Tricked Fall Back

Good evening, Bill.

Good evening, Stanley. Hello, listeners.

Welcome back to another episode of the BS Cargass Podcast.

I would say special Halloween edition,

but we have no actual Halloween content to bring you this evening.

But it is Halloween's Eve, is that?

I'm sure it is.

Halloween's Eve's Eve. I don't know the correct.

I'm sure I'm sure Halloween, they would call it a Halloween Eve now.

I learned this morning that Halloween is now the most popular

holiday in the United States of America.

That's crazy.

Right. I mean, I know a significant number of people because of our faith and everything

that who do not celebrate Halloween at all.

At all. Not even a little bit.

And I mean, my kids later in life, we started doing trunk retreat,

and that was the closest they kind of was getting,

because their mom grew up not even,

that not even being a holiday where she's from.

Yeah, but now it's the most popular, most celebrated holiday in America.

But it kind of makes sense because it's one of those things that

adults and kids can get into together and in their own individual ways.

Yeah, I guess that's a good point.

Because a kid Halloween party, an adult Halloween party,

is two very, very, very different.

Very, very different things.

I feel like you're right.

You're right.

Well, before we get to your content,

because you really have the idea for this week's episode,

let's, I'll do a quick recap from two weekends ago when I attended

Formula One race in Austin, Texas.

Oh, yeah, let's talk about this.

Was it as glorious as I imagined?

So it was really good.

You know, it's a work trip for me technically.

So it is tough to just solely focus on being a fan and enjoying racing.

We'll say that one of the reasons I don't play the lottery is because

I don't have good luck on stuff.

And I chose poorly on the bus that we rode to and from the track in twice,

two days in a row.

And that meant that I wound up missing most of,

might as well just call it, all of the Porsche cup race that was going on

prior to the Formula One event.

Yes, that was a poor choice.

You're probably still kicking yourself at that.

Yeah, yeah, I'm still pretty mad about it, to be honest with you.

But again, it's a work trip and I also had responsibilities with customers

and getting people where they need to be.

So as much as I wanted to do my own thing, since you just have other obligations,

we did happen to have, or I got a paddock pass for Saturday.

So not actually for the race, which to be honest with you, one of the things

that I don't tell you when you're getting a paddock pass is that

when you're in the paddock and you're in the pit at an event like a Formula One race,

the way the tracks are designed, you really can't see much of the race.

Aside from being in the team's dining trailer area or hanging out lounge area

where you can watch it on TV, you really can't see it in person,

because you're back behind the pits.

And then you don't have a view of the track from where you are.

So that's the one drawback from it.

Aside from that, it's really cool because you're back there with all the drivers

until you're seeing everybody coming and going.

Being at Coda, it was an interesting experience to be in the paddock on Saturday

because they had a sprint race, like a little shortened mini race.

Then once that race ended, obviously all the drivers were coming in

and going back and forth from their respective trailers to the garages.

Just hanging out outside, basically you got to see every driver.

And they're all short. They're all little people.

I know there's a couple of guys that are my height and taller,

but for the most part, they're all pretty small guys.

All those guys are this much taller than little people.

Speaking of F1, did you see the news today?

No, I had been on the road all day today. I did not see any news today.

So Formula One has officially confirmed that Jensen Button has confirmed

that the upcoming $8 race in Bahrain will mark his last race of his professional career.

I mean, that makes sense.

Yeah.

And you know what? That just means that I get to get excited about watching him race

like historic car racing at Goodwood. That's what that means for me because

that's really my favorite form of racing.

I also got to speak to and have lunch next to a music artist.

I don't know how many of our listeners would know who this is,

but being that, you know, I think some of our audience is probably an our age bracket,

but thanks to my nine-year-old daughter, I knew who he was, Mr. Cain Brown.

Oh, my wife, my wife and my daughter absolutely know who he is for sure.

Well, I got to talk to him for a few minutes. Super nice getting a very downed

take his hand and say, like, let me do the picture because, you know, we're, we're kind of

eating nuts to each other, be a little awkward.

But I did tell him that I had no idea who he was until my daughter came home from school singing

one of his songs and my wife and I were like, maybe we should find out who this guy is.

And then we became fans and now we miss his other stuff a lot.

But yeah, both my wife and daughter have a crush on that. Absolutely do.

Well, he's a nice guy and he's about 17.

Yeah. For a while, I think that the song, I think it was name of his heaven.

That song was a repeat in my house. It's just over and over. And I was like, man, can we all,

seriously? Can we listen to something else?

But yeah, I'm not the biggest. I'm not nowhere close to the big racing fan that you are.

But I mean, we talked about it before how racing, even though I'm not the biggest fan,

it has influenced both of us through various degrees. I remember the first, I remember wanting

to watch Formula One because my stepdad was watching NASCAR and he didn't know what it was.

Just for that fact. Because they were all NASCAR guys and drag racing guys and they didn't know

what a Formula One was. Nobody had a Formula One part. Look at that. Look like a toy or something.

And then I get to Japan and they used to have this commercial and it was a Fiat

some little subcompact Fiat car. And then there was a Ferrari and then it was a Formula One car.

And they would release them on this track all that several times. And the Formula One car would

go with. And I think that was like the only commercial that was kind of in English on

that commercial that holds a special place. Because they would always play that commercial

like halfway in the middle of a Dragon Ball Z episode that they were speaking in Japanese.

And we had no idea what they were saying, but we were just watching.

Being at that track event, one of the things that as a car guy who's again not the biggest F1

nerd on the planet, but a definite car guy, one of the things I enjoyed was just before the race

on Sunday when I was actually in the stands and watching from the stands at turn 19,

before the race, they have hot laps. And I think some of the drivers, some of the

backup drivers, they're driving cars like regular cars, regular air quotes cars around the track

with fans who have probably paid an outrageous sum of money to do a ride along on the track.

And so there was like McLaren's and AMG GTs and Aston Martin's Ferrari.

And then what's funny is, you know, some of these cars, there was like the Aston Martin,

what's their SUV? Like the Zagato or something? No, that's not right. What's it called?

9 DBX 9 or something like that. Maybe that's what it is. So, you know, you've got some cars with like

big, big engines, you know, that you would think would just make all the noise.

