Nuts and Bolts – August 2017

It’s all the stuff that didn’t make it into earlier CarStuff episodes along with a bunch of unusual car-related news stories, some listener mail and maybe even a few laughs along the way.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the Hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how Stuff Works dot com. I and
welcome to car Stuff. I'm Scott, I'm Ben. As always,
we are joined by our super producer. Today it is
Alex grab Bag Williams grab Bag. That's good, That's okaya

(00:25):
not our best work. Well, it seems like recently we've
been saying that a lot like we come up with
a nickname and they think, well, it's not all that great,
is it? And I think it's because we come up
with it, you know, off the cuff, like on the fly,
Well what was what was that was it? Burns are done?
The poet who said man's reach must exceed his grasp? Else,

(00:45):
what's a heaven for? You know, kind of a aim
for the stars land in the clouds? Nice? Ben, I'm oppressed.
It's been a very philosophical week for me, Scott. I
bring in and I bring in all this silly stuff
and you're you're, you know, quoting poets and great authors.
This is this is first a great is a matter
of opinion. Uh, just no matter what your high school

(01:07):
English teacher told you. And and this is not silly,
this is interesting stuff. This is for you and I
one of our favorite recurring segments or episode formats, Nuts
and Bolts. Yeah, and this time I'm primarily gonna focus
on just some kind of I guess, weird wacky news,
if you want to call it that, because I just

(01:27):
feel like there's so much of the stuff that comes
across my desk just about every day that it's hard
to ignore a lot of these and they don't really,
you know, uh, take up the space of a full show. Really,
we can't talk talk for an hour about some of
these things. Maybe we could, you never know, we stretched
things quite a bit right our sidebars and everything, but um,
you know, in this case, we're gonna take maybe I

(01:48):
know five or six different things that I have, and
you're gonna, you know, add some email flare to this
whole thing, I guess because we get a lot of
email now as well, and have for the last nine
or ten years. But but this is one of those
things where we just used to catch up on everything
and maybe clear out the inbox a little bit. Yeah,
and I have a couple of surprises for you, Scott,
and hopefully they'll be surprising to our producer Alex and

(02:12):
to you ladies and gentlemen. So no spoilers except for
one of the things. Has nothing to do with automobiles,
nothing to do with transit. It's just a weird news
story and I wanted to see your reaction. We'll save
it for like at least after a break at some point.
All right, sounds good. Alright, So so what do you got? Well,

(02:32):
let's dive right in here. And there's gonna be many
of these, So this isn't the whole show by any means,
but we're gonna first talk about an article that I
ran across from a place called auto guide dot com,
and it also was on other sites like I think
it's on Wiki Lander in places like that. Um, the
ten cars most likely to have been in an accident.
Oh yeah, yeah, I remember this right now. This is

(02:53):
and listen to the title again. It's important that you
get it. The ten cars most likely to have been
in an accident. So this is something you want keep
in mind if you're in the market for a used car.
You know, the idea is that when you're out buying
a used car, something that's not you know, well, not
brand new from the from the factory, not brand newing
a lot, something that's used. You don't know the the
overall condition of the car really until you kind of

(03:15):
dig into some of some of the details of it. Now,
some of those details can be found um with different
sites like you know, auto check or car Facts or
places like that which will give you accident reports right right,
or a title search can get rid of some of
the salvage, flood insurance right off stuff exactly right. Now.
Here's the problem with that, though, is that you and
I both know that not every time you get in

(03:36):
an accident, you take us to the insurance company and
say I've been in an accident. You don't report every
single accident because hey, you know your your uncle does
you know bodywork, and you know a little paint and
buff work and stuff like that, and you can get
some of the stuff just taken care of at the
small time shops in town. Yeah, or even if it's
a little cosmetic paint scrape, you can probably go to

(03:58):
a touch up yourself. Yeah, yeah, I mean, And there
are even some people out there that are good enough
with Bondo that you know, they can do this in
their own grudge. And you know, no one's the wiser,
So there's some tricks out there. Really, and really, there
are two types of accidents, and we'll get to the
types of cars they're most likely. They've actually ranked them,
and I'll tell you how they came about that. You
know the methodology in just a minute. But there are

(04:18):
two types that we talked about. Is reported and there's unreported,
and I think we kind of covered that just a
moment ago, but they used that information in this in
this study to develop this chart of this top ten
chart that that we're looking at right now. Both you
and I are looking at um of the ten most
likely vehicles to be in an accident. And here's how
big the sample was ben two point four million vehicles

(04:43):
between the ages of I guess the two thousand nine
model year and newer so anything from two thousand nine
up until h This was written in ten, so I'm
gonna guess probably a model year if I had to guess.
There's the thing. They used Experience auto check to examine
whether a vehicle had a reported accident, and to identify
an unreported accident, they used auction condition reports, which is smart.

(05:04):
So there's a lot of cars out there for you know,
on auction or at auction, and they use those reports
that showed more than one metal body panel with signs
of paint work, but where the auto check report did
not show an accident. So in other words, they know
something's going on with that car. They can see, you know,
the waving nous and the paint or whatever. You know,
they can trained expert can spot that kind of thing, right,

(05:24):
And those are the people conducting those auction condition reports.
I think that's smart. I think that's a good way
to construct the net here to gather the sample size.
I think it's a decent size to have two point
four million vehicles and again spanning many model years. So
the way that this chart is laid out, everybody knows
there's a making model, and we'll tell you that percentage
of reported accidents, and then a percentage of unreported accidents,

(05:47):
and then that makes a percentage of overall accidents. Okay,
So we'll try to read these um in a way
that makes sense. And I don't know if we need
to read every single one of them. Will just go
through the list tend tend to one. I asked, if
you want to do it that way, that the most
likely vehicle will be the last one we read. UM.
But according to the study, This is number ten. Eight
percent of Infinity q X sixty SUVs have been in

(06:09):
reported accidents, while another five point five percent have been
an unreported accidents, which makes a total of thirteen point
five percent. Okay, so that's the number ten vehicle on
our list, and that's the way all of these go.
And you know, the numbers aren't really changing dramatically between
the percentage of reported accidents and percentage of unreported accidents
between ten and one. It's just that when we get

(06:30):
to the top, you know, the first one here on
our list, the number ten is at thirteen point five
percent of those vehicles have been in an accident of
some sort, either a reported or unreported. By the time
we get up to the number one, it's eighteen and
a half percent. So you know, it's one in five
chance that that vehicle that you're buying has been in
an accident of the type that we're going to tell

(06:50):
you in a moment. But let's go from ten to
number one, Okay, so we'll we'll laundry lists and this
now that everybody knows how the system works, I hope
so too. It's a little confusing when you're not looking
at the chart. But I also want to know what
what you all think about the the types of cars,
because I think this may later play into some of

(07:11):
the driver's stereotypes car stereotypes he talked about before. Absolutely, Yeah, okay,
So next we have the Lexus C T two h
thirteen point six percent chance that it has been in
an accident if you buy it used. And then there's
the Cadillac A T S which comes in at number eight,
and that is that there's a fourteen point one percent

(07:31):
chance that that has been in an accident before you
buy that car. And don't throw stones on that statistic
if you drive an out A five because you have
bought a car with A there's a fourteen point two
percent chance it had an accident if you bought it used.
All right, So these are just creeping up, right. So
then the Lexus r X three fifty comes in at
fourteen point four second Lexus. Yeah, and then the Infinity

(07:54):
j x UH comes in at fourteen point six second Infinity,
And then there's the jet War x J which comes
in it This is going up again fifteen point seven percent,
and now we're in the top three. Okay, the top three.
So number three is the range Rover evoke, and that
comes in a sixteen point five percent chance that that
has been in an accident, either reported or unreported before

(08:16):
you buy that used car. And we do want to
say before you get to the top two, which I
think there's some Gallow's humor here, this is the stereotype
stuff we're talking about. Before we get to those top
two though, we do want to say that the good
news is in every example, the percentage of accidents that
we're reported remains higher than the percentage of unreported accidents. Yes, yes, alright.

