August 1, 2025 • 25 mins
Jon Summers is the Motoring Historian. He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. On his show he gets together with various co-hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, motoring travel.
In this episode, Jon shares his experience driving a rental Toyota Camry through Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He reflects on the historical similarities between New England and Old England, the peculiar absence of drive-throughs, and the quirks of the local traffic. He also discusses the performance and features of the Camry, comparing it to other vehicles like its Lexus counterpart and a BMW 440. Throughout the episode, he provides humorous and candid commentary on his motoring adventures, including a less-than-satisfactory breakfast stop at Dunkin' Donuts.
==================== 00:00 Impromptu Recording Setup 01:20 Driving Through New England 02:39 New England's Unique Features 06:55 Rental Camry Review 07:46 Comparing Modern Cars 18:51 BMW 440i Experience 24:48 Conclusion and Sponsorship===== (Oo---x---oO) =====
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
John Summers is the motoring historian.
He was a company car thrashing technologysales rep that turned into a fairly inept
sports bike rider hailing from California.
He collects cars and bikesbuilt with plenty of cheap and
fast and not much reliable.
On his show, he gets together withvarious co-hosts to talk about new
and old cars driving motorbikes,motor racing, and motoring travel.
(00:33):
Good day.
Good morning, good afternoon.
It is John Sons, the motoring historian.
I'm doing another one of these.
Impromptu Eric, the producer, waslike, you know, you are better.
That one that you did about the LAfires where you just sat in the truck
and recorded it, that one was almostbetter than the ones that you planned.
So I was like, you know what?
(00:53):
I'll do another one.
Maybe I'll do another one like that.
And then I thought yesterdayI, I've had this Camry for a
bit, family, vacay, Cape Cod.
I've had this Camry,Basey, obviously new one.
It's from Avis, one of the major.
And I was like, you know what, maybeI'll talk about it a little bit.
(01:15):
Maybe I will.
And then I thought, you know what?
So I'll do it as I'm like driving.
So, uh, I'm actually driving.
(01:45):
New England.
It is like Old England, you know,not just the place names, the whole
way they've like laid stuff out.
It's like Old England, I guess.
More.
It's a function that California's builtfor, you know, roads they have cars on.
Whereas this community that we'rein at the moment, like this Cape
(02:06):
Cod, it seems to have been mostlybuilt in the 16th, 17th, eighties.
Century.
So in that sense, the communitiesresemble a lot of British towns.
In fact, there are older communitiesthan, than uh, uh, a lot of British towns.
So for context, if you wannaimagine me in context, I'm on this
Highway 28 Falmouth Road in, uh,
(02:31):
Cornwall.
I hear you say, no, not in Cornwall,in this Massachusetts place.
I just missed the turn forthe only bloody drive through.
Alright, so this is a feature.
Of New England that is worth talkingabout is, and it is, is this right that
in New England, or at least part of NewEngland, they don't really go in for
like drive-throughs and things like that.
(02:53):
So that thing where you like staggerout of the motel and get in the truck
and start rolling and are like, uh,where am I gonna stop to get breakfast?
And then you drive for a little bitand there's a McDonald's and you
just drive through and carry on.
That doesn't happen here.
Here, the only on thisFalmouth Road drag here.
(03:14):
There's plenty of like strips andplaces that you can stop and get
out delis, as Dana calls them.
But I, I tried the.
Deli the other day andit took bloody ages.
It's like Bloody England.
Like, it's like, am I in America or amI in like slow being served England?
It was the latter.
And if the bacon sandwich hadbeen that good, I'd have been
(03:36):
all right with it, but it wasn't.
So I was just like, yes, Daniel,this is why I don't do delis.
So else they do differently here.
And I'm just, 'cause I'm justlooking one seeing one and
I'm just jumping around here.
Is this.
Trucks, there's a lot of Western stars.
I love a western star.
There must be different rules outhere, like around heavy trucks and,
(03:58):
and this is why you see Westernstars out here on Eastern seaboard
and, and not elsewhere, and.
Obviously the towns do look cutesy.
I mean, it works for me for a bit, butafter a while it all feels a bit too
much like the Cotw, you know, in Europe.
I don't know.
I like a bit of, I feel likethe cot swells has to be offset
with the gnarlies of Birmingham.
You know, maybe that people would saythe same of, uh, Boston Offsets the sort
(04:24):
of, you know, the city offsets this asthe, you know, and this is like, you
know, Windsor or somewhere like that, butjust Americans, it's on a bigger scale.
Yeah, it's all like windinglanes with trees growing over.
You know, it's like if you tellthe GPS to take you around Southern
England, keeping off the freeways.
Keeping off the motorways, whichit did last time I was in England
(04:46):
and, uh, worked really well.
In fact, I'll insert a link now forthat pod that I did where I talked
about driving around Old England.
Anyway, this New England is, is nice here.
You know, it's definitelya whole lot richer.
Basically everyone whomoved is parked New England.
It, it came here, it was clear that theythought to themselves, wow, I could be
(05:06):
like the Squire in a Jane Austen novel.
You know everyone, every workingclass person, sailor Pilgrim.
I went to Plymouth Rock yesterday.
I won't bore you.
Well, no, actually it's not boring.
It's interesting, but youknow, it is just a rock.
So you know, it's astory that's interesting.
Oh, Will's chair.
The story's interesting becauseone, it was families who came.
(05:28):
That's why it was memorable.
Second reason why it was memorablewas because, uh, shit, I should
choose what I'm gonna be.
