213. C8 ZR1 Impressions, Drag Racing A Gremlin, and 26 Years In The Car Business w/ Colton Ray

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Monoxide Podcast. I'm your host, Harris, aka monoxide man of many automotive aspirations. And today we're doing an episode that I've been wanting to do for quite some time.

Colton Ray I think we met by a year or two ago. Time flies at this point, but I'm going to give you one title that nobody else on the show has. You're the first person that somebody that my dad's recommended to have on the show. Oh that's awesome. Yeah, it was kind of funny. I was like, yeah, who's this Colton guy?

And he's like, oh, that's the guy you got to have on. That's a car guy. I'm like, all right. Sure, dad. Whatever. And I did some digging and I'm like, oh, this guy, this guy knows what's up.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

How did you get to where we're at today?

Unknown

When I was a kid. My dad was a mechanic. I worked on cars all his life. Worked at Nissan, got me a job there, cleaning cars when I was 15. And the minute I could drive, you know, cars have been my focus. They're my passion and my hobby, and I love everything about them. So I suppose it starts like, how do we get to the gremlins?

Right? Because like you and your dad, like, for example, the AMC products, I think he just always had a love for unique automobiles. And that was a neat car. I remember the first gremlin, one of the gremlins he has now, which is his purple blown AMC Gremlin. It's a pro street car. That was a race car. I think he bought that around when I was ten years old, had it repainted, built the engine, raced it at Grove Creek, which is an eighth mile dragstrip out west of the Metro in Minnesota.

Are they done for the season, by the way? I haven't I don't know, the race schedule. Yeah. I haven't done much racing this year. It's been busy with work, but I've been still having a lot of fun with cars this year. But that car he brought to the track multiple times broke the crank, and then that car kind of sat disassembled for many years as he rebuilt the engine to a very high degree.

But so AMC's unique cars just I think the anything off the beaten track is, is interesting to me and probably to my dad. On the other side, he was into Dodson's being a Nissan mechanic, but growing up with Dodson's, he, you know, we like anything from cars that can take a left and right. And once I can go fast in a straight line, well, that's a good point.

That is very unique when it comes to your taste. Like for the people that are listening, like, you know, you got the Porsche on one side and you got the ZR1 on the other, two very different cars. Yeah. Well, first, they're both twin turbo. Okay. Sure. Similarities. They both have two doors. They're both have ceramic brakes. Okay.

They both have a front engine in the rear, I should say a proper way. Yeah. Useless frunk on that one. But you can't put anything in there. I think there might be a cubby, but is that frunk more useful than the Porsche? I yeah, marginally. Okay. Yeah, marginally. I mean, there is nothing under that except heat exchangers.

But yeah, back to the I like unique cars. I like anything that has an engineering personality to it. I like cars that are maybe the the underdog. Okay, maybe not the typical you know, I guess that is a Corvette. A lot of people have corvettes. But this is this is a unique Corvette. But anything unique from an engineering standpoint has always drawn drawn my attention.

I always I also really like cars that represent great value. So where there's probably cars with more prestige, I focus really on performance has probably been a been an underlying theme on all my cars. I had a when Fast and Furious came out, I had a 246 coupe I early I think it was like a 93 coupe, you know, flat back, not the hatchback.

And my first modification was can I get an Sr20 into that car really? Yeah, I had I had that turbocharged I had an Sr20 debt in that car in 2000.

Four probably when I was 19. So it was pretty close to when the movie came out and I did to my I think that's how you pronounce her. I had upgraded cams and valve training and ported head and a big precision turbo on it. Top mount turbo when precision turbos were just starting out. Yeah. That was those are the early days of precision.

Yeah, yeah, I still think it was 68, so I can't remember the size of it. It was a big turbo back in the day. Lots of leg. So I put all this money into making the car go quick, upgraded the rear end, stock brakes, stock suspension and I actually think the tires at the time, I think I was running around the street on snow tires because that was I have any money for anything else.

And my thought was probably if I'm in third or fourth gear and I'm already rolling, it's got so much leg, it's probably not going to break the tires loose, loose, I think, I think that car made like for a little over 400 wheel horsepower back then in 2004. Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty. That's a party. Yeah, it was a party you could beat up on pretty much anything.

Yeah, the party got even better, though. I also had a Dotson 510 about that time. And the 510 was a unique car. It had a VG 30 swap that I did not put in a previous owner. We call him Dotson Dave. Super cool. Dude. Swap this V6 single overhead cam V6. For those that don't know what a VG 30 is, it's it's a really a it's like a tugboat motor.

It's like a truck motor. It they don't make much power. Naturally aspirated, probably 160 horsepower like in a V6 that's cast iron block. It's doesn't make a lot of sense until you strap a big turbo on that. And then it's party time. I feel like I've heard of that engine before. Is there something else that it came out of?

Oh, a VG, VG 30? They offered that in extra a Pathfinder, the frontier, the hard body pickup trucks of the 90s, the 300 non-turbo, and then the eat of the turbo version was in the 300 turbo, and then the twin turbo was a dual overhead cam engine of that. So that was a much more exotic engine than than than that engine.

But it's been it's basically a junkyard engine. No, I remember now I know where I've heard it. There's a guy that I talked to through doing an interview with Karpathy, and he's putting that engine in like a Datsun mini truck, I think. Sure. Something like that. It's great. Yeah. It's not an uncommon swap, you know, it's like I said, well, if you're going from like a L series four cylinder that maybe makes 90 to 115 horsepower, put something that has 150 horsepower in like 180ft pounds of torque.

It's going to like, feel like an animal anyway, so that after the 240 I've got this 510. And obviously what did I want to do? I just want to make a bunch of power. So we turbocharged it and had a lot of fun with that, made a lot of power more than the 246 and significantly more torque. That was a scarier car at 21 2,200 pounds and like, you know, 500ft pounds of torque at the rear tires on a 205 rear series tire.

Okay, I think I ran 195 in the front and 205 in the rear. And this is just make sure I'm keeping along. This is in the 5/10 right? Yeah. That is crazy. So this was probably right around 2004 five six. Yeah it had that car was 20. Yeah. It must have been 2005 I probably had it 2004 to 2, you know, oh eight, something like that.

So your dad being a mechanic was, was he the type to have mechanical sympathy. And he was like, what the hell are you doing? Or was like, was this kind of like a co project at times? All of our cars, I would say, have not been Cobra actually the last, the our first time we really did a co project.

I had a demon 170 that I recently parted ways with to get to the ZR1, and that was a wonderful co project. My dad and me disassembled the front rear of the vehicle and did lightweight core support, and we did a 15 inch wheel conversion and we did. There's so many tips and tricks to get those challengers lighter.

I think we were tipping the scales right around 4,000 pounds, which is shaving off three, 350 pounds out of the car. But visually not looking any different. Maybe more actually. Now they think about it. We had TBM brakes on the rear, which were very lightweight, and I think we were one of the maybe not the first. There's other guys out there, but we were a few, a few handful of guys that were running those those really aggressive race brakes on that car.

That's interesting because I remember like, the car looking for the most part, stock and was the stock stock power. Right. You saw the warranty, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I blew it up. Okay. So what's that one blew up. Blew up. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So yes, I did everything I could to make it lighter, to make it easier on the car, but also optimize the, the horsepower.

Anyways, that was kind of our first co-produced. The 510 wasn't much of a co-producer, although he was always gracious to let me come and use his shop when I blew head gaskets. Because, you know, in my infinite wisdom, why not use the stock head bolts over and over and over and not use studs? I guess it was just cheaper for me to continue to put Napa head gaskets into the car.

I think we ran like 2223 psi boost out of that on a big precision turbo on that car two and it would pop,

For those that know Minnesota, there's some areas that you can have some fun with your cars.

I knew every single evening basically how long I could wide open throttle that car and how many years before I would start pushing coolant through those head gaskets.

We're going to push this car to, to probably the limit of replacing head gaskets tomorrow, which I got down to. I could do head gaskets in that car. If I started in the mid morning I could have it done in the early afternoon.

Okay. Like it was pretty fast, six, five, maybe five hours. Okay. Both sides. Have you ever been to Power Cruise then? I haven't, and I just told my 15 year old son about that. We'd I'd love to take the ZR1 to that next year. It'd be perfect for that event. As long as you're mindful, like you know who you're lining up with.

yeah. No, that's I need to get back up there next year. I haven't made it the last two years, but when I went up there, it's like it's cool because like, people are so willing to let people hop into their car, like, you'll just be rolling like four deep in an SES three or something.

Like, that's what I told. I told Levi I was like, we got to actually go get like an E63, s AMG wagon. Like, dude, yeah, I cosign that, get that immediately. The Autobahn bruiser, like just this is a total like just an animal. Like that's that's probably in my future. I had a I don't know if you know this, but I had an M5, E60 for a short period of time, just a, just a few weeks ago, actually.

I bought it and made some improvements to it. And ultimately it had an SMG seven speed and I wanted I want to get one with a six speed. So I'm hunting one of those down. So that'll be it. So that was a Chris Bangle designed. That would have been a 2006 to 2000 and a 10 or 11 I think it might be came with because that was the V ten Ara two wasn't it.

So yep. So two. So I, I want to say it's 2011 but I could be wrong 2006 to 20 10 or 11 they offered an a v ten a.

Man I'm like spacing on the even the displacement of that car. Maybe it's five. I think it's a 5.5l. Okay. Five liter five something like all the experts will chime in. But yeah, but either way, 500 horsepower, 383, 84ft pounds of torque. Actually, the weirdest thing ever. Right. You get a 4,000 pound car and then put a high revving B10 into it.

It rev to 8250 rpm and didn't make 380ft pounds of torque until approximately 6000 rpm. Okay, so like kind of gutless, like right until you just wind that thing out. But they did sound amazing though interesting I didn't. So you said that was a wagon. No, no, that was so they never made a wagon M5. But I wish they did.

Okay. I thought I was like, wait a second. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, that was my my autobahn Bruiser. I would like to do something like an sec. Three. Yeah. You know, back to my dad on the the cosigning on projects. Like I said, he's always been very gracious and he's never, like, said that I've done anything like, incredibly like poor decisions with cars.

I think he's always thought were cars are, you know, are hobby and fun to work on. And I guess we try not to take them too serious, because when you do then they'll, you know, cars are. I've used this analogy for a few different things, but cars are kind of like kids. Like very young kids, let's even call it them infants.

One day they're going to do something really awesome. You're gonna be proud of them, and you're going to be really happy. And you want to want to show everybody what your thing can do. And then next year it's going to crap on you. And, you know, engine blows up, tranny goes, something happens and it, you know, crushes you.

So I think you have to be a bit resilient. And in having fun with your cars, don't take them too seriously. That is something I've had to remind myself even doing this podcast. Right. It's like, all right, this is getting a little too serious. Now it's back this up. You know, this is supposed to be fun. Remember? That's all.

We did this. Yeah. Same thing with cars. Totally, totally. I think trying to think if there's any other projects. I mean, my dad's always been very supportive of racing. He got me into go kart racing as a kid, and we raced all over the United States, and we did. We campaigned.

