111. Engineering Vehicles, Cadillac Blackwings, Track Days w/ Mirza Grebovic

Real quick, guys, before we begin this episode, I just wanted to say real quick that Mirza works for GM, and the opinions expressed during this podcast are his own, and not those of General Motors and its brands. However, I can't control Dan, my Ford-loving co-host, so his opinions are definitely his own. Anyways, let's get to the episode. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Minnoxide podcast. I'm your host, Harris, AKA Minnoxide, man of many automotive aspirations, and I'm here with my co-host, Dan, Mr. Gunna Garage.

Yep, Mr. got me sitting in a Camaro seat, so I'm really happy about that.

And today we're in enemy territory for Dan, at least, because we're going to be talking a wide variety of things. But we are here with Mirza Grebovic, who is an engineer in the automotive industry. I think that's a great way of putting it.

Yeah.

So let's just kick it off right away. Tell us a little bit about yourself, what it is that you do, and we'll just kind of go from there.

Yeah, I mean, Mirza Grebovic, big enthusiast, car enthusiast first of all, right? It's a lifestyle.

Yeah.

Always dreamt of working in the automotive industry. Obviously, growing up around Detroit, that's the Mecca, automotive Mecca, and decided to get into it as an engineer. Got lucky to work at General Motors and work on some cool cars and afford some cool cars, and it's a hobby. It's a lifestyle, love being around them, love track in my cars, big fan of track days, love sim racing in the winter, when we're locked up six months.

So, can you tell us a little bit about that, right? Because like we discussed off camera, getting into the automotive industry, especially for us from the Minnesota area, not exactly a huge option, unless you want to be a shop owner or whatever the case is. So how exactly do you end up getting a career as an engineer in the automotive industry?

I think I got a little lucky growing up around Detroit. You're just surrounded by it. My parents worked in manufacturing assembly lines, some assembly lines, around 8 Mile. And there are lots of opportunities for folks that migrate to the US, like my family did. And obviously, there's a lot of your parents push you towards, hey, you want to work for one of these big companies, right? There's a lot of jobs, good future there. And luckily, I loved Chorus growing up as a kid, Matchbox Chorus in Europe, and came here, got addicted to Gran Turismo on the PlayStation, started loving playing car games. And when it came time to decide what I want to do for college, my father at that time was like, hey, you probably want to go get an engineering degree, look at General Motors, Chrysler at that time, Ford are all around. So went and got a mechanical engineering degree. But freshman year in college was a little rough. A lot of those tough classes where you're like, man, I want to work on cars, I want to be into cars, not into math, physics, chemistry and all that.

Yeah, the ones that try to break you early on.

As we used to refer to them as the reading classes, right?

Yeah, yep.

But what saved me is my father unfortunately passed away freshman year from cancer. And I was looking for an outlet that brought some passion back in. And I went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and they offered a formal SAE program for the students. This is a group of students that gets to build a small race car powered by a motorcycle engine. It's a collegiate competition. It's global now. You get to work with real companies that sponsor you. And when I joined that team, that really, really poured fuel on the fire. You're with very like-minded people. And you get to machine, you get to manufacture. Well, we're literally building the entire car. You get to design it. The university provides you the tools. And that really got me into it. And that's when I really knew, hey, I can do this. I can finish the degree. I got to learn the tools, CAD, CAE, you name it. I started relating the subject I was learning about to an application. So it clicked. Now I kind of knew why I'm learning about materials or why I'm learning about forces or how to calculate things. And competing was awesome. Seeing the finished product, getting to drive it was mind boggling. These things were crazy fast, super light. And through that, I got to meet a lot of industry folks, right? So the judges that volunteer with SAE, a Society of Automotive Engineers, they hold that competition. They judge your designs, they speak to you, they have these certain events. Used to be at Ford Proving Grounds or Chelsea Proving Grounds. And your network starts building, right? Through that, if you're doing great, if your car is doing great, obviously quite a few recruiters and folks look at, hey, new hires, right? Great recruiting opportunity. You go to a competition now, Tesla's everywhere, stealing everybody. But so that's how I got into the industry, right? Through college, through Formula SAE, obviously wanting to work, but I did not get a job at General Motors right out of college. I actually started working for a supplier. And again, that worked through the Formula competition and started working on brakes. But the goal was always to go into General Motors. And right around 2000, mid 2000s, 2005 and up, they just started doing these amazing vehicles. Right? The CTS-V was coming out. There was rumors about the Pony cars are returning. The Mustang came out, the retro styling, right? Seeing that at the car show, I was like, oh boy, here we go. Right? It's getting exciting again. But Camaro came in 2010 and I really liked what I saw and joined General Motors as a brake engineer. And it just went on from there, right?

Well, especially if you watch like Transformers, the first one, you know, they got Bumblebee over there.

Dude, yellow Bumblebee, yup.

I became a GM guy for a short period there. Like I remember in eighth grade, like we were supposed to do this little, what's it called? Like plan your future thing. And it was like a maroon red Camaro or whatever was on there. Dan's just gagging right now. But it's like, that was my future. Like I was like, I want a Camaro SS, you know? And it all started, you know, right around that era, mostly because of Transformers, funny enough. Isn't that where, that's where they debuted that car, isn't it? Something like that?

Yeah, I believe so. I think that's where it got a lot of attention.

Yeah.

Well, you know, when they're making movies like that, that's just like, they're like, okay, always, we're taking bids. Who wants to have the car in the movie? So I'm sure.

And I mean, you can see behind me, right? I bought a fifth gen Camaro, right? So you know, that's when I started working for General Motors, 2010, trying to get into the Camaro's. And by the way, before we get any further in there, right? I do want to make the disclaimer that I do work for General Motors still. And I'm not representing them in this podcast, right? The opinions are my own, not that of General Motors and the brains. So you know, here is a car enthusiast that just happens to be also in the automotive industry. Yeah.

And I think the biggest takeaway that we'll probably end up taking from this podcast is again, you know, getting into the industry, you know, being a part of it, I guess, we'll see. We still got an hour to go. You know, we'll see where we end up, where this ends up going. But who knows, we might talk about lamb for half an hour or something, you know. But okay, so before you ended up General Motors, where were you at before then?

I used to work for a company called TRW Automotive, which is a large supplier to a lot of companies in braking systems. And I used to work on stability controls, right? So ABS and stability controls, that was getting popular in the industry. Vehicles used to have standard ABS, but not stability control. So the technology was growing, it was becoming more sophisticated, and I learned a lot, applied a lot of my vehicle dynamics knowledge from college. I was big into suspensions and vehicle dynamics. Coming from Gran Turismo, always tuning the camber, the alignment, right, trying to get that best lap time. So I really got into that understanding suspension geometry, which by the way, no matter how often you think you have the perfect geometry, it's a little bit of like a black heart, right? It's always the priorities you set what you're going after and everybody shows up with different suspensions, right? So I enjoyed that. There was no perfect answer.

Right.

Do this and your suspension is perfect. Everybody was doing different tricks, trying to get different type of performance out of vehicles. So apply that into vehicle controls, vehicle stability and got a lot of exposure with the OEMs. Used to work on projects for General Motors, for Stellantis, for Daimler Chrysler at that time, Ford. The Shelby started coming out, right, 07, 08. The performance vehicles were coming back out again from the American suppliers, and it was just a super exciting time.

Where were, and how old were you at the time then, or where were you at in your career?

So I graduated in 2005.

Okay.

So, you know, I was in my early twenties.

Dude, what a perfect time. I mean, outside of the, you know, crash. Don't forget about that.

But I actually appreciated that the crash happened shortly after, because I think it was a good lesson in life, right? That, hey, it's an industry for business, right?

Yeah.

Layoffs and things happen, right? So I was glad I kind of got that lesson early on. It's like, hey, you get a job, it's not just you stay there. You got to work for it. True.

No, when big things like that happen, I said the same thing when COVID happened. I said, this is going to make and break a lot of companies. You either you got some that will take off from it and some that we're going to crash from it.

Well, individuals too.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because we're finding out who know who wants to work now, who doesn't.

Yeah.

So there's part of it.

But one moment that really stood out to me is GM was working on the CTS and the V series vehicles at that time. And Mopar was doing the SRT. The SRT8, 300 came out. And I actually got to drive one of those. A Chrysler with Brembo brakes on it. And you know, some performance on it. And I was like, this is awesome, right? This is cool. And that's when I started getting more into, okay, this industry is growing now, the performance industry, even with the OEMs. And that's when I started looking. I also decided at that time, I want to go get a master's degree. Tried some different side hustles on the side, right? Trying to do real estate or get second jobs, just so I can go buy a ring from my wife and start life, you know?

Well, you still have a car hobby at this point, too, right?

Correct. I graduated and the first couple of paychecks, I went and bought a Subaru SDI 2005, black with gold wheels.

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah. I mean, they were just coming right into the US. The 04 was the first year, I think.

What's that? That's the Hawkeye? Or is that the Blob-eye?

That was the Hawkeye.

Hawkeye.

It was right after the Bug-eye.

Gotcha. Okay.

Yeah. And I do love the Hawkeyes. The company I worked for, TRW, at that time was making components for it. And as I mentioned here before, we set all this up. GM had some ownership in, I believe, Saab or Subaru right around that time as well. And started hitting track days up. Just started enjoying the car, learning more about it, driving, meeting people with same mindsets, right? And running it to folks from the industry as well. Expanding the network, right? Just through cars.

Well, I'm sure if you go to any track day around here, you'll probably meet a ton of industry people too, right?

And yeah, it's ironic you say that one of my first track days was at Grattan and Ralph Geos, right? From Chrysler, Stalane, used to come to track days and you would see folks from GM, test drivers, coming out with the toys they were working on or building.

