The Most Important Vehicle You’ve Never Heard Of — Carmudgeon w/ Cammisa & Derek Tam-Scott — Ep 214

Derek is drinking, so I'll introduce this episode of The Car Mugin Show, which is driven by

Haggerty.

My name is Jason Camisa, that is Derek Tam Thirsty hyphen Scott, and this episode of The

Car Mugin Show is about, it's kind of a car, it's definitely a car, not a truck, definitely

a truck.

Okay.

It's a car, it's a truck, that the air is a car, it's the long life vehicle.

The Grumman Long Life Vehicle, we're talking about the LV that I covered in a recent

last week's episode of Revelations, the revelation here is, I would own one.

Yeah, so this is the male truck, this is the male truck, as opposed to the female truck.

I wanted so badly to make a joke about, like, gender in there, and I'm like, I'm just

going to get in trouble.

I'm going to piss everyone off.

Yeah, you're going to find some way to stuff it, and then it's not going to work well

for you, so, but male truck.

Yes, so if Derek claps, we can get on with it.

Oh, we're back to your truck car, I made you so happy.

A couple of weeks there, you did really well, you got me nervous, yeah, well, that's all

over now.

Okay.

Onto the jingle.

I'm just going to sit here and look at each other, we're going to start this shit.

Well, it'd be difficult for the people who are listening because then they have nothing

to consume, it'll just be silence.

Oh, well, for the record, we've been sitting here staring at each other in silence, blinking

for the last 40 minutes.

So just thawing.

Yes, it is winter.

I just drove in snow twice, once up into a home, once in Michigan.

Not ready for that.

Oh, well.

How did it go?

I was fine.

Everything was completely fine and totally under control in my Corolla rental car, and

then in a Tesla Model S.

What kind of tire?

Not Frediscience.

Yeah.

But I did do something really fun.

I signed up for my first local autocros.

So I did an autocros a couple of years ago, a year and a half ago, in the Lotus.

And this is the first time I've seen one super close.

So this was Sonoma Raceway, which is like 20 minutes away from me.

And I was filming with Randy Popes, we were doing a fourth coming episode that I'm not going

to tell you anything about it's amazing.

But I said, hey, Randy, you want an autocros?

Oh, yeah, I want to be there.

And so I'm like, here, just take one of the cars.

And so he signs up.

And we show up at this autocros, only to find out it's actually not timed.

So I put the Meta Rayban asshole glasses on and timed our runs anyway.

So I brought the EGolf and Beatrice.

What say you?

Which one is quicker around a racetrack?

Hold on.

First before I say that.

Who's quicker around a racetrack?

An SCCA Hall of Fame race car driver who had his start in SCCA solos, i.e. autocros,

and has the most amazing driver I've ever been in the car with, or me.

Why is this a trick question?

I don't know.

What's your one?

What would assume Randy Popes?

One would assume Randy Popes.

And that would be the case in the EGolf by three, I think it was three tenths of a second,

would not be the case.

And I beat Randy.

If I put our runs together, I beat him by three quarters of a second, which is an

eternity.

However, this is not a timed event, and there's no one doing cones, like cone duty.

So you think the course was evolving?

No, the court there was one cone in particular that was in the middle of a very tight

slalom right at the exit, right at the finish line, and there was one cone missing that

was the apex cone for the second one, and I blew right through it.

And that's where I got most of the three quarters of a second.

You cut the apex because the cone was missing, that defines the apex.

I was a couple of hundreds in front of him, and I am not opportunistic.

Yeah, no, that's fair, all fair in whatever else.

But I do not consider myself to be anywhere close to the league of Randy Popes.

I am extraordinarily happy with myself that I was able to keep up with that man in both

of those cars.

I mean, within he estimated, I was four seconds slower than he was, and he was in the car

with me.

He's like, you're driving this.

You're doing that.

And he was yelling at me.

He's such a great instructor because he has no control over his mouth once you're moving

and he's just brutally honest, but his feedback got me really close to his time or to beat

his time.

The only place I was actually faster was in the transitions at the end, because I wasn't

afraid to turn, lift, and get the car sideways, sideways, sideways through the last transition.

And that's where I made up that whole three quarters, including the cone.

But anyway, both of the cars were on Fredestine tires.

The E-Golf was on the 18s, which means Fredestine All-Track pros, which are the performance

summer tires.

Yes, high performance, ultra high performance summer.

Also, I should wish I was able to say, this episode is sponsored by Fredestine tires, which

we didn't say.

That event was not sort of part of our sponsorship agreement, but these are tires that Fredestine

did send us what a year ago now to test.

And I have some observations.

But the E-Golf was on my summer setup, which is 18-inch, sort of GTI size, ultra high

pros.

That car does now have zero, three, four motorsport, cambercaster, front control arms,

and a rear sway bar.

Geotress is a full speckey 30 setup, except for street sport springs, instead of the race

springs.

But it's got the big bars, a lot of camber, a lot of grip, and it's on RT660, focus is

in it.

It's in it's RT660, which are 200 treadwear, very aggressive summer tire.

But it's probably a little slower out of the corners, and it's rear drive, you tell me,

which is faster.

I'm going to guess the E-Golf.

I would have thought so, actually, too.

However.

And so would Randy.

And the butt Beatrice was quicker.

Really?

Yeah, not tremendously, but significantly, it was significant.

Ultimately, it came down to the tire grip.

Those ultra-ac pros were initially, when I put them on, I think I said on this podcast

a couple times, they were true competitors to the pilot sport for us that I had on the

car.

Because I've driven more and more miles on those tires, they've sort of faded away.

They're not as grippy as they were.

And I know this because I can have spin tires.

I wouldn't go that far.

I mean, but yeah, similar thing.