A couple series in the Midwest, and we did well. And when we got into, you know, the 510, you know, we did a few events with that car and like cars type events or just like autocross, like Mac events, like nothing like I was I'm I'm an enthusiast. I'm not like a amazing driver. I'm not the guys that, you know, give them the car and they're going to go rip off a fast lap time even I'm a fairly I'm a fairly large disappointment in drag racing to every once in a while there's like like sparks of greatness.

My dad has a drag car, a Gremlin AMC that's a tube frame car with a lot of fiberglass, and we've had some success with that car. We've raced in one some big events, and then we've tried to repeat that success and have failed miserably. So, you know, that's a but we do have fun going out there. And I think that's the that's the important thing.

You guys went to like that Chicago event or whatever last year wasn't it. We went to AMC races a couple years back and we did really well, multiple classes, and then we went there the year thereafter and failed. We was foot breaking the first year, which was super fun because I that was coming off of a I'll give you guys a timeline.

So in 2022, I purchased a Challenger Superstock, which is basically the poor man's demon, right? The 2018 demon. This is it looks like it's it looks like a 2018 demon. But instead of having the big hood scoop, it just has two snorkels like a red eye. And I put probably I probably put like 300 passes on it my first year.

And then the second year I put similar amount of passes. My dad owns that car. He has that car and I. So we then went racing in the Gremlin, and I think I was so used to this foot breaking process with the Superstock, which is a huge it's a heavy car, like drag racers that aren't people, that aren't people that aren't deep into drag racing.

You know, one of the great things on a drag or a car that you're looking for in a drag car is something that can react fairly quick. So when the light goes green, your reaction to hitting the throttle, the car moves really quickly and breaks those two initial beams, your starting beams. So I had to get really good.

I wouldn't. You can't read the light in drag racing, you just have to have good reaction time. And I got really good with reaction time in a very heavy car, 4,000 pound car. So when I went to my dad's race car, my reaction time became so much better because the car was so light. The car was almost half the half the weight.

So when I'd hit the gas, it just it could even be a little sloppy, like I was just racing it like I would my superstock and everything just worked better. It was like someone like, you know, gave me the upgrade chip and I was like, oh yeah, you're gonna here's the hardware that's going to make everything you do better.

It was kind of like a cheat code. I was making them like, well, it was like an 800 horsepower car two, wasn't it? No, that car is not a big, big horsepower car. It definitely he has engines that make that type of horsepower the purple Grimm makes over. That makes north of that. This car probably only makes 500, maybe closer five and change.

But it's very like two of them, right? Yeah. The black one and the purple one. Yeah. Okay. Yep. So, so that, so the second year we decided to do what's called box racing, where we dial in our time on our delay box, and then we use a, basically a switch, a button that I depressed. And then, then I take off right when I see the first yellow.

I know people can't see this in this video, but we have a tree behind us and it'd be a good example. But basically you're you're letting go of the the button to basically tell the car to go on the first yellow and then you go through a delay system and then it takes off automatically for you. I just couldn't get the timing right.

I don't know, I think I went out like the first round or thereabouts, but it happened. So yeah. Everybody. Yeah. So that's drag racing. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not.

But that doesn't matter. I mean I just still enjoy being out there. I've told Grace, my wife, that one of my aspirations in life is to go to as many tracks as I can as possible and document those tracks, whether it be through pictures or writing or a combination of both.

But I really think road Race course, even circle tracks, drag strips. I think they're all so unique because they're really not owned by any large companies. They're fairly all like independent. I think it's a little weird right now with the A and NHRA, with all that going on with Mr. Darrell over to his name is. But yeah, for the most part I think so.

Yeah. I mean there are some things that are happening, but generally speaking no two tracks are the same. Yeah. Whether it be from paying for your wristband to get in or the tech tower or the signing up for the class, or the driver's meeting or the concessions, the food that they offer. When you talk about concessions for a real a second.

When I went down to Cota this year for this, it was a free Ferrari event. It was ridiculous. It sounds great. There was like, I'm not even kidding. Like every program car that you can imagine was there. It was insane and it was all free. I couldn't believe it was in Down in Austin. But anyways, the concessions I went over there.

This is the it was like like a stadium. It was the most bougie concessions I've seen in my life. And it's interesting comparing it to like Brainerd or smaller tracks where it's just like, you know, it's just it's different, right? Yeah. I that's what makes it great. Yeah. You never know what you're going to get. Oh, yeah. Like my first time at the creek.

Right. Like. Oh yeah. Girl Creek. Yeah. Did you go cash at the creek? Did you do it? That's why you said creek. Because that's kind of the outlaw racing. Yeah, yeah, we've been there for for that. Actually tried to compete in that but didn't have a high enough horsepower car for that. Oh, interesting. Yeah, there's some crazy stuff.

Yeah. No. That's true. I went there with my brother last year. That was his introduction to being at a drag strip. Oh, and I was like, wait till you, like, go to, like, Texas Motorplex. That's why my, like, you've been there. Yeah, it's one of my favorite facilities. It's just. Yeah, I like it. That's all. That's so I think yeah, that was a fun event to take him to I'm sure like a first, first event.

Yeah. Yeah. And so probably going back to the dad and my dad and kind of anything else we've worked on together, he's been he's always just been supportive. You know we we bounce a lot of cars off of each other. But I think we do both run independent projects for the most part. It's just well, you know, we'll ask opinions or we'll show off to each other what we've done.

But for the most part, it's kind of an individual project. Yeah. When do you throw a hoist in here and start wrenching on these two? Oh, man. Well, I've got like, you know, stands and jacks and we could do it here, but no, I just don't have enough space, sadly. I really wish I did, but yeah. Well we're we're really close to the the Motorplex over here too, so you just gotta find some.

Yeah. Find someone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got a couple of buddies over there that have some space, but. Yeah. Knock on wood, none of these cars don't need a lot of work right at the moment, so I'd like to keep it that way. It's kind of like they're kind of like, dude, like, I'm excited for people to start modifying to zero one, but at the same time, like, it's it's in that very rare space where you don't really have to.

Yeah. It's it's an interesting car. So again, if you like, think about the things that I'm really interested in, which is value performance. Right. Like.

It's an expensive car. I get that like people know what they cost. But the way I specked this car was when LC, I don't have a leather rep dash in that. I got a ten speaker system, not the 14 speaker system. My seat goes, you know, does a couple settings, but not all the things that the upgraded ones can do.

And I was perfectly happy with that. What I was looking for was the highest horsepower car I could get, for the least amount of money that had a strong warranty, and my perception of just a well engineered and well-rounded vehicle coming from the demon 170. A lot of power, a lot of weight, fast. But I don't know the what's the transmission in the one the challengers an 8888.

Yeah, yeah. Great transmission but still robs a lot of horsepower. This being a DCT eight speed, it's lightning fast. I think the the traction control settings in that car are phenomenal. I mean, I've been in a lot of fast cars and I know you've been in much faster cars, but there are I don't believe for the money there's a better value on the road.

Oh I stock for stock. Stock for stock. Right. And then everybody comes in here with the arguments was like, well, if you just take a 2003 Corvette and throw ten grand at it, sure. You know, whatever. But sure, I mean, there's there's always that there's the BMW guys that are doing, you know, big horsepower and there's, you know, a guy that pulls an LRS out of a, you know, junkyard and builds it.

And yes, but for for me, even those cars do have their limitations. I mean, this this car is on factory wheels, factory tires. It'll do 60 to 1 30s in the low fours. So you have done it. And then it's. We do have I have a friend that has a dragon. Yeah. So it's it's a fast car. Yeah.

And I just think there's, I don't know, there's not much out there that's going to hang with this car stock for stock even lightly tuned. Honestly, what are you talking like you're going to have to put a large supercharger twin turbo on something. You're going to have to have an aftermarket ECU. You're going to have to have tuning.

You're going to just those carts under warranty. Yeah. Like you're not going to get like a game three and throw a JB four on and keep up with this. No you have to do significant modification. Yeah. And I also think we are so jaded to horsepower this being 1064. This is not like another 1000 horsepower car. They have optimized this car from a traction control perspective from a weight balance perspective, from a tire perspective, from an aerodynamics like this car just it's like the it's like a thousand horsepower with all the other perfect components to go with it.

True. Does that make sense? It's not just a bruiser for no reason. Yeah. Like it's I mean, yeah, you can have a thousand horsepower car, but what happens in third gear at 4200 rpm? Did you fix that? Like where it just wants to blow the tires off, or it bogs horribly or drive shaft says no more, or you know what I mean, or whatever it might be.

The package is optimized. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. I think it's I think it's aliens, you know, like, you know, you know what I mean? Like, we look at, like, how far the human race is coming. It's like, I don't know if humans built the pyramids. Yeah, yeah. That's what they're doing. That's. It is. Yeah.

I'm not trying to sound like a Corvette C8 fanboy, but you would trade this in tomorrow if the right option came up. I bet if there was a better option on the market 100%, I would. I'm not like tied to the to the brand or the looks or or any of that, you know, for this type of money, you could have I could have bought a flashier cars, but not better performing cars.

Sure. Does that make sense? I you know what's crazy to me? Because like, I, I've gotten to see in person as well. Oh that's cool. I think either of these cars, if they existed without the other, it'd be still as equally as incredibly cool. Yeah. Because like, there's a constant debate GDP versus ZR1, but it's like people who've driven both and I've, I've talked to a few people who have.

It's like, oh, I want the other one. Yeah, totally. Well, I think it's a human nature. You always want what you don't have. True. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. There's just a million examples of that. So how many miles do you have on this so far? Probably close to 3000 miles on it. Okay, so since you've. Yeah, because. Yeah, I just got it this year. Right. The spring. So I've been driving it. Okay. I tried to drive as much as I can. My wife drove it yesterday.

She or. Excuse me Sunday a couple days back. So. Yeah, we drive it. Yeah. Take it out. It's it's not covered. That's actually how it always sits in the garage. It'll get covered in the winter and put on a battery, but, but I drive I try to drive both these cars. In fact, you know, speaking of value and performance, this 996 turbo behind me again, another, you know, Corvette gets its hate, right?

Yeah. Porsche owners do too. This car gets its hate. I probably have both the cars that you know, people have strong opinions on. But this car, I thought it was great value for performance. Metzger. You know, flat six, twin turbocharged. This is an X50 car, so has bigger turbos, the K 16. It's, it's just there's it's got ceramic brakes, it's got aero.

It's cool car, you know, and it was before the market shot up on these things and good timing. Yeah I mean it's crazy on cars and bids a, I don't even think it was next 50 car, but it was a guards red 996 turbo. It might have been an X 50, but 21,000 miles sold for $150,000. Now, I think that 150 plus that might be on the crazy side of things, but it's definitely directionally these cars are climbing in value quickly.

Another one that I'd like to use as an example is like the GSA's. Like they are flying right now and they're pulling the rest of the market with them. Totally. Yeah, that's a great example. But then I go back to like, this car had the ugly headlights. I didn't care about it. I thought the car represented great value for performance, just like I do on that, on that, on the one.