(08:38):
So number two is a BMW X one and that
comes in at eighteen that's pretty high. That's pretty high.
And uh, number one, if we could have a drum roll, Alex, oh,
we gotta we got a live drum roll. How's that?
That's great? I'm feeling it. The BMW four series. That's right,

(09:00):
ladies and gentlemen, the BMW four series coming into eighteen
point five percent, which means, as Scott said, you can
just call it close enough for government work and say
you've got a one in five chance. Oh my gosh,
is that unbelievable. A one in five chance that a
BMW four series has been in the wreck now now again,
the reported accidents are about eleven point five percent of

(09:21):
that total, of that eighteen and a half, and the
unreported accidents are about seven percent, So the odds are
a little bit greater that it has been in a
reported accident, which is I guess a little consolation slight
and so sure there could be better methodology behind some
of the data here, but I think it's pretty solid.
And I think for those those of us in the

(09:42):
audience who have a low opinion of BMW's not me personally,
I want to take pains with that. I'm actually a
fan of virtually every single thing that floats, flies, swims,
or drives, with one notable exception which we do not
need to dwell on today, but but we do know
there's a there's a bit of a stereotypes and tides

(10:03):
for BMW drivers. Yeah, sure there is, And I also
I'm a fan of BMWs, but maybe not of every
BMW driver, how about that? Okay, yeah, not of everyone,
But again, broad strokes, you can't you can't say everybody
acts and reacts the same way. So, uh, you know,
you know which one you are? Remember? Yes you are?

(10:23):
I guess so but you know, here's the thing been
with with all these numbers that were thrown out there,
the percentages and the chart and everything, I think that
if our listeners go to auto guide dot com and
check out that chart, Uh, that's maybe the best way
to to kind of make all this makes sense in
their head. Yeah. Absolutely, which is true with a lot
of the stuff, but maybe not for the second thing here, because, uh,
the second thing on our list, because this one is

(10:45):
just this is mind blowing every time we talked about
because we have talked about expensive parking spaces in the past,
and this is a record center, well record center for China. Yes,
in the past. The episode you're alluding to is we
looked at the word old's most expensive parking space, which
at the time of the episode was in uh was

(11:06):
in Boston, right, Yeah, boy, that's a long time ago.
It was. It sounds right, and it's changed that this
title has changed before the one there was one in Boston,
there was very expensive one in London, and then later
in the Middle East, and now we're in China. Yeah.
And I will also talk about some other things here
along the way too, but um, there is a parking

(11:28):
spot in Hong Kong that was recently sold. Now it recently,
very recently. These articles come from around mid June of
this year. A parking spot in Hong Kong that sold
for five point one eight million dollars, which wells Hong
Kong dollar. So I shouldn't have led with that number,
maybe because it's a there's a less impressive U. S dollar,

(11:49):
but it's still impressive. What's the what's the US equivalent
six hundred and sixty four thousand, two hundred dollars. Yeah, okay,
so that's five point one eight million and Kong dollars.
But that does set a record in the city where
authorities say they're struggling to contain soaring property prices. Now
that the parking spot is in western Hong Kong Island

(12:10):
and it was sold to a guy named Kwan y
Ming on May thirty one, and you know, the land
Registry is where they looked this up. And I looked
into this Kwan y Ming guy, and turns out that
he is an executive director of an investment stock corporation
in Hong Kong, and he's got interest all over the world. Really,
I mean, I'll tell you what he's got in Hong

(12:30):
Kong alone. He already has two apartments and two parking
spots uh in the same building with a total value
of about ten million dollars already. So this six hundred
and sixty four thousand is sort of a drop in
the bucket, uh, just looking for a space to park
a third vehicle, maybe two million dollars US UH ten
million dollars. I think that's ten million dollars U s. Yes.

(12:50):
He also has property and investments in New York's Greenwich
Village that range in the total of somewhere around twenty
six million dollars and each um each parking spot in
that area, and that in that part of Greenwich Village
that he's in, I guess, I don't know if it's
an apartment complex condor what it what it is exactly,
but each parking spot is worth about one million dollars.

(13:12):
So this this Grange Village place that he has for
million or sold for million, that included the one million
dollar parking spot along with it. Well, well it's crazy,
but it seems that every everybody that owns property in
that area is paying approximately a million dollars for a
parking spot. I had no idea that the rates had

(13:32):
gone that high in that part of New York supplying demand.
I guess so. And you know the funny thing is
they point out here that Hong Kong is just crazy
expensive place to live. It's sort of um uh, sort
of like living in downtown Manhattan. I guess if the
equivalent for here in the United States. Yeah, it's one
of the most expensive property markets on the planet. And

(13:54):
if you have some spare time and a strong stomach,
you can search with your your preferred Internet browser for uh,
the slums of Hong Kong. Yeah, the slums of Hong Kong.
A sure, but yeah, but I was going to tell
you how expensive it is. They say that in Hong Kong,
what they call a nano apartment it's about two hundred

(14:17):
square feet. It's about five hundred thousand U S dollars
and barring any economic catastrophe, prices especially for real estate
which does include parking spaces, uh, seems only set to
rise in Hong Kong. That that's the size of a time.
I had a two hundred square foot um studio apartment.

(14:37):
Are you serious? I paid nowhere close to five thousand
dollars for it. I can guarantee you that. Where was
It was in Royal Look, Michigan. Oh yeah, two hundred
square photo apartment I did. Yeah, it was a tiny
little place above It was above the boiler for the
for the entire apartment building. Everybody else had regular size apartments.
I had this little room that they made in into
a studio apartment. Um. It's kind of a ridiculous place.

(14:58):
It had in the a room, everything was like, um,
I don't want to say half size, it was like
three quarter size everything. Plath tub, you know, the sink,
the toilet, everything. It was all shrunken down. Had like
um kind of smart features like you know the fold
out um um table from the wall. You can fold
it kind of like um, what's that Murphy Murphy bed?

(15:19):
Only it wasn't like hyable as a Murphy table. Yeah,
for for a dining table, and you know like built
in uh you know, dresser drawers and things like that.
It actually made pretty good use of the space. I
had a lot of stuff crammed in there, and I
had room to move. It was comfortable. I was there
for about six months. Oh yeah, I could have lived
there for a couple of years. I think the only

(15:40):
thing really the end didn't get kicked out, now, I
didn't they The only thing, probably the most uncomfortable about
that was, you know, the heat from that boiler. You
just never knew when it was gonna hit. So, you know,
even though I had air conditioning in the in the apartment, uh,
it sometimes would just be ridiculously hot and you couldn't
cool it off in there because of the boiler right
bull the floorboards. Yeah, yeah, kind of crazy. But two

(16:02):
hundred square feet for five hundred thousand dollars in Hong Kong,
and again million dollar parking spots, and and this one,
I guess. I mean they say that this this is
a well that million in Hong Kong. I guess six
hundred and sixty four thousand, two hundred dollars. But man,
it seems like the trend is only going up. It's true.
You're absolutely right. And let's keep in mind that what

(16:23):
you may have been, you may have been relatively comfortable
as a you know, a young man out on the
scene in his nano apartment living by himself. A lot
of people living in these nano apartments are living with
a family or a spouse or a kid. You know,
I can't imagine cramming yourself into a space that tight
with with more than one person. And uh and at

(16:44):
that price, you know, knowing that you paid that price
to be there, that's that's it's just unbelievable. And I
didn't call mine a nano apartment by the way, it's
just studio apartment. Just a plain old vanilla studio apartment.
Well there, I bet you there's a difference there in category.
I bet that there are studio apartments, but they're larger. Yeah,

(17:04):
I guess aren't there also? Um, I guess maybe this
is something to use rent for the night or the
week maybe, but the honeycomb looking ones that you kind
of you can only lay down in them, the capsule hotels,
that's at the Capsule Hotels. Yeah, I guess. I guess
it would be a much more short term thing. But
it's just a place to sleep, really, and they're they're
pretty interesting too, if you want to look up, you know,
cities that are crowded and have to deal with with

(17:25):
very small space for a lot of people to kind
of cramon overnight and sleep. And it's a good solution.
But I mean, anybody's claustrophobic could not do it. And
you know, speaking of claustrophobic, I guess maybe it would
be a good time to take a break because our
next topic has to do with a little boy in
closing something that's true and I couldn't agree with you more.

