What Should I Buy? - Gray Market Cars! - BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Our panel of break fix petrolheadsare back for another rousing
what should I buy debate.
Using unique shopping criteria, theyare challenged to find our first time
collector the best vehicle that willmake their friends go, where'd you
get that, or what the hell is wrongwith you, at the next Cars and Coffee.
We dive into the world of forbidden fruit.

(00:22):
Cars that were never officially sold inthe United States, but are now hitting our
shores thanks to the 25 year import rule.
From turbocharged rally monsters tohigh revving Asian exotics, these gray
market gems have long been the stuffof dreams for American enthusiasts.
And now, many of themare finally within reach.
On this episode, we'll explorethe art of the possible.

(00:45):
With some special guests, we'rewelcoming back Chris Bright, formerly
of Collector Part Exchange, along withJohn Summers, the motoring historian.
And then we'll round out ourfabulous, what should I buy panel with
veteran members, William, Big MoneyRoss, Mark of the Daydare Cruncher
Shank, and the one and only DonWieberg from Garage Style Magazine.
Thanks, Brad.
And on this episode, our panel ofextraordinary petrol heads is challenged

(01:07):
to find our collectors somethingthat will make their friends go.
Wait, how'd you import that beer?
At the next Cars and Coffee.
With that, gentlemen, welcome back.
Welcome back, Chris Bright.
Great to be here.
Really excited.
This is a hot topic.
I'm really excited to get into it.
Well, Chris, I have to say,first of all, it's been a minute.
I think the last time you were officiallyhere was the Italian exotics episode.

(01:28):
So we went right off therails from the start.
Crack pipes.
and stolen Alfa Romeosand stuff like that.
Is that, is that wherewe're going to go this time?
I got my car back.
For those that don't know it, my carhad gotten stolen and I recovered it.
I have a 1974 Alfa Romeo Giulia Super.
That's my daily driver.
It got lifted one day and I gotit back through a network called

(01:49):
the PDX Stolen Car Network.
I'm out in Portland.
It's a Facebook group and everybodyjust keeps an eye out for stolen cars.
Mine was pretty easy to spot, but I gota bonus crack pipe and, uh, some other
paraphernalia out of the whole deal.
Nice.
Still driving that car everyday though, by the way.
Nothing like a bonus crack pipe.
It's a good return on that.
I almost kept it, but then I decided no.

(02:12):
It's a green skull.
It was kind of cool.
All right.
So Brad, this particular, what shouldI buy episode comes courtesy of you.
By way of drive through number 53.
So do you want to set the stage for ourpanelists and kind of paint the picture of
why we're talking about gray market cars?
Because in the words of the great ConanO'Brien in the year 2000, apparently 2000,

(02:35):
everybody's been waiting for this momentbecause there are so many really, really
cool and exciting cars that for whateverreason came out in 2000, the last couple
of years have been really good too, withthe Skyline R33s and stuff like that, but.
I think this is the first yearthe Skyline R34 is eligible to be
imported and another slew of justamazing cars from around the globe.

(02:56):
So it's a really excitingtime to be alive as a content.
That and one of your favorite influencerswas talking about this and his Barker
lounger and his garage sort of mumblingand trying to eat the microphone.
You know, I don't evenknow that guy's name.
Yeah.
So James Humphrey, the dude who used tobe on the donut, who's not on the donut.
He's on.

(03:16):
Is that how he does it now?
It's not all like everything youdid already got to get him to speak.
It's it's it's it's spelledwith about four E's.
Oh my goodness.
But, but anyway, yeah, he did an articlein a YouTube video highlighting some
of the cars that are eligible now, andI thought it would be a great kind of
what should I buy to see if we could.
Come up with things that mightnot have been on his list.

(03:36):
I think we were sort of satisfiedwith what he put on the list, but
it just didn't really, there wereonly a few cars that got us excited.
Yeah.
His list was very basic to use thebasic girl kind of terminology.
His list was basic.
It was pumpkin spice latte.
That's what it was.
We need to be a little more exciting anda little more different or at mid break.
What is it that the Gen Alpha say now?
It's mid.

(03:57):
It's it's mid.
His list was mid.
This was mid.
My daughter said that tome right before this call.
Gentlemen, we are going to slay.
This is not going to be skippity.
Please.
Okay.
Please tell me you're goingto edit all of that out.
So like all, what should I buy episodes?
We are buying for a fictitious collector.

(04:18):
In this case, we are sort of.
Ignoring the one thing that Chris hatedthe most, which was the bracketing.
The money is no object.
We are at the point where we arebuying cars for a collector who's
coming through the x gray market.
So really money doesn'tmatter at this point.
But what does matter is somethingthat Brad Said which is skyline
skyline skyline and much likeour muscle and malaise episode.

(04:42):
No kudas.
No mustangs No camaros, so no skylineSo if you have skyline on your list,
just go ahead right now and put aline Right through it because we're
not going to talk about skylines.
We know we can import them.
You've been able to import them Forthe last decade through companies
in Florida and things like that.
So we're trying to find something alittle different, something a little
obscure and plus the skyline are 34.