Is that the only thing that was quote unquote wrong with them was the headlights? No, there's a lot of things wrong with them. Okay. The fact that they share a bunch of parts with the 986 Boxster of that same era, I mean, the Porsche aficionados can chime in and tell me I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain the doors will bolt on.

I don't think the fenders are the same, but the doors are are 100% the same. Okay, like the bolt on to a boxer. Was this before they got saved by the SUV era? Oh good question. Because this was before the it might have been before. I think this was like definitely cost cutting measure. Time and interiors are basically the same as boxers.

I mean, this one has some nicer pieces to it, but yeah, but they still found greatness and somehow I think it drives great. Yeah, I think it sounds great. I think it drives great. I love driving it. I drive it probably almost as much as I drive the ZR1. I think there's like an an element of like you have a performance car, your GT call that.

Yeah, I would, I would say so. But you don't think about it in the morning when you, you just go in and drive it or you start it up and go, yeah, right. I do the same thing in the ZR1. Good point. This car, you start it up, you listen to it. Is that a new noise or not?

No. Okay. Make sure the oil pressure comes up. You go. You know what I mean. There's like a it's just you. You're more of like a caretaker of this car. You're making sure it's like behaving as you expected to behave and you're hyper aware of noise sounds, you know. What's it boosting? Is it doing a bar of boost today?

It's a more or less why? You know, it's just I don't know, it's hard to explain. Like this is more of like arrow car to. Oh, it's 20 years old. Almost. Right. What yours is 23 years old. 2003 2003. Yeah, I think I think that just naturally happens when you have a car. That's my might be just older car stuff.

Yeah. Right. Like but so this car I think about when I take it out that car I got 1 or 2 baby. We could. I had to think about it. Just go drive it. Just go drive it. Yeah. Yeah. So it's crazy to think what you can get with a warranty too though. Yeah, yeah. My first C8, I had an eight year, 100,000 mile warranty on it, and I sold it before I could utilize that.

And I would recommend a warranty on any new car that you get. They're smart. I mean, it's just extra insurance, but it depends on, I guess, what you're doing with it. I don't have any plans to modify this and I don't know what else comes out. Maybe Dodge is coming out with something cool. I'm hearing the rumor mill.

Sounds fun. We'll see. Here's the thing about Dodge. They have more in their basement, as do the other companies that will never see daylight until the right crazy person gets the keys. Yeah, like they have. Every department has something, but there's. It's like the classic left hand isn't talking to the right hand. Yeah, you know what I mean?

Totally, totally. You don't. There has to be a somewhere in that building that could utilize this current, you know, inline six, which I fully support. Yep. The hurricane. Yep yep yep. But I still think I just I've said this a million times. Hopefully it comes to fruition. I just need them to redevelop somehow that Hellcat engine and do what they did with this car where, you know, they took like for example, if you look at the

They have die and port now, right? They have dual overhead cams they didn't like that was like everybody made fun of Chevy for that before. It's like, all right, guys, we're gonna get this going. Yeah. When does Dodge do that? I don't know, but that would save that company, I think. Well, I still think the Gen three Hemi is a force to be reckoned with.

I mean, provided that they can meet their compliance around 28 or 29 is the limitation, I think. Yeah, but I still think that what if that engine wasn't a even a 3,800 pound car like. Yeah, that's about what this car ways. Is it okay. Yeah. So ZR1 x you're probably tipping the scales around 43. You know fully loaded.

One of these is probably 39. Change depending because this has you know less seat electric motor is less stereo less interior trim. It's you know, it's just I suppose if you wanted lightweight model, you wouldn't get the carbon aero package. But if you get this car, you got to get the big wing. Yeah, of course you have to.

It's just you have to. If I see them in my room, you're like, I can pick out that ZR1. But like you, if you don't have the wing, like, yeah, you got to have that. The commenters have to know what's up. You know, I will say it is fun driving that car. When Grace drove it on Sunday, like how many thumbs up we get driving it and kids, like, bicycling in our neighborhood.

Like, just like, you know, like it's got to be the wing, right? The wing. It's got to be the wing. The wing does it all. Yeah, I think that's. I told my dad I will not purchase any more new cars if it does not have a big wing on. I saw a post the other, you know, the new Audi, the replacement for the R8 or whatever, I don't.

Oh. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. No I did with the square mustache. Yep. Square. Yes. Yeah, I saw it. Yes, yes. I think the CEO or something said that like, that car will have a wing over my dead body or something. The other day I saw like Jalopnik or whoever posted it and needs a wing. Needs a wing. I just think about, like, value of cars.

Very rarely actually. I hope someone can, like, prove me wrong, but I don't think there's any car that's been sold with a massive wing that's not appreciated in value. Oh, think about like, muscle cars. Big Superbird, big wing car. Yeah. Think about Viper's big wing gt2 GT3 versus any. Yeah. Any aero kit cars. Small wing but wing on this silver car.

Oh, yeah. I think about that. Like is there. I'd love to find the car where it's like they they slap the big wing on the back and it went down in value or the enthusiast didn't. Maybe I'm using the wrong words, Harris, but, like, didn't lean into this car and and build it up over time to be something great.

The one thing I'd say maybe. Well, it depends. Right? Are we talking like W or low mileage examples like those are going on? If it's clean they're going up. They're going up. Yeah. How about you know M3. Yeah. Evos Evos, wing M3 you know, go back to like E30 or whatnot. Be interesting to find out if we can find one that that went down that went down.

But like what's the threshold. Right. Like, are we talking like sub 20,000 mile cars? Sort of I don't know. Or is it just kind of keep or just keeps them propped up even. I just think it keeps them propped up. I think it really does like. So either way, that's my commitment. It's been said right here, right now.

I'm going to stay true to that. No new cars for me personally without you. I got one for you. Yeah, it's got to be okay. Hit me. The EV charger with the front wing. Does that count as a wing? I'm going with. Really? Wing? I'm going. I like, I like, I like, I like your creativity, but I'm going with the rear way.

I know I should have been a lawyer in my life. Yeah. I feel like that was. That's a good one. But no, no. Yeah. I think there's something there like, you know, these cars have so much personality when you put that big arrow on them, it's fun. Well, what social has done like to actually work like the, the, the Viper ACR is like the arrow works as we've seen at the track.

It's when you get into the weird aftermarket stuff and people don't know what they're doing, it gets a little funky. But like, I guarantee you like the amount of time like the engineers on the ZR1 probably put into that wing, like they probably version 553. And there was like, oh yeah, this is it. This is perfect. So yeah, I have not taken this car to the track, but I've had to do some high speed maneuvers.

I had a tire come at me after a supercar Sunday in Bloomington. Oh, okay. It came off of a truck and I had to. I was first accelerating quickly, as one does. And one of these and this tires and I'm this car closes gaps on anything. It it's really hard to like. You're going to have to get in this.

You gotta you got to get in this card really feel what it's like because there people don't understand how quick they are. Again, 1000 horsepower doesn't sound like that much when your buddies got 1000 horsepower XYZ until you feel the complete package. Yeah, yeah, but I had to do a high speed maneuver.

where, I mean, I yanked the steering wheel, yanked it, and then we were going fast.

I've never had a car that handles like this. Really? Even even the Porsche? Yes, even the 510. Even this car, it was like. It was like. It was like. It was like I telepath this car into another lane and then came back

Something that in a past life, the car would, it would get out.

It would just be unsettled, wasn't unsettled, you know, 1200 foot pounds of downforce. I mean, they figured it out. I do wish, you know, probably the the future of this car is the C9 is probably I don't know if they can do active aero or not but it would be. Oh that would be fun. I mean, because the GTD makes.

818 eight I think it makes like 1800 foot pounds of downforce. Okay, whoever can chime in and I think the GT3 rs something stupid as well. Yeah, it would be cool to see that. I think the C9 is probably going to be the most beautiful car that's come out of states in a while. I'm very excited for that.

I because like, I was torn on this one when I first came out, you know, the rear end was back. Sienna looking at. Yeah, like the rear end is not the highlight of the car. But as they developed it like the Z06, I'm like, oh okay, there something here. Then I want I'm like, oh okay, we're good. Yeah, I think it's it.

There's angles I like and there's angles I love, but there's no angles I dislike on the car. That's fair. You know what I mean? I, you know, is not. Yeah. Usually I put wheels on cars right away. Although both these cars have stock wheels, so that's funny. Well, this is when you put the stock wheels back up, but the.

Yeah that's another. Yes. Yeah. I do think the turbo twists are good, but this is a car where I after I got it and I put spacers on it, I put 20mm in the back and five millimeters in the front. I was like it's got to sit nice. I was like, I really like the way it looks. Yeah, it's a nice car.

So yeah. Anyways, you do a little bit of other dabbling though because like I know because again this is a channel for car guys right. So I'm sure they'll appreciate this. Do you do a good bit of 3D printing as well. Some Arcee car stuff. You know I do a lot of yes. Arcee cars. I'm all in on that.

Like if you had to rank your hobbies in order, like, what are your top three? I'd probably say, you know, cars being number one. Okay. Probably music number two. And then remote control hobbies number three. Okay. And I went to high school for music and I played guitar. And so I love playing music, but, you know, never it's never going to be a professional doing it.

So it's very, very it's interesting on music, unlike a car where you could either get better at driving your car or you can modify your car, those are kind of or you could show your car, which would be maybe entail of modifying it first. So there's a few different like paths to enjoy that hobby. Or you could write about your cars or you could spot cars.

I enjoy spotting cars and taking a lot of pictures of cars. I suppose there's a lot of aspects to the car side of things, which gets there's a lot of depth for me, but it's interesting on the music side, I suppose people collect instruments and things like that, but an instrument, it's like fun. It's just fun to pick it up and play it and well, some days I'll just be bored out of my mind.

I'm like, I don't want to play anything in particular, but I'll just I'll just riff. Yeah, a little bit and then, yeah, all right. We're going to put that back down. Yeah, that'd be good. Or anything less around. Yeah. So that that's fun. My son's been into recording music.

Is his his artist name is Kid Lev. Lev. He's got a got some songs on.

SoundCloud and YouTube but but so I'm having probably more fun now with him engineering music. Okay. You know, he uses GarageBand and he's got nice equipment like you do have here for, you know, this is getting beat up over. You know what I mean? He's got a condenser mic and, you know, a audio interface and a couple other fun things and Midi pad.

And so yeah, we're we're we're having fun. You know, this is the same mic that Billie Eilish used to practice on. Are you serious? I think I don't know if it was this short or to step up one, but yeah, just basically like she was just trying to like I read somewhere to like if she's just trying to do something quick, like nothing too crazy.

Like she'd use one of these. Yeah. Well, I also love that you 3D printed the boxes on these mics, which I think are pretty cool. Neat that you did that. Yeah. It's just been fun to learn, like all the CAD stuff and all like it's been a few months to, you know, actively pursued learning it. But like you, it's like I think this is just an inherently like, like male trait, like, you know, I could figure it out.

Yeah. I mean, like, well, I think yeah, most yeah, most men think it's like, yeah, how am I or am I prepared for that job? Oh I can do that. Like, you know, that seems to be a trait that many men have. But I think for, we didn't really talk about. But I love going to the desert.

