The Cars of Breaking Bad

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Welcome to Car Stuff,

a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works.

Good morning afternoon or night

to all you car stuff fans out there.

Whenever it may be, wherever you may be.

I am Kurt Garen and I am in the passenger seat again

for this episode of Car Stuff while Scott is out on the road.

And although that bit of news may make you feel

as if you aren't firing on all cylinders,

I think I have the perfect fix for all you car stuff lug nuts.

To my left and the driver's seat is a car stuff legend.

I am thrilled to reintroduce Ben Bolin.

It's a pleasure to have you today, Ben.

Thank you so much for having me on the show, man.

This is surreal to me.

You know, this is the first podcast I ever did

and I am thrilled to be back.

I have been doing a lot of stuff, man.

I've been on the road like Scott as well.

But thank you for having me.

No, no problem, man. Thanks for being here.

So I guess we can start by you telling everybody

what you've been up to in this period of time.

Yeah, yeah.

So first hello to all of our long time listeners.

I saw a lot of us returning to the car stuff

Facebook page and the social media and so on.

I like Mark Twain.

I assure you that the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

Right?

I've, you know, current nowadays we're all in the gig economy.

So I've been doing a bunch of like schemes and side jobs.

Sure.

Yeah.

And I've still been doing the podcasting stuff.

I'm on a stuff they want you to know.

Ridiculous history.

I've been making a lot of shows, but I've also been

producing, developing stuff and I've been on the road.

Most recently, I was in Alaska for the first time.

Have you ever been to Alaska?

No.

Yeah.

It's amazing.

It's like the last frontier and we had to get a rental car

and got a GMC Acadia, which is like a mid-size SUV kind of crossover thing.

And it was pretty neat because I still drive my old Monte Carlo.

So every time I'm in a car that was made after 2006,

I feel like I'm sitting in the future, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

And oh, yep, that's true.

I should point out for everyone my Monte Carlo is still around.

The transmission still is still a little slippy, little squirrely,

but I just love not having a car payment.

And as we'll come to find, Monte Carlo's are iconic vehicles.

You and I were talking off-air curve about a couple of things leading up to this episode.

There's some spoiler alerts that have to come into play because you and I talked about

El Caminos, which I didn't know that you and I personally have some background with El Caminos.

Oh, yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we might save that for future episode,

but we also talked about the new Breaking Bad Film, El Camino.

Right.

Right, which makes this topic.

Have we even...

Do we have...

We have to go ahead and say what the topic is now?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We should probably get to that part.

Yeah.

Let's do that at the beginning, right?

Yeah.

We're going to be talking about the cars of Breaking Bad.

So El Camino has just been released to the world.

And we have both seen it and inspired us to revisit this particular topic.

Because the characters drive cars that kind of fit their personality in a way.

Yeah.

We do have to say that spoilers will be present in this show.

We're not going to go out of our way to ruin the show for anyone who hasn't seen it.

But if you have not seen Breaking Bad yet, it is an excellent piece of television.

Go ahead and pause this, watch the entire show, and then come back.

We'll wait.

You don't have to watch the whole show, but do be warned seriously.

There will be some light spoilers both from Breaking Bad and a little bit from the follow-up film, El Camino.

Kurt, if someone asked you to summarize Breaking Bad in just a couple sentences, what would you say?

I think you did a pretty great summation of it off the air earlier.

Basically, the show is about Walter White.

He's a high school chemistry teacher.

And this is all in the first episode.

So he finds out he has an operable lung cancer.

He then tours a meth lab that his brother-in-law just busts up with the DEA.

He sees how much money that drug dealers are able to attain.

So he decides that he wants to use his chemistry skills to cook meth and partners up with a former student of his, named Jesse Pinkman.

AKA Captain Cook.

Right, Captain Cook.

He then comes up with this scheme to cook meth and make money for his family, because he only has two years to live.

And oh yeah, his brother-in-law is a DEA agent and his son has cerebral palsy and his wife is pregnant.

And Kimo, of course, is tremendously expensive, tremendously traumatic to the body.

He also has poor health care, so he has to come up with a plan for that too.

And he's got a family to support.

You've got two kids, et cetera, et cetera.

It starts in dire times and it quickly escalates.

The time frame of the poll show takes place over two years, man.

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I think that's a fantastic synopsis of it.

And that gets us right where we need to be to explore some of the cars.

So when we talk about the cars of Breaking Bad, we owe a lot to a guy named Dennis Milliken.

Dennis Milliken is a transportation coordinator.

