February 2, 2016 • 50 mins
It's time for another installment of nuts and bolts, wherein Scott and Ben try (unsuccessfully) to squeeze in all the emails, news stories, stats and anecdotes that haven't made it into earlier episodes. Tune in to see if your letter made it to the air!
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot Com. I'd welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott, I'm Ben, and as always
we are joined with our super producer Null Miscellaneous Brown misankus.
All right, that's a good one, and that's not my
(00:23):
best work. Junk drawer. Oh, nice old junk drawer, Brown,
But it's hard to say it junk drunk, junk drawer,
except there with rural drawer. It is, yes, the rural
drawers junk drawer. Oh boy, hey, do you real quick
before you get started. Uh, you have a junk dur right,
of course its people do. When I moved to my
(00:44):
new place, I was trying to you know, we have
all those delusions when we move. We're like, this is
gonna be Where did I get my life together? Oh? Yeah?
And uh, I was like, I am gonna live without
a junk drawer and I couldn't do it at last
maybe six months. Isn't it funny? How probably I would?
I would venture. I guess that everybody listening to us
(01:06):
has a junk drawer. Their parents had a junk drawer.
It just seems to be something you can't do without
in a house. I don't know why. It's just it's
just just a simply a place to put it things away.
I mean you could have a whole room. You might
have a junk room. People do, Yeah, well do I
can't because my apartment has like three rooms. But but yeah,
people do have junk rooms. The reason I was wondering
(01:26):
about this because growing up, one thing that I always
found in junk drawers would be car keys. Two cars
that maybe were older than me that I had, you
know that I had never seen. My parents may have
sold the cars before uh I was born, like my
dad's MG, you know. And I got really excited year
(01:50):
I found it because I thought, oh, wow, we have
a secret garage. He's storing this away from me probably right, yeah,
Oh man, kids are so narcissist, wouldn't it be. And
you know, you find like old house keys, you find
rubber bands, but those car keys. Now here's an interesting
thing though. It seems like now with car keys being
what they are, you know, with the fobs and the
you know, the the electronics to go along with the key,
(02:12):
it seems that when you sell a vehicle, you make
a pretty good effort to find that second set of keys,
because most people have two keys, one spare that they
keep it home in the drunk drawer or wherever, and
then when they always carry with them or maybe give
it to a spouse or something like that. But it
seems like maybe the days of finding old car keys,
they're gonna be gone soon when you think. Yeah, and
it's weird when you think about it, that key technology
(02:36):
in general is going to be something that within your
lifetime listener, is going to change drastically. Will will car
keys be the new like laser disc or floppy disk?
Do we talk about this? I think you and I
have talked about this before. I feel like we've talked
about the price of car keys before, how expensive it is.
They are super expensive. Um. But this this is just
(02:58):
the side note on okay, on a on a word
processor like Microsoft word or something. Yeah, it hit me,
and maybe we've talked about this on their scott but
it hit me that a lot of kids don't know
what that icon above the save button is. Oh yeah,
that's right because it is a floppy disk right right,
and no one uses it. And our key is going
(03:18):
to be also obsolete later on, I mean, at least
for cars that's the direction it's going for sure. Oh sure, yeah.
I think keys are going to dramatically change over the
next few years, just as just about everything in the
automobile is changing right now. It seems like development. It's
it's rapid right now. It's happening way faster than it
did in the past. The changes, the developments we've seen,
(03:40):
like in I mean simple things like infotainment and even
the readouts on the on the on the driver's display,
the dash um, steering wheel controls, things like that. All
that stuff is changing so quickly, and the way that
you control it, you know, whether it's a single joystick
you know, are single it almost looks like a mouse
in the middle on the control with or if it's
touch screens or whatever. You know, all this is changing.
(04:01):
Keys are changing at an equally fast rate. You know.
It's so strange when we when we think about that evolution.
Because I might get dinged a little for saying this,
but probably one of the slowest degrees of change has
been material science, because it's been a steady incremental rise,
you know what I mean. But in every other case,
(04:22):
it's almost like Malcolm Cladwell's tipping point, you know, it
seems like just uh, you know, you look at a
car from ten years ago, right and boom, it's it's
radically different. Sure, yeah, that's right, but it appears dramatically
different from what was the year that we said we
we typically go to is a two thousand ten or
is it two thousand and five where it seems like
(04:44):
there was one point where cars just dramatically increased in
the amount of technology that was an inside the vehicle.
I think like everything hit it once in terms of tech.
I think it's probably yeah, And of course this stuff
was still happening in luxury cars years and years and
years before. But I think is when we really start
to see mass production. I guess what I'm talking about
(05:05):
is like, you know, the the inclusion of things like
electronic stability control and every you know, every car must
have front air bags, rollover bags, you know, the side
curtain bags, bags in the air bags in the seats.
We see we see air bags in the in the
seat belts. Now you know, it's it, really there's a
there's a point where we're dramatically just takes off. You're right,
(05:26):
It's like that tipping point, as you said, oh uh, Scott,
it just seccurred to me where we're not talking about
junk tours today. We're we're we've just our segue, our
usual intro. It's gone in so long, we haven't talked
at all about what this show is, but we're that's
because we're actually doing the very first episode of Nuts
(05:47):
and Bolts. Oh, that's right. Yeah, it's been a long
long time since we've done one. Man, I think it
was April of the last time we did that. Now,
along the way, we do bring up listener mail, of course,
and some suggestions, and we've been creating these massive lists
of you know, possible topics and you know, kind of
going back and forth with listeners about what they know
about certain things, you know, as far as what they
(06:08):
want to hear on these podcasts. So we've we've i
think we've been pretty successful throughout with with bringing listeners
suggestions to the air. Yeah, I would like to say so,
you know, listeners, as we often say, our best suggestions
come from you, and we get such a grab bag
of cool stuff, the occasional kind correction, occasional, occasional, and
(06:34):
we also get these really great things that are fascinating
yet maybe too short to be an episode on their own, true,
just like a junk drawer, got a bunch of little
stuff that doesn't really go anywhere else, right, yep, yep,
but it's it's something interesting you want to hang onto anyways.
And that's kind of the way we look at the
nuts in both episodes. So there's a few things here
(06:56):
that um versus kind of like stuff Scott sees. Maybe
some stories or something I've got from the the last
several months now at this point that I've been kind
of collecting. But we've also got a lot of listener suggestions,
some more of those from Facebook, from email, and I'm
gonna I'm gonna tackle this in a slightly different way
today than I normally do. See what we normally do
is we come in here with a giant stack of email,
(07:16):
and I try to highlight and read a lot of
the notes from the people that you know have sent
them in. They've taken a long time to craft them,
so I figured, well, we'll give them their other airtime
and and read them and let everybody know what they're thinking.
This time, I think we're gonna try to burn through
several of these I've got. Maybe I'm gonna say ten
or twelve of each, one from from Facebook, from email,
and I've got some like an article to go over
(07:37):
from Popular Mechanics here again, some stories just kind of
a general feel for what people are asking for. Is
what we're gonna do today. Yeah, we've also got some news.
We've got some interesting tidbits, a little bit of weird stuff.
And statistically speaking, the odds are fairly high that at
some point I will go on rant about something. Just
(07:58):
I'm not planning it. I don't know what we're gonna
run into. Well, we look forward to it. We'll see
every every time. So what's up first? All right, we'll
tell you what. Let's let's look at a few Facebook suggestions. Now.
I did find a way to search the messages and
Facebook finally, so I'll show you how to do that later, Ben.
But it was a it's a mystery to me for
a while. I finally figured it out. It's pretty easy,
(08:19):
and it allowed me to dig some stuff up from
the very end of last year, which is great, and
even farther back. I've got more than just these, by
the way, So if you wrote to us and had
a suggestion, I guarantee you that I've read it. I
guarantee you that I've put it on a list. It's
just I'm not maybe gonna get to it today in
this in this list because we have we have limited space.
But here's a few of the highlights, I guess. So.
(08:40):
Miles D wrote in in September, and Ben, I think
we'll just stick to first name, last initial. How about that. Yeah,
that's probably the best way to go anonymity, right, And
if we if we come into if we run into
another Miles D, we'll call them Miles D. Two. Okay,
we'll do that. If we run into three, then something here,
something's got to change, all right. Miles D wrote in
(09:01):
in September, and he wanted to, uh, he wanted us
to talk about the rotary powered corvette concept from nineteen seventy.
And this is this is a fantastic idea. It's something
that I've posted about on Facebook. And well, I'll just
briefly tell you a little bit about it. In nineteen seventy,
it was a concept car from General Motors. GM had
an entire rotary program. It was in place which a
(09:24):
lot of people don't even know about. And this was
authorized by John Delorian, who was chevrolets like the Chevy
divisions GM at that point. So he authorized this whole
program and uh, and I think it was the fuel
crisis maybe that that bit into UM what they were
planning to do. But they had a four rotor corvette
that was a mid engine corvette schedule to come out
(09:46):
in the nineteen seventies. I think it was scheduled actually
for production around UM. Well, I you know what, not
this one specifically, here's the weird twist in this. That
one kind of you know, arrived and then went away
because the rotary program left or was killed killed off.
They took that exact same car, that mid engine car,
and they put a four cubicans V eight in it
(10:08):
and called it the Aero Vet. And I think it
was around nineteen seventy seven. And then in night that
one was scheduled for production. They were going to actually
produce a mid ending corvette in nineteen eighty and for
whatever reason, there was like a guard change at General
Motors around that time, and those guys decided they were
going to kill that whole program off as well. So
UM big changes for corvette around that time era and
(10:30):
and we didn't get to see any of the rotary
engines really come out in the production vehicles from GM.
That that should have really um okay. Second one, uh,
Ryan A wrote in in August and wanted to hear
about the Brian I'm gonna mention this Ryan is from
Hawaii and rode in and wanted to hear about the
Midsubishi Lancer Evolution series cars and he specifically owns a
(10:56):
g SR. Said that he bought it just before he
moved to Hawaii. To Hawaii, and he said he gets
the same kind of rush out of driving that car
as he does driving his motorcycle. So you know, it's
well it is and you know what I see. He's
on the road a lot. We've talked about the Evolution
vehicles a few times on this show, but we've never
done a full show on just that vehicle, And um,
(11:17):
I think I think it's worthwhile. Of course, Yeah, I
think we could do a whole show on this because
if you look at it, it's got some it's got
some scoot to it, and the specs are pretty pleasing.
Oh yeah, for sure, it's a good looking vehicle. A
lot of people are I guess, super fans of the
Evolution series, so Yeah, definitely, we'll we'll get to that.
It's on the list. Yeah, definitely, we have to do
(11:37):
that one. All right. So you want to go through
a couple more here, you want to chime in with
anything at any time? Okay, how about that? All right?
So um the next one comes from Jon c uh
and John wrote in and I think it was in August,
the end of August from Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne. Now, oh, Melbourne.
I'm sorry that Melbourn. Yeah, I shouldn't say no, that's
(11:58):
the that's the one that we have managed to correctly
pronounced until today, but you corrected me, so thank you
for doing that. And uh um Ejen wrote in and
said that they would like to hear about the shooting
brake design. And I think this is a good idea.