I have a couple side by sides at my. My parents have a home in Lake Havasu, so we do off road. I raced the mint 400 with my friend, good friend, long time friend Randy Lambley, which we did pretty good, I think we well, we finished the race, which was like hard. Like that's kind of monumental in itself.

That's the kind of racing you're doing nowadays, Well, nothing with consistency. But like any, any form of racing, I get pretty excited about. But but like so 3D printing and music. Probably great for the winter, right? Kind of stuck. Yeah. I'll be back to that this winter then. Right. I'm going to think of like things I can do in the winter.

Am I going to build models? Am I going to create some artwork? Am I going to do things you know that isn't outside? And then in the summer, you know, I just love the cars and things and then the winter, if I can get down to my parents house to play with side by side in the desert, that'll be so touch on that.

What was the race you did? So explain that a little bit. It's called the mint 400. I don't know how long it's been going on. Maybe from the 60s. It's considered the hardest off road race in the world, even tougher than the Dakar or the Baja 1000. Why is that so wicked terrain. It's, you know, it's it's a hundred mile loop just outside of Vegas that you do four times and they go through quite well.

You've you've watched like King of Hammers. Yeah.

So it's got some like King of Hammers elements to it. It's got some high speed elements to it. It's just a really abusive race. And I think that there are 100 mile laps that the track gets really beat up, really rutted like so the track, the degradation of the track is immense to the point where the last lap, it's like, you know, hold on for dear life.

It's not anything like what you started. I got to the track is evolving okay. Yeah. The entire time. Yeah. We raced a it's called Pro Turbo Class. It was a two seater X3 that had a complete aftermarket chassis, attuned engine. I, I'm fairly certain we were running race high octane fuel in it. It probably made 2 to 50 less than 300 horse.

But like a lot of horsepower for for a for something like that for a two seater car, small car, a lot of suspension. And I was the co-driver for the first lap. After the first lap, Randy, my friend was driving the first lap. He's the owner of the car as we basically got through half of this first lap, which is just chaos.

They sent so many cars, they send them out in like kind of stages, stage like seconds. But the problem is you, these guys close the gap so fast. I mean, I remember looking out the the netted window on the driver's side and seeing I'm not exaggerating, we're like pinned in this, like we're full throttle, probably doing accelerating 5060 miles an hour.

And I literally see this car out of my corner of my eye coming like over the top of us. And I can see the entire back of this, like, underside of this car, like, as if it was lifted in the air because it was flying through the air and it lands and just takes off. It was, you know, much higher horsepower vehicle, bigger vehicle.

And I'm just like, what did I sign up for here? Like, guys are flying around us like there's cars flipping over, there's people breaking down, there's accents happening. We get through this first lap, which is an eight hour race. And so every the calculation is on the laps for two hours lap. Basically I get we get done this first lap and I'm the driver for the second lap and I like almost didn't want to get behind the wheel like it was like what did I like?

You know what I mean? Like there's and they add an a larger intimidation factor because now the mint for hundreds publicized and they want to put a show on for the people that are watching it. So the first part of the race is a short course, short course track which has fairly large jumps. So I'm thinking I've only test this car once in Wichita or in not Wichita sand dunes near Wichita.

It's going to come to me. But anyways, I tested the car once with Randy. Didn't do any jumps or anything like that. Now I'm getting behind the wheel and I've like got to do this short course. So obviously I just babied it through that and got my confidence up and I felt pretty good and kept the car together and it was a fun it was a great race.

That's a that's definitely a crazy thing to just jump into out of nowhere. Like, yeah, with little practice I was going to go do. 400 miles. There's a high level race. Yeah. I mean, the car that Randy, I call it a car, the sand car, the side by side, whatever you want to call it was a championship winning car.

So we bought a race proven car. Why wouldn't you? Right. You're going to go race. You might as well start with. Great. Does he do this more often then no or no? This was like this. Like a wild hare. We tried. I tried to talk him into doing it this last year, but he's taken a year off. Well, we'll get back at it, I'm sure, but.

Okay. But, Yeah, it's. I mean, you're wearing Hans device. You're full fire suit. You. You're committed. This is arguably a little more tense. What you've done before. I would say it was the most informal, most intense form of racing I've ever done. So, yes, I've done some track days, I've done some autocross, I've done drag racing. Nothing compares to mint 400.

What kind of, What kind of terrain is it? Well, it goes from kind of like sandy, like windblown sand. Maybe if you imagine if you're driving down the a beach at, like a hundred miles an hour, like, because that car, our car would do over 90 sand. Yeah. Lots of suspension tires that are like you're kind of floating.

Yeah. Mind you, there's guys flying past you at like a I think the tops top. I think the trophy trucks are like 160 miles an hour. And with other types of vehicles, trophy trucks like full like 400,000 $500,000 rigs. Yeah. We got the little guys compared to. And there's guys that are slower than, than our class two. It just it's everything's out there.

Okay. In fact, since we were in a championship car, the Polaris race team, I don't think we still had the, we still had the graphics on from the, from the prior owner, which maybe like a bad form in racing. We didn't really think one way or another about it. But I'm driving the second lap and I literally.

I, I just like, like I'm like, did the engine fall out of the back? Like, what did I hit? I'm going straight. I'm going through some. No. One of the players pro our drivers punted me at like full whack. You know, they had a faster car. I wasn't going fast enough, punted me and then went around us. And I think it was more of like a love tap, you know, thinking that there was another driver in it, like it was the previous driver from the race team.

But did you ever find out? No, we didn't. I mean, we're not we're right over here. Get a sponsorship again. Those guys are crazy. I think they, like swept it. Which the pro are is a great, great vehicle. Great side by side. So sandy stuff there's like rock areas that you can slow speed stuff. Slow speed stuff.

I mean, you still got to go as fast as you can through it. There's some technical kind of like a rocky desert watch out for, you know, divots. And there's going through like kind of a mountain pass section. It's kind of cool, like kind of climbing through the hills, like it's pretty varied. It's varied, and it gets really crazy when you're into the night, when it goes into the night.

So you start around, you know, late morning and you know, you don't finish till the evening, like right around sunset. Sort as it was dark, it was making you already. It was, it was. No, I'm sorry. It was just me. But it was fully, fully dark when we got done with it. But yeah, it was it was a crazy race.

We lost a tire. We. Oh, okay. We ran out of fuel. Okay. Almost did that on the way here. It's all good. Yeah, we did. We did so many things wrong. I'm so happy that we finished, so hold on. So you guys are also like, self servicing then at this point to. Yeah, we had my dad was on the was in the pit crew.

We had a gentleman. We had a couple guys Jonas and Dustin. We had like a kind of a crew of co-driver drivers and pit. But yeah, we have to service the car and keep it running the entire that just people like following you or is that just like friends? Just friends. It's like, oh, you want to be on the race team?

Yeah. You want to go do them in 400? What's that? Oh, it's a great off road, but no, like, were they also off roading with you, following you or like if you broke down, they just meet you somewhere. No, they there's three I think there's three pitting areas. So the main pit area from where you start and then there's like kind of two areas out in the desert.

So you could drive to those areas without being on the track. How do you do that when you run out of gas? Well, that was an interesting one. So technically, if you run out of gas and you have outside help, you're you're disqualified. You're dude from the race. We ran out of gas, I would say.

Maybe, maybe two football fields from, like the last pitting stop before the main pit area. So I once we concluded that we ran out of gas, we checked fuzes. You know, we're doing some troubleshooting in the car. I know what's wrong with it. I'm like, there's no gas in here. So I rip, you know, I get all my stuff, I'm still wearing my helmet because there's car, you know, and I literally walk in my full gear.

Pretty certain I was still wearing my helmet. And I go get a five gallon.

Jug of gas race, you know, race canister. And I bring it back to the car, and then I fill it up and we start it up and hold on to the gas can and drive it to the pit and drop it off. So in technically, we didn't use any outside help. We. Yeah, I got I retrieve the gas and got us going again.

Yeah I, I, I see no reason why that wouldn't be legal. No, it was just like kind of unconventional. I think at some point, like, guys would be like, it was like we were just close enough to get into them. Just feels like an action, like mad Max. Everybody flying behind you. Yeah. Speaking of which, that's probably one of my favorite movies.

Well, Road Warrior, so the second installment of mad Max is probably my one of my favorite movies. And then Fury Road was very high on the list. Okay. Yeah, I actually don't think I've seen it. Yeah, like, I genuinely don't think I have. I think about that movie. Well, you should should check it out. But we also go to Glamis.

You saw on the wall over there. I've got a Glamis poster. Been there multiple times. That was another fun adventure a few years back, maybe 2016. So like ten years back, I told my dad that I want to go to Glamis. I bought a sand rail, sight unseen, with long travel suspension and high compression VW based engine, a 2100 or.

It was like a 2100 plus cc engine, made a couple hundred horsepower, and my dad hooked up his trailer and his camper, and he went and picked it up in Arizona. I flew into Vegas, rented a car, met him in Arizona. Then we drove out to Glamis, California, and we played in the sand dunes for like a week.

That's cool. You still haven't sold that car because it was only a two seater, and my wife and kids want to go play in the sand. So yeah. So then I got side by side. Well, then we rented side by sides and the kind of the play there was, we would fly into Arizona Phoenix, we would rent two side by sides and a motorhome, and we'd go out to Glamis and spend days out there.

And then when my parents moved down, or they have a home in Havasu for the winter when they got that house, then I bought my own machines. So that was kind of the crawl, walk, run. Although the crawl was buying a machine, which didn't make any sense to begin with, but I think like half half of it was like, it's mine.

You know, I thought that was fun.

So yeah. So off road racing I guess we do a little bit of that. We go play around in the desert, like do a little bit more than just a little though I think if Yeah. And I would say if you're a car guy I would just it's a really big bucket list.

If you haven't been to Glamis or you haven't been to the sand dunes, Silver Lake, Michigan, there's a small sand dune there, which is fun. I really want to go check that out. I have offer, you should do that. It's like it's not. It's like scratching you, like it's like a scratch and sniff snicker sticker that smells like an apple.

Or like eating apple is like going to Glamis, you know what I mean? It's like what you're getting like, oh, that's kind of what? That's what. Like you can't really hold it. It's like, looks like it's like a picture of a stick, you know. You know what I'm saying? Like, it doesn't compare. It doesn't bear. Well, yeah, I mean think I think.

I wish we could look up the specs. I would guess maybe Silver Lake, Michigan as maybe a hundred or a couple hundred few hundred rideable acres of sand. Glamis is like 100,000. Okay. Like, you know what I mean? Like you can get lost. Yeah. I mean, you don't have GPS. It's probably not recommended to go deep into the dunes.

And, you know, a rule that we haven't broke, we don't go right at night. I think every single time we've gone out to Glamis, there's deaths that just people go out at night and they don't. They run into what's called a witch's eye, which is like a divot, or they go off the side of a dune because it was dark and they couldn't see it, or they collide with another vehicle because they're both coming up.