I can only imagine the smack talk. Like the GM and the Ford guys, and they're just all amongst each other. Like, oh yeah, that's what you're working on?

Okay, yeah, I remember first time I saw a 2000R Cobra. All red, right? At a track day, Ford guys were bringing some of the cool cars out. The Ford GTs were coming out, right? The Rebirth and like seeing one in real life. So like I said, it was super exciting time. All the automotive companies in Metro Detroit were going after the performance segment again, right?

Is there a lot of that? So, you know, as a Ford guy, I love to give GM guys crap. It's like one of my favorite things to do. But do you see that seeing how basically all of the big three have really built this town? Do you get a lot of that? Like, is it more camaraderie or more like are people at each other when it comes to if you support a certain brand?

Honestly, it's more camaraderie. To be honest, I think there's so much pride in the automotive industry starting here. When I came out of college, I thought the same thing. I thought, oh man, there's going to be a lot of trash talking, right? But it isn't. Like track days, yeah, there's limitations which you talk about and share, but obviously everybody's checking each other out, trying to see what everybody's doing. But we're all working with the same suppliers. Again, when I worked at TRW, I got to work with all three. And it's more camaraderie, right? Yeah, there's a little bit of competition all this, but...

Well, most of mine is all in good fun, too. I love being out on a track with whoever I'm with. That doesn't matter to me. Yeah, agreed. Last time I was on a track was with the Tesla Plaid. That hurt a little bit, but I can appreciate it.

So, you kind of mentioned that, alluded to that as well. It's like you have suppliers working with all three. And I guess since you were kind of doing that before you ended up here, does that kind of put you in a unique position? Like where, kind of like these different silos, right? Like, for example, we've had people on the show, like they would have to work on two brother's cars, but they can't know about it, you know, whatever the situation. Was there any of that or not really?

Yes, there is a little bit of, you know, you have to keep customer secrecy, right? But I think you kind of learn that being around that industry. So I just, even in college, in Formula SE, right? Competing against other schools, you know, there's camaraderie, but you're kind of keeping secrets, right? To make sure nobody picks up with advantage you have. So I think early on, you just develop that, hey, etiquette of what to talk about, or what can be shared, what can not, right? So obviously, you get reminded, you know, by your employers too. But it was never really an issue, right?

I'm sure those meetings are probably reminders every year, like every company meeting. It's like, all right, you have to sign this. Be quiet about that. I'm sure there's part of that.

And what was awesome to see is working at a supplier is how different each OEM is, right? I mean, you look at a car and you're like, okay, it's a car, four tires, four wheels, brakes. How many different ways can you make a car? Right? But every OEM we worked with had a different type of philosophy, right? Had different priorities or different things they thought that had an advantage on. Which I think is cool about the automotive industry, right? I mean, cars have existed for so long, and if there was a perfect car, they would all look alike.

Right.

Right. Everybody is going after customer base that's looking for something else.

Well, let's be fair here. We have all these cool sports cars that they're doing, but everything else looks like a Ford Escape, right? I mean, we've kind of morphed into this like midsize SUV thing that's just kind of the standard now. If you don't care about what you drive, that's what you drive.

Yeah, there's we like to say there's cars for A to B.

Yeah.

And there's cars for A to never, right?

Yeah. So how much with what you're doing now, you guys, are you doing more like parts development stuff? Is that kind of what you're doing? I've always kind of liked now where we're moving towards, we're building, they're making these cars, but then they're also supporting an aftermarket. It's, it was, I always compared to like a Harley, right? You buy a Harley, it doesn't come with any Chrome. So now I'm selling, you know, side panels and mirrors and things like that. Or is it, are they starting to move more towards that too? Where we're like, hey, we can sell you this, this and this. Let's upgrade that. Let's do this. Yeah.

I think accessories are an important part for enthusiasts, right? Just like, think about your clothing or, or, you know, we like to express ourselves. Everybody's sold different, right? So the industry is big, too. If you look at SEMA and the numbers, how much folks spend on their cars, success rising, it's, it's a large opportunity for a business, right?

I think it was like 300 something billion dollars is in the aftermarket industry or something like that.

Yeah, I think SEMA on my annual basis reports, I think just in the USA, around in the 50 billion, right?

Yeah, in the aftermarket and something crazy.

Yeah. So if you're selling cars, just makes perfect sense to also offer accessories, right? So yes, you offer options, interior colors, and certain features, et cetera. But you can go for it, right? Folks like to accessorize them and then in the performance space, as car enthusiasts, I mean, I have yet to own a car that's stock. Right.

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You buy it and it's like the new shoes you buy, they're nice and clean. But once you start using it, you're like, okay, time to spend some more money on it or make it unique, or there's certain things you, I wish I had this or this was a little better. Exhaust, brakes, wheels, tires, right? I mean, you name it, right? So yeah, it's a large opportunity for any OEM to offer that for enthusiasts.

So are any of these modified? Like, I guess, are each, any of these like built? I guess I never asked you that about any of these cars.

Yeah, so yes, the Corvette and the Camaro, I've heavily modified. And the Camaro I bought brand new, it's SS-1LE. I fell in love with that car. I think I drove it a couple of corners on campus. My colleague let me use it, experience it. And that's when I decided I need to buy one. And I used it as a test bed. I was young, I liked the automotive industry. I wanted to learn more. So I used that car to learn, not only to about the engineering, how things are made, but also how to drive. It's a small block VA, it's got a lot of power, 400 plus. I never owned something that powerful, right? So driving it was a little intimidating. So going to track days, learning how to use it. You then find out, okay, maybe I need a better seat. The seat's not as supportive on track, or hey, maybe I need to upgrade my brakes. Then you start thinking about power, of course, always. How do I get more power? But I was always appreciative of lightweight engineering, motor sports, right? Looking at the exotic cars, using exotic materials. That's what I had my masters in as well. I went into automotive systems, lightweight manufacturing. And instead of adding power to my cars, I'm very big on reducing weight, to improve all of the performance aspects. It's a lot cheaper too. But I also used everything I removed from the cars to sell it, so I can buy the stuff I wanted.

Oh my god, it sounds like another GM friend of ours. Oh my god, it sounds exactly like Caleb.

But to answer your question, are they built? Well, the Camaro is on its third suspension. It's on its fourth brake system. The front cradle, rear cradle has been out of it multiple times. And I experiment with parts I like. So right now it is also caged. Yeah, I saw that. For safety. A lot of weight removed out of it. And as I learn about new technology, as I see new things in the marketplace, I keep swapping to see if I can eek a little bit more performance out, but also learn about it. I just love wrenching on them too. That's one answer you're going to hear from engineers a lot is I knew from when I was young, that I like taking apart things, toys and stuff, and you know, you're going to become an engineer. So I went from taking apart small toys to taking apart the big toys.

I also got to point out there, like when most of the time when people answer the is my car built question, they immediately jumped to horsepower, and you didn't even touch that because you are more so oriented for road course, it seems.

Correct.

So suspension and braking, these are your priorities. You don't need an extra, you don't have to be pro charging it, making a 900 wheel or something like that. Do you find something like that like just kind of unnecessary for what you're trying to do?

I will get there. I do want to get into the power mods, but the one thing that gave me joy is being able to out-engineer somebody and out-drive somebody. I had this desire to have the cars, have the folks in the faster cars point me by on the track. That gave me such pleasure, right? So when I show up with a 5th Gen Camaro, and this is not a joke, I used to love going to the Shelby events.

Yeah.

You know, the Shelby track days, right? And you're seeing folks with supercharged cars making 600 plus horsepower. Here I am in an LS3 Camaro and I'm flying. And everybody first thing they look at is like, what do you have under the hood? I open up, it's a stock LS3 and they're like, what? What's going on, right? But it also pushed me to improve my driving skills, right? So really focus on data acquisition. I wanted to learn data acquisition to become a better driver. And applying those tools in my vehicle, seeing, hey, how am I steering? How am I braking? Am I driving digital? Which I did in the beginning to, hey, driving more, you know, to the limit of the car. So as I was growing in my technical know-how with the cars, I was also growing in my ability to drive better to the limits and find, okay, now this broke, or this is not working the best. How do I modify that? How do I change that?

Which is a common, most people go right for the power, right? But if you're going to do it the right way, you should do it exactly the way you're talking. We always talk about working driver mod. You know, there's definitely ways to lay out the car where it will corner better, faster and quicker than any of those big, heavy, powerful cars for sure.

Yeah, first time I lost a break on a track, brakes on a track, right, from fade and fluid, well, I was like, okay.

Yeah, that'll wake you up.

That'll wake you up and you get into it. Now I'm going to add more power and not change the brakes, right? Right. But it gave me immense joy to grow with the vehicle, right? I understood the car, I understood the systems, I understood what I could do, but it also helped me apply some of the knowledge at work. Right? So when we're working on performance parts or performance vehicles, being able to relate to the customers, being a customer myself, being around that, it puts you in a special place because you understand the market. You understand what those type of customers want. And that was the other thing I wanted to learn. Like how do I learn that as a young automotive engineer? How do I learn what people want? Well, you got to go out there and be with them. And that helped as well. So talking with folks about mods and what they're into, you follow it, you apply it, you see what works, what doesn't and learn about it.