We've done specific types of vehicles before, like shapes of
vehicles before, and I think this is a good example,
(12:18):
um of something that we we should cover because there's
a lot out there. There's the Ferrari Ff which is
making or has made news recently. There's a BMW M
coops that you know, the Z three coops, Mercedes been
c l A class. They've got a shooting break. Um,
there's been some concept cars that have actually called themselves
the Shooting Break. Uh. There's just there's a lot out
there going back through history, UM, as well as some
(12:40):
modern versions. So I think that's a fantastic idea. UM.
Next one is from Bob M wrote in in September,
and this is an interesting question. This this could almost
be one of our um, you know, no mystery show,
like the no prep type shows that we do. Bob
wanted to hear us talk about the ch eapest running
(13:01):
car you ever bought. Sheep is running for how long? Well,
the cheapest running cars You're not like picking up a
car that you know is a hundred dollars but you
have to tow at home. You're not buying something for part. No,
this is a cheapest running car. Now. His example that
he he says, and he's got more detailed than this,
and we'll talk about it when we get to the show,
but his example is a seventy five dollar nine Mercury
(13:23):
Comment four door that he bought and kept it for
a while. But yet I'll save the details for later,
but be thinking about that. Your your cheapest running car
that you've ever bought, you know, threat your motoring history. Yeah,
I'm gonna hold off because I think I know the
answer already. Okay, and you may have heard of it before,
but boy, just thinking of that thing makes me feel
(13:44):
like my life is in danger. It was running, but
it was running wild. It was it was worth every penny,
is what you're saying, both pennies. Yeah, alright, alright, here's
one from Jason g And Jason wrote in at the
end of August and on Facebook and said, oh, this
is a good one too, Ben, You're gonna you're gonna
(14:06):
like this one. I think surveillance vehicles and cool surveillance
gadgetry that goes along with them for automobiles, vans, whatever,
that's a fantastic idea we have. How have we not
done that? I don't know. I mean, I think Jason
says that he himself is a private investigator, um and
would have a fascination in this type of thing and
probably some inside knowledge, of course, but this would be
(14:28):
kind of our chance to talk about you know, uh,
you know, bleading edge technology, if what's out there, some
of the old school stuff maybe that you know, the
ways that they did it. I'm sitting in the van
van herb like the vans that say like definitely a
florist on the side, but have the big satellitea. You know,
there's so many spoons to this in television and in
movies and just in popular culture. I think that, you know,
(14:51):
it would be fun to do that and and to
you know, take a real look at it as well,
like what you can go out and get if you
are a private investigator as a civilian or yeah, exactly right,
So do you have to have licenses to get that done?
How does how? What what specific gadgetry is used there?
But this could also be uh, not necessarily private investigator stuff.
Let us not forget that the Google Maps crew that's
(15:14):
surveillance as well. You know, they're driving around so you
can get the street view. They have these those vans
that drive around with a camera mounted on it, and
you can go online. This is a family show, so
if you have kids, you might not want to check
with check on this with them in the area, but
you can go online and see the people that have
(15:36):
been caught doing various things on the street while the
Google car drove by. Sure they get word that it's
going to pass by it at a certain time and
stage a scene. Let's just say, let's leave it at that.
You know what you're making me think? And this is
a tangent, so, but I guess that's what the show
is all about, right right. So, And I've got sketchy
details on this because I just read the story this
(15:56):
morning and it was in Popular Science. It's about the Olympics,
and Olympics are happening in Rio de Jannarrow, I think,
in Brazil, and they are going to station four cameras overhead,
over over Rio de Jannarrow that will record the entire city.
(16:17):
And you may think that's impossible, there's no way to
do it, but you can look it up in Popular
Science and figure out how they what they're gonna do
with this. But these are surveillance cameras that are so
massive like that have such a wide view. The only
way I think, I think the way forty pounds each.
They're going to put them in balloons, tethered balloons. And
I think the purpose is kind of an anti terrorism thing,
you know that, but it really is reactionary. They're gonna
(16:38):
be able to well, they'll be able to monitor, but
they'll also be able to track people back because you
can zoom in. This is crazy. Four These cameras will
cover the entire city. That's how why it is. The
people that are monitoring it can zoom into follow people
or vehicles to or from wherever they're going. However, whatever
they're zooming in to watch represents one they think, they
(17:01):
said one ten thousand of the view that is current,
that is available and being recorded at all times. So
then the question would be, I would say, the question
would be, are they responsible then for other crimes they're
gonna occur, because you know, it's a big pickpocketing city
it is. And also I believe and I'm gonna go
(17:24):
out a limb here, but I thought I heard something
about kidnapping as well. That's a huge it's a profitable
industry there, um kidnapping, Um, well, just petty crimes too.
I mean, it's gonna be hit also, gonna be hitting
and runs. There's gonna be all kinds of stuff that
are had that's happening. But I think the main focus
is and I mean hate to say it, but this
is a This is gonna be the focus of the
world for a while. Rio de Janarro. Uh, it might
(17:46):
be a target, right, So if something does happen. They
will be able to trace back, you know, to be
able to watch and reverse where these people came from exactly,
get an idea on the person, get an idea on
the vehicle, and watch them and be able to watch
them come man go from the scene. So it's it's
really a great tool. Uh But is it over overreaching?
(18:07):
You know? Probably? Is that the the field of view
of this thing, of these things is just going to
be incredible, I mean huge, And like I said, it's
always recording the entire thing, no matter what they're watching.
Specifically that that, you know, that is surprising to me.
We we live in a brave new world. We are
absolutely going to cover surveillance gadgetry. Jason is I can't
(18:29):
not do it. I love this idea so much. There's
actually there's another story that kind of relates to this
that I wanted to tell you guys about really quickly.
All right, let's have it. This story is something that
we ran into on stuff they don't want you to know,
and I think it will apply to cars very soon
if it doesn't already. And that is the sting gray
(18:50):
phone tracker. Have you heard of this? I have not.
This is a surveillance device that was first for just
the military and intelligence. Now state and local law enforcement
have this um the various kinds of devices. So what
it does is it mimics a cell phone tower. So
(19:11):
all nearby mobile phones or other you know, WiFi enabled
selling or wireless data devices like a tablet or something,
they all connect to it and it can read what
they're doing. It can take data from off the phone,
and uh, there's not really any way that the average
(19:32):
person would stop it. You can turn off the phone,
it can track the phone. So when I think of this,
I also think of what we're talking about with increasingly
computerized cars. So as you and I and everybody driving
newer cars gets a car that's closer and closer to
a rolling computer, then what what's gonna happen is we're
(19:54):
gonna end up having more and more personal information stored
on it, not just where you go and win, but
also you know all your contacts. Well, people already pay
phones to cars just for simple bluetooth activity, right, so
so that's very very easy to be So the car
then could act as a path through device to another
through one of these sting ray exactly. Well, that's interesting
that's a that's crazy thing. What's it called sting ray? Stingray? Uh?
(20:18):
The stingray is an I am s I catcher, so
international mobile subscriber identity. Wow. And there's there's no way
to detect when this is being used nearby, so you
don't know if it's not for the average phone user. Yeah. Wow,
you have to be because it's supposed to be mimicking
a cell tower. But yeah, absolutely, that could that could
definitely affect the way I guess people driving newer modern
(20:41):
cars that are connected to the cloud, you know that
have well, you know, just the the Internet of Things.
I guess I can see what a useful tool that
would be in the case of organized attacks. Like let's
say there are a bunch of uh you mean you
mean in defeating organized Yes, yeah, like I there are
(21:02):
better words for it, but I almost called them a
bunch of Jerk's plan into U bomb Marino de Janeiro
or something, and they're planning over electronic devices. Uh. The
stingray technology would a lot would make it much easier
to find and prevent that plan. You know. You know
it's funny that it's almost like you would say, well,
(21:24):
why why wouldn't they just install that everywhere throughout the
city and then they'll know, right. But but then again,
the second you say that, then you realize you don't
want people listen. I mean, that's it goes right to
the heart of uh, you know, privacy issues and more
people and I don't want any of that stuff. I mean,
I don't like regulations, I don't like all that, you know,
anybody listening to what I'm doing, even though it's very boring,
(21:44):
I don't want anybody listening to that. I mean, I
think there's this is a huge, huge issue, and the
surveillance topic is going to be a fun one to do.
I think the whole thing. Oh yes, so before we
go too far into it, because I can tell that well,
it's a very incomplete argument on my part. Sorry, Oh no,
I I see both sides of it. It's it's continuing
and we're going to look further in depth in that
(22:07):
too when we do an episode just on this. I
wanted to. I wanted to talk a little bit about
something that I think it is kind of sad in
the news. Oh yeah, okay, what's that Mercedes is killing
off the AMG sports name, sport name to make everything
Mercedes a MG. No. Oh my gosh, okay you okay,
you told me this rate before we went on air,
(22:29):
and I was shocked, you know. I mean it was
like fifteen minutes before we started recording. I didn't know
this was happening. Um, you know, at this point when
this air is probably it'll be old news maybe, but
but tell me what's happening, Like, what's what's going on?
Because I don't quite understand where the break is going
to happen, right, okay, because they're still gonna use the
MG name, right. Yeah. So in the last few years,
(22:50):
Mercedes has been using the MG sport name to describe
what Latnik calls near beer AMG cars. Uh. The it
was confusing, but the AMG sports models were step up
from the more basic Benzes, but not quite full on
AMG cars. But this is already reminded me of what's that.
This is the bmw M badged cars versus the bmw
(23:13):
M cars. Oh man, it's exactly the same, isn't it.
It's it's pretty it's pretty much. You're you're not wrong
because check this out. This they've got this new naming scheme, right,
So this naming scheme will abandon the AMG tradition, you know,
one man, one engine, and it will make these AMG
badged cars more affordable. So the currents um like the
(23:39):
C four fifty MG starts a little over fifty grand,
the C sixty three MG starts around sixty grand. So
is this brand delution? I ask you, what do you think? Oh? Absolutely, yeah,
what do you think I'm wondering? I mean I looked
into some of the a MG forums and you can
imagine the react action people are having, especially a lot
(24:02):
of the more traditionalist Yeah, I'll definitely check that out today.
If I bet it's I bet they're they're they're pretty
hot on the collar right now about what's going on. Right,
you can imagine it will be worth your time. But
there are people are saying, you know, like my car
just dropped thousands of dollars in value. Yeah, well did it? Though?
I mean if it's an If it don't, I'm not sure.
Maybe the ones that will be produced will will be less,
(24:24):
but yeah, that's that's probably it. I mean, if you've
got one of the originals, hang onto it right right, Yeah,
it seems that way less. I'm misreading this story. I
don't know. Maybe we'll see what happens. But it's weird
because you make the excellent point comparing this with BMW,
and I said, you're not wrong, and you're not And
I wonder how far this stuff could continue as since
more and more large car companies are buying smaller you know,
(24:48):
maybe we could call him boutique or niche cars and
then taking a lot of what makes them unique and
then just turning it into a logo rather than the performance.
Take the specialty tuner name and an applying it to
your product even though it's really just a badge, and
maybe um some special stitching inside on the scene wheel.
(25:09):
There's a trim package that's right, a different intake and
exhaust maybe or something like that. I don't know, but
it's an interesting idea and man I um, I was
shocked by the news. But we'll we'll see what happens
with us. And again I haven't read anything about it yet,
so maybe I don't have a full grasp of exactly
what's happening. I hope I didn't sound to uh to
jumbled up there because it's all brand new to me
right now. But we'll we'll dig into it and maybe
(25:30):
maybe that's another topic for you know, a future show too. Yeah,
you know what's going on with that, And maybe we'll
even tie in the the m M cars and the
M badged cars as well. We'll let me lighten it
up a little bit before we go to some email.
