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Welcome, everybody.
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It's No Driving Glows.
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Two weeks in a row, I know that's been a surprise.
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Still me solo, still working on some of the logistics of the show.
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If we're going to keep it solo, if we're going to have people in, I think we're going
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to do a mix of a lot of things over the next few weeks and see how it lands, how it works
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for everybody out there.
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Again, No Driving Glows is now brought to you by my men's-oriented, higher-end gift shop,
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Hustle and Heritage.
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You'll find it at hustleandheritage.com on the internet, so we have one location, Rick
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and Mortar here in Birmingham, Alabama, and actually, we'll have a second one shortly
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in another area of town.
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Stay tuned for that.
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I'm sure the Hustle and Heritage sponsorship will have a script, but we're going to join
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you tonight and we're going to talk about a few little things.
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My mini's been in the shop, having a little blemish taken care of because of it.
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Believe it or not, a careless motorcycle rider hit me, but not that big of a deal.
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The issues and problems with that exact instance will be discussed with you guys at a later date,
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but I think the little scuff will come out and the mini will be fine.
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The mini might be getting a big brother in the next few days.
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Don't know about that one, but while the mini's been away, I've been driving a rental
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car and I just don't understand rental companies.
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My insurance said, go ahead, make your reservation for the car.
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When you pick it up, they'll confirm with us and you'll be good to go.
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Well, I made my reservation for the car.
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I went to pick it up and the insurance company made a reservation for a car.
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I picked whatever it is, now a mid-sized car, so like a Toyota Corolla, something along that
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Don't need anything big.
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I drive a little bit, so don't want horrible gas mileage, but I don't necessarily want to
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Well, the rental car agency just started to hand me these keys to a GM product.
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I said, what the heck is this?
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And she goes, why we got you a Tahoe?
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I didn't reserve a Tahoe.
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Well, you don't have a reservation.
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Well, this is for your insurance.
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You made your own reservation, but this is what the insurance is giving you.
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I said, okay, but how about giving me the car that I had the reservation on?
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Well, we don't have any of those.
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Well, so if I decided to pick this up on my own dime and not deal with the insurance company,
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you don't have the car I reserve.
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So my complimentary upgrade would be a Tahoe.
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I said, well, you've got to have some sort of car.
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As many of you know, I'm kind of a car guy.
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Yes, I have the new Ford and I use it, but I use it when I need to use it.
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I use a truck as a truck, even though it's a fake truck.
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Well, they eventually decided they had an Ultima and a Sentra.
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Well, there's a lot of things I would rather do than drive a Nissan, no offense, Nissan,
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but there's a reason you potentially could be one of the next automakers to be leaving
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our shores or possibly even the realm of auto manufacturers.
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And I'm sorry because I know some of our listeners and viewers are tied closely to Nissan or have
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some good friends with Nissan.
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And as a matter of fact, I was just across the street from the Nissan factory in Tennessee
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yesterday, but on the way out, I said, what about this?
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And the woman goes, well, it's going to take like an hour, an hour and a half to clean it,
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but it's available.
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I said, I'd rather sit in your lobby for an hour and a half to drive a Nissan.
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So I sat in their lobby for about an hour and went out to a 2025 Toyota Prius, dead
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I really, really, really like the way the new Prius looks.
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You know, just a smooth flowing line, love the huge expanse of glass on the windshield
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I saw one once with the old MoonEye's aero wheel covers, and that was like almost the
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But I mean, considering a Prius, I'm not a huge fan of Toyotas, but I mean, they're
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Well, with having it for two weeks, I can give you a pretty good review on what I think of the
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It's a very, very good car.
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If you want to literally drive an appliance, I mean, we can say things electric, it's kind
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of like a refrigerator.
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Over-assisted power steering.
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Let's talk about the goods.
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Wonderful visibility.
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A lot of driver aids, it's good.
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That'll also be on the list of bads.
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Gas mileage, I picked it up and it was averaging 48 miles a gallon.
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I've driven it for about two weeks.
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I'm up to 49.7 now.
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So personally, I've been averaging probably 53, 54 miles a gallon driving it, which to me
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is just absolutely wonderful.
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It's the noisiest Toyota, excuse me, it has some very interesting engine noises and sounds.
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I love the keyless entry door handles and that, not that we do have a Toyota in the garage
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here, it's her car.
