TMCP #622: Ask Rick — Can American Manufacturing Return for Restoration Parts? Rick’s Take: Bob Lutz Says EVs Will End the Internal Combustion Engine!

The Muscle Car plays online podcast episode number 622. This week, Crick Schmidt is here for the Ascrake segment, and we're going to do a business show. Some of my favorites are the business shows. First, the business of making new restoration parts like sheet metal, here again in the good ol' U.S. of A. The economics of our market are changing, tariffs are a part of it, but they're not all of it. And we'll dig into whether that could happen here again, maybe for Gen 3 F-bodies. And then we'll dig into a business man.

Bob Lutz, now Bob is a legend in the OEM world, he's had a standard all the big U.S. players, all of them, for a GM Chrysler. He's now retired, his opinion is still very sought out. He's the man behind the Dodge Viper among other things, also the Chevy Volt. He's got a great track record, mostly of wins, but not all. He thinks that the internal combustion engine will soon fall away to electric cars. He thinks electric is the future, and that internal combustion will be just nostalgia.

Next take is this. I think it's a little too early to be making such a bold prediction like that. Regardless of range and cost and battery technology, you still got to charge, and we know that we're not ready for that. This is the Muscle Car Blaze Online Podcast, brought to you by National Parts Depot. This is the weekly show dedicated to people worldwide who love American Muscle Cars. If you're buying

selling, restoring, even racing them, this is the place for you. Now here's your host, Rob Kibbe. Yes indeed, I am Rob Kibbe, and welcome to the Muscle Car Blaze Podcast. Well, here we are, everybody. Happy October. Man, all right, according to my Google's, we are less than 90 days from Christmas now. We are just about 30 days from the SEMA show. The sun is setting earlier and earlier, and Rick is here to reign on the parade of Bob Lutz,

the question engine. Well, I mean, Rick just has a different spin. You'll hear Rick's take. Rick sees all the options, I would say. A very fun segment. I truly enjoy his business take on where the market can go. This is an area that I just frankly love. I love the business side of the after market and the racing world and the OEMs. I just freaking love it. Bob Lutz did an interesting interview on the Motomand Podcast, and I'm going to try to refer to that as often as possible to give full credit to the Motomand Podcast.

Now, I don't know the Motomand. I looked him up. His name is George. I think it's Notaris, N-O-T-A-R-A-S. He's the host and executive producer of Motomand. It's an automotive lifestyle series. Takes an ordinary car guy on extraordinary adventures. I found it on YouTube. It may be on all the podcast channels as well, but I found it on YouTube. And the interview with Bob Lutz is, I mean, it's maybe trying to remember. I think it's over an hour. It's very encompassing. It kind of looks like it's at his home.

Maybe it's a really interesting one. I don't follow Bob Lutz with a religion or a passion, but I know who he is.

And I know that when he speaks, people do tend to listen. I found it very interesting. He's an interesting man to listen to. He sure sounds like he knows what the hell he's talking about. I will put it that way.

So we're going to review some of that. Well, a very little clip of that with Rick and see what Rick has to take. And then I thought, wouldn't it be fun?

If we took three Bob Lutz cars that Bob has credited with being a part of, you know, specifically Dodge Viper, but now there's a couple others in there.

I can't remember which ones all we picked at this point and go through them and see which ones Rick would buy. Rick has an opinion on all that as well.

Prior to all that, we do dig into the reality of bringing, oh, not bringing, but starting new sheet metal production here for the restoration market in the States.

And other components as well, but when I come to the big stuff like a restoration sheet metal, something I think we all think of as kind of the bones of the restoration industry, we'll talk about that.

And we'll see whether Rick thinks that really should or can be done here in the United States.

In my world, if you've heard of the kid, if you've heard of the kid, if you have heard the kid being friend show already this week, especially you know what's coming next.

So let's go ahead and get to the Dallas, give me racing update, burn you the intro, please.

Well, here we are, first week of October, and it has finally happened. Well, two things finally happened.

The first thing that happened is I took Dallas to Jefferson Speedway. It was his last asphalt event here in the Midwest before we were to head Las Vegas to do a preparation and then do the asphalt nationals.

It was a three day race weekend at Jefferson Speedway East of Madison and he won. He won the race Friday night and just flat out one. It was wonderful.

It's cemented that he can do this. He can win at other tracks. He's been second a number of times, but he hasn't had other wins outside of Iowa. Now he has.

Unfortunately, that was the high part on Saturday, the first race of Saturday. He got in a wreck and the car is dead.

That is good news because he's not dead. Other than being heartbroken, he's not even hurt.

What a relief that is. All of the equipment worked. Everything worked properly. I've watched the wreck a few times and I initially thought he went head on and the wall and he was heading into the wall and then he must have got clipped by another car.

He ended up slapping the right rear tire into the wall first and so the car kind of bang the right rear and then it poked the right front end.

So what it ended, the car was nosed into the wall, but I now see that the rear end took the first blow, which kind of makes sense based on how bent it is back there.

And then the front end, including the engine, took the second blow. So there's very little left of the car to fix. There's a lot of great parts on it that are still great parts that have value and can be used.

But at this point, I got a little problem. We got to get to Vegas. We just got to. There's opportunity there not only to test himself against other people, but frankly to be seen to make some connections.

And while there's no guarantee that it'll ever happen, you never know if you don't try. So we got to go. I'm committed to going.

So here's the options. Miller Performance Motorsports is who we bought our race car through. That's the top caliber legends asphalt car. I need another one of those.

They had another one already built that they were in the process of selling. I'm taking that car. I don't know who was going to buy it, but I am.

And what we're going to do is take a white body off of dialysis number 13 car for whatever reason the body mostly survived it. Like everything else got hit, but the body itself is okay.