Michelins are unreasonably able to survive abuse in a way that no other tire I've ever

encountered.

Same.

I mean, the PS4s were bald, were effectively bald, and crunchy.

They were so hard from so many heat cycles.

By the time I got rid of them, and I could finally get wheel spin and acceleration and

straight line.

Now, 3,000 miles into the front of signs, I can get wheel spin.

If I'm at exactly the same time you were doing this autocross at Sonoma, I was doing a

track day at Sonoma in five-year-old, too many heat cycles to count for S's.

And at the beginning of the day, they were a little sketch, but they kind of warmed and

like thawed out and then just came back and were quite grippy by the end of the day.

They weren't like nearly like they were when they were new, but there was a dramatic improvement

from the beginning to the end of the day as they sort of thawed.

So there's tire advice from Derek.

Just take shitty old tires and run with them on the track.

Look at possibly going, yeah.

I mean, they have plenty of tread, they're just five years old and have seen a lot of

life.

They're totally fine.

Yeah.

You're ready for a 200 tread wear tire or less for that car now, for the GTI.

This is for the GTI.

They're also in a Porsche that had Continentals and it was doing fine.

Yeah.

You should go for really aggressive.

I mean, a car that's that, your GTI is unwilling to rotate.

Correct.

And so you might as well take advantage of outrageous amounts of grip, yes, exactly.

So I'm thinking about the Nanking CRS is the same to be the hot tire for now, for that

kind of duty.

I don't know too many about them.

All I know is that the all track pros are about to come off, because it's winter season

and I look at the forecast and just rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, and then my e-golf

range.

No, not Ecopius.

You know, the first time tire on your 16s, quad tracks, but I noticed that on a full charge

after the autocross, it was estimating 60 miles of range, 59 or 60 miles of range.

And I thought, oh, autocross is not efficient.

But now in other news, in other news, right?

Stay tuned for more insights.

You won't get anywhere else.

I'm going to show you.

Shocking, autocrossing.

But yeah, anyway, so that was how many MPG did Beatrice get?

Zero.

I don't know who can say, yeah, it doesn't have trip computer, she's a shipbox.

So yeah, so that has happened, autocross thing.

You did a track day.

That's another raceway.

Yeah.

And survived.

I was driving my 1982 911, Porsche 911, which, you know, the gearbox is cantankerous.

It was formerly used as a track car, so it was capable.

But it was the oldest car by at least 15 years, I think.

I don't think there was the next newest car, or next oldest car was an E36 M3, I think.

So it was by far the oldest car.

And everyone was like, wow, it's really cool to see this old shipbox out here.

Those weren't the words they used, but it was implied.

But I was certainly working harder than anybody else and going the same speed.

Okay.

You can keep up with cars that are 15 years newer.

I mean, yeah, and it depends what it was.

I wasn't passing any GT3 RSs, but I can keep up with S2000s and stuff like that that

were in my group.

So we had a good time with that.

And then the following weekend, I ran a rally with the car, so it's just earning its

keep.

Good.

That's why we have it.

That's insert the haggity.

Boom, boom, boom.

Never stopped driving.

Stop driving.

I've stopped driving long enough to record the car engine show.

Yeah.

When you drove here in an old car, that's increasing haggity's liability for print.

And therefore, you'll probably get a letter from my insurance folks.

I'm kidding.

I have driven this car like 100 miles in the last three months or four months.

That's terrible.

Moving into winters.

Do you switch cars for winter?

No.

You drive in California?

No.

You drive anything in the rain?

No, I don't drive anything in the rain, but I won't, but if it's, you know, raining

this today, then it probably won't be raining in four days.

So I will just drive the car in question, whatever it is, I think I'm very soft about driving

cars in the rain.

I just drove the 850CSI in the rain and I hated it because I'm like, oh no, I have

to clean it.

I don't, as long as the car is watertight and has tires that are appropriate, I'm happy

to drive it in the rain.

I drove the SC in the rain and it's not watertight as it turns out.

The trunk was full of water and also the foot well on the back, which is where the ECU

is.

So I think that in the future, I won't drive that car in the rain, but it's perfectly

good.

You could also fix the leaks.

That sounds hard.

I don't know where it's coming from.

Actually, I do know where it's coming from.

It's coming through the windshield seal in the front and dripping on my legs and then

ending up in the foot well.

Yeah.

That's like the rover.

But we bought that car in Edmondon.

Oh, yeah.

We drove it through torrential rain and the trunk filled up, but nothing else did.

And then the last year before I crashed it, I was at a car's and coffee and it was raining

pretty good.

And I was sitting with an umbrella and I'm like, why are the windows so fucked up in

the rover?

And I walked over to it and water was pouring out of the steering column.

Like there was an actual puddle in the driver's foot well.

So I brought it home and it dried it out.

No, I just was in Michigan and I just saw the rover and it started with its new

engine.

Don't tell anyone.

And then what, that's the CBD that'll be out on YouTube shortly.

But I noticed there's a tube hanging under the passenger footwell.

I was under there fotsing with some, the driver footwell and fotsing with some stuff.

And I'm like, this tube goes into the a pillar.

So apparently it drains directly into the foot well for your convenience.

Thank you, British Leyland.

I don't know where it was supposed to go or what it was supposed to do, but I don't

care.

Oh, that's stupid.

Or British Leyland.

British Leyland.

Yes.

Yeah.

So it's been not, I mean, the last couple of weeks, months for me have been nuts with travel.

So if any of you are excited about Thursday team content on the Haggerty Channel, you're

going to be very happy because I don't know if the general public knows that your stuff

always comes out on Thursday.

Some people do.

Yeah.

So I don't like calling it Jason content or Camisa content.

So we call it our team Thursday or Thursday content.

So we have, we just did two revelations that came out that was 129 and, oh, my God.