(17:47):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. And I didn't mean to be morbid
when we when we went out of the last segment
of our show here, but um, it's a morbid thing,
it is. I mean, the next topic here, I guess

(18:09):
there's just no way around. Let's just jump into it and
and let's see what we think. But we've talked about
car burials in the past, right, and you know people
that are socialites, you know, people well known in the
community that have been buried in unusual vehicles because that
was kind of their thing, their signature vehicle that they
drove around town. There. I don't know, I want to
say one true love, but uh, they were exactly, they

(18:29):
were priceless to them. Uh. Sandra west in her Ferrari,
I think is one of them that comes with mind immediately.
Al we've talked about other people that just have had,
you know, car that's not even remarkable to most people,
and they want to be buried in it, you know,
like an old bottleville or an old uh um, you
know catallact. Yeah, something like that, something that you know
makes a statement, I guess. So what what I think

(18:50):
is interesting about this is that while it might sound
silly or morbid on the surface, or some people might
say it's even wasteful, right, uh, for the people who
want this, you gotta think of it kind of like
someone who says, I want to get buried with my
favorite watch that I've had since I was a kid,

(19:11):
or you know, for for some people, if you get
accustomed enough to a car that you have, it becomes
like an article of clothing. Yeah. Final wishes for people
are very important. I mean, I think it's something that
gives them comfort towards the end of their life. And
and this, this man's comfort we're gonna talk about, was
the knowledge that he was going to be buried in
his Harley Davidson's sidecar. And this is a guy out

(19:34):
of um Pennsylvania. I think he was in Steel City, Pennsylvania. Yeah. Yeah,
Arthur Smokey Werner Jr. Yeah, Yeah, and he he recently died,
He recently passed away now. He was eighty nine years
old and he was a Steel City resident. His name
is Yea Arthur Werner Sr. Smokey to his friends. Smokey
to his friends. Yes, good point. But he he died

(19:55):
of cancer. I think it was in late June of
this year. And his last wish is to be buried
in the sidecar of his Harley David's in heritage soft tail.
And there's a photo of m of Arthur Sr. Here
on his on his motorcycle. And he was a much
younger man at the time, not not a lot younger,
but but somewhat younger. Um. And a sidecar right next

(20:16):
to him on on this this Harley. It's a big
side car. It's not a tiny little side car. It's
a it's a it looks like almost like a recumbent
type design where he could lay down in it. It's
got a windshield on it. It's pretty nice matches the bike.
But the thing is that this guy had this sound
important this motorcycle was to him. Um. He bought the
Harley with his retirement bonus after he had worked forty

(20:37):
two years at a place called Bethlehem Steel as a welder.
So you know this is like his his retirement dream.
He probably spent a lot of time on the bike,
as as his daughter in law, UM Cindy Warner said,
he lived for the bike, so it was kind of
his trademark thing, his signature thing to ride around the
town in And uh, I guess just recently this place
called in Pennsylvania, this place called Heinzelman Funeral Home. Uh,

(21:00):
you know, carried out that last wish for him. And
not only that, they did something really unusual. And this
this led me to another search for a vehicle that
I had never heard of until this week. Go for it.
So this is the crazy So he's buried in his sidecar.
This I don't know, and I'll put this together. I
guess the funeral company has motorcycle horses. Yes, Supervisor David

(21:24):
Heinzelman is a bike enthusiast himself, and he and his
brother Robert, who run the funeral home, have three motorcycle
horses in their own fleet. Now I think these very
in design. And I can't track down whether or not
it's this exact funeral home or not. But I did
see the picture of this sidecar in another side car,

(21:47):
so that the motorcycle hearse design is such that there's
a rider, you know, the an employee of the the
funeral company, and he's riding and there's a hearse like
a carriage next to him. I got a big glass
carriage next to him. It's huge that would normally have
a casket. And they were able to fit the entire
sidecar in this. So it's it's very um it's strange

(22:10):
to see a sidecar within a sidecar being carried by,
you know, a black motorcycle hearse with the body and
with the body inside. Now, so this is really interesting.
You can find photos of this. But until again, about
two or three days ago, I had never heard of
a motorcycle hearse. I hadn't either until you showed me this.
And I do want to crack something. I think at
the top man him spoken said, Uh, Arthur Smoky Werner Jr.

(22:35):
Smokey is the sun and and Werner's senior is the
Werner's senior is the deceased. But so we're hoping Smokey
is still around. Yes, Smoky should still be around. And
if you're listening, man, that's that's very impressive because I'm
sure he had to search to find this very specific
funeral home to fulfill this last wish. Yeah, and what

(22:57):
a last wish. I mean, it's it's very fitting, I think. Say,
it's just it's one of those Uh, it's nice. I
mean again, I didn't mean to be morbid when we
were taking the break there or anything, but but this
is one of those interesting stories that only comes along
every so often. And you know, because we're focused on cars, trucks, motorcycles, airplanes, boats, whoever, whatever. Uh,
this thing just falls right in our wheelhouse. I figured

(23:18):
we'd we'd talk about it today. And I'm sure there's
probably others out there, others that will happen later this year.
Maybe we'll you know, pick them up for another Nuts
and Bolts in the future. Let yeah, I see this,
Scott for for the next direction for us to go. Okay,
do you know I'll offer you a choice. We can
go to some listener feedback on some past episodes which

(23:40):
were pretty We've got some great stuff here in the queue,
or we can double down on the morbidity just for
just for a bit, oh man, okay, um, And I
promise you, if you decide, if you if you choose
the ladder, if you choose to double down on the
on the dark side here. Uh, then I will take
We'll find a nice a nice thing after that. Okay,

(24:02):
let's do that then. Okay, alright, let's knock it out
all at once. All right, well, we might go back
to it later, but you never know. We tend to
do that, and it's true, but only as the show requires.
Here's something I found that I thought would be a
particular interest. And I don't know, uh how much we
had done on this before. I think we may have

(24:23):
talked about in the past. Do we ever do anything
on the cars that serial killers drove? Oh? Man, it
seems like we have mentioned them. It does, Yes, it
does sound familiar. It seems like we've mentioned them. And
I went through a period where I was trying to
I was trying to track down, given different reports and

(24:45):
news stories throughout the decades here in the US, I
was trying to track down when the stereotype of the
windowless murder van came about, you know what I mean,
van driving around the neighborhood, and I was trying to
find and I had trouble finding that because you know,
it's now it's like a cultural trope, right, You feel
like you see it more in crime shows than you

(25:06):
do in the real world. Right. One thing I found
that was a genuine The closest thing I found was
that Jeffrey Dahmer allegedly did have a van but it
had a window. Yeah, but he did have He did
have a blue van because he was working for a
floral delivery company. A blue van. And hey, kind of

(25:29):
like you know those windows that are like all fogged
up because someone's smoking inside, you know what I mean,
Like a real dirty looking van. It's just what I'm
picturing right away, and a weird shaped window probably, And
I was trying to find the model of the van,
still looking into it. But apparently the big link there
comes from again this this is morbid, folks. Uh. It

(25:49):
comes from when Dahmer was temporarily linked to the kidnapping
and murder of Adam Walsh in Hollywood, Florida. And as
as you know, his father went on to helm America's
Most Wanted. So this would have been a widespread report
of a van that maybe would have linked it in
people's minds to uh, to these types of crimes. So