It just it's very dangerous. Okay. Yeah, I would say it's like maximum amount of danger. I guess I didn't even think of that as, like, stepping in a hole. It's just. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. Think about your machine doing 60 and then step in a big enough hole where it comes to a complete stop. Yeah, yeah. It's like you're in some I don't want to say rinky dink harness, but you know what I mean.

You're in a you can only do so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, those machines aren't set up from a crumples. They're not like these cars. Yeah, maybe this car, the direction those things are heading. Yeah. Wait till Nizza gets their hands on. Which I think they should. I mean, I think they should make him safer. And it's going to be tricky, though, because, like, at what point?

Like, that's like there's only a handful of types of motorsports where regulation hasn't quite got there yet. Yeah. Like look at motorcycles. I was one of the things is like cars are subjected to being passing regulations at 150,000 miles. Motorcycles are like 20,000 miles. Yeah. It's like all these various things. Yeah. Interesting. I didn't think of it from that perspective.

That's a that's a good way to think about it. Yeah. Kind of unregulated and rightfully so. Manufacturers can maximize their profitability. I mean, think about what these side by side are being sold for for 40, 50 grand. Yeah. For a new machine almost. And then you like, stack it up next to your GT and you're going like, why is this more.

Well, it's got really great suspension. In some cases it might have more horsepower than your car. Maybe not. But but they but then I look at the seats and I'm like, that's kind of, you know, you grab the steering wheel, it's not a nice steering wheel like you have in your car or these. It's just missing AC. Well, they do have AC on the cab versions of of Can-Am and Polaris products, the like.

Anyway, show me what a difference is between that and a car. I guess you're right. It just hasn't been regulated yet. And the fun thing about Lake Havasu, Arizona, you can drive them on the street. Minor street legal. Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally. So have you ever been out to the Black Hills? I have another fun adventure. Quick story.

I like motorcycles, but I like small, unique, interesting motorcycles. So my story of the Black Hills, this started many years ago. I wasn't the innovator of this. It was called the Scooter Jamboree. We did it the week before or maybe after Sturgis. I think it was before, and a group of my friends got together and they brought basically Zuma's and Graham's and, you know, the scooters and Metropolitans, and they trailer them out to the Black Hills and we'd go do all the roads.

Well, I can't just bring a scooter out there. So I purchased a ISR 50. So late in the late 80s, Yamaha made, small road legal bikes, 50 cc's that looked like mini mini GP bikes. They looked like a GP bike. They were just shrunk down. So full GP like fairings, it's hard and less. I could show you a picture of it.

Okay, okay. So think of like just a mini little GP bike. Well it came with a 50 cc two stroke which you kind of get peppy with those. You can make eight, nine, maybe ten horsepower. Well, I sourced one that had a 200 cc Yamaha blaster, ATV swap, two stroke, 200 cc's and then in my infinite wisdom, I decided to do a big bore kit on that.

It was 240 cc's of two stroke power, big carburetor, all the supporting modifications. I think the bike made like 3538 horsepower in a scooter which had a drum brake in the back. So that was my weapon that I brought out the Black Hills. And I had so much fun because when my friends were, you know, the Hill, I would just, like, downshift and be like, literally have to get over the front end because the thing would just was just like a wheelie machine wanted to come up on you.

And I did some speed runs around here around Minnesota,

And and at that point I was like, it'll go. We geared. I had a custom sprocket built for this bike, so theoretical top speed would be well over a little over 100. Like it was fun. It was fun engineering and putting it together.

But yeah, the Black Hills was great. That sounds terrifying, man. It was terrifying. Actually. I built a recent one too. It's on my YouTube channel. I built a it's called a VMC GP 12, which is based on a maybe like a Chinese type, a copy of what's called an Oval GP mini GP race bike. There's a class in like racing bikes that they make these kind of mini GP bikes, and that's how you train or have your kids start and then you kind of grow in those, those classes.

So I basically I found this mini GP bike which had 190 cc, two valve engine. Most guys would know about them because they're kind of common, these 190 cc engines. And I made it street legal for Minnesota. And then I did like I also built a Honda Graham, but I did like a if you ever heard of an Africa twin like a big big big their venture bikes like adventure dirt bike like they're on and off road bikes.

They look like dirt bikes. We can drive them on the street. BMW has one. Okay, I think you're like a knobby big. Okay, but this is like something you'd see in like a Baja race or Dakar. Those are the bikes, the adventure bikes. Well, I made a mini adventure bike. So my Graham had dirt bike tires, knobby tires, had a little CRF, 50 front fender from a dirt bike.

It had a racks on the the back, you know, to store gear and like, you know. So I liked mini. I like small bikes and modifying them, but then I sell them shortly after building them. I think it's more fun, like putting them together. They're they're really not practical. Right. Like Stone can see you on the road there.

Oh yeah. It's all. Yeah. It's actually like, can I make it more dangerous to be on a motorcycle? That would be what you should do. Get something that's smaller and go relatively quick. I just the black like because I've been to the Black Hills and like whipping through there is already like, oh, it's so fun. I need to go.

Honestly, I might do a weekend trip out there. I haven't been out there and it's gonna be close to 5 or 6 years now. I'll take your cart out there. You'd have so much fun with that with this car. Well, I haven't been to the Black Hills since. I didn't even take the last car out there. I, what did I have?

I never when I drove out, there was my old business partners. I think it was a Ford Edge. Okay, maybe that's weapon it. Yeah, yeah. And then the Odyssey. Brother. Let me tell you what, Harris. You need you need to go take your GTO. I know that would be fun, I think so I'm gonna get. Well, one of the things I want to be doing next month is if I'm in town.

And if all the stars align and whatever other excuse I can come up with, I do want to go to Octane Fest, that Brainerd. Oh, that sounds fun. Are you familiar with the old Proving Grounds from, like, a decade ago? Yeah. Basically that. Yeah. Now, I thought that's what kind of the power crews, like, took over.

No, that's always been a separate. Right. The Australian started the power. Yeah, they came over. And you're right. Those are two different things. Yeah, it's completely proving grounds has an actual drag. Yeah. They do an actual drag strip. It's not like what they do at roll racing. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. Different disciplines. Yeah. So I really want to get out.

I just want to do something like I for the last. We're coming up on three and a half years. Like, it's always been constantly, listening to stories and hearing stories and getting the best out of other people. I'm like, you know, when I start writing mine, you know? So it's like now that thankfully, like, it kind of worked out.

We were talking about my job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like it allows me to play a little bit more than just work as you should. Yeah you should. And you know, it's funny you do that. Play it. You might bring a bit, even a bit more of this into it because it's like you're, you're trading you're doing it.

Dude. What we talked about off camera, we were talking about my car. I would not have been able to speak about my car like that a year ago. Like like truthfully. Like I'm like, I have to say, I still have no business running it on my podcast. Like, you know, I just, Well, that's probably what makes it, like, kind of gives you the leg up, you know, 100%.

Yeah. Not knowing everything. You know, sometimes it's. I don't know, it's like you get a fresh perspective on everything. One perspective that I've thought, like you did the full coilover installed, like, were you ready for that? I mean, that's not a small has done it, but not a small job. Well, what's funny is like now looking at it, I'm like, oh, I could do that in a 10th at a time now.

Yeah. Because like I've learned from it, but it's like, I can't wait to drop the video. Like it's so goofy, like some of the mistakes. And I'm just like, man, somebody that's smarter than me would have done this so much better. I wasn't going to get a kick out of it, though. I mean, that's that's half the fun.

But that's one of the perspectives. Like, for example, like, not that I listen to Rogan much anymore. Early days. Yeah, absolutely. But like always think like, well, what if he just randomly tuned into one of these episodes and it's just all technical jargon. It's like, all right, click. You know, it's like you're not gonna dig it. I kind of like to take people on a on a journey with this.

Yeah. And hopefully I can kind of keep it like that always. But as you should. Yeah. A little bit on that side. Yeah. I think the technical nature, although, you know, you do this, hopefully there's some entertaining bits out of this conversation. You know, I think about why I love this hobby so much and it lets, there's so many aspects as we, as we talked about yours, the there's the learning side, you know, you can you can study till your, till the day is long.

You know, you want to be a spec wizard and understand everything, the mechanicals of workings of the cars and know interesting Easter eggs about everything. Or do you like to just physically work on them? Do you like to improve them? Do you like to? Do you like to drive them? I mean, there's so many guys I know, the greatest drivers.

I know they are not mechanical, they don't know the specs of their car, but, you know, put them behind the wheel and they're like magical. It's always funny how that like that, how that works. Usually it's like the guy that doesn't know anything like the underside of it. And like Schumacher, that's what made Schumacher special. Like he would go in there and be like, guys, can we please not do this?

You know, like like he understood. That's so great. I think like when you another person I've had on the show. Are you familiar with the YouTube channel Savage Geese? Oh yeah. I've actually one of my favorite videos as the ZR1, GTD and GT3 Rs. They did a great job. So their test driver, Brick Casey Jr. I've had him on the show as well and that was one of the things.

Now which one is that? Is that the the actual guy that would like do like set the lap time. So the professional driver that and he also worked for like didn't he work for Motor Trend or something back then he was like a test driver for. No. You might be thinking of the Hagerty one. I am thinking of that.

What's his name? Is it Randy Pope's I am, I am I've ruined it. No. Anyways. But but, one of the things that you said is like. Yeah, the guys that, like, understand the mechanical and, like, understand their cars typically do way better. Now you get a couple like, offshoots every once in a while, but just being able to communicate with your engineer like, this is what I want.

Yeah, yeah, just seems to be a trend. It's funny in that Savage Geese video on the on the comparison of those cars. I think that's maybe where I learned about the.

The brake fade prevention device that they put into this one. Well I'm not familiar with that. In theory. I haven't tested it and I don't know how they tested it. This car will not break fade. Okay. And the reasoning is that it uses an electric pump to satisfy the pressure needed to clamp the brake pads against the of the brake rotor.

So brake fade. I don't really know exactly what happens, but that's when your brakes go away. You don't have enough pressure to stop the car. Things heat up and you just can't get the car stopped. Well, they said basically this car will keep building brake pressure even without you knowing. So as if the brakes start going away, it'll just keep plowing more pressure at that master cylinder and applying more clamping force to the pads against the calipers.

There's got to be some dangerous aspect to that. I'm sure there is. And I could have like totally explained it wrong, but it was that. But it's but that's also like they also hate that. Right. Because they don't get this mechanical or hydraulic feel. Yeah. You know, like something like this. Oh yeah. So yeah, that being said, I've stomped on the brakes and I think I much prefer these brakes versus those brakes.

But but one thing I will say is like comparing the new Adam three to like so my friend both had a one which, you know, you being a fan of cars appreciate it. Yeah. Cool car, super cool car. I compared it to his G80 and it's like, man, like this is like it's not like the raw BMW experience.

Like, that's one of the things that I constantly hear about the G G80 series is like, yeah, just isn't what BMW was known for. Yeah, there's it's a little synthesized, a little, I don't know, synthesizes a good word. Yeah. Everybody says raw and analog. Like it's just there's there's more things covering it up. I don't think there's anything wrong with it either, though I don't either.