I'm having a stroke.

I smell toast grandma.

So what the fuck was the other revelations I did?

Well, I know the ones that haven't come out yet, actually, when you watch this, the

LLV one will have come out.

Well, yes, but hold on, but the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

Oh, Alpine.

All right.

So we have Alpine in sort of short order.

We have Alpine A110, both those cars.

Um, and then, um, that just came out a month ago.

I feel like we shot it in the longest, I know we had a slow summer.

We were just sort of stockpiling stuff.

And now we just did two other revelations, one which is Grumman LLV, which is the subject

of today's episode, which is now live and just now live should be live.

And then another one, which was a two car one, which, um, to be on the abuse, um, and

I was saying more than that, plus two cooters, two drag races, plus, uh, and ultimate something,

something else that we did, plus a documentary on another car, a, we have a lot coming out,

um, our poor editor.

And I can hear the audience frothing or vibrating with excitement or whatever.

What is front, never mind.

Um, so yeah, so it's been kind of crazy.

Plus I did a visit, visit to Michigan to visit the rover, um, and it's new engine and

it's new engine.

That was cool.

Got to be there for the first start, which was kind of, kind of cool.

Um, anyway, um, but the latest revelations, oh, and then we did those two retrospective.

That's the other thing.

The two retrospective episodes.

One of only scene one, you saw the main one, not the drag race.

Oh, yes.

I haven't seen the drag race, um, drag race was kind of fun, um, but it puts in perspective

of how far we've come or maybe not.

Yeah.

I mean, you hinted at that in the main episode between this discussing the C 63 and the

C T four part of me thought maybe that drag race could have been in the, you know, we

could have just done it all in one episode, but that retrospective initial episode had

gotten so long when we were scripting that we're like, let's just make that drag race

short.

And that was against the C T four V black wing, which is currently the best driving sports

in Ann on planet, as far as I'm concerned, and then available new, available new, um,

and then so for this one, we used a Golf R, um, as a bogey of like, this is what a fast

car is.

Um, and it was kind of interesting for that price point or power level, well, not even

it's three, it's like, uh, it's down by the more than a hundred horsepower.

Yeah.

But it's the price adjusted.

How do we come to this is like now five months ago that we just, we locked these cars

in.

How we came up with Golf R, well, first of all, it was new for 26, um, and we thought it

would be a compelling race because you don't want to put something like, you want to make

a race.

So I want to put a 700 horsepower, but it has been 18 years since C 63 RS 4 and, uh, M

three were out, the, you know, you know, M three.

And so we thought, let's see what today that's, you know, what's comparable and it turned

out Golf R is right, right there in the mix in theory, because it was a hundred and

twenty five hundred and twenty six degrees actual Fahrenheit that day.

And the Golf R derated instantly, I think we talked about this right afterwards.

Um, I did make an Instagram post where you can, I, you, I pasted together the two videos

of the two runs and it's just unbelievable how slow the Golf R got after one run.

It was not happy.

Um, too hot, too hot, the old cars, the natural aspirated cars were like, we don't cap.

Um, so kind of neat, but, um, Grumman, right.

My favorite revelations ever, I think, yeah, I'm, uh, potentially there with you.

I think it's interesting.

It should be interesting to people who aren't car oriented also.

And I think that this was one of the thoughts that I had while watching it was while this

trend sends and crosses over to a place, obviously because of the content and you talk about

this more than once in the video, well, that it is ubiquitous and then it will therefore

have personal relevance to everyone in some sense.

Uh, maybe they don't want the technical detail about it, but I think it's also delivered

in plain enough terms that someone who has no interest in cars would consume it with

interest, uh, which, you know, I don't think it's often true of, of sort of enthusiast

car content.

So I'm happy to hear you say that credit for that.

Thank you.

I, uh, this was one that initially, I think I was internally, I was met with a little

bit of resistance like you want to do internally.

Really?

And then as soon as I heard the, the three letters come out of your mouth, I was like,

absolutely.

But you knew what the name of the thing is.

Yeah.

No one knows what this thing is called.

Yeah.

A friend who's very keen on esoteric knowledge like that.

And so there's, that's not the most esoteric thing that I've happened to know.

But I mean, it was, it was kind of a bitch to get researched.

Yes.

I know books written on this thing, which is amazing given that fear everywhere.

I mean, you know, but the weird things we have another friend in common is another one

who's like loves esoterica.

And I said something about, oh, I'm going to do this.

He was like, oh, the start of that, the sound of that iron duke is like nothing else.

And I'm like, how fuck did you know there was an iron duke in there?

And he's like, everyone knows that the Grumman L.O.V. has an iron duke in it.

I'm like, hey, I did not know who Grumman was, what an L.O.V. was, and that it had an iron

duke.

And what?

And he was just like, yeah, duh.

It's just so funny that some people are like, yes, this is the mail truck and everyone

knows you.

They live in my world.

They live in their little world where that stuff is common knowledge.

I will say that, first of all, this thing arrives, the owner.

So we found it on Facebook Marketplace and it had already sold.

And so what's the process with putting one in private hands?

Is there anything against it?

Do they go to government auctions and anyone can do it there for buy one?

They're not supposed to be.

They're supposed to never go into, it's my understanding that they're not supposed

to go into private hands and occasionally everyone slips through and is just sold to the

public.

All I knew was I found it on Facebook Marketplace, it was marked as sold, and I had our

producer live reach out to the seller and say, like, hey, she's also the mailbox in

the mail box presentation.

She made the office.

She made the USPS office.

She's amazing with props and I hope you don't get a cease and desist from the federal

government.

It is a felony to impersonate a, but that is only, there's no documentation of it, nobody

heard of it.

Yeah, no, we bought, sort of like, we bought the hat, we bought whatever and she bought patches

and just sort of sold them on.