Second reason why it was memorable wasbecause they did the Mayflower Compact.
So it's a system of government.
So you've got families and government,but the only reason they did the compact
was 'cause they landed in the wrong placeand the king had told 'em they could have
land down by the Hudson River, but theyweren't anywhere near the Hudson River.
(05:51):
So they were like, take us there.
And the captain of the shipwent of the Mayflower went, no.
So they were like, what are we gonna do?
And, and the party was in dangerof breaking up and they were
like, we're gonna do this compactto write how we are gonna run.
You know, our little posse here.
Hello.
Good morning.
(06:12):
What can I get for you today?
Good morning.
Can I do a sourdough breakfast sandwich?
Perfect.
Anything else with ketchup please?
With ketchup.
I can give you ketchup back on the side.
That's okay.
Awesome.
Perfect.
Anything else?
Can I also do a uh, medium cappuccino?
Actually a large cappuccino.
We'll see how good Dunking Donuts is.
(06:37):
I'll tell you what there is though.
There's this awesome littleFord truck with a wooden rack.
And like an extended boom.
But it's like a sh, it's like a short,really short, it's like a short bad truck,
but it's got like a utility bed on it.
I should take a picture of it.
Alright, so yeah.
In Cape Cod have this, uh, rental Camry.
(07:00):
I mean, it's new, it's only done6,000 miles, so let's say it's a 2025.
I guess it's a base spec.
I haven't been and looked at thebadge or something like that,
but it's like a cloth interior.
It's done about 7,000 milesand it sadly has been abused.
There's bashes on a lot of panelsand they've taken the floor mats out.
It's filthy anyway, and.
(07:22):
I guess it tracks straight, but likeall rental cars used to years ago, it
smells slightly of cigarette smoke, eventhough they've tried to, to clear it.
So, uh, hopefully we'll, uh, we'llbe able to get away with that.
Now, I've, uh, you heardme in Dunking a moment ago.
I'm, uh.
I'm gonna sample a DunkingBacon and egg sandwich.
Doesn't look that inspiring to behonest, but you know, we'll see.
(07:46):
So the Camry, I mean, I drove thatexcess E didn't I, a couple of months
ago and I linked to to that and, andI did feel like of the cars that I
drove in that way, it was the best car.
And with hindsight, given the fact thatwe're all spending our own money on these
things, it just seems so much better valuethan anything else that we experienced.
(08:07):
It doesn't do.
Anything particularly well, butit does everything really a little
bit better than you expect it to.
So well that you wonder if you needthe Lexus and you certainly feel like
you couldn't justify, you know, you'dbe wasting money if you were buying a
Porsche or the BMW, you know, that's howit, how it makes you feel a little bit,
it makes me feel like, like that again.
(08:28):
I guess I'm coming to it from theexperience of driving the truck
and, you know, it definitely feelslike 10 years on from the truck.
My tundras are 2016 and so, so thatthis is, and it's a car, you know,
not a truck, which, and the truckwas already like old hat into 16.
But I guess, you know, because I driveso many old vehicles, it doesn't,
(08:50):
it still feels pretty modern to me.
So this.
This Camry feels super modern andas such, I find I trip over the
technology when you start it, butthe engine doesn't like fire up.
So it, it's hard to tell whetheror not you can put it in gear.
So I'm constantly trying to put itin gear or get it going or I somehow
(09:11):
mis coordinate the putting the brakeon and pushing the power button.
It's, I, I dunno what it is.
I just, it's just.
You know, look, right now it's justnow saying that the vehicle assist is
deactivated and I need to be careful whenhis assist when exiting the vehicle, it's
full of these kind of like computery.
(09:32):
Would you like a paper hat with that sir?Kind of of shit that you really don't.
It is interesting to me because youdo end up feeling that this product 10
years ago would've driven just as well.
It might have even had cruise control,but I wouldn't have spent 10 minutes
wrestling with the cruise control becausethe cruise control isn't just cruise
(09:53):
control, it's also adaptive cruisecontrol, and it's also lane assist.
And when you first switchit on, you need to know.
Which menu to toggleinto to deactivate that.
So you only get the cruise, you don'tget the whole self-driving piece.
Now, if that seemed complicated toexplain, imagine what it was like
(10:15):
driving with your family at fiveo'clock in the morning having just
taken a red eye from East Coast.
We didn't plan to do that by theway we spent all day in the airport.
I just want to commemorate, uh,commemorate a day, which otherwise would
be, uh, consigned to the dust bin attime because it was not a good memory.
It was a bad memory.
When you arrive at the airport ateight o'clock in the morning, to be
(10:37):
told the plane's gonna leave at 1 35,to be told at noon that it's gonna
leave at 3 35, to be told at threethat it's gonna leave at six 30.
Mike.
Garda was Chinese torture.
It really, you know, it justreminds you how, or reminds me how
important it is to be independent.
So this is why when my wifetalked about renting a car, I
(11:00):
didn't bleed about what it was.
I was just like, absolutely.
I just want the independenceimproving that point.
Look, I'm just sitting in itnow minding my own business.
I feel more comfortablesitting in the car.
Not at least, 'cause the seats are betterthan any of the ones in the rental hat.
It's like, you know, I don't dislikemy wife's family, but you know,
it's fun hanging out with them.
But I do feel in my own space whenI'm in the car, that's really what
(11:23):
I'm saying, I feel in my own, whenI'm in the car, I might take my
second bite of bacon sandwich.