(26:15):
maybe that's where the stereotype comes from. What's an interesting
link I could see that being the case. I thought
it was. I thought it was an interesting link. And
you know, there are sites out there that are called
like the Sketchy Van or something like that. You know,
they have photos of you know, kind of shifty looking vehicles.
They are parked all around their town. And you know,
of course when everybody's you know, contributing to that site,
there's a lot of them out there mis match you know,

(26:38):
weird stuff painted on the side, free candy pit painted
on the side. Oh yeah, you know something that go
for that. You know that that they want that mysterious look.
And I'm glad you sold that one. By the way,
there are better ways to give away surf less candy. Okay,
the last one because I don't want to because I
know we looked at a little bit at like Bodying
Clyde's vehicle, and I think we may have mentioned what

(27:01):
about the DC sniper vehicle, because that was that was
made into like a sniper customized yea customizing way, and
a lot of you know, you'll find a lot of
the um serial killer cars have been customized in some way,
in some dastardly way. You know that that is really
really creepy. I mean look at look at Bundy's vehicles.
I mean those were those were also modified. I think

(27:22):
he had removed you know, door locks and handles and
even seats, you know, kits hidden in it supplied, you know,
every time we talk about these, every time we mentioned this,
I have to think of this, like like every time
we read about somebody who gets caught in a in
a true crime book, you know, and they describe what
they found in the vehicle. It's always the stuff you

(27:43):
would you could plausibly use for a car. Every time,
every single time. It's almost like the kids that we
told our listeners to build to put in their car.
It's like, you know, a good pair of gloves check, yeah, yeah,
some rope check yeah yeah, you got a flashlight, yeah
you gotta are well a knife to cut the rope, right,
No need that, Yeah, crowbar is another good one. Uh

(28:04):
maybe uh some flares or some matches, black ski mask
just in case it's cold. Just kidding, just kidding on
that one. Hammer Oh yeah, hammer yeah, sure, why not
have small hammer something my ball being hammer. So I
guess what Scott I are saying is that we sincerely
apologize if we accidentally told you to build a murder kid.
You know what's it? Does it? It happens every time

(28:25):
I'm reading a true crime book, they say like, here's
here's what we found the suspect with, you know, at
the time of his arrest. And and it's always like
this super helpful, handy kit. But but there are some
things that are clearly you know, like they're torn strips
of bedsheet and handcuffs. But you're walking on the edge.
They that that I think is a little bit is

(28:45):
a little bit too far, that you would be in
a lucy You've got some splaining to do situation. But
if you um but I was thinking about this too,
what's the what's the push in the other direction? And
I think it's emergency food. If you feel like your
roadside repair and survival kit is looking a little bit
too murdery, you know, throw in like an m R

(29:06):
E or some granola or some hydrated food, some family pictures. Wait,
now that gets even crapy only if you're in them.
In the everything I add makes it worse. I think
maybe I should be in charge of just for this team.
I think maybe I should be point man on the kit,
building length of clothesline, you know, just in case now

(29:27):
darn it. Yeah, nothing works piano wire for tying transmissions. Alright,
moving on, all right, how about something how about something
a little bit lighter? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This one comes
from auto blog autoblog dot com and this is well,
it's rent. We don't we don't have he know here
in the United States anymore. We did at some point.

(29:48):
It may come back, you never know. But Renault, this
is really strange. Man. Renola thinks that the colors that
they've made available for a vehicle they call the Twin
Go Hatchback make for pretty fashionable nail polish as well.
True story, Yeah, this is so, this is this is interesting.
So they're launching a line of nail polish in what

(30:11):
was it, four four shades, four shades. It's yellow, red, black,
and then a very pale blue. And these four shades
are these these four colors happened to be the exact
same paint that they use on their Renault Twin Go
m And because they all match the paint exactly, they

(30:32):
also work with a different purpose. Yeah, they can also
be touch up paint for your vehicle because they match exactly. Now,
this is strange. It's strange. It's a strange thought. It's
an interesting idea too. So if you're out in about
the town, you get a little nick in your car
and you've happen to have you know, you're matching nail
polish on on you or in your purse or and
your back pocket or whatever. You can just use the

(30:53):
nail polish as touch up paint as well for your vehicle,
and you can check out your nails make sure they're
in good shape as well. It's the exact same color,
the exact same paint. Yeah, and it's it's strange because
if it's touch up paint, then it would have to
be really durable, right, So how would people get it
off their nails? I guess that's trouble. I have a
lot of I have a lot of questions with this.

(31:13):
I I applaud uh somebody going for a unique and
interesting product. I do wonder you know who it's for
if if you're listening and it's and you think this
is for me, I was looking for this. I'm tired
of getting rooked at the paint store and then having
to go to a nail place for this. Yeah, for
the single use paint. Yeah. Uh, then you can get

(31:35):
what it was essentially multifunctional paint for only for less
than ten bucks. Yeah, it's about nine dollars cents at
a current exchange rate. Now that is as of June.
But you can order this online. I guess Renault has
an online store and you know these these four shades
are available there. And if you have never seen a
twin Go, uh, twin Go looks a little bit sort

(31:58):
of like a smaller maybe like a Volkswagen g T
I or I'm trying to think of something or golf
something that um U S listeners can perspective. I guess yeah,
it's just it's similar. It's not exact, but it's it's
close enough to that that shape and size of vehicle.
Um interesting though. I mean, now the twin Go, of course,
we can't get it in the States, um but if

(32:20):
if you could, I mean, I guess if you like
the paint, you know, the nail polish, you can still
order that. You can still use that in the United States, right,
sure crime in doing that, you don't have to shake
you down for that. Now you don't have to worry
about airbags and all that other stuff. You know that
they're they're concerned about our bumper heights or whatever. This
could also make either a classy or hilarious gift to
one of your friends who owns a twin Go, depending

(32:43):
on their position and nail follow. Yeah. Hey, by the way,
I want to mention another vehicle that UM I have
seen this a lot in my travels. It's a it's
called a Renault Twizzy and I don't know if you've
ever seen a Twizzy or not. UM, I bet a
lot of our European listeners have, or you know, in
the European region, I should say. They're built in Spain.
It's an electric commuter car. It has a range of
about sixty two miles. And this is an interesting car.

(33:05):
It's all electric, like I said, but it has that
tandem seating position that you and I both find kind
of interesting. It's a really neat looking vehicle. It's a
three door hatchback um rear engine, rear will drive as well.
Weighs less than a thousand pounds, and this is a
common rental car over in a lot of cities in
Europe throughout Europe. UM. But it's just a cool looking

(33:26):
little vehicle that I think a lot of our listeners
may not have ever seen before. I figured to throw
it out there while we're talking about Renault because we
just don't get to see many of them here. Um
you know, since the Renault Encore days back and the
Delf Wigo has a long time ago. But um uh, well,
you never know, they may come back. And speaking of

(33:47):
coming back, we will return after a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. This is this is funny to us
because I tried to do a more a more interesting

(34:08):
or I guess elaborate return for the break didn't work out.
So it was a whiff. It was a brick. But
stick with and we're back. I think we're gonna stick
with the song and dance thing. I mean, it doesn't translate. Well,
you know, I should have thought of that. It should
have thought of a visual thing. It is it is. Okay, Well,
let me get the let me get the rest of
the team out. Guys, we're not doing the we're not

(34:31):
doing the intro song. You can take off the tap
shoes now, all right, I'm gonna keep them on. That
might actually translate that. Well, I didn't bring other shoes, okay,
so it's gonna be distracting. When you're leaving here. It's
true click clack down the hallway. So, speaking of fantastic
and relevant, segus, Oh yeah, it's relevant. You want to
you want to hear some listener mail? Yes? Please? Great,

(34:53):
we made it this far without listener mail. We made
it this far. There's a guy at least have a
couple in here. All right? Sounds called right, So Frank
writes to us, and Frank says, I recently listened to
your episode on icebreakers. Thought i'd offer some insight into
the US ice breaking fleet that might interest you and
your listeners. All the icebreakers the US currently operates run