What were you saying about Iron Duke?

No, we're getting into public calls.

Oh, we know, so she contacted the seller and the seller was like, oh, yeah, this sounds

totally great.

I'll put you in touch with the buyer.

And the buyer is apparently a fan of the show of revelations and was like, yeah, absolutely.

So we shipped it down from Pacific Northwest.

We shot it here and then shipped it on its way.

So Kudur is to the both the seller and the buyer of this car.

But I got to say, I would have bought it.

And it's still been for sale.

There is no other car I've ever driven where you can be completely anonymous.

No one notices you're there.

You can do anything in Grumman because everyone, and this one doesn't say USP on it.

That's a 4.6G.

You can't see that.

But no one notices you.

You can park it anywhere.

It's an I barely drove this thing.

And I realized, normally when we set up on the side of the road for our climate, the

hell sequence, I'm always nervous when putting cameras on the car.

It's like six o'clock in the morning.

I don't want to upset people.

And there's always like these, there's a crowd of old ladies and old men that walk by

there, like doing the mall walking thing.

And usually they're like, they make a big fuss over the car or they just give us a dirty

look.

And my response is always good morning.

I just want them to know I'm a part of the community.

I live here.

I'm not like some dick back in a Porsche, making noise and whatever.

That thing they didn't look at.

There were two other cars that were right there.

Were you in costume?

No.

No, I did it.

No, I was a second later.

I changed into the mailman, mailman, my custom.

If you know P.W.

He's playhouse.

That was mailman.

Anyway.

Yeah.

They were just like, they just nodded and walked on.

I'm like, oh my god.

You could do anything.

You just parked this thing in front of the Louvre and knock it off.

No one's going to notice that you're not going to notice at the Louvre.

You'd have to be at the American Louvre.

You would have to say Louvre.

Louvre.

Yeah.

I just thought it was so cool.

I would have bought it.

And then what?

Would you have done?

Oh my god.

One every car's in coffee.

It's just a joy machine.

It's the replacement for the E-Golf.

You should power trains while I think the range would be impacted adversely, although the

luggage areas or the storage areas, large enough that you could have a substantial range.

So that's Jason's replacement for the E-Golf.

He laments no replacement.

There's nothing to replace the E-Golf.

There's an EV.

There's one thing the E-Golf does really well, which is handling as witnessed by the fact

that it was within, I think, I have a second of the respect, racist, racist, racist,

vecty-thirty, that the Grum that Grumman doesn't do.

So it's not athletic.

The hill climb was the entire hill climb was in second gear.

It would not give me a first even if I asked it to.

It's a three speed automatic.

I did force it to rev higher a couple times.

This engine is a bit sick, but it's in the ad, so we knew this.

I was trying to be nice on it, nice to it, but I was matted all the way up the hill.

That doesn't sound like being nice to it.

It was when I was watching Temperature Caches, matted at 3,000 RPM, probably.

I don't know if that was no tag.

It actually was way quicker than I expected it to be, and rode better than I expected,

which is a very low par.

Do you think that that was the longest drive ever performed in an LLV?

Was yours six miles?

Continuous without turning off, yeah, probably.

Probably.

Of all of the stats in that video, in some of which were pretty mind-blowing.

The one that got me the most is the average LLV stops and starts, meaning turned off

and turned back on more than 500 times a day, but only covers 17 miles a day.

So the only go 5,000 miles a year, like I expected these things to go, I don't know,

50, 60, 80,000 miles a year would have been my guess.

No, 5,000.

That's it.

It's just 120 feet from mailbox to mailbox to mailbox to mailbox.

It's amazing, amazing.

And I encourage everyone after you watch the video, so go watch the video on Hagrid's YouTube

channel.

That's, you know, Revelations, Grumman, LLV.

Then go look up the actual tests from Texas, what the hell is the name of the town in

Texas?

Lubbock.

There's a video.

Of from the USPS, of the torture tests that they put these things through when they

were deciding between Grumman and two other finalists for this, for this RFP, the pothole

tests.

So it had to hit 35, literally 35,000 potholes in, I don't remember how many miles it was.

So it was like 35 miles an hour, 35,000 miles an hour, over 90, 60 miles or something,

which is like one every 35 feet.

And you think, oh, okay, they're hitting a lot of power.

Holy shit.

Like, you watch the video and you listen to the sound of this thing clattering and you realize

the person in that car died the next morning, like from the first trauma, excessive jiggling.

It's like shaking baby.

Oh, yeah.

We were hysterical watching this footage, like holy shit.

Now one of these things are all still on the road, 20, but 30, 40 years later.

But it's just a Chevy S10.

So is this a testament to Chevy S10?

So it was apparently, this I couldn't verify.

So I will say, I did work with my local postmaster who was amazing.

And she was like, I'm going to help you with everything and I'm going to get you all

this stuff.

And I'm going to get you access to, there are service centers all around, and there's

one right over here right nearby where they actually service them.

And all I want you to do is show up with donuts and lunch and sit down with the mechanics

and talk about like what breaks of course, because it's a government organization.

The second corporate heard about this, they were like, yes, we're interested in helping

you, but they needed one to two months lead time to set up me showing up.

I'm like, I don't need lead time, we need to, okay, we need to know your questions

in advance.

I'm like, there's not going to be any cameras here.

I just want to shoot.

I work on cars.

They work on cars on shoot the shit with a bunch of mechanics and talk about giving me

some fascinating examples of like what goes wrong?

Like I want to know how many starters you replace a year.

Do you have to put each one of these things on a battery tender overnight just to make sure

it's charged for the next morning because it's going to be started 497 times the next

day.

They were like, we need two months and I was like, well, fuck you then.

They were actually willing to give me an actual USPS, Grumman LLV, still in service in

the studio.