And they come by from where I'm sitting in the, you know, peasant seats, they come by and it's,

you know, you hear them, they sound okay, but they're not like feeling the stands with sound

like a race car, right? Because they're street cars. But in the mix with all these cars were two

Ford Mustang dark horses, not GTDs, just, you know, one little notch above a regular GT,

right? Just a dark horse. These things would come by, and I'm not kidding you, dude. They were the

best sounding car on the track. They sounded better than the Ferrari. They sounded better than

the Aston's than the AMG GT, which was a surprise to me because those cars usually sound really good.

Like, I was like, man, good job, Mustang. Now, we'll say this though, there was a dude driving a

Blue McLaren 720S. Yep. And this dude, whoever was driving that car, was absolutely on the limit,

sideways, every time he came past us. Whoever got the ride with him, 100% got their money's worth.

Whatever they paid, it was exactly the right amount.

Exactly. And for the record, that Aston Martin SUV is the DBX. And why can I remember that?

Because everybody has weird names now. All cars have, a lot of cars have weird names now. But

speaking of weird cars that you don't see that often, because, you know, we, I guess we kind of

live in metropolis cities, but we don't really see all that stuff normally. So I had to go to,

I went to my 30-year high school reunion. Easy, old man. I know, right. I went there.

Is that the sort of thing you get like a new suit for, or do you just call it good with the new hip?

No, the new hip. And that's the thing, that's the one you go to. And you realize it's like,

regardless of whatever the theme is, I'm putting on my clothes. And everybody else got that message.

Because there's like, oh, throwback 90s. And it's like, yeah, I'm putting on what I'm comfortable

in and I'm going. Throwback 90s. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me, tell me somebody showed

up wearing their clothes backwards. Nobody showed up wearing their clothes backwards,

but there were a couple cross-colors and fooboos that somebody got out of the closet.

There was a lot of, there was some stuff that looked like it was a 90s stuff, but it wasn't,

because you know, all this stuff is coming back around. So what I did is I went and got a polo

shirt with the stripes, because you know, we wore those in the 90s. 100%. And with a different color

was white. Yeah, it was one of those things. But on the way back, I saw a card. I actually just

L saw it. And then she pointed it out to me and I was like, Oh, wow. I've never seen it on the road.

And I was, it was a car that we built here on the thing before. And I don't think either one

of us that saw it before. It's the Aston Martin GT. Whoa. The one, I was like, is that what I think

it is? And, and I, I mean, I'm, I'm, no, no, my, my, my, my bad, not Aston Martin, the McLaren GT.

Okay. So, so the, the fancy luxury McLaren, this driving down the Dagger Street and we

unusual. Yeah, it was the most boring color white, but it still stood out. I mean, it's

Aston Martin. So speaking of cars that we've seen recently on public roads, we'll exclude all the

Formula One event from the listing today. Today I was driving in Cornelius, North Carolina.

Fairly, fairly, I would say above average as far as wealth goes and towns. Okay.

But you know, normal traffic and in normal stop and go, stoplight to stoplight traffic,

just cruising along at this phase moment, I saw a Maserati MC 12.

What? Yeah. See, I, you know, I didn't, I never thought I would see a McLaren GT on the road

because this is a niche car of a niche. That is a car that you break out at things for events

with French names. Right. So my initial thoughts were, it is not a Saturday morning. So where's

he going? Right? He's not going to cars and coffee, he's up middle of the day on a Thursday.

And then I had to like really like mentally rack my brain for a second. It was like,

what is the model of that car? I mean, I couldn't even remember outside of like a video game when

the last time I saw even in the image of one. Yeah. And it was, it went to that extreme.

And I think the reason why the McLaren GT, why, how I recognize it was one, we built it on the show

one time. Right. Right. And we was like, that car, it's probably, it isn't the fastest one,

but I think that's the one that looked the best. And I was like, I saw it and I was like,

what is that? And it took me a second to figure out what it was. And I was like,

who has that? And Giselle was like, MC 20, Maserati MC 20. See, I had the model name wrong.

I didn't go look it up. We both had a model name wrong just now. Are we getting old? I think we're

getting old. But Giselle even asked, it's like, where, where is that car going? Where did it,

where can you get that from? I was like, and I remember that we have a dealership in Charleston

that actually you can, you, they sell those. So I was like, and the car had dealer tags on it.

Oh, okay. So let me convince him on a desktop. Now, I didn't get a good enough look at this one

to tell if it had dealer tags on it or not. Oh no, this car, I was, I was near this car for

about 10 miles because we were in traffic and he couldn't get away from nobody.

Gotcha. So, yeah. Anywho. Let me give a quick, well, you go ahead and do your thing. And I'll

give a plug in a minute. Go ahead. Well, seeing how this is a, you know, a crazy month for us,

like I was telling Bill, we're discussing, I don't think either one of us has spent a weekend at home

in the month of October. So it's a good point. So a lot of moving around. So a lot of things

going on. So we didn't really have that big of a plan for the day. But I, you know, we cook up

things. So what I am going to do is we're going to, we're going to do a little bit of a throwback

where we're going to, I'm going to hit Bill with a couple trivia questions that I think are kind

of cool. There are new, some of them, some of the trivia questions are about new things and some

are about old things. So it builds like old things and not like new things. So

all right. So before we dive into that, I'm going to give a shout out to a customer. I

do a ton of these, but I met this guy yesterday and he's a car guy's car guy, had a,

I mean, I have mad points for two things. One in his, in his shop in his garage, he had a new

Honda Moto Compos scooter, one of the two that he owns. I was like, that's cool. And then two,

in his driveway, he had a very clean, very

tastefully modified 2023 Accura Integra Type-S

with some clean wheels, like all the right mods looked real good and not red interior.

And we know you don't like red interior. It's not my favorite. So anyway, this gentleman is the

owner of a company called American Panda. And if you are a car guy and you happen to have a Toyota

or a BMW, you may have already heard of this company. He does custom badges, like blackout

badges for Supras and AE86s, or as we call them, Grady 6s. He also does badges for BMWs,

reflector deletes. He does like engine covers and end plates for, you know, your wing on your BMW.