The fenders are toast and the grill is toast, but the hood, the trunk and the bottom. They're okay. So we're going to pick up that white body, take the body off the new race car and put the white body on it.

And that's what he'll drive to put a seat in there. And then whatever's left of the original 13 car, basically the full chassis, you know, race cars are just, I mean, they're a chassis with an engine and parts and then the body is kind of the bonus.

The body is sort of part of the car, but not really just the candy on top, but that's the part people see and that's what they recognize. So the chassis itself will sit there until after Vegas and then we'll figure out what to do with it at the minimum.

It needs a full chassis and another engine. And basically it's just good for harvesting parts off of at this point. So I took my old red 13 car that we bought last year, his first car that we race on everything dirt asphalt, you name it.

And I went ahead and I've traded that in the race team that we work through, you know, I'm a good customer. So I asked for a good return on my investment. They honored that. So I'm very thankful that legends direct specifically.

So I got some cash here. I have a way to have a car in Vegas. It's going to be white and say 13 on how's that and it'll be a high level good competitive car.

As long as he doesn't want that thing up, he's got something to race. That's the reality of racing cars do get hurt and cars die. As long as that's all where it ends, that's okay.

When people are getting hurt and you don't even worse, that's when you don't like it. And you especially don't like it when people are making intentional moves.

That wasn't the case at Jefferson Speedway. Nobody was trying to harm somebody at all. Now Dallas and another race are we're pretty aggressive with each other.

They have a history of being aggressive with each other. And this time, Dallas got the worst of it. But the person that he was being aggressive with had nothing to do with the wreck that ended the car that ended up being an unhappy coincidence that happened just after an incident.

But it's racing. It happens. Tempers flare. And I'm happy to say that everybody walked away. We have a path forward. Nobody said anything that they'll live to regret.

And you know, I'm proud of that. The other team's race that reached out to Dallas, which I thought was a very impressive gesture. And I appreciated that. I sent them a note even thanking them for doing such a cool thing. So that's what's going on here.

Vegas is in three weeks and three weeks. He has a season finale race at the last regular season race at Vegas in the fourth week.

I'm doing my math right here is the asphalt national. It might be two weeks and three weeks now. I know time is short.

But that's what's happening. So no race this weekend. Obviously October 4th. No race next week in October 11th. I was going to do a dirt race with him. And I've already sold the dirt car.

So the weekend after that we're head to Vegas tickets are bought rooms are booked. We are registered to go. We're going.

A funny thing happened when Dallas popped out of the race car. He had a little tear going into the race on the right but she got his driving suit.

It's not funny. But when he got out that tear is a look like his diaper was spilted. I mean, it was a big ol rip on his butt.

Like, oh, dude, we can't take it.

So the bad news is his suit is custom and it's orange. That's why I mean kind of matches the colors game is super cool suit.

Never ever by a racing suit with an orange butt. It just won't work out for you. The seat turns the suit black.

So it kind of looks like his butt is always dirty and trying to keep that suit clean has been impossible.

And now Laura's got to mend it and nobody can mend it in time. We can send it back to sparkle and they'll repair it properly.

But it takes a month. We don't have a month. We need it like now. So she bought some other nomax fabric online.

It's orange and much like the generally there's a lot of different colors of orange.

The orange she bought is far closer to the color of my generally then the butt of his race suit, but it's going to have to do.

So she's going to talk that inside and stitch it all together and hopefully nobody will be looking as butts and did you cut your butt open?

I share all that with you because at least there's one comical thing here. That's where we're going.

If you've been trying to reach out to help here, sure, you can Venmo and I'll put it in the racing fun.

The Venmo is at the muscle car place. I'd rather sell you something so you get something in return.

We have a little bit of t-shirt and sweatshirt merch left, but not much. I'd rather sell you that than just take your money.

But yes, we'll take your money at the muscle car places, Venmo.

We don't have enough time to get more merch out before the races though. That's kind of the pickle.

I do want to do another run of merch, but here is what is left.

So in the black dials can be racing t-shirts. We have two larges and one extra large.

We have no other sizes. In the white shirt, so we have four larges, three extra larges and one double extra large.

So four large, three XL, two double XL in the whites, and then in sweatshirt, which only come in black.

We have two of every size, medium large, extra large and double X. That's what we got.

The end result is, if you'd like to buy them, the prices haven't changed.

I got to look them up. I want to say it was like 35 bucks for a t-shirt and 45 for a sweatshirt.

I think that's what it was. We'll honor whatever the previous prices were.

And assuming you don't live here in Iowa, you can, whatever price we put out there,

it does include shipping and we'll send it to you. So that's where we are here.

I don't mean this to sound down. We're not down. Nobody's down.

But I was just thinking in that race like, man, we might make the whole season without tearing this car up.

And then, boom, tore the car up. So it happens. It does happen.

Of the two race dirt races he's done this year, he tore it up both times.

It was just fixable. This is the first time he's flat out, total race car.

He had almost flat out wrecked his go kart before, but I was always able to get Humpty Dumpty back together this time.

No dice. She's done. She's all done.

So that is the Dallas Gibby Racing Update. Burn, cue the outro, please.

Okay, with all that said, I will tell you, I have no personal car projects on my mind.

I'm not thinking about buying any other fun car projects.

I'm doing my best just to make sure that we're registered for SEMA and going.

We, of course, are who've got all that stuff in the queue, but right now racing is the focus.

So you'll have to apologize if I got no other filler here for you.

I don't even have a movie clip for you this time around.

So let's go ahead and get to the interview segment featuring Mr. Rick Schmidt.

So, again, I think I used a 60-second clip from the Motomand podcast.

Again, credit to George Notaris, N-O-T-A-R-R-S.