I don't think they were going to let me drive it and probably would have been upset

if I showed up in the mailman mic outfit, but either way, turns out they were above no

use because of the timeline.

And just because they're probably trying to cover their own ass.

But all I was doing is complimenting like the post office made a huge, took a huge step

in this.

All right.

So back stories in the 1980s, there were a million different models of mail truck.

You know the Jeep.

You say you remember them?

Yeah.

I remember them for when I was a kid.

I don't remember them.

You don't remember the Jeep ones?

No, I don't.

Who paid attention to mail trucks?

Not me.

I did.

Really?

Yeah.

They had to have been in use when you were a child.

They were still in use when I was a child.

I was in college.

I don't know.

Do you have the stootabaker?

No.

Still not.

No, it's worse not.

No, I guess I just never paid too much attention to mail trucks.

But so in the early 80s, the Postal Service realized that they were spending a lot, there

was a lot of inefficiency in having multiple makes and models.

It's like what Southwest Airlines does.

Southwest Airlines uses one airplane only, right?

Most airlines, they only use Boeing 737, and they have for the entire, almost the entire

duration of Southwest Airlines existence since the early 70s or late 60s.

That's smart.

Early 70s.

They only have one airplane.

You stock one set of parts?

Yeah.

You get one train making.

You get one pilot.

Yeah.

That's smart.

Most airlines, you know, will have, I don't know, probably a dozen, if it's a big mainline

carrier that does international service and short haul, they'll have dozens of permutations

of airplanes.

And you can only have, you know, each pilot is certified on one or two planes, right?

Right.

And that was the genius, right?

We have jeeps, we have the head Chevy citations, they had four Pintos, they were just mini-mans

later on.

And so if they decided to put a proposal out for a purpose-built, male delivery vehicle,

or there's a different term for it, whatever.

And so they put out the specs, it had to weigh less than 3,000 pounds, it had to get X amount

of miles per 22 miles per gallon and whatever it was in this testing, and then had to survive

this torture test, but had to have 100 cubic feet of storage, like they just spelled out

exactly what the thing needed to be.

The typical government RFP.

But more importantly, like very, very smartly, they said like the body needs to be aluminum,

because at that time, five to eight years was the life expectancy of vehicles, because

they were just rotting out.

And so the body was aluminum, and the panels were riveted in, that were individually replaceable,

no complex curves to keep the costs down.

Just kind of really a great thing to do to say, all right, we're going to throw out all

of the vehicles that we have on the fleet and replace them with one.

One engine, one car, so we can stock one set of everything and train mechanics on one

car.

And then also train the postal delivery people on how to interact with one thing, there's

a brilliant design.

I say in the video that it was well-loved by the postal workers, and it was initially,

it's hated now.

So we were in here filming, and I heard a Grumman's, I heard an iron duke, and I ran outside

in my outfit, and the male guy's right outside the male box right out here, and he's

looking me.

I'm like, whoa, come on back here.

And he's like, huh?

And I'm like, what do you think?

How do I look?

And he's like, excuse me?

And I'm like, look in there.

He's like, what's going on?

And I'm like, he didn't even know what it was called.

He never heard the name Grumman.

Super nice guy.

Actually, has a Pontiac Solstice that I will probably use for a revelations episode.

We wonder having like a 45 minute hangout session, but didn't know what it was.

He said it was a 1970s something underneath.

It's an 80s Chevy S10.

No one knows what these things are.

And he like all postal service personnel hate it because it has no air conditioning.

They ride like shit.

They have no safety features.

You can't stand up.

Annoyingly in the video, I stood up and smashed my head, and I didn't realize that Esposito

Anthony Esposito was filming only the box of stuff that I have.

We did that take like 15 times.

I had an actual egg on my head for like a week after that.

And you don't even know, but I was like, and I meant it like I kept hurting myself.

You can't stand up in the thing.

I mean, it's got a bunch of functional shortcomings, big shortcomings.

But initially there were so much better than the adapted jeeps and the adapted everything

else.

Yeah, I mean, just the internal volume that it carries is significant improvement.

Yeah.

And it was time to do this because that new Oshkosh and GDV, new generation delivery vehicle

came out.

And it's just laughable to look at.

Yeah.

And that postal service employee I was talking to, by the way, was like the new thing is

never going to work.

And I'm like, why?

Because it's ugly.

Like because it's stupid.

And he's like, no, because it's so tall, we can't make it through our neighborhoods around

here without hitting trees.

Like they're going to hit branches.

They're that tall.

And I'm like, oh, I guess that is a part of a problem with a vehicle that's so tall.

Rub an Amazon trucks and fricking like transits make it through there.

That's a fair point.

I don't know.

Was it taller than that?

I don't know.

I don't think it's any taller than like a Ford Transit.

Looks it.

I don't know.

That's because it's got a very low hood for visibility.

Yeah.

I haven't seen one in person.

But they are.

You'd remember.

You.

That is it.

Never forget.

Unfortunate looking thing.

But it has ABS.

It has airbags.

It has real seat belts.

Air conditioning.

Blind spot warning.

Back up camera.

I mean, every, every L.O.V. has like look before backing up or whatever written on it

because I'm sure people ran over stuff all the time.

You can't see anything.

It's a placard inside the vehicle.

It's on the, no, it's painted onto the dash.

And that thing is fucking tall.

Like I had to remove stuff to get it in and out of this studio and nothing has ever come

within three feet.

Like really even the L-moo too?

Right in.

One even close.

You know, this thing is huge and it's tallness.

But no other respect.

The wheelbase you said is 100.5 inches.

That's identical to the first generation, I know the first generation Range Rover was

half an inch shorter.

They 100 inch station wagon.

To me, the whole thing appears small.