Yeah all right, I know if I could have a
cool sound cue for one of my favorite parts of
the show, Wacky driving Laws. Wacky driving Laws. Okay, so, uh, look,
(26:00):
you're in Massachusetts. Let's see, you're driving in Massachusetts, right. Oh,
I thought you were telling me the name of the town.
I thought it was you're in Massachusetts. I'm kidding. It
might be one alright. So let's say let's say you
listener are in Massachusetts and you're driving and you see
a gorilla hitchhiking. A gorilla hitchhiking. Okay, yeah, this I
(26:22):
feel like I'm on like the like the Tonight Show,
and I'm Ed McMahon. A gorilla hitchhiking with or with
or without um a person? Uh, you can't. You really
shouldn't get the gorilla in your car, or at least
it has to write shotgun because in the state of Massachusetts,
whether or not you own it, it is illegal to
(26:43):
have a gorilla in the back seat. Illegal to have
a gorilla in the back seat. Now where, Okay, how
long has this rule been on the books? And when
is there is there an indication of where that came from?
Is there there's a when the circus came to town
or something. You know, I'm being specific with a gorilla,
but the actual law reads this way. No person shall
(27:03):
transport an animal in the back of a motor vehicle
in a space intended for a load on the vehicle
on a public way, unless such space is enclosed as
side and tail racks to a height of at least
forty six inches extending vertically from the floor. The animal
is cross tethered to the vehicle, protected by a secured
container or cage, or otherwise protected in a manner which
(27:23):
will prevent the animal from being thrown, from falling or
jumping from the vehicle. So not just a gorilla, which
is fun. For the sake of argument, I like your
way better. But also, you know, you can't put your
dog in the back seat, which to me, I get
the safety thing, but that's kind of ridiculous. Yeah, that's
a little bit much. I think's you know, you know
it's funny. Okay, Yeah, this kind of leads into something
I'd like to talk about in a roundabout way. My
(27:46):
my in laws were in town this last weekend over
the holidays. It was you know, as we said, we
were recording this in the early part of and they
were here just after the New year, and h this
is I can't even believe I'm going to mention this part,
but um, I have a different story to get to here.
But he was telling me, my my father in law
was telling me about a time when they were in Cancoon,
(28:07):
Mexico recently, the last time, a few years ago really,
and they're walking onto the property of the hotel and
there's a guy sitting below a palm tree or you know,
whatever kind of tree it was, and right next to him,
sitting on the ground next to him is a gorilla,
what a live gorilla, like like you'd see at the zoo,
a giant, live gorilla just hang out. He's you know
what he's doing. He's trying to get people to come
(28:29):
over and take photographs with the gorilla for money. So
as they're walking down this road, he's like, no, they can't,
you know, they can't be it. You know, he thinks
he's seeing things like, you know, I'm too much tequila
or whatever, you know, and the guy starts calling to him.
He's like, hey, Signora, come over here, take a picture
with the gorilla, you know, and golla and I don't know.
That's what I kept asking him, and he said that.
(28:50):
He said, you know what, it just sat there the
whole time. It was very placid. It didn't move, and
it was it was real though it was it was
a real thing, was a real deal. It wasn't a
guy because I asked. I said, it wasn't a guy
in a gorilla suits and he said, no, it wasn't that,
and it wasn't a fake. It was real. And so,
you know, they walked over and they got sort of close,
but not not too close because you don't want to
get too close to a real, live grilla and that's
(29:11):
not in a cage. And the guy is trying again,
prompting him to take this photograph, and he says, no, no, no,
and so you know, he asked he starts to ask
his wife, you know, my mother in law, if she
would like her photograph with it, and she said she
also declines, and and they you know, just find it
very interesting and you know, like that's a crazy story.
And they walk start to walk away, and the guy says,
say goodbye to the nice lady, and the gorilla flips
(29:34):
them the bird. What. Yeah, it's like his little trick,
like if they won't if they won't buy the thing,
he says, say goodbye to the nice lady and uh,
and he flips them the bird? Is it? As they
walk away? And that was it. That was the end
of the story. Nothing else to tell. But but isn't
that strange? I think you know, you wouldn't have got
the bird if youok and taking the photograph. But strange,
strange of gorillas would come up twice in the same
week for me. Anyways. Well, let's say you're outside of Massachusetts.
(29:57):
I just want just give me. I'll pepper these three
out the show. You're outside of Massachusetts. Um, you have
gotten away with the gorilla and you're dropping the gorilla
off in Illinois. Uh, and you hit a deer and uh.
Somebody walks by and says, oh, man, I would take
that dear home and eat it if I was up
to date on my child support payments. Because you see, Scott,
(30:20):
what only residents who don't owe child support, who who
have not had their wildlife privileges suspended anywhere in the
US can claim possession of road kill in Illinois. No kidding,
no kidding. That is a weird law, no fooling. You
can't claim possession of road kill in Illinois if you're
not current on your child support. Yeah, well that's a
(30:41):
weird one, Ben. But I think we were with my
gorilla side note out of the way now because I
had to say it once. We once it came say
goodbye to the nice lady story. Um, this is this
is the maybe one of the cooler things that my
my father in law told me while he was here.
He's only here for a couple of days, but we
started talking about old cars. He you know, he saw
(31:02):
my project car in the garage. Um, and he's he's
to worked for Chrysler a long, long time ago, and
in the nineteen five he worked for for Chrysler Corporation.
And at the time when he first started, he was
working or he was driving rather a competitor product. I
don't know what he had, but it was not a
Chrysler vehicle. And this is still the case with Chrysler
as far as I know, because it was when I
(31:22):
worked there too. If you don't drive a Chrysler product,
you have to park in the remote part of the lot,
and I mean way way far away. It's not close.
It's really not close. And if you drive a foreign
make and some uh some automotive UM headquarters you know,
four GM wherever, sometimes they won't even allow you to
park in any of their lots. You'll have to park operate.
At least that's the way it used to be. I
(31:43):
think maybe that was just the United Auto Workers Union
lots that you couldn't park in there at all. You
had to find some other remote lot and walk in.
But makes sense to me, but you know, it kind
of does, you know, if you if you're gonna work there,
if I guess, buy the product and you're rewarded for
buying the products being parked closer to the building. Not
necessarily the I mean the union attitude toward foreign makes
I get it, but it does. It makes more sense
(32:05):
to me if you're saying, oh, you come to Ford
every day, you work for Ford every day, and you're
driving a competitor's car, It's like you're taking money from us. Yeah,
So they make you park, you know, I mean a
good distance away, and I'm gonna say it's you know,
like the back end of the lot, which can be
really big at some of these big buildings. So it
didn't take him long during the winter months to decide, well,
(32:27):
I better, you know, step it up and get a
Chrysler product. So in nineteen uh, he decided that he's
gonna buy a a Plymouth Velvetere convertible. And this cool car. Right,
it's not about a bad vehicle. I don't know anything
about the engine or anything like that, but he said,
you know, this is back in the day, and this
is like taking you back to the way it used
to be in the automotive industry and destright, and with
(32:49):
what they did for the employees. I don't know if
it's similar or not anymore. I don't think it's quite
this level. But you would get a build build sheet,
you know, you'd order what you wanted on the vehicle,
and I don't know specifically what it's called, but there's
an order sheet and you could select every option that
you wanted on the vehicle. And he ordered the sixty
Plymouth Belvetere convertible, and he knew the day that was
going to be produced, and it was gonna be produced
(33:09):
right there in town. It was going to go through
the line because they had these, uh these production schedules
and so we knew the specific day and when where
it was going to be. So he asked his boss
if he can go down and watch his car being built. Well,
it's well, it's happening, So he can go down to
the factor. Because he's an employee, he can. He has
access to this, right, So he does. He goes down there,
and it's something that you were allowed to do. His
boss said, will take the day and go do it.
(33:30):
And you know, it's kind kind of not once in
a lifetime thing, but you can do it, you know,
if you want to. So he did. And that's not
the best part of this whole thing. So he gets
down to the line and he's following he's following his
car through the steps of production, right, following all the
way through, and the guy, the shop foreman or the
I guess the line foreman or the supervisor or whatever.
And he described it as like an Italian guy, you know,
(33:51):
with this heavy accent, you know, when he's describing to me.
But he was saying like, oh, Eddy, this is your car.
And he's like, yeah, that's my car. And he's like,
we'll give you special treatment. And so what he does
is as he walks through, this guy follows him and
his car through the whole line. I don't know how
long it took, maybe a couple of hours, you know,
maybe a long time, but this is really crazy. As
(34:12):
he goes through the line, they do special things for him,
Like when they're putting it together, uh, you know, they
they see him there and he's watching everything that's happening.
They welded his initials on the fender of the engine bay,
uh you know, like in the metal so like because
it wasn't a robotic thing at that point. It was
a handheld welder, and the weldered welded his initials you
know into the e ed for you know, his initials um.
(34:34):
They put that in there. And then they did like
when they got to the seats, the seating area, they
put like the better seats and I guess with like
the special stitching, you know, like the the it was
like an up cell I guess at that point, so thicker.
I don't it was thicker or double or what it was,
but like better seats. There was something to do with
the convertible top operation, like the maybe as a mechanism
or something, or maybe it's the top itself. He didn't
(34:56):
remember exactly what that was, but said that there was
something special about that as well. Get this double paint.
They ran it. He ran it through the paint booth twice.
Now that's something you would never get today because there's
a very strict limit of what they're allowed to do it.
But but they put double paint on the body of
this vehicle for him, and it was all, you know,
like oh, Eddie will take care of you kind of thing.
(35:17):
And and then at the very end, the last like
final touch on this thing, he got a police certified
spinometer put in instead of the standards s phenometer, so
it just said you know, I think on the stamp
on it said certified or something like that. But it
was a police issue spinometer. So this whole vehicle was
like really custom. And I said, well, well where is it?
You know, you know where this car is anymore? And
(35:39):
I said, no, you know, here's what happened. I was driving.
I don't know if it's later that year, a couple
of years later, Uh, someone ran a red light, and
he swerved to avoid that person and hit a pole
or a tree or something and completely totaled it. Um
but he ordered ordered a second car for his mother.
So that be my wife's grandmother. Another limouth velvet here
I think, but a hard top, and that was the wife,
(36:00):
the car that my wife drove in high school and
had for a few years. But I wish we could
find that car still. She had just a standard hardtop Belvedere.
But what a cool thing. I like. Can you imagine
that level of um, not service, but individualism, individual attention.
I guess maybe that you get when you show up
and asked to see your car being built. I don't
(36:21):
even know if they would allow you to do that
anymore unless you were inside at that fact, that specific factory.