I do not know George, and in full transparency, I'm not a regular listener to the Motomand podcast.

The Bob Lutz thing just popped up on my YouTube it.

It must have known I was a Bob Lutz interested person, but that's where it started.

The interview with Bob on the Motomand podcast is there on YouTube. It's over an hour, I believe.

It's one of the little pieces that we used here in this segment with Rick.

So here we go. Here's Ask Rick. Enjoy.

The Muscle Car Place weekly podcast interview is brought to you by our good friends at National Parts Depot.

See them through the link at themusclecarplace.com.

Up next on the National Parts Depot hotline is Mr. Rick Schmidt from NPD.

So, Rick, happy Halloween. And before I ask it, I know your favorite candy is a heath bar and your wife loves Halloween.

We've been doing this a long time now. In general though, what makes Halloween so special?

Are you a fun time Halloween guy or a as ghoulish as possible Halloween guy?

And the reason I say that is because when I go around my neighborhood, those are the kind of decorations I see.

Either happy pumpkins and ghosts or just like evil skeletons and blood.

Now, when it comes to, if I've got a Halloween party, my wife used to love to throw a Halloween party.

She hasn't done one in a while. I don't know why, but then this Halloween she's going to be in Ireland with our oldest daughter and her husband.

She's taking them there. So we're not going to be having a Halloween party this year.

But yeah, if I've got a dress up for a Halloween party or something as an adult, I'm always doing something funny humorous, never ghoulish.

But on the exact opposite of the spectrum, there's no happy fun fun, joy, joy, Halloween decorations going on in my front yard.

It's all to be as foolish and gruesome as you can possibly get.

I have these little historical pumpkin designs that I've done.

One is very, very evil pumpkin, but the other one is goofy, but it's kind of that goofy like just broke out of an insane asylum type of goofy.

So I never just go to your Disney on the Halloween decorations.

Have you ever included any of your cars as part of your Halloween decor or party or anything like that?

No.

So I'm trying to think of what the most evil car might be and what comes to mind for me is Christine from the movie Christine, but there's lots of evil cars out there.

For a few Halloween in a row, I would take my generally and I would sit it in the driveway with the lights off and then inside of it, I would put LED lighting.

So the car would be kind of a lot of glowing.

But that's as far as I took it.

I didn't know if that would be your bag or not.

Oh, you would have to have like two skeletons with bowling.

Wigs on.

So I never would have thought of that.

Well, happy Halloween to you.

Couple of listener questions here.

I have resummarized them in a way that I think is more broad, but they are totally unrelated listener question number one.

This is about taking your car to car shows and getting awards.

And I'm going to put my spin on.

So the question basically is aside from the fun of taking your car to a car show and trying to get an award.

Is there anything more to it?

Add value to it.

Should you care about this stuff when you go to the cell the car if you ever do?

Does that matter?

And this person was more talking like a local car show or like their town's Labor Day car show or something like that.

I'll expand that to the flip side, which might be something, you know, very top shelf, exquisite like Monterey or something like that.

But what do you think from both perspectives?

So like from a local show to the highest of the high?

Well, for as far as local shows go.

No, I don't think accumulating trophy is a crewing value for your car.

Local car shows in my lifetime's observations, the choosing of the awards can be really random.

And there's just not any tangible provenance there and it's supposed to be fun.

And every show is run a little bit differently.

I get a little bit frustrated when I go to car shows.

And I said this before that are ostensibly the whole entire purpose of the show is to raise money for a charity.

You know, a place for talks or a breast cancer to choose one.

And they're up by the microphone by the DJ is a table full of 50 or 70 frigging awards that cost money to buy.

Everybody walks away with an award and they're beaming and they're also proud.

And I'm like, what are we in literally because it's just a participation award.

It really doesn't mean anything by that time.

When I used to do my silver spring shows back then, we would have anywhere from 800 to 1200 cars of those shows.

And I gave away very few trophies.

A, because it was affordable to be.

I wanted the trophies to mean something.

And if you won one, that was something to be proud of.

So being a silver springs winner used to mean something because it was not easy.

You had to really show up with some game to win a class at that show.

So local car shows where it's like a top 20, even a top 10.

Okay, what is it?

People's choice or you can stack up all those trophies.

And a lot of people like to carry them around from show to show and display them in front of the car.

It doesn't really mean a whole lot other than they chose that your car has been finished for a long time.

And they've been enjoying it for a long time because it takes a while to collect that many trophies.

But the best car at the show could be one that just pulled out of the shop or pulled out of the garage last week.

Never wanted trophy because it's fairly new on the scene.

Right.

So to answer the listener's question, just local shows in general those trophies.

No, the value of your car is there right in front of you.

The car itself, if you were to sell it anybody looking at the car, you could roll out a wheelbarrow full of trophies.

And unless there's some serious trophies in there like from Amelia or some sort of concourse event or if you've gone through the AACA,

the anti-governmental vehicle car of America route and one first place trophies at national events for the AACA.

Those are events of concourse and AACA or if you're a Mustang club of America person, there's also the Camaro club.

If you've got trophies that are from national level events, where the judging, there's a system.

And there's actual or like the academy and the local car and Corvette Nationals in Chicago.

Profies from those types of events.

Yes, that does put a halo of your car.

It gives your car some proven it's validity that your car really is something special because you've had a judge not just by random people in the local.

Show that you've had a judge by experts experts in the field and they say that it was deserving of that trophy that can help.

Where do you rank when a cackin in our world?

So just straight up muscle cars.

So there's lots of you can take a Corvette somewhere.

You can take a Mustang somewhere.

Where does a McCackin fit?

I know what Monterey is.

It's out of our personal.

Yeah.

Is McCackin.

Yeah.

McCackin is the double beach of muscle cars.