I think you guys got that going for you. And when I say you guys, I mean you and Dan here because your guys' CEOs are genuine car guys. Like they just care about the performance side of things. Like they want to do stuff that's cool, it seems like. We have the right parts at Stellantis, but they are mismanaged. I shouldn't say mismanaged, not in the right places right now, right? For example, if you look at Ralph Gilles, he was part of the Viper, the Gen 5, the one of the greatest American cars of all time. Sorry, guys. But it's like now, but then you also look and SRT was disbanded. Or they sprinkled all that talent around the company. Whereas right now, you got the GTD over here, Dan, which I'm really excited for. And then the ZR1, which we talked quite a bit on the last podcast as well. But I mean, does that kind of give you a sense of pride of like one, where we're going as a country, but two, like where the individual companies are kind of going is like, they're just trying to do cool stuff?

Oh, it gives me immense pride. It's the reason why I wanted to work at General Motors. Like I said, seeing what engineers were working on and being able to resonate with them, right? I kind of saw myself and I'm like, oh wow, okay. They're really doing it. It's not the straight line stuff, right? It's like real. They're racing, right? They're all racing in professional motorsports too. It wasn't just talking, it was walking the talk, right? So when you say, does it make me feel proud? Of course it makes me feel proud because I know, you know, the folks in the industry care. They understand it. They expect the best and I want to work with the best, right? I want to be around the best.

So when they're developing stuff like that at work, do I mean, and I don't know, is there a lot of stuff that's still in secret? I mean, do a lot of people, even like on a lower level, is there like always a buzz? Like do people kind of have an idea of what's coming? Or can you kind of run us through what that's kind of like when you guys kind of know what's going on over there?

Well, yeah, obviously, when a vehicle comes out in the market, the companies have been working on it, the engineers have been working on it for the last five years, right? Four to five years, maybe even longer, right? So yes, when you work in the automotive company, you're working on product that's gonna come out in the future. So secrecy is important, right? It's important because you don't want to spill what everybody's working on in the market, what technologies you're coming up with, but there is also secrecy with employees not knowing, right? So it's not like the information is open up to everybody, which makes sense, right?

It's all siloed.

Yeah, I mean, it's the right people need to know the right stuff, right? It makes sense.

That's such a good way of putting it.

And as it keeps getting closer and closer to production, right, more of the team knows about it. And of course, excitement's there, because you've been quiet, I mean, for five years, right? I worked on V-Series for six years, seven years. And when the product hits, when the media events happen, when I'm able to tell my family about it, you know, my brother and my friends, and they get to see the interviews, the YouTube reviews, it's awesome, it's exciting, right? But until then, yeah, you just gotta hold that excitement and say, you wait, right?

I can just imagine like staring at a blank ceiling at night, just like, oh, I want to talk about this. And are you able to speak to any of your involvement with like the V-Series at all, or?

So a lot of it is public, right? The V-Series Blackwing launched in 2021. I own one. In the back, there's a CT4V Blackwing. It's my own car, private car I bought. And my involvement there was to be a performance variant manager, managing the entire vehicle, making sure we hit what we said we're going to hit, the performance, the requirements. But the team is large, right? It's hundreds of engineers. And that's what's awesome about these companies. The talent is immense. Everybody's passionate about this. Everybody's got garage with toys or an interest in automotive. And you might think you're a smart person and you can get a lot done. But when you're surrounded by a team like that, you can accomplish things that you haven't dreamt of, right? And that's what's awesome about it. So on V-Series Blackwing, we just wanted to elevate the brand to different levels, fourth generation of V-Series. There's a reputation you got to hold. I personally wanted to make sure when I was involved that I didn't disappoint previous engineers and previous team members that worked on the ones before. So we had a little bit of that silent pressure of like, man, I got to make the customers proud. I got to make the previous engineers proud, my current team proud, and everyone just digs in and tries to find any advantage, efficiency to make the vehicles awesome when they hit the marketplace. Right. I was super proud of the manual transmissions, too.

I was just thinking that.

Right. Every car you've seen in my garage has a manual transmission. I'm big into enjoying the drive.

Pull this a little bit closer, by the way. Just a little bit. You're good.

There's nothing wrong with the automatics, right? We have some awesome automatic transmissions in a lot of the cars.

What's in there for an automatic?

It's a 10-speed.

Okay.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. And it goes, right? It shifts. It's awesome. Yeah. It has its own character. But I love manual transmission. I love enjoying the cars. I'm not out there winning championships or anything, right? So being able to go roll your own gears was always a passion of mine. So that was awesome. Being involved in a product with such an amazing name, such an amazing history involved in motorsports, and coming out with a manual transmission vehicle that can hurt some feelings on the track was awesome.

Well, I think with that one, dude, I remember when I started seeing the articles, I was like, f*** yeah. And again, if you need me to bleep this for whatever reason, let me know. But it's just one of those things, in a world where things are progressively getting more boring in some aspects, depending on who you looked at at the time. And then you were like, oh, they're gonna keep the American dream for real here. A six speed VA, just a crazy American car. So kind of speak to the specs on that car, because Dan, being a Ford guy.

The CT5V Blackwing. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, the CT4 and CT5.

Yeah, there is two of them, right? And very different characters, right? The CT5V Blackwing was pushed the envelope, right? The CTS-V was the first V series vehicle. And that changed the game, right? To me, the folks that worked on those vehicles were the ones that inspired me, hey, I want to be in automotive. I want to work for General Motors. So joining and being around them is awesome. So you have to elevate the game, right? With every vehicle you do. But the year prior to that, the CTS-V did not come in a manual, right? So getting a manual into a CT5V Blackwing was awesome. The engine is awesome. The power on that car. Every time I drive one, I've been driving them for years. And still, every time I get into one, it's this beautiful, luxurious, four-door sedan. You get on it and it's just mind boggling. Right? How it eats up the road. It's... It drives like a Cadillac. It looks stunning. The interior is awesome. And on the track, it lays down some serious lap times, right? Carbon brakes on it, too. Different than the Corvette at that time. It was just something that's never been done in the V-Series realm. And the vehicle is just amazing. And the media was very receptive to it, right?

I don't think... That was one of those rare instances where it was all positive, or more positive than negative, because nowadays you'll be like, all right, well, this, you know, we don't like how they did the wing or whatever. That one was just kind of one of those where it was just pretty positive across the board.

Yeah. And I relate that back to my college experience as a Formula SAE. And you're going to hear me say that, right? Because you're with this group of folks that choose to be there. They're very like-minded. But what happens is, if you have a team that has this laser focus, right? And they're all on the same page. And everyone knows here's what we're going to accomplish. And we as a team are going to dig in and get there. That's what happens. That's the kind of product that comes out, right? There's no misunderstanding. There's no contradiction. It's all we want it to be this or maybe that or that's too hard. And when you have a team with a very clear vision and passion for it, the product's infused with what I use to say soul. It's infused with that, right? And the media picked up on that.

So one way to kind of, I'm trying to think how I want to phrase this. You can tell how skilled or talented someone is based off of how little direction they get and how well they execute with that little direction. What was the objective given, right? Was it make a b***** four door with a manual or was it like a crazy checklist that was, you know, mile, like longer than a CVS receipt? Or is it somewhere in between?

Yeah, I mean, obviously there is a lot of, as we call them, requirements, right? But I think the overall arcing goal was, we want to make the best sports sedan that you can enjoy on the track. No compromises, right? You can go out, drive it, be a luxurious vehicle, enjoy it like a proper Cadillac and give it this bimodal character of a couple of button pushes, put it in track mode, V mode, and just go out on the track and have fun. Enjoy driving, right? When you want to be driving on the phone or paying attention to something else or relaxing, you can, but when you want to go open up and get the adrenaline rush, you could. That was the overall goal. It's just a bimodal best sports sedan, luxury sports sedan out there, right?

Sounds easier than said and done.

And that's, you know, you go with that mission in mind. You align as a team, and then when you align on a mission, you can trickle it down into actual objective data that now engineers can go execute in shapes, right?

Was there any ideas that were shot down that you can talk about or no?

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You always go through this initial phase of ideation right at the beginning, because you sit down and you say, okay, what do we want to put in it? What do we want to do with it? Right? How many different transmissions? What engines do we want? So you never go in with just one. You go in with multiple choices. So to answer your question, is anything shut down? I wouldn't say shut down. It's just something wasn't picked based on some, based on a mission the team wanted to achieve. Right? So you weigh the options and you decide, hey, this is it. This is what we want to do. And you go execute.

Okay.

Yeah.

So then, so you were involved with both the four and the five then?

Correct. I was involved in both. Okay. Yes.

Gotcha. So is that the same V6 that's in the ATSV then?

It is a three, six liter twin turbo. Same architecture as in the ATSV. The exhaust and induction was all changed and it was retuned, right? It was retuned. So it drives very different. Sounds very different. The vehicle is very different, right? Technology on it, tires, brakes, you name it. So once you, the transmission, right, it was a 10-speed transmission, that was a new application. And as you start what we call integrating the vehicle, it starts developing its own unique character. So the engine is similar, but when you go drive the two cars, it feels very different.

Yeah, no, one of my friends has an ATSV and I learned quite a bit about that platform.

I love that car too, ATSV was such a cool car.

It's got the looks and the aftermarket isn't too shabby on it. I'm somewhat paying attention to it because they're not crazy expensive, either to get a second hand or a used one that's however many years old. So I was impressed to see where that one's going to head.

Yeah, a turbo engine, obviously, the aftermarket reacted positively, right? I should have known, but I was still surprised at how much power some of the folks are pulling out of those engines now, right? Tuning, turbos, I mean, you're seeing cars out there running some crazy horsepower numbers. But you also have the road race guys that are doing it a little bit different. Yeah, it was awesome to see, right?

Are these things that you kind of take into mind as well, like what the aftermarket might look like or not so much? That might be a little bit of a question, yes.

Do you guys leave room on the table for the aftermarket?

Leave room on the table. Look, I think we go in with, hey, here's what we want to get, right? And they got to be reliable.

Yeah.