I think you would have to have some pool. I'm
sure if you're a celebrity, right, maybe work or if
you're uh the president or something. Yeah, and yes, I
mean I know about the whole thing where you can
go and watch, you know, plants operating. I know that
you can go to the factory in Bowling Green, Kentucky,
(36:41):
and you can I think you can even help build
your engine for your Corvette. So I know that there's
there's certain things similar to this, but it's not exactly
like this. I mean that was that was a really
any interesting story? I thought, Yeah, I think those are
the good old days. Candidly, I think so too. That's
pretty cool, though. Man, Let's okay, let's balance it out
with what we're talking about the good old days. Let's
(37:02):
talk about something that might be kind of weird. And
I don't know if this is an entire show, but
this is something that I've been keeping an eye on
for a little while. And when you talked about the
gas crisis earlier, it set off my spider sense because
I was going to talk about that too. So oil
briefly like this week fell below thirty dollars a barrel. Yeah,
(37:25):
I did see that, and you know, I just heard
about it on like a little quick news bourb. But
what it initially made me think of was, oh, man,
I'm glad I didn't buy a hybrid. And I don't
know why because, well, you know, because with price of
gasoline coming down so far, it's going to make that
time that it pays to you know, you remember that
(37:46):
that whole how much money do you actually save. Yeah,
the trade off on what you pay up front for
the hybrid versus you know, and I know that there's
arguments for and against this, and so many different angles,
so many different levels to this, but that was my
initial thought. It was like, oh man, we'll get fuel
prices are coming down. Good for good for me, good
for us. Right, it's the initial thought is great at
(38:09):
the gas pump, you know what I mean. But yeah,
they're consequences elsewhere. Well, yeah, there are constant oil prices
have fallen this according to BBC by sevent in the
past fifteen months. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. Well for some
countries that are oil producers, this could spell a lot
of trouble. So, uh the I didn't know this scott
(38:29):
at all. And this might interest you ladies and gentlemen.
Some countries look at their their oil money and their
oil production and come up with a price per barrel
that they need to balance their budget so that they
can sustain their economy. Right, yeah, exactly exactly. So in Russia,
the finance Minister of Russia said the Russian budget could
(38:52):
only be balanced at an oil price of eighty two
bucks of barrel eight two dollars. I heard that number
as well, that was in the same news story. And
so I was saying, again, what what is going to
happen over in Russia at this point when when it's
down to thirty dollars of barrel? And is it going
to continue to drive because I've heard people say that
there's a chance that it may drop to as low
as ten dollars of barrel. Yeah, maybe briefly. I don't
(39:14):
know how it's to stay well, no, no, then I
think it starts to rebound the other way. Yeah, absolutely,
So anyways, there's a there's a lot of politics to
go along with this too, but it's very interesting to
watch how other economies handle this, uh, this situation, like
what you know, there's there's this real it's a pretty
delicate balancing act really and and you know, for us
to be at thirty dollars again barrel rather when they
(39:37):
are sustainable only at eighty dollars of barrel, man, they've
got to be going through some tough times right now.
But maybe who knows, Well, we'll see what happens in
the next year or so. And that got me thinking
about gas prices in general. We've talked about it before, right,
So I went back to look at some of the
(39:57):
average prices of gas US to see what was the
most expensive and what was the least expensive. You know
what I like about this, What's when when whenever we
say anything like doesn't matter when we say it's high
over here in the United States, when we say, oh,
my gosh, was four gallon from Europe right in and say,
big deal, it's eleven dollars a gallon here equivalent right,
(40:19):
nine to eleven dollars a gallon, you know, based on
the leader price. Yeah, that and that's that's a really
good point. Also, we'll just fast forward to the response
that we give with that, which is, in the US
being such a car culture, it's also true that there
are very few reliable ways to get around other than
(40:41):
a car, you know, granted, okay, in uh denser cities,
there's public transit sure, sure, sure, And there are private
bus operators, right, And there's also what's next amtrack car
sharing even you don't have to I mean that that's
starting to play into it in a bigger role now.
(41:02):
So there's also Uber and all those services. Even I
don't think you can call an Uber from here to
Los Angeles, probably not. I bet you could. Well, what
a weird what a weird trip? Yeah, that's a that's
a that's a story for Gelopnik or something we could do,
like we called an uber and got got the guy
to take us on a road to take us to Miami.
(41:23):
I can you imagine how expensive that would be? I
can't know. I can't runeish, no, I can't. That person
might be able to just kind of hang it up
for a year or two and uh, live a good
life that uber driver. Right. Well, in general, gas prices
have have dropped for the average American at the pump.
The highest is still gonna be California and Hawaii, no
(41:45):
surprise there. Uh and that is about two bucks eighty
one cents two bucks eighty two cents for challenge. Isn't
this something? Can you imagine? Because remember it used to
be like four five dollars in some places California. And uh,
it also made me what I wanted to ask you,
what's the most you ever paid? You know what? I'm
(42:07):
gonna say that it was probably somewhere near an airport,
like trying to return a rental car when you get
close to six dollars a gallon, You know when it's
when it's really only and at the time it's expensive
elsewhere too. I mean it was around four dollars a gallon,
but this would have been I guess around two thousand
eight two thou nine somewhere in there, when the price
is just spiked way up. Um, I'm gonna say for
(42:28):
sure it was around an airport returning a rental car.
And I know it's terrible tactic, but you know, if
if you get into that position where you know you're
a hotel and there's nothing nearby, and you know it's
right there by the airport, that's the worst place to
get gas. But sometimes you just have to well yeah,
because you have to turn the car in by a
certain time and you have to have the tank field
or else it's still gonna cost more. If the rental
(42:51):
company fills it up. Well, you know, sometimes I'll just
top it off with a garden hose, you know, just
so the gauge goes up. And that's fine, the old
Scott Benjamin maneuver, that's all it hurts. No, I'm just kidding,
but but honestly, like I've I've rarely been in that
position because usually try to plan ahead and get it,
you know, so it's full when you return it, but
you don't have to stop at that that last stop
gas station where they just they just gouge you every time.
(43:13):
So what do you think is the highest you've ever
paid been? Oh, I don't think I've gone up to six,
but in a rental car situation, I've gone up to
five or maybe four fifty, but not uncommon and always
scandal And you know, if they if they do it,
if they pump it at the at the place, you know,
I forget what the prices, but it's like it is
(43:34):
like eight fifty or nine dollars a gallon or something,
just outrageous. So yeah, and and yeah, I loved our
our European friends to call in and or to write
call in. I keep saying that the call in uh
to the live show here, but right in until us
you know, roughly what what's the fuel price right now
over there? Because we we don't have a good sense
of that right now. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen over on
(43:55):
the other side of the ponds, or you know, somewhere
else in the world. Australia would be a great example,
right in and let us know what what your average
gas prices. As we've said before, and you may have
heard in previous episode, we are aware that a large
amount of the price, or large percentage of the price
in several European countries comes from taxation, not necessarily the
(44:20):
cost of refinement and transit. It's a tax, sure, yeah,
whereas ours is more of a shipping line is shut
down for significant amount of time. We we feel the
pitch over here, right right, and uh and also this
is an episode for different show, Scott, but it also
makes me wonder. I was I was talking with some
coworkers about how gas or petrol prices affect research on
(44:46):
you know, hybrids and electric cars, economy cars. I'll even
throw in solar power man, because you know, every so
often we see a solar power car. Well yeah, and
the creep that just kind of creeps along. Yeah, very
those are very very limited. Way we've talked about those two,
how they're mostly mostly academic proof of concept, Yeah exactly. Yeah, yeah,
(45:08):
that's mostly for competitions in colleges and things like that. Right,
But with this, you know, you see the point that
I'm getting at here. Once the price of a barrel
of oil drops below a certain threshold, companies are de
incentivized to continue research and design on these other things. Well,
they're going to go back to the giant vehicles with
(45:29):
with huge engines and uh, and everybody will go out
and you know, hand over their wallet practically and say,
like you take it, you know, because I can afford
this vehicle now. But then again the price will go
back up, and then everybody will kind of cut back
and say we want smaller vehicles. It's really a tough
position that it puts some manufacturers into a very difficult
spot because they don't know what to what to do.
I mean they try to look at the trends and
(45:50):
see where it's going. But who knows it. I still
see I still see a lot of man, Okay, there
are a lot of manufacturers are going to keep the
heavy hitters right. That's like the heavy hitters that maybe
aren't the best in terms of efficiency, but in terms
of power, they're knocking out the park. Like the four
f one fifty is not gonna go away. No, No,
neither is the calac Escalade, and also the Camaro SS
(46:14):
and the the Chevy Corvette. Yeah, they're gonna have vehicles
like that. The Mustang of course, the vts and the
Shelby's and all that. I think those economy cars, the
smaller ones are still gonna stick around too because in
a way, their insurance, their hedging bets, right, they have
to for the cafe standards as well. Yeah, good point.
So you know there's there's a man, there's so much
(46:35):
to talk about. When you talk about just just a
simple thing, you know, feel the price of you know,
a barrel of fuel, yeah, or a barrel of oil
weather um, that that leads to so many other side conversations.
I mean, we really could have nearly a month's worse
of shows or more just about that, Scott. That reminds me,
first off, we're going to have to make this a
(46:56):
two parter, I know, can you believe it? We've had
so many side story and and other things that have
come up just kicking our talking about junk drawers, talking
about gorillas, shooting the breeze, yeah stuff. So I do
have one thing that has absolutely nothing to do with
what we were talking about. Okay, alright, just just a
quick question, and it's for you as well, ladies and gentlemen.
(47:19):
When you were growing up, did you did you hear
ever hear that old saying about the price of something
in China. Okay, yeah, what was the price in the
saying that you heard? The price of tea in China.
That's what I always heard, Yes, okay, that's what I
always heard. But apparently, and I don't know if it's
just a Tennessee thing. My family they called it the
(47:41):
price of eggs in China. I've heard that before though,
but but it was commonly the price of tea in China.
I thought so too. Yeah, interesting, So maybe there's a
regional thing. Well, yeah, I just I'm wondering if it's
a regional thing. And this just came about because we
were talking about, you know, how the price of a
barrel of oil does does matter? Like in the world
(48:04):
we live in today, the price of tea or eggs
or oil or another commodity in a foreign country has
has a profound impact. You know. It's often that you
will hear, uh, the the price quoted for a gallon
of milk, like a gallon of milk costs X number
of dollars and and you know, or maybe even a
loaf of bread or the big mac index. I telling
(48:26):
you that truth, the big macking. It's a real. It's
a real thing that you heard of that now I
don't think I have. Isn't there another there's a waffle
house thing too? Yeah, yeah, that's FEMA. Okay, hand to
god man. The Federal Emergency Management Agency uses informally uses
UH waffle houses as an indicator of the level of
(48:48):
a disaster because waffle houses always stay open. Okay, makes
sense unless you know the building is literally destroyed. Anyhow,
that that is a fantastic thing. It makes me wonder
if we should talk about disaster vehicles in an upcoming episode.
But for part one of Nuts and Bolts, I'd like
to thank Miles, d Ryan, a y Jen See, Bob
(49:12):
m Jason g Scott's father in law, that gorilla. That's crazy.
That's crazy, and of course you for listening, ladies and gentlemen.
We'll be back next week with the second part of
our Nuts and Bolts seen episode. We'd like to hear
from you. You can give us some feedback on Facebook
and Twitter, where we are Car Stuff hs W. Check
(49:33):
out every episode we have ever done, and it's a
lot out there uh at Car Stuff Show dot com.
And if you want to write to us directly with
a story, of question. A suggestion we'd love to hear from.