Wow.

Absolutely.

The cackin is just an absolute atom bomb of a show.

All the best of the best is there.

Stuff you've never seen before.

It's a real treat.

Everybody says, well, I want to get a scene of some kind of, you know, forget seeing a good McCackin first.

Because that's where you're really going to get the most serious heat when it comes to real genuine muscle cars.

Those survivors and beautifully restored versions of everything in between.

That's amazing.

Okay.

So not knowing as much about McCackin as I would about a SEMA, does McCackin have classes of cars?

My understanding McCackin is that every time you went there, you could see something new and something invited.

It's like a concourse in where they don't just allow the same cars to come back every single year.

Every year.

It's a shuffled deck.

And it's a new selection of cars.

And it's such a privilege to be there that collectors from around the country.

Do you have a McCackin?

That Pontiac you fell in love with there.

I'm forgetting the details.

That was a four-speed Pontiac.

A big one.

Yeah.

70 gram-free four-speed car.

455454.

Ever get that one?

Great.

No.

He came down here visiting me and I toured him through my collection.

We had a nice chat at the end of the whole deal.

He just came right down to it.

Maybe I'll sell it someday.

I don't know if he was just taking my temperature or what was going on.

That was a fish that I never got in the boat.

It's still out there.

It may still be on the look.

I have no idea.

But I've always found it best just to let those sleeping dogs lie.

And if I get a phone call from the fellison day, say, and I'm ready.

Hopefully I'm the first on his list.

The petering people who are not so sure that they want to let something go.

It's not any best interest.

You're just going to annoy the person.

Why did you do that?

You increase your chances again, the car.

Has anybody tried to snag one from you?

Like, take McCackin.

I think you took the black terino there.

We've taken something there every year for the last, I think, five years now or four or five years.

You're a famous non-seller.

But have people asked?

Oh, yes.

Is that black terino in particular?

I have more people trying to push my arm out of that car than just about anything in here on the oddly enough, 1973 terino.

But it's a purely original one with stored survivor.

You could put a 4-speed car in a black original paint, which was a special order in 1973.

So it's a really special car that got a lot of central cars.

But that car seems to really have that one dad might want that in the 90s.

And nobody can care less about a 72, 73, 74 era terino.

Right.

Holy cow today.

It's a whole different story.

Yeah, it just turned out.

I mean, I need to do it for that or something.

Different question.

Listener question.

And again, I've re-worded it a little bit.

And then I added on my specific take.

We had, I don't know if he's the president of the CEO of SEMA, but we had him on in July.

Kind of asked him, like, what do you see?

What is your crystal ball see here for the changing of the economy?

And he said, I'm giving you the gist of it.

In the short term, probably inflation.

In long term, I think basically the scales are going to balance out when it comes to where things can be manufactured.

So here's the question to you, Rick, from the listener.

I don't disagree with that.

The listener says, all right, if that's all true, is there anything that's currently made overseas coming back to the United States?

And my twist is, you may say that that's possible.

I don't know.

But I would say, is there anything that's not yet made overseas that could now be in the, made in the United States?

Because maybe some of that competitive financial advantages go on.

Like, gen three body parts.

You've mentioned that's an area that could be more served.

So what do you think?

Is there anything made overseas like, and maybe Taiwan specifically that would come back, make the comeback here?

It's a lot of some thoughts out there.

I mean, it's not really that I see in the paradigm of our industry when the context of enthusiast cars, muscle cars and collector cars.

First of all, it's not like we're going to be taking cooling that's already in Taiwan or China or India.

It's not like we're going to be bringing tooling that already exists back to America to be run because all those countries are protective of their manufacturing infrastructure.

And it's literally not allowed to export tooling from those countries.

So it's not like, hey, we're going to get the tool set for 1959 to narrow funders.

Put them on a container.

The more I start stamping them here in the US, US deal, that ain't going to happen.

Anything that would be manufactured here would have to be all new tooling.

That would be a slow cleat.

And considering that this hot day that there's so many of these parts of the ones that are economically feasible to reproduce, where the cost versus long-term benefit ratio has had been paged enough that you would invest six to gears into a cool set to reproduce apart.

Most of the stuff that is worth doing has already been done.

Now, yeah, there are generation that bodies, so there's still cars coming up.

But I've said before, I don't see this hobby extending into vehicles from the 21st century.

I just do to the complexity of these vehicles and all the airbags, computers, touch screens and all that other stuff that are circling industry can easily reproduce or deal with.

So I don't see much of our industry returning back here, but it's also a very false assumption to think that all of our industry is overseas.

I mean, I've got 1,200 active suppliers, 1,200.

Of that 1,200, maybe 20 are outside of the US.

Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

So most of our suppliers are American companies.

Now, are they getting their stuff made overseas?

Some yes, some no.

So now it gets a little bit more difficult to measure.

But even still, all the upholstery is still made here in the US, the carpeting.

Most of the leather stripping now, the leather stripping.

And rubber is a good example of a restoration parts aren't all the same and watch out what you're buying,

because a lot of my competitors sell almost exclusively Taiwan and China source rubber because cheaper.

We have a lot of that here too, but we only carry it as a lower cost budget alternative and we state that.

We give people the choice.

This one's American made.

This one's not.

This one's this price and this quality.

This one's not.

Have at it.

We don't have to discriminate because we know it's like to be a struggling college student who's got a fox body Mustang that's leaking water.

The windows and needs the weather stripping stuff.

You know, we'll tell you the cheap stuff, but you know that's all you can afford.

So yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't see much coming back.

Not all of it is going out as far as sheet metal stamping.

That's almost exclusively over in Taiwan.

We'll back come back here.

I doubt it because here's what's going to happen.