(35:15):
by the U S. Coast Guard and not the Navy,
to which the best of my knowledge, has never operated
a single icebreaker. However, we could argue that the Navy's
fleet of nuclear submarines, which are referred to his boats
by the Navy. Navy surefish ships are referred to as ships,
could be considered pseudo icebreakers, since they have and continued
to operate under the Arctic regions of the North Pole

(35:36):
and have occasionally surfaced there for various reasons, one of
which I'm sure is to make sure Santa Claus is
still doing his job up there in the North Pole. Oh,
he's talking about the ones that you'll see. Sometimes they
just blast through ten ft of ice. It seems like
just very cool image. Yes, so he tells us, I'm
just gonna read some excerpts on this, but I'm gonna

(35:59):
read some of the highlights here. So he says, the
Coast Guard has different missions for its icebreakers. Aside from
checking up on residents of the North Pole, a large
part of an icebreaker's duties include keeping sea, lake and
river lanes open for ships and commerce, and that's mainly
performed by the inland icebreakers operating on the Great Lakes
and in the interior u S river systems. The sea

(36:19):
going icebreakers, the Polar Sea, the Polar Star, and the
Heely all operate out of Seattle and spend most of
their time ferrying scientific equipment and scientists to research stations
in the Arctic. And he included a couple of pictures
of the Polar Sea, which he says is now in
long term storage due to lack of funding to repair
and maintain it, leaving only two ocean going icebreakers in

(36:43):
operation for the entire US fleet. As we saw in
our previous episode, Russia is still like on the forefront,
they're cracking us under the ice. So before I move
on to the more interesting stuff about the mechanics of
the seagoing ice areakers, let me just make a few
points on the consequences of having too few icebreakers in

(37:04):
the fleet and not maintaining them. The most obvious is
not having enough platforms to perform the missions. Especially as
more of the sea ice in the Arctic melts due
to climate change, there will inevitably be an increase in
commerce throughout the regions, and the US will not have
the resources to keep the shipping lanes ice free or worse,
be unable to respond to ships in distress. Secondly, neglecting

(37:24):
these icebreakers due to funding and having them tied up
at the pier on a long term basis means crews
are losing valuable experience navigating through the ice and ice
breaking is mostly an exercise and experience, and if you
don't practice, you lose your expertise in this area. Also,
just as an aside, some of the engineers that run
these ships are the type that you might hear in

(37:45):
terms of such famous or infamous phrases as here hold
my beer or hey, watch this. It might be in
the public's best interest to keep these guys out in
the ice happily ramming ice with a large ship and
not on the local lay weeks in their own personal watercraft,
if you get my drift. So these are the seagoing cowboys.

(38:06):
Really yeah, I mean you have to live their adventurous
They're also uh have highly experienced, you know, and this
is a rarefied skill set, as Frank is telling us,
And Frank go was on to give us an inside
look at the mechanics of icebreaker operation and at some

(38:26):
of the implications of lack of funding for maintenance and repair.
Oh sure, I mean who knew that we? I mean,
the US only had two remaining you know, icebreakers that
are that are still in service. I had no idea
that was the case. Um, but it's an interesting, pretty
eye opening night. Frank is a U S Coast Guard member,
right or either active or or past. I'm not sure

(38:47):
he has. He works on or around icebreakers regularly as
part of his Coastguard reserve drill weekends. Very good, all right,
So Frank has inside knowledge and and we appreciate it.
That sounds very informative. Thank thanks for the awesome pictures too. Yeah, exactly,
I remember seeing that email, very very cool photos. So
what's that. Well, Um, I got a couple of things here.
I got one that, Um, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna

(39:08):
tell you right up front here. I think we're just
gonna kind of blow past this one, but watch for
this topic to come up. Is it's maybe it's his
own episode something that um uh, it's part of a
bigger episode. Maybe I just had the idea if we
had a little less time before this this is this
episode that we're recording right now, we probably would have
stuffed this one in here. But um, the more I

(39:30):
thought about it, the more I thought this would be
an interesting topic, kind of stand alone. There was a
full size rubber band powered dragster that was at one
time taken out to Bonneville and they were going to
make a land speed record attempt with a rubber band
powered dragster. And this is in two thousand eight, and
it's a real thing, and this happened. This is an

(39:51):
article in Gelopnik. Uh. And again the more I thought
about this, the more I thought, well, this could be
incorporated into a different episode maybe where we talk about
alternative power vehicles, but not so much like you know,
the the hydrogen electric you know that type of thing,
solar or soy cars or whatever this is. I want
to talk about cars that are propelled by you know,

(40:13):
triple A batteries and duchable oil. Yeah, yeah, exactly, or
in this case, one hundred and fifty rubber bands. How
interesting is that they're gonna go for a speed record
on the Bonneville Salt Flats in two thousand eight with
a rubber band powered drugster. Well that's also a heck
of a qualifier or a caveat, because if they're the

(40:33):
first rubber band powered vehicle to go on the salt flats, Yeah,
bingo record record, Yeah, land speed record. You just gotta
watch out for some hot shot guy who's got a
hundred and fifty three rubber bands. But the thing is,
how do you get a vehicle that's powered with one
hundred and fifty rubber bands to carry you the distance

(40:53):
that it has to go, you know, between the traps
and I think it has to go a mile between
the traps, so you know, at a at a certain
rate of speed, and they have to do it directions. So, uh,
it seems like it's a very interesting story here, and
I thought it might make a better segment in a
bigger show about these alternative vehicles, because there's some really
bizarre ones out there, strange, strange powered vehicles that don't

(41:15):
fall into the normal alternative power you know, um, sources
that we normally think of, you know, like the vehicles
they can travel in the flex lanes here in the city. Yeah,
it gets way stranger than you might expect. It's pretty weird,
pretty weird. So, UM, I do have some other stuff
and and so you know, even though we're kind of
dumping out of that one, UM, I've got two things

(41:36):
left really in front of me here, and I'll give
you a choice. There's one that you don't know about,
all right, all right, then there's another one that you
do know about, um, and it's it's it's it's personal nature, Ben,
It's it's my project car. Yeah, let's so do you
want to do that one first? Yeah? Because okay, so

(41:56):
long time listeners know that you have since time immemorial,
had a Chrysler Newport in your garage, and you have
assiduously been repairing this car, and you have also done
some pretty fascinating experiments. You made it, uh, you made

(42:17):
it a bear steel car, which we do have an
episode on you can check out at car stuff show
dot com. Yea many years ago, now many yeah, yeah,
many years ago. Don't remind me, but you've been making
some big moves on the car recently. Yeah, you know,
and that's after I'm going to tell you years and
years of procrastination, the typical project car pitfalls. Well, I

(42:41):
would see, I would see some of the more reasons. Well,
I guess, yeah, there are reasons, but you know, this
car falls into that category of you know, I probably
should have known better when I bought it. I mean,
I knew that time was gonna get tight because I
bought it when we got our house recently. You know,
this was not recently, it was many years ago, and
I should have known that along with the house comes

(43:01):
a lot of extra work and a lot of extra
responsibilities with you know, because the kids in high school now,
and you know, there's a busy schedules and work schedules,
and you know, we've kind of ramped it up here.
We've moved twice I think since uh uh, you know,
in our office right twice, I think since since I
bought this thing. Um, but it's been years and years
and I've I've just always put it off, and you know,

(43:22):
it's been kind of something that's just always bothered me.
And now I'm to the point and I'll tell you
why I'm working on it, and we won't spend too
much time on what I've done here. But um, the
reason that I'm getting rid of it is my kid
is going to start driving soon or is driving, and
we'll have another vehicle to uh, you know, fill up
our driveway with. And we can't have four vehicles to