When it was picked up, the truck driver was complaining that it was so wide, it wasn't

going to fit on his truck.

I was like, really?

And he's like, yeah, because if those rubber thingies rubber, the bumper goes out probably

of foot and then wraps around.

And it was, oh hold on, we are being shown a picture right now of Grumman and that new

thing.

That thing wouldn't like it in this, forget about in the building, that thing has got

to be three feet, two and a half feet taller than the Grumman.

It's still like shit.

A lot bigger.

But I don't think it's, well, we'll see if it's any bigger than a transit or a sprinter

which are now everywhere.

I just want an LSWolf Grumman.

I think you want an EV one.

No.

No, I want can't chop.

I think EVs would make a great solution for male carrier vehicles if they're only going

five miles a day.

Well, that's the NGDV, 70% of them, of that new one, I think, have to be EV.

But no, to go to Carson Coffee, I want an L.O.V. with Cam Chop.

Okay.

Come on.

Wouldn't that be fun?

Sure.

You can make the mid-engine one, like that Ford Transit Jaguar XJ220 powered thing that

they did.

You don't even need to do that.

You can keep the cargo carrying capacity intact.

That's an S10.

So it's an S10 as durable.

So this was, I'm sorry, I interrupted myself for the long winded by the bullshit.

The one of the things I wanted to know is what was different from S10.

I've read in a couple of places that it was beefed up suspension.

And so what I expected is that that's sort of idea.

Like stiffer springs, maybe, you know, stiffer bushings or something else like that.

But it only weighed 3,000 pounds and it could only carry a thousand.

So which was a lot, well, that is a lot, but I'm saying that's not like that much more

than an S10 would have been.

Sure.

I don't think so.

Yes.

So I doubt it needed to be other than that outrageous test that they didn't Texas.

I don't think it needed to be that much tougher than an S10.

And by the way, yeah.

Well, that's what I'm wondering is what an S10 therefore do all that as well.

Probably.

Hmm.

I mean, cars are tough.

35,000 bottles is a lot, but not if you live in Manhattan.

I mean, parking is harder, market street in San Francisco.

I mean, yeah, I would have I would have I think that was just how was it dynamically?

So what Rob, unfortunately, our editor cut out was I locked up a couple of wheels coming

down the hill and going up the hill, it was just flat in second, like just, you know,

just keep slow and steady with all the dogs chasing me.

And if you haven't watched the video, please do because it's hilarious.

And on the way down, I'm like, no, yes, remember engine sick, I have no idea what mechanical

condition this car is in, right?

We don't know.

It was just sold.

The new owners never even seen it.

Like maybe it has breaks, maybe it doesn't.

So I was sort of cautious, I'm coming down the hill and there's one corner that's sort

of a bit of a decreasing radius, sort of loses camber, whatever.

And there's a little wall there.

And I thought, I'll just, you know, I'll be brisk through here.

Well, it's a good goddamn thing.

I wasn't very brisk because it locked up and dragged the inside rear wheel for about

a mile, total exaggeration, but like a good 100 feet into the corner.

And I'm like, oh, like, am I actually nearly about to back this thing in, not even back

it in.

Am I just going to understand it?

Like, I don't know how much grip a grumman has around a corner.

And you know this.

But I think we've said this before, the audience doesn't realize I get in these cars for the

first time.

And the first time I turn that wheel on a corner, the camera's rolling.

That's it.

I have like one corner to figure out what these cars can do, not crash them, but be quick

enough to make it look dynamic.

So I had a bit of a moment there.

And what kind of tires, like, do they, I guess they just, like, is there a universal tire

that's supposed to be used on these or do they just, they probably just do whatever?

I keep, now this is, now I want to query the mechanics and learn all the stuff that there

were, the tires were on it, were like 10 years old.

And I did air them up because they were supposed to be, I think it was like 50 pounds and there

was like 18 in them.

So I did do that because Hashtag's 80 first.

But I did have another friend of ours, bitch, that had chrome hump caps on it.

That's as far as I noticed.

Like, oh, it's not supposed to have the baby moon, hot rod, hub caps.

And I just showed up.

I'm like, it's a grumman.

It also had like a yellow spinny light on top, which is not typical, I think.

I don't know.

But I know an expert on these things.

I'm seeing grummans on the road now.

Now that I've interacted with one of these cars and I think it's cool.

Now I'm noticing them everywhere.

And a lot of them have LED headlights, like the drop in seal beams, LEDs.

I don't, at this point, I don't know if there's anything standard on any of the cars.

I think it's more like, it's 35 years old, just get it back out on the, get it back on

the road.

Yeah.

But yeah.

Well, you made history or something.

A story that has not been told.

I, I hope everyone loves this episode as much.

We had a lot of fun with the, I enjoyed it with this.

I think people speak.

This thing because grumman is a defense contractor.

Yes, yes.

They made airplanes in World War II and canoes.

Yeah, aluminum canoes.

They make also like the Frito-lay, the larger size delivery trucks, grumman also makes

the bodies for those.

They probably make like munitions or missiles or something like that in addition to airplanes.

Probably.

I mean, they're also credited now if you see planes.

They're famous also for a lot of sea planes flying boats.

Huh.

Yes.

They are credited with the stealth bomber, but they're not because that was Northrop, which

became-

Northrop Grumman.

Grumman.

Grumman, and that was done sort of before they merged.

But they are Tom Cat.

There's a whole bunch of Catteen.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't do planes.

You probably know those like actual fighter jets, which is pretty cool.

Yes.

And the Apollo Lunar Module and possibly the rover too.

Possibly the rover.

At least the module.

Yeah.

I might have fucked that up in the script.

We'll let the audience determine that.

Yeah.

Like they made the fucking thing that landed on the goddamn fucking moon.