I know it seems what I'm mostly hearing in the news that a lot of the major auto manufacturers are looking to build more plants here.

To assemble cars here to avoid the tariffs and that alone will keep the stamping the sheet metal stamping industry in the United States.

So for getting overloaded and so busy and so focused with business from the big audit of many factors.

Ain't going to want to stamp parts for us little restoration parts guys.

They're not going to want to see a purchase order for a hundred pair of this 200 pair of that.

They're just going to laugh at that even more so when they've got more OE work beaten down their door.

That's why Taiwan's so valuable to our hobby is that they welcome the lower quantity production.

They're scaled to do it.

They're built to do it.

They'll pull out multi-ton tools that set them up.

Get everything lined up.

Do some test stampings and run 200 pieces of something they're treating their pieces.

That just does not happen in the larger stamping operations.

At the US where they're supplying Toyota and BMW Ford and GM.

They set up the pool and they run 5,000 or 10,000 pieces minimum.

Why would they want to stamp a Novahood 200 or 300 in time?

And then once you stamp those 200 or 300 hoods, you put the pool in a way and you don't revisit it for another four or five years.

Are the same companies in Taiwan that are popping out Nova hoods also making OEM stuff?

Some of them yet some of them up.

Like Tri-plus that supplies AMD they are purely classic and aftermarket trucks and cars.

With my other manufacturers over their golden Legion when I was over there earlier this year.

They're kind of 50 50.

They're more diversified.

They're doing 50% OE and modern car parts and 50% classic.

Which you know if you think about it it probably isn't a bad idea because when the classic market is soft they can lean heavier into the OE stuff.

Or if the OE is soft they can lean heavier into the classic.

They've got some flexibility there.

Okay well I'm interested to see where things go as well.

I do agree.

I think we're seeing it now.

I mean inflation is going to happen here in the short term.

My hope is it all sorts out for the best and there's an even or playing field out there.

I would love to see the day when some muscle car sheet metals made back here in the States but I don't know that it needs to be you know.

It may just not.

I know historically if for anybody who's been in this hobby for one plus years.

To the very day there's some questionable or some stuff on the market that you wish was a little bit better.

But in the last 10 years if I were to send some original samples of sheet metal panels or just about anything to tie one to get it reproduced.

What I would get back is something that's such a strong and high well done quality that I don't know how you could do it any better.

A recent example would be a hoods for 1967 the 72S series Ford trucks.

That was a hood that was prone to rust for years and years and years.

There was no supply.

Nobody reproduced it.

All the junkyards have been picked and all the NOS Ford hoods.

I had the last batch of those and sold them like wildfire back in the late 90s and early 2000s.

So Taiwan finally did this hood.

I don't know about seven eight years ago.

Oh man, it's better than the original.

It was a work of art to start the hell beautifully assemble the seniors.

They've really gotten good at it.

So the newer more recent toolings are actually quite good.

I don't know how you could move it back to the US and do it here and come up with anything tangibly better.

Other than it's always better to have companies and paying taxes and employing people with good paying jobs here.

I'm all for that.

So I say, no, just leave it all there.

I just don't see much of our industry, which is niche, relatively low volume small production runs.

I don't see much of that coming back here.

Sure.

Totally different gear here.

I'm going to try something with you that I've never done.

And most of our shows we have a lot of clips and things for listeners to react to.

Rick, are you familiar with Bob Lutz?

So Bob Lutz is of, I am from afar.

Bob Lutz was an automotive industry exec.

It's kind of a journeyman.

He was at all, like BMW, Ford, Chrysler, GM.

His claim to fame is really being a person behind mass market appealing cars.

He does have a lot of good business acumen.

He's probably in his 80s by this point.

Still active, retired from GM.

I think maybe around 2010.

I'm going to play for you a clip from a very recent interview that he was on with.

I actually don't know the interviewers name at all, but it's the Motoman on YouTube.

I just want to get your take on this specific thing that he's about to say.

I mean, basically the automobile head business had no choice.

They had to go all in on electric vehicles.

And everybody was sort of wondering, what are we going to do when the public doesn't want these?

Because every sign was, electric vehicles were being pushed faster and harder than the public's willingness to absorb them.

And that's now come to an end.

And electric EVs are now optional.

They'll continue.

I think you and I may have a point of disagreement on this, but I do believe EVs are the future of automotive transportation,

especially with the improvements in battery technology that we were just talking about earlier.

There will no longer be any case to be made for an internal combustion engine except nostalgia.

Okay.

This is a very wide ranging interview.

It covers a lot of topics.

Very little really on EVs, but that was one that I thought I'd pull out.

Bob Lutz, here's why I enjoy his take on things, because I really don't know what he's going to say.

On one side, I think he's a hardcore righty and on the other thing, no, maybe he's a lefty.

I'm not really sure.

What I do know is that he does seem to have a knack for identifying good looking cars that the public will want.

Throughout this course of the interview, a number of things we talked about.

He also rates every single OEM and kind of gives letter grades A to F on stuff like that.

But on this particular point, he hit both sides of the aisle there.

He says, what are we going to do when EVs kind of more today?

They aren't what the public wants and his point would be.

They're not what the public wants because they cost too much and they don't have enough range.

But he thinks that's solvable, will be solved and is inevitable.

What do you think?

I think it's a little too early to be making such a bold prediction like that.

Regardless of range and costs and battery technology, you still got to charge.

We know that we're not ready for that, especially now that our grid EV charging is now competing with artificial intelligence.

Power needs, you know, maybe I can figure out how to solve it.

What comes first with the chickener, the Bob Luxe, do you write?

I think he could label him as a pragmatist.

I think he tries to think strictly on business terms, not on politically polarized terms.

They don't know that our electrics, the future, no use for the internal combustion engine.