This is a dream job for a lot of folks.

Essentially, he oversees all of the cars, trucks, vehicles for any production both on and off screen.

So like the vans that drive actors to and from the set, he's in charge of that.

If there's a Ferrari, he's also in charge of the Ferrari.

He's literally the car guy.

He got a start on a show called Dallas.

And he's worked in TV and film ever since.

I see some of his stuff in Robocop, some of his stuff in 24.

It's weird to me that someone could have a job that important and that pivotal and still be kind of a name that people might not commonly know.

So Dennis Milliken worked closely with the creator of Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan, to scout out cars and just picture this as your day job.

What if today instead of doing our usual podcast stuff, you and I just go out in Atlanta and we have a list of fictional characters, like a short description of what they're about, what their thing is.

And we just walk around the city looking for cars that seem like the kind of cars these fictional characters would drive.

That is crazy.

Yeah, that's what Dennis Milliken does.

And he would send Vince Gilligan pictures and they would be like, I don't know.

That's too cool for Walter White or that car is too nice for Jesse Pinkman.

Let's find a better fit.

And they applied this process to everything.

Now we're talking about cars.

I got to tell you, man, one of the, I don't want to be offensive, of course, because it's your money.

You should buy and drive what you want.

But one of the things that really hit me when I first saw Breaking Bad was how much I hated Walter White's original car, the 2004 Pontiac Aztec.

You remember that one, right?

Yeah, it was kind of a dull green color.

It had factory aluminum wheels, but the one on the rear driver side was missing and replaced with like just your standard steel spare looking, looking wheel.

It's a pretty sad and decrepit car.

And in the first episode, he has trouble shutting the glove box.

That's right.

The trouble start just from the get-go with this particular car.

And I think it was, I think it was known for being not a terribly great vehicle just in general.

Yeah.

I mean, that's the thing.

So the Pontiac Aztec was made in 2001, I think they first hit the market, 2001, 2005.

And they're crossovers, you know what I mean?

So it depends on what you want out of it.

It's got a four-speed automatic transmission, V6 engine.

We've got some good stats.

You know, that's a 3.4-liter engine there.

The problem with it is that for a lot of people, maybe this is an aesthetic thing, but for a lot of people, a crossover is a compromise.

Right.

It's for someone who says, I want us to Dan.

I want to be able to seat, you know, more than two people, like I wouldn't pick up truck or something.

But I also want to be able to change that into a cargo hauler if need be.

I feel like the crossover replaced station wagon in a lot of ways.

And this particular one has a very wagon feel to it.

Although it's definitely a bulky car.

The particular color of this car reminds me a little bit of the truckster from vacation.

This not as olive green, but it has that feel to it, especially the front end.

It's got like four holes for the grill.

It just looks very weird.

And the fact that it's a Pontiac, that the end of Pontiac's existence may have had something to do with the results this car received in SARS Reviewsco.

Yeah, I did have some poor reviews.

It's interesting because it ties into the story of Walter White in a very real and depressing way.

Definitely.

Yeah, so GM said, okay, we're going to sell 75,000 Aztecs every year, Pontiac Aztecs.

That means we need to create 30,000 every year to break even.

The model's best selling year was 2002.

They sold a little bit less than 28,000.

So they weren't meeting demands of one of their big problems.

This is where it ties into Walter White.

One of their big problems was that the Aztec was too expensive for the consumers they were trying to pitch to.

And it was like, it's a car for Generation X.

It's growing up.

It's nice.

I like vote now.

I have a mortgage by an Aztec.

But the problem was, it was more expensive than a lot of other competing vehicles in the same space.

So when we see Walter White's increasingly busted up Pontiac Aztec, we're seeing not only a guy who's got money problems,

but a guy who probably paid too much for his car.

That's the implication.

Yeah.

And he's trying to ride it out for as long as he can.

Right.

Exactly. Yeah.

Because now's not the time to buy a new car.

Even after, how many times does a windshield get broken?

About three that I can remember.

And it kind of becomes like a comedic thing in the show.

After the first time it breaks, Jesse breaks it with a rock or something.

And then he runs into a couple of rival drug dealers and the classic scene from the show and breaks the windshield again.

And finally meets its maker towards the end of the series when he intentionally crashes it to try to throw his brother-in-law off the trail.

It has a nice run in the show, though.

And it definitely parallels Walt's existence.

Yeah.

And I love that scene you're talking about where Walt intentionally crashes the car, whereas DEA agent brother-in-law,

you were also telling me that off screen they were using not one, but multiple Aztecs.