I've gotta say Americans do bacon badly.
There's never enough of that.
And the little amount there is,they always bloody incinerate.
So to the point where it'slike what we would call in
England, you know, it's crispy.
It's like we, we would call it,and it, and they, they always do
(11:46):
like the tail bit of the bacon.
You know how it comes where there'slike the round bit and the tail bit.
They always do the tail back andthey incinerate the crap out of it.
So it's stiff.
So it's really small.
It's like, well, I don'tunderstand the point of it.
It's like I felt about pickup trucks.
And I just wanna say like, what the fuck?
We never giving any napkins.
(12:09):
They asked for three catchups.
They gave me the three catchups.
They didn't give me any napkins.
Like what happened to that?
Again, it's another backward step.
This, it was better when they gaveyou the napkins automatically.
I don't know how many creamsand sugar I want in my coffee.
Gimme three of each and then I can choose.
That's how it was in the1990s when Gamy and I first.
(12:33):
Traveled here.
Now I know that's, that quoteis gonna age very badly.
That's why the planet is burningthe wastefulness of capitalism.
But my word, it was good fucking living.
I just used a napkin fromyesterday that I found in the foot.
Well, I'm not picking me, I'msitting here now trying to think
of more to say about this Camry.
I mean, it's white.
(12:54):
It couldn't be any more.
Neutral.
The other one, because it washigh trim, the one that I drove
like a couple of months ago.
'cause it was high trim.
You felt like you didn't need the Lexus.
With this, you, you don't need the Lexus,but you, you might like to have it.
Um, you know, 'cause it'snot that nice inside.
It's a bit plasticy.
(13:15):
So because it has the hybrid, apower delivery is really awesome.
And by that I mean I've had it in,I dunno what mode it defaults to.
It has like a sport, normal eco.
I haven't played with them at all.
Reason for that is I've just found thatif you just stab the throttle, like
away from any kind of launch, it'll justchirp the tires just a little bit because
(13:39):
it's like the hybrid and the gas workingtogether, and I'm telling you, you've
experienced it before you've seen it.
With those onboard films of Toyota, LAmore cars, because the way it launches,
there's, there's something very different.
We've, I've talked aboutthis in other pods.
It's different.
It, the power deliveryin an EV is different.
(14:00):
It's not just us car guys being like,oh, it's interesting, this beeping.
It's a trash truck, but the trashtruck's got all like livery on it.
It's like sign written black and gold.
It's not like a normal trash truck at all.
Anyway, I was talkingabout something then.
I can't remember what it was.
Um, it might come back.
(14:22):
Yeah.
The launch of this Camry is incredible.
The hybrid and the, yeah, Iknow what I was talking about.
I was saying that EVs, it's easy to feellike, oh, you're just being snobbish.
You just don't like EVs.
You know, a bur you just like anti ev.
I, I, there is something differentin the power delivery of an EV
(14:45):
versus a. A gas powered vehicle.
There's something thatactually makes me up, realized.
It might be the vigor of it.
It might just be, it might be the torque.
Of it, it, I don't know.
It's just to do with, you know,if there's, if I've been prattling
on for ages, uh, recently with themotorcycles about how a v twin just,
it does just feel different to ride.
And I never used to get it.
(15:06):
I still love the inline falls,but I really fall in love with,
uh, with V twins as, as well.
It's like having, having twowives, sort of, I still love the
old one, but, you know, but the,the, the vwe thing is smooth.
Really, that's just the way the powercomes in now, the ev ev i, I think if
we can, we can recognize that thereis something different, therefore,
(15:28):
about the way the power is delivered.
Now the old organic power delivery,especially the way that, like a normally
aspirated motor rev, think of a BMW inlinesix or something like that, that like zing
to like even a fairly low red line, youknow, six grand red line or something like
that, that, that kind of power delivery.
You know, I grew up onthat, so I, I love that.
(15:53):
Now I'm gonna say this Camry, it's that.
Old fashioned, you know, gas powered.
But now with this sort ofelectric turbo, that's the way
I feel like the hybrid works.
And is it sustained push?
I don't know.
I'm on Cape Cod.
I don't wanna go to speeding ticket.
(16:13):
I've not been faster.
I'm not driven faster and stupid.
I'm just saying under acceleration,the thing pulls really well and
it's really fun and it doesn'tgive a shit what mode you're in.
And again, right.
I feel like for this environmentand ev, it has a pure EV mode.
I've not played around with that either.
I guess I. I guess I should, shouldn't I?
(16:34):
But you know, it seems to go into, ifyou modulate the throttle properly,
you can see when it's in pure EV mode.
It's quite easy for me to do that.
I mean, I guess it was showing 47 MPGwhen I started driving it, and I've
done a couple of hundred miles in itand have nurtured it up to like 50 MPG.
I say nurtured.
I mean, I've just talkedabout the throttle response.
(16:55):
You can tell that I've been led footin it when there's been opportunity,
but I just haven't, you know, I'venot been driving stupidly and herky
jerkily and the rest of the time,you know, when it's been pottering
in traffic, I've deliberately been.
Toggle in to keep it in.
Uh, it wants to coast right?
And if you coast up really slowly, it,it will, if you coast in the right way,
(17:17):
it'll even toggle in some regen braking.
It's not as aggressive for regen brakingas I think I might like, but like
with so many things on this car, it'scalibrated to be familiar and easy.
And, and usable.
And I guess I found myself looking atit next to, uh, a Volkswagen ID four.