(05:02):
It's almost unobtainium becauseeverybody's been waiting for these cars.
So anybody with enough money, I mean,they've pretty much just all taken
care of at this point, I would say.
Surely though it's the Porschenine 12 syndrome, the nine 11s.
They're like, so you look for the nine 12.
I mean, I'm no JDM expert, but I'vespoken to two people in the city

(05:22):
here who are like, I was on bring atrailer and was looking at a Stygia.
Now, Eric, I don't want to mess you up,but don't Stygia's GTS versions rather
than the GTRs, they do a sedan version ofmost of what kind of looks like a Skyline.
There's a lot of Porsche 912.
Yeah.
If you were in the business offlipping to make money rather than

(05:45):
being a collector and wanting thevery best, you wouldn't need a GTR.
You could do with a GTS ora Staggier or something.
For sure.
Absolutely.
That's a great point.
John set us off down the path of JDM.
So why don't we continuewith some Asian cars?
Who's got something on their list?
I saw one that was fun.
I didn't read this article on thelist of 25, but The Toyota Chaser.
Ooh.

(06:05):
It looks like a Camry,but it's rear wheel drive.
It has the Jay Z Supermotor 5 speed.
It's not actually separatedand bring a trailer.
There are four transactions listed.
Now, I realize you just were tellingeverybody that, kind of money's no object.
These are certainly on the lower end.
They've sold Between 000 onbring your chair out here.

(06:27):
So last year, one sold for 13 actuallylooked pretty clean and then one sold
very recently for 23 just a few weeksago, but it's a really cool car and
you're certainly not going to seeanything like that at cars and coffee.
And I think with the cultfollowing around the JZ motor, it
would certainly have some fans.
Yeah, the only equivalent that was soldin the U. S. I guess is the Lexus G. S.
Yeah, you get that three leader in that.

(06:49):
Yeah, but it's the styling.
You're right to an unsuspecting person.
It's a Camry sleeper.
Yeah, but then you add the rearwheel drive and all that fun stuff.
That's a cool car.
I like it.
Okay, so rear wheel drive toyotas thatare sort of Lexi that have to jay Z's
when you want to Step it up a notchand go full grand Turismo and do like a
Toyota soarer at that point and importthat, which is basically the LS 300.

(07:10):
You're getting the stick in the chaser.
To me, the chaser just is alittle bit more of a sleeper.
Like it looks like a totaldad car and it's a bad ass.
Yeah.
I like it.
I will say I'll, I'll seeyour, your sleeper chaser.
And raise you, of course, to thepinnacle of the Toyota Century.
Yeah, I had that on my list.
Yeah, it was next on my list.
If anybody's got an unlimited budget,pull one of those over because

(07:34):
those cars are just immaculate.
They're beautiful.
Yes, they're very unique.
They've On the bringer trailer,just in the last 12 months, they
went from having eight transactionsin the last 2018 to 2024.
In the last 12 months, you'vegotten 30 transactions.
What's the, the averageprice for those transactions?

(07:54):
They're all pretty cheap.
They range from sold for 5, 000.
Very recently all the way upto the most expensive one.
They have recorded is uh is 27 000It's not for a century interesting.
That's not bad at all.
They depreciate guy retires.
He buys it new.
It's it's an accomplishment thing It'sit's putting a capstone on his career

(08:15):
And then they sit and I think I sawa special on the centuries and like
parts availability, especially forthe older ones is very, very difficult
to obtain replacement parts for them.
Well, they were super specialized.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, they're, I think they'relike all hand built and everything.
It's yeah.
They're very special cars.
And when I was looking into this,I also thought I saw that there
was a variant on the Sentry thatactually came with a V12, which is

(08:37):
like super rare coming from Toyota.
Yeah.
If you're gonna go ridiculous andlike, oh, everybody's getting a
Sentry, I'm gonna get this one with aV12, you know, just to be different.
Oh yeah, you got to.
Since we're talking about JDMs or Japanesecar not Japanese domestics, because
we're importing in post grey marketnow, is it worth even talking about
some of the more desirable Subies andLancer Evolutions and stuff like that?

(09:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.
All the Special Editions, because it'salways about the Special Editions.
That was actually my next bulletpoint, was with the Subarus.
Maybe 10 years ago, I was approachedby a friend of a friend, who was
like, hedge fund, can we do ahedge fund around classic cars?
And I narrowed it down toSubarus and things like that.
There was some BMWs aswell, but the point is that.

(09:23):
I reached a point where I felt likeI didn't know enough about the Subaru
Special Edition to be able to know whatwas going to be valuable and what wasn't.
So to illustrate it, there wasa version that was available in
Britain only that was called the RB5that was tuned for British roads.
RB stood for Richard Burns.
It was tuned by Richard Burns.

(09:43):
It was a four door onerather than the two door one.
Which is less collectible now, butwas more practical in period it had.
I feel like there's pretty richniche you could explore, but I'm
not your guy, because I don'tknow all the different versions.
You had to be the geek inperiod to be able to understand

(10:03):
what you were doing with that.
So in looking at that RB5, it's thegeneration after the one everybody
salivates over, which is the 22B STI.
We got the 2.
5 RS.
Here in the United States, asort of like massively detuned
neutered version of that car.
The RB5 looks to be likethe next generation.
It's not a bad looking car.
I see your point.