Yeah.

Correct.

They had the regular one.

I guess they would use Walt's driver.

And then they had a couple of other ones, a crash vehicle and a parts vehicle and another crash vehicle.

And they had three total.

And that's very common for a lot of on-screen vehicles.

Yeah.

You've got the vehicle that's just for exterior shots.

You've got the stunt vehicle.

Then you have the vehicle just for parts or the vehicle for maybe modified so that one can film inside.

You know what I mean?

There's never just one car.

But there is one kind of car that I have always been a huge fan of despite the fact that they are far from perfect

and that my friend is the Chevy Monte Carlo.

Jesse Pinkpin, when we meet him under the moniker Captain Cook, drives a 1982 Monte Carlo low rider.

I like these.

It's very much a personal opinion of mine, but the 1982 Monte Carlo low rider is from the fourth generation of the Monte Carlo dynasty,

from 1981 to 1984.

So it's got a re-styled body.

It's the two-door coupe layout and there are different engine options and so on.

To me, this is a classic car.

Now, I have not driven this kind of, well, that's not true.

I have driven this Monte Carlo, but I've never owned one.

In this story, Jesse's Monte Carlo very much looks like a small-time criminals busted up car.

It's dirty.

You know, he's got, doesn't he have like a vanity license plate or something?

I think it says the Captain, Captain's kind of spelled like Captain Crunch, C-A-P-N, definitely Jesse Pinkman's type vehicle.

Yeah, and it also has hydraulics.

Oh, yeah.

A classic scene in the show when Tuko's having the gun battle with Hank and it turns into a standoff, old west style in the desert.

With a bouncing hoop-D, Tuko grows in their window, grabs her as gun and it switches on the hydraulics.

So the car is sitting here bouncing all the gun battles about to pop off.

And all the while, Jesse and Walter in the bushes kind of hiding from Tuko, who is like a real scary dude.

Yeah, a bouncy hoop-D.

You know, it's interesting.

I've got to ask you, what do you think of that style of Monte Carlo?

Is that too old school for you?

Do you like them?

Would you drive it?

Yeah, yeah.

I like that era of car.

Scoot to it.

And do you have to admit, what's it top out at?

Oh, I believe the max speed is 103 miles per hour.

Yeah, it's zero to 60, I think, is just a little over 15 seconds.

For the time, that's not terrible.

That makes you think, you know, if I were a small-time drug dealer, I would appreciate having a little bit of zip to my ride, you know, just in case.

Although with the customizations that Jesse had on his car.

That's a very good point.

Had the wheels on it, the spoked wheels and everything.

It was a low rider too, yeah.

So, when you know, bouncing all around, things rattle loose and whatnot.

And he's just a speed bump away.

From just bottoming it out.

And so this car essentially is a snapshot of early Jesse Pinkman.

Has some potential, but is not very well cared for and dirty and has not lived up to its potential at this point.

Of course, people watch Breaking Bad before know that Jesse does not spend the rest of his life in the show driving a Monte Carlo.

Which is unfortunate, because if he had just fixed it up a little bit, man, or not put the hydraulics on it.

Anyway, we know that there is another pivotal vehicle that comes relatively early in the story of the show.

And it's not a car, right?

It's not a crossover.

It's not a sedan.

What is it?

Well, Ben, it's an RV and to be specific as a 1986 Fleetwood Bounder that Jesse nicknames the Crystal Ship.

Yes, with a K.

Yes, that is correct.

So the Fleetwood Bounder, I have to be honest with you.

I love RVs.

Growing up, I always had the romantic notion of traveling the world or traveling the country, at least on an eternal road trip and an RV.

We've had folks who have written to me to demystify the idea, right?

When they say, well, actually driving an RV can have its ups and downs, you know, gas mileage is surprised, not that great.

You got to find the hook ups, the depreciation on the things can be tough as well.

And even though I know all of that is true, I still really want an RV.

You know, I want the option.

Now, Walton, Jesse, when they get the RV, they're not getting it to go on a road trip.

No, no, they decide early on that this is where they need to cook their meth.

Walt can't very well cook it at his house.

And Jesse doesn't want to cook it at his house either, for obvious reasons.

So they decide that a mobile meth lab is the way to go.

And Jesse is tasked to go out and find this RV.

Walt runs into the bank and comes out with, I don't know if the amount is specified or not.

All to say, this is life savings of less than $7,000.

So between six and seven, probably closer to $7,000.

Yeah, and it doesn't go according to plan.