If you think about the way that the Germanmakers fell over themselves to deliver EV
(17:41):
innovation and have possibly done a totallike British car industry on themselves
and completely fallen on their swords, Imean, it'll see, it'll remain to be seen
whether they survive, but, but really.
You know, you only need to look atused values of take hands to see how,
you know, the, these luxury EVs, whatpeople want to be part in and drive.
(18:05):
So I've given something elseas well, which is partly why I
wanted to, to record this piece.
So, I mean, compose myself into, you know,what music should we have this episode?
I could edit something in, in this pointcould, when I'm editing this back, I
can't remember when I did the LA episode.
I can't remember it in musical.
(18:51):
So, um, my brother-in-lawhas a, uh, 2017 BMW four 40.
He's a techie guy, so he is the rightkind of car for him because, uh, you
know, he's the guy who's ready to spendthe time on the forums reading what
the parts are that you need to replaceso that, so the motor doesn't blow up.
And he's put a tune onit, but just a little one.
(19:13):
And he was showing me how you do thetune and it's just like a little plugin.
So, just to be clear here, the streetrace guys at the moment love this.
He's calls it the, I thinkthe motor name is the B 58.
They love this platform becausewith an easy tuning device.
I think the maker that he has is JBTune of, if I find the link, put it in.
(19:38):
But you can get an extra, youknow, in his case, 40 horsepower.
In some cases, 120.
Horsepower.
And the way it works is it tricks themotor, it tricks the turbo into thinking.
It's not boosting when actually it is.
So it then over boosts giving you, nowthat sounds a bit crude, doesn't it?
(20:01):
I didn't drive it in sport Plus.
I drove it around Cape Cod andit's my brother-in-law's car.
So with those limitations, you know, whatwe're saying is I'm just occasionally,
you know, I'm falling back from thetraffic and I'm occasionally coming in
the throttle and I'm doing that in whathe called Prius mode, the eco mode.
I'm doing that in the normal mode thatit defaults in sport as many years ago.
(20:26):
In fact, when this F nine, when thisera of cars sort of launched, I, I
went to the immediate island Concord.
And, um, I had a BMW rental car, a F 90T 3 28 rental car, and I drove up from
Miami to Amelia Island all the way there.
I was a bit disappointed by it 'cause itdrove like a Camry, you know, the throttle
(20:47):
response was lazy and it just wasn't.
And, and it was a time before Irealized that the modes really
counted for something because.
When you put this car in sport Plusit was like it was a track vehicle,
so I behaved very badly on the road,which is like a b roadie in from the
freeway into the Amelia Island Concord.
(21:09):
I really behaved like a hooligan alongat a really awesome piece of road
and was struck by the fact that withthese modern cars, with certainly
with this era of BMW, the modecreates a completely different car.
The, the mode is so, so that's why Ididn't even put, you know, this, this
(21:30):
four 40, it's a grand coop, so it'slike I didn't even put it in sport Plus.
'cause I always find those shifts too hardand the suspension too hard for the road.
Sport plus on the road whenyou gunned it, oh my word.
It was awesome.
The turbo boost, the pinon, your seat,the dry, you know, it, it was really nice.
(21:51):
The Thor.
Uh, so it's, the other thing that I didwas, uh, I, I played with the paddles a
little bit to like knock it down a coupleof gears and that was quite good fun.
But if you just mash the throttleas usual with BMW, they, you know,
I was like shifting at six grand.
It's like, you know, when you just mashthe throttle, it'll take it like tip.
(22:12):
Seven and a quarter, which is likeinto just like my wife's E 46.
It'll like take it into thered before it makes the shift.
I mean, it's really, uh, you're like, wow,BMW and, you know, all that set up to make
it feel more, you know, sporty and racey.
But it really, the car drivesitself harder than you.
We'd drive it and there's that sensethat you've got the BMW engineers
(22:35):
who know what the car can, cando on the, on the track there.
So you know what a hugely capableand, and altogether awesome vehicle.
I mean, it, it's white as well.
It, it completely fades into thebackground, but you know, it's packing.
But I mean, you could.
Pick a number in termsof horsepower and torque.
'cause it's a turbo and you can get insidethe brain of the, and manipulate what it,
(22:58):
what it's thinking and what it's gonna do.
So really, uh, an interesting car.
Not, not something that I wouldrecommend buying secondhand because
the dongle, which plugs in under thebonnet, he, I said to him, if you cut
into the wiring harness to do this,he went, no, it's a plug and play.
And I went, so when you get ridof it, when you sell the car,
you're gonna just unplug it.
(23:18):
And he went, yeah.
And I'm like, oh, so that'scaviar EOR secondhand, isn't it?
Because this car, it lookslike it's a family wagon.
'cause it is a family wagon.
You know, it's all wheel drive one.
Careful, you know.
Well, he's actually the secondowner, but he bought it from Florida.
He's bought new in Floridaand he had it shipped up.
So it's only done halfa dozen Vermont winter.
(23:40):
Jesus.
By the way, can I just saythe weather here is so cruel.
Like I just couldn't,any car I cared about.
It's just to salt, to drive on salt roads.
It's just, oh wow.
I don't even think Icould do it to the tundra.
Now.
It just pains, especially when youstart to see the rust creeping through.
I mean, seeing the rust from thesaline air on the stuff that I street,
(24:03):
it's because the rust is the productgenuinely being, you know, destroy.