(10:24):
It's a four door.
So that would be maybe moreeveryday friendly in that respect.
That would be interesting.
I mean, if you can't afford a22B or you can't find one, I
wouldn't mind this RB5 at all.
Mark, are you seeingany on Bring a Trailer?
Has anybody started to bring them into?
the country.
Not at all.
I haven't seen anything.
And they're legal.
I mean, they're from 1999 andaround there, so they should
be able to bring them in, butnothing's coming up with the evos.

(10:46):
It was the Tommy Mackinnon one.
And I looked at those and even thoughtof buying one myself personally, but
those hideous Marlboro colors, I mean,now it's collectible, but years ago
it was like, it looked like you werean advertiser in a cigarette company.
It was just, they weren't that appealing.
But now that's cool.
You want to be the Marlboro man now.
And I agree with you, John, on theEvo, because you can import an Evo 2

(11:09):
and an Evo 3, the really old ones, ifyou want to, but you sort of lose all
the technological whiz bang stuff thatreally started to happen in the Makinen
editions, like 4, like those Evos.
But since you brought up Mitsubishi,if I'm going to import one of those
brands, I'm going to go after the Pajaro.
The little bird, the Evo, the truck.
It's basically like a homologatedrally truck, typical of period

(11:33):
flared fenders, big wheels, thewhole nine, you know, turbos and
snorkels and spoilers and all that.
But if you have to get a Pajaro orPajero, I guess this is like the
halpa jalpa thing all over again.
Right?
So if you were to import one ofthose and you're more of a truck
person than a car person, I woulddefinitely look for one of those.
Ooh.
All right.
That is cool.
Right?
So the Pajero.

(11:53):
All right.
They're very popularin Africa, by the way.
Yes.
Well, a ton of those in the, uh,when they do the Dakar classic too.
Yeah, they had an evolutionDakar homologation special.
I've always liked those.
I think they're just absolutely sick.
It reminds me of that is Zuzu.
You mean the trooper?
Not the trooper.
Whatever it was that they sold herein the States for a short time.

(12:15):
I can't remember.
Don't say the Via Cross.
The V Cross?
Yes, the V Cross.
Oh yeah, that thing.
220 horsepower.
Didn't they have like anIron Man edition or whatever?
They were awful.
The Evo version of this looks absurd.
It's rad.
I mean, this is one of the mostridiculous, it looks like something
from a nineties TV show for like thebad guy to, to drive in the future.

(12:41):
like retro futurism.
Now you know why I like it.
You know, I really struggled with the JDM.
I don't know about you guys.
And I tried to go backwards too,where it's like, don't give me the
top 20 Japanese cars to import in2025 because the list kept to Brad's
point earlier, Skyline this, Skylinethat, Skyline Skyline Skyline.
And then it's like Honda S2000.
I'm like, other than the factthat they were right hand drive,

(13:02):
we can buy an AP1 and S2000 here.
That's not that big of a deal.
MR2s, I was like, all right,let me subtract a year.
I went all the way back to like 2018 andI was like I wasn't seeing anything that
was really sticking out to me other thanthe few that we've already mentioned where
it's like there was an American versionof these cars and I was trying to stay
away from Silvias and S14s and S180s andbecause we got a variant of those here

(13:28):
too as well they weren't nearly as good.
But they sort of already exist,you know, 86 is all that stuff.
So really looking for somediamonds in the rough.
I have a Honda for you, Eric.
Oh boy, let's go.
It was a UK market only because Hondahad a factory in Swindon, west of London.
There was a UK market only developed forthe British touring car championship.

(13:49):
Accord Type R. So it was the like, blobbyAccord body style from 20 years ago.
It had some super high revving VTEC motor.
Front drive, and then it hada Ferrari F40 style hoopie.
Because it was the sedan body.
They weren't that loved in period, andthey were like a cheap used beater 10 15

(14:11):
years ago when I was around in England,but they were a UK market only car, and I
think they've become fairly collectible.
And if you had one of those, you'dbe the only bloke with them, because
they were only right hand drive.
You know what's funny aboutthis car as I look at it now?
At first glance, I thought itwas an IS300 from the late 90s.
Honda tried really hardto copy that Lexus look.

(14:33):
From the back, it looks very different.
And I see that whole F40's high spoilerand everything you're talking about.
But the front, my goodness.
Yeah.
I thought it was a Mazda Speed 6.
I remember those.
Those with the turbo.
I mean, those, I mean, here in theStates, you get them, but this is,
I like this, this is really unique.
So it's worth importing, you know,the right hand drive Accord would

(14:53):
certainly throw somebody off.
And then the, I mean, everybodywants a good VTEC motor.
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to moveon so quickly from JDM and that
they did have where Jonathan wasgoing with the special editions.
You've got the Type R NSX.
Sorry if that makes me basic,but it was still pretty badass.
Pumpkin spice, Mark.
Civic Type R.
I mean, but like we haven'ttalked about the Silvia.