Just a lot of little mod items. He's even starting to get into some accessories for these like

electric, stark electric dirt bikes or whatever. Anyway, pretty cool company. It's a one guy

operation like him and his family. If you're also into like automotive painting, he has a

whole other company that does like accessories for paint booth stuff. But anyway, check them out

online. That's my shout out for a cool company that I met this week that's doing cool car stuff.

Oh, Panda. American Panda. American Panda. American Panda.

Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, we like to support the car guys, the car girls and the people who we

like. So yeah, support them out. Somebody got something that you can buy from. I'm sure Bill

probably already thought about three things that you want to buy from that that is going to be told

now. I mean, you know, if he had anything at all for a Volkswagen, you know, I'd have been looking at

it. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure he can 3D print that. Speaking of car companies that I visited that

have stuff that I can't. I don't have a direct connection to. Also visited RTR this week,

Von Gitton Jr. shop, where he builds all the drift Mustangs and the Broncos and

yeah, I really tried hard not to over family out there. So I'm hoping to have a future visit.

So maybe we'll have some more content to come on that in the future. But

and you know, if you just go get the Bronco, then you won't have a problem.

Yeah, just just go get a Bronco. Just go get a Bronco. I mean, just go get a Porsche. I mean,

you had it. You had to have one reserved. I'm sure they still got your name on the list.

Yeah, but currently I got that scout on reserve. So we're going to see where that goes first.

Speaking of scout, I saw an article today that confirmed what you were talking about a couple

weeks ago that about all essentially all the orders to pre orders are internal engine

versions of that vehicle. Yeah.

That was only a part of the article, but most of the article is about how it's going to have

buttons and switches in it. And everything ain't got to be in the screen, which because you know,

nobody nobody likes to suffer some kid that didn't appreciate a car. So

free time, brother, free time. My wife turned down a vehicle because the screen was too big.

She was like, I don't like this at all. Yeah. That's a real thing there. Yeah. And then, you know,

I guess sometimes, sometimes companies listen to us because a few I was listening.

I watched a show daily called Auto News. It used to be Auto News Detroit.

And they were talking about the move to some of at least a Hyundai Motor Group,

and it was another one I can't remember. It was moving back towards buttons and limiting screen

sizes. And one of the one of the vehicles that they did it on that they were talking about is the

new Palisade. And it's like, yeah, we could have put a bigger screen in this. But why?

Hey, speaking of the Palisade, was that a shot today? If you have a Honda Palisade,

not how many of our listeners are Honda Palisade owners, but if you have a Honda Palisade or

Hyundai, a Hyundai Palisade, or a Hyundai Santa Cruz, or a

Kia Telluride, you will be happy to know that if you are interested in a lift kit,

a two-inch lift kit, a company here in North Carolina called HRG

is now offering a two-inch lift for those vehicles.

I think that makes sense. That makes sense. I mean, we did a whole episode back in the day

about rugged being the new sporty. And we predicted this trend back in 2021.

Yep, for sure. Well, this company, HRG, they do lift kits and some other accessories,

but they got their start with Honda vehicles. So doing like Honda, whatever those weird Honda

civics, hatchback things that were four-wheel drives.

It was like a three-vehicle bursar. It was like a precursor to the CRV.

It was square. What was it? I know what you're talking about. I see a burgundy one in my head

right now. Yeah, so they kind of got started with those kinds of vehicles. Then they did CRVs,

then they did not pilots, but elements. Everybody loved the element. From there,

they started doing things like basically anything unibody that's four-wheel drive.

They've got lists for your favorite. Boy, my brain just went blank.

What's the... You was trying so hard not to say it earlier that now it has escaped.

It really has. Yeah, it's been one of those days. The Ridgeline, thank you.

And honestly, dude, like a trail sport pilot with a two-inch lift on it and some like 32.5,

33-inch tires, that'd be pretty awesome for a crossover type SUV, which I know I don't say

crossover, but I just said crossover. And then they also have the new Broncos sport.

I don't know. I'm becoming a fan of lift all the cars. If it's all-wheel drive, lift it.

Am I considering a weird one-off lift for a Golf R and making it a Golf of the Car?

Yeah, I am. Would it happen? Probably not, because it cost me a fortune,

but I think it would be cool to do a Golf of the Car with like a Golf R R at the end of the word

of the car. Of course, Golf R all-road. Golf R... No, yeah, I think you got like your name first.

I like your name better. I mean, you kind of had that car already.

I did. I did kind of already have that car on ready, but it didn't have a manual and it didn't

have 300 horsepower, same. So, one of the things I want to do is we had some ideas for shows back

in the day, right? And speaking of rugged, turning things rugged, that was one of our ideas back

in the day. We did an episode on it and I don't remember the exact name of what we called the

episode, but the show note says it's rugged, the new sporty and wild. So, wild, there's so many new

off-road quote, unquote, capable vehicles. That's right. I think we hit that already,

where we predicted that in 2021 that everything was going to have a rugged version.

Or badlands or... I don't know what all the words are for them now, but everybody...

Yeah, okay. So, along those lines, yeah, in every company having one, this came up in a conversation

I had yesterday or day before yesterday. We've talked about this as a vehicle. We've talked about

the GMC Colorado slash Chevy Canyon or whichever, if I flip those, having the AT4 and even now,

you know, having the AT4 1500s and the SUVs that all have AT4 trims. And I didn't realize this until

just two days ago that now, AT4 has sold so well because rugged is the new sporty, that now they

have an AT4 X. So, they had to throw the X in there so that you could get some more, I guess,

luxury features. The rugged buyers were like, we won't rugged, but we also won't luxury. And Chevy

being Chevy was like, we can do that, but we're going to call it X. X is going to give it to you.

Yeah, I have wanted you to do the voices now.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, because AT4, when it first came out, I mean, that was the ultimate of the

ruggedness in the GMC lineup. And then because it was selling so much, it got severe, you know,

and now they got to have a line on top of that. I wouldn't be surprised if they come out,

they want to break it out into its own model line because, you know,

car companies do weird things like that. Yeah, I wonder the same thing is like,

you know, if you think about like, Genesis becoming its own thing, like,

does GMC and Chevy just sort of turn into, like, do they just have an AT4 line?