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But I mean, it's got a couple of the creature comforts I like.
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Love the Apple CarPlay interface works fairly well.
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Climate control, love it.
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Real buttons, easy to adjust.
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The auto function actually works well on my Maverick.
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Unless I set the temperature for like 82 degrees, I freeze the air, I don't know where they
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put the temperature sensor for the air conditioner, but it must be right next to the catalytic
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converters or something because it never thinks the truck gets cold.
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And I mean, it'll just freeze you out.
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One of the great things I've noticed about this Prius, I don't know what Toyota is using
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for glass, but normally when I drive and I park, I actually use one of the windshield
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sunshades, put it in to help keep the interior cooler.
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Now it's been high 80s, low 90s for the last two weeks where I've had this car.
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And we know I do multiple stops and in and out of stores all day long.
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And this car just doesn't get hot.
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Now I normally try to park, nah, well, if I really want to use the sunshade, I'll usually
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part facing the sun so the sunshade's reflecting everything off the windshield and nothing
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can get in the back glass.
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Well, this car, I haven't really paid too much attention.
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I've hardly ever used the sunshade, whether I've parked facing the sun or with the back
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The interior just doesn't seem to get warm and I just don't understand that.
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They must have some sort of coating or something, but whatever coating they have, whatever coating
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you have Toyota, do a Volvo and let the rest of the world know what it is because
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it's nice to be able to get into a cool, I'm not saying cold, but a cooler car, something
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that's not 180 degrees.
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And I would think with this car with the massive windshield and the massive slope glass, I mean
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the glass is just pointing skyward front and back.
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You would think it would absorb heat and this car would get on godly hot inside.
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For some reason, this one just doesn't.
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Probably one of the coolest features about this car, no pun intended.
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However, the complaints and ironically one of the subjects I want to talk about is the
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return of buttons to cars.
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I hate touchscreens and going through 14 menus.
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I don't like in the many going through the iDrive rotary controller to jump this
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jump that remember where things are.
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I like real buttons.
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Well, as they say, careful what you wish for because now in this Prius, I've got a whole
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row of buttons that control the climate control.
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I've got Apple Car Playup, which is buttons on a touchscreen, but they pretty much I
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know the touchscreen hardly ever changes there.
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It's got like, excuse me, let's speak English.
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It has six or seven buttons in the center console around the shifter, which is a whole
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I don't understand why we have to have all these complicated shifters, but there's
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There's a button for hold for this new brake thing that everybody thinks they
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We have the button for eco.
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We have the button for sport.
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And then I couldn't tell you how many buttons are on the steering wheel and it
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drives me crazy on the Camry that I've re driven repeatedly.
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There's too many damn buttons.
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They don't have words on them.
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They have pictures and I don't know what half the pictures mean.
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And you get into another car.
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It might have words that might have pictures, but.
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They print them in the finest, thinnest lines possible.
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They are not backlit.
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They're always on the steering wheel and they're always in the shadows.
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So I'm lucky to get the cruise control turned on on this car.
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But if I get the cruise control turned on, it usually turns on the radar
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sensing cruise control, which.
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Well, that's a whole other thing, but there's.
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The there's too many cryptic buttons and, you know, granted, it's around.
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Also, I didn't read the owner's manual.
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I didn't take time to learn the car.
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Maybe if I took a little bit of time to learn the car, it wouldn't be so bad,
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but there's got to be a happy medium.
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We don't need our cars doing everything.
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But then again, it's a Prius, so it's like a rolling computer.
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I guess we'll go to the cruise control and the safety alerts.
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Yeah, this thing has blind spot protection, cross traffic detection.
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I think it has auto stop braking.
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I know it's got front parking sensors, because when I pull into the
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driveway behind the Maverick, it gives me it starts morning me at five feet,
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but it doesn't creep it five feet.
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It stops and then I can hit the gas and it might go to four, but it might go to three.
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And I've never tried to go beyond three because it might go to two or it might go to zero.
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And then I got a front nose to replace.
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It doesn't have smooth throttle application.
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It has way over assisted power steering, but it has so many alerts and beeps.
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If I turn the turn signal on to show a lane change, just after a car goes beyond me or I've just, you know,
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I've went far enough beyond the car that I can see it in my rear view mirror,
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which when I was taught to drive, if you can see the full car in the rear view mirror,
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it's safe to come over.