So Fleetwood RV or Fleetwood Enterprises, the company that makes these, sadly went bankrupt in 2009.

I think they filed for chapter 11, which is so weird because in 2007, they were the top selling manufacture of RVs in the market.

So I don't, I don't know the entire story behind that, but in 2008, they were already closing factories across the US.

Yeah, so Scott and I just did an RV episode.

Oh, cool.

So it's up there for you guys to check out.

But after the housing bubble burst, the RV industry has been going to full on decline.

2009 seems a little soon for them to just completely collapse, but maybe they just got out of the game while they're getting was good there.

Well, they got purchased by a private equity firm called American Industrial Partners.

And then another group, Kavko Industries, they were buying different pieces of the company.

So Kavko bought their manufactured housing. They made a lot of that.

And then AIP bought their RV assets.

And so Fleetwood RV is still around now.

It's headquartered in Decatur, Indiana.

Essentially what happened is these different companies acquired the trademarks.

So while the Fleetwood Enterprises entity is gone, you can still see things.

The name is still there.

Yeah, exactly.

It lives on and name only.

The king is dead, long live the king, et cetera, et cetera, except with RVs.

So there's another vehicle here that I want you to take on, Kurt, because this leads to some questions that help me learn a lot about people.

The 1991 Jeep Grand Wagonier, which is driven by Walt's wife, Skyler, leads me to ask you, are you a Jeep person?

No, I'm not a Jeep person, but I do, I really dig this particular car.

Why is that?

It doesn't look like a Jeep, first of all.

It's kind of, this was the first luxury 4x4.

It doesn't look like it would be a luxury car.

But it just, it looks neat.

It has the wood, faux wood paneling on the side.

And well, at least to me, it's one of the cooler cars in the whole show.

As Jeep's go, I'm not a huge fan.

Like the, what is it?

Like the CJ5 or whatever.

Yeah, forget the number.

The one that used to flip over all the time.

Nothing's perfect, right?

Right.

But yeah, they did.

Probably has to do with how they were driven too.

Yeah, that's the thing.

It's a known problem.

But the Jeep Wrangler was also known for rolling over when people would literally turn the wheel too quickly.

So the Wagonier doesn't suffer from the same prevalence, right?

But this was also, what's interesting here is that 1991, I want to say,

was the last year of production for this vehicle, is that correct?

That's correct.

But this particular car did have the longest production run,

or the third longest production run, the newest automotive history.

So that's kind of neat.

Nice.

Yeah.

So if we were to speculate on the showrunner's logic for choosing this car for Skyler,

then we could say, let's see, it's a 4x4, but it's luxurious, right?

I believe it's the first luxury 4x4.

It's established and it's at the end of its line.

So maybe there's a deeper statement there about their character,

a strong person capable of going on the rougher roads,

but also with the taste for the finer things in life.

I don't know, man.

I'm just trying to think.

I was trying to imagine this car being one that they may have gotten

when they first got together, maybe around the time they first got married.

Maybe it was their only car at the time, so they splurged on a nice,

like this may be a single owner vehicle is what I'm saying.

And it was the whites from the get go.

Yeah, that's kind of, that's how I imagine it.

It's not explicitly stated in the show.

Let me ask you this, Kurt, if you were,

now there's entirely hypothetical for everybody listening to the show.

My good buddy, Kurt, here is not a drug dealer, but if you were,

not a small time like Captain Cook level drug dealer,

a successful higher end criminal, what kind of vehicle would you drive?

I think I'd have to use my head a little bit on this one.

So nothing too flashy.

Nothing too flashy.

Maybe something like a 1998 Volvo V70.

That's very specific.

I like that you have thought this out.

That is the car driven by Gus, the chillingly robotic,

tenacious, incredibly organized, calculated, calculated,

great word, a mastermind of a global meth empire

who also, by day, is the proprietor of the very highly rated

local fast food restaurant, Los Boyos Amanos,

which, you know, he's the chicken man.

Yeah, it may be the most well-known non-existent restaurant ever.

That's true.

I have a T-shirt.

Well, it doesn't even exist.

Well, it does exist in breaking bad land, I guess.

And I'm sure that there have been other, maybe there have been fan events

where they create a Toyota Amanos for the day.

Everything about this character, Gus, is focused on making him look innocuous.

In fact, one could say his error is that he is too successful in being innocuous.

He supports the local policeman's ball.

I think at one point, someone puts a tracker on his car

and they see that he literally drives the same route

at the same predictable times all the time.

It's too clean.

If you wouldn't be believable, you got to have a little bit of dirt

on your fingernails there.