Yeah, I mean, from, I guess, I mean, they kind of do, they did that same half measure with

Denali because it's a Denali version of everything as well.

Everything.

And then now there's a Denali, and that kind of got watered down. So now there's a Denali ultimate.

Yes, yes.

Well, look, I'm dragging a product of a similar thing, right? I have a Volkswagen Golf R,

but the R was like such a cool, appealing idea, but they only made, you know, like my model year

for 2012 and 13, they only made like 1600 of them, but they wanted to capitalize on that.

So you could get a Passat R line, you could get a Jetta R line, you could get a Tiguan R line,

you know, just let's make everything an R line so that people are like, I'm also getting an R,

you know.

No, you're not.

Yeah, it seems like it kind of goes back to the lack of, what we talk about sometimes is lack of

creativity in movies and lack of creativity in the automobile industry as well, because

seeing like everybody put the body kit or some panels on a car of their sporty thing and just

line at the back of it and then bump the price up 10 percent and, you know,

and people running around here thinking they were driving this special one when they worked,

but speaking of special, you know, we are special because we are car guys.

One of our topics was death of the car guy and death of the car guy and, you know, in all your

travels, I mean, you see a lot of car people, but they're our age.

How many of them do you see now that are young?

Because to be honest, I don't know a young car person.

Yeah, man, it is tough.

There's less and less every day, you know, this, I don't know, man.

I think it's the sad reality that we live in that cars have been

commodity into just being an appliance.

And so people grow, if a child grew up in a home where there wasn't already an enthusiast

and then that child become an adolescent who only ever saw their parents treat a car as an appliance,

it's very unlikely they discover anything more than.

Now, they may buy a higher horsepower, you know, more expensive car if means allows,

but I don't think they turn into an enthusiast.

Yeah, I mean, it is weird.

I mean, your dad maybe wasn't the most had all the cars.

He wasn't like a car guy, but he was passionate about the ones, you know, and that kind of went off with you.

Yeah, and I think part of that, too, was my dad also liked to talk about cars.

So, you know, we watched movies with cars or TV shows with cars.

And maybe it was part of the timing, too, of being in the 80s and 90s.

But I mean, our conversations were usually around cars, you know.

So, even though we didn't own a bunch of cars and the cars we did on were pretty cheap because we're pretty poor,

we could still bond over seeing a car we liked and talking about that car.

We didn't always have the same taste in cars, but that was, you know, just like our discussions,

it's still good discussion that, you know, maybe the thing I like isn't the thing you like

and car tastes change over time, like I'm currently going through this weird spray paint

manga wrap look, you know, that I'm like really want to do to my Volkswagen.

And I think they're really cool.

And I'm watching a bunch of videos about painting cars, you know, and if you just showed me one of those 10 years ago,

I'd be like, no, I'm not interested in that.

But right now, that's where I'm at.

You know, so people's tasting cars can change, but it doesn't mean you can't have a conversation about it.

You know what I mean?

And so I don't know.

And maybe I need to go visit some like big cars and coffees and see how many kids are there in their teenage years, you know.

But I do think you're right.

I think the quote unquote car guy is a little bit of a dying breed.

It just doesn't seem to be the same number.

Yeah.

And I agree with you that maybe I need to, you know, expand.

And I think I'm around maybe.

I think we're around decent, decent amount of young people because of the things we do outside of work.

Some of the stuff we do for work and some of the things we do outside of work is just,

I guess they just don't see it the same way as we did back in the day.

I mean, both of us didn't have much money.

And then we grew up where at least part of my life went up where I was out in the country.

And a car wasn't everything.

If you got a car, you could go to the store, you know, you could just go to the store and get you some stuff.

Because the store for me back when I was out there in Ellarie, South Carolina, that was five, six miles away.

At least, at least.

Hey, you know, or heck, so somebody had a car, somebody had a driver's license.

Oh, man, that was a golden ticket.

You know, I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to incriminate anybody because I don't know what the statute of limitations was,

but we weren't even waiting on licenses all the time.

Yeah, we definitely weren't.

You had access to a car and an adult who didn't want to go, you would just go.

I'm pretty sure the rule still stands that driving on dirt roads doesn't require a driver's license.

That's a rule.

The first time I ever got pulled over by a cop, I didn't have my license or my permit.

And the second time I got hit in a traffic stop,

I didn't have my license, but I did have my permit.

Yeah, and I was driving by myself and both of those instances.

I mean, we was out there far enough in the country where legitimately, I mean, you see the police officers,

he knew you weren't old enough to drive, you're on dirt road, he was leaving you alone.

I ain't got time for that.

Right, yeah, what does it do to pull some kid over on a dirt road?

You still stand to death?

Yeah, they going to the store to get some gas for a four-wheeler.

You just say they're not on the four-wheeler, right?

Right, 15 mile round trip on a four-wheeler.

Exactly, because if you did it on the four-wheeler, you had enough to get there,

fill up, and you had to get back, and then you were subbed again.

Yeah, that's right, you'd be back in a second boat.

But yeah, man, so yeah, and then I think now, a lot of these cars now, people,

especially I guess the people who my, because my daughter is 21, she's about to be 21,

and they just don't look at cars the same way as this golden ticket, this freedom,

this bit of freedom that we did, because one, we take our kids everywhere,

and two, the store comes to them now, so.

Yeah, dude, I thought you're right, man, that's a big part of it is the store comes to you,

so there's not this push, and look along those same lines with technology in your pocket,

in your hand, on your desktop, or whatever, it's your friends come to you too.

My wife and I have talked about this with our daughter, is that can our day, if you wanted to

see what everybody was up to, you had to go wherever it was everybody was.

Exactly, and we didn't have cell phones and things, so you had to agree to meet up at somewhere,

and then you all had to figure out how to get there. Sometimes you didn't have a good plan

on how to get back, but we got there. Yes, right. Yeah, another thing that we talked about, and

then we're going to move on to maybe something else is, and I'll combine these three, these four,

so we had these ideas about benchmarks, and after much debate, we have agreed

that the 9-11 is the benchmark sports car. I think it's the benchmark car.