Right. So you have warranties. These vehicles are sold globally often, so you have to tune them for various conditions. Now, if someone like me decides I'm going to own this vehicle and I'm only going to use it as a toy on the weekends, I'm not going to drive it in the winters, then that allows you to, you know, tune it towards that, right? But if you were to take some of those tuned cars on a cold winter day and you just went wide open throttle on a cold engine, probably wouldn't end up well, right? In the OEM game, customers, some customers do that, right? So to answer your question, it's different, right? The aftermarket goes very specifically after someone that wants to achieve a certain goal.

It's not as generalized.

Yeah. I mean, how many folks put 100, 200,000 miles on their toy or track car?

Right?

Versus when you sell a brand new car, folks expect to put that many miles on it, right? So it's got to do it.

It just goes to show, and we talked about this in our last episode with Nostrum, just how crazy the new CR1 is that you're getting 1,000 horsepower in a car with warranty on pumped gas. Like, I don't think anybody would have predicted that, but at the same time, if you look at like Hellcats, however many years ago, when they came out with 700 horsepower in 2015, it's like, whoa, you know?

I will not lie. I watched the reveal, the countdown on the Corvette. I'm not involved in the Corvette program, but I love Corvettes. I obviously have one, right? And the C8's amazing platform. I never thought I would see a day as a car enthusiast where a mid-engine American car exists. It's actually something I can aspire to, right? It's not some low-volume, million-dollar vehicle out there. So big fan of that platform, but I did not expect that on the ZR1, right? And when that video started playing on the website, I think I spent two, three days just going like, did that really happen?

Wrapping your head around it?

Like 1,100 horsepower, right? On an OEM road legal, go have fun, track capable vehicle. I've watched every video, every comment, every article out there, every YouTube video. It was just mind-boggling, but when I watched it, I watched them all with a smile. It just made me feel awesome, right? You hear all the crazy cars the other OEMs are working on, right? You mentioned the GTD earlier. You know, there's just, it's such a great time to be a car enthusiast.

Just, you know, tell Siri to play Proud to Be an American in the background. Yeah, right?

Sort of hear bald eagle screeches.

This whole episode, that's all I hear is bald eagles. Yeah.

Freedom coming out the tailpipes.

Yeah, right? Yeah.

No, no, no, that one. I'm excited. I particularly watched the engineering explained video today it dropped. And I was like, throughout the video, I'm like, now that's cool, which was in direct argument with one of my friends who said, no, they'll never do that. And they did exactly what I thought, which was hilarious. And that's been one of the fun parts of this podcast as well is like learning how people think within the industry and why they do the decisions they do. And I was like, oh, well, that makes perfect sense. When I looked at the zero one. What's your favorite component to, I guess, and you can go all the way back to like, even like when you were in school, what was your favorite thing to work on or design? I guess in general, there's, you know, brakes or engine or whatever.

Tough question.

Cause your training probably took you through everything.

Every time you learn something new, it gets you curious about something else. Right? So you start learning about suspensions, you start learning about, you know, virtual design, geometry, the tools, but then you also start learning about material selection. So obviously a suspension interacts with other systems. Right? So now you have to understand the other systems. So now you're learning, okay, well, the brakes attach to it, the hub, the wheel, and you're... It's a tough question to answer. I can't say there's really some specific to it. I just love the relationship of understanding materials, the various options out there, mixed with how many different ways there is to make something, and how to implement the most efficient and effective design in the overall vehicle, but make it work together, right? It's really hard. Making a car fast, in my opinion, it's not hard. You can make a car fast. But making it fast, drivable, enjoyable and reliable, that's when you start getting into the difficulties, right? I love materials, right? Being able to outsmart a competitor, or outsmart even a cost, right? It's a business, right? These vehicles have to make money. So, you know, you bring it up to ZR1. I mean, it's not a million dollar car.

Has pricing been released on it yet? I don't think so.

I don't think so. I think everyone's anticipating, right? But I think if you look at some of the reviews, the message from the team was always clear. And you listen to, hey, we're making this, you know, for folks that are Corvette owners. We're not going after, you know, million dollars. And when you hear a team say stuff like that, to me, that resonates.

Well, it goes back to the initial thing, like the same thing with the Mustangs, too. Like these were cars designed, like, yeah, they're not supposed to be, you know, cheap by any means, but it's a realistic dream, right? Like there's some people, like you say Lamborghini, they have zero intentions on ever owning it, you know, because just the sticker shot, I think the new Temerario is going to be like 500,000 starting or something. For a lot of people, that's not realistic. But if you say, you know, 70, 80, $90,000 Corvette, well, is it difficult? Yes, but not impossible, depending on who you are.

But I mean, you look at the zero six. I'm a zero six fan, obviously.

But you look at how could you not be, by the way, to see six, six. That's on the bucket list of cars, by the way, for me, at least.

But you look at the C8, zero six. And when that came out, everyone was thinking about pricing. And when the pricing came out, you like. This is a supercar, mid-engine, crazy horsepower, amazing engine, amazing capability. And you look at the price and you like, whoa, that's awesome. Right. Going back to V-series and Blackwings, right, you could buy a CT5V Blackwing in the 80s, 90s, close to 700 horsepower. Right. It's like, that's awesome. Right. It's amazing. 1LE Camaro is one of the reasons why I fell in love with the SS1LE is I could not believe the price of that vehicle in 2012. Right. It was Subaru, Sevo, you name it, right, in the mid-high 30s. And then this thing with a V8 comes, same price point, but the performance, lap time and all of that was a different league. Right. So, that is that utilizing your engineering know-how to outsmart, outwork, out design the competition. To me as an engineer, that's an awesome challenge. Right. That's what drives me when I come to work. And like you mentioned, watching the ZR1 reveal and that team and then coming in to work and seeing them parked in the garages and seeing it for the first time, you're just like, oh my god, this is so cool.

I would love to check one of those out in person one these days, whenever they start hanging the streets. That's one of those that's... I think I'm young enough to still add things to my dream car because that's up there. Right. And I know Dan's gagging over here, but I know I've been really quiet in this episode.

I just...

He's just not admitting that he was considering it too. He probably had a couple of moments like, okay, I can't ignore that now, but...

Well, that's the thing that...

As a car enthusiast, I want to drive a C8. I do like the Z06s and stuff like that. So yeah.

Have you driven a C8 yet?

I have not.

Oh, wow.

I've enjoyed it, yeah. I wish I got to rip it. Do you know what deceived me about that car? I got to drive my friend AJ's one. It was like a rental car or whatever, or like a sort of deal. But yeah, I liked almost everything about it. It was deceiving how fast it was for how, I shouldn't say how little, but relatively speaking, like it's still under 500 horsepower. And it's crazy how fast it was. The transmission definitely surprised me. I don't like being the passenger in most cars. That car didn't make me feel fun as a passenger, but I'm also a bigger guy too. So, you know, that doesn't help. But I really haven't... I was trying to rent one for a rally so Dan could drive it so we can, you know, swap keys, because I think it's a car that you have to drive. And that was just the stingray. I'm really itching to drive a Z06 just for obvious reasons, but I think we kind of ran away from the question though. What's your... I'm going to try to ask you in a different way. What's something that you absolutely dislike working on? Does anything come to mind? Any difficult challenges without giving away anything, but...

Honestly, I don't know. I never thought about that question, because like I said, everything I've worked on on the car, you always find a boundary or a limit. And then instantly as an engineer, you go into this, OK, well, how do I get around it? And then you find ways to get around it and you learn something new. And now that enables something else. I obviously, if I had to pick, I would say I love working on the chassis of the vehicles. To me, the chassis is, if I had to, all the cars that I own are have more chassis than power. They're not overpowered cars, right? I like having a car that has more chassis, more handling, more drivability than power. More drivable, more tossable. Now, does that mean I don't like power? No. I love, you know, you get in some cars and power is addicting, but chassis was always something that intrigued me, and I enjoyed it, right? So making sure the suspension's right, the brakes are right. And I think as someone who loves going to the track, I think those are the initial areas of consideration as well, right, for folks starting out on track days. Those are usually the systems where you start finding limits, right? Your brakes, you know, making sure you got proper brakes, tires, and yeah.

Would you say that, so when he asked you that question about what do you like working on the most, I would say for me, and this is kind of the vibe I'm getting from you, is it's what you're working on at that moment, right? So I get to a point where I'm like, all right, I'm concentrating on, we're working on springs, we're doing brakes right now. So I'm doing research, I'm looking things up, I'm excited about it, I get the parts in, bring in the world. Yeah, exactly. I'm tearing the car apart now, I'm into this, and I'm like, all right, cool. Now we're moving on to the next thing. So it's not that you have one thing you specifically like, it's what you're passionate about at that moment that you're working on it.

Yeah, that's a great way of putting.

Yeah, when you hit, when you drag those parts, you put them in your cart and you hit send or you hit buy, and you're like, okay, crap, they're on their way now. Here we go.

And it's ironic, Horace is asking me the question, and in my head, I'm seeing CAD spinning, I'm seeing the manufacturing, I'm seeing, you know, the parts, all the different, it's like flashing through your head, and you're like, yeah, that's a lot. I like a lot, right? A lot of cool stuff.

So, I guess, what was your kind of like, when you're in school, right? Because again, you have everything coming at you, right? Like, I don't think, like most people, like for example, like lawyers and doctors, they say the hardest part of their job was going through school, right? And then they get to the actual job, it's way easier. Like, oh, we're repairing this guy's hamstring, that's the easy part, but when you're in school, difficult, you know? So, was school like that as well for you? You mentioned the weeding classes, for example. Was there anything that was just kind of like difficult to learn, but it was just worthwhile? Because like, I feel like somebody that's a young guy now, they might be trying to like learn CAD in like high school and stuff. I mean, is there any of that kind of stuff that comes to mind?