(43:43):
jockey around all the time. It's gonna be too difficult.
Three is hard enough. But you know, with this car
continually always having one of the parking spots in the
garage and hasn't really moved, and it hasn't moved yet,
it's like nineteen feet long or almost nineteen feet, so
it takes up the entire half of the garage, my half,
I guess, if you want to call it that. So,
what are you gonna sell this? Yeah? I'm getting it

(44:04):
ready to sell. Yeah, So the reason I'm getting it
running is to sell it. And the good part here
is that I got it running and driving again. It's
actually it moves out of the driveway now, which is cool,
and it's been a lot of fun. I've been cruising
around the neighborhood a little bit with it. But I've
done a few things to it. It's still you know,
bare metal, is still you know, shiny metal, and still

(44:25):
got the marine gas tank, right, yeah, So I put
a new one in. That's one of the things I did.
And it's much in much better condition than it was before.
I've I've handled it. I guess I've engineered the if
you want to call it that. The temporary tank is
in a much better place now and and it's in
a lot better condition, and there's no danger the way

(44:45):
I've done it, And I'll try to describe that. But
um done like a new battery. And I got a
trickle charger for it, because you know, it's one of
those cars that you start up for five minutes and
shut down and started up again and shut it down
kills the battery. So I got a new trickle charger.
I put in a new break booster, a mass or cylinder,
which was a huge stumbling block for me to get
it out of the garage because it always ran. It
just didn't run well. I couldn't I couldn't stop, you know,

(45:08):
and I have a driveway that has a hill, so
I would have taken out maybe you know, the electrical box,
my neighbor's, my neighbor's car, maybe I don't know if
you know, other stuff on the way out. But that's
all taken care of now, so it works well. Um
as you've mentioned a new fuel tank, but it's a
marine fuel cell with you know, the right fittings and
the hoses and everything's routed the right way, and I've
got it strapped down so it's real tight in the corner.

(45:29):
And um here's one little concern I had. You know,
they always tell you with a you know, a poly
tank like that, you know, plastic tank, that you have
to put it on the ground in order to fill
it at the gas station. You have you have to
take them out of the back end of a pickup
truck or the trailer or whatever. So I was concerned
that I'm always gonna be filling this thing in the trunk.
Is it's twelve gallons, and I think a gallon of

(45:49):
gas is something like I want to say, it's eight
pounds somewhere around there. So that gets pretty heavy pretty quick.
Uh there's no way I'm gonna be lifting uh you know,
ninety pounds in and out of the trunk every time
I have to fill it up. And uh so I
had to figure out a way to ground the nozzle
and I did that with like a braided ground strap.
And I went to a clean spot on the chassis,
you know, a body ground and I made this collar

(46:11):
that then I slip into place, and then I put
the nozzle in to fill it. So it's the the
pump is grounded then right to the vehicle the body
every time I fill it. So that was a smart solution.
Maybe I'll put a photo up on Facebook or something
of how he did it if anybody else is in
that same spot, because it can be a real hazard
if you're in a similar situation. I think a lot
of you know, project cars, even if it's for a

(46:32):
week or so, you know, when they have a temporary
tank in place. Um, that's the situation they've got. And
this is real simple. It cost me less than twenty
bucks to do it. Now, I want to ask you
something that maybe uh I knew there's a little bit
more to say on this. You don't have to answer
right away, and you can also tell the audience, and
I tell the audience to me if this is two
personal Have you estimated the time in man hours that

(46:58):
you spent? No? No, no, I uh, I don't even
know if I could possibly do that, because I I
did a hand stripped this car using paint stripper and
a razor blade, and so I'm not doing it mechanically. Really,
I'm doing it manually, arduous process I have, I'll be honest,
I still have a little bit left to go on that.
I'm not totally done because when I parked it and

(47:21):
the brakes were not in great shape. Uh, that side
of the garage, I mean it's crammed in there tight.
So I did some of it and I probably ended up,
you know, pulling muscles in my back and neck and
everything trying to do it. So now I can turn
the car around and take care of part of the
other side, I mean that quarter panel. Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
I'm very very close to me and done, but it's

(47:42):
not totally done, and I have to just get it
in a better spot. And it's it's easy to do now,
but um the good thing. And maybe this is where
we'll leave off. But again it's it's driving running. It's
a great car. It's a lot of fun, and it's
loud and it's h It will be fast when I
get the timing dialed in, UM, but it's a lot
of fun. The really cool thing about this is is

(48:03):
remember when we were doing the the UM the Metal,
the Bare Metal finish episode, and I was telling you
and again, I'm not making any money on this stuff,
so don't don't take the strong way. Remember that oil
that I was proclaiming was so cool that you know,
like you could paint over it at some future date
if you washed it off, but it kept the rust
from exactly right. Well, this is how humid it is

(48:25):
down here in Atlanta. The tools inside of my toolbox
in the garage, I'll pull I'll open the drawers and
they'll be rusty because, like, the humidity is so intense
down here. So this car, this is years ago when
we were talking about this and as applying that oil
on a on a fresh clean surface of metal, and
again nineteen feet you can imagine I'm a steal there
is in this car still clean. All I had to

(48:48):
do is dust it off and put another coat of
oil on it, and it's fine, no rust, no, but
also sheltered from the elements right shell. It was not
in the rain, and I would say, you know, I'll
tell you that where the garage door goes up and
a few rain drops will come onto it. If it's
been raining outside on the trunk area, you'll get a
little spot of rust eventually if you if you leave
it for a couple of days, but that that rarely happens.

(49:09):
I mean I usually just wipe it off with a
rag and it's it's gone. But this stuff, again, I'm
not making a dime on it. But it's called Gives
brand oil and it's it's the best. It's honestly, it's great.
It worked, has worked perfectly, exactly like they said. I
don't I don't regret buying the case of oil that
I bought, had to buy in order to try it,
because that was you know, the effective way to the

(49:31):
most efficient way to buy it, I guess through the mail.
But yeah, it's it's some strong stuff. And I'll post
some photos I guess of you know, the way it
looks now and again it's been bare metal here in
Atlanta and it's humidity, heavy humidity for years and years,
and it's still shiny, clean metal. And for anyone who
has yet to experience the dubious pleasure of visiting fair

(49:56):
Metropolis of Atlanta in the height of summer, you can
replicate the feeling by walking into a room full of soup.
That's what it feels like. It's pretty thick outside, yeah,
I mean this time of year when we were recording
this right now, it's very thick. Yeah. I'm not gonna
ask what kind of room you have and why you

(50:16):
filled it with soup? Uh? What kind of soup that
should approximate the experience? That's pretty good now, I'm sure
I could. I could talk about this for an hour,
probably or more. There's a lot of little things, you
know that I'm still doing trim work and all that,
but it's not done. It'll take me, you know, some
time to get it in position to sell it, you know.
But and I also want to drive it a little
bit more on town, you know, maybe glad to get

(50:39):
some ice cream somenight, that kind of thing. Stuff that
I haven't been able to do for the many years
that I had before. And now I'm forced to do it,
but um, anyway, it's for the better good, I guess so,
so I will be getting rid of it soon, but
I'm also gonna get some enjoyment out of it. And
I hope that you know, anybody out there listening it
as a project card, you know, maybe it let's be
a little bit of inspiration to uh go out there

(50:59):
and get it run and uh and driving around a
little bit, because that's what they're all about. And I
haven't been doing that for years. But now that I've
got kind of the the bug again, the fever, Yeah,
I can't stop thinking about it, even at work. So
it's it's like, I can tell you're ready to go, now,
get back to work. I kind of am. Yeah, I mean,
aside from you know, the garage humanity, because that's ridiculous. Yeah,

(51:19):
it's crazy, that's true. You would have to. I mean
a lot of my a lot of my friends when
they were doing project cars, especially if it was summer
down here. I knew several guys who were like, I
will start work in the garage until after five. This
a smart move, I mean really, because you know it
gets so hot between like one and four, and even