Maybe, we haven't had that discussion, but maybe. Let me tell you that Porsche always innovating

the way that they do has what is quite possibly the most German new feature to ever be added

to a car, because one, it was never necessary. Two, it should have been there all along, but

nobody ever thought to do it, because it probably wasn't worth the time and effort to develop it,

and three, they really should do a better job of marketing it, because nobody's talking about

the new 9-11. One of the trim packages you can buy currently is the 9-11T,

only available in a manual, has a feature that if you're driving that car and you pull up to a

stop light or stop sign or a stop, some sort, and let's say you're on a little bit of a hill,

or you just are in conversation and you're not thinking, and you put it in first year,

you start letting off the clutch, and you just, you drop the ball, you stall it, and it dies.

All you have to do is push the clutch pedal in, and the car starts back up automatically.

No, it doesn't. Yeah. Okay, so again, reference. Do you know how much embarrassment that would

have saved me in 1996? Yes, so number one, why has that not always been a thing for every car

with a manual? Because it wasn't worth the money it took to develop it. Exactly. And two,

the number of times you're actually going to need it is so few. Yeah. But Porsche, being Porsche,

was like, no, no, no, there's a use case for this. We are innovating for the sake of innovating.

And I mean, because especially in that car, nobody is buying that car, that car particularly,

that does not know how to drive a manual. And that is not the- You're the second person to tell

me that since I started talking about this feature. That is not, probably not their first

Porsche, it's definitely in their first manual. I know there is clutch assist on like the Civic,

SII, stuff like that. I don't know exactly what that means. Oh, I mean, there's all kinds of clutch

stuff. There's rev matching, you know, there's, there's heal assist. But as far as I know,

Porsche is the first company to design the system wherein if you saw it and the key is already on,

you can just push the clutch pedal in and it restarts the car. That makes all the sense in

the world now that you said it, all the sense in the world. And the other three benchmarks that

I think, I don't know if we even talked about all of them on episodes, maybe we should go back

to revisit that was the BMW three series being a benchmark, the Camry being a benchmark and the F-150

being a benchmark. And I think all three, I think two of them still hold the form. I don't know about

the three series no more because the three series now is a five series. So I don't-

Yeah, you're right, man. I mean, I think that is of that conversation. That is the one that

fall in the furthest. Yeah, I mean, it is so much not the same car that it used to be.

But everything else on that list is what it used to be. I think the closest thing to a BMW

three series now is a car that is, it actually isn't dying. It's one of the Lexus, Alexa,

whatever Harvey said, plural. That isn't dying. It's the IS. It's getting refreshed and it's

coming to come back. It's not getting bigger. It still is rear-wheel drive. It still is going to

have a naturally aspirated 6-cylinder motor, not an inline 6 out. And I don't think it's missing

as a manual. But there are a lot of cars like that. If that car was available with a manual,

yeah. I would 100% be shopping that car. Yeah. I mean, for lack of better terms,

it's so simple that it works. The only reason I don't own one of those cars,

the only reason is because there's not a manual option. And I would because I spend a lot of

time at Lexus dealerships nowadays. We'll talk. The current situation in the world

prevents them being a brand new Lexus in my driveway. Listen, if you're listening to the

this, it's the best thing about all of this, that I don't have to pay for that car because

I miss my wife. That is not a good idea to do that right now.

But the Lexus IS is the most reliable Lexus. I mean, it makes sense.

I mean, it's a 3.5-liter V6 that they've been building for 30-day young years.

I really just want the F-type with the 5-liter. That's the one that's going away.

Well, it's going away at least from now. When they refresh it, it's going to refresh

it here and it's still not going to get a bigger screen, but it's not going to get a gigantic

screen and it's still going to have real buttons. But the V8 isn't slated to be in the first

year at least. But Lexus is killing the LS that's leaving.

I mean, that was, to be honest, that was the benchmark of a lot of...

That changed the luxury sedan game. I mean, there's a Hagrid episode about it where

Lexus got sued because there's like, y'all are not selling this car for what it's actually worth.

There's no way y'all are doing this. Y'all are cheating the system to make us look bad and

you don't have to do all this crazy stuff. But yeah, the F-150 remains the same. The Camry,

I still would say that if you want, like you were talking earlier, the appliance of

appliance of all cars, go get a Camry. You get in it, it starts every time it feels like and

it's going to just keep doing that. And I don't know if that's ever going to change.

But speaking of the F-150 and the Camry, I got some questions for you, Bill.

Let's hear them. All right. So everybody knows I'm a little bit of a numbers nerd, geek,

slight thing and Bill is as well, even though it's a different kind than I'm maybe a bigger one.

So we haven't done this in a while. Let's do it. So I'm sure if I asked you what the top 10 selling

cars year to date in 2025 is, you would be able to name all of them except for one.

So do you want to give it a try? The top selling, top five selling cars in the U.S.

Top 10. Top 10 selling cars in the U.S. today. Yep. As of right now. As of right now. Yep.

Whew. I don't know if I'm up for this or not. It's a tough, that's a lot.

All right. So I'm going to low hanging fruit first. Let's go.

Now we can go through them. We've got them because I'm sure there's one on this list

that you were not going to get. And that's the one I just want to see your head break off.

Okay. Let's do it. You're just going to tell them to me and get my reaction.

Yeah. Of course, the F-150, the Ford F-Series is the one. Chevrolet, Silverado is the F-150 is that

sitting at 620,000 units so far. The Silverado, number two, 430,000 units. That's a big one.

And then we get our first nine truck, which we would all have guessed because we know Toyota

RAV4 at 358,000 units. I'm actually surprised the RAV4 is not higher on the list.

I am too. I think one of the reasons is not just because there's a brand new RAV4 coming out and

they've, they, everybody, people backed off. Yeah. And then Honda CR-V is next with 307,000 units.

The Ram truck at 262,000 units. Wow. And then the GMCCR at the 257,000 units,

the Toyota Camry, one of the, one of the, the benchmarks, still 235,000 units.

I'm glad. Let's just pause right there for just a second. Let's look at that number and think about

how bad a decision it is on the part of GM or Chevy, but GM and Ford for getting out of sedan

game. Oh, yeah. GM, Ford, and Stellantis all have killed off Sedans.