The Volvo V70 is very much one of those reliable, dependable cars

that is meant to function as a daily driver.

It's not there to be flashy.

It's not there to be impressive.

You're not going to pull up to a traffic light

and then show off to the car next to you

or you're probably not going to rev the engine to see if they'll race you.

When most people hear the word Volvo, they think safe.

Right.

That's Gus for you, right there.

Just safe, very calculated, very safe, very quiet.

And so is this Volvo.

This is strange because we are building a case where each of the cars you see,

it's weird when you think about it.

These main characters have all been introduced with a car in some way.

Now let's take a look at another car.

We've mentioned Hank, the DEA agent several times.

What does he drive and what does it say about him?

The car that we see him in most is a 2006 Jeep Commander.

So that would be the DEA issued vehicle.

His partner, Steven Gomez, has the same color, same type of car.

So you can assume that was just a standard issue car for these folks in the DEA around the time.

And this is, you know, I got to be honest.

I like Jeeps.

You know, I've never owned one.

But I like him.

I should say, I've never owned one and I've never rolled one over.

So maybe that's why it's my mind.

Yeah, maybe I just, I've just been turning the steering wheel too slowly.

But this does feel like it is a statement about the guy, right?

Just the fact that it's even named Commander.

You know, it's the kind of car that would appeal to that kind of person.

Right?

And it's a good vehicle too.

It's like the Pontiac Aztec goes through a lot in the course of the show, right?

Yeah, it does.

Has several lights.

And it's implied that he gets it repaired pretty quickly and then gets it back on the road, right?

Even after there was a shootout.

Yeah, the shootout with Tuko, where Jesse's car was involved, the commander also gets shot up pretty badly.

And it does show up again later with same license plate.

So it's assumed that it was repaired, but it could have been replaced and had the same license plate popped on a new car.

And then it also gets shot up again later in the show when a couple of characters known as the Cousins attack Hank in a parking lot.

That's a fairly intense scene as well.

Hank, he's in the center of some of the most intense scenes in the show.

Oh, yeah.

He's like, he's all, he has to be here.

He's learned to walk again and he collects minerals.

The way you, in the first episode of the series, Hank is not a very likable character.

Right.

He's just that guy.

That guy that is just kind of obnoxious.

But also you get to vibe these a bit insecure and so it's revealed throughout the show that he does have this side.

You actually won the most likable characters by the end of the show.

Like him and Jesse are the ones that kind of come out and scave that thing.

Yeah.

And also it speaks to the depth of the writing and the story because you're right.

When we first meet Hank, he is kind of a bully.

He's condescending to Waltz.

You get this feeling that he doesn't have much respect for this guy because he says, you know, I'm law enforcement ideal with bad, bad dudes.

And you deal with, you deal with high schoolers.

Yeah.

So let's, let's level set here, buddy.

And it turns out that he's completely wrong.

And his brother-in-law becomes this evil supervillain, right?

And that all may play into the psychology with Walt.

He has a lot of potential.

He knows he can do things and he has this potential to be this great mind.

And he never got the chance to show it and flex.

And I think that if there is any redemption for Waltz character, it's that he does get to show that he's capable of something.

Right.

And we see that come out when there's a particular scene I'm remembering where in Waltz has a couple of drinks.

And then starts saying some real out of pocket stuff.

The stuff you should not say if you want your drug empire to remain a secret.

So we see that there's a little bit of instability already showing in Walter White's character.

Speaking of instability, I just want to hit this one real quick without spending too much time on it.

The 2008 VW Beetle driven by Hank's wife Marie.

Marie is far from my favorite character in the story.

Now, I do like Beetles.

I like the older ones.

I don't know about you.

Are you a bug fan?

Yeah, I was wondering what happened to all of them.

That's all.

It's weird because the sea and all the time.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you still...

I feel like I...

Oh, you know what?

You know what it is, man?

I feel like I see them all the time because I...

It's someone who lives in my neighborhood has one.

So I just see the same one all the time, yeah.

And the Beetle itself has such a fascinating history.

Which I think we did an episode on a few years back.

So do check out that one if you're interested.

Of course, everybody knows what the Volkswagen Beetle is.

The bug, which has tons of other nicknames.

Did you know about this?

I did not know.

Okay, so I'm not going to read all of these.

But in other languages, it turns out the VW Beetle has tons of nicknames.

It's called the Peta or Turtle in Bolivia.

It's called the bug here in the U.S. of course.

It's called the Kever in Belgium and the Netherlands.