I love the way that car drives the that is not that is not raw and mechanical and connected the steering. I put it in normal and I can drive it with one finger on the steering wheel. It's nice and loose and heavily, you know, heavily assisted justice. Real quick. Sorry. You're good. The the brakes, they feel awesome to me.

But you know, probably to a professional driver they might be lacking something right. You know. Yeah. The other I don't know, there's just they do pipe sound into the cabin. Oh. Do you think in these. Yeah, they do now. Now, to their credit, they're using the actual engine noise and they're amplifying it, and it's coming into the cabin that way.

It's not a synthesized engine noise. They have actual microphones picking up whatever. But you know what, I like it. Yeah. No, it like like my brother always talks about my cars. Like you got to get rid of that. You got to say I'm like, dude, I don't care. Yeah. You know, I just kind of like, I kind of, I like, I don't know what the saying.

I don't know what it is, but I like it. Wait till I bring this entire neighborhoods property value down by putting a titanium exhaust on that. Yeah. Let's just bring up the. Yeah, bring up the exhaust. Yeah. Dude, I will say both of these cars are fairly loud, but my neighbors are so loving and caring that they know this is my son has been mad.

I guess the whole time. No. Yeah, yeah. Give us the dirty look. There have been louder cards here too. Oh, I'm sure it had louder cars, but. So this is maybe toning it down, but. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I was going to ask. So you do a little bit. You're in the dealer industry? Oh, yeah. I'm in the car business.

Yep, I still cars. So briefly explain what? Yes. Just. Yeah, just the humble salesman over here. I do, I do. That's part of the gig. What exactly is your role? Because I know sometimes I'll see you, like, post stuff that comes in through the, the. Was it the used card thing? Yeah. So my technical title is VP of operations for the walls or out of motive Group.

I oversee a small set of a few stores, and it's funny, sometimes I do get some hate online because I think people are believing that I'm only promoting, like, the cars that we're selling, or. I don't know, nothing wrong with that. Well, I mean, the things that I talk about in my on my personal channels, my social channels, specifically Facebook.

I just find them interesting, like like I really do. I don't, I don't I don't talk about something that's not interesting to me or do or that I think other people aren't going to find interesting. Like if there's not an interesting angle or some unique bit to this particular car or thing that I'm looking at, like, I'm not going to talk about it.

But yeah, so my role consists of overseeing these stores. I work with the general managers at each store, I help them.

All facets, the business. So whether it be strategy, you know, what are we going to do to increase the performance of the store, whether it be through the fixed operations or the variable operations, the parts and service or selling of cars or training and process, or even if I do and I love doing it, selling a car, you know, helping out a customer do that every once a while to.

Yeah, quite a bit over the last week one of our GM's is out. So I'm, I'm sitting in that seat and I'm having a lot of fun doing it. But yeah, that's everything to do with the, you know, financial performance of a dealership. That's my responsibility okay. So also means acquiring cars, right? Like I'm, I help acquire cars.

We buy cars through my Facebook channel. People reach out to me. We just acquired a really cool 2000. I'm going to get wrecked. It's like, I think it's 2006, nine, nine seven. So I'd be A99, 7.1. So the better looking headlights I like these. So yeah, I mean but where's the personality. Yeah right. I mean other gentleman reached out to me yesterday and he's like, hey, I got an offer on my 997 an eight and 997 turbo and it's got like 115,000 miles.

And he's like, I got an offer for 100 grand. And I'm like, I don't know. He's like, that seems crazy. Is that what they're worth? And I looked I'm like, yeah, I'd be a check writer at X, Y, Z. And I wasn't able to acquire that car. But. So yeah, yeah. The it's funny how I get to marry what I'm interested in, you know, to the, to the business.

So you're still able to keep the passion and the business kind of together in some way. Yeah. I think it like one fuels the other. Okay. Both ways. Like, it's kind of one loop for me. When I'm exhausted in the operational side of the business, I get to think about the things that I get to be around all day and that that energizes me.

Or maybe if I'm something doesn't go right or I'm just, like, not feeling passionate about my hobby for the day, I get to dive into the penal, what we call the doc, and I get to do an analysis of a department and figure out where there's opportunity to improve the performance. So they are they really work hand in hand for me.

So here's a question for you. Obviously I come a little bit from this world. Of course you do. Yeah. Your dad was always kind to me when I started at the walls around a motive. That's good. That's good to hear. I've always just. I've appreciate him very much. Yeah, well, he's been kind to me, too. So that's good.

Yeah, yeah. Could you imagine if I said the opposite of, like. Man. Wow. I would edit that out. Yeah, right. But anyways, how do dealers find success in times like these, right. Because, like, when you hear again the various stories and depending on the brands as well. Like that's the other thing. Like sometimes you're reliant on the brands, right.

Like if you think about like Nissan like a decade ago, it's like with the CVT Nissan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, you know I had some they had some struggles there. Yeah I'm glad they went back to the nine speed in the Pathfinder which I think is a great product. They've got the exterior coming back out. How long will it be sun for by the way.

Well I lived all through that. So I started at the Nissan dealership of December of 2000. Oh wow. Okay, so this is like going into my 26th year. I was at that store for 17 years and then the walls were out of motive Group acquired that store. Okay. And then I started working for Walser, and I held various roles, different role than I worked in marketing.

I worked in new car inventory, used car inventory, their loyalty department. I even oversaw a technology company that was born out of Walser, and I was their chief merchandizing officer for for a few years and then and actually elective on my choice. I wanted to get back into the operational side of the business, and Andrew Walser and and the team were, you know, awesome enough to give me the opportunity to start working with the source.

So it's funny you mentioned Nissan. I have the three Nissan stores, so it's not like I've got the the easiest brands, but but the at least perception wise, I think Nissan has some great product and they does if you look at it. Yeah. You just gotta, you gotta you know, am I writing and taking pictures about the Nissan Sentra?

No, it's actually a great product. I'm probably more excited with some of the other product that Nissan has. But the rogue is a great vehicle and there's a lot of good vehicles that we have there and good vehicles to come. We're talking about the the new GT-R. That seems like it's on the map. It seems like it is.

The exterior is for sure coming back to market, which is really awesome. I think the Pathfinder is a great product. I drive that I have one of my driveway, the Nissan Z, completely underrated for what it is. Okay, although that new Shinkai green color they're offering, they're not offering it in a nice Mo, which I'm kind of frustrated with, but but yeah, there's great.

I mean, Nissan's done a nice job. No, the color thing is funny. Like, again, I'm coming from like a primarily Jeep family and Dodge Mopar like one of the ones that my dad pointed out to me was like, they had that Jeep Gladiator in Patriot Blue. And then they were still marketing it after they discontinued it. It's like, what are we doing?

I think it was like a Super Bowl commercial or something like that. Yeah, I actually think Nissan might have like promoted this color and tied it to this, but like you can't get them together again. That left hand talking to the right. Yeah I think sometimes marketing guy you know you know that's it sometimes sometimes tough to do.

But yeah. So yeah we're day to day in the car business and it's been really rewarding. It's, afforded me, you know, these cars and those fun experiences that I've had and, and, I, you know, people ask I had the question just last week, I was on a panel that said, you know, what would you what would you do if you weren't in the car business?

And I didn't really have a good answer because it's like, what was the answer? We just didn't have one. I really didn't have one. My my wife owns a restaurant. I think that service industry is really interesting. I probably more like the. Business analysis of, of of a restaurant being. Where can we, you know, what can we do from a product standpoint to optimize our profits?

And what can we do from a guest experience standpoint to optimize the business? And don't wanna be the guy grabbing the ranch, because I am, I did I've worked in the service industry a little bit. Grace has been in that business just as long as I've been in the car business. And when I first met her. I had the bright idea that I should get a job at her work so I could spend more time with her.

I think I was more of like a workaholic, and we found out that we didn't like to work together. But I did like the service industry. So we did work at, at an at the same restaurant at the same time while I was the new car manager at Nissan. So I was an interesting deal. Yeah, yeah. And that restaurant that we were working at Grace now owns and it's branded as walk in the Park.

So in Saint Louis Park. Okay. So yeah, so that would be a fun business to dig into. Maybe a gentleman that I was sitting next to said commercial real estate. That's an interesting, interesting gig. You know, that's another crazy one. Like if you commit your entire career like you have right now, like, you know, 25 years, 26 years.

Yeah. If you then commercial real estate, it's like if you make a couple good moves. Man, that retirement looks ridiculous. It could be pretty awesome. Yeah. You could have, like. Yeah. Can have anything you want I can't remember I think it was like, real estate makes you like money in four different ways. It's been a while since I've refreshed it, but it's like it's not just the fact when you go to sell it.

Like it. Yeah, that's that's probably my end game 20 years from now. But I love that. I think about like so like the car hobby. What like loses you money in four different ways. No. Like there's like there's no side to it. There is no upside to cars. You know, collectors drive me nuts like it's hard to make, like, really?

Are we making money on these cars? I mean, the only cars that are really super appreciation are low mile, no mile cars, delivery mile cars. So then you got to sit on them. Well, breaks my heart with like the Viper's, right? You have all these like crazy one of one specs. Well, it wasn't the last year all one of one the GTC right.

The GTC which 2017 all were Gtk+. They were just what box did you check? You've had so many Viper experts on and we need to get them. Those guys chiming in. There's a I think there there's a guy that's been spending like basically his entire adult life, like building out a what is it called like like the entire, like document of every type of Viper spec, whatever.

Oh, cool. So like, he's building like a registry. Registry he's doing is doing the registry okay? Yeah. He might have chimed in on one of my Facebook posts because I said I said I know the to 2.0 was documented for 2015 and 2016, but it's undocumented. How many were made in 2017? Because that would have just been. I checked the box and the to 2.0 got you a wing, but it didn't get you the 17.

Was it 1776 per meter ACR or 1800 plus millimeter ACR, e wing. So it had like the small the. Yeah, I've only seen 1 or 2 of those in person. I saw one just a couple weeks last week. I went and took pictures of it, I saw it, gentleman had it for sale and I was like, well, I'm going to go check it out.

If it seems like a nice car, maybe we'll make a deal. My dad's been hot to trot on Vipers, okay. And I'd love for him to get one. We just have to find the right one for him. I'd like one too, but I think, cars have just really, really gone up. You know? They're just there. The value quotient isn't there for me.

I mean, have you. You've driven. You've driven high horsepower Gen five Vipers. Have you ever actually driven? Driven that one? Have you have you been in a stock Gen five? Yeah. So funny enough, the only time I've driven a Gen five was across the parking lot. It was an extreme. Okay, nothing crazy, but my brother actually got to drive my buddies GTR, and that's what flipped him.

He's like, dude. These are like, dude, he wouldn't stop talking. I was like, it was. He loved it. He loved it because he was. Because he's an audio file as well. So he would be disappointed in what you chose for this. Like with the ten speed. Oh I'm sure it's not not adequate. Yeah for sure for him. Like he was like oh boy.

Like when we were talking like my buddy got it right and it's like he's like, oh what's the audio system like in there. Is it better than to Huracan, you know. Yeah. Yeah okay okay. Well, well you got to have fun. You know, he's got a hobby as a as an audio file. I dig that. But I, he'd like the Bose 901 I have in the basement okay.