Yeah. Well, I mean, Stellantis is still making that weird charger looking thing.

Technically.

Nobody's buying it, but technically, there's your money. All right, keep going.

So Camry, 250,000 something.

I'm going to skip the next one because that's the one you're not going to get.

Toyota Tacoma at 204,000 units. Okay. And number 10 is Honda Civic at 185,000 units.

What is number seven? So what's missing that slips between the Camry and the Taka?

I'll give you a good 30 seconds. You're not going to get, if you named a brand, I'll give it to you.

Just name the name. What's the name on the marquee of the dealership up there? Who's symbol of it?

Gosh, I don't want this to be true. Is it Tesla? Not at all.

Nope. That's a relief. Tesla is number 12. The Model Y is number 12.

Okay. Well, that's good. That's fine.

So it's not Tesla, which would get my major reaction that I thought you might be looking for.

So, see, I'm trying to really analyze it here and not just think about numbers,

but I guess that's what I need to do.

I'll give you one more guess if you want to tell you.

You're not going to get this.

Subaru?

The first Subaru is number 18 and it's the Crosstrak.

I would have guessed the Crosstrak.

I said number seven. The number eight selling car year to date in the United States of America

is the Chevrolet Equinox.

What?

I was like, what? That got to be wrong. No. They sell more, they sell, they have sold

228,000 Chevrolet Equinox. Wait a minute.

In this context, does the word sale also include sales to fleet and rentals?

I'm sure it does, because that's how Ford moves 600 million F-150s, F-series, a year.

There you go.

But I would have never-

That's your answer on the Equinox, is that there are so many rentals.

Yeah, I agree with you that a lot of them are rental fleets, but I was sure number 11 was going

to be in the top 10 with the Toyota Corolla, but it's not.

But the Civic is in the top 10, right?

The Civic is number 10.

Yeah, see, so that's that to me, those two cars, if one of those two didn't exist,

it would, by virtue of the competition, it would move. It would move it out, I think.

Or it doesn't have another vehicle in the top 15.

Chevy has another vehicle in the top 15.

And yeah, there's only one, there's only one other Koreans in the top 15.

Wow.

It's, that's weird. The Chevy Trax is number 13.

And it, which makes sense, because I was going to say this last-

Can you get a Chevy Trax and a Denali?

No, but you can get the, no, but you can get the GMC, whatever the smallest GMC is in a Denali.

And just, and that was the vehicle that Giselle got, and it was like,

that screen is too big. I don't like that.

Okay, so let's, we're throwing back to old topics.

If, if I'm looking at the smallest GMC, whatever it is,

and I'm looking at it in a Denali, is that luxury?

Premium.

It's premium.

Yeah, but yes, you can get a GMC, not allocated terrain Denali,

which is the smallest of the GMC. They don't have a Trax version there.

That's, that's reserved for Buick.

Which is, and let's say every Buick is just premium, right?

Premium.

The whole brand is premium.

Yeah, no, no.

And I mean, I think there's a comeback, and maybe we should do an episode about this.

There's a comeback for the premium, the premium level in the market.

Because where Merkery went away, and Osmobile went away,

and Buick essentially kind of went away, because they don't really build cars no more.

And everybody had that premium thing, Chrysler is a minivan.

So it kind of opened up this space.

I think that opened up the space where Mazda is moving up level,

and it started to be a premium brand.

Because I will 100% tell you that a Civic is the better car.

The Mazda 3 is 10 times nicer.

And I think that the only brand that kind of really occupies that space,

and been in that space, because I don't really call this a luxury brand, is Acura.

I've never really called it an Acura luxury brand,

because one, they'd never built a car with a V8,

and they never had a real-world-wide platform for the sports car.

Yeah, I think, I mean, for me, if I think Acura, I don't think luxury,

but I do think premium.

Premium.

Yeah, and at the same time, like you were just saying, if you can do a terrain Denali,

that you essentially plan in the premium space without its own brand, without Osmabeal.

Okay, all right.

I don't have an answer to this question yet, but it just came to me.

And since we're right at an hour, we're going to be close to wrapping up soon.

And tomorrow's Halloween, so I have a Halloween-related on-topic, on-theme car question.

What is that?

All right, we're going to call this little mini-segment, Night of the Living Dead Car.

Okay.

If you have the option to bring back from the dead one car,

it can be from a dead brand or a live brand, but one car that is currently doesn't exist

is dead and gone.

What one car would you bring back?

How far back?

Because I'm going to say, you are going to go all the way back to the 60s.

But a car that conceivably can come back and has not been gone long, and I think they could

actually do it, is the Genesis Coupe.

And why did that car come to my mind?

That's because I saw like three of them this weekend.

It's like, why don't they still make that?

All the pieces still exist.

Interesting.

And the reason I say that it could come back, another reason why I said there's a valid

reason for it to come back is, I don't know if you've been paying attention there,

the sports car market is becoming a thing again.

The sports coupe market is kind of becoming a thing again.

Yeah, it is.

You're right.

And maybe you don't necessarily have Mustang money because Mustangs are expensive nowadays,

because even the Ford is expensive nowadays.

But if you can come to market with a $30,000 sports coupe,

maybe we can rebuild some of these car people again.

Because, I mean, it used to be, remember back in the day, they used to have a

the Toyota Paseo was a little coupe, you know, the Hyundai, what was it?

Scoop.

Mazda MX-3, hey, even Chevy Cavaliers D24s.

Hey, don't knock those cars out of great chassis under them.

Yeah, or the Saturns or the full S-course and things like that.

I mean, one of the reasons I think, one of the reasons I think that we are missing

some car people, some young car people is because one, of course,

they don't have an option to become a car people.

Cars under this one.

I mean, even Volkswagen sells a GTI, but it does sell a GTI with a manual or more.

But they sell a GLI with a manual.

Yep.

I mean, why?

That don't make sense.

Right, it doesn't make sense to me.

I mean, it doesn't make sense.

One of the worst things that Stalantis slash Dodge ever did is they built a dart and it

wasn't a small two door coupe because they should be.

Yeah, the fact that it wasn't like a rebirth of the neon was a mistake.

Yeah, because I mean, people, I mean, we crapped on neon some half,

half hardly back in the day.

I want it.