(15:13):
Yeah.
Which I feel like at this point, Igive more street credit to the Sylvia
importers than the Skyline importersand they had some, uh, spec R and
other kind of special editions.
I don't claim to know them all, butyeah, I mean, outside of the special
editions and outside some of the obviousor more niche market ones, they had
some crazy minivans from the nineties.
I'm just saying they're out there.

(15:34):
He wants a Toyota Hiace.
That's what he wants.
Right.
Which actually now's the timeto import a Hilux as well.
Right?
Yeah.
I thought about that and I waslooking at them and they're that year.
They're pretty God awful.
I would just buy a Tacomahere in the States.
I mean, they were pretty terrible.
But trying to do a little bit ofresearch and I was watching some YouTube
videos and I found that apparentlythere is a Buick not sold in the U.

(15:58):
S. Mark went down the minivan thing.
There's a Buick minivan that wasnot sold in the U. S. It was built
specifically for the Chinese marketof all things that you can import now.
I can't remember what it was called, butit was like a luxury minivan and they were
trying to market it as This transporterlimousine kind of minivan thing.
And it was a Buick.
Well, it was because the Buickwas the first car that the emperor

(16:21):
rode into the forbidden garden.
Well, something like that.
I would say there's some like specialrelationship between the emperor and
China, which is why Buick survived.
Yeah.
Buick crushed there for years.
The Buick GL eight.
Yeah.
It's because of this specialthing with the emperor.
It's really weird to mebecause I have an old Pontiac.
And if you think of it, Buick, oldPontiac, really Pontiac with the

(16:43):
coolest mark, they were the one thatshould have survived, but they're gone.
And Buick survived thanksto the emperor in China.
Very peculiar.
Mark's going, what?
See this, we're used to this with John.
He's an encyclopediaof automotive history.
I'm just letting you know, sincewe're in this kind of a mode of,
you know, subsidiaries, I havean off the wall one, which is.
In that part of the world, butnot exactly, it's from Australia.

(17:06):
Oh boy.
You may recall I'm a whorefor racing additions.
I would love that TommyMackinnon Marlboro.
I'd ride around that in a whitecowboy hat just like Arturo
Marzario, if you know who that is.
I do.
But down there they have a brand calledHolden, which is a subsidiary of GM.
And we're now starting to get a littlemore aware of the V8 series, but

(17:27):
they've had the Australian supercarchallenge and whatever variance it is.
So this Holden, they did like aHolden HSV club sport R8, it's right
hand drive, you know, and there'sall sorts of different variants that
they did because they've been verysuccessful in the supercar championship.
So they're just kind of cool, hot sedans.
They look kind of American, youknow, they're Pontiacs or GM.

(17:47):
Variants and things likethat, but I, I don't know.
They're pretty cool.
And if you want something a littledifferent, so the Hs VR eight's a
lot newer though, so we have to kindof go rewind the clock a little bit.
Right.
So we need to talk about likethe Commodore vt Yeah, yeah.
The and the vi.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
And the ute, the Malu.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You gotta get the Ute.
You're gonna do it.
Get the Ute.
No, but there were special Peter Brockedition of the HSV weren't, no, there

(18:11):
was a bunch of different edition.
And I think that was when PeterBrock was going through that
peculiar phase where he was doing.
Or the spiritual healing.
So there was even an edition ofthe Holden you could get that had
this magic spiritual box in it.
If you Google up Peter Brock andthat time that he spent, he got with
this weird hippie woman and reallywent off the rails at the end there.

(18:32):
I can't use a weird hippiewoman, but that's another story.
And you're so Oregon.
I love it.
Am I to believe that there were chakrastones on the dashboard that you needed
to rub before you started the car?
Like he got some stones rubbed.
Something of that sort.
I disappeared down that rat holesome years ago when I was looking at.

(18:56):
You don't have a cigarette lighter.
It's got an incense lighter in it.
It's really teeny.
To add to Chris's imageryof the big white cowboy hat.
I think you'd look good in a ute.
There's gotta be a ton ofutes from Australia that it's
time to import those things.
Tons of them.
I had that on my list too.
I had the Holdens, I had theCommodore VT, I had the Maloo.
And then I, I dawned on me sortof a. Vauxhall, but of Australia,

(19:19):
of Holden, partnered with Lotus.
It's one of Mark's favorite carsthat he's brought up before.
What about the Carlton?
Yeah, I have that.
The Lotus Carlton.
I have that one down as well.
I feel like there's so few of themthat you could control the market.
Without wanting to sound like an investor.
There was only a couple of hundredof those built, wasn't there?