But with these electrical things,like with cars, traditionally
they would like rust away.
You could do the mechanical, well now theelectrics are way, way too complicated.
Like any rust or salt in that.
And you just, you justwanna get rid of the car.
'cause you, you're gonna be chasingelectrical gremlins forever and ever.
(24:25):
And ever.
Oh.
That's what's gonna happen to older cars.
To old cars In future, they'regonna look all right, but be
hiding all these electrical.
Thank you.
Drive through.
(24:48):
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John Summers is the motoring historian.
He was a company car thrashing technologysales rep that turned into a fairly inept
sports bike rider hailing from California.
He collects cars and bikesbuilt with plenty of cheap and
fast and not much reliable.
On his show, he gets together withvarious co-hosts to talk about new
and old cars driving motorbikes,motor racing, and motoring travel.
(00:33):
Good day.
Good morning, good afternoon.
It is John Sons, the motoring historian.
I'm doing another one of these.
Impromptu Eric, the producer, waslike, you know, you are better.
That one that you did about the LAfires where you just sat in the truck
and recorded it, that one was almostbetter than the ones that you planned.
So I was like, you know what?
(00:53):
I'll do another one.
Maybe I'll do another one like that.
And then I thought yesterdayI, I've had this Camry for a
bit, family, vacay, Cape Cod.
I've had this Camry,Basey, obviously new one.
It's from Avis, one of the major.
And I was like, you know what, maybeI'll talk about it a little bit.
(01:15):
Maybe I will.
And then I thought, you know what?
So I'll do it as I'm like driving.
So, uh, I'm actually driving.
(01:45):
New England.
It is like Old England, you know,not just the place names, the whole
way they've like laid stuff out.
It's like Old England, I guess.
More.
It's a function that California's builtfor, you know, roads they have cars on.
Whereas this community that we'rein at the moment, like this Cape
(02:06):
Cod, it seems to have been mostlybuilt in the 16th, 17th, eighties.
Century.
So in that sense, the communitiesresemble a lot of British towns.
In fact, there are older communitiesthan, than uh, uh, a lot of British towns.
So for context, if you wannaimagine me in context, I'm on this
Highway 28 Falmouth Road in, uh,
(02:31):
Cornwall.
I hear you say, no, not in Cornwall,in this Massachusetts place.
I just missed the turn forthe only bloody drive through.
Alright, so this is a feature.
Of New England that is worth talkingabout is, and it is, is this right that
in New England, or at least part of NewEngland, they don't really go in for
like drive-throughs and things like that.
(02:53):
So that thing where you like staggerout of the motel and get in the truck
and start rolling and are like, uh,where am I gonna stop to get breakfast?
And then you drive for a little bitand there's a McDonald's and you
just drive through and carry on.
That doesn't happen here.
Here, the only on thisFalmouth Road drag here.
(03:14):
There's plenty of like strips andplaces that you can stop and get
out delis, as Dana calls them.
But I, I tried the.
Deli the other day andit took bloody ages.
It's like Bloody England.
Like, it's like, am I in America or amI in like slow being served England?
It was the latter.
And if the bacon sandwich hadbeen that good, I'd have been
(03:36):
all right with it, but it wasn't.
So I was just like, yes, Daniel,this is why I don't do delis.
So else they do differently here.
And I'm just, 'cause I'm justlooking one seeing one and
I'm just jumping around here.
Is this.
Trucks, there's a lot of Western stars.
I love a western star.
There must be different rules outhere, like around heavy trucks and,
(03:58):
and this is why you see Westernstars out here on Eastern seaboard
and, and not elsewhere, and.
Obviously the towns do look cutesy.
I mean, it works for me for a bit, butafter a while it all feels a bit too
much like the Cotw, you know, in Europe.
I don't know.
I like a bit of, I feel likethe cot swells has to be offset
with the gnarlies of Birmingham.
You know, maybe that people would saythe same of, uh, Boston Offsets the sort
(04:24):
of, you know, the city offsets this asthe, you know, and this is like, you
know, Windsor or somewhere like that, butjust Americans, it's on a bigger scale.
Yeah, it's all like windinglanes with trees growing over.
You know, it's like if you tellthe GPS to take you around Southern
England, keeping off the freeways.
Keeping off the motorways, whichit did last time I was in England
(04:46):
and, uh, worked really well.
In fact, I'll insert a link now forthat pod that I did where I talked
about driving around Old England.
Anyway, this New England is, is nice here.
You know, it's definitelya whole lot richer.
Basically everyone whomoved is parked New England.
It, it came here, it was clear that theythought to themselves, wow, I could be
(05:06):
like the Squire in a Jane Austen novel.
You know everyone, every workingclass person, sailor Pilgrim.
I went to Plymouth Rock yesterday.
I won't bore you.
Well, no, actually it's not boring.
It's interesting, but youknow, it is just a rock.
So you know, it's astory that's interesting.
Oh, Will's chair.
The story's interesting becauseone, it was families who came.
(05:28):
That's why it was memorable.
Second reason why it was memorablewas because, uh, shit, I should
choose what I'm gonna be.
Second reason why it was memorable wasbecause they did the Mayflower Compact.
So it's a system of government.
So you've got families and government,but the only reason they did the compact
was 'cause they landed in the wrong placeand the king had told 'em they could have
land down by the Hudson River, but theyweren't anywhere near the Hudson River.
(05:51):
So they were like, take us there.
And the captain of the shipwent of the Mayflower went, no.
So they were like, what are we gonna do?