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Well, this car wants like another six feet because you start to do that,
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you get chirps and alarms and, oh, no, there's a car there.
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Well, okay, maybe, maybe.
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And then it has the lane detection or lane keep feature, which is great when it wants to work.
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Sometimes it doesn't want to work.
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Sometimes it works too well.
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And then the regenerative braking in this car, I don't know who designed it.
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You know, I'm coming down a steep hill and I've got the regenerative, you know,
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and I'm letting the regenerative braking slow the car down.
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So that technically I'm charging the battery and that, but then it gives up and just all of a sudden
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it's freewheeling down the hill.
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So you go all of a sudden from 60 to 85 miles an hour or so.
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And there's no rhyme or reason why it works.
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And then you can be pulling up behind somebody and it's almost like one foot driving,
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the car will almost want to stop itself, but not every single time.
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Sometimes it just wants to roll right up to the car in front of it.
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There's just nothing that makes sense about some of these computer sensors.
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No wonder we have so many issues and accidents and
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just, if you get in this car and you want to rely on the tech 100% of the time,
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it's just not there.
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I mean, it's a reasonably comfortable car to drive.
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There's, to me, the minis got, and I can remind I've got a two door Cooper S hard top.
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I think I have more usable space inside of that car between the small hatch area and the
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backseat area than I do in the Prius.
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Every time I've went to do something, I have literally filled the hatch up with everything.
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Sometimes filled the whole backseat up.
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When I travel, I have my refrigerator in the backseat.
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I have a suitcase, a duffel bag, and the duffel bag and a suitcase take up most of the
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hatch area, the refrigerator I put on the driver's side of the backseat
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on some cardboard and that just so that it has room to breathe.
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But if I buy anything, boom, the thing's full.
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It just, I don't, it doesn't have good use of the space inside of the car.
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Just, there's just so many little things.
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Now, like I said, I love the way the car looks, and I entertain the idea of possibly getting one
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of these Prius, but I'm glad I lived with it for two weeks because it just does not fit
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my driving style and the way I operate.
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So yay, you've tuned into no driving gloves to listen to me babble on about a Prius for 15
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minutes and babble on about the buttons.
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But Mercedes announced this week that they too have decided they need to go back to more buttons.
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Volkswagen was one of the first companies to say this.
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Hyundai's jumped on board, now we've got Mercedes.
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So, you know, give us buttons for the things we use most of the time.
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Climate control, potentially radio controls, I still to this day, after having it six months,
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have no idea how to get from Apple CarPlay, where I listen to podcasts all the time,
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to the FM radio in my Maverick, without telling the car through voice activation,
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FM radio, and then it'll switch to FM radio for me.
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Other than that, I don't have a clue how to get there.
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And I've looked in the owner's manual, which is another thing I want a paper owner's manual,
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should come with the truck.
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They'll let me download it and I can print it myself, or it's in the app, or it's on the
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dashboard or in the touchscreen. I don't know. Give me climate controls, give me radio controls,
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give me simplified cruise control things. You know, all the lane keep assist and that,
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that can be in the dashboard, in my opinion, because once I set it, I don't need to change it
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every single time I drive. The things that I need to change often need to be buttons,
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hard, easy to find buttons. Things that change little settings in minutia,
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put them on the touchscreen, even in the Prius thing. This one you put in eco, it stays in eco.
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And if you're going to use that logic, put it in the touchscreen. I don't need a little
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plastic button to go normal eco and sport or so. And for the Maverick, you've got it,
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that one is in a touchscreen. But the dumb thing is, it resets to normal mode every single time,
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unless you're paying attention. And in the one second, right after you start, you can push the
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button to tell it to stay in eco. But if you don't do that, then you've got to go through the menu
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and scroll and switch it back to eco, which is a couple of button pushes, but it'd be just much
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easier if it remembered, or if it was, I guess it should remember. If you're not going to have a
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remember, then give me the hard button. You're going to have it remember, take the hard button away.