And then they did this like-

And within 10 years did the mail truck.

And I just thought that was the coolest thing.

So obviously, I went on Amazon and I bought like, you know, an astronaut helmet thing.

Don't think-

And then I bought an astronaut suit and like sparkly glow in the dark, fucking light-up shoes.

Well, there's lots of companies that do crazy shit like this.

Like, honey well makes like-

Thermostats.

Fans and thermostats and also jet engines like GE makes refrigerators and jet engines.

And, you know, there's a lot of conglomerations in Japan like Mitsubishi that makes like-

Yeah, Fuji heavy industries.

It makes god knows what but container ships and head gasket failure and airplanes, whole

airplanes.

You do?

Mitsubishi?

Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

I don't think-

No Fuji does.

Honda makes a-

Honda makes a small jet.

Yeah.

Frigidaire is a GM company.

Also, you know that?

Yeah.

Still?

Well, I don't know if-

Does Frigidaire-

I guess it still exists.

It used to be like the G-

The refrigeration division of General Motors was Frigidaire.

I did not know this.

Yeah.

Anyway, this-

Well, the company's like Ray Fion that make like radar for boats and also stealth aircraft.

You know, I don't know.

That's so cool.

Industrialization.

I mean, remember the rover, Stereo was lear.

I'm sure that was the same company that made the jet.

I don't think so.

Remember that?

We had a lot to talk about that.

Yeah.

Well, anyway.

Anyway, cool.

We-

I want to know the finest vehicles known to men.

Does Haggerty insure any LLVs?

Yes.

They do.

Yeah.

Actually, we did a search for that.

I had the insurance guys do a search for that and we did come up with a couple of them.

Really?

But then found this one.

It was like-

The ones that we found, I think, were further away and this one was just-

The new owner was so cool to live.

She was like, he was just great and so pretty excited about this.

Well.

Well, now you know, Haggerty insures LLVs.

Don't get any bright ideas.

Don't get any bright.

Don't get stupid.

Don't daily drive another way.

No, I think I honestly-

I'm saddened that you didn't get a chance to interact with this thing while I was here.

Because it was here for shorter, far shorter than I would have wanted.

I would have kept it-

I would have kept it here.

I would have purchased it.

Okay, so what is the market value?

Is there a Haggerty price guide discussion about the value of the LLVs?

I don't think so, but I'm hoping that a lot more hit-

So there can't be more than $11,000 if that's what they cost new.

Oh, in 1984.

I think the advertised price for this car was $17,000 or $18,000.

And it needs a motor-

It needs a motor-

Actually, funny story.

With their collectible.

In the ad, it said that it's burning so much.

It's got so much blow-by that they have a red hose from the PCV thing into a can of like-

And it's like a soda can.

It was something funny in there.

And I started it.

I started it in here with the exhaust aimed-

Which is out the side accidentally at the carbon monoxide detector that I had in here.

It was hours before that carbon dioxide detector shut up.

Like if you started it and put it in gear and immediately run it right outside.

These have always-

I remember them being stinky.

I imagine they're exempt from emissions testing since it's run by the government.

Probably.

It is by a margin-

By an order of magnitude, the stinkiest car that we've ever had in the studio.

And we've had your Mura, which is 112 different carburetors on it.

We had a carbon-

Carbonated LM-

02 Lamborghini.

I mean, we've had some stinkers in here and like just, you know, old car-

Nothing.

I have never-

Every single time that car started, I was nauseous for three hours.

Never.

And fumes do not bother me.

It was truly stinky.

But the carbon dioxide detector was funny because I unplugged it and put it outside.

And it was just, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby.

I'm like, okay, pull the battery.

It was still going.

I think it was-

It's carbon monoxide powered.

The shit that came out-

But it was literally an hour with four fans in the windows.

And all the windows opened before you can get the stench out of here.

It was still 18,000 bucks.

I don't know what it sold for, but I think that was what they asked.

17, 18.

Who knew?

But now they haven't-

So it was 100-

Man, Facebook Marketplace is going to blow up with people now because you-

Anytime you make a video about something, Facebook Marketplace, I'm sure people will be out there looking-

I should have bought one.

I mean, there are some in private hands.

I mean, I watched the regular car reviews guy did-

Did drove one years ago.

But there are pretty few-

There are now of the original 140,000 made.

There are slightly less than 100,000 still left in service.

Wow.

I think-

I'm pretty sure-

That's a pretty low attrition rate.

I said it in the video.

Yeah.

I mean, they really were long lasting.

And if they only go 5,000 miles a year, that's not that much a chance for them to crash.

Can I-

Hold on, I said in the video-

You said they had planned to retire 95,000 of them by 2020 now.

Yeah.

So they're all about to go.

And so there is a-

The U.S. Postal Service on-

There's like a whole government like Freedom of Information Act page.

And I found a whole bunch of shit on the grommon.

And in sort of embedded-

Did you have to file any FOIA requests in order to get information?

It was all out there.

Sometimes you have to file a request with Freedom of Information Act

and then to get the stuff to be seen.

This was-

And then they have to give it to you in nine months time or wherever.

This was-

A lot of it was embedded in the sort of specs and the news releases for the NGDV.

The new generation one from Auschwitz.

But they-

They're-

I found a whole article on how they're recycling them.

So there's a whole program to recycle.

There's not a ton of cars to scrap.

And you know-

Facebook Marketplace.

Step one.

Facebook Marketplace.

Wouldn't it be cool to-

I just think it would be so cool to have one of these things.

Yeah.

Sure.

I think there's a small number of people who would be very excited about it.

I would have never thought-

I didn't even know what the thing was called.

And now I would genuinely own one.

I think that's-

I have a picture of one-

I was actually now that I think about as probably Utila Master.