And, and the party was in dangerof breaking up and they were
like, we're gonna do this compactto write how we are gonna run.
You know, our little posse here.
Hello.
Good morning.
(06:12):
What can I get for you today?
Good morning.
Can I do a sourdough breakfast sandwich?
Perfect.
Anything else with ketchup please?
With ketchup.
I can give you ketchup back on the side.
That's okay.
Awesome.
Perfect.
Anything else?
Can I also do a uh, medium cappuccino?
Actually a large cappuccino.
We'll see how good Dunking Donuts is.
(06:37):
I'll tell you what there is though.
There's this awesome littleFord truck with a wooden rack.
And like an extended boom.
But it's like a sh, it's like a short,really short, it's like a short bad truck,
but it's got like a utility bed on it.
I should take a picture of it.
Alright, so yeah.
In Cape Cod have this, uh, rental Camry.
(07:00):
I mean, it's new, it's only done6,000 miles, so let's say it's a 2025.
I guess it's a base spec.
I haven't been and looked at thebadge or something like that,
but it's like a cloth interior.
It's done about 7,000 milesand it sadly has been abused.
There's bashes on a lot of panelsand they've taken the floor mats out.
It's filthy anyway, and.
(07:22):
I guess it tracks straight, but likeall rental cars used to years ago, it
smells slightly of cigarette smoke, eventhough they've tried to, to clear it.
So, uh, hopefully we'll, uh, we'llbe able to get away with that.
Now, I've, uh, you heardme in Dunking a moment ago.
I'm, uh.
I'm gonna sample a DunkingBacon and egg sandwich.
Doesn't look that inspiring to behonest, but you know, we'll see.
(07:46):
So the Camry, I mean, I drove thatexcess E didn't I, a couple of months
ago and I linked to to that and, andI did feel like of the cars that I
drove in that way, it was the best car.
And with hindsight, given the fact thatwe're all spending our own money on these
things, it just seems so much better valuethan anything else that we experienced.
(08:07):
It doesn't do.
Anything particularly well, butit does everything really a little
bit better than you expect it to.
So well that you wonder if you needthe Lexus and you certainly feel like
you couldn't justify, you know, you'dbe wasting money if you were buying a
Porsche or the BMW, you know, that's howit, how it makes you feel a little bit,
it makes me feel like, like that again.
(08:28):
I guess I'm coming to it from theexperience of driving the truck
and, you know, it definitely feelslike 10 years on from the truck.
My tundras are 2016 and so, so thatthis is, and it's a car, you know,
not a truck, which, and the truckwas already like old hat into 16.
But I guess, you know, because I driveso many old vehicles, it doesn't,
(08:50):
it still feels pretty modern to me.
So this.
This Camry feels super modern andas such, I find I trip over the
technology when you start it, butthe engine doesn't like fire up.
So it, it's hard to tell whetheror not you can put it in gear.
So I'm constantly trying to put itin gear or get it going or I somehow
(09:11):
mis coordinate the putting the brakeon and pushing the power button.
It's, I, I dunno what it is.
I just, it's just.
You know, look, right now it's justnow saying that the vehicle assist is
deactivated and I need to be careful whenhis assist when exiting the vehicle, it's
full of these kind of like computery.
(09:32):
Would you like a paper hat with that sir?Kind of of shit that you really don't.
It is interesting to me because youdo end up feeling that this product 10
years ago would've driven just as well.
It might have even had cruise control,but I wouldn't have spent 10 minutes
wrestling with the cruise control becausethe cruise control isn't just cruise
(09:53):
control, it's also adaptive cruisecontrol, and it's also lane assist.
And when you first switchit on, you need to know.
Which menu to toggleinto to deactivate that.
So you only get the cruise, you don'tget the whole self-driving piece.
Now, if that seemed complicated toexplain, imagine what it was like
(10:15):
driving with your family at fiveo'clock in the morning having just
taken a red eye from East Coast.
We didn't plan to do that by theway we spent all day in the airport.
I just want to commemorate, uh,commemorate a day, which otherwise would
be, uh, consigned to the dust bin attime because it was not a good memory.
It was a bad memory.
When you arrive at the airport ateight o'clock in the morning, to be
(10:37):
told the plane's gonna leave at 1 35,to be told at noon that it's gonna
leave at 3 35, to be told at threethat it's gonna leave at six 30.
Mike.
Garda was Chinese torture.
It really, you know, it justreminds you how, or reminds me how
important it is to be independent.
So this is why when my wifetalked about renting a car, I
(11:00):
didn't bleed about what it was.
I was just like, absolutely.
I just want the independenceimproving that point.
Look, I'm just sitting in itnow minding my own business.
I feel more comfortablesitting in the car.
Not at least, 'cause the seats are betterthan any of the ones in the rental hat.
It's like, you know, I don't dislikemy wife's family, but you know,
it's fun hanging out with them.
But I do feel in my own space whenI'm in the car, that's really what
(11:23):
I'm saying, I feel in my own, whenI'm in the car, I might take my
second bite of bacon sandwich.
I've gotta say Americans do bacon badly.
There's never enough of that.
And the little amount there is,they always bloody incinerate.
So to the point where it'slike what we would call in
England, you know, it's crispy.
It's like we, we would call it,and it, and they, they always do
(11:46):
like the tail bit of the bacon.
You know how it comes where there'slike the round bit and the tail bit.
They always do the tail back andthey incinerate the crap out of it.
So it's stiff.