I don't think that's played out yet.

I don't think Toyota agrees with him.

No, not certainly not right now.

I mean, Toyota's flipping course.

And every once in a while, Bob Luxe lays a total egg.

Body and cast tech, the solstice.

Yeah.

Which is a good looking car, a little car, hardly anybody bought it.

It blew a lot of money on that and it came up empty.

The Chevy bolt was under that was a Bob car.

From everything I understood, not a bad car, very efficient, not bad looking.

But nobody wanted them.

So now he's saying, well, with 100% electrics, I think the reason that he saw that coming, you know,

if we build it, will anybody want it, he learned that the hard way with the Chevy bolt.

So every once in a while, he gets it wrong.

And the future being electrics, I don't know.

I'm waiting on the hydrogen power and I'm also still thinking that there's plenty of fossil fuels left.

And I think we've got a lifetime's worth of hybrid power coming our way before we're going back to this paradigm of full electric again.

I still don't see how we're transporting goods across the interstates on semi trucks electrically.

And if we've got to refine diesel, then we also need to refine gasoline.

Those two kind of go hand to hand together.

I think it's a little bit more complicated than just saying the future is electric.

And maybe the future is electric, but later this century, maybe I don't know.

I don't need to know.

I don't need to worry about it because you and I are correct.

I would say the jury's out on this one because there's new tech coming.

It's from where I'm sitting that's still enormously promising that OEMs are pumping money into a hydrogen specifically.

That's happening and it hasn't played out yet.

So I'm curious to see where that goes.

I guess some other points that I did kind of like he graded like GM.

He said GM's basically doing a good job.

He said he likes where GM is today.

He said Ford now has a great CEO who loves great product and wants the bean counters to figure out the rest.

He says Toyota makes a great car at a specific price point and that it's rep of quality is still there.

But it's really not an advantage anymore.

Because the competition's all caught up.

Is it basically all cars are good?

The last one I did like this.

BMW has lost their edge.

They are making ugly cars.

I agree.

I've always really enjoyed BMW styling.

I came to understand and appreciate what was the name of the designer that did the real edgy sweepy cars, whatever they called that design.

But it sunk in.

It was up influencing a lot of design.

I think a lot of what the Koreans, Hyundai and Kia, you can trace back the wild curves and edges and creases on those cars to bangle.

Yeah, Chris Bangle design.

But these new BMWs.

Oh my gosh.

They are not unattractive are nothing about them looking.

Yeah.

From the top of the line all the way down.

Their eight series coupe is still a good looking car.

But then again, I don't know that they've updated the styling on that.

They'll figure a way to hit that with an ugly hammer too.

You know, like an E46 BMW, little 2005 three series coupe.

It's good looking car.

Good looking car from every angle.

I will say Bob's overall point about good looking cars I do agree with.

One of the last front wheel drive Chevy Impala's made had great styling.

Super good looking car.

I couldn't help but think that.

Like some of the new GM EV cars like all the Cadillac EVs.

I don't want a Cadillac EV, but I think they're good looking.

I agree.

There are shapes that you can't help but find a peeling.

Sometimes the EVs are so sexy in their styling area.

And it's like, man, why can't you put an engine under the hood of that?

Yeah, that's exactly what you thought.

I think that's styling a throat across the whole entire line.

I agree on the Cadillac.

I think all the Cadillacs are pretty darn good looking right now.

I think all of the Buick's.

I look a little small Buick SUVs or crossovers or whatever you want to call them.

Is that a car that I'd never be in the market before for myself?

No.

Whenever I'm behind one in traffic, I'm like, Buick is really switched on.

This is a good looking car.

This is a car that could actually compete against Japanese and the Korean German automakers as far as styling.

And you don't look like you're going to pull into a handicap spot and don't get the early bird special on one of those cars either.

They look like something that somebody younger would want to buy.

So I agree with the GM's doing a pretty good job, especially in a styling side of things.

The sole exception that lots of the styling is too bad is just the Chevrolet has so long been.

It's almost like they've convinced themselves that generic middle of the road, cheap looking styling is what all Chevrolet buyers want.

I don't get that.

These days you can make a car really looked up scale without having to drop another penny into it.

It's just how you style it.

So Chevrolet I think could be doing better.

I think Ford now does a better job of making products that look up here up from what the price point is.

Yeah.

I think all the American automakers are kind of learning that from the Koreans who learned how to put a lot of sizzle into an affordable product.

Let's do some car reviews and we don't have to dig into these super deep.

I made you to and the first is in light of our Bob let's discussion.

Now Bob let's gets a credit for a lot of cars and I don't even know which ones are solely true because in an OEM no one person gets total credit for anything.

No matter how we end up thinking of John DeLorean or something like that.

It does take a team of people but I brought you three Bob let's cars so Rick in light of our Bob let's discussion today which of these three Bob let's cars.

Do you think according to Bob will be the best long term ROI when electrification is in a reality.

So it could be 10 years from now could be 30 years from now could be 50 years from now.

I'm talking about the nostalgic gasoline goes in cars.

What do we have here for car number one which one will have the best return on your investment either cash or percentage.

Don't care whenever the electrification takes hold.

Car number one is a 1999 Dodge Viper GTS ACR which is the full race track prep Viper and this one super charged that's going to be fun looks cool.

I mean I don't know what you've got linked up for the other two cars but this one's pretty much a shoe and if the world goes completely electric but there's still gas pumps out there and we can still play with our classic cars.

Let's hope that that is the way it always is in the perpetuity you know I hope that our world doesn't become so insane that we're not allowed to drive around and for fun or pleasure or even the stand in for our electric car when our battery goes.

It's in the shop get even even if the world goes fully electric the same rules that applied for collectability today is still going to apply I think.