Our email address is car stuff at how stuff works
dot com. So more on this and thousands of other
(49:53):
topics is the how stuff works dot com. Let us
know what you think, Send an email to podcast House
for Works dot com. M m m
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot Com. I'd welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott, I'm Ben, and as always
we are joined with our super producer Null Miscellaneous Brown misankus.
All right, that's a good one, and that's not my
(00:23):
best work. Junk drawer. Oh, nice old junk drawer, Brown,
But it's hard to say it junk drunk, junk drawer,
except there with rural drawer. It is, yes, the rural
drawers junk drawer. Oh boy, hey, do you real quick
before you get started. Uh, you have a junk dur right,
of course its people do. When I moved to my
(00:44):
new place, I was trying to you know, we have
all those delusions when we move. We're like, this is
gonna be Where did I get my life together? Oh? Yeah?
And uh, I was like, I am gonna live without
a junk drawer and I couldn't do it at last
maybe six months. Isn't it funny? How probably I would?
I would venture. I guess that everybody listening to us
(01:06):
has a junk drawer. Their parents had a junk drawer.
It just seems to be something you can't do without
in a house. I don't know why. It's just it's
just just a simply a place to put it things away.
I mean you could have a whole room. You might
have a junk room. People do, Yeah, well do I
can't because my apartment has like three rooms. But but yeah,
people do have junk rooms. The reason I was wondering
(01:26):
about this because growing up, one thing that I always
found in junk drawers would be car keys. Two cars
that maybe were older than me that I had, you
know that I had never seen. My parents may have
sold the cars before uh I was born, like my
dad's MG, you know. And I got really excited year
(01:50):
I found it because I thought, oh, wow, we have
a secret garage. He's storing this away from me probably right, yeah,
Oh man, kids are so narcissist, wouldn't it be. And
you know, you find like old house keys, you find
rubber bands, but those car keys. Now here's an interesting
thing though. It seems like now with car keys being
what they are, you know, with the fobs and the
you know, the the electronics to go along with the key,
(02:12):
it seems that when you sell a vehicle, you make
a pretty good effort to find that second set of keys,
because most people have two keys, one spare that they
keep it home in the drunk drawer or wherever, and
then when they always carry with them or maybe give
it to a spouse or something like that. But it
seems like maybe the days of finding old car keys,
they're gonna be gone soon when you think. Yeah, and
it's weird when you think about it, that key technology
(02:36):
in general is going to be something that within your
lifetime listener, is going to change drastically. Will will car
keys be the new like laser disc or floppy disk?
Do we talk about this? I think you and I
have talked about this before. I feel like we've talked
about the price of car keys before, how expensive it is.
They are super expensive. Um. But this this is just
(02:58):
the side note on okay, on a on a word
processor like Microsoft word or something. Yeah, it hit me,
and maybe we've talked about this on their scott but
it hit me that a lot of kids don't know
what that icon above the save button is. Oh yeah,
that's right because it is a floppy disk right right,
and no one uses it. And our key is going
(03:18):
to be also obsolete later on, I mean, at least
for cars that's the direction it's going for sure. Oh sure, yeah.
I think keys are going to dramatically change over the
next few years, just as just about everything in the
automobile is changing right now. It seems like development. It's
it's rapid right now. It's happening way faster than it
did in the past. The changes, the developments we've seen,
(03:40):
like in I mean simple things like infotainment and even
the readouts on the on the on the driver's display,
the dash um, steering wheel controls, things like that. All
that stuff is changing so quickly, and the way that
you control it, you know, whether it's a single joystick
you know, are single it almost looks like a mouse
in the middle on the control with or if it's
touch screens or whatever. You know, all this is changing.
(04:01):
Keys are changing at an equally fast rate. You know.
It's so strange when we when we think about that evolution.
Because I might get dinged a little for saying this,
but probably one of the slowest degrees of change has
been material science, because it's been a steady incremental rise,
you know what I mean. But in every other case,
(04:22):
it's almost like Malcolm Cladwell's tipping point, you know, it
seems like just uh, you know, you look at a
car from ten years ago, right and boom, it's it's
radically different. Sure, yeah, that's right, but it appears dramatically
different from what was the year that we said we
we typically go to is a two thousand ten or
is it two thousand and five where it seems like
(04:44):
there was one point where cars just dramatically increased in
the amount of technology that was an inside the vehicle.
I think like everything hit it once in terms of tech.
I think it's probably yeah, And of course this stuff
was still happening in luxury cars years and years and
years before. But I think is when we really start
to see mass production. I guess what I'm talking about
(05:05):
is like, you know, the the inclusion of things like
electronic stability control and every you know, every car must
have front air bags, rollover bags, you know, the side
curtain bags, bags in the air bags in the seats.
We see we see air bags in the in the
seat belts. Now you know, it's it, really there's a
there's a point where we're dramatically just takes off. You're right,
(05:26):
It's like that tipping point, as you said, oh uh, Scott,
it just seccurred to me where we're not talking about
junk tours today. We're we're we've just our segue, our
usual intro. It's gone in so long, we haven't talked
at all about what this show is, but we're that's
because we're actually doing the very first episode of Nuts
(05:47):
and Bolts. Oh, that's right. Yeah, it's been a long
long time since we've done one. Man, I think it
was April of the last time we did that. Now,
along the way, we do bring up listener mail, of course,
and some suggestions, and we've been creating these massive lists
of you know, possible topics and you know, kind of
going back and forth with listeners about what they know
about certain things, you know, as far as what they
(06:08):
want to hear on these podcasts. So we've we've i
think we've been pretty successful throughout with with bringing listeners
suggestions to the air. Yeah, I would like to say so,
you know, listeners, as we often say, our best suggestions
come from you, and we get such a grab bag
of cool stuff, the occasional kind correction, occasional, occasional, and
(06:34):
we also get these really great things that are fascinating
yet maybe too short to be an episode on their own, true,
just like a junk drawer, got a bunch of little
stuff that doesn't really go anywhere else, right, yep, yep,
but it's it's something interesting you want to hang onto anyways.
And that's kind of the way we look at the
nuts in both episodes. So there's a few things here
(06:56):
that um versus kind of like stuff Scott sees. Maybe
some stories or something I've got from the the last
several months now at this point that I've been kind
of collecting. But we've also got a lot of listener suggestions,
some more of those from Facebook, from email, and I'm
gonna I'm gonna tackle this in a slightly different way
today than I normally do. See what we normally do
is we come in here with a giant stack of email,
(07:16):
and I try to highlight and read a lot of
the notes from the people that you know have sent
them in. They've taken a long time to craft them,
so I figured, well, we'll give them their other airtime
and and read them and let everybody know what they're thinking.
This time, I think we're gonna try to burn through
several of these I've got. Maybe I'm gonna say ten
or twelve of each, one from from Facebook, from email,
and I've got some like an article to go over
(07:37):
from Popular Mechanics here again, some stories just kind of
a general feel for what people are asking for. Is
what we're gonna do today. Yeah, we've also got some news.
We've got some interesting tidbits, a little bit of weird stuff.
And statistically speaking, the odds are fairly high that at
some point I will go on rant about something. Just
(07:58):
I'm not planning it. I don't know what we're gonna
run into. Well, we look forward to it. We'll see
every every time. So what's up first? All right, we'll
tell you what. Let's let's look at a few Facebook suggestions. Now.
I did find a way to search the messages and
Facebook finally, so I'll show you how to do that later, Ben.
But it was a it's a mystery to me for
a while. I finally figured it out. It's pretty easy,
(08:19):
and it allowed me to dig some stuff up from
the very end of last year, which is great, and
even farther back. I've got more than just these, by
the way, So if you wrote to us and had
a suggestion, I guarantee you that I've read it. I
guarantee you that I've put it on a list. It's
just I'm not maybe gonna get to it today in
this in this list because we have we have limited space.
But here's a few of the highlights, I guess. So.
(08:40):
Miles D wrote in in September, and Ben, I think
we'll just stick to first name, last initial. How about that. Yeah,
that's probably the best way to go anonymity, right, And
if we if we come into if we run into
another Miles D, we'll call them Miles D. Two. Okay,
we'll do that. If we run into three, then something here,
something's got to change, all right. Miles D wrote in
(09:01):
in September, and he wanted to, uh, he wanted us
to talk about the rotary powered corvette concept from nineteen seventy.
And this is this is a fantastic idea. It's something
that I've posted about on Facebook. And well, I'll just
briefly tell you a little bit about it. In nineteen seventy,
it was a concept car from General Motors. GM had
an entire rotary program. It was in place which a
(09:24):
lot of people don't even know about. And this was
authorized by John Delorian, who was chevrolets like the Chevy
divisions GM at that point. So he authorized this whole
program and uh, and I think it was the fuel
crisis maybe that that bit into UM what they were
planning to do. But they had a four rotor corvette
that was a mid engine corvette schedule to come out
(09:46):
in the nineteen seventies. I think it was scheduled actually
for production around UM. Well, I you know what, not
this one specifically, here's the weird twist in this. That
one kind of you know, arrived and then went away
because the rotary program left or was killed killed off.
They took that exact same car, that mid engine car,
and they put a four cubicans V eight in it
(10:08):
and called it the Aero Vet. And I think it
was around nineteen seventy seven. And then in night that
one was scheduled for production. They were going to actually
produce a mid ending corvette in nineteen eighty and for
whatever reason, there was like a guard change at General
Motors around that time, and those guys decided they were
going to kill that whole program off as well. So
UM big changes for corvette around that time era and
(10:30):
and we didn't get to see any of the rotary
engines really come out in the production vehicles from GM.
That that should have really um okay. Second one, uh,
Ryan A wrote in in August and wanted to hear
about the Brian I'm gonna mention this Ryan is from
Hawaii and rode in and wanted to hear about the
Midsubishi Lancer Evolution series cars and he specifically owns a
(10:56):
g SR. Said that he bought it just before he
moved to Hawaii. To Hawaii, and he said he gets
the same kind of rush out of driving that car
as he does driving his motorcycle. So you know, it's
well it is and you know what I see. He's
on the road a lot. We've talked about the Evolution
vehicles a few times on this show, but we've never
done a full show on just that vehicle, And um,
(11:17):
I think I think it's worthwhile. Of course, Yeah, I
think we could do a whole show on this because
if you look at it, it's got some it's got
some scoot to it, and the specs are pretty pleasing.
Oh yeah, for sure, it's a good looking vehicle. A
lot of people are I guess, super fans of the
Evolution series, so Yeah, definitely, we'll we'll get to that.
It's on the list. Yeah, definitely, we have to do
(11:37):
that one. All right. So you want to go through
a couple more here, you want to chime in with
anything at any time? Okay, how about that? All right?
So um the next one comes from Jon c uh
and John wrote in and I think it was in August,
the end of August from Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne. Now, oh, Melbourne.
I'm sorry that Melbourn. Yeah, I shouldn't say no, that's
(11:58):
the that's the one that we have managed to correctly
pronounced until today, but you corrected me, so thank you
for doing that. And uh um Ejen wrote in and
said that they would like to hear about the shooting
brake design. And I think this is a good idea.
We've done specific types of vehicles before, like shapes of
vehicles before, and I think this is a good example,
(12:18):
um of something that we we should cover because there's
a lot out there. There's the Ferrari Ff which is
making or has made news recently. There's a BMW M
coops that you know, the Z three coops, Mercedes been
c l A class. They've got a shooting break. Um,
there's been some concept cars that have actually called themselves
the Shooting Break. Uh. There's just there's a lot out
there going back through history, UM, as well as some
(12:40):
modern versions. So I think that's a fantastic idea. UM.