That's an amazing question. And I'm going to take it somewhere where you probably didn't predict. Sure. The core classes, the reading classes, obviously you're looking for how can I apply this to something I like. In my case, cars. But what really got me going or opened up my mind was actually picking up tools and working on cars. And actually having to machine a part. It's so intimidating cutting metal, right? It's pretty permanent. Or grinding, right? So being able to apply CAD, CAE, finite element analysis and all of these things you learn in class, but you're actually not applying, you're just learning about them. But being able to actually now apply it and actually make something and see it come to real life, that was awesome. And I think that's where you start making a massive difference. You can design in CAD all you want, and in finite element analysis and think this looks awesome, this is the best, can't be made better. And then you go make the real part and you're like, wait a minute, should have done it this way or that way. Yeah. Right. Or you try to go put the parts together and you realize, oh, okay. And through experience as an engineer, you become more efficient at that, better, you learn more tools. You can almost predict it in your head too, ahead of time, right? Based on lessons learned or experiences before. I encourage folks that want to get into that to not just learn on paper or in the virtual world, but actually go apply, like pick up a tool, right? Learn how to cut a piece of metal or use a lathe or a mill, or grind a bar for a chassis and weld it together, right? That really starts making you better at what you do. I hope that made sense.

That made 100% sense. I'm currently thinking, I'm going to have a follow up question, but kind of like something to bring up is, one of the things for me is I'm trying to stockpile a little money so I can have a play fund, so I can actually put my hands on stuff to kind of apply all the things. Again, we've had so many intelligent guests that we've learned so many things from, especially if you go through our highlights, like in these 15 second bits, you can get years of knowledge, which is just crazy. So hopefully me and Dan can start applying some of that stuff here this winter. We'll see, we'll see what that looks like, but.

I've done a lot of making stuff, but I like, I literally have like a vice and a grinder and a welder, but like, I love watching the shows where the car builders and they're like, oh, you know what I need? I need this. And then they just go right over to a lathe or a, you know, a CNC machine. And then all of a sudden they have the part in their hand. Like that is amazing to me.

Well, and that's why that's how I looked at college. I guess in my mind is that they're trying to teach me what tools are available to me, right? Including theory, right? Math, physics, material, science, as general as possible. Yeah, they're trying to tell me, hey, there's certain materials for certain things. There's certain computer programs for certain things. Here's how you calculate some other basic things. But when you start working on a car, the other thing you start understanding is, for example, just doing your own oil change. Now you start going into like, oh, okay, well now you have to engineer for serviceability. I gotta get to the part. No one wants to own a car where you can't get to the oil sorter or the oil drain, right? So now you're like, okay, well, not only am I engineering for performance or a great car, I'm also engineering for a mechanic to be able to easily go and repair it or replace it or get to it, right? So it opens up a different aspect of how you design, how you engineer, but it's super critical and important, right?

I'm sure packaging is one of those difficult things too. That's got to be one of the most difficult things, right?

It is, it is, but it's one of the most fun things too, right?

Because when you look at some of these, especially when you look at German cars, it's like, oh my God, this is not intended for service ability at all. So yeah, that's got to be fun.

One thing that I've learned as you're going through some of this stuff too, I talk about like, I have an idea, I'm working on something, I'm like, oh, you know what? I need this. But my first thing is to go to the internet. Because sometimes it's there, it's available. I was like, God, if you had like a T-handled thing that would go here and then you Google it, like, oh s***, somebody's already made this, right? Somebody has been in the same situation I am in, and it's there.

One of the funniest memes I keep seeing is where they say, how are we able to repair cars before YouTube?

Yes, I would.

I am 100%.

People made more stuff, I'm sure. Yeah, now I can Google it. Somebody else has made it and I can order it.

Same, yeah.

Do you have a continued education? Because I'm sure you're constantly learning on the job. You constantly have fresh talent coming in with younger engineers that are coming out of college. I mean, I'm sure it's a little bit more than Google, how to do this, right?

Yeah. Look, the world's progressing in all areas, right? Technology, everything. And the new generation is teaching new methods, right? They're learning new methods. They're being taught new methods, methods that some of the folks in the industry developed, right? But they learn and see them different way and take them to different lengths, right? So who would have thought that folks would be making 3D printed car parts back when I was a young engineer, right? It was being talked about, right? But start experimenting. You look now at what companies are doing with 3D printed components or even different manufacturing methods, right? It's awesome. So it's refreshing to be around new talent. It's refreshing to be around folks that have a lot of experience, know how, because they learn through their mistakes, right? And a group of that diversity is super important, right? You bring in a new, you bring in lessons learned and you bring that together, something else happens. Something else comes up, right? Innovation is important. Progress is important. And if you look at the cars, you know, you were talking the Corvette is under 500 horsepower. I remember when I was growing up, 250, 300 was like, Oh my God, like, holy moly, right? Am I ever going to drive something like that? You mentioned the Viper, right? 400 horsepower, you're like, Oh my goodness, right? 400 horsepower? Now I have a stick shift Cadillac with 472, right? It's awesome.

Yeah. And now Vipers are 3000 horsepower. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, no, that's literally in my backyard, we have the shop that makes the fastest Vipers in the world. Like I hear them, you know, just a few miles up the road every once in a while. So I'm very familiar with that. But so is there anybody that was kind of like a mentor to you along all this? Or is there anybody that you kind of looked up to? Like whether it was in the industry or somebody that was like either next to you or somebody just like, even if you like look at like the internet, was there anybody that just kind of like alert you?

That's a great question. Yes. I've had a lot of mentors through my life. I like to think of them as mentors.

Yeah, sometimes they don't even know they were, you know?

Exactly, right? Obviously, in the automotive industry, growing up, you know, reading the car magazines, seeing some of the executives or chief engineers, they were on some of these cool programs. That was inspiring. And then meeting people in the industry was inspiring. When I was at TRW, it was a great company. I had great leaders around me, folks that just inspired me, motivated me to grow and learn. But YouTube, social media was kind of starting to happen around that, you know, before 2010.

Right.

And as I mentioned, that's when I started seeing some of the GM performance team members doing awesome stuff. And I got to meet them through Formula SAE or just being in, you know, in college and going to SAE dinners and parties, interacting with them, meeting some of the Ford folks, starting to work on the new Mustangs, running into Ralph Gilles at the racetrack. Right. But when I joined General Motors, I was very surprised. And again, I'm not trying to, you know, blow smoke because I work there or I'm biased. I was very surprised how open the leadership was in investing in talent, how passionate everybody was. And every leader I worked with became a mentor of sorts. And they actually cared about what I enjoyed or what I did outside. They all knew I loved, you know, track days and was into cars. And they were feeding that curiosity. And I remember the first time I saw SS108 Camaro, I saw it on a forum. Somebody took a picture of a gentleman, a colleague at GM that had one of the early company cars, Quality. And I didn't know him at that time. And I just randomly pinged him on the company Skype or Instant Messenger. He's like, hey, you don't know me. I really like this vehicle. It's really cool. There'd be any chance I can get Keith to want just to try it out. I might be thinking, oh yeah, come see me here. I'm sitting over here. And I was like, wow. And running into team members in the performance world at General Motors, yes, I run into a lot of mentors. And then being able to work with them was just it was just awesome. Right. And pours fuel on the fire, right. It's you go feeds that curiosity you have. And you mentioned the leaders, right. The top level leadership working for a company that is passionate. Obviously, that brings certain pride and joy to come to work every day. Right.

Yeah.

I mean, it certainly trickles down. Right. Like, it is a top down thing. And I've seen this, again, even from the people we've had on this podcast, some of the more successful people, that leadership energy trickles down, you know, for better or for worse. So that makes sense. And I know we're kind of just going on a little tangent of like, kind of like your career and such here. So what about kind of like the extracurriculars? Like when you do track stuff and all that, you don't really do a ton of autocross. That's not really your thing. So you do primarily road course. So what's your favorite tracks around here then?

So I love a local track here around Grand Rapids area. It's called Grattan Raceway. It's surrounded by beautiful nature. And it's a infield pit. So you actually have to cross the front straightaway to get into the infield. And that's where everyone stages. So it gives you this awesome perspective. You're inside the track. So you get to see a lot of it. It has some awesome corners, elevation. And I consider that my favorite track here. It's close by. I know every inch of it. I've been tracking there now for 20, 21 years. I love seeing it change, resurface, resurfacing happening. And I still run into folks I tracked with 20 years ago. So it feels like a camaraderie. I'm familiar with the track, the owners. I'm comfortable there. I know the facilities. I know where the best spots are for camping, hotels, restaurants, you name it. But I was also fortunate enough to experience quite a few awesome racetracks around the USA. And there are some awesome racetracks out there, right? When you get to those pro level tracks, that's like mid-Ohio. I remember the first time I showed up to mid-Ohio, I was like, wow. Okay, this is a big boy track, right? I believe the weekend before I went, MotoGP was racing there.

Right, yeah.

Right? So they lay these curbs that are super flat but wide. I've never been on a racetrack where half your car is over the curb.

Yeah.

Right? So now, like, okay, I got to go attack and hit these curbs, right? To get the best lap time. That was awesome.

Yeah, you just don't want to bend the wheel on them.

Are we going to bring that up every time this weekend?

Yeah, Dan doesn't like curbs.

You push the limits of your car. Like, I'm sorry, but if you're out, if you haven't gone off track a little bit or something, you're not pushing it hard enough.

You haven't found the limit.