(19:40):
Especially, they were mostly black,but there were a few green ones.
And I think there werea few blue ones as well.
And if you look at the SierraCosworth market, the rare colors,
they're worth a ton more than themore common colors, even though.
You know, I don't know.
I mean, I sound like a crypto person.
If you expect one to do the sameas the previous, you know, if one's
a cycle behind, if you assume thatthe Lotus Carlton is going to do the

(20:03):
same as Sierra Cosworth's have done,then I feel like that's a really
good investment and linked to that.
The police in Britain used touse a model called the Vauxhall
Senator that had the same motor butwithout the twin turbos, basically.
You'd have something nobody else wouldhave if you had a Senator in America.
They were German built.
You can get those Lotus Carltonsin left hand drive too, right?

(20:26):
Mm hmm.
As Opel Omegas.
Oh, the Omega, yeah, that's right.
So you just have to rebadge it.
Like the Holden's and the ChevySS's, you know, it's a bit like that.
And I'm glad you brought up Opel.
They're going to come up again inthis conversation here probably pretty
shortly, but that reminds me there'sthe Omega, the Vectra and the Calibra.
The Calibra especially is a DTM dominator.

(20:48):
That's another car that it's abouttime people started importing
them into the United States.
But guys, I need to place adisclaimer at this point, right?
I was a sales rep in period.
I thrashed the crap outof all of those cars.
Boards were good, the Renaultswere okay, the Vauxhalls, ooh.
Ooh, I've had a lot of moments ofmassive understeer on greasy roundabouts.

(21:08):
I don't matter whether it was a Calibraor a Cavalier or what it was, they were
understeery and you didn't want the keys.
Give me the Subaru instead,if I can't have the Ford.
That's how I used to feel.
Fair enough.
Fascinating tale from Jonathan.
I like it.
Mark is scouring Bringa Trailer right now.
What are you seeing?
Let's go in a littlebit different direction.

(21:28):
I always had a soft spot forTVRs and maybe that's because
I never drove one or owned one.
Oh, you're speaking my language.
I just coveted them fromthe other side of the pond.
I feel like the Cerbera and someinteresting options that are coming
of age around that 2000 timeframe.
That was when TBR got an injectionof, I think, Russian investment, uh,
right around then, and they did someremodeling and of course they crashed

(21:52):
and burned like they always do.
But it was an interesting time period.
The movie swordfish.
Yes.
The TVR Tuscan speed six.
That was TVR coming of age.
All I remember that movie is Haley Berry.
I thought there was a spiker in swordfish.
That was a TVR.
I thought that was the spiker.
There's a Tuscan in it.
Yep.
They look really cool.

(22:13):
I don't know.
I think they hold up.
I feel like they do as well with theTuscan, particularly that that swoop over
the hood, which sort of emphasize that.
TBR at that time were doingtheir own inline six engine,
which was commercial suicide.
But as a collector now,just such a cool thing.
Yeah.
And they, they had some power too.
Yeah.
I know traction control.

(22:33):
They were like a cross betweena Viper and a Corvette.
They're like a British Corvette.
Yeah.
It's a good way to die.
The town that they were from Blackpool,it's the town that working class
people used to go on vacation to.
So even if it rains,they'd be on the beach and.
Then they'd go out and get plastered inthe pubs and, you know, go build a car.

(22:54):
Well, yeah, do the same thing the nextday because TBR it's the guys, the
founders initials, his name was Trevor.
So he just sort of abbreviated it.
I would love to import a Trevor.
Have you seen this model?
I was thinking about thembefore we came on air here.
Have you seen this model?
The 450 SEAC, this is what they were doingimmediately before the sort of swordfish.

(23:18):
Tuscan.
Oh, that's the Tasman 280i on steroids.
That is an interesting car.
Look at that.
I drove a Tasman 280i.
It was Cortina engine, two frame car withhalf of it was Mercedes parts out of a
bin, you know, all this kind of thing.
Interesting car, you know, it feltalmost like a Triumph TR7 in that realm,
but I always argued that it neededmore power because I thought that a

(23:41):
Cortina engine was just a little tooanemic for the weight of a Tasman.
And the Tasman's not that heavy, right?
Because it's mostly glass and thewhole nine yards, but the 450 is
indicative of the four and a halfliter V8 that's in this thing.
So it's like, yeah, okay.
That's a good plan.
And that motors, the Rover V8 Rover.
The 8, which was the old Buick allaluminium 215 that Rover bought

(24:05):
off Buick all those years ago.
So it's fundamentally an American motor.
It's, the car's kind of transatlantic.
The styling is so, the 420sand the 450s, they've so
obviously got a Ford Capri door.
That's what I sort of strugglewith a little bit with them.
I was almost going to say, it's a goodthing Don's not here because I feel like,
and this is probably an unpopular opinion,it's like a better looking DeLorean.

(24:27):
Ooh.
Ooh.
That's not hard to do in my opinion,so I have to agree with you.
That's true.
I think it's like ashittier looking Halpa.
Well, everything's ashittier looking Halpa.
It screams Gembala 944.
It has that body panelkind of like look to it.
Like it's very.

(24:47):
80s body kit, but the Tasman thatit's based on wasn't completely
terrible, but it's a wedge.
Classic Lotus, Triumph typeof shape of that period.
What kills me is thatwing in the back though.
That is just, what is that?
After the wedge era, after the450 SCAC, that's when they went
to the Chimera and the Griffith.