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It's good to see we're going back to these push buttons and things,
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kind of like the olden days. The touchscreens and the model tees just weren't that hot or that
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great. And I'm going to work on just a couple little stupid things I've heard in the car world
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over the last week or so. Ferrari introduced the new Testarosa about a week ago, I think before
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the last episode I recorded, but I was indifferent. I go, I really want to say anything because to
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me it doesn't look anything like a Testarosa. And a lot of people are complaining it does not look
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like a Testarosa. And then I got thinking when I was paying attention to that. We're in 2025,
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40 years, just over 40 years since the last Testarosa was introduced.
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So things do change. And yeah, okay, you have to have styling cues that go back to the old car.
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Yeah, maybe that'd be cool. But for the longest time I said I'm not a big fan of retro.
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So do we really want cheese grater slats on the side? Do we really want this thing to be just
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a doorstop wedge? Do we want pop-up headlights? Yes, Ferrari, you figured out how to do pop-up
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headlights again. Porsche, you're coming back with the 935 slant nose or 930 slant nose.
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You need to copy Ferrari and their pop-up, their new style quote, pop-up headlamps. But
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then I got even thinking further. The 84 Testarosa, the 92 512 BB,
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they had nothing, nothing in common with the 1958-1959 Testarosa. The big pontoon fendered
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17 to 25 million dollar cars that they are today. They only built one or two dozen
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total of all of them. There's not a single thing on that car that carried through to the 84
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Testarosa. Except the name, even though the name became one word as opposed to two words,
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still meaning the same thing. And the red valve covers. I don't know if the new car has red valve
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covers or not. Redhead is what Testarosa means. Testarosa is Italian for redhead.
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So, I don't remember back in 84, but I don't remember back in 84 people complaining that it
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doesn't look anything like the 58 car. Because we weren't doing retro, things didn't have to do that.
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It was, ooh, a cool name from the past. And I think that's what they did with this car.
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The way the world thinks now it's improperly named, but I'm good with it. We can call the new car
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Testarosa, even though it doesn't look like the 1958 car, doesn't have one similarity. I doubt if the
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reds are even the same. And it doesn't have anything to do with the 84 car. It's just
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another car. Just reusing a name. And I still prefer names over chassis numbers and numerical
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designations. They kind of used to make sense, but now they just randomly seem to number
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anything and then make up an excuse why they're randomly numbered stupid.
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And I mean, do you like the new Testarosa? Yay. Go out by 16 Ferraris and you might
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be able to buy a brand new one. But I haven't seen it up close. I haven't seen it in detail.
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But overall, I'm not a big fan of the new Ferrari styling. The 296, it's okay.
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The Ferrari SF90? No, I mean, I can barely tell it apart from the 296 and you're never going to use
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90% of the horsepower you're paying an extra half a million dollars for. And I think buyers are
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realizing it because the prices are coming down on those. I mean, not everything in the world is a
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911. You know, one of my complaints about 911s is they always have looked like a 911. And I
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guess that's what people want. Let's go back to 1962 and take a Ferrari GTO and if we would have
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just built it all the way to today and never changed it. And at some point it would have
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looked like a 240Z or whatever. So we had the Testarosa thing. I don't even know if we
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want to touch on the guy that was driving his roommate's daughter's Barbie Jeep to,
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I can't remember, he's going to liquor store, grocery store or something,
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but got pulled over on it and was actually intoxicated and they ticketed him for a DUI.
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This was in Canada because he was operating a motor vehicle. And I guess this is just a,
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I guess PSA. Anything with a motor in Canada
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if you operate a drunk, you're susceptible to a DUI. Now I wonder if that means engine because
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motor is electric, engine is gasoline technically by Webster's dictionary. So
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we get into the legalese, let the lawyer sort that one out. But I mean, I guess we've
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got to have that story at once. Once every five years, six years, somebody comes out driving
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a lawn mower, a power wheels or whatever drunk. It's going to happen. It's kind of cool.
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Pretty soon we'll have them driving the Walmart, I want to say Rascal, but I don't
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believe they're Rascal scooters. But this Walmart scooters, somebody who can come in
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out of a Walmart, coming out of the Guy Ferrari or Ferrari is starting to put chicken joints and
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Walmart's come out of there. And then we'll just touch on the last one, which offers a lot of
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confusion and a lot of, I've heard people report this story, but they miss the opposite thing.
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And it's the gentleman who was pulled over in his brand new charger Daytona and was cited for loud
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exhaust. I'm talking brand new charger Daytona, the electric one that doesn't have a gas motor
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on the market yet, coming soon with a gas motor, but doesn't have one.