No, absolutely not. No, I go, okay, I'm in the grass. That's where that limit's at. Let's dial her back a little bit next time. As long as you stay out of the wall, that's the big thing.

Have you ever met a wall?

I have met an Armco once, and I've met another car once, but luckily, knock on wood, no wood here, nothing ever major. I don't have a trailer. I never trailer my cars. So I always drive my cars, even my Camaro. It's got nothing inside, not even a dash.

Yeah, it seems very comfortable.

Yeah. I put a lot of miles on him, but I never had anything terrible happen, and I believe the reason is I am there. I love how track days are ran, right? A lot of these folks that run track days, you know, they remind you you're there to have fun. You're not going to leave at a championship. No one's going to give you a payday or something. You're there to have fun. You're there to develop your driving skill, but you're also there to learn your car. So luckily, you know, nothing ever made you happen.

We say that all the time when we talk about track days and stuff, that if anybody's intimidated or whatever, it's not like that at all. I've never seen anybody being teased or anything. Even the guys that crash leave there with a smile, which is crazy.

Or a blown motor or anything.

Yeah, right? I mean, it's like...

Most guys, we should say.

That blipshift shirt with the guy on the fire holding the steering wheel. But it's still a better day than being at work or somewhere. Exactly. Track days are the best days.

Yeah, your worst track day is still better than your best work day, I guess.

Yeah.

What do you use to... So you said you like to collect a lot of data while you're out on the track. What do you use for a tracking system or data? What are you using?

So being in the industry, I obviously get to see what the industry uses. And you've heard of V-Boxes, Race Technology, DL-1s. You go to SCCA events, right? A lot of the folks in the industry, they're also racing SCCA. So, you know, they use similar data acquisition. So the Camaro is an older vehicle. It doesn't have integrated data acquisition like my Blackwing. Same with the Corvette. So I used to use a Race Technology DL-1. It's a box with its own gyro and its own sensors and a GPS antenna. But you can also connect it to your OBD port and get some vehicle data. Right. Okay. It was easier to do with the earlier cars that didn't have all the cyber security protection, etc. So you could see how you're steering, how you're smashing the throttle, or are you actually squeezing it, applying it correctly? Are you smashing the brake pedal, or are you being smooth with the car? And that really helped me. But learning how to use that tool is difficult, right? Yeah. So you talk about mentors and folks, right? General Motors has programs to develop young engineers, and one of them was a performance driving team, right? Where like-minded engineers just outside of work hours, we had Camaros, 6th gen Camaros at that time, and we go out across them, right? So we're learning about the cars, we're learning about how to work on them, and how to use data acquisition. So I was exposed to folks that are drivers and test engineers at work, and they taught me how to utilize that data to become better, just like how they utilize that data to be engineer better product, but also become better drivers. And that took my driving to a different level. Then more modern things came out, including the cell phone, right? You can go buy a $10, $20 app, and you still get a ton of data. And now in the industry, General Motors developed a system called Performance Data Recorder that has a camera, utilizes your center screen to display video afterwards, but it also downloads all the vehicle data. It's a General Motors system, so you can put it on an SD card, and partner it with Cosworth, Cosworth's data acquisition in Motorsports. And now you as a consumer can purchase a vehicle with that. Take your SD card. If you go look in my Blackwing, there's an SD card slot, there's a camera by the rear view mirror, and it records all the vehicle data. There is a free app to download when you purchase your car. You just punch the VIN in. You get this free cost word app. And you can compare laps, traces, speed, RPM. You can look at the health of your vehicle, tire pressure, engine temperature, coolant, oil, Gs, right? It just opened up a whole different world, right?

That's crazy. That's so much.

And think about it. If you buy a performance vehicle, you know, you have a GT 500. That's a little intimidating.

Yeah.

You know, almost 800 horsepower car on street tires. How do you learn to drive that?

Yeah.

So now offering the customer a learning tool that's part of the vehicle to help you develop, that's awesome, right? So that's what I have in my Blackwing. I use our performance data. I use the General Motors performance data recorder in the vehicle to develop there.

Yeah, no, it's exactly, it's very important collecting that data. So I was recommended by another shop that they track. I mean, they've got miles and miles of time at Road America. And they told me to get a Garmin catalyst. I picked it up, immediately changed my driving style. It gives you so much stuff you can look at. Harris and I reviewed footage and it was like next day, I'm out six seconds faster. So I don't have any cool stuff integrated into the car, but it helps tremendously.

But what I loved about it is the other aspect of data acquisition was, how do I improve my car?

Yeah.

Where did I hit the limit, right? So that's the other thing about data acquisition that got me really interested. For many, many years on my resume, I used to stay at a lap time at Grattan, my favorite racetrack. And on my resume, I would say, hey, I bought a vehicle, I'm doing this lap time, and my goal is to lower it this much, right? As an engineer. And I loved that. I loved looking at the data and first of all saying, okay, where can I improve as a driver? But then also say, okay, where is the car struggling, right? And I don't have unlimited budget, where do I want to go spend my money to go get the most lap time improvement or performance improvement.

That's foreshadowing, by the way.

I love that challenge, right? And if you think about it, they kind of go back to like the Gran Turismo days when we were younger.

The Gran Turismo too, man.

You start out earning money and you're like, well, what do I go spend it, right? Yeah. What do I spend it to go beat my friend's lap time or go faster than him, right? So I love that. I think it's a cool aspect that I love using in my, on my hobby too. And I go back to my comment. That's where I find a lot of joy of being able to outsmart, out engineer somebody, get a car that everyone thinks is slow and having them come and look at it. Like, what did you do to it? Like, how is this car passing me, right? And something that's more horsepower is supposed to be faster, right? I love that. It gives me so much joy.

Yeah.

Does anybody come to mind? Like, I guarantee you, there's got to be a face or a car you're thinking of.

I don't want to say it were on the podcast. I don't want to hurt his feelings, but you know, that when the Shelby 350 came out, I was like, oh, here we go.

Yeah.

Here we go, right? So having a fifth gen SS1LE, and then having GT350 owners give you the point buy and then come back like, wait a minute.

Yeah.

This doesn't add up, right?

No, my favorite is any Porsche out there.

Oh, GT3, are you kidding me? Yeah. I tracked my Cadillac, too, and when I took it out a few times, one of my favorites moments was with a GT3 owner, which I know, I know it's an awesome car. I know they're not pushing it to the limits, right? It's not, and not trying to be rude about it or rude to them, but when they come over and they're like, man, so that V8, 700 horsepower, right? And I'm like, no, this is the V6. And they're like, wait, what? And I'm like, yeah, this is the 470 horsepower. And then they look inside and they see the stick shift and they're like, that's a stick shift car, right? And I just love that. I get so much joy out of that, right? And they're like, I can't believe I see a Cadillac, Black Cadillac in my rear-view mirror, and I got to let them buy, right? That's awesome, right?

I cannot wait to tell you. People will eventually know there's a little project me and Dan are working on that is of similar caliber. It's like underdog story or whatever. It's like there's something to be said about when you could just outdo someone like that. I mean, what's the V6 make? You said 400s?

472 horsepower.

Right. And when you catch up to a GT3 that's 1,000 pounds lighter, 1,500 pounds lighter, there's something to be said, which granted, those are very capable cars.

In a Cadillac though, all of the creature comforts and all that stuff, it's different than a stripped down 1LE, right?

And a lot of folks always say, well, why didn't you go buy a 06, or why didn't you go buy the CT5 for your Blackwing? It's like, if I pass somebody in one of those, everybody's like, well, yeah, okay, you got something to horsepower, right?

Right.

Right. Yeah, I love that underdog story, right?

That's fair.

We've got a friend of ours that does insane things with an FR-S. We have 190 horsepower. And I'm like, my god, man. But I got to ride along with him at a track thing one time. And he asked if he could drive my car afterwards. I'm like, no way. Not after I just rode with you in that thing. My god.

Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the FR-S, right? You look at it on paper. It's like less than 200 horsepower, 200 horsepower, but you give it to someone that's capable and they touch just the right components. And you're on the track with them, and you're like, what in the world is happening?

Yeah.

Right? How's this computing? Or the story of Miata's, right? You give someone a properly set up Miata and see what they're able to do with it. It's cool, right?

Yeah. I don't think I've ever been to a track day that it wasn't at least one or two Miata's out there. And again, they're smiling from ear to ear, man. And they're doing cool things with them.

Yeah, he wants to find, he was trying to buy him in a three pack for a little while there. Cause all of us were just looking at Miata's, but what do you have for coilovers in the 1LE?

So I don't have coilovers on it right now. What I do have is the Multimatic Z28 Dampers. I don't know if you've heard of Multimatic company. Multimatic.

Yep, well I'm familiar.

Yeah, very involved in motorsports and cool components. So those are the dual spool valve dampers that came on the 5th gen Z28 project. But I do have aftermarket springs, those lowering springs because my weight is so much less. If I use the stock springs, it looks like a pickup. So I had to do a custom setup. Coil overs is the next aspiration. It's where I want to go. And I can't tell you how many Excel sheets I have that measure cost to performance ratio, cost to weight ratio, trying to figure out who to go with, which is why I love PRI. Every time I go to PRI, kind of go with a little cheat sheet of like, okay, what am I looking for, right? What's the next upgrade I want to learn a lot about and talk to some of these folks about?

Who are the top contenders for coil overs? Are you looking at like Viking, Olin sort of deal or?

You know, K&W, Olin, Penske. You know, Viking does some cool custom stuff, right? Ride Tech, I mean, you name it. The more you look into one company, the more you find out there's others. They're cool, right? And then you're like, okay, now it's like, maybe I'll start looking at the used market, see who's selling like a barely, you know, used set for a good price.