Of course you did.

I wanted one before the SRT became a thing.

I wanted the RT in the first body style, the first generation.

Oh, yeah.

Dude, that first G and RT was pretty sweet actually.

Okay, so you're ready for my night of the living dead car?

What's that?

It's going to be contentious.

As it usually is, right?

Of course it is, because you know, Bill.

Are you ready?

Yep.

Chevy Corvette.

All right, we're just going to move on to the next thing.

No, no, no, no, you should support this because let's be realistic.

What doesn't Chevy have right now?

They don't have a front engine GT style car.

They do not.

And you and I both agree that they should.

I agree.

Competition is good.

The Mustang should not be out here destroying GT3 Porsches on the Nürburgring.

And by destroy, I mean like you can out a second,

but that shouldn't even be a world that has to compete in.

So and if you're not going to bring the Camaro back,

except for some weird SUV thing, then you should bring back a Corvette.

That's an actual Corvette.

Not classic.

Yeah, Corvette classic.

Right. That's your that's your theory.

I mean, I'm on board with it.

So like this is my, I think that's the car I revived from the dead

is a front engine GT Tourer.

It doesn't have to destroy the Nürburgring.

You got the ZR1X, P3i.

Yeah, you have the $200,000 Corvette to do that.

Yeah, that's fine.

Keep making that.

I'm not saying get rid of that.

I'm all for that.

That thing's cool.

If you can make it do 270 miles an hour on the Nürburgring,

as Bob Sheehan Jr. would say, that's fine.

Do that.

But also give us that front engine V8 manual transmission,

muscle car version or GT Touring version that the old men in the Jorts

and the new bounces actually want.

Yeah, they'll go by the mid-engine one, but that's not what they want.

Yeah, I would say that you started this as a dig and then you put your salesman hat on

and then you sold me on the idea.

That's the goal.

However, as we have talked about many times before, car companies do a really good job

of shooting themselves in the foot.

And General Motors, if you are listening to me, which we know you are because you still,

y'all still our ideas and then decide not to do them all the time because I see the concept cars.

General Motors built a car in the new Corvette that did the thing that Corvette needed to do

forever, which is create space between the Corvette and the Camaro, and then they killed the Camaro.

Yeah, so stupid.

You finally got the separation you needed so that you can let the Camaro be its thing

and actually compete with a Mustang and you killed the Camaro.

And again, like I just said, they have all the parts already.

All they got to do is make the car.

The parts, the chassis is there, the engine is there, the transmission is there,

the suspension is there.

So do you think anybody has Chevrolet stood back watching this and was like,

so what are we doing again?

Why are we doing this?

Well, the Corvette engineering guys, I see, I understand their point.

I get their point because to quote the famous Jeff Goldblum from a little film called Jurassic

Park, you are so preoccupied with whether or not you could.

You didn't stop to think if whether or not you should.

I that is a that is a accurate that go.

An analogy or statement to put there.

I and my I guess I will try to make my argument for them is they were looking at Porsche.

And they want they wanted that.

No, I don't think they were.

I think they were looking at Ferrari and Lamborghini.

Yeah.

So I agree.

They was looking at Ferrari, Lamborghini, maybe in the distance, but.

The car that you compare the Corvette to is is the 911.

Is it not not a standard Corvette.

You compare it to the Boxster, maybe, or the Cayman, but not the not the 911.

But then again, I mean, how many times have how many times have you watched the dad go?

Somebody argue about the dad go about the boxer being a better 911.

It is.

It's like, hey, this is what the 911 used to be, even though the 911 now isn't a lot.

What the 911 used to be kind of.

But anyway, that's a good point.

It's good that I would like to see a, this may be another idea for Jason Camisa,

since he didn't take me up on my last Porsche idea.

But I would like to see a race comparison where you take.

A base Corvette and a base 911 and you race.

Yeah.

And then you take the Corvette, you ready and you put it against like the new 911T

or ST or whatever that, whatever the new hybrid turbo is, right?

And then you go.

And then, and then you just keep, keep steer second.

I think there's more 911s to pull from than there are Corvettes, but you can find the

comparable model and just, and keep going all the way to you get to the ZR1.

And you see who wins the most.

Yeah. Speaking of which, you just made me think about this.

Porsche has the same problem with the Dagon Boxer that Chevrolet had with the Dagon Camaro.

Yeah, it's the better car.

A Cayman GT4 is a better 911 than any 911 in the 911 line.

And, and it's $100,000 less.

Yeah, at least.

But yeah, I mean, I think, I think you are right.

I mean, there were the engineers at Jim, because they, for all the things that they do wrong,

they do have, they have been touted as having a very good engineering group.

And they just do this thing where it's like, hey, that's the next level.

And like you saw on the, on the Hagerty video, which I know you watched, it's like,

hey, it wasn't much more you was going to be able to do with this.

Yeah, you went at the end of your engineering limits, for sure.

Yeah. So that was the next logical step.

But that next logical step opened up this space where Camaro could live and be

five different cars at the same time.

And they still had this thing with the Corvette Dagon.

Yeah. Yeah, because, because where, where is Chevy going to be a year from now,

when there are people, well, two years from now, when there are people buying at a markup

and driving around the end, Mustang Rectors.

Yeah. Chevy's going to be sitting there going, well, we got this weird new

Camaro and Cross thing.

Which I keep hearing rumor and that, but I, I mean, if they do that again,

well, you know what, it's generally motors, they're going to figure out how to mess it up.

They don't figure.

All right. So my last thing for us before we get out of here is this.

So we talked about the best selling cars.

All right. I have a list here.

Are we doing the bottom of the list?

The bottom of the list.

I have 20 of them on here, but it's not, I have 20 of them on here because

20 cars made, there are 10 cars, 10 of them actually sold this year.

The other 10 on the list is because they sold last year.

You love these. I don't like these where it's like some stupid dealer

was still sitting on seven meons and they finally sold off.

I don't, that's ridiculous.

That can't be challenge.

All right.

So that's for judgment in Arkansas.

Can't be held against the entire car industry.

So I'm going to tell you both of these, I'm going to tell you these things.

That's what I get a reaction.

So these first 10 are cars that they sold at least one last year,

but they have sold none of them this year.