(51:40):
then it's still you know, it could be ninety degrees
at at ten pm. You know, it's it's ridiculous. So
and I know there's a lot of parts of the
world that are like that. It's just it's one of
those things you, uh, you just have to put up
with your your you know, the environment that you're a
dealt I guess, or where you're living. Yeah, that choice.
You have to be your own balls. You have to
be accountable to yourself. You know, maybe I shouldet a
shirt made out of one of those like, uh those

(52:02):
synthetic shammi materially Yeah, maybe that's a terrible thought. I mean,
I guess it would depend on the cut of it,
but it does seem like it would be it would
result in diminishing returns eventually. This is an uncomfortable conversation,
it sure is. But here let's say I'll give you

(52:24):
the one uh the I did say it was one
weird thing that was not auto related that it just
wanted your opinion on I don't want to hear your
opinion on this. Two listeners, and then we'll we'll go
out with a listener mail and you have one more thing.
I have a little surprise for you. Okay, you surprise,
So before the surprise, this will be a surprise for
you too, Scott. And I was hesitant to bring this

(52:44):
up just because again has nothing to do with cars,
and it just blew my mind when I read it.
There's a company in I want to warn people this
is a little weird. There's a company in California, client
self Ambrosia, and for eight thousand dollars a pop, they
will give people blood transfusions, healthy people, blood transfusions from

(53:11):
what they call young blood, the blood of people under
like five years old, with the idea being that it
uh has medical benefits for them. They're literally doing it.
Smacks of vamberism to me. Well, that's strange. I wonder
what the what the results are of this. I mean

(53:32):
there are they're proven results for this. I mean clearly
there aren't. There have been some studies about this kind
of thing being helpful to mice, and people have been
trying something like it since the eighteen hundreds. But yeah,
it hasn't it hasn't worked out. Apparently it's legal. Man. Well,
I don't want to make any of the mice in
my house like I feel younger and more active, meaning else.

(53:56):
I want something to make them slower and easier to catch.
But you and if I had maybe got one of
these ambrosia transplants or or transfusions, would you be in
the garage. I might have been in there like six
years ago doing stuff, you know. So I wanted to
ask you listeners, just because this is something that I
read earlier today that's stuck in my head. Would you

(54:17):
do this if if the science was there, because I
I kind of you know, I'm I'm pretty skeptical person,
so I think that this smacks of bad science, even
though I just read a bunch of stuff about it.
Apparently there's some legit things with mice, but I don't
know if you should do that with people. Well, I
don't want to spreading rumors, but you know from what
I've heard, you know, I've heard, I hear things around yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(54:42):
I've heard that every Formula one driver has had this, uh,
this this type of transfusion. That's what gives them those
like crazy fast reflexes. Is that what it is? It
is that keeps them young, you know, young at heart.
It's I mean, again, I don't want to spreading rumors.
It's just what I've heard around town. So would you
do it though? Would I do it? No? No, I

(55:03):
don't think I would know. I mean, why why would
you take the risk of a blood transfusion when you
don't need a blood transfusion to begin with? I mean,
what if that thing comes with like HEPSI or something,
you know you're in trouble, right, I mean, I'm sure
they screen for all this stuff. Maybe, but you know,
also somebody who's you know, donating for where they get
in this blood? Okay? Oh man, Okay, I hadn't thought

(55:26):
of this. So is there like a like a I
don't know, like a high school nearby or something, kids missing?
What's going on now? I think it's probably a situation
where people donate and you know, they pay them for that.
I would guess, I would hope. But man, what you said,
eight thousand dollars is what they charge you to do

(55:46):
eight large? Oh man? But this okay, So they have
to take a they have to take a point out
in order to put a pint in. I don't know how.
I don't know. It's like two leaders of plasma leaders.
That's a lot. That's a lot of that's a lot
of plasma at least. Well, I'm just curious to hear
what you think, ladies and gentlemen, So while you're telling
us about your project cars, to also let us know

(56:11):
if you if you would subscribe to a service that
like this. This is just so creepy. I just heard
another rum. What's your other? H I just heard this
as around town. I mean, you're gonna I hate you.
You're very connected. I really do hate spreading round. Yeah
I do. But um, I'm just let you know what
I heard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, between us and every driver

(56:32):
on the NASCAR circuit has also had this transplant or transfusion.
You know, it's just a rumor, but I I had
heard that too. Yeah, somebody had mentioned that NASCAR and
f one. I mean, we'll see if it spreads. We'll
see if it spreads. Uh, we'll see if it works out.
So that was just let's call that short attention span
theater on my part um and if that if that

(56:52):
topic was too weird for our grab bag today, uh,
no worries. Please uh please send any criticism complaints directly
to our complaint department. The email is Jonathan dot Strickland
at how stuff works dot com. Absolutely and that's a
guaranteed response, and we have time for one more thing. Yeah,
and this is a this is maybe a surprise to you,

(57:13):
ben yeh Um. I posted about this on our Facebook page,
but I'm not sure if you caught it or not. Um,
there was something and this is so bizarre. I mean
it's it's such a sign of the times, I guess.
But the times would be nineteen nineties, okay, okay, so
just a little bit more free with the other rules

(57:33):
and regulations. Let's put it that way, all right, So
this would blow your mind, really, And I'm gonna show
you some photos. Um, if you were to see this
in person right now, there was at one time such
a thing as a as a roller coaster for cars.
You could drive your own car on a roller coaster.
What do you think of that? I think that sounds awesome.

(57:53):
It does sound awesome, and it happened for real, and
it wasn't just in one place. But I'm gonna show
you this photograph. Look at the bottom one in particular,
because that's a good photo. That's great, that's cool. That
is the photo that I posted on our Facebook page
at a car stuff hsw on Facebook. And you can
check that out. This one in particular, the one that
I'm talking about was in our honest site rather called

(58:15):
the West Park History dot Com. And the West Park neighborhood,
I guess is a part of Cleveland, Ohio, you know,
right around Cayahouga County, right there in Ohio, right along
um the banks of the I guess it'd be Lake Erie. Okay,
so that's the area that we're talking about now. Um,
you know, at the time, this is again, this is
all happened around the nineteen thirties. We'll get to that
in a minute. But roller coasters had been around, real

(58:37):
roller coasters, you know, like the cars that you were
on rails on, you know, the wooden coasters have been
around since about eighteen seventeen. I think the first one
was in Paris, and then by about the nineteen twenties,
it seemed like every single amusement park everywhere had a
roller coaster of some kind. It was a big thing
to do, right I mean, And and West Park, this
this part of again of Cleveland, had their own what

(58:59):
they call the world class roller coaster at the time,
and they called it the Cyclone. Now this is just
a regular roller coaster, you know, still a thrill ride,
still fun. But there was an old theme park. They're
called Puritis Springs Park, and that was it was in
existence from about until about nineteen fifty six. But as
we said, there were there are far fewer people I
guess that that knew about this other roller coaster that

(59:20):
it was. Turns out it was right near where the
Cleveland Airport is now. Um, so this this coaster, um,
And we'll mention the name of the company that built
right now is called American Amusement Corporation, and they built
more than one. And the idea behind this this again,
it's a roller coaster for cars. People paid a fee
to drive their automobile over a series of eleven hills
on a U shaped elevated roadway constructed of wood. The

(59:43):
peak of each hill they say it was about nine
ft high, and although I'm looking at the photos and
it looks a lot higher than that, but that must
be right. Um. But in the distance from crest to crest,
so it's like a wave, if you want to think
of it. That way from crest to crest was about
a hundred and twelve feet and for about a dime,
riders could experience of thrills and chills of a roller
coaster without leaving their own car. So you could drive

(01:00:04):
your own vehicle, even if it was you know, the
limousine or you know some rusty wreck of a JELOPI,
you know, you could you could take it out for
about a dime. And apparently it was very, very popular.
And they said that, you know, the very first day
that had opened, which was I believe, um nine. I
wanted to say it was in May of nineteen thirties,
somewhere around there, umond May second, that's right. They said that,