Oh, I do that all the time. I, I want this. Let's hit marketplace and see what's out there.

Marketplace, right? You get a list and you're like, let me see if I see some on the marketplace. So sometimes that makes the decision too, right? If I find some, that's a great deal. Go with that, try it out. If I don't like it, I always sell it. And that's one thing I loved about Camero. Everything I bought for it, I was able to sell back. Yeah, you lose a little bit of money here and there. Right.

You're just renting stuff for the time.

Renting.

How much weight have you cut out of the car?

Getting close to 600 pounds.

Wow.

Yeah. And last winter was a major tear up where I actually decided to start cutting into body metal. So I cut out the entire trunk. And riveted it with an aluminum sandwich panel. Yeah, just wherever I see a little bit of opportunity, go research it. And my goal is to get it into the 33, 300 pound curb weight, full fuel. It was around 3,900 pounds new, a little bit over it.

Holy s***.

And I just measured it last week. I grabbed some scales from a friend and I was at 34, 30. So I'm getting there, right? So as things break, as things wear out, I'll go to that list of things I looked at and maybe upgrade and go from there.

So you're saying you could take that much weight out of a car. Okay, just make the mental notes.

It's on the stock motor, factory motor. I started tracking over a thousand miles. It has 27,000 miles right now.

That's probably a lot of track too.

Yeah, and it was amazing how much faster the car became with just mass, tire, right suspension, right brakes, right seats. It was just amazing how much performance it opened up.

I got mine's the carbon track pack and I...

Oh wow, that's awesome.

Yeah, well I put the rear seat back in it because my kids, I have four kids, they love it. For me, the weight savings isn't as much as like looking in the rear rear mirror and seeing them smiling back there. I mean, I don't take them on the track with me, but...

Well, one inch take.

Yeah, Roland got to go on a roll race event we were doing, but that's one of those deals where it's like no helmet, no nothing. They're just kind of...

Parade laps.

Yeah, exactly.

Oh, I mean, so we have an event in Minnesota called Power Cruise, and what that event is, so we have one of the longest streets in the country, right? And then we have basically two long streets, a short one and then a long one. And then the rest of the lap is a parade lap, but for those two streets, you hit the cones and you punch it. It's just like a roll race, you know, like 30, 40 miles an hour. And by the end of the long one, you're doing what? About...

I was getting into flirting with 160. I was at 150-ish, is that by the time I come into that long straight.

Yeah, and it's just like a roll race event, you know, it's literally down the drag strip, right? So it's super cool, but I still have no idea how they do no helmets at that event.

It gets intense.

I mean, it's fun, but you'll literally see people, like in Audi RS3s that are packed five deep, and they're just... I mean, wow! Yeah, there was a few of those moments on track. That's a fun one, though. A lot of people make it out for that one. That's a fun event, but it can get interesting. This last one had quite a few crashes, though. So that was rough.

Yeah, so I'll tell you, one area that completely surprised me, and it shouldn't, shouldn't... Give me anything with wheels or something, mountain bikes, anything. I just want to go fast, right? But coming from Eastern Europe, pick up trucks and stuff, or, you know, were non-existent. So I was never into trucks, never really drove trucks even growing up here. But through work, I started experiencing trucks, performance trucks and the off-road environment. And that blew my mind too.

Yeah.

Right. I grew up my entire life, motor sports, road racing, motocross, into that. And I enjoyed rallying. Right. WRC was always kind of cool, right. But hard to do. But getting into off-road. Now I'm having a massive itch to go get an off-road truck and enjoy the sand dunes and some off-roading.

So I'm going to go get a Bronco.

I was fortunate enough to to work on some off-road projects. OK. I was fortunate enough to experience Broncos. Really cool. Very capable. But I'm really digging the small, mid-size Chevy Colorado Bisons that just came out. And having driven that off-road a little bit, oh, man, just the new trucks are becoming so big, right? So large, you can't really take them to some of the off-road, you know, tight spaces, places. But that mid-size Colorado Bison, then I have a proper plan on how to convince my wife to purchase one of those next. So I need to add that to the stable. And then hopefully I can finally start towing the Camaro to track days and get more weight out of that that way, right?

So I have a solution for him. Yeah, you can get something that can tow all of those. And it's a very capable vehicle for about $6,000. And it's called a Porsche Cayenne. You can get to bring that up again. That's been hot on my sections.

I'll tell you, because we dabble in off-road stuff too. My wife daily drives a 7.3 Excursion diesel. Okay. I have a super duty truck. We've got a couple Broncos side by side. So it's like, but that part of motor sports is more family friendly, right? I mean, we have an RV and the kids and the wife, everybody comes to the track with us. But then when I'm out on the track and experiencing this, they have to watch from the sidelines and we're hanging out afterwards and it's fun.

It was miserable.

But when you get everybody in the, you can put everybody in the truck. You know, you can go on the off road trails. You're not going super fast. You're going to have this way. It's a little more exciting.

The reason I got reminded of the off road is you're talking about events without helmets, right? And that's one thing that blew my mind is you go into these off road events and you see what people are doing without helmets and you're like, whoa. Yeah, like, wait, so I agree with you, it's family friendly, but the trucks are becoming just off of dealership showrooms. The capability of some of these trucks is so immense.

Yeah.

Well, even if you look at the Hummer EV, they had all this crab walking and all that stuff, which granted we had a conversation about that on our last podcast. But yeah, you're just seeing all these like, or if you look at the Raptor or the TRX, like you get these Baja modes and all that. Like it's just, it's really impressive what you're able to get out of a stock car legally, sometimes too. So it's definitely very fun. Yeah.

To be continued with off-road, right? I'm hoping, fingers crossed.

Yeah. Well, that's what I'm saying. It's a family affair. Yeah.

Well, you don't even have to get crazy with it too. I mean, you could do stuff like, you know, like mild lifts and whatever. Like it doesn't have to be like anything crazy, especially if you're just going to like the sand dunes or whatever.

I was gonna say, you guys got dunes here, don't you? Experiencing West Michigan, I always knew we had dunes there, but I never connected the dots until I got the experience. And it blew my mind how awesome it is, right? Sand dunes, just take, you want to hit that? Go hit it. You want to go up that thing? Go up that sand dune. You want to jump your truck? Why not?

Jump your truck.

It's like, man, this is awesome. It's like Disney port, right?

Right, absolutely.

Like let's go. There's nothing to be said about jumping a truck, too. I've been around a few TRXs that have jumped. It's a sight to see, a flying car.

It's an interesting experience, since I do. I remember my first jump, right? It's, you know how heavy the object around you is? And never having been in a truck, you're expecting an accident landing, and it like lands and takes it, and you're like, whoa.

Yeah.

That's awesome. I want to do that again, right?

So I guess as we kind of wind down here, right? I guess when you kind of like reflect on your career and everything you've kind of done, is there anything that comes to mind that you've kind of been most proud of? That's a loaded question, I know.

It is loaded. I'll be honest with you. I was just happy to be in the industry as an engineer, and being able to support, start a family, support a family, finally start making money and starting a life. I just enjoyed being in the industry. I didn't have these crazy aspirations. And as I started getting more and more involved, just being curious and willing to have an open mind, listen to other people, team members, mentors, and realizing what you can achieve with a team like-minded, I feel very fortunate. I feel blessed to have had the experience. If someone would have asked me 20 years ago, hey, you're going to work on brands like Cadillac and work on badges like V-Series, and magazines are going to write praise about your car or the lap time it ran at Lightning Lap or something, I would have been like, oh, I'm not sure I will attain that, right? And when you ask me, am I proud of? I'm proud of it all, to be honest with you. And my fire is burning even more now than before. Twenty years in the industry, my curiosity is just still spiking, and I still want to learn more. I'm also super proud to have turned it into, to turn a lifestyle that I enjoyed, being an automotive enthusiast, right? To be able to turn it into a profession, but still love that hobby, right? I think you and I were talking about it. Folks used to say like, oh, make sure you don't work on your hobby. It's gonna make you hate it. Didn't happen, complete opposite, right? It just made my hobbies even better. My friendships, my network, everything got better around it, right? So embracing it fully, super proud of that. I feel blessed, right?

Where do you see yourself going in the future? Is there a job you're gunning for over there or is there?

Is there?

I'm super intrigued by the new challenges, right? Especially for us performance enthusiasts. So when you say, is there a job I'm gunning for? Obviously I'm gunning for applying what I learned in the previous experiences. Cause I know I could, I know I could have contributed better in certain ways and maybe reached a different level of performance on the product. You learn from your mistakes and how to apply it now. How do we car enthusiasts, folks with that passion, go into this new change into electric vehicles, into hybrids, into fuel cell, you name it, and not lose that passion, right? I think there's a big concerns in the market that the EVs are not as fun. I can tell you right now, all my cars are manual. And I had my doubts. And when I started experiencing products, those doubts were erased. Right? So I'm excited what the future has to hold in my career. Right? On being part of an industry that's going to define the future of automotive enthusiasm is awesome.

Right? I will say every time, if you look at the history of the automotive industry, every time the government is throwing a curve ball at it, they've dipped, dived and come out stronger and better on the other side.

Yeah, it's interesting you say that. Right? That's true. And hopefully I'll still have the opportunity to, right? I'm still interested. I want to keep going. I want to keep working on cool vehicles. Like I mentioned, I just, my mind opened up to trucks and off road as well. I didn't expect that. Now it's open to the new electric vehicle propulsion and, and, you know, other technologies. I mentioned chassis, something I love to work on. I remember early 2000s, we used to talk about active suspensions and active suspensions, like fully active, right? Them moving on their own, or adaptive suspension technologies. And you look at the suspension and chassis technology out there in the field. Oh my God. So, it's so exciting. So cool, right? You were talking about Multimatic, right? You were talking about all of these amazing suppliers, right? From all over coming up with this cool technology. The Blackwing has the MR dampers, right? A magnetic fluid. You can control the viscosity or the dampening in it. That's so exciting, right? When I was a young engineer, those were kind of ideas, right? Concepts. So seeing what folks come out with and how they keep pushing technology is just awesome.