It's called the Kodak or Frog in Indonesia.

The list just goes on.

Oh, it's called the Foxy in Pakistan.

And I, you know, without...

Well, helping disrespectful toward the VW Beetle,

I definitely wouldn't describe it as a quote-unquote Foxy car.

No.

It's kind of an opposite of that.

Yeah.

Throughout the show, Hank's wife Marie is just a continual source of problems,

rather than solutions.

Yeah.

I find it interesting, too.

Well, it's not interesting because everything she wears is of that purple hue.

Oh, that's right.

A few times in the show, does she wear a different color?

And I think that may be black.

But, you know, everything is purple that she has in her car.

I think this is close as they could get it to purple.

This is dark blue, very unattractive, dark blue color.

But yeah, Marie is a...

I mean, she's kind of a little bit of a club domainiac, I believe,

which juxtaposed with Hank's character allows him to show kind of his sweet side.

I think you become more endeared with Hank seeing him interact with his wife.

I think she takes the Beetle and runs over this child's RC car at one point.

And Hank goes over to the kid and kind of just slips him some money.

And as Marie speeds off in her frantic state, Hank deals with a lot outside of him.

Outside of his hard exterior is just kind of soft and understanding.

Yeah.

Plus, his wife is sitting here stealing all this stuff and he knows about it and he's law enforcement.

So kind of says, like, look, he turns a blind eye to his wife at least.

Maybe he can understand Walt.

But he never, you know, he'd never understand that.

No, but that moment where there is a little thought.

Maybe this is where the show is going to go.

But he never ever was going to go there.

And there are so many different directions that the show could have taken.

It got a chance to explore some other possible avenues of story, not in Breaking Bad.

But in the spin-off, Better Call Saul.

Better Call Saul, of course, takes Bob Odin Kirk's character.

Known, introduced to us as Saul Goodman.

It was a scheming lawyer in Breaking Bad.

Saul Goodman drives a 1997 Cadillac Deville.

It's not a secret, man.

I like Cadillacs.

I'm down for it.

You know, I come from a long line of people who like land yachts.

And I don't aim on changing now.

So can you tell us a little bit about the Cadillac Deville?

In question.

Another vanity plate shows up on this one.

It's L-W-Y-R-U-P.

So lawyer up.

I think it's kind of a success symbol for him.

In fact, in Better Call Saul, one of the characters.

Marco tells Jimmy McGill.

Saul's original name is Jimmy McGill.

Slip and Jimmy.

He should get a Cadillac when he becomes a lawyer.

Obviously, as soon as Saul, Jimmy or Saul becomes a lawyer,

he gets his Cadillac.

And did you notice that Vince Gilligan appears to have a thing with vanity plates?

If someone has a vanity plate, he's implying that there's something trashy about them?

A little bit.

Yeah.

Lawyer up, right?

Yeah.

And we also know that Deville's make another appearance later in the show

when Walter White drives a 1977 Deville sedan on spoiler alert the last day of his life.

Right.

Yeah.

And coincidentally enough, it is his 52nd birthday.

The show begins on his 50th birthday.

And with his cancer diagnosis, he is given that two year timeframe.

So we said Walt starts off his criminal career as the proud owner of a Pontiac Aztec.

That is not the only car he drives throughout the show.

He drives that Deville sedan for like a day or two.

But then he also drives a 2012 Chrysler 300, which I believe was a birthday gift.

Yeah.

Is a birthday gift to himself after he wrecks his Aztec on the way to take Hank to observe

the meth lab.

He takes his Aztec to a mechanic and sells it to the mechanic for $50, I believe.

And then goes out and purchases himself a 2012 Chrysler 300 SRT 8.

It is interesting that the car is a 2012 model because of the time frame and which

the show takes place.

Right.

This would be 2010, right?

Yeah, 2010.

Right.

The show begins in 2009.

And it's sort of punctuated by his birthdays.

And these are pretty cool cars.

I mean, 470 horsepower, 6.4 liter V8.

I would, I'm just going to put it out there.

My birthday is in August.

I think that's a great present to get anyone.

It doesn't have to be me.

Treat yourself.

And Walt may have been taking a little bit of inspiration from Gus with this particular

car.

However, it stands out.

It does stand out a little bit.

It stands out a little more.

Definitely more than Volvo for sure.

Yeah.

And more than the Aztec as well.

Yes.

Yeah.

Or it stands out at least in a different way.

But as we saw earlier in the show having a busted up car could lead to you being encountered

by the police.

I believe after the windshield gets broken.