Next one is from Bob M wrote in in September,
and this is an interesting question. This this could almost
be one of our um, you know, no mystery show,
like the no prep type shows that we do. Bob
wanted to hear us talk about the ch eapest running
(13:01):
car you ever bought. Sheep is running for how long? Well,
the cheapest running cars You're not like picking up a
car that you know is a hundred dollars but you
have to tow at home. You're not buying something for part. No,
this is a cheapest running car. Now. His example that
he he says, and he's got more detailed than this,
and we'll talk about it when we get to the show,
but his example is a seventy five dollar nine Mercury
(13:23):
Comment four door that he bought and kept it for
a while. But yet I'll save the details for later,
but be thinking about that. Your your cheapest running car
that you've ever bought, you know, threat your motoring history. Yeah,
I'm gonna hold off because I think I know the
answer already. Okay, and you may have heard of it before,
but boy, just thinking of that thing makes me feel
(13:44):
like my life is in danger. It was running, but
it was running wild. It was it was worth every penny,
is what you're saying, both pennies. Yeah, alright, alright, here's
one from Jason g And Jason wrote in at the
end of August and on Facebook and said, oh, this
is a good one too, Ben, You're gonna you're gonna
(14:06):
like this one. I think surveillance vehicles and cool surveillance
gadgetry that goes along with them for automobiles, vans, whatever,
that's a fantastic idea we have. How have we not
done that? I don't know. I mean, I think Jason
says that he himself is a private investigator, um and
would have a fascination in this type of thing and
probably some inside knowledge, of course, but this would be
(14:28):
kind of our chance to talk about you know, uh,
you know, bleading edge technology, if what's out there, some
of the old school stuff maybe that you know, the
ways that they did it. I'm sitting in the van
van herb like the vans that say like definitely a
florist on the side, but have the big satellitea. You know,
there's so many spoons to this in television and in
movies and just in popular culture. I think that, you know,
(14:51):
it would be fun to do that and and to
you know, take a real look at it as well,
like what you can go out and get if you
are a private investigator as a civilian or yeah, exactly right,
So do you have to have licenses to get that done?
How does how? What what specific gadgetry is used there?
But this could also be uh, not necessarily private investigator stuff.
Let us not forget that the Google Maps crew that's
(15:14):
surveillance as well. You know, they're driving around so you
can get the street view. They have these those vans
that drive around with a camera mounted on it, and
you can go online. This is a family show, so
if you have kids, you might not want to check
with check on this with them in the area, but
you can go online and see the people that have
(15:36):
been caught doing various things on the street while the
Google car drove by. Sure they get word that it's
going to pass by it at a certain time and
stage a scene. Let's just say, let's leave it at that.
You know what you're making me think? And this is
a tangent, so, but I guess that's what the show
is all about, right right. So, And I've got sketchy
details on this because I just read the story this
(15:56):
morning and it was in Popular Science. It's about the Olympics,
and Olympics are happening in Rio de Jannarrow, I think,
in Brazil, and they are going to station four cameras overhead,
over over Rio de Jannarrow that will record the entire city.
(16:17):
And you may think that's impossible, there's no way to
do it, but you can look it up in Popular
Science and figure out how they what they're gonna do
with this. But these are surveillance cameras that are so
massive like that have such a wide view. The only
way I think, I think the way forty pounds each.
They're going to put them in balloons, tethered balloons. And
I think the purpose is kind of an anti terrorism thing,
you know that, but it really is reactionary. They're gonna
(16:38):
be able to well, they'll be able to monitor, but
they'll also be able to track people back because you
can zoom in. This is crazy. Four These cameras will
cover the entire city. That's how why it is. The
people that are monitoring it can zoom into follow people
or vehicles to or from wherever they're going. However, whatever
they're zooming in to watch represents one they think, they
(17:01):
said one ten thousand of the view that is current,
that is available and being recorded at all times. So
then the question would be, I would say, the question
would be, are they responsible then for other crimes they're
gonna occur, because you know, it's a big pickpocketing city
it is. And also I believe and I'm gonna go
(17:24):
out a limb here, but I thought I heard something
about kidnapping as well. That's a huge it's a profitable
industry there, um kidnapping, Um, well, just petty crimes too.
I mean, it's gonna be hit also, gonna be hitting
and runs. There's gonna be all kinds of stuff that
are had that's happening. But I think the main focus
is and I mean hate to say it, but this
is a This is gonna be the focus of the
world for a while. Rio de Janarro. Uh, it might
(17:46):
be a target, right, So if something does happen. They
will be able to trace back, you know, to be
able to watch and reverse where these people came from exactly,
get an idea on the person, get an idea on
the vehicle, and watch them and be able to watch
them come man go from the scene. So it's it's
really a great tool. Uh But is it over overreaching?
(18:07):
You know? Probably? Is that the the field of view
of this thing, of these things is just going to
be incredible, I mean huge, And like I said, it's
always recording the entire thing, no matter what they're watching.
Specifically that that, you know, that is surprising to me.
We we live in a brave new world. We are
absolutely going to cover surveillance gadgetry. Jason is I can't
(18:29):
not do it. I love this idea so much. There's
actually there's another story that kind of relates to this
that I wanted to tell you guys about really quickly.
All right, let's have it. This story is something that
we ran into on stuff they don't want you to know,
and I think it will apply to cars very soon
if it doesn't already. And that is the sting gray
(18:50):
phone tracker. Have you heard of this? I have not.
This is a surveillance device that was first for just
the military and intelligence. Now state and local law enforcement
have this um the various kinds of devices. So what
it does is it mimics a cell phone tower. So
(19:11):
all nearby mobile phones or other you know, WiFi enabled
selling or wireless data devices like a tablet or something,
they all connect to it and it can read what
they're doing. It can take data from off the phone,
and uh, there's not really any way that the average
(19:32):
person would stop it. You can turn off the phone,
it can track the phone. So when I think of this,
I also think of what we're talking about with increasingly
computerized cars. So as you and I and everybody driving
newer cars gets a car that's closer and closer to
a rolling computer, then what what's gonna happen is we're
(19:54):
gonna end up having more and more personal information stored
on it, not just where you go and win, but
also you know all your contacts. Well, people already pay
phones to cars just for simple bluetooth activity, right, so
so that's very very easy to be So the car
then could act as a path through device to another
through one of these sting ray exactly. Well, that's interesting
that's a that's crazy thing. What's it called sting ray? Stingray? Uh?
(20:18):
The stingray is an I am s I catcher, so
international mobile subscriber identity. Wow. And there's there's no way
to detect when this is being used nearby, so you
don't know if it's not for the average phone user. Yeah. Wow,
you have to be because it's supposed to be mimicking
a cell tower. But yeah, absolutely, that could that could
definitely affect the way I guess people driving newer modern
(20:41):
cars that are connected to the cloud, you know that
have well, you know, just the the Internet of Things.
I guess I can see what a useful tool that
would be in the case of organized attacks. Like let's
say there are a bunch of uh you mean you
mean in defeating organized Yes, yeah, like I there are
(21:02):
better words for it, but I almost called them a
bunch of Jerk's plan into U bomb Marino de Janeiro
or something, and they're planning over electronic devices. Uh. The
stingray technology would a lot would make it much easier
to find and prevent that plan. You know. You know
it's funny that it's almost like you would say, well,
(21:24):
why why wouldn't they just install that everywhere throughout the
city and then they'll know, right. But but then again,
the second you say that, then you realize you don't
want people listen. I mean, that's it goes right to
the heart of uh, you know, privacy issues and more
people and I don't want any of that stuff. I mean,
I don't like regulations, I don't like all that, you know,
anybody listening to what I'm doing, even though it's very boring,
(21:44):
I don't want anybody listening to that. I mean, I
think there's this is a huge, huge issue, and the
surveillance topic is going to be a fun one to do.
I think the whole thing. Oh yes, so before we
go too far into it, because I can tell that well,
it's a very incomplete argument on my part. Sorry, Oh no,
I I see both sides of it. It's it's continuing
and we're going to look further in depth in that
(22:07):
too when we do an episode just on this. I
wanted to. I wanted to talk a little bit about
something that I think it is kind of sad in
the news. Oh yeah, okay, what's that Mercedes is killing
off the AMG sports name, sport name to make everything
Mercedes a MG. No. Oh my gosh, okay you okay,
you told me this rate before we went on air,
(22:29):
and I was shocked, you know. I mean it was
like fifteen minutes before we started recording. I didn't know
this was happening. Um, you know, at this point when
this air is probably it'll be old news maybe, but
but tell me what's happening, Like, what's what's going on?
Because I don't quite understand where the break is going
to happen, right, okay, because they're still gonna use the
MG name, right. Yeah. So in the last few years,
(22:50):
Mercedes has been using the MG sport name to describe
what Latnik calls near beer AMG cars. Uh. The it
was confusing, but the AMG sports models were step up
from the more basic Benzes, but not quite full on
AMG cars. But this is already reminded me of what's that.
This is the bmw M badged cars versus the bmw
(23:13):
M cars. Oh man, it's exactly the same, isn't it.
It's it's pretty it's pretty much. You're you're not wrong
because check this out. This they've got this new naming scheme, right,
So this naming scheme will abandon the AMG tradition, you know,
one man, one engine, and it will make these AMG
badged cars more affordable. So the currents um like the
(23:39):
C four fifty MG starts a little over fifty grand,
the C sixty three MG starts around sixty grand. So
is this brand delution? I ask you, what do you think? Oh? Absolutely, yeah,
what do you think I'm wondering? I mean I looked
into some of the a MG forums and you can
imagine the react action people are having, especially a lot
(24:02):
of the more traditionalist Yeah, I'll definitely check that out today.
If I bet it's I bet they're they're they're pretty
hot on the collar right now about what's going on. Right,
you can imagine it will be worth your time. But
there are people are saying, you know, like my car
just dropped thousands of dollars in value. Yeah, well did it? Though?
I mean if it's an If it don't, I'm not sure.
Maybe the ones that will be produced will will be less,
(24:24):
but yeah, that's that's probably it. I mean, if you've
got one of the originals, hang onto it right right, Yeah,
it seems that way less. I'm misreading this story. I
don't know. Maybe we'll see what happens. But it's weird
because you make the excellent point comparing this with BMW,
and I said, you're not wrong, and you're not And
I wonder how far this stuff could continue as since
more and more large car companies are buying smaller you know,
(24:48):
maybe we could call him boutique or niche cars and
then taking a lot of what makes them unique and
then just turning it into a logo rather than the performance.
Take the specialty tuner name and an applying it to
your product even though it's really just a badge, and
maybe um some special stitching inside on the scene wheel.
(25:09):
There's a trim package that's right, a different intake and
exhaust maybe or something like that. I don't know, but
it's an interesting idea and man I um, I was
shocked by the news. But we'll we'll see what happens
with us. And again I haven't read anything about it yet,
so maybe I don't have a full grasp of exactly
what's happening. I hope I didn't sound to uh to
jumbled up there because it's all brand new to me
right now. But we'll we'll dig into it and maybe
(25:30):
maybe that's another topic for you know, a future show too. Yeah,
you know what's going on with that, And maybe we'll
even tie in the the m M cars and the
M badged cars as well. We'll let me lighten it
up a little bit before we go to some email.