I don't think just because we're all driving around electric cars that now all of a sudden the whole paradigm shifts and we'd rather collect a Dodge neon instead of a Dodge Viper that ain't going to happen.

So I still think the same rules that exists today as far as appeal will even be more amplified.

Then the bigger the engine with more beautiful tone out of the exhaust and more power it makes the more nostalgic that will be to our future children and grandchildren and great grandchildren who are stuck driving around electric vehicles is the daily computer.

It's a thirty seven five now with less than five hours to go in its bids on bring a trailer let's go to car number two what do you have for car number two here.

Another Bob let's car.

This is a two thousand nine money act solstice GXB.

I think we had a hundred miles on it I think these are great looking cars.

They are great looking cars I've got a very close old friend just bought one of the use of a mecha motion this summer.

It's a yellow it's one of the special dishes some sort is the very same model stick shift.

It's turbocharged same turbocharged two liter and they're really enjoying the car.

It's a lot of fun for not a whole lot of money because they don't ring a whole lot this is the bids of five thousand dollars on this twenty and a mile car now in four days that's going to change.

But I make you a bed it peeders out right around twenty grand it doesn't do any higher than that for brand new solstice turbocharged solstice GXB.

So I think that's a really good buy.

But are these solstices ever going to hold a sudden catch fire and twenty years from now or people can go what I wish I would have bought one of those

cheap I'd be rich now not like I might be in the minority but I always like the Saturn version of this car even a little better.

I don't know why the Saturn like the same have it more.

I like them both the Pontiac have such a for that year a Pontiac front end to it on this little sports car

I don't know that it translates all that well.

This little car gives it kind of too much of a schnauz where the Saturn was more balanced design.

What do we have for car number three on our Bob last night.

I think these are cars a little car.

I do too.

Car number three the eight thousand mile two thousand from the frowler again these are really cool.

It's crazy that price or even had the gumption might politically correct word.

Even build these and sell them.

I wonder how the balance sheet worked out on this.

I don't think it would hear a genius automotive executive but some of the turkeys that were really cool.

It's like all the car people are doing.

Yes.

Great.

Did it make money?

I don't know about that.

It's really cool and it's got some sort of aftermarket wheels on it but they work.

It does and it has one modification that I genuinely appreciate.

It's got the crazy bumpers taken off.

Like on the nose and on the tail those big honk and ugly bumpers.

If they had just shoe worn a little small displacement all aluminum V8 into these.

A little bit of boost instead of the six cylinder.

Prowlers would be a whole different story today as far as being collectible.

It's got an emix six cylinder or even a six cylinder that really made power and performed.

There could have been something done with these cars that made them.

But today it's just a cruiser.

It's got all the look and none of the action.

My dad had a brand new Dodge Intrepid.

This is the drivetrain that was in his intrepid.

It's not remarkable.

No.

That's why these have always been very tested in the collector market.

For that reason that it's just not a performing car.

And for the other reason that the market is saturated with these things.

Who do you know about a prowler as a daily driver and just racked up the miles until it was worn out used car and all of them.

That's the last time he saw a prowler in a junkyard that wasn't involved in a wreck.

All the prowlers that ever sold are more or less still shoved in collections and garages all over the place.

So they're not hard to find.

They're not terribly expensive.

And I don't think they're ever going to really go anywhere.

Of these three Bob Bluts cars.

Whenever electrification takes us over, according to Bob, which one will have the best ROI?

The Viper.

Viper easy.

Yeah, definitely the Viper.

The Viper screams everything that used to be great about the internal engine.

The internal engine era.

The prowler is an example of hitting a home run on all points, except for the internal combustion engine that's in it.

That was a loser.

And then the solstice is a solstice segment number two.

Let's flush the Bob Bluts for now.

These are just three cool cars that anybody would love to have.

Me especially.

But the problem with cool cars is that when you buy super nice ones and they're expensive upfront.

Sometimes you've blown your wad buying the car and there's nothing left in it.

So which of these three cars Rick, do you think still has room to grow?

They're all expensive.

So what do we have for car number one here?

First one is a 1987 Pontiac Trans-Am GTA.

The GTA was the top of the line Trans-Am.

You could get them with five liter engines.

And I don't know why anybody would go that way.

There used to be a guy in games.

They'll walk my five liter Mustang with a dark grade GTA.

They had the five liter instead of the five seven.

Now even with the five seven, I would have blown the guys doors off.

Every single time he'd see me, he'd chase me around wanting to lose again.

I never got out.

I never understood.

Like what's the nicest bottle in the back of that thing?

Well, what are we doing here other than asking to get a ticket?

That's another decision for how to do.

This is a white GTA.

These are good racing cars.

They're very attractive cars.

They're still fairly affordable.

The Fox body Mustang market, five liter market,

has already taken off considerably.

And now the third generation F bodies, especially the top end ones,

like this GTA or an Iraq, those are also seeming to take off as well.

I saw an Iraq a little mile Iraq that goes through the middle of the summer

that just got big to the moon for like $80,000.

But that's not every single transaction.

It's just every here and there.

I think there's still more growth in these F bodies.

So this one looks clean.

It's only got 15,000 miles on it.

And scrape off that one of them because I'm not a big window temp person

and get it back to the where it's looking like a showroom new GTA.

But I think this is a solid investment because these cars are not overtly overvalued right now in the end.

Okay.

What I have here for car number two.

I'm very familiar with these cars because I have one in the same color.

The 2006 Ford GT dark metallic blue.

Pretty good stripes.

Yeah, pretty good.

Just like mine.

This one's modified.

And in the world of four GTs,

the modifications don't necessarily load well for value.

I'm not going to give you a better air here while I read about all the modifications on this sucker.

I'm sure it's.