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But he was ticketed for loud exhaust.
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He pointed out to the officer that it's an electric car and doesn't have an exhaust,
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but the officer still went ahead and ticketed him for a loud exhaust.
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I imagine any two bit lawyer can probably get that ticket tossed if you want to fight it. Equipment
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violations on a moving violation, it just might be cheaper to pay the ticket. But
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yes, the car doesn't have an exhaust. But if you go into the federal regulations,
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all cars are required to have a muffler and a catalytic converter. Otherwise,
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they are illegal. It doesn't differ, say anything about if you're an EV or that.
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So technically, all EVs violate federal emission standards because they do not have a catalytic converter
27:54
nor a muffler. So I guess we've got to start installing those. So maybe a loud exhaust ticket
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wasn't proper for him, but an equipment violation for not having those pieces. Come on,
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California, let's get on the ball. Let's start arresting all these people driving these EVs because
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they're illegal. But now we can look at, okay, he can get arrested for not having the muffler and
28:27
catalytic converter, but he still can't get arrested for having a loud exhaust because
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he doesn't have a loud exhaust because, and I guess this is a problem I have with the
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Prius too. The charger makes exhaust noises electronically from a soundtrack,
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and they can be projected outside of the vehicle and inside of the vehicle so you feel like you
28:52
can enjoy a gas powered car in your EV. And I guess there's something to be said, you know,
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maybe you have a little bit of fun. I heard a couple of people really like the
29:03
electric cars with the fake. I think Hyundai has it and believe Porsche is introducing it with the
29:08
fake manual transmission. So you can shift it and it gives you the throttle blip and everything,
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but maybe, maybe not. I haven't driven it for one personally, so I don't know. But
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go back to the charger. Okay, I'm not going to give you an exhaust ticket, but now I'm going
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to give you an excessive noise stereo ticket because the noise outside the car is being produced
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by a speaker that obviously could be heard more than 50 feet away. So just like anybody with a car
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stereo playing it really loud, you can get ticketed for it. If I'm playing Formula 1 sounds
29:46
through my car stereo and I have something that'll hit 148 SBL and you can hear it two
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and a half miles away, I'm very susceptible to getting a car stereo ticket. There's absolutely no
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difference between that and this charger being electric with artificial exhaust sounds being
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emanated from the outside, obviously at a very loud volume. Whether or not that's driver controlled,
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I don't know. Take that up with Stellantis. Possibly the competing with Nissan for the
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next car company to be leaving the country, or at least portions of. Bye-bye Chrysler.
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And I'll swing that back since we lie always at no driving gloves. We'll always go back down to the
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beginning, go back to that Prius. It has engine noises. I don't necessarily like engine noises
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in my electric car or my hybrid. I want to know when I'm in hybrid and not a little
30:46
thought on the dashboard. I don't like these fake engine noises, especially in a hybrid,
30:54
because I don't know if I'm really having an engine problem because I can't hear the engine. I can't
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feel the engine. These fake noises hide some of that. I don't want to say visceral, but
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visceral experience, some of that connection I have to a car because the noises just don't make sense.
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So that's my little no driving gloves tonight. A little bit more true no driving gloves.
31:29
Tell you a little bit of truth, tell you a little bit of news, but it's gloves off.
31:34
It's a gloves off approach to the automotive hobby. A couple of things going on there.
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If you got any ideas for topics, if you got something you want to come on the show and talk about,
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shoot us an email, nodrivingglovesgmail.com. We actually have producer at nodrivinggloves.com.
31:52
Either one works. Remember hustle and heritage at hustleandheritage.com for all your looking for
31:58
that hard to find gift for a man. If you're in the Birmingham area in Alabama and swing by
32:03
the brick and mortar and pick it up, not even have to wait. A lot of the stuff that I have is not
32:10
available on Amazon or a lot of even websites. It's been digging to find hard to find stuff,
32:18
and some stuff can't be replaced. Sometimes I was able to get five or six of them.
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That's it. That's what I'm looking for to keep that store stock.
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But as we always say here at no driving gloves,
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even though we miss the old guys, but you know what to do. It's time to get off your ass.
32:38
Go burn some gas, because John is out.