Yeah all right, I know if I could have a
cool sound cue for one of my favorite parts of
the show, Wacky driving Laws. Wacky driving Laws. Okay, so, uh, look,
(26:00):
you're in Massachusetts. Let's see, you're driving in Massachusetts, right. Oh,
I thought you were telling me the name of the town.
I thought it was you're in Massachusetts. I'm kidding. It
might be one alright. So let's say let's say you
listener are in Massachusetts and you're driving and you see
a gorilla hitchhiking. A gorilla hitchhiking. Okay, yeah, this I
(26:22):
feel like I'm on like the like the Tonight Show,
and I'm Ed McMahon. A gorilla hitchhiking with or with
or without um a person? Uh, you can't. You really
shouldn't get the gorilla in your car, or at least
it has to write shotgun because in the state of Massachusetts,
whether or not you own it, it is illegal to
(26:43):
have a gorilla in the back seat. Illegal to have
a gorilla in the back seat. Now where, Okay, how
long has this rule been on the books? And when
is there is there an indication of where that came from?
Is there there's a when the circus came to town
or something. You know, I'm being specific with a gorilla,
but the actual law reads this way. No person shall
(27:03):
transport an animal in the back of a motor vehicle
in a space intended for a load on the vehicle
on a public way, unless such space is enclosed as
side and tail racks to a height of at least
forty six inches extending vertically from the floor. The animal
is cross tethered to the vehicle, protected by a secured
container or cage, or otherwise protected in a manner which
(27:23):
will prevent the animal from being thrown, from falling or
jumping from the vehicle. So not just a gorilla, which
is fun. For the sake of argument, I like your
way better. But also, you know, you can't put your
dog in the back seat, which to me, I get
the safety thing, but that's kind of ridiculous. Yeah, that's
a little bit much. I think's you know, you know
it's funny. Okay, Yeah, this kind of leads into something
I'd like to talk about in a roundabout way. My
(27:46):
my in laws were in town this last weekend over
the holidays. It was you know, as we said, we
were recording this in the early part of and they
were here just after the New year, and h this
is I can't even believe I'm going to mention this part,
but um, I have a different story to get to here.
But he was telling me, my my father in law
was telling me about a time when they were in Cancoon,
(28:07):
Mexico recently, the last time, a few years ago really,
and they're walking onto the property of the hotel and
there's a guy sitting below a palm tree or you know,
whatever kind of tree it was, and right next to him,
sitting on the ground next to him is a gorilla,
what a live gorilla, like like you'd see at the zoo,
a giant, live gorilla just hang out. He's you know
what he's doing. He's trying to get people to come
(28:29):
over and take photographs with the gorilla for money. So
as they're walking down this road, he's like, no, they can't,
you know, they can't be it. You know, he thinks
he's seeing things like, you know, I'm too much tequila
or whatever, you know, and the guy starts calling to him.
He's like, hey, Signora, come over here, take a picture
with the gorilla, you know, and golla and I don't know.
That's what I kept asking him, and he said that.
(28:50):
He said, you know what, it just sat there the
whole time. It was very placid. It didn't move, and
it was it was real though it was it was
a real thing, was a real deal. It wasn't a
guy because I asked. I said, it wasn't a guy
in a gorilla suits and he said, no, it wasn't that,
and it wasn't a fake. It was real. And so,
you know, they walked over and they got sort of close,
but not not too close because you don't want to
get too close to a real, live grilla and that's
(29:11):
not in a cage. And the guy is trying again,
prompting him to take this photograph, and he says, no, no, no,
and so you know, he asked he starts to ask
his wife, you know, my mother in law, if she
would like her photograph with it, and she said she
also declines, and and they you know, just find it
very interesting and you know, like that's a crazy story.
And they walk start to walk away, and the guy says,
say goodbye to the nice lady, and the gorilla flips
(29:34):
them the bird. What. Yeah, it's like his little trick,
like if they won't if they won't buy the thing,
he says, say goodbye to the nice lady and uh,
and he flips them the bird? Is it? As they
walk away? And that was it. That was the end
of the story. Nothing else to tell. But but isn't
that strange? I think you know, you wouldn't have got
the bird if youok and taking the photograph. But strange,
strange of gorillas would come up twice in the same
week for me. Anyways. Well, let's say you're outside of Massachusetts.
(29:57):
I just want just give me. I'll pepper these three
out the show. You're outside of Massachusetts. Um, you have
gotten away with the gorilla and you're dropping the gorilla
off in Illinois. Uh, and you hit a deer and uh.
Somebody walks by and says, oh, man, I would take
that dear home and eat it if I was up
to date on my child support payments. Because you see, Scott,
(30:20):
what only residents who don't owe child support, who who
have not had their wildlife privileges suspended anywhere in the
US can claim possession of road kill in Illinois. No kidding,
no kidding. That is a weird law, no fooling. You
can't claim possession of road kill in Illinois if you're
not current on your child support. Yeah, well that's a
(30:41):
weird one, Ben. But I think we were with my
gorilla side note out of the way now because I
had to say it once. We once it came say
goodbye to the nice lady story. Um, this is this
is the maybe one of the cooler things that my
my father in law told me while he was here.
He's only here for a couple of days, but we
started talking about old cars. He you know, he saw
(31:02):
my project car in the garage. Um, and he's he's
to worked for Chrysler a long, long time ago, and
in the nineteen five he worked for for Chrysler Corporation.
And at the time when he first started, he was
working or he was driving rather a competitor product. I
don't know what he had, but it was not a
Chrysler vehicle. And this is still the case with Chrysler
as far as I know, because it was when I
(31:22):
worked there too. If you don't drive a Chrysler product,
you have to park in the remote part of the lot,
and I mean way way far away. It's not close.
It's really not close. And if you drive a foreign
make and some uh some automotive UM headquarters you know,
four GM wherever, sometimes they won't even allow you to
park in any of their lots. You'll have to park operate.
At least that's the way it used to be. I
(31:43):
think maybe that was just the United Auto Workers Union
lots that you couldn't park in there at all. You
had to find some other remote lot and walk in.
But makes sense to me, but you know, it kind
of does, you know, if you if you're gonna work there,
if I guess, buy the product and you're rewarded for
buying the products being parked closer to the building. Not
necessarily the I mean the union attitude toward foreign makes
I get it, but it does. It makes more sense
(32:05):
to me if you're saying, oh, you come to Ford
every day, you work for Ford every day, and you're
driving a competitor's car, It's like you're taking money from us. Yeah,
So they make you park, you know, I mean a
good distance away, and I'm gonna say it's you know,
like the back end of the lot, which can be
really big at some of these big buildings. So it
didn't take him long during the winter months to decide, well,
(32:27):
I better, you know, step it up and get a
Chrysler product. So in nineteen uh, he decided that he's
gonna buy a a Plymouth Velvetere convertible. And this cool car. Right,
it's not about a bad vehicle. I don't know anything
about the engine or anything like that, but he said,
you know, this is back in the day, and this
is like taking you back to the way it used
to be in the automotive industry and destright, and with
(32:49):
what they did for the employees. I don't know if
it's similar or not anymore. I don't think it's quite
this level. But you would get a build build sheet,
you know, you'd order what you wanted on the vehicle,
and I don't know specifically what it's called, but there's
an order sheet and you could select every option that
you wanted on the vehicle. And he ordered the sixty
Plymouth Belvetere convertible, and he knew the day that was
going to be produced, and it was gonna be produced
(33:09):
right there in town. It was going to go through
the line because they had these, uh these production schedules
and so we knew the specific day and when where
it was going to be. So he asked his boss
if he can go down and watch his car being built. Well,
it's well, it's happening, So he can go down to
the factor. Because he's an employee, he can. He has
access to this, right, So he does. He goes down there,
and it's something that you were allowed to do. His
boss said, will take the day and go do it.
(33:30):
And you know, it's kind kind of not once in
a lifetime thing, but you can do it, you know,
if you want to. So he did. And that's not
the best part of this whole thing. So he gets
down to the line and he's following he's following his
car through the steps of production, right, following all the
way through, and the guy, the shop foreman or the
I guess the line foreman or the supervisor or whatever.
And he described it as like an Italian guy, you know,
(33:51):
with this heavy accent, you know, when he's describing to me.
But he was saying like, oh, Eddy, this is your car.
And he's like, yeah, that's my car. And he's like,
we'll give you special treatment. And so what he does
is as he walks through, this guy follows him and
his car through the whole line. I don't know how
long it took, maybe a couple of hours, you know,
maybe a long time, but this is really crazy. As
(34:12):
he goes through the line, they do special things for him,
Like when they're putting it together, uh, you know, they
they see him there and he's watching everything that's happening.
They welded his initials on the fender of the engine bay,
uh you know, like in the metal so like because
it wasn't a robotic thing at that point. It was
a handheld welder, and the weldered welded his initials you
know into the e ed for you know, his initials um.
(34:34):
They put that in there. And then they did like
when they got to the seats, the seating area, they
put like the better seats and I guess with like
the special stitching, you know, like the the it was
like an up cell I guess at that point, so thicker.
I don't it was thicker or double or what it was,
but like better seats. There was something to do with
the convertible top operation, like the maybe as a mechanism
or something, or maybe it's the top itself. He didn't
(34:56):
remember exactly what that was, but said that there was
something special about that as well. Get this double paint.
They ran it. He ran it through the paint booth twice.
Now that's something you would never get today because there's
a very strict limit of what they're allowed to do it.
But but they put double paint on the body of
this vehicle for him, and it was all, you know,
like oh, Eddie will take care of you kind of thing.
(35:17):
And and then at the very end, the last like
final touch on this thing, he got a police certified
spinometer put in instead of the standards s phenometer, so
it just said you know, I think on the stamp
on it said certified or something like that. But it
was a police issue spinometer. So this whole vehicle was
like really custom. And I said, well, well where is it?
You know, you know where this car is anymore? And
(35:39):
I said, no, you know, here's what happened. I was driving.
I don't know if it's later that year, a couple
of years later, Uh, someone ran a red light, and
he swerved to avoid that person and hit a pole
or a tree or something and completely totaled it. Um
but he ordered ordered a second car for his mother.
So that be my wife's grandmother. Another limouth velvet here
I think, but a hard top, and that was the wife,
(36:00):
the car that my wife drove in high school and
had for a few years. But I wish we could
find that car still. She had just a standard hardtop Belvedere.
But what a cool thing. I like. Can you imagine
that level of um, not service, but individualism, individual attention.
I guess maybe that you get when you show up
and asked to see your car being built. I don't
(36:21):
even know if they would allow you to do that
anymore unless you were inside at that fact, that specific factory.