It's got a smaller supercharger from the bottle body stainless steel cap back.

This is all bull time mods.

So as long as all the original stuff was kept the time.

Imagine they were if it was all kept fine.

That's would be a really, really great car for somebody who won't want to buy a full GT and drive it.

Now finally, because I'm sure that it's a blast out on the road.

Bone stock.

These cars are a blast out on the road.

Yeah, there it is.

He kept everything.

Yeah, there's a nice photo of all the parts down there.

And you even got an extra set of wheels and tires if you want to get tracking with the car.

So this is a pretty neat piece.

It's at $363,000 right now.

There's three hours left.

Just click watch because I'm curious as to what it goes for.

The four GTs after they stopped production within a couple of years.

The recent skyrocketed the original sticker price was depending on options between 155 and 162.

$162,000.

Now you can't lay a finger on one for less than $300,000.

Unless there's something wrong with it down the road.

How far down the road because of the premise here is which car still has plenty of room to grow.

Yeah.

There might be more room for these to grow simply because they're so iconic and the styling is so perfect.

These cars were such a home run and so perfectly done and there's only so many of them out there.

I think that every collector who's got the budget and the bank account to a forward one is always going to want one of these.

Even though most of the ones that are out there a little miles and there's plenty of them out there.

I think there's always going to be way more people who want one than there are for GTs available.

So I don't think they're going to come down in value how far up they'll go from here.

We'll let out pace inflation.

I can't say but I don't think you'll ever lose money buying a Ford GT.

Not now.

Not five years from now.

Not 50 years from now.

About car number three.

Another car that I have in my collection.

The 87 BoGNX 1300 miles.

Four days to go on this and $185,000 already.

Has it peaked?

It's going to go over $200,000.

I'll wait here.

Wow.

It's probably where we're at on these.

You know, they only built five hundred and forty seven days.

They're genuinely rare and not all of them survived.

Even though everybody knew these were the collectors items some day, not all of them survived.

So we got wrapped around telephone poles.

So there's seen pictures of ones that just wound up in the wrong hands and became destitute.

They're so rare.

This is the most iconic muscle car from the 80s period, even more so than the Corvette Zero one.

So they're always going to hold their value, but they've already shot up pretty much to where they're going to be.

I wouldn't buy one at today's prices, thinking that five years from now, I'd be doing anything but just a crewing inflation.

These things came with a panhard bar on them.

I can't believe that.

That's so cool.

It's got three links to spend with a panhard bar.

But you think at this point, this one has topped out.

There's no room left.

You think the Ford GTs probably got more in it.

And you definitely think there's more on fire.

Now, they're the transit.

What I didn't give you was a GT stands into that super hypercar exotic market.

And that exotic market has a whole lot of people playing in it with a whole lot of money that would not necessarily be interested in spending a bunch of money on a GNX.

But sure would be interested.

That's why I still think the GTs can continue to climb upward.

They only built them for two years and they are what they are.

The GNX is more appealing to the muscle car collectors.

And they're so expensive right now.

Over $200,000 for up to $300.

I've seen them go upwards $300 for really ultra low.

A lot of money for a buck.

That's right.

It's going to be getting a whole lot higher than that.

Okay, Rick.

The only thing that's going to happen is all that matters.

No, I mean, that's a good reading of the tea leaf.

I was trying to find you a firebird transam that was a 20th anniversary that had that V6 turbo in it.

But I couldn't.

So I was kind of curious on that.

But the transam.

Those are a little bit undervalued because those basically are just as wicked as the GNX as far as performance.

And they built more of them.

But I still think there's more room to grow in those turbo transams.

And there isn't the GNX currently.

The GNX is already at a site.

The turbo transams are still.

You can still get those in the five figures.

Stay away from the six figure prices.

Cool.

Rick, happy Halloween to you and yours.

Thank you for this extended lip interview.

Thanks for let me try a sound clip on you.

I enjoyed it.

But if you didn't tell me later what we're up to here.

Happy Halloween.

Catch you later.

Thanks, Rob.

Thank you, Rick.

Excellent as always.

Bald Eagles out of the tailpipes of a Bob Lutz Viper.

Aim into that.

I'm going to conclude with this.

Going back to the Bob Lutz interview.

When Bob Lutz says something, it is hard for me to not want to believe him.

Because of what I think he probably knows more about than I do.

And I specifically mean inside information and the political wins of things.

There are some things that he said in his interview though that I think are a little outdated.

As far as their thinking goes.

I don't agree with everything Bob said there.

I don't.

I have no idea if electric cars are the sole future and that the internal combustion engine will be solely for nostalgia.

I really don't.

I think the jury is still out on that.

I will say that EV cars do seem to be gaining traction.

But not so much that I think they are a slam dunk.

I believe that if we chose to put an emphasis on a renewable fuel with a zero emission capability like hydrogen.

As a country, we could do that and we could do that faster and better.

I really do.

I'm not sure what else is going on that makes the emphasis on electric so important to some people that are in power.

I don't know if it's to have monitoring and control of people's vehicle.

I really don't know.

In my opinion, the internal combustion engine isn't dead.

We just need a new fuel source for it.

And there's no reason we can't do that.

We went to the freaking moon in the 1960s using a computer less powerful than a wristwatch of the day.

Right.

So we can do this.

All right.

That's it for this episode.

I will be back next week between now and then hit me up on Facebook or Instagram anytime.

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You can do all that on the homepage of theMuscleCarPlayce.com website.

And as always, don't forget to keep chasing your dreams like you'll let me chase mine.

Thanks for listening, everybody.

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TMCP #622: Ask Rick — Can American Manufacturing Return for Restoration Parts? Rick’s Take: Bob Lutz Says EVs Will End the Internal Combustion Engine!

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