Yeah. It is something that's crazy. So I think about every time I get in my car and I drive it, I drive it to the track. I mean, I trailer it sometimes, but I go there and then you get in the in the staging lane and you flip it to track. And now it's a whole other animal.

Launch control.

Yeah, this whole thing just went from just I drove it here to now it's a beast. Here we go. The suspension adjusts on its own. Everything changes.

Yeah. One piece of hardware on my Blackwing that blew my mind is, I don't know if you've ever experienced their electronic limited slip differential, right? In the ELSD, as they call.

Yep.

I've never tracked on ELSDs, right? Even just having an LSD on some cars with a limited slip differential was like, whoa, right? Having a Torsen or a clutch type was like, whoa, that's an upgrade. And then you get into a car with an ELSD and you smash the throttle coming out of corners and the car just turns perfect, puts the power down perfect, blows your mind. And now it opens up a different level of how you drive, how you approach the car. It's awesome.

Yeah.

When did they start applying that, the ELSD? Is there any other cars that it's in?

I don't think the GT500 even has, I think it's still Torsen.

It started being applied, I believe, I might be mistaken. The C7 Corvette, ETS-V, CTS-V and the Camaros even had a sixth gen Camaros. So it was being applied around, what I want to say, 2014 and up, maybe. Somewhere around that time, right? So, and obviously there's been improvement and learning some industry about them, right? So the Corvette C8 has an ELSD now too, so.

Well, I think we're going to see more and more like electric, I'm going to butcher the word, electrification of different things as we kind of go forward. Like for example, I think Porsche is like playing around with like electric turbos and stuff like that or something like that.

How cool are those?

Yeah, just stealing stuff from that F1.

Do you remember Gran Turismo 1, 2, and you get to see your horsepower curve and you go slap that big turbo and it doesn't kick in to like 7,000 RPM? Right, and now they got these electric turbos and you got these two liter, four cylinder engines making over 400 horsepower. Turbo lag, virtually eliminated, right with that technology.

Especially going forward too, like then when you start combining like weird hybrid systems and all that, like I really enjoyed the, I think it was engineering explained again on the Temerario video. Like how is it that they're using the turbos in what instances and combining it with the hybrid in this way? And then now you have this torque curve. Torque filling, yeah, it's just.

Torque filling and all of that. It's awesome.

It's just ridiculous.

I'm a mechanical engineer. When I went to engineering school, I see wires. I walked the other way, right? If it can't kill me, but I can't see it, I was like, nope, no, thank you, right? But being in the industry, learning more about it, the word electrification, you start realizing the cool things you can do with it and. And. Realizing the limitations of technologies and how that can come in, all of the stuff we just talked about, it's exciting, right? Opens new frontiers. And as I mentioned, what a time to be a automotive enthusiast, right? From your used car market to your new car market, the options, oh my God. Right?

Yeah, can you imagine it was 1974 right now? That was like the worst ever. Like that mid 70s, the late 70s was a rough time for anything automotive.

Yeah.

Well, sweet on that note, Dan. Do you want to pop the usual three?

Yeah, we'll see how many of these are GMs. They're gonna all be it, but I'm sure. All right, so at the end of every episode, we like to ask our guests to pick three cars. You can have a daily driver, a track car and a show car. You can swap whatever you want. You have an unlimited budget. What are you gonna pick?

I love the three pick with three of my cars in the back.

I know, I was thinking like you really have all those right there.

It's literally if you ask and you ended it with the unlimited budget, that opens up a lot of terms.

Remember when I said foreshadowing earlier?

Yeah, but honestly, that's how I approach this stuff, right? I have a daily driver in the Blackwing, the Corvette's kind of the show car, the awesome car, the Camaro is that track monster, right? That's how I built them. Unlimited budget, oh man.

They can't hear you right now, it's fine. Yeah.

Obviously, some of these high-end hypercars, as they call them, come to mind, right? And instantly the ZR1 comes to mind too. I always had a niche for a convertible or something with the roof off, so a spider type of car, which, you know, with the ZR1, you can pop that roof. I enjoy Aston Martins. There's something about Aston Martins in the design language and, you know, seeing the Valkyrie come out. That's a pretty awesome vehicle. Tough question, man. It's that question everybody's asked forever in the career. Right, if you win the Lotto, what do you buy?

Which one are you gonna start with?

Daily driver, I'd say I'd get a manual CT5V Blackwing.

Okay, not an Escalade V?

No.

Okay.

I'm that CT5V Blackwing manual, max it out, get one of those special editions. Probably the newly announced Precision Package that just came out for a track car. I'm a big fan of the English Formula One designers, right? So Gordon Murray, now Adrian Newey, is building that monster Red Bull.

Did you read his book, by the way?

I did, I loved that book. I read that book in a day.

I think it was like three or four days for me.

Yeah, it was that awesome. So, unlimited budget, I'd probably go for one of those track only specials, like the Valkyrie or the RB or the T50 Gordon.

Which ones are they gonna be though?

The Nicky.

Okay.

I'd pick the T50 Nicky edition. That's cool. Fan car. That's awesome, right? Unique, light.

It's the first time someone's said that one on this show.

Yeah, I mean, that thing weighs like nothing.

It's also the first person that you've asked if they read that book that said yes.

No, Andre Simon. He read it.

Did he?

Yeah.

Okay.

Several times.

How to build a race car is what you know.

How to build a car, yeah.

Adrian knew his book. Yeah. So, we got the daily driver. We got the, oh man, I missed the off-road part. I went off-road truck so bad.

I know, I was waiting for a truck.

So, daily driver, track car and what else? Show car?

A show car, yep.

A show car? Show car. I was never into show cars, really, man. I always wanted to go driving, but, oh man, show car.

Resto modded up.

Show car. I would have to pick...

This is like the car that you take your wife to get ice cream with, you know, that kind of car.

I would have to pick a properly pro touring made 69 Camaro.

Okay.

Classic Americana, crazy power, those lines, that look mixed with the pro touring, the new culture, yeah.

Something with a Schwartz chassis in it and an IT in it or something.

And now I'm seeing 69 Camaro, and then I'm thinking like an awesome AC Cobra, something too, right? But it would have to be old classic Americana pro touring build.

So which one is it?

I'd go with the 69 Camaro. It just looks so nice, man.

Okay.

Yeah.

We saw one on, I think it was yesterday on 94.

Yeah. You know what's funny? I've seen that exact car in a trailer before a few years ago. I'm telling you, the exact same car. Like it was probably somewhere around here. I think, I don't know if it was winter or what. I'm telling you, I wish I had a photo. I probably have a photo of it somewhere. Yeah. This is a little side tangent, but I'm telling you, I've seen that car.

It's a challenging question, man. Right? Because as an automotive enthusiast, you spend your whole life like, if I won the lotto, what would I buy? I always joke with my friends. I think it would take me maybe three days to spend a hundred million bucks.

Yeah. My dad says the same thing.

And half of it would be cars, right?

That hundred million would be 100% cars, right? The rest we'll figure out later. So, yeah, yeah.

Like I buy a racetrack and a car.

Well, on that note, then, I'm not sure, you're not very active on social media, though. Are you? Where can people find you?

I'm not that active on social media. Only reason I am active on things like Facebook is marketplace so I can sell and buy for my cars. Yeah.

Well, sweet. Well, that covers that. And then, Dan?

You can find us at Gunna Garage. Trying to do cool stuff. Busy guy.

Yeah.

You see me at the local tracks or something full free say hi.

Yeah. Gunna Garage with two ends. That's why he's staring me down.

Well, sweet. You guys made it this far into the episode. Thank you very much for watching and tuning in and listening and whatever else you do. Highlights everything. Mirza, thank you very much for making this happen.

Thank you. Pleasure meeting you guys.

Yeah, dude.

We will get along.

It's been awesome coming out here. This is my first time in the Motor City area for real. Last time I came in for 20 minutes, we picked up a car and left. But only flew in. So I love the tour.

Can I say one thing that, and again, we're in GM company here. So I will say this is the most comfortable I've ever been during a podcast.

Dude.

Awesome.

It is.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Sitting in some Camaro seats. Yeah. Okay, you know what? Before we end this podcast, can you please explain to me why is, how are car seats so comfortable? Like there's gonna be some special engineering. Like is it, can you answer that question whatsoever?

I wish I could go back to that question you asked about, what is the thing you like to work on the most? Because I never worked on seats, and now seats have become such a massive passion of mine, haven't worked on it. Because you're right, the engineering on it is amazing.

You're not just sticking some memory foam in there, I'm guessing, right?

Oh my God, if you took that seat apart and you saw what makes up a seat, oh yeah. And the complexity, it's crazy.

It's gotta keep you safe, they have airbags, they got heat sometimes, cooling, they gotta move back and forth, massaging sometimes.

Yeah, and then on our performance seats, it's gotta hold you in problems.

Yeah.

Right, but it's extensive engineering, hardcore engineering and understanding the human body, the different shapes and yeah, a lot of working on seats. It's another passion of mine. You see even my Corvette has aftermarket carbon seats, my Camaro's got aftermarket seats, my Blackwing's got the optional track seats.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, let's check that out afterwards here. Well, perfect. Well, thank you very much for coming on.

Thank you. Awesome meeting you.

Dan, thanks for existing and we'll see you all next time.