Yeah. Okay. Some cool speakers down the stairs, but I got here. Oh, yeah. There's they. They ripped down the road. Yeah. You're just right off over here. I'm sorry. Think again. If I get an exhaust, you're in trouble. But I may have ripped it the GT-R a few times over here, but. No, I mean, I've been in stock horsepower ones.

Like I think I'd like to drive when at one point. The problem is that every time I get an opportunity is I drive manual so infrequently, and I can drive it. Sure. But if I want to enjoy a car, like you got to kind of relearn it. I have to read acquainted with it? Yeah, just relearn it. Like so that's why like on my to do list is, you know, I'm trying to I want to get a great six off of coal part in cash.

Be so great. Like, the problem is, is like I've had enough. Most of the people that have been on the show are twice my age, so it's like I try to take some of that advice. Yeah. And I'm like, you know what? Like, maybe don't finance a car that you're gonna race, you know, like or modify or whatever, but I, I would try not to finance any cars, you know, if, if, if it's for your hobby.

It's for your hobby. Yeah. Daily drivers lease. There's like we lease a car, I drive, you know, there's I don't care how you buy your your a to be right. But if it's an enthusiast build just my I didn't have enough money for that Dotson 510 that I talked about earlier. And my dad I think we initially bought it for like six grand.

7 or 8 grand. I can't remember back in the day it was probably six grand, but now feels like eight grand. You know what I mean? Yeah, you know what I mean. But just change over time. Yeah it does. Maybe it's probably 6000. I didn't have the money. And, so he bought it, perked it in one of his sheds, and I had to pay it off before I got it.

But it was so rewarding. You know, I think I paid it really relatively quick. Like within the year I had it. It was like summertime. Like I got to drive this car, you know? So. So yeah, definitely pay the car off. But anyway, let's go back to this Viper. So the Gen five Viper, they're beautiful. I would say there I don't know if there's a more beautiful car.

This coming from a guy that I don't own. One. Like I just think they're so beautiful. Okay. But I've had the moment a couple times with Gen Fives where I've driven one or a couple. We have one actually right now at Wiser and Nissan, which is a beautiful car, and I've driven that one. Yellow. Right. Yellow. Yeah. Which they only made for two years, 2013, 2014.

And there's only like 57 without stripes. It's pretty rare if you want a yellow one that's it's a non stripe car okay. Non stripe yellow cards. Very I want the Pennzoil car but okay okay. Yeah. But it's like that whole like meeting your hero thing where I've driven that car now and there's you're pretty tall. I'm tall in the torso.

I'm like basically the headliners here. Like so I need I need to do the two inch seat lowering kit, which is awesome, by the way, which they make. Yeah. Okay. But I have this car, which is, you know, 500 horsepower. I've got this car which is a thousand ish horsepower. Viper doesn't feel fast to me, okay, but it's loud and it's uncomfortable as a seating position, like, because it's.

Yeah. Yeah. And so it's like, I add up these things and I go like the value quotients. Not there. Oh, I see, like it, like it. I want one so bad. But like nothing in me says like that's the right car. Okay. I, you know what I mean? Like, it's hard. It's hard. Like, it's a beautiful car and like, I respect them and love them and think they are worth all the money they're worth.

And because you don't hear turbos, that's the problem. You need turbos. Okay. Well, that's. How much does that cost you? You've interviewed the nth mono and cowboy guy dollars a horsepower. Okay. Yeah. I mean, you got a quick 140 grand line around. That's what I'm saying. So you go by the car just so you buy one private party for you.

Do see the common denominator here, though, right? They're both turbo cars over here sitting next to us. I think that's true. But they came that way. Yeah. So so so yeah. The gen. Anyways, the car is beautiful. I would love to have one, but it's not a keeper for you. Well it could be if it was a twin turbo and and moto or Calvo car like.

Sure. I mean there's one in Iowa that was just posted a Ranger. Yeah. If for 375,000 and it's like oh, you could get the red one for 515. No I'm not. That's crazy money. And even the 375 is crazy money. I'm like, can I sell that, sell that it, sell all my toys to really late? And then it's like, am I gonna like.

But that's again the car. It's like when you start it up, you're letting it warm up. Yeah. You're watching all the gauges. You're listening to the sounds. It's that all of a car and that modified. It's a different experience that I don't want to say. I can kind of get that with that. If that's like that, that, that I'm trying to like describe the the ritual, you know, of old cars.

Yeah. It's kind of like the brushing your teeth of cars. Yeah. Like you do it first. But if I want a fast car, I just go jump in that car. Yeah, go to the Hy-Vee in that car, you know. So does it drop my kids on this side of the highway? So that's convenient. Yeah. That's my. That's right.

I'm not waiting six minutes at this like no one should. No one should, or I need to go drop my son off at orchestra practice. I'm taking that car. It's just the violin fits in the back. It does heats everything up. But. But it does fit. So, yeah, the Gen five Viper is interesting for me. Okay. Yeah, yeah, I'm even, like, struggling.

Is the Gen two GT's like a better proposition than the Gen five? I got to. I'm not sure if you're familiar with AJ's garage out here. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I'm friends with AJ. Yeah. Great guy. He had that approach. I was actually the little backstory. So the twin turbo one that I got to ride in, he had a handful of Vipers at one given point.

Whether it was he always has a handful of Vipers. Well, no no, no. The guy that AJ got this one from. Okay. But AJ does always have a handful of Vipers. Anyways, that Red Gen two was a pro charged car I believe I was making.

Was a 1200 1100. It was. It was a stupid number. But anyways, I got in it and it was cool because it was a viper. Looks wise, it's cool. But when we were talking through it, it's like, you know, it's like the the hood has issues are known to have this particular problem. And then it's like the it starts to show that it's a dodge.

Yeah. You know like Dodge from the late 2000. Gen five got rid of most of that. Like truly they perfected the Viper with that one. Gen four acres are incredible to from. I got to ride in one of those first Viper but you probably actually you could agree with me Gen three. Gen four are probably, you know they don't have the window actuator issues, the door handle issues.

The the they don't have that. Yeah they don't. Yeah. They don't have the hood issues. There's like problem is like my dad keeps looking at those Gen three Gen fours and he goes, they look like corvettes of that kind of era. I could see a little bit like Gen fours are cool. The gen threes are the value though.

They're like 40 grand, dude. Yeah, but it's an 8.3l versus an 8.4. It's got that drop top man. Yeah there's that's the ice cream car. Yeah. There there's some cool things to it right. Like I can I can see a value to the right person in every car. Totally. Right. Like well I think that's the interesting thing about this hobby.

Yeah. Like I, I could fawn over your GT. I love that you lowered it. I love the wheels that you put on it. I think the color plaid interior. I love the plaid interior. I think there's.

There's unique. I try to find unique things with every car. I do have a hard time finding it in a Camry or a Sentra or a Corolla or an accord. You know, there are some. Yeah, and there might be some neat aspects to those cars. They're commuters that I haven't discovered, but if there's a little bit of uniqueness, a little bit of, you know, you know, heritage behind the car, that makes it interesting, then I'm all in 100%.

Yeah, I almost got a GR Corolla instead of this, but it was just a little stretch financially at the time. Yeah, those are cool cars. Yeah, that would have been a fun one. There's just I think you made the right choice with the GT. It was the right. It's a it's a classy car. Yeah I got it from a BMW motor works funny enough.

Oh, did you really. Right. So that's. No you're talking Bloomington. Yeah, yeah. The Penske store. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. What's it called? Yeah, because I sold my white one at the right time. Like, basically my dad was like, hey, this card king up to 100,000 miles. And it's like, you know, I did the math in my head. I'm like, I'd rather finance a new car or new I gotta use.

But rather than risk, like if, like, for example, the transmission went out my brother's GT and I was under warranty, but it was. It was 12 grand, all said and done like DSG. Yeah, DSG it was more than the car was worth. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like if that would have happened to my modified car I'm just like and at the time I was, you know, I was putting every dime into the show.

You know, it's like, you know, traveling the country and all that. And I'm like, you know what? Like, let's do the smart thing. So I got a good price for that one. I think some 16 year old blew it up at this point. Of course.

This one I managed to negotiate down a little bit and it just it just worked out.

That was a stressful week. I, I think you made a good choice here. I have a question for you. Sure. Right of passage. Cars. Okay. What cars should everyone have in their life? Life? Lifetime of cars, like as an enthusiast or anybody. Definitely enthusiast. Okay. Because there are people that don't care if they, you know, we're not going to talk about those people.

That's not this podcast sense. Right of passage cars. Right? You don't have to be like all price ranges. I like to think of more like cars that are drivers. Like, I like to think of cars that are attainable. A small boosted four cylinder. Okay. And here's why. Because like I've got like when I was I drove more stuff when I was a photographer.

Funny enough actually not as the podcast let me drive some cool stuff too. I've driven a wide range of cars right from, you know, stock Subarus all the way up to hurricanes. Yeah, everything. Like, you know, it's like, you know, 1000 horsepower Gt500. That's a cool amg GT. Yeah, right. Like a wide square. I saw you ripping down that highway.

Me, my brother, my dad. All drive. It depends. I wonder who was that? Top speed has to be me. It has to be. Yeah, it has to be. But I'm sure, I'm sure. Four cylinder turbocharged does it. Front wheel drive is okay. Front wheel drive. Oh, ideally. Okay. And here's why. Because the wrong wheel drive is Max Verstappen calls it.

You have to learn how to appreciate a light car, right? Because, like, everything's a freaking tugboat nowadays. Like, you're not gonna like, you can't appreciate driving mechanics on something that that's floaty, right? Lowering this car. Change it. Actually, forget lowering it. When I put a sway bar in it completely changed the car. I was like, oh, we're about to spend some money.

Really bolted that thing on there. And it was like, dude, it changed the turn completely. Like it made me love the car again. I love that, because there was a while I was just like, you know what? I'm ready to get read this thing because of all the technology that made it problematic. So but then there's also the tune ability.

So if you could find one that like, you know, like if we're thinking Honda's, if we're thinking what about like a Ford Focus St. Perfect, right? Right. The four cylinder turbocharged five speed. Yeah. They're not that expensive either. You can get a salvage rebuilt title one for 5 or 6 grand, or you can get a nice one for 15.

Yeah. If we're talking like just 13 to 15 entry level front wheel drive, like we're not talking golf Rs and focus Rs. Can't go there. Can't go there like there's this rite of passage car. Yeah. Like my brother had a GT that was his first car. So I think you nailed the first one. Nailed it. So. Well, I, I plan on Levi, my son, who's 15, who just got his learner's permit.

Okay, that's where the question came from. Everybody watched the road like. Yeah, he drove me to Quick trip last night. He did a great job. No, it wasn't in these cars. But Ford Focus st I want to that's what I want him to buy for his first car. Manual transmission. Stay off the phone. It's turbocharged. It's front wheel drive.