(25:07):
And the Sagittarius or whateverthat other one's called.
Oh, no.
The Cigaris.
Yeah, that's it.
Cigaris.
That's one of the last ones.
We should talk about theChimera and the Griffith.
They're the two like open top V8ones that if you were going to make
a business importing them into theU. S. and flipping, it would be,
I think, Chimeras and Griffiths.

(25:27):
And the thing with them isthat they're fiberglass.
And then the underbits, they all rust out.
So you need to have somebodybasically roll around underneath them.
Somebody who knows what they're doing.
And then you could, I reckon,buy them remotely from auctions.
And, you know, the Griffith 500s,those obviously they have the most
growth potential, but a Chimera islike a 15, 000 or 20, 000 proposition.

(25:50):
I mean, that seems super reasonablefor something that was built in its
hundreds, not in its thousands, youknow, in terms of a future collectible.
The other thing I'd noted down herewhilst we're talking about these is
there are a number of cars that werebuilt, especially for Peter Wheeler.
All for special customers.
And there are rumors of a 3000 M. Sothe model before the wedge one, most

(26:12):
of those add Ford V sixes, those rumorsof one that was built, especially
for Peter Wheeler that had a Mustangthree Oh two and it was breathed on.
So something like that,that would be a one of one.
I mean, is it ever going to be worthwhat Ferdinand PX personal 911 is?
No, absolutely not.
But is that going to be sort of peak TVR?
Yeah, probably.

(26:33):
And those cars are out there.
So since we stumbled backwardsinto the UK, Please mind the gap
between the train and the platform.
Is there anything else from the Asiandomestic market or from Australia
that we didn't cover before we divea little deeper into the Brits?
I think we've covered it.
Yeah, I'm, I'm ready to go with Brits.
I don't think anybody said Ford Falcon.

(26:54):
I think everybody knowsit exists and it's cool.
Yeah.
It's called the Mustangin the United States.
They have the Street Six.
Turbo Street Six is a different setup.
But them offies love their four doors.
That was the thing though.
I'm just trying to think about Jonathanhas suggested like an import car
business that we should set up andthinking if we want to make a little
money importing these types of cars,we should start with a lot of money.
Yeah, I end up with a little,it's the final effect.

(27:18):
That sounds like a startup there, Chris.
I thought about the TBR thing and Iwas discussing it with my wife and
we would drive into a baseball game.
My son, who's 10, was in theback and I was doing quite well.
And then my son went, Oh,you'll fall in love with the
car and want to keep it, dad.
You'll never sell it.
And my wife was like, we'renot discussing this anymore.

(27:39):
Well, John, let me throwa curveball at you.
Let's bring us closer to thelate 90s, early noughties.
What about the Puma?
Especially the RS edition of the Puma.
Oh, good one.
Good one.
So those Pumas, they were available in 1.
7s and 1.
4. You could thrash the Propolar outof them and they were really good.
They actually were based on the Fiesta,but as a blokey sales rep, you could

(28:03):
still sort of get away with them.
They all rusted away though,they had problems with rust,
so they mostly disappeared.
The RS ones, you never saw thoseon the road, so I feel like those
have already entered Ford andObtanium, because Fords are on a real
pedestal, in Britain at least, I'mnot sure about the rest of Europe.
But in Britain, you guys willremember the Mercury Capri that

(28:26):
was sold here in the early 70s?
I love it, everyone!
It was a sort of junior Mustang.
Those, I feel like you could makemoney taking them from California
and selling them in Britain.
Because any Beta V6 Capri Witha stick is a 5, 000 pound car.
I mean, cause there were noMustangs or Camaros, right?
So now we're exporting cars.
Chris, you hear this?

(28:46):
The business goes the other way.
Now, I know.
And well, that's you, you makemoney shipping them out and you
lose money bringing them back.
I'm sure we would hit it about the timethey got tariffed, but that's a whole
other, we're going to tear up 1989 to.
2001. We're going to leavethat right where it is.
All right.
So Ford Puma is an interesting one for me,but it also led me down the slippery slope

(29:11):
of, well, if you didn't like the Puma,did you know you could import the car now?
Why not?
You remember those commercials?
The car commercials are awesome!
With the cat?
The evil car?
The one with the cat that loses its head?
Yes.
The evil car?
The sports car?
They were, um, they were good.
I had Easter 1999.

(29:33):
Two friends and I drove a rental onefrom London to Amsterdam and slept
in the car and then drove back again.
We went to Brussels andthen Brussels was boring.
But, I mean, that illustrates howthey're actually pretty practical.
They're actually a good site.
You wouldn't import it.
It's too boring and terrible.
It's too much like a Geo Metro andnot enjoyable on American roads.

(29:54):
I mean, I've got a Fiesta ST. My bestfriend in England's got a Fiesta ST. He
thinks his is the best thing in the world.
Mine's eight years old.
I've only put 20, 000 miles on it.
Because here, I'd rather drive somethingwith automatic transmission, and high
seats, and comfortable, and all of that.
Whereas in Europe, you canmake do with the lanes, and all
the winding, and all of that.
But the car?
No, it can stay in Europe, if you ask me.