The first time Walt is pulled over and pepper sprayed and arrested.

I forgot.

I totally forgot about that.

Let's go to Jesse's next car.

Remember, he was originally driving that money car low rider.

He ends up pushing a 1986 Toyota Tursell.

Now Toyota Tursells are not for everybody.

They're not compact cars.

Technically, they're subcompact cars.

That's how small they are.

I had an experience with a 1981 Tursell I want to say that put me off of them for the rest

of my life.

So I do not agree with this choice on Jesse's part, but Jesse finds this car in a junkyard,

right?

Yeah.

Interesting tie in here with the Chevy El Camino.

When Jesse takes the RV to Clovis's junkyard, I believe, he needs a car to drive away and he

is eyeing a Chevy El Camino.

But he can't swing the cost.

So he is then directed towards this red tracel.

Yeah.

With the idea literally being that he just needs transportation.

Yeah.

And some people say this also marks a stepping stone in Jesse's evolution into a more mature

person because he doesn't get a flashy vehicle or he doesn't pimp this one out, right?

Right.

Although the idea of pimping out of Tursell is pretty fascinating.

If anybody listening has some photos, please send them along or post them on the car stuff

Facebook page.

I would love to see them.

There's one last car though that we have to talk about.

It is by far one of the coolest cars in the show, and I think we're on the same page

about that.

Yeah.

The 2012 Dodge Challenger SRT8.

Yeah.

This kind of shows up in conjunction with the 2012 Chrysler 300 SRT8.

There's that weird scene in the driveway when Walt and Walt Jr. are like revving the

engines and this guy, this music going on, it just comes across as being an ad, which

obviously is because the cars weren't even out in the context of the show yet.

Yeah.

I can't figure out if it was Vince Gilligan's way of making it just completely obvious.

It's comical, and it stands out, which fits the whole purpose of being in there in the

first place.

And then there's that thing where Walt is bragging to his brother-in-law about the specs

or something and just got like he's like he's winning a sheet.

Right.

I mean, they're great things, but Dodge Challenger, but it does stick out a little bit.

Yeah.

Let me think.

Let's take a break from the plot.

And let me tell you a little bit more about this Dodge Challenger, Hank.

In case you're considering moving on from your Jeep commander, why don't you look for something

with a 6.4 liter V8, you know, 470 horsepower, I'm just going to go on for a while.

You know what I mean?

Right.

That also symbolizes this feeling of success owning your dream vehicle is aspirational.

You know what I mean?

And everybody, even if they don't consider themselves quote unquote, car nut or something

like everybody has a dream vehicle of some sort.

And for Walt, this Dodge Challenger feels like the attainment of something that was previously

unattainable.

You know what I mean?

It's interesting because at this point in the show, he has enough money to buy and

exotic cars, super cars, something.

But instead, and of course, there are a thousand problems with that.

What's that guy doing with a Bugatti in his driveway?

Wait, actually, I don't know if he could have afforded a Bugatti at that time.

Scratch that.

But you know what I mean?

A higher end vehicle.

Sure.

Yeah.

Maybe that's too flashy, but the Dodge Challenger is still also very flashy for his neighborhood

for where he's at in life, you know, especially just to pay cash.

Yeah.

That's a big step.

I mean, we're talking, it's a year from when we met Walter White.

I kind of get that vibe from just the character that this may be like his first new, he's

a used car guy.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

Yeah.

So, and not only does he buy one, but he buys two.

He buys one for himself, and then he buys one for his son as well.

That's so nuts to me, you know, the idea of walking in somewhere and buying two cars at

once with cash.

New.

I may use the car guy through and through just because, just because honestly, I'm a little

bit too cheap for it.

In a way, I mean, I guess it is flashy for Walt in a subtle way.

It's definitely shows his evolution as a character over the short span of a year.

Well, here's the question, too.

Who owns that Dodge Challenger?

Does Walter White own it or does Heisenberg?

You know what I mean?

Like, which, was it the Jekyll or the Hyde buying the car?

And that's an interesting question, but speaking of buying the car, that's something we should,

that's something we should squeeze in.

We would be remiss if we didn't mention this car at least in gentlemen.

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In October of 2013, they had an auction of some of the cars from the show, and they auctioned

off the Tercelle at a starting bid of $5,500, so it eventually sold for $7,200.

They auctioned off some of the other cars as well, like Skyler's Jeep and Waltz Aztec,

one of the Aztecs.

I think it was one of the crash cars.

Interestingly enough, they auctioned off Todd's El Camino, so they gave up one of the cars

that was going to be shown in the future, which is kind of interesting.