(01:00:26):
you know, the lions to get on this thing lasted
until like, you know, the middle of the night, the
wee hours of the morning. Practically it was so popular,
so um they built more than one. I guess there
were other coasters like this that were popular on the
West Coast, which I find just unbelievable. I don't think
I've seen these ever before until I saw this photo
of the one that was in Cleveland, and Cleveland, or

(01:00:47):
the area of Cleveland in fact, had a second one.
There's another suburb of Cleveland called Willoughby, Ohio, and Willoughby
um is I believe it's a little bit further east
and right in the banks of Lake Erie. And I
guess they they say that it's it's hard to determine
how long these things survived because, uh, nothing was really
published about these roller coasters after the opening day, because

(01:01:09):
you know, it was a sensation. You know, everybody wanted
to report on, you know, what was going on out there.
And the operator, American Amusement Corporation, canceled it its Ohio
charter um in November of ninety two. So at the
most these things lasted well, you know, maybe about two
and a half years at the most. Um you know,
I know they have to go through a pretty difficult
winter up there. I wonder if that had something to

(01:01:29):
do with it maintenance, you know, etcetera. And I guess,
you know, you would think that there would be, um,
you know a problem with operating something like this, you know, danger, liability,
that type of thing. But then again, as I said,
it's kind of the sign of the times because it
was nineteen thirty. Um, you know, they don't have the
concerns that we have now. So when you look at
the photographs, you you just can't imagine somebody owning and

(01:01:50):
operating that type of thing. But they did have some
safety regulations, right, sure they did. Yeah, some safety if
you want to call it this now, they had that.
If you look at the photo again, there's this wooden
rail that reminds me a lot of the wooden rails
that they would put up around the uh the the
the velodromes, you know, they are the cyclodromes or what
do we call those wooden race tracks? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(01:02:12):
those those tracks. They had a wooden uh like a
two by four railing and that's just not going to
do anything. No, I mean, it's a it's a car
that weighs you know, five thousand pounds or something. Think
of the time. Um So, anyways, the speed was limited
about twenty miles per hour. There were there were guidelines
painted on the roadway, and the curves were banked, which
is kind of nice really, But the railings, I mean,
there was not really nothing preventing you from skidding off

(01:02:34):
of this thing, really, I mean, the railings aren't gonna
hold up. Of course, no motorcycles were permitted because I
don't know, I guess they thought that, you know, they
could go a little too faster, would be more tempted
to go fast and make this thing more of a
jump ride than uh, you know, like an autocross course
or something. Well, here's where they messed up. And what's
that They said, Okay, we're gonna be reasonable. The second
auto is not allowed to start until the first has

(01:02:57):
been three hills away. Oh yeah, And of course everybody's
going to maintain the exact same speed, right right, And
everybody's gonna be driving at the same level of expertise
of course, of course, so you know, there's no worry
about that car behind you slamming into you because it's
out of control. Because they did say, and this is
this is pretty remarkable. The dips and rises could actually
throw cars out of control and sometimes the wheels would

(01:03:18):
come slightly off the ground when you made these again,
these dips and rises, even at twenty miles per hour,
So you get an idea of the feeling there. It
must have felt pretty good, like you know, like that
that kind of that rush, Yeah, like your stomach is
coming up into your your throat type of feeling. You know, well,
who hasn't when you Okay, I don't know. I can't
speak for every driver on the planet, but for most

(01:03:40):
of the people I know myself included, especially when you're
when you first get a car. One of the things
that we were always I was always on the lookout for,
and I still am, to be honest with you, is
uh any steep hill where I can try to catch
some air or like a one lane edge that has
like a perfect jump. Yeah, something really dangerous, right, That's

(01:04:06):
that's always fun. So I guess the you know the
thing is with these coasters, Uh, you know, the operator
pulled out by nineteen thirty two, I think we said
November of thirty two and live and then they know
for sure that this auto roller coaster was gone by
June of nineteen forty because they opened something called the
West Side Drive in theater on that site right there
at I think it's at Rocky River Drive and brook

(01:04:27):
Park brook Park Road if you're in that area, which
they said was an application for driving because there was
an airport nearby, and so you know you'd have the
airplane noise and low planes and all that. But today
that that former location of of that automobile roller coaster
is completely vacant. Right now, it's right next to the
Barrier Freeway. So if you're in that area, you can

(01:04:47):
go check out you know where it once was. I
don't know, there's gonna be nothing there. It was a
wooden coaster. It's not like any rock structure or anything
that that remains. But um, what a what an interesting
little bit of history for that that Cleveland area, And
and as we found out, West Coast had these as well.
You know that there were other amusement you know, companies
that were opening stuff like this up all over the

(01:05:09):
United States and probably all over the world. You know,
why aren't we seeing photos of them? This is the
first time I've ever seen a car on a roller
coaster like this. I guess maybe because it was such
a short lived phenomenon, maybe like it was a one
day news item. Yeah, yeah, maybe other Well, okay, so
to let's say, let's be really generous and say two years.

(01:05:31):
So two years it's enough time maybe before buzz either
died down a little bit or to start catching on.
But it sounds like there must have just been a
moment where people said this is too dangerous. Yeah, we'll
think about the time timing of this too. Well, this
is going to be right at the depression, that's true,

(01:05:52):
very beginning of the depression. So maybe a lot of
them didn't exist or had started. You know, maybe they
started to build them and then realized that they were
is not gonna get anybody to ride on those things.
And then and then we went right into World War
Two and that it was, you know, a much more
solemn time. I guess, people a little more serious about things,
and who knows, maybe resources weren't weren't given to you know,

(01:06:13):
amusement type stuff like this at that time. So so
maybe that's all coming, you know, coming together combining to
kind of you know, I guess pushed this out of
the history books. But I would totally do it if
there wasn't anyone in front of me. Yeah, would you? Yeah,
would you? I think it'd be great. I was gonna
say it might be a little rough vehicle. Yeah, I

(01:06:35):
wouldn't be in my car. I mean there are stories
of you know this. There's a guy who's probably an
old old timer now, but he's talking about how his
uncle took I guess it would be this guy's dad's car.
So his brother's car a brand new I think it
was a it was a Chrystal Royale or something like that.
And he said, my father wasn't even with us and
we took this thing on you know, quite a thriller
ride on this so on this on this roller coaster. Um.

(01:06:58):
But he said, you know, it was like the time
of his life. At the time. He's scared to death,
but it was a lot of funny and he still
remembers it now. But you know, this guy, he probably
if he was a kid in ninety, he's gonna be
pretty old. I mean when whenever this was reported, I
think the story comes from uh well, I don't know
when it was it was posted. But again West park
history dot com. If you want to see some photographs
and you know, just search Auto roller Coaster you'll probably

(01:07:19):
find a few. Um. But I'd like to know elsewhere. Yeah,
you know, these things appeared and we just never heard
of them or photos. And I'd like to know if
you would do it, if I would do it and
somebody else's car in a rental car, in a rental
in a rental car, yeah, turning it back in, Yeah,
maybe I do it in the maybe do it in
the project car before I sold it? Why not? Man?

(01:07:41):
Why not? And as we say every time we do
this episode, it looks like we ran out of time
before we got to all the stuff we wanted to cover. However,
we will be back next week. Uh. And in the meantime,
if you'd like to learn more car stuff or get
more information about some of the things we mentioned on
the show, check out our website car Stuff Show dot

(01:08:02):
com and visit us on Facebook and Twitter, where we
post all sorts of things. It's sort of an ongoing
nuts and bolts. Uh. You know that that you read
instead of here. It's a good way to think of it.
It's all right, and of course, our best ideas for
upcoming topics come from you. If you'd like to write
to us directly with with a topic that you think

(01:08:22):
your fellow listeners would love to hear, let us know
we are car stuff at how stuff Work dot com
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