change. One of my friends works for a dealership and their sales, if they compare,

they sell a lot of EVs and their sales are down tremendously since the summer. Obviously,

you know, we lost the $7500 federal tax credit. And we were talking about that and I said,

well, you need to do like a Toyota Thon or a Happy Honda Days or a, you know,

a Lexus December to remember. And then it occurred to me,

why are all those things exist? Maybe all car companies are down, like sales are down

tremendously around the holidays and that's a way to prop it up. So my question to you is,

is that the case in your side of the industry?

Specifically around the holidays. No, I would say the volume of cars that we do is small enough

that it's sort of subject to randomness anyway. And so we'll go three weeks without selling

something. And then we'll sell six cars in the same week. And it's sort of, I'd say the volume

is not large enough to sort of observe larger trends like that. The general feeling is that

the market is slower in the winter. And there's usually a little bit of a pickup in the month of

December. And then like January, February can be kind of slow, but that dynamic, you know,

and people say, oh, should I wait to sell the car or whatever? And I don't, I don't personally

think so. I mean, of course it's my job to not think so. But what I would say is that

there's enough uncertainty with like, whether it's tariffs or regulatory changes or market,

stock market uncertainty, there's like, it's, it's erratic enough now that I say,

if the market seems to be strong and supports moving a car right now, I would recommend

doing it because you never know what absurd, unforeseen, never before occurred thing is going

to happen and the market will suddenly collapse. Like I had a, this was just one of my personal

cars, but I remember like, I had it end the day, the stock market took an absolute shit at the

beginning of the pandemic. It was like, it was a Monday in March, I forget exactly the date,

but it was like the 16th or 20th or something like, let's see, Friday the 13th. So Saturday,

14th, Sunday, 15th, 16th, it was the 16th of March, Monday, the 16th of March. Oh,

Friday the 13th, we were on a rally when pandemic. Yeah. So yeah, that Monday I had,

bring a trailer listing and, and it's like, there's no way to really like tell that,

that that particular day is just, and the car sold for,

Can I just stop you for a second? Do you think this is the way his brain works,

that he was thinking back to March of 2020, which is now six years ago almost.

And you remembered that on the, on Friday the 13th, we were on a rally, it was a DWA

rally up in the mountains. And that was when we came home on, that would have been Saturday,

Sunday, the 15th to the shelter and place orders, right? So the world changed. It was,

it was a traumatic time. But the fact that you remembered that and used that to recall this

thing is pretty amazing. Like you are actually a random access file on a computer. What dates

things happen on. So yeah, I would, all that to say, like, yeah. How the hell are you going to

predict a worldwide shutdown? Yeah. So if the things seem to be okay and a couple of, you know,

like the market seems strong-ish right now, just, you know, get in there and get it done because

who knows what's going to happen. Right. So yeah, it's been a, certainly this year has been a good

year. I think we're probably up around 50% over last year. Admittedly last year is our first year,

but you know, so that's not sustainable in the long term probably, but it was good to get all

that stuff moved. Right. Anyway, we are gathered here, dearly beloved to talk about our best drives

or highlights from the year, I suppose. It's kind of a year end summary.

It is. And I'm bringing out the laptop because I've, my dog ate my homework slash I had,

I had to babysit or something. There's, there's an excuse to babysit your homework. Yeah.

But I did notice when I pulled up the year, so my, obviously my, I'm pulling out my spreadsheet

that I have. And would you like to guess the first car that I drove in 2025? So on January 6th,

let's see if your memory remembers that. No. Uh, was it the launch Estrada? How the fuck?

I didn't even know that. I didn't even, if you were to ask me what year I drove that car,

I wouldn't have been able to tell you with any certainty. It was 25 or 24 or 23. I don't know.

I don't know where I am. Yes. It was January 6th of 2025. So I started the year out

pretty on a pretty high note. I would say that was a good drive. A lot of fun. Although I think

I say, I very much enjoyed this, but don't love it the way Derek does. Yeah. I know my note wasn't

quite as, it's one of my favorite cars. It's up there. Yeah. I mean, I, but I didn't want one

more than I wanted it to do for 16. Oh, but I highlight nonetheless. I mean, how could it not

be? Look at it, listen to it, you know, it was an experience. Yeah. I mean, the, well, we went

through this, there's a whole episode about it. Do you want my second one? Oh my, oh my God.

No wonder I'm like, man, about this year. Second car, I'm sorry to hijack this, but this is too good.

Lancia Tema 832. Huh. Third car, Chazzetta Moroder V16T.

Ford's Italia. Right. And then I went downhill fast with a Sob 9000 Aero.

Then slightly back up with a Alpha 164 Quadrifoglio Q4.

Q4 doing the Tipo Quattro episode, obviously. And then, oh my God. And then an E34 M5 with an

S70 B56 swap. So an 850 CSI swap and a manual, obviously. And then a CLK63 AMG Black Series

manual swapped. And then a Pagoda. And then an XR4 TI and a Sierra Cosworth. And then a Cherokee.

Oh my God. And then your Jaguar, Mark I, 3.4 literate saloon. And then a Vinfast VF8.

And then a Chevy color. I put 631 miles on a Chevy Colorado ZR2 Bison four wheel drive crew cab.

On purpose? Yeah, actually. Well, technically. Yeah. And then a prototype C8. Oh my God. And

then an M5 touring. Oh my God. Okay. This has been a year. Okay. Well, this is the first car you

drove last year. I don't have them chronologically arranged. But you don't need it there in your

brain. No, I would have to look it up chronologically. I'm sorry. Okay. All right. So give me a second

and I can come back to you on that. Can you really? Oh, you actually have it? Well, I'd have to

go through and reconstruct. You know, anyway, talk about yourselves.

Well, I can say one of my, all of those were some of my best drives and worst drives.

I mean, I don't know how much we went into the, how the Chazzetta Moroder actually drove.

We didn't. Tell us. Let me see. What did I say? Alpha Romeo, Julieta, Sprint Speciale.

That's a good start. Any start to the year in an Italian car?