But it was out of-

I was looking through the window of a Ford dealership service department.

And there was one in there.

And I was like, what the hell is an LLV doing in a Ford service bay?

Now, I think it was probably one of the explorer-based ones that was in for maintenance.

In like rural organ.

I think I was in like a Newport organ or something like that.

Walking really similar.

Yes.

Especially from the back.

As you just saw an insert in the video that you identified as-

Well, that's a Ford Explorer steel wheeler.

It was very easy to recognize.

Rob finds those inserts I don't know.

We don't have the time to fact-check what?

No, I mean, hopefully I didn't get anything else wrong.

But so cool.

So cool.

But also, you should go watch the-

That was the other thing that we were hysterical,

laughing-watching, is all the compilations of crashes.

Yes.

Because I was like, you know, we had a section about how the-

You know, some of the-

Some of the problems with the LV were they sucked in the snow,

because they were real drive-only.

They had no ABS, so people complaining about stopping distance.

They had no real crash protection.

And so, like, I have this whole section of the video where I'm like, they suck here.

They suck there.

And I'm like, wow, what are we going to be seeing when I'm saying this?

So I just did a search for like L-L-O-V, like fail.

Oh, there are a whole compilations of them.

And of course, of course there are.

100,000 copies on the road.

And everyone's got a camera in there everywhere,

and they're never, oh my God, some of them were hilarious.

Like, one that was, I think there's a small clip of it.

Clearly, the postal worker had left running and got out,

but with the wheel turned and reverse and got out.

And the thing is just going around this parking lot,

like, between-

There's a tree in another car.

It's just going around a circle after circle.

They're just running to try to jump in the thing to shut it the fuck off.

And I'm like, well, it was a long life vehicle.

It's going to be doing donuts around that park car for a long time.

So, just so cool.

Our foreign viewers may not enjoy it as much.

Did you sell them in Europe?

Really?

Or something.

I saw I remember seeing something about, no.

Well, Canadian for sure.

Wow.

And then I'm pretty sure they were,

were they used for postal duties in Canada?

No, no, not.

I don't know about postal duties,

but they were used for some delivery stuff outside of the US,

if I remember correctly.

Somebody will prove me wrong and say it was actually something else

that looked like it.

Yeah.

The cool, the other cool finding for me was that Studebaker, the zip band.

So I didn't realize that.

First of all, I didn't know what zip stood for.

You didn't?

No.

Who the fuck knows this shit other than you?

I don't know.

Hey, Mike, did you know that what zip stands for?

So no one knows.

It's a zip improvement plan.

He knew about the Iron Duke.

Well, it's you.

But the zone improvement plan was zip code.

And so when one of the vans,

one of the purpose of view to your point off camera,

if you sort of, one of the holes in my narrative was,

I said, this is the first real purpose built mail vehicle.

Not really, they were all sort of adapted,

but Studebaker put forth their solution for a mail vehicle,

which was, became known as a zip band,

because it was introduced the same year as the zip codes were.

And the Post's service came up with this character.

It depends on who you ask either Mr. Zip or Zippy.

And it was a cartoon character sort of used

to encourage people to use these zip codes instead of the old system,

which consisted of, it would be a place followed

by a number of digits.

So like before I grew up in Oakland in 94619,

and that used to be known as Oakland 19.

And so the last two digits of your,

what we care now, your zip code used to be preceded by the town

and then those two digits.

What I love about the zip code that no one seems under,

typically don't know, is that zip plus four,

you could literally address,

you can write zip plus four of an address,

and that's all you can write in an envelope,

and we'll get to that person.

Like, you don't need anything else.

And so the post over machines, when they're reading an address,

start with the zip plus four, or start with the zip,

and then go back city state and whatever,

and it will read only so long as it takes to get a full address

and a zip plus four, done, it won't even read everything else.

So I can send Derek, Tam, Hyphen,

1313 Mockingbird Lane, Fuck you, California, Tucky,

and your zip plus four, and it will get to you.

Which I think is very cool.

I do not recommend trying this.

We're interested.

Where should we try an experiment?

Let me see, just make up a name, make up an address,

and just put your zip four.

Just make sure the country is correct.

Because otherwise they're going to be the first.

Yeah, zip plus, zip plus four, plus Botswana,

and see if it gets you, I don't think it will.

I don't think so either.

I think it's going to go to Botswana, and then they're going to see

that it's undeliverable, and then send it back to you in six months.

Probably.

If not, ever, never.

But that student baker looked a lot like the LLV,

and I thought that was really cool,

because I'd never heard of that or seen that thing.

And to look at it and see the same right hand drive.

Like a lot of stuff, there's a lot of YouTuber content

on the LLV that's just observational.

Look at this, look at this, look at this, and wrong.

And a lot of people are like, this was the first ever right hand drive.

No, a lot of the jeeps are right hand drive.

And that student baker was also right hand drive,

which makes sense when you're delivering to things

that are on the right side of the road.

But you can clearly see where the LLVs influence came from.

Well, and from the delivery vans that Grumman was already making,

which look like enlarged versions of LLVs.

Pretty cool stuff.

Well, thank you for enlightening us.

Please go watch the video if you haven't.

A whole new group of people now need an LLV for reasons,

not related to dynamics.

Front page news.

Grumman LLVs resale values up 0.03% this week.

Thanks to...

The one Grumman I would have,

if I could have just one Grumman would be an Albatross,

which is a large flying boat.

But that's just me.

I think most people probably would rather have an LLV.

Whatever tickles your fancy.

Or floats your boat if you need a canoe.

All right, off we go.

Thank you for joining us for this week of the episode

of the Carmogen Show.

Hot.

The Most Important Vehicle You’ve Never Heard Of — Carmudgeon w/ Cammisa & Derek Tam-Scott — Ep 214

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