I think you would have to have some pool. I'm
sure if you're a celebrity, right, maybe work or if
you're uh the president or something. Yeah, and yes, I
mean I know about the whole thing where you can
go and watch, you know, plants operating. I know that
you can go to the factory in Bowling Green, Kentucky,
(36:41):
and you can I think you can even help build
your engine for your Corvette. So I know that there's
there's certain things similar to this, but it's not exactly
like this. I mean that was that was a really
any interesting story? I thought, Yeah, I think those are
the good old days. Candidly, I think so too. That's
pretty cool, though. Man, Let's okay, let's balance it out
with what we're talking about the good old days. Let's
(37:02):
talk about something that might be kind of weird. And
I don't know if this is an entire show, but
this is something that I've been keeping an eye on
for a little while. And when you talked about the
gas crisis earlier, it set off my spider sense because
I was going to talk about that too. So oil
briefly like this week fell below thirty dollars a barrel. Yeah,
(37:25):
I did see that, and you know, I just heard
about it on like a little quick news bourb. But
what it initially made me think of was, oh, man,
I'm glad I didn't buy a hybrid. And I don't
know why because, well, you know, because with price of
gasoline coming down so far, it's going to make that
time that it pays to you know, you remember that
(37:46):
that whole how much money do you actually save. Yeah,
the trade off on what you pay up front for
the hybrid versus you know, and I know that there's
arguments for and against this, and so many different angles,
so many different levels to this, but that was my
initial thought. It was like, oh man, we'll get fuel
prices are coming down. Good for good for me, good
for us. Right, it's the initial thought is great at
(38:09):
the gas pump, you know what I mean. But yeah,
they're consequences elsewhere. Well, yeah, there are constant oil prices
have fallen this according to BBC by sevent in the
past fifteen months. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. Well for some
countries that are oil producers, this could spell a lot
of trouble. So, uh the I didn't know this scott
(38:29):
at all. And this might interest you ladies and gentlemen.
Some countries look at their their oil money and their
oil production and come up with a price per barrel
that they need to balance their budget so that they
can sustain their economy. Right, yeah, exactly exactly. So in Russia,
the finance Minister of Russia said the Russian budget could
(38:52):
only be balanced at an oil price of eighty two
bucks of barrel eight two dollars. I heard that number
as well, that was in the same news story. And
so I was saying, again, what what is going to
happen over in Russia at this point when when it's
down to thirty dollars of barrel? And is it going
to continue to drive because I've heard people say that
there's a chance that it may drop to as low
as ten dollars of barrel. Yeah, maybe briefly. I don't
(39:14):
know how it's to stay well, no, no, then I
think it starts to rebound the other way. Yeah, absolutely,
So anyways, there's a there's a lot of politics to
go along with this too, but it's very interesting to
watch how other economies handle this, uh, this situation, like
what you know, there's there's this real it's a pretty
delicate balancing act really and and you know, for us
to be at thirty dollars again barrel rather when they
(39:37):
are sustainable only at eighty dollars of barrel, man, they've
got to be going through some tough times right now.
But maybe who knows, Well, we'll see what happens in
the next year or so. And that got me thinking
about gas prices in general. We've talked about it before, right,
So I went back to look at some of the
(39:57):
average prices of gas US to see what was the
most expensive and what was the least expensive. You know
what I like about this, What's when when whenever we
say anything like doesn't matter when we say it's high
over here in the United States, when we say, oh,
my gosh, was four gallon from Europe right in and say,
big deal, it's eleven dollars a gallon here equivalent right,
(40:19):
nine to eleven dollars a gallon, you know, based on
the leader price. Yeah, that and that's that's a really
good point. Also, we'll just fast forward to the response
that we give with that, which is, in the US
being such a car culture, it's also true that there
are very few reliable ways to get around other than
(40:41):
a car, you know, granted, okay, in uh denser cities,
there's public transit sure, sure, sure, And there are private
bus operators, right, And there's also what's next amtrack car
sharing even you don't have to I mean that that's
starting to play into it in a bigger role now.
(41:02):
So there's also Uber and all those services. Even I
don't think you can call an Uber from here to
Los Angeles, probably not. I bet you could. Well, what
a weird what a weird trip? Yeah, that's a that's
a that's a story for Gelopnik or something we could do,
like we called an uber and got got the guy
to take us on a road to take us to Miami.
(41:23):
I can you imagine how expensive that would be? I
can't know. I can't runeish, no, I can't. That person
might be able to just kind of hang it up
for a year or two and uh, live a good
life that uber driver. Right. Well, in general, gas prices
have have dropped for the average American at the pump.
The highest is still gonna be California and Hawaii, no
(41:45):
surprise there. Uh and that is about two bucks eighty
one cents two bucks eighty two cents for challenge. Isn't
this something? Can you imagine? Because remember it used to
be like four five dollars in some places California. And uh,
it also made me what I wanted to ask you,
what's the most you ever paid? You know what? I'm
(42:07):
gonna say that it was probably somewhere near an airport,
like trying to return a rental car when you get
close to six dollars a gallon, You know when it's
when it's really only and at the time it's expensive
elsewhere too. I mean it was around four dollars a gallon,
but this would have been I guess around two thousand
eight two thou nine somewhere in there, when the price
is just spiked way up. Um, I'm gonna say for
(42:28):
sure it was around an airport returning a rental car.
And I know it's terrible tactic, but you know, if
if you get into that position where you know you're
a hotel and there's nothing nearby, and you know it's
right there by the airport, that's the worst place to
get gas. But sometimes you just have to well yeah,
because you have to turn the car in by a
certain time and you have to have the tank field
or else it's still gonna cost more. If the rental
(42:51):
company fills it up. Well, you know, sometimes I'll just
top it off with a garden hose, you know, just
so the gauge goes up. And that's fine, the old
Scott Benjamin maneuver, that's all it hurts. No, I'm just kidding,
but but honestly, like I've I've rarely been in that
position because usually try to plan ahead and get it,
you know, so it's full when you return it, but
you don't have to stop at that that last stop
gas station where they just they just gouge you every time.
(43:13):
So what do you think is the highest you've ever
paid been? Oh, I don't think I've gone up to six,
but in a rental car situation, I've gone up to
five or maybe four fifty, but not uncommon and always
scandal And you know, if they if they do it,
if they pump it at the at the place, you know,
I forget what the prices, but it's like it is
(43:34):
like eight fifty or nine dollars a gallon or something,
just outrageous. So yeah, and and yeah, I loved our
our European friends to call in and or to write
call in. I keep saying that the call in uh
to the live show here, but right in until us
you know, roughly what what's the fuel price right now
over there? Because we we don't have a good sense
of that right now. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen over on
(43:55):
the other side of the ponds, or you know, somewhere
else in the world. Australia would be a great example,
right in and let us know what what your average
gas prices. As we've said before, and you may have
heard in previous episode, we are aware that a large
amount of the price, or large percentage of the price
in several European countries comes from taxation, not necessarily the
(44:20):
cost of refinement and transit. It's a tax, sure, yeah,
whereas ours is more of a shipping line is shut
down for significant amount of time. We we feel the
pitch over here, right right, and uh and also this
is an episode for different show, Scott, but it also
makes me wonder. I was I was talking with some
coworkers about how gas or petrol prices affect research on
(44:46):
you know, hybrids and electric cars, economy cars. I'll even
throw in solar power man, because you know, every so
often we see a solar power car. Well yeah, and
the creep that just kind of creeps along. Yeah, very
those are very very limited. Way we've talked about those two,
how they're mostly mostly academic proof of concept, Yeah exactly. Yeah, yeah,
(45:08):
that's mostly for competitions in colleges and things like that. Right,
But with this, you know, you see the point that
I'm getting at here. Once the price of a barrel
of oil drops below a certain threshold, companies are de
incentivized to continue research and design on these other things. Well,
they're going to go back to the giant vehicles with
(45:29):
with huge engines and uh, and everybody will go out
and you know, hand over their wallet practically and say,
like you take it, you know, because I can afford
this vehicle now. But then again the price will go
back up, and then everybody will kind of cut back
and say we want smaller vehicles. It's really a tough
position that it puts some manufacturers into a very difficult
spot because they don't know what to what to do.
I mean they try to look at the trends and
(45:50):
see where it's going. But who knows it. I still
see I still see a lot of man, Okay, there
are a lot of manufacturers are going to keep the
heavy hitters right. That's like the heavy hitters that maybe
aren't the best in terms of efficiency, but in terms
of power, they're knocking out the park. Like the four
f one fifty is not gonna go away. No, No,
neither is the calac Escalade, and also the Camaro SS
(46:14):
and the the Chevy Corvette. Yeah, they're gonna have vehicles
like that. The Mustang of course, the vts and the
Shelby's and all that. I think those economy cars, the
smaller ones are still gonna stick around too because in
a way, their insurance, their hedging bets, right, they have
to for the cafe standards as well. Yeah, good point.
So you know there's there's a man, there's so much
(46:35):
to talk about. When you talk about just just a
simple thing, you know, feel the price of you know,
a barrel of fuel, yeah, or a barrel of oil
weather um, that that leads to so many other side conversations.
I mean, we really could have nearly a month's worse
of shows or more just about that, Scott. That reminds me,
first off, we're going to have to make this a
(46:56):
two parter, I know, can you believe it? We've had
so many side story and and other things that have
come up just kicking our talking about junk drawers, talking
about gorillas, shooting the breeze, yeah stuff. So I do
have one thing that has absolutely nothing to do with
what we were talking about. Okay, alright, just just a
quick question, and it's for you as well, ladies and gentlemen.
(47:19):
When you were growing up, did you did you hear
ever hear that old saying about the price of something
in China. Okay, yeah, what was the price in the
saying that you heard? The price of tea in China.
That's what I always heard, Yes, okay, that's what I
always heard. But apparently, and I don't know if it's
just a Tennessee thing. My family they called it the
(47:41):
price of eggs in China. I've heard that before though,
but but it was commonly the price of tea in China.
I thought so too. Yeah, interesting, So maybe there's a
regional thing. Well, yeah, I just I'm wondering if it's
a regional thing. And this just came about because we
were talking about, you know, how the price of a
barrel of oil does does matter? Like in the world
(48:04):
we live in today, the price of tea or eggs
or oil or another commodity in a foreign country has
has a profound impact. You know. It's often that you
will hear, uh, the the price quoted for a gallon
of milk, like a gallon of milk costs X number
of dollars and and you know, or maybe even a
loaf of bread or the big mac index. I telling
(48:26):
you that truth, the big macking. It's a real. It's
a real thing that you heard of that now I
don't think I have. Isn't there another there's a waffle
house thing too? Yeah, yeah, that's FEMA. Okay, hand to
god man. The Federal Emergency Management Agency uses informally uses
UH waffle houses as an indicator of the level of
(48:48):
a disaster because waffle houses always stay open. Okay, makes
sense unless you know the building is literally destroyed. Anyhow,
that that is a fantastic thing. It makes me wonder
if we should talk about disaster vehicles in an upcoming episode.
But for part one of Nuts and Bolts, I'd like
to thank Miles, d Ryan, a y Jen See, Bob
(49:12):
m Jason g Scott's father in law, that gorilla. That's crazy.
That's crazy, and of course you for listening, ladies and gentlemen.
We'll be back next week with the second part of
our Nuts and Bolts seen episode. We'd like to hear
from you. You can give us some feedback on Facebook
and Twitter, where we are Car Stuff hs W. Check
(49:33):
out every episode we have ever done, and it's a
lot out there uh at Car Stuff Show dot com.
And if you want to write to us directly with
a story, of question. A suggestion we'd love to hear from.
Our email address is car stuff at how stuff works
dot com. So more on this and thousands of other
(49:53):
topics is the how stuff works dot com. Let us
know what you think, Send an email to podcast House
for Works dot com. M m m
CarStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.