That was a car that we sold to a guy who wanted to take it on the Colorado Grand and the car

had been still for a while. And so I was like, ooh, you don't go a thousand miles on a car that

has been sitting for a while. And so I was like apprehensive, but I was like, yeah, whatever,

we're going to sell him the car. He'll go on his way and figure it out. And we won't have to think

about this. And then we ended up going on the Colorado Grand. And the whole time I was like,

I hope the car makes it because now we're like here with the guy that we sold the car to and like,

it did a great job. I mean, to be fair, he put a lot of effort into sorting it. He properly

prepped the car for a thousand mile event, which is the thing you have to do if you want to make

it. But it went from being like, eh, I'm selling the car. It's not going to be my problem to being

like, oh, I have a first front row seat to whether, you know, this is probably has a gun

on him and you're close enough. He's a peace loving people. Okay. He can still have a gun.

Somebody sells you a bum alpha, you know. The Cesare was not great, if I'm honest. I mean,

from memory, I'm now, I'll read what I wrote. It was, first of all, that car had no seat belt

on the driver's side. And for whatever reason it was supposed to have. And that was really

that dampened my, first of all, the fact that this is one of one, this is the only Chizeta

marauder. All the other ones were just Chizetas. This was the prototype, basically irreplaceable.

And I have, you know, on the drive that I do for the revelations video, I've said this before,

I've Anthony Esposito in the passenger seat. And I don't want to have to one day explain to

his kids how cool he was. And so there's a huge burden of responsibility on there.

Like I cannot crash this car. I will die for sure because I have no seat belt.

And if I survive, I'll be a cripple. And, you know, he probably wouldn't survive.

So, you know, I loved, I loved how great it was turned out. But the

it's the, and the likely the heaviest clutch I've ever encountered, but it's forgiving.

Shifter is in frozen split pea soup when cold, but wakes up with heat, even though the H pattern

isn't an H it's random dog leg with no reverse lockout. Remember, if you remember where things

are and it works just fine, brakes feel lovely, ride is smooth, car is civilized, insane noises.

Steering isn't bad, but it's damped likely because it was originally a power steering

racks with the line disconnected. So they're, they're plugged, which made me think maybe there's

just actually like a resistance of fluid resistance in the system. I would have left the lines open,

pouring oil all over the place, like, you know, until it was empty, like all, all Italian cars do.

Not too heavy in use though. No HVAC and passenger side window wants to get stuck.

So we were fogged up a very long gearing though closely spaced ratio. I mean, the business

happens in first, but the engine isn't happy. It was popping and misfiring. It wasn't,

it wasn't happy most of the time that we're driving. Otherwise,

it's straight crossplane V8 most of the time. Sounded amazing, very loud, but not obnoxiously.

So I didn't say anything all that bad about it. It was a hell of an experience in the same way that

the, you know, a Mura is an experience. I think this is just Mura plus five feet of width, plus

even more crazy noises. Yeah. Pretty, pretty cool experience, not objectively great. Yeah.

Not bad. It's certainly not bad, but just not, you know, very much like the Lamborghinis of the

time. You know, I think like Qantas wasn't a great drive. It was, it was a great experience. So

there you have it. Okay. Although I think that was probably closer to Diablo by that point.

Diablo was about to come out, but anyway, there you have it. So that was a highlight for sure.

Okay. Are you going to share a highlight? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how many of these

things you have. I don't know. I chose 10, but I don't need to go through all of them.

I guess I will talk about two of them are that are cars that I bought this year that I

made my list. So that's a good sign that I, one of them was my Jagmark one. That car was a car that

I resisted buying for a long time. I've talked about this. I think that I try not to buy something

that I think sort of values going down, but I just didn't, I stopped carrying or at that particular

moment I stopped carrying it was a car that I always wanted and it was configured exactly as

I liked. And just the amount of like satisfaction and enjoyment I got out of having that car,

even in the first weekend was really tremendous. So I was very happy to have that car and sort of

experience something that is so divergent from other cars that I have owned in the past and

has all of this like interesting history and context about it that we have talked about

in the past, but basically motorsports history and like sort of the origin of sports in and

like it's very British. It feels very much like a sense of occasion and then there's this sort of

image that it has, which varies depending where you are, but overall like just a lot of experience

for not that much money that was very different. And after buying and owning a lot of the same cars

for a long time, it's nice to gotten try something new and it fundamentally is a very good example

also which helped. I loved it when I drove it. I said it was unconscionably loud outside,

definitely the M3 of its day. Yeah. Quite fast, makes great noises,

carburets like a direct injected fuel injected engine, love the looks.

Yeah. So pretty special. And I mean, I'm paid a number that starts, it was less than $40,000

that car. And I think that that car for that kind of money, when you think about what

air cooled Porsche's cost or you know, E30 M3's or any number of things, I think it's

so much car for the money or like a new Honda Accord. Right, a base, a base Accord.

I would agree with that. The wooden leather alone, I mean, worth that price of emission. Funny you

would say air cooled Porsche because I can jump to one of those as one of my worst drives of the

year. Yeah, that surprises me not at all. I think it's fully deserved. It actually wasn't the 930.

That wasn't, I didn't care for it at all, but it was the 996 on that episode, which again,

we've talked, it was an automatic turbo. But the 930, I just, okay. So last week,

we talked about Prusho 205 rally. And on that drive, I got stuck behind a red air cooled 911.

And I just took a picture and I'm like, look at this dick bag. He was going 20 into 25.

He was 114 years old. And when he finally saw that I was on his ass, he took off.

And I thought, this is typical Porsche weenie shit. I just, I'm falling less in love with

air cooled cars lately. And it's just, it's a language I don't speak and it's a look I don't

want. And that's a 100% personal thing. It's not a, like, that's not a slam on the car.

But every time I get in one, I'm just not comfortable speaking the language that the

controls want. And I've had some great experiences in 911, like air cooled 911s, but mostly I just

think I'm going to park my money somewhere else. I'm going to choose other things.

To me, it's exactly what your Mark one Volkswagen's are. It's like the coming home.

It's like a happy place where everything feels familiar. And I know exactly how to do everything.

And for, so it's like a totally opposed thing. But I grew up in those cars and, you know,

I wonder how much I was thinking about this last night. So last night I drove my E30 wagon home

from working on the, on the motor swap and I got into it and it was cranky and it didn't want to

start, you know, that fuel injection, if you start the car, move it and turn it off before it gets

fully warmed, the next time you pay the price for that. They are stumbly, they're miserable.