So it's really small.
It's like, well, I don'tunderstand the point of it.
It's like I felt about pickup trucks.
And I just wanna say like, what the fuck?
We never giving any napkins.
(12:09):
They asked for three catchups.
They gave me the three catchups.
They didn't give me any napkins.
Like what happened to that?
Again, it's another backward step.
This, it was better when they gaveyou the napkins automatically.
I don't know how many creamsand sugar I want in my coffee.
Gimme three of each and then I can choose.
That's how it was in the1990s when Gamy and I first.
(12:33):
Traveled here.
Now I know that's, that quoteis gonna age very badly.
That's why the planet is burningthe wastefulness of capitalism.
But my word, it was good fucking living.
I just used a napkin fromyesterday that I found in the foot.
Well, I'm not picking me, I'msitting here now trying to think
of more to say about this Camry.
I mean, it's white.
(12:54):
It couldn't be any more.
Neutral.
The other one, because it washigh trim, the one that I drove
like a couple of months ago.
'cause it was high trim.
You felt like you didn't need the Lexus.
With this, you, you don't need the Lexus,but you, you might like to have it.
Um, you know, 'cause it'snot that nice inside.
It's a bit plasticy.
(13:15):
So because it has the hybrid, apower delivery is really awesome.
And by that I mean I've had it in,I dunno what mode it defaults to.
It has like a sport, normal eco.
I haven't played with them at all.
Reason for that is I've just found thatif you just stab the throttle, like
away from any kind of launch, it'll justchirp the tires just a little bit because
(13:39):
it's like the hybrid and the gas workingtogether, and I'm telling you, you've
experienced it before you've seen it.
With those onboard films of Toyota, LAmore cars, because the way it launches,
there's, there's something very different.
We've, I've talked aboutthis in other pods.
It's different.
It, the power deliveryin an EV is different.
(14:00):
It's not just us car guys being like,oh, it's interesting, this beeping.
It's a trash truck, but the trashtruck's got all like livery on it.
It's like sign written black and gold.
It's not like a normal trash truck at all.
Anyway, I was talkingabout something then.
I can't remember what it was.
Um, it might come back.
(14:22):
Yeah.
The launch of this Camry is incredible.
The hybrid and the, yeah, Iknow what I was talking about.
I was saying that EVs, it's easy to feellike, oh, you're just being snobbish.
You just don't like EVs.
You know, a bur you just like anti ev.
I, I, there is something differentin the power delivery of an EV
(14:45):
versus a. A gas powered vehicle.
There's something thatactually makes me up, realized.
It might be the vigor of it.
It might just be, it might be the torque.
Of it, it, I don't know.
It's just to do with, you know,if there's, if I've been prattling
on for ages, uh, recently with themotorcycles about how a v twin just,
it does just feel different to ride.
And I never used to get it.
(15:06):
I still love the inline falls,but I really fall in love with,
uh, with V twins as, as well.
It's like having, having twowives, sort of, I still love the
old one, but, you know, but the,the, the vwe thing is smooth.
Really, that's just the way the powercomes in now, the ev ev i, I think if
we can, we can recognize that thereis something different, therefore,
(15:28):
about the way the power is delivered.
Now the old organic power delivery,especially the way that, like a normally
aspirated motor rev, think of a BMW inlinesix or something like that, that like zing
to like even a fairly low red line, youknow, six grand red line or something like
that, that, that kind of power delivery.
You know, I grew up onthat, so I, I love that.
(15:53):
Now I'm gonna say this Camry, it's that.
Old fashioned, you know, gas powered.
But now with this sort ofelectric turbo, that's the way
I feel like the hybrid works.
And is it sustained push?
I don't know.
I'm on Cape Cod.
I don't wanna go to speeding ticket.
(16:13):
I've not been faster.
I'm not driven faster and stupid.
I'm just saying under acceleration,the thing pulls really well and
it's really fun and it doesn'tgive a shit what mode you're in.
And again, right.
I feel like for this environmentand ev, it has a pure EV mode.
I've not played around with that either.
I guess I. I guess I should, shouldn't I?
(16:34):
But you know, it seems to go into, ifyou modulate the throttle properly,
you can see when it's in pure EV mode.
It's quite easy for me to do that.
I mean, I guess it was showing 47 MPGwhen I started driving it, and I've
done a couple of hundred miles in itand have nurtured it up to like 50 MPG.
I say nurtured.
I mean, I've just talkedabout the throttle response.
(16:55):
You can tell that I've been led footin it when there's been opportunity,
but I just haven't, you know, I'venot been driving stupidly and herky
jerkily and the rest of the time,you know, when it's been pottering
in traffic, I've deliberately been.
Toggle in to keep it in.
Uh, it wants to coast right?
And if you coast up really slowly, it,it will, if you coast in the right way,
(17:17):
it'll even toggle in some regen braking.
It's not as aggressive for regen brakingas I think I might like, but like
with so many things on this car, it'scalibrated to be familiar and easy.
And, and usable.
And I guess I found myself looking atit next to, uh, a Volkswagen ID four.
If you think about the way that the Germanmakers fell over themselves to deliver EV
(17:41):
innovation and have possibly done a totallike British car industry on themselves
and completely fallen on their swords, Imean, it'll see, it'll remain to be seen
whether they survive, but, but really.
You know, you only need to look atused values of take hands to see how,
you know, the, these luxury EVs, whatpeople want to be part in and drive.