Okay.

Dodge Viper, Alfa Romeo Spider, Ford Transit Connect is on there.

Oh my gosh.

The Audi TT, the Infiniti Q60.

That's the two door coupe.

The Buick R4.

Okay.

The Mercedes-Benz A-Class.

Wow.

The Kia Rio.

Of course.

Now, the thing that all those things have, most of those things,

except for the Viper and the Spider, is all of those car vehicles

were in production maybe a year prior to, but you know what wasn't.

The Volkswagen and Pizzac wasn't, and the Mazda 6 wasn't,

and they sold at least one last year, but they sold none this year.

But these vehicles, and I'm going to go down, I'm going to go down.

These are the ones I'm actually going to count.

Finding some dealership that it is sitting on a Dodge Viper.

I just said that's the most ridiculous stat.

All right.

I'll stop at it.

I'll start at the top selling of these bottom 10.

So it only gets worse.

Yeah.

They sold Ram Promaster City.

They sold 20 of them this year.

Those Vans?

Yeah, those Vans.

Dude, that's some rare air right there.

They sold 13 new Dodge Journeys this year.

What?

No way.

That's crazy.

Yeah, 13 of them.

How?

Oh no.

I don't understand how you're going to get smaller from here.

They sold eight Chrysler Grand Caravans this year.

Not Dodge Grand Caravans, but Chrysler Grand Caravans.

That's not even.

There was a weird year that they merged them all together.

It was weird.

And there was supposed to be all fleet vehicles, but they wasn't.

Clearly.

They sold six brand new Dodge Darts this year.

Were they new really?

One that we are sad about.

They sold five Audi R8s this year.

Five Golden Rings right there.

This, you probably already know what this is.

They sold 300 Nexos this year, which is a hydrogen powered field vehicle.

They sold two Fiat 500 Ales that were new this year.

How in the world were those still?

I thought they all caught on fire and died.

That's crazy.

The bottom three cars that they sold this year are all tied at one.

And the way they get these records is they, the way they do this is how many years they

they've registered this year for the first time.

The Toyota CHR, which I think has been gone for two, three years.

Okay.

The BMW 6 series.

I think that went away when the 8 series came online, I believe.

Wow.

And they probably don't sell hardly any of them.

And they also sold one BMW i3.

Wow.

I don't even remember when I think that vehicle has been out of production for at least six years.

Well, yeah, but it's small.

So I mean, it could have got tucked into like a maintenance closet or something.

I forgot.

But yeah, you were talking about 911 dead and things coming back from the dead.

Evidently, the BMW i3 came back from the dead.

The Dodge Dart and the Dodge journey all are still walking the earth somehow.

How are these dealers?

And let me tell you, you are one heck of a sales guy.

If somebody walks on to your line and you're like, oh, since here you've got a

327 credit score, I've got just the brand new car for you.

This is a Dodge journey.

Now, you don't see many of these anymore because they're pretty rare,

but I'm going to make you a deal.

Now, this car MSRPed for $27,000.

I'm going to get you in it today for $25,000.

Zero down, 17% interest, 92 months.

I got you.

That is a level of salesman that only Bob Stupid Jr.

That's right.

Anything I buy?

I think that's it, man.

I think that's it.

I think we may have the episode out of nothing.

Well, you'll have that on those big jobs.

Yep.

Oh, also, they sold 1,220 of the ugliest car in the market.

BMW did.

The i8.

The XM.

Oh, yeah, that is an ugly car.

There were 1,200 of them.

There were 1,200 people.

There's so many ugly cars right now.

It's hard for me to really even put my finger on.

Dude, that might be an episode all by itself.

What's the ugliest car on sale currently?

I know the beauty is in the eye of the beholder,

but I think we can all agree that some cars have missed the mark.

I mean, there's bulldog ugly like the old WRX back in the day,

that it was ugly, but it had an endearing spirit, and we liked it.

And then there's BMW XM, which nobody.

Nobody.

Probably 1,200.

The salesman who talked somebody into that, that guy needs a raise.

Yeah, that's all you need to do is you need to comb that stats for those 1,200 of those that were sold

and see who the sales guy is that sold the most of them.

Because if there's a guy on that list that sold more than one,

that's the dude you need to talk to because he's a good salesman.

Well, oh, there's no way.

There is no way.

They sold, I just scroll down here just to look.

They sold evidently there were 173 random Camaros out there to be sold.

429 Vovos C40s.

I bet you don't remember what their car is.

You remember what their car is?

Yeah, I remember that car.

The big dumb window in the back.

I actually like that car.

You get that car with a manual.

Did that car die with twilight?

I thought that car.

Yeah, it is possible that Edward Cullen killed that car.

But I like that car.

And I actually looked at several of them on Marketplace when I was hunting for this last

newest manual transmission that I've got.

Because you could get those with a manual.

But it could almost be scary on maintenance.

Wait a minute.

We're going to get out of here because I just saw something that this cannot be right.

I just I need to double check.

Hold up.

Lexus.

What are you looking at?

570s or 600s?

LC.

Oh, LCs.

There is no way that.

Okay, okay, okay.

I had, you know what I had in my head?

I had the old LC stuck in my head.

Oh, the LC.

Oh, no, no, no, the LC.

I mean, that's your old, that's your, that is the Corvette that Chevy is missing.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, for the record, Lexus LC will be discontinued as well.

Of course, because why not?

Why do we?

Why do we need nice things?

Why?

Kind of.

Anywho, Bill.

Stanley.

Be safe on the road tomorrow.

And I love you, bro.

I love you too.

And for all our listeners out there, be careful trick or treat.

You're listening to this after Halloween because we won't upload it before.

I hope you were safe trick or treating.

And if you still have candy left, because Stanley and I are from another century,

check it for needles.

Yep.

And razor blade.

I was about to say.

Where did those rumors come from?

How many propagated those rumors?

You ready?

I'm going to tell you exactly who it was.

It's all down to one person.

Who?

Gross the crumb dog.

Last from the past.

Wow.

I got my eye on you, McGruff.

Nice, Bill.

Take a bite out of the crumb.

Good night, Stanley.

Gross the crumb dog.

Tricked Fall Back

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