This is Motronic. This is Motronic. And they did this when they were new. My dad's Audi 90 would

do this. If we drove it to the end of the driveway and turn it off, it would not restart. It would

have felt the plugs and it was just, or if it on, if you got lucky and it did, it would just

idle surge and it was just fucking miserable until it fully warmed up. And so the car is just

kind of miserable and cranky and whatever. And I, by the time I made it a mile, I actually

said out loud, I love this car. And it's, I've driven Beatrice a lot this year, which is my

325 Isadan. But I wonder how much of it is just memory structures and how much is that car just

feels inherently right to me always. Because it's made your, it's your first impressions of what a

car is, of a good car that you like. But it's, you know, I've, I've, I haven't driven that car and

I don't admit to you how long it was and just felt so, I've so inherently right. And I don't know

if that's muscle memory and how it could be. I've driven 40 or 50 cars since I've been in that last.

I don't know. Yeah. But it's just raw mileage and how early in the, in your experience of learning

what a car was, did that car sort of like, wasn't that early? Yeah. But it was the first car that

you were like, wow, I actually like this or it, you know,

it wasn't the first, but it was, yeah, it was, I mean, it was the first, the sound it made and

the feeling of it sideways was one of my first cool experiences, but that was in the backseat.

But anyway, yeah, interesting how our loves stay. I mean, I do have objective observations that I get

after being not in one of my cars for a while and then getting it. So I just drove the Scirocco

here. And I, you know, I just drove that down to Willow Springs. So, you know,

a 10 hour plus 12 hour round trip, because we made some other stops a couple of months ago.

And it was just deafening on the highway. And as soon as I started it, I'm like, wait a second,

I have a bad motor mount. Like it's one of those things that I didn't notice at the time. But

I'm like, why is this, you know, in the car, I'm like, God, this beat the shit out of us on the

highway doing sub legal, sub, sub, sub speed, no sub. Yes. Yes. Whatever. You know what I mean.

Definitely not speeding. But I'm just like, I didn't notice. Then I get in and I'm like,

God, I have to align this car. It doesn't track right, you know, left, right changes

directions differently. And there's definitely an engine mount issue. And there's like these

things you just don't notice when you're used to stuff. And so the only thing I noticed when

I've gotten the 30 is it's perfect. This thing is perfect. Anyway, strange. Okay.

Other great experience that I might as well just go right back to that CLK 63 AMG. I drove

two manual swapped 63 AMG cars this past year, the CLK black, which is off the charts. Perfect.

I drove a C63 black series, a C63 six-speed swapped car done by someone who's not. This is a 204.

204. Like 0809 10. And this was only a couple of days after we were done filming that retrospective

where the M3 won it. And I was kind of annoyed by this because had I driven, had I known that car

existed and that owner was as cool as he was, I would have asked to have that car in their

retrospective and it would have won. Yeah. Like it would have beat the E90 M3 as a, as my sort of

favorite car. Okay. Well, you can't go back. The car that didn't exist. The car didn't exist is not

fair, but it's that good. It's that good that I would own that long before I would ever own an E90.

And it's just a combination of theater from the engine, plus all the torque, plus just a, you

know, big ear bucks. Yeah. The car is magic. I think 63 swaps are going to be the next,

just ever, just de facto first thing you do. Yeah. Everyone should have that.

And I mean, that was one of my highlights from last year, I assume it has to have been,

but yeah, that car to me is just ideal. It's the, it sits at the intersection of all these

things that you don't like, when I try to describe it to people, I'm like, in some sense,

it's like an E90 M3, but it has balls or balls. Like it's got, it's got torque,

but there's also like in the black series, there's a specialness to it. Like there's

a focusness to it that reminds me like of a Porsche GT car almost. Yeah. Like it feels

like it's really, you know, tuned by a driving enthusiast in the way that Porsche GT cars do.

And so to have that combination in like one car is pretty cool.

The crazy thing to me is that, you know, having spent so much time in so many 63 cars,

I was never aware of what the throttle response is like on that car and how quick it is to rev.

And that's something you just never get to experience with an automatic.

And yes, it doesn't have independent throttle bodies that the BMW does. And yes,

it doesn't rev to 8,200. It's only 7,200 and all this other shit.

That is all shit on paper. The driving experience will solve all of that.

Yeah. And I mean, the reason why those motors spin so fast was because they don't make any power

anywhere else. So you have to spin them fast. Yeah. That's kind of the defining characteristic of

that S65 is just kind of torqueless. It's not actually torqueless, but it's just, you know,

it's relatively long gears and I guess a meager amount of torque throughout the entire

rev range with the 63 cars, which is dumb. Yeah. You know, you're dealing with 50%

additional displacement and therefore 50% additional torque. There's no replacement for

displacement. There is not. Okay.

It's not a replacement. It's not. You get the power, but you don't get the torque.

Technically, the replacement for displacement is forced induction.

The answer to that is no.

I will choose a new car because by my standards, new. I think this one might have made it to

your list also the A110. It wasn't actually on my list. But it, and I, that first of all,

this list that I have the handwritten list was actually all actually new cars.

Like M5 that was new this year and such. But yes, talk to me about your A110 drive.

I just enjoyed the fact that it had, it did exactly what I wanted it to do in the sense

that it wasn't too buttoned down, but, and so it felt lively and characterful and like there

was some movement and it was good on a back road, which is always something that I worry

about with modern cars, especially after I think my, my Porsche GT products experiences.

I always struggle with those cars on back roads because they're too stiffly sprung and don't

have enough ground clearance. And so I enjoyed the fact that there was something out there that

was modern that I was like, I could see actually enjoying owning and using this car for the things

that I do with it. Like if I had unlimited money and wanted some sensible modern long-distance car to

go on good rally roads, but at the other end of that is a destination that I'm going to on

vacation or something like that, or just to go out and do, like this is a mission actually that I

think about with some regularity, which is rally scouting is like, you know, the guys who plan the

rallies that are always in like a rental car or like a GTI, something modern where they're just

like, I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what the roads are going to be like. I have no

idea what's going to be out there, but they're going to be twisty and I want something that's

contemporary enough that it's not going to be any pain because I'm not looking for an adventure

when I'm doing that necessarily, like from the car failing to proceed. I just want to cover these

this ground cover these roads and in something that's fun enough to be interesting to sort of

learn whether it's worth including when you come back with like a real an occasion car.