1978 Chevy El Camino, yeah, we should just do an episode on El Camino's, man.

I was thinking about this earlier this week, I was looking back through small pictures

of El Camino's.

It's weird how you don't see them on the road as often, anymore, and I would be in the

driving one, would you?

Yeah, they'd, I think so.

If I had one, though, it would be one of those cars where it's kind of reach classic

status.

Yeah.

So you want to drive it, but you also want to just collect it, but I'm not one to collect

cars.

I feel like cars should be driven.

So yeah, definitely.

El Camino's are awesome.

It's funny.

I have multiple friends who always drive pickup trucks or something like an El Camino

primarily, so that they don't have to be the person driving everybody around, because

they can just say, oh, yeah, we're going out as a group.

I can take one person with me, you know, or it can hop in this guy's SUV or something.

Yeah.

Also, when you have a truck, people want you to help them move often, but I feel like

El Camino is so small that you can't really use it as a truck either.

No, it's such a compromise, too, because if you pack the bed of an El Camino, the way

one would pack the bed of a pickup truck, then the bottom is going to be all sorts

of wonky.

You know what I mean?

It just doesn't have the load bearing capability.

Last thing they have to say about this auction, Walter White's Aztec, one of them did go

up at auction as well.

I believe the starting bid for the Aztec was 1,000 mainly because it needed a lot of work.

And I think the most expensive starting bid was actually a VW Beetle, wasn't it?

Yep.

So, if you had to pick, and I think I know the answer here, if you had to pick any vehicle

from the vehicles we've discussed or the vehicles not on our list today, any vehicle from the

Breaking Bad universe to drive, what would you pick?

I would probably, I'm going to change it up here.

I think I said in the beginning that Skyler's Jeep was my favorite car from the show, which

still may remain true, but I think I would choose Jesse's Tercelle.

No, are you serious?

Oh, yeah.

What?

Why?

It's just a cool little car.

I like hatchbacks.

Oh, okay.

And you could consider this one a hatchback.

Sure.

Yeah.

That's what I'm going to go with.

I'm going to go with Todd's El Camino, man.

I've got the El Camino fever.

I couldn't drive it though.

I just taught it tainted that car.

Yeah, it's got the Todd tainted.

Yeah, you were going A El Camino, maybe same model year, but not touched by that.

This Todd is the type of person that you just don't want to be around anything that

had to do with him.

It's bad news.

Yeah, yeah.

There may be something hiding in the El Camino that you didn't know was there.

You know, with the seats or something.

It's a weirds me out a little bit.

The actor playing Todd is a great actor.

Oh, man.

He plays that role just so well.

That guy looks so much like Matt Damon.

A little bit.

It's weird to me when I was, when I first watched it, I kept thinking that was Matt Damon.

But you know, maybe I have some kind of weird face blindness or something.

I was definitely focused more on the main characters and more on the cars.

It has been an absolute pleasure.

Thank you for having me on car stuff.

Oh, anytime.

Anytime.

It's weird to come back.

I know that this episode was more of a list, right, and when we were exploring a television

show as well.

But in the future, if you're cool with it, I think we should do a whole episode on the

story of the El Camino and maybe see what our odds of getting the El Camino resurrected

are.

Most definitely.

Let's do that.

Sometimes, say, fly us out of this episode with ways that our faithful listeners can contact

us and interact with us.

Absolutely.

Yeah, man.

We are all over the internet.

You can just type car stuff into your search assistant of choice and it should lead you

to us.

You can find us on Facebook, you can find us on Instagram, you can find us on Twitter,

all the hits, all the good ones, where car stuff, HSW on each of those.

And while this concludes today's episode, it does not conclude our show tune in next

week, where Kurt and maybe I will be returning with some more car stuff.

Let us know what you think, too, folks.

What's your favorite car from Breaking Bad?

What would you drive?

Well, Kurt and I still be able to hang out together despite his last minute plot twist

love for Toyota Turcells.

May be.

Stay tuned next time.

Thanks everyone for listening.

Car stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff works.

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The Cars of Breaking Bad

Nissan Frontier

GMC Acadia

Chevrolet Monte Carlo

Aztek Pontiac Aztec

Cadillac Fleetwood

Jeep Grand

Jeep Cj5

Jeep Wrangler

Volvo V70

Jeep Commander

Volkswagen Beetle

Cadillac DeVille

Chrysler 300

Chevrolet El Camino

Dodge Challenger

About this episode

Original notes