(18:05):
So I've given something elseas well, which is partly why I
wanted to, to record this piece.
So, I mean, compose myself into, you know,what music should we have this episode?
I could edit something in, in this pointcould, when I'm editing this back, I
can't remember when I did the LA episode.
I can't remember it in musical.
(18:51):
So, um, my brother-in-lawhas a, uh, 2017 BMW four 40.
He's a techie guy, so he is the rightkind of car for him because, uh, you
know, he's the guy who's ready to spendthe time on the forums reading what
the parts are that you need to replaceso that, so the motor doesn't blow up.
And he's put a tune onit, but just a little one.
(19:13):
And he was showing me how you do thetune and it's just like a little plugin.
So, just to be clear here, the streetrace guys at the moment love this.
He's calls it the, I thinkthe motor name is the B 58.
They love this platform becausewith an easy tuning device.
I think the maker that he has is JBTune of, if I find the link, put it in.
(19:38):
But you can get an extra, youknow, in his case, 40 horsepower.
In some cases, 120.
Horsepower.
And the way it works is it tricks themotor, it tricks the turbo into thinking.
It's not boosting when actually it is.
So it then over boosts giving you, nowthat sounds a bit crude, doesn't it?
(20:01):
I didn't drive it in sport Plus.
I drove it around Cape Cod andit's my brother-in-law's car.
So with those limitations, you know, whatwe're saying is I'm just occasionally,
you know, I'm falling back from thetraffic and I'm occasionally coming in
the throttle and I'm doing that in whathe called Prius mode, the eco mode.
I'm doing that in the normal mode thatit defaults in sport as many years ago.
(20:26):
In fact, when this F nine, when thisera of cars sort of launched, I, I
went to the immediate island Concord.
And, um, I had a BMW rental car, a F 90T 3 28 rental car, and I drove up from
Miami to Amelia Island all the way there.
I was a bit disappointed by it 'cause itdrove like a Camry, you know, the throttle
(20:47):
response was lazy and it just wasn't.
And, and it was a time before Irealized that the modes really
counted for something because.
When you put this car in sport Plusit was like it was a track vehicle,
so I behaved very badly on the road,which is like a b roadie in from the
freeway into the Amelia Island Concord.
(21:09):
I really behaved like a hooligan alongat a really awesome piece of road
and was struck by the fact that withthese modern cars, with certainly
with this era of BMW, the modecreates a completely different car.
The, the mode is so, so that's why Ididn't even put, you know, this, this
(21:30):
four 40, it's a grand coop, so it'slike I didn't even put it in sport Plus.
'cause I always find those shifts too hardand the suspension too hard for the road.
Sport plus on the road whenyou gunned it, oh my word.
It was awesome.
The turbo boost, the pinon, your seat,the dry, you know, it, it was really nice.
(21:51):
The Thor.
Uh, so it's, the other thing that I didwas, uh, I, I played with the paddles a
little bit to like knock it down a coupleof gears and that was quite good fun.
But if you just mash the throttleas usual with BMW, they, you know,
I was like shifting at six grand.
It's like, you know, when you just mashthe throttle, it'll take it like tip.
(22:12):
Seven and a quarter, which is likeinto just like my wife's E 46.
It'll like take it into thered before it makes the shift.
I mean, it's really, uh, you're like, wow,BMW and, you know, all that set up to make
it feel more, you know, sporty and racey.
But it really, the car drivesitself harder than you.
We'd drive it and there's that sensethat you've got the BMW engineers
(22:35):
who know what the car can, cando on the, on the track there.
So you know what a hugely capableand, and altogether awesome vehicle.
I mean, it, it's white as well.
It, it completely fades into thebackground, but you know, it's packing.
But I mean, you could.
Pick a number in termsof horsepower and torque.
'cause it's a turbo and you can get insidethe brain of the, and manipulate what it,
(22:58):
what it's thinking and what it's gonna do.
So really, uh, an interesting car.
Not, not something that I wouldrecommend buying secondhand because
the dongle, which plugs in under thebonnet, he, I said to him, if you cut
into the wiring harness to do this,he went, no, it's a plug and play.
And I went, so when you get ridof it, when you sell the car,
you're gonna just unplug it.
(23:18):
And he went, yeah.
And I'm like, oh, so that'scaviar EOR secondhand, isn't it?
Because this car, it lookslike it's a family wagon.
'cause it is a family wagon.
You know, it's all wheel drive one.
Careful, you know.
Well, he's actually the secondowner, but he bought it from Florida.
He's bought new in Floridaand he had it shipped up.
So it's only done halfa dozen Vermont winter.
(23:40):
Jesus.
By the way, can I just saythe weather here is so cruel.
Like I just couldn't,any car I cared about.
It's just to salt, to drive on salt roads.
It's just, oh wow.
I don't even think Icould do it to the tundra.
Now.
It just pains, especially when youstart to see the rust creeping through.
I mean, seeing the rust from thesaline air on the stuff that I street,
(24:03):
it's because the rust is the productgenuinely being, you know, destroy.
But with these electrical things,like with cars, traditionally
they would like rust away.
You could do the mechanical, well now theelectrics are way, way too complicated.
Like any rust or salt in that.
And you just, you justwanna get rid of the car.
'cause you, you're gonna be chasingelectrical gremlins forever and ever.
(24:25):
And ever.
Oh.
That's what's gonna happen to older cars.
To old cars In future, they'regonna look all right, but be
hiding all these electrical.
Thank you.
Drive through.
(24:48):
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