(30:16):
What about the original Focus RS?
That's old enough now to come over.
It is.
You'd have to fight theEuropean enthusiasts for it.
That one, it was Ford's first attempt atdoing one of those trick differential.
Torque sensing, yeah.
The motoring press at the timesaid that it didn't work very well.
Everyone was struggling at that time withmore than 200 horsepower through the front

(30:37):
wheels, and Ford didn't do the job as wellas Volkswagen or whoever were at the time.
Although the value on thoseMark 1 Focus RSs have gone up.
The sort of sleeper there is there's asort of Focus RS light called the ST170.
Oh yeah, I remember that.
Sometimes if I'm in England for more thana couple of weeks, I always try and look
at buying a car rather than renting one.

(30:59):
And for a long time, those FocusST170s have been the sort of under
a thousand dollars kind of might notbreak down kind of thing that I've
just about almost persuaded my wifethat it was a good idea to do instead
of the rental car and then not.
It's funny.
All these gray market cars thatwe want to import are all Fords.

(31:19):
It's like, why didn't Ford just giveus the good cars in the first place?
Which is funny because when John wastalking about the Sierra and the Lotus
Carlton a little bit ago, I was thinkingto myself, our audience doesn't know
what that is because we got the MercureXR40, which is a big piece of crap.
I personally, I thinkthose cars are terrible.
Brad, they're another one thatwe should ship home to Britain.

(31:40):
They were a hundred and seventy horse.
I look on Facebook marketplace.
They're cropping up all the time.
Even ones with stick shit.
I feel like you could chuck acouple in crates, ship them home,
take them to a Ford show in Essex.
You could triple your money.
I really think you could.
I really think you could, because they'reso similar to Sierra Cosworths and Brits
are so mad for any hot rod Ford, Cosworth.

(32:03):
Yeah, I think that shows though, Brad,like the hot hatch market and all those
sorts of things really come out of Europewhere they have smaller requirements,
you know, there's Regulatory limitson engine sizes and things like that,
that really drove those cool, smallcars, you know, and that's why out
of my world, I being an Italophile,all those cool, old, small engine,

(32:24):
Italian cars, Fiat's and Alfa's I'llget to my list of Alfa's that I've got.
Assuming the one 47 is on there.
We're going to work ourway into the Italians.
But I agree with you.
Like, I think in our market in the US you know, we always had these big
ideas of muscle cars and big motorsand big white spaces and not having to

(32:46):
handle well, but get off the line fast.
Right.
Yeah.
These cars are so much moreinteresting and engineered.
And that's why I like whenNASCAR is trying to sell.
crappy rear wheel drive carsback in the eighties and stuff.
Actually, they raced the rear wheeldrives and they sold front wheel
drive cars, which is just terrible.
Right.
Yes.
So, but, but you look over in Europeand you go, you know, again, kind
of getting on the racing theme.

(33:08):
You look at the rally cars and you lookat the touring car championships all over.
They are so cool.
I mean, I would own any of those beforea lot of the cars that we would get here.
And I think to your point, like herein the U S especially with the American
brands, they had the muscle car, theCamaros, the Mustangs, the Firebirds, but
then they had the rental cars, the Taurus.

(33:28):
It's the Impala Malibu.
There was no like fun inbetween things unless you went
Volkswagen or something like that.
I mean, there was nothing in between,but to stick with the British
cars, the one that I would importis the Ford Mondeo, but they had
a Ford Mondeo as state ST two 20.
Oh man.
I was wondering.
You and your Mercury Sable wagons.

(33:50):
Hey, this is not a bad looking wagon.
It actually reminds me of your Jetta.
So the Mondeo ST twotwenties of that time.
Those are cool.
I always liked that front end sortof angular, like the original mark
one focuses were and all that.
That's a good looking car.
I will give you that.
It is an ST two hundred version of themark two Mondeo that was super rare.

(34:11):
And that Mk2 Mondeo, arguably isa better looking car than the Mk3.
The Mk3 was quite square.
The Mk2 is a much swoopier shape.
If you google up the ST200.
I have a particular love of these because10 years ago, I was successful in buying
a cheap Beta for a trip to England.
And it was a Mondeo ST24.

(34:32):
That thing was awesome.
That Yamaha motor, itwould do 140 miles an hour.
Really would.
And it would do it all day long.
And I paid.
300 pounds for it in a Sainsbury'scar park the day before Christmas.
Awesome car.
Isn't that considered child abuseif you had your kid with you?
No, I didn't have my, that was pre child.
All right.
One day I was, uh, was pre child.

(34:52):
I was a little worriedthere for a second there.
I gotta say though, it's very intriguingto me to want to show up at a Cars and
Coffee with a right hand drive Ford.
I mean, that would blow people'sminds if you just showed up at a
Cars and Coffee with a right handdrive forward here in the States,
and people wouldn't know what to do.
So here's where I disagree with Johnin the respect that I like the very

(35:14):
angular and clean look of the Mark III.
It's just something about it, it's verymuch more German, and I'm okay with that.
But when I look at the ST 200, Igo, oh yeah, I remember this one.
And then immediately my brain went, didn'tthey sell this here as the Jaguar X Type?
You can buy the same car, right?
No, no.
I watched a video just recently.