And to me, it felt like it would be really ideal for that mission. And in the same way that I would

use like a GTI or, you know, maybe you'd use some modern 911 that wasn't a GT product or

something like that. It's a good point. Yeah. I think it's brilliant. I mean, definitely a

highlight, you know, we've been waiting a long time to drive that car. Absolutely lived up to

all of the type. In fact, it exceeded it because I expected it to be an Elise and it's a McLaren.

Yeah. It's very special. You know, I'll do a modern car too and it's Corvette ZR1.

And so by the time this launches, we will have put out a video. We did a

our second ever episode of Ultimate Lap Battle. And again, just like last time,

we're saying we're never doing this again because there's so much work. But we had Corvette ZR1 plus

911 GT3 RS plus Mustang GTD around the Sonoma Raceway. We did set a production car lap record

in the, well, you'll have to watch the episode to find out. We, the Randy Popes, Randy, yeah,

Randy set, let me make that very clear, Randy set a lap record in the car. And the premise for

that episode was very simple, that the cars are tied effectively at the Nurburgrings 2.744 seconds,

I think, on different days with different drivers and different conditions, which is

effectively a tie. And so I wanted them, and this has been done, Savage Geese did this and

Top Gear just dropped a video, same thing. But we wanted a track that was truly representative of

sort of other tracks. And the Nurburgring just isn't. Also, a lot of the other tracks around the

US just aren't really great at having a combination of very disparate types of corners. So you have

a lot of big wide open tracks and where horsepower and power to weight is the single determinant.

You know, it's a one to one correlation. And so Sonoma's not. Sonoma's fucked up. Sonoma's got a

lot of walls where you fuck up. So that, you know, and that will really mess with driver confidence.

And his huge g-force changes in the vertical. And some cars can't deal with getting light

over a crest. And so just, you know, a huge range of speed in the zero one was up to 143 miles an

hour at its peak and down to 33. So, you know, huge range of speed and every different type

of corner that you would see somewhere else, bumps, no bumps. The 911 GT3 RS is the one that I would

buy because I just love the tactility of it. I would not have a GT3 RS. I'd have a 911 ST.

So without question. But I'm so impressed with that zero one on a racetrack. I don't, you know,

I don't have too much time on the road with it. And it's scary at 1064 horsepower through the rear

wheels, all that other stuff. But GM did a really, really great job at making a car that has genuinely

insane performance. And it's easy to access. And it's fun, even with an automatic, even with

turbos, even with, you know, all the stuff that I shouldn't love. Just high praise coming from

Jason Camisa. That car is just absolutely unbelievable. So yeah. Okay. What else?

Highlights? More highlights? Sure.

Another sort of newish car for me that was a highlight was the roof tribute.

That one. You drove the SCR. I mean, I think I would choose the SCR because it's naturally

aspirated. But the way that they make products that don't feel new, but are, which is, you know,

that's, if you want me to like a new car, that's the best way. There's two, in fact,

two cars on my list that I drove this year. One that I had driven before, but it was a serial

number I had not driven before. So I counted it again. And I had more time in it this time also.

The two cars are the EVOs 37 and the, and the roof tribute. But the key for me to like a new

car is that it has to feel like an old car in some sense. It has to have the directness and texture

and sort of aesthetic link, I think helps a lot too, to the old cars. And, you know,

both of those cars are very aware of the past in a way that pulls positives from the past

without coming off like a caricature. They are, they create something new, but in a way that is

aware of the past and pulling that off successfully is difficult. You know, the other end of the

spectrum would be something like a Ford Thunderbird redo that they did or the

current Mini Cooper or the new Beetle, where it aesthetically has the calling cars, but

experientially doesn't feel familiar and doesn't have any of the charm or direct connection to

the cars that it's drawing from as inspiration. And both the tribute and the Chimera did a really

stellar job of that. I mean, the tactility of the Chimera, which I have more time in than the roof,

but like, it just, if you, it's weird to say this because the cars are

around a million dollars. But if you can't afford an F40 buy a Chimera, but the conceptually they

feel quite similar to each other. And in some senses, I might even prefer the Chimera to the F40

really as an experience. Yeah. So it's, it's an interesting approach. Cause oftentimes when you,

when you come across the car that's very expensive and you say, what else could I drive

or experience that reminds me of this for much less money. And in some cases, the answer is very

literal. Like with an AC Cobra, the answer is a good Cobra replica that is like authentic in every

respect, including the color of the cloth insulation on the wiring harness for the cooling fans.

You know, like you can buy something like that for $250,000, you know, or a 911 square RS,

you know, that's also a pretty easy one. You make an RS clone that has the right engine in it and

all the right little details. And you could do that for certainly less than half of the cost of

real RS. So the, sometimes the answer is very literal. Other times, you know, with an F40,

it's like, oh, it's a little harder to do that. Or like, and this was something that

well, this was true of the McLaren F1 also. It's like what experience, what car can you

experience that's similar to this for a sum fraction of the money? And that's a very difficult one

to answer. I've not driven, I've not driven an F1. There isn't one for that car.

There's nothing. I don't know. What do you, what can you buy for some fraction of the cost?

Start throwing out candidates. Would you throw out a T33? Yeah, that's probably the closest thing.

I'm trying, yeah, but I'm trying to think there's has to be something else that,

is there really, I was tempted conceptually to think about the

the Carrera GT in this way, but I had seat time in both those cars this year and they don't feel

similar. I can't imagine they would. The CT actually feels heavy and

So there's one characteristic, you're going to absolutely hate this and it might color your

impressions of the McLaren F1 in the long term, but there's something about the,

I can't even bring myself to say NSX. The first generation NSX, I know.

Believing. Yeah, I know.

Getting up and leaving.

So the magical thing, I mean, this was, I guess, the highlight for me this year was a McLaren F1.

And the thing about those two cars that draw parallels for me is the fact that

the F1 is incredibly easy and friendly. And that part of it reminds me of the NSX.

And I can't tell when you drive an F1 where they are going to

dislike that part of the F1 experience.