It's light. It's just. I just think it's like it's just a car that you should have and, like. And if he gets the bug to modify, you could put a bypass or a blow off valve on it. You could put an exhaust. You can do fun things. I think it's okay. Okay. What's the next car oh like that you upgrade to.

Yeah. Would you go from there? All these rite of passage cars, kind of your milestones. Like, for example, anytime I shouldn't say next car, but anytime I see like Honda guys that started with like a CR or whatever, it's like 20 years later they have an NSX, you know, like, or maybe they go over and get a GT-R, but but let's see what's a good next car, I think, I think you touched on I think if you've had a front wheel drive car, the next thing you kind of want is you either want to go a rear drive or all wheel drive.

For me, like I want to do a grade six purely because of content and racetrack reasons. But if I wanted a streetcar, it'd be hard not to consider a stingray right now. Man, a C8 Stingray, or like, let's do a little bit older. A lot of car. No, I'd say I'd say C8, since you can buy one of those.

I've seen them. I've seen them transact. I haven't seen them in the 30s, but low 40s, seen 40s, high mileage. I've seen 100,000 mile units in the low 40s. Now that's probably I would probably rather spend a little bit more and get a little lower mileage. But I think you're that's that's a lot of value there. That's a lot of car 0 to 60.

And and if it's Z 51 2.8 seconds 495 horsepower I feel like that's a lot of car depending. I don't know, I'm kind of over these 550. Like they're cool. They're great. Is it a is it a progression from a GTI or a focus? Maybe. Maybe I think so, yeah. Otherwise you know what you know. Oh you know what I like?

What I would love if I was just if my income was a little bit higher and I was just a little bit more irresponsible. M3 40. Oh, the new ones look incredible. They're a little spendy, but like, you know, 50, 55,000. Yeah, but it's like that B-58 all wheel drive, like it'd be a cool car. I briefly looked at getting rid of this for a, an A4, but like, you know, like because, like, had more legroom, better audio, all wheel drive, remote start, like I did.

I did the comparison. Yeah, you did it. You did it. I like that. But. And then I was like, all right, let's just let's be smart again. It keeps coming back to that. Like, what am I sacrificing to get this? It's it's it's dumb to be smart sometimes. Yeah, totally. I think something either looking in German or American, I don't know if there's anything that's in that mid-tier.

Maybe a supra. That's a mid-tier. Maybe that's that's a good idea. Like, I'm just kind of thinking that 40 to 60 range, you know what I mean? Like, that's like the upgrade in life territory I think about even more, even like lack, like, take the price out of it. I think you can. I liked your idea. Around four cylinder, turbo automatic or manual.

I prefer three pedals just for my driving experience. Okay, I'm not saying like a DCT isn't amazing, right? Like there's a bunch of really great transmissions out there. I then think, like a rear wheel drive car. Everybody's got to have that feeling once. They're just, what's it feel like to have a car step out on you, you know?

What's that feeling like? I think everybody needs a high revving car at one time in their life. Okay, so you're describing an S 2000 right now. It could be. Could be an eight for a really great value. Those are ridiculously cheap right now. Great high revving revs to the moon until you put a proper engine. Yeah. I think a European car, I think, you know, mind you, you might be able to check some of these boxes by like, you know, combining them.

You have to appreciate it. You're a proper European car, though. Yeah. I think about like a like a e. You're going to correct me like E90 two had the V8, right, V8, m3, V8, 8400 rpm. Let's go, let's go. Holy crap. I don't even know what those are going for right now. But that car like. Yeah, you're off with those.

Okay. Like, I think you're right on like America. I think you need an American car. I think the C8 blends maybe too far. Like, I probably wouldn't pick that as my American car. Like the challenger. Like, give me a Hellcat 500, I love driving, give me a GT 500. Give me a Gt350, give me any. Actually, 350 high revving V8.

Yeah, but okay. It's like it's you can, like, unlock these combinations of neat cars. I also think, just like a high quality Asian import. I don't care if it's front driver. I don't care if it's an example. Oh, you could do like the S2000. Like those things aren't going to break on you. Like a civic. I want to try a new five.

I've heard great things about it. Yeah, that'd be that'd be one of my dad's dealership. Not I think about it. So these are all like the things I think about around cars. It's like. Like what? What? I just want to. I want to experience as many. Actually, I think everybody should have a truck, like. Oh, yeah, maybe.

Let me rephrase that. Not not necessarily a truck, a something that has the ability to go off road, go off road. Like there's pictures over there in a 90. I'm in a 1995 Nissan Pathfinder that we thought it was a good idea to take a sawzall and cut out the wheel. Wells, put 33 inch tall tires on that.

I think we bought used. Not a good idea. Don't do that. Don't buy used tires. I've done okay. Has torsion bars in the front, so I cranked those to lift the front for free. And I think I had some Jeep Grand Cherokee Springs in the rear to lift the back and then brought it to the Iron Range, drove it there.

You know, the Iron Range is up north, multiple hours and then take it on trails that it has no business on. Break the front axles have to get someone to tow me out. And luckily two wheel drive still worked and drove it home. Everybody needs an experience like that, so you need to have a vehicle like for that.

As I got you, you know, I did that a few times with Nissan product and then I got some Land Rovers and I did it with a discovery, which was fun, much more reliable or as an in-house next. Those things are cool. I drove one. Did you have you all the switches like very aircraft like, So funny.

Shifter felt like I was in a BMW because it's a BMW. Yeah. Very neat car. Thought it was pretty cool. You think they're going to make it as a company? I think it's like some billionaire owns it or whatever. I, I don't know, the whole backstory should probably look into it. Yeah, I think I think it's that's a that's a tough, tough road to hell.

Yeah. That's going to be hard for them to break through. There were some interesting things. I liked a lot of things on the cards, some things I didn't like on the car. But but it will be interesting to see how they do. I, I don't know. All right. Well, I think we're coming up. Yeah, yeah. Close to two hours.

Holy smokes. That goes like that goes fast. Well, at the end of every episode, I'd like to ask my guest to pick three cars. I don't know if you've heard this question before. No, I haven't, so sadly, I'm not. I'm obviously not listening to the answer. Oh, good. Yeah. You didn't prepare them I did not. This is going to be not great.

But yeah, at the end of every episode as a guest, pick three cars and a question goes like this. You have an unlimited budget. You could build whatever you want, cut together whatever you want. And it has to be a daily driver, a Trek car, and a show car. Daily driver track, any type of track to track car and a show car.

The track is going to be to you as well. So the track car is going to be the F40, LM oh oh unlimited budget, right? Do we see a limited budget? Yeah. Okay. Are you using. Well, because that's like unobtainable for everyone. But I think that's the most gorgeous car ever. Wheels look, sound, whatever, you name it. I think at this point my are we know whether dependency like because we're Utah or something.

Okay. So like if all your like you're calling. Okay, I'm gonna go warm weather. Okay. I am a bit of a fanboy on the e60 M5 with a six speed. That's the new ones, right? Nope. Nope, that's a 2006 to 2000. 10 or 11. I'd like. I'd like a nine or newer because that's the LCI car. Soft closed doors just they're so great now.

They're so unreliable. But let's say I got a low mileage one and six speed and cool exhaust. Okay, so that's my that's my interesting fit. Fit five people in it. And I gotta have a show car a show car. Yeah. Go to why is that a boulevard. Get some Ben and Jerry's. Oh, interesting.

I mean, the show car. Things interesting for me because I'm not like, I don't maybe love that aspect of this hobby as much like a car that's just set up for that. But it's a good looking cruiser. I got the F40, LM, I've got the M5.

Last one.

I'm going to go like I think they're mid 60s Lincoln Continental with the the with the suicide doors. Yeah. Do some billet wheels, some 2020s or 21 or whatever the appropriate size is on air black. I don't know why. I just knew you were gonna say that. That's a cruiser. Yeah, that's a show car. Yeah, but also, you can cruise it.

So those are my three. Okay. Did I match anybody else's, ever? I think they'll be one of you. Might be five. Maybe. Might be different. Okay. The I've heard F40 before. Of course everybody says that for you. So I'm not original. Yeah, I've heard the Lincoln a handful of times. Okay. But for some reason I just, you know, I just I just felt it.

Yeah. The Kennedy car. The Kennedy car. That's right. Yeah. Harris, what are your top three? And we'll get about every eighth episode. Somebody asks me, then I always change it up. All right, change it up. Yeah. Let's see. I'm kind of.

I'm actually don't think on this a little bit. Sorry. Terribly listening. I think I'm just for a second.

All right. Let's start with track car. Just because I was just that am. So last last weekend. The weekend before. Okay.

It would be really cool to just dive bomb into turn one at Road America. Just in. Whether it be just like a, like almost 200 miles an hour or slower, I think it'd be a little bit slow. I don't know, I would not do a prototype, I don't know, I it'd be cool. Well this will go into turn one at 200.

Is it 200. Well that's cooking but they've actually done that with that. Yeah it's been a while. So I watched the video on the street. Right. Turn on the straight. Yep, yep. Yeah. I just, I'm just thinking about the incredible sounds that like. Oh, actually, don't scratch that track. Valkyrie. Oh, Valkyrie track are super cool. A little bit faster than I'd be ever comfortable driving like I.

But exotic. I mean, wild looking, like the sound pretty cool. Oh, dude. Insanity. Okay. Like that. All right, so that's track car daily driver.

Thinking GT. No, I did say that one time though, because it's under the radar. It's very. Yeah, yeah. I did get a chance to drive my friend's RS6. Really, really nice car, I think. I think e63 s I do like the Mercedes interiors. Like, my dad's GT-R was thinking E3 63 S wagon or I think sedan stands cool too, though I would have picked that if I could get a hand shaker in there.

So see, I got track car daily driver, show car. Oh man, I think.

Has to be an auto build still okay. Has to be. So it's got to be a Viper then, right? Or I suppose they do Audi they do. Lambo actually thinks I would do a Ford GTI from them to supercharge for GT at about nine cool 900 horsepower. There's an incredible video. Beautiful car. Yeah, yeah, I think that's my answer for today.

Check back next Tuesday. On that note, where can I find you? Well, you could find me at the walls or out of motive group at any of the dealerships, Nissan stores or Subaru stores, but no online. Colton Ray is just my face. Subaru store CEO. Yep. Are you gonna be at the show on Sunday? I will likely be there.

Are you going to be there? Well, it turns out that we're apparently sponsoring it or something. Okay, cool company 23. Okay, cool. So I'll try to figure that out. Try to make my morning better. But no, just actually I do post quite a bit of content on Facebook, so if you could follow me or friend me on, on Facebook, that's cool.

Colton, Ray, Colton, Ray and then really original handle for YouTube. It's at Colton Ray. Same thing secured before anybody else. And then my Instagram is creator and see Ray. So Colton and then Ray. But I don't really know why I picked automatic but I don't seem like an automatic guy. No, but I like only yeah, I don't know.

I'll take an auto depend. Hey, I drove my Superstock a lot of years. Yeah. True, true. So. Yeah. Well. Thank you. This was awesome. I'm glad we finally made it happen. So, everybody, thanks for tuning in. Colton, thank you for making this happen. Finally. And we'll see you all next time. All right. Thank you.