(35:34):
So it's YouTube, so it knowswhether it's true or not.
But it was making the point thatthe X Type and the Mondeo were
actually quite different cars.
And people say they're thesame, but really they aren't.
The engineering, the suspension, thegearbox, all of that stuff is different,
even if the platform is the same.
And again, I don't know if it's true ornot either, that they shared a lot of
similar DNA though, at the end of the day.

(35:57):
But the Mondeo shared a lot of partsand DNA with Aston Martin too, but I
wouldn't say that Aston Martin's a force.
Well, you know, Hey,they're all Tata's now.
So, you know, Hey, do we haveanything else for the Brits?
Cause I have sort of a crescendo as wemove into mainland Europe for the Brits.
I have a couple of like PVR lights,you know, instead of the nine 11.

(36:18):
of the TVRs.
There are other stuff.
If it was Italian makers, you'dcall them the Ezzettarini.
That's what the Pebble Beachers call,like, the Morettis and the Direttis
and Otto Bianchi and all of those.
So I've got Ginetta, Elva, Ilburn, Marcos.
Noble and Ultima.

(36:38):
Oh, the Ultima GTR, yeah.
Yeah, and they're kits, but some ofthem were built professionally, and
they've got Chevy small blocks, a lotof them, so does that really count?
I'm not really sure.
But the Noble, they're reallywell built, boutique British.
You're talking about theM600, the big one, right?
Because that is within the time range now.
Yeah, it would be an early one.

(36:58):
Marcos, I dislike TVR, but kind of uglier.
Yes.
But the Cos is the Costin of Cosworth.
Ginetta and Elva, you know,they are kind of racing cars.
So you'd be getting somethingthat was very lightweight and
flimsy and not as well built as aMorgan and not as flashy as a TBR.
So there's another one, the Aero 8.
If you like the aesthetic of it, that'sa car you can gray mark it in now.

(37:21):
And that's really something becausethey have a E39 M5 drivetrain.
Chris with the Roman boat, he downboats.
Nope.
They are so ugly.
Do you guys remember the originalTotal Recall and the scene in the
bar, the woman with the three breasts?
That's what the front ofthe Arrow 8 looks like.
Oh, cross eyed?
Oh no.

(37:42):
Why did you have to do that?
Oh god.
All right, you can'tunsee that, now you know.
Can you cut his mic for a little while?
Put him on timeout for a friend.
I had a couple more as well.
The two others I had were theJaguar XJRS, which is like an
XJS but it was a British version.
It had a body kit on it, ithad different wheels on it.

(38:05):
I never felt it was that good lookingin period, it was mildly breathed on.
But again, if I've never seenone here, it was a TWR body kit.
So Tom Walkinshaw, it was those.
I was kind of thought aboutthose, but you know what?
I really think there is a market aroundand you could make a market around it.
If you had booleaned it, you know,if you really talked it up and
were like Lamborghini, Lamborghini,Lamborghini, these are awesome.

(38:27):
Lamborghini, Lamborghini.
I do this.
I do that.
I'm cool.
young'uns be like me with mycool beard and my cool shoes.
Be like me.
Buy my watch.
Buy Lamborghinis.
You know, if you really Trumpshilled it up in the way that he
did, I feel like you could reallymake a lot of money with Lister
Volga hot rods, but they're so rare.

(38:50):
That if you get enough modernidiots in them, the same will
happen as to Lister prices.
It's happened to roof prices.
That's my theory.
If you were being verycynical, I mean, so Lister Jag.
Do you remember the Lister Storm?
The one they used torace back in like IMSA?
That was really cool.
Yeah.
That a seven liter V12, didn't it?
Yep.
Seven liter Jaguar V12.
That's when IMSA was still great.

(39:12):
Yeah.
Unlimited classes, man.
They were awesome.
Oh man.
I was going to Watkins Glen and watchingthe Jags and the Corvette and the.
Porsches and Mazdas and the Nissan GTPs.
Those are the days, my friend.
I'm in on the Lister Jag.
Those are pretty, yeah, they are sweet.
That's a good poll.
I forgot about Lister altogether.
It's sort of like the Tressercars on the German side, right?

(39:33):
They had their whole thing withthe Volkswagen's and the Audi's
and the Mercedes and stuff.
So yeah, Lister, that's a good poll.
So anything else on your British list?
Only Shooting Brake versions of Jaguar.
Okay.
They get Shooting BrakeXJS's and things like that.
I think that's a great call,because for me, Shooting Brakes or
any wagon, they are so underrated.

(39:54):
We race over here stupid trucks.
Why don't they have aseries where they race?
Station wagons and shooting brakes.
That'd be amazing.
They would do it in Australia.
Those are great cars andthey're super practical too,
but they look amazing, I think.
As we wrap out the Brits here and moveto mainland Europe, I'm going to