Find the easy and friendly.

It feels well made and solid and it's not cantankerous. The clutch is not hard to manage.

It feels like intuitive and instinctive and there's no, you're not managing the car.

The car sort of disappears in some sense. It becomes transparent because it sort of

does everything so naturally that you don't have to think about it.

And so despite the fact that obviously it's a very expensive car,

it doesn't feel intimidating to use it because it makes everything so straightforward and easy,

except for you have to remember to not close the door with the window down or it'll shatter.

But how do you put that in terms of the CGT, the Carrera GT?

The Carrera GT I don't feel that way. I think it has to do with visibility and dimensions and

maybe approaching departure angles. And sometimes you have to recall that you have to do some

special treatment with the clutch, which is not as big a deal as people say,

but it is something to be thinking about. It's just not as intuitive or instinctive to me.

The Carrera GT you are working around it a little bit, it feels, and that makes it feel special.

And so I guess my question is when you drive an F1 for the first time,

are you going to find that it doesn't feel special? I think you will find that it feels special.

The powertrain alone, the way that it responds to like the throttle response and the noise of the

engine and the powertrain and the gear change, I think you'll find all of it to be special.

But that's the magic of the F1 that I think makes it so difficult to compare to other cars.

Is that it simultaneously feels incredibly special, but all in good ways. And none of the like,

I'm managing stuff the way that you are in a Mira or a Kuntosh or a Carrera GT.

But please tell me it's not boring in the way that Pagani was that we drove?

No, no, no, no, no, no. The powertrain and the directness of the presence of the motor and the

car and the induction noise and the directness of the steering and all of that,

I think that you will be pretty delighted by all of that stuff. I think the powertrain and steering

and chassis characteristics, but it rides well. There's like a sensation of that car,

of it simultaneously being like a serious performance car that's incredibly focused,

yet also like is well suited to long distance. It's, you know, when I did the video that I did

now it's four or five years ago, the thing that I said is like it's like a dessert that is also

good for you. Like it's just like how does this car manage to do all of these different disparate

tasks that usually are in tension with each other simultaneously so well that even though they should

all be pulling in opposite directions. And that's the thing about that car that most impresses me

from a driving perspective. And so when I say like what else reminds me of that in a car,

it's very difficult to think of anything else. It sounds like an Alpine with no power steering

and, you know, a naturally aspirated 42,000 RPM in line four. It's only 7,600 RPM V12.

Yeah, but it's 12, right? I mean, incredible noises and like a great gear change and no

power steering and no ABS. Yeah, I can't think of anything that I imagine would be comparable

because there's nothing else mid-engine that light and that simple and the lease is not,

does not feel quality in the same way that you describe it. I knew you would say that because

you hate them. So it's difficult. Yeah, you feel like you're in the presence of brilliance when

you interact with that car, which I don't feel oftentimes in cars. So that was, I mean, that

was burying the lead or wasn't burying the lead, but that for me was the highlight of the year

to drive. I need to cook up a reason to finally do this.

Well, I mean, you have had opportunity and haven't, but it's not like there was a car

sitting around and someone said, here's a key, right? It's like, hey, you know, we can find you

and we can get you an opportunity. If somebody hands me a key to an F1, I'm driving it. No question

about it. I would absolutely love to. Okay, let's have a bunch of disappointments,

but I won't get to them yet. Oh, a Kean Nero. That was not on the list. That RS4 C63 Blackwing,

bubble A110, there it is. Ew, God, the year started out strong and then got really feeble.

Really feeble. I mean, you know, one of, in October, I drove that BMW i3. That was definitely

not a highlight. I got a lot of shit on that episode, of course. No surprise there, but the...

There are a lot of people who like that car. There are a lot of people who love that car

and fair point. I mean, you can love bad cars. I do all the time, but the fundamentals...

That's just nervously at Mark I Volkswagen. Although no one ever said they were bad cars,

right? I mean, you know, they're just now old cars, but the i3 was a flawed business model

and it failed to deliver on the promises of the compromises that were built in.

So the compromises were double whammies, they were expensive and didn't deliver on what they

were supposed to do. And that's why that... That it was not an ultimate driving machine.

That's the other issue, right? Had another car company made that. You can give it a pass, but

that i3, a lot of people ask, why no back roads drive on that car? And the answer is

fear of death. And it was going to be wet and slippery and I didn't...

I wasn't really interested in a combustion car that's not sorted and trust me, we've had

revelations cars that shouldn't have been on the road at all. You would not know it from the video

because what I do is slow things way down where I'm not, depending on brakes that I don't trust,

there was one car that the brake pedal was basically on the floor every stop. A lot of

them overheat the brakes really quickly, but on the way up the hill, it's a very steep hill.

I can use gravity to slow myself down and also I can stay, I can really go through the corner

slowly and then I have more time to accelerate to run through the gears, which is what sounds

exciting on a video anyway. In an EV, I can't do that. And so my thought is I'm going to be slow

because I do not trust this thing and it's... The car is genuinely terrible to drive and we'll hear

nothing but all the interior creaks of which on that car there were an indescribable number.

But at the end of the day, then you're just going to hear an electric car whine, it's just going to

look boring and slow and I thought, no reward whatsoever, not worth the risk. And so I just

took the i8 up the hill, which was wonderful, which is a really cohesive, lovely car to drive,

even if it's not particularly inspiring in its tactility. But yeah, that was...

Not a highlight.

That was not a highlight. It was interesting getting to drive Mustang GTD plus 2005 Ford GT

and a 2020 Ford GT together and back to back. And I had never even sat in that V6 Ford GT,

the Mulder Matta car, and I don't care to again. It was not... Have you driven one?

Oh, I wonder if we should do an episode on that. Should we shut up and do an episode on that?

The whole story of the GT GT GT GT.

The only thing about the development of the car, I just drove, I've driven two or three of them.

And what did you think?

I mean, naturally you compare it to the Ford GT of 2005, 2006, and it's just inferior in every

respect, I think. There was no respect in which I found myself preferring the V6 car.

I don't think if there's...

It felt a little more outrageous and wild and like space should be.

That's true.

I think that's probably the one respect in which the V6 car I thought was interesting

and that it did something that the V8 car didn't. But overall, I really like that V8 car, the 0506.

Yeah, I didn't love it. I didn't hate it. I mean, I'll give it that, but I didn't love it.

I would have 100%. Just based on looks and sound alone, although the crazy thing is how

far the world has come that with the Mustang GTD running, you couldn't even hear the 2005 GT.

That car at Redline was drowned out by a modern Mustang at idle. Cars have gotten a lot louder

in the last 20 years. That was definitely a highlight, though, to get to spend some time,

and that's a video that hasn't come out yet.

But you did the full episode about the 0506.

I did a revelation episode, yeah. And it's a home run.

First of all, look at it. I mean, it looks just like the 60s car. And that's,

you could criticize that and say, invent a new idea, and not even derivative,

it's just a photocopy. But once you dig in deeper, it's a lot bigger. And they did a wonderful

job at masking that because you can't, it's actually a very difficult thing to do is scale

something up without looking it. And I think it's aging well. It's weird to call something

like that timeless because it's very much of a certain time, which is the 1960s. But

I think the execution was such that it has, it doesn't look cheap or miserable or sort of like

that they didn't didn't succeed in any respect. I think the car continues to age well.

I think it reset the timer on the 60s car on the original design. It's now a 2005 design,

and it's now a 20 year old design, even though it's not. Yeah, it's pretty wild.

Pretty, I think that we're halfway, it's been 20 years since that car came out,

and the original one was 40 when they redid that. Yeah, I have a bunch of other

sort of experiences that E34 and five with the V12 swap was kind of fun,

but the car had like seven miles on it post engine swap. So I couldn't really,

wasn't fully resolved. No, it felt fine, but we just were being nice to it.

Another standout to me was the Ford Sierra RS Cosworth. Holy shit.

I'd like to experience that car. You absolutely should experience that.

Not a huge fan of turbocharged, excuse me, anything, but to take that versus a E30M3,

it just absolutely would wipe the floor with an E30M3 in its chassis tuning and

steering and just the way it puts power down and the way it drives. Yeah, no contest.

Like, it feels a lot E30, you know, it feels E30 in a lot of ways, but better.

It would be the best sorted. It would be like probably better. This car might have had some

suspension work kind of upgrades, but it would be the most sorted E30 Sport Evo I'd ever driven,

would be the only thing that would come close to that. Just magical. There you have it.

Ford. We're in the Ford corner. We're in the Ford corner. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And then bad, oh my God, M5 Touring. Oh, this is the hobo-ing thing.

Fuck sake, that car was just, you know, and I just, I still see other journalists say,

Chris Harris, saying they love it and I just don't know what the fuck they're on about.

I mean, I've had so many, so many people send me, I think it was Spikes Car Radio.

Somebody, there was another podcast and Johnny Lieberman came on and Spikes Car Radio,

and Johnny Lieberman came on and Spike was like, nah, come here and review this car.

I said it sucked and I agree with everything you said and Johnny flipped the fuck out and

so many people sent me the link to that. I just had to laugh about that. I'm like, I

just don't understand what anyone is talking about when they say the car is good is abomination.

It's terrible to look at. The interior is terribly compromised. It has less

backseat room than a golf and it weighs 5,300 pounds. What about dynamically? What are the

dynamic decisions? Suspension tuning is just not done. So the overriding appearance is,

if you're on a track in it, which no one will ever do, but I had the occasion to be there,

it's actually quite competent. But what you realize is it's doing things to make up for

shortcomings that it shouldn't be doing. And it's not immediately obvious what it is,

but things are happening. So it's probably a combination of suspension,

like active suspension changes happening with some steering assistance changing with

rear wheel steering. So the car does handle well at the limit, but it all has this sense of like

something's happening, right? Whereas you get into a Ferrari and you drift around a corner,

you're like, I'm amazing and I'm so good. And you turn all the systems off and you realize,

no, the computer is that good, but you don't know because it feels natural. This is the opposite

of that. Yeah. Heaving rear suspension, just bouncing around all the time. One of the worst

rides of any, ride quality of any car I've ever driven. Crashy and brittle. Yes, but also bouncy

and inventing its own bumps, harsh as fuck. And remember that I drove that together with an Audi

RS6, which is known to be stiff and harsh. And it was just an order of magnet leagues worse.

And then we also had at the same time on that shoot, just because it was a drag race, we had a

Porsche Panamera Turbo S with Porsche's new active EHPDCC. So electro hydraulically actuated

Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control, which is a high voltage system that can actually move the car up

and down. And that is Rolls Royce levels of ride quality. This is like the Bose system.

Oh my, I mean, genuinely like staggering ride quality. And I think, wow, that's now on the

new 911 Turbo S, the 992.2. Like this is a new era. And if BMW has gone diverged into this

down this road, where the car is just undriveably, it's not undriveable.

There's no pleasure to be had from this thing. It's fast, but there's no pleasure.

And it does nothing well. And then you have Porsche going, yeah, well, we'll just make this

an option on, you know, it's an expensive car. But we're just going to start going down this road

of like changing the rulebook where ride quality is concerned. Like just goodbye, BMW. It's just

it's hard to say. I mean, it's really sad to see, but yeah.

What are you going to do? I always have an air cooled 911.

Of course you do. Which one of your cars is it? It's not one of mine. No.

I think that we can probably get you a ride in this car or drive in this car, but there were 15

built. It's such a Porsche weenie thing to say. One of 15, sorry, I should.

Roger Penske commissioned 15 of these cars to be built for motorsport. And we have one of them.

And it's in the streetable form now. But he basically the first ever international race of

champions. They used RSRs. And every year since they that they did it, they used an American car,

some kind Dodge or Camaros or you know, Transams. But the first year they did it with Porsches.

And they he commissioned 15 to be built and they were, he took 12 of the world's best drivers

and put them all in these cars. Anyway, we have one of them and it's streetable. It is quite

streetable actually, surprisingly streetable. And you should drive it. I think it's pretty cool.

I think that'll reset my. Maybe.

Perhaps. Nothing against none of that. I've enjoyed some of the experiences, but I just,

yeah, I think you can have a lot more fun. I think the power train will be interesting to you.

I think that the way that the power train behaves, you'll enjoy. So that was one of my

highlights. And then the other one was I drove around for a bunch of car weekend at Toyota 2000

GT and getting to use that as a real car is like, it's so ideal. It's like, it's civilized and

sounds and looks great. And I was shocked by the number of young people who knew what it was

and were like attracted to it and responded to it. I think that it's probably because it

is the origin of JDM and has been used in video games and all that stuff. So there's a whole,

like I was surprised that so many people gave a shit because there's not a lot of cars. You know,

the Miura certainly does that, but there's very few cars from the 1960s that I think get most

generations of car enthusiasts excited. And I wasn't expecting that to happen

with the 2000 GT. I wouldn't have expected it either, but it certainly happened.

That's a wonderful car. You know what, it's really not good at the hill climb at the end

of Revelations. It was interesting because I had that plus a Z432, dots and Z together with it.

And the Z was magic and the 2000 GT was out of its element. But that's so, for reasons of gearing

or body control, gearing, body control, steering, all of it. It just wasn't,

it wasn't magical at 10 tents, but it's not that kind of a car. It's a GT and they're about as

fast as each other and you know, they're both, they're both have two liter twin cam straight

sixes. It's a very similar in a lot of ways, but then you push them and you realize, okay,

it's not also just a Z. It was a Z432. So it's also the top dog Z. But that 2000 GT is a magical

car to interact with. Yeah. So it was nice to just drive around in it. And then Honorable mentioned

also, I was at a track day with one of our clients and he brought his F50 and he was like,

go take it out. And I was like, what? And he was like, yeah, sure. So can I be friends with your

clients? Yeah. So at Thunder Hill, I'm lapping in F50 with some kind of ridiculous exhaust on it.

And so that was like, I just, holy shit, there was one of those moments that happened. It was

similar to the first time that I ever flew an airplane by myself. And I was, I like look over

and I'm like, holy shit, am I actually doing this? There's like, nobody here in this airplane,

but me and I'm in the sky right now. And I had that kind of reaction in the F50 track. Yeah.

I'm just like, so that was, but it was a really cool experience, especially with all the noise.

And it was just really, really cool experience to be able to do that and ring that car out.

One of the few sports cars that I really cared about when I was younger was C4 ZR1, Corvette

ZR1. I never really cared much for Corvettes. I don't think I noticed Corvettes before that.

And it coincided to when I moved to Germany and maybe that was it. Maybe it was like, wow,

I'm homesick and America, whatever. But I did get a chance to spend some time in ZR1

for the Revelations episode and I really enjoyed that experience. That engine was

one of the best sounding engines I've ever heard, best sounding V8s I've ever heard, period.

You know, it has all timing, but doesn't know. So it's very low. First of all,

the LT5 in that engine is nothing to do with a small block and it was not designed or built by

anyone. It was, anyone at GM, it was a Lotus engine. And the crazy thing about it is, so it is,

it has 32 valves, 16 of them. So I guess, so it's a 16 intake valves,

eight of them ride on low, low, low lift cams, cam lobes. And the other eight are on high lift,

high durations. Presumably one in each cylinder. Yes, one free cylinder. And when you were,

it's very spicy. And the other bank is fuel economy, is in academy. But yeah,

so as you're rising to the revs, it also has 16 injectors. I mean, it's just a lot of complexity

in that engine, but their goal to increase efficiency because no Chevy had a thing,

the sort of goal that was or mandate that no Corvette would ever get a gas-guzzled tax.

And so to get some of the fuel economy numbers, they had to have this low lift,

sort of high efficiency, high swirl cam. And so under X amount of RPM, it's running on,

there are throttles that close off the intake runners for the high lift cams. And so you're

running on just the low lift cam and eight of the intake valves. Should be very civil at low RPM.

It is really civil. And you can, if there's a key that goes low power, high power mode,

if it starts out in low power, regular, regular power mode, and it feels just like any other

two valve per cylinder V8, it runs at a thrust at 5,000 RPM. It's got like loads of torque and

then it's over. And then you can switch the key or if it's in full power mode, it will automatically

crack open those throttle butterflies and go. That change of intake noise when that happens

is very much like VTech. You get that bubble and whatever in the anger. The intake and exhaust

don't sound identical to each other. So they speak to each other in a sort of resonant,

wonderful way, fucking magic. The second ZR1. And those cars are just cheap as shit.

Nobody cares about those cars. And I do not approve of this. The second one that we had was for

the Corvette ZR1 icons video. It was purple. It was the most beautiful, the car, the car was just

stunning to look at. And I drove it initially and it did not make half of the noise of the other

one that I drove. I don't know why. And it was felt genuinely slow. Like something was wrong

with it, slow versus the other one. Now I was also in the presence of 1064 horsepower Corvette ZR1

and a C6 and a C7. You know, all these ridiculous other Corvettes. So maybe it's just impressions.

But the handling of that car was one of, it was one of the easiest cars to slide that I've ever

slid around. In fact, it was one of the most difficult cars to not slide around. And through

our wires had gotten crossed and one of our producers got the car and I was told that I

wasn't allowed to slide the C6 around at all, which was unfortunately not the case.

And then the C4 owner didn't want us to really drive it hard. But I couldn't not slide the car.

It was just everywhere you went near the limit. It was this beautiful four-wheel drift.

So that was another, that wasn't necessarily a highlight, it was a highlight of the year,

but it was a massive surprise that that car has now, if it had the engine of the first one that

I drove and the suspension of the second one, that would be Jason's pick for the best value

of an experience for the year. I've never driven one. Oh my God, we got to get you in one.

We have to. Ridiculously long. That's not the kind of car that I normally come in contact with,

but I would like to. 141 miles an hour in first gear. You know, this is one of those,

you know, typical GM long, long, long gear. Yeah, that's right. And that's the gearbox

that they then put into the Lotus Carlton. But the Lotus Carlton, I think, had even longer gears.

Yeah, because they put a taller final drive in it. Because they had two that they could choose from

that could have a limited slip and that could handle the torque. What else you got? I have low lights.

I have four low lights and they're all different low lights. Low lights for different reasons.

The VinFast got dishonorable mentions because it was, I would say, the car that fell the most short

of what the consumers would expect or what it should do against its competition. So the VinFast

got dishonorable mention for that. The Triumph spit a shitfire. Gets dishonorable mention for

just being like a bad example of a car. Like it was just it needed a lot of like love and

resuscitation and was kind of worn out. And it gets honorable mention because it survived,

but it like didn't look good or feel good doing it. The most objectively like bad,

but somehow charming and enjoyable and amusing car that I drove last year was the smart crossblade.

That's the one that has like no windshield and they made they're like weirdly collectible now.

But that, you know, it's got that horrible, like the most horrible single clutch gearbox

ever. And like it's just so bad. It's good and it's like, you know, it amuses you the same way

like a Fiat Jolly, like any of these sort of toy not real open cars do where you're like,

is this a car or is this like golf cart? Like, you know, it amuses you. And then the most scared

was ND2 Miata. On our rally, I swapped with somebody who had an ND2 and I just, the car

scared the absolute shit out of me on a back road. Like it reinforced the impression. Sorry.

Yeah. ND2. This is not the one that I spun. No, it's a different ND2. It's a different one.

Yeah. Cause I promptly fuck, I spun that right the first corner, like violently terrifying car,

like the entire time I was like, I'm going to die. I'm going to die at any minute.

You can't get out of an old, I don't know what you, what had you been driving. I've been driving

my 911. Yeah. You cannot, that was the lesson we learned on that rally when we had NC three and

ND2 together. And we were trying to help our friend make a decision on which one to sell.

And the lesson there is you cannot get out of an old car and get into an ND. You will,

you will immediately spin it. I don't think you can get out of a new car either. Anything buttoned

down. Yeah, you can do. New cars was really fast steering as well, you know, but you just really

have to slow down your inputs and be patient on that back end. And I enjoy a Miata a lot,

but I have to reset myself. Yeah. Anyway, that scared the hell out of me.

You know what, one of my worst drive sources here, I'll be honest, one of the worst cars

that I've driven that Mark three Caprio that I bought. Really?

Mike's laughing already. I hate it. I cannot wait. I couldn't wait to get that fucking engine out.

It's all down to the, it was the engine at two points low. I just, I just kept thinking this

was the GTI. Yeah, that engine was available in the GTI. This charmless, soundless,

gutless, passionless, fucking piece of shit. I cannot get over the fact that it is the same

engine as in those two Volkswagen's that I have. It's the same basic block with an eight valve

head on it in a state of tune that was just wouldn't have been sufficiently excited and

exciting for a Prius and it was in a car with a GTI badge on it. I just, I'm sorry for the ABA

two point slow crowd, like get a car, get a fucking swap anything into that. I cannot believe.

Get a clue and get a car. Get a clue and how a car. Yeah. It's all right. What are you looking

forward for next year? It's, I have no idea. I have no idea what's going to happen. This is always

what, you know, how things unfold. I hope to have an opportunity to drive a T 50 next year.

Okay. I have been told I will have an opportunity to drive a T 50 and I will

rub that in as hard as I can to you because I've not driven an F1. So you shouldn't get,

you shouldn't get to drive a T 50 until I get to drive an F1. I'm kidding.

I am looking forward in addition to the VR6 swap, I am looking forward to get my rover back.

Did you watch the video? I did. Yes. That was, yeah, I can't wait. It should be on.

And it has oil pressure now. We didn't get to learn why what happened there.

Not exactly sure why they didn't put that in the video. It was a oil, it was a plug

on an oil galley that just fell out or popped out. And so apparently the rover oil plugs are

a non-standard size, but they're very close to a standard size. So they, this standard plug

fits in, he pressed it in and it popped out under oil pressure while running. And one of the lifters

was bad at the time. It didn't harm anything. Yeah. Very good to have turned it off immediately.

I'm so glad I was in the car. I mean, the good thing is there was one lifter that was bad out

of the box and it was getting louder and louder and louder and louder. But, you know, our initial

thought was, oh, there's a gradual loss of oil pressure because we had no way of knowing. But

it looks like there was oil pressure the entire time with just one bad lifter and then boom.

And I had, I was in the car looking at the gauges and I saw the oil like flick, flick, flick

on and it was off. It was turned off. It was under no load at 2000 RPM. It was turned off within

probably a second of the first flick, the flicker. And so Cam looks perfect. Everything's fine.

And it apparently the engine builder that David was talking, the guy who built the engine was

talking to a guy who builds these engines regularly. And he said he keeps getting bad batches of

lifters. So we got one. It happens in Ferrari Land also. We've gotten some bad lifters.

You know, modern quality control. It works. But yeah, looking forward to getting the rover

back, putting it in the studio, showing everyone more what it looks like. You can see it in the

video, but we didn't really talk about it. And I want you to drive it. I want to drive it. I can't

wait to dino it. They couldn't dino it because the dino shop, they were going to tow it in the snow,

you know, to the dino shop, but dino shop didn't have any availability for them.

So I think the plan is get it on a reliable truck ASAP and get it home. So it's done done.

It's done done. It's going to be picked up in the next couple of days.

But now it has to go all the way back to Michigan if it doesn't make double the horsepower.

I somehow think my bosses will say no to that request. I think it's going to make what it

makes. And that's it. But I mean, just the idle. I don't know if you heard the low pit idle.

It's so hard to tell in video. Yes, it is normally hard to tell. But I heard it running in person.

I never heard it idle, but it's definitely a, it makes a noise now. But the, I mean,

so to go from measured 7.6 to one compression to measured 9.5 ish that alone plus a cam plus

head work plus port polish plus headers, what could possibly go? I mean, plus computer

or programming. So it's now made to run on 91 instead of 87. So with modern injectors and

yeah, I can't wait. It should feel completely transformed,

head better, unrecognizable. Plus it's got a limited slip in it. Outstanding news. Very,

very exciting. Well, that's exciting for next year. Yeah. Maybe even our first episode,

there'll be a rover on the back. We'll never know. 2026 could bring big surprises.

They won't be surprises necessarily if we're discussing them now. Anyway, thank you for

joining us for this episode and year of car imagination on to next year, where we will

continue to provide partially carmogenated content. Partially hydrogenated motor oil.

Partially carmogenated, hydrogenated hydrogen. Thank you. Happy new year.

The Best and Worst Cars This Year — The Carmudgeon Show w/ Jason Cammisa & Derek Tam-Scott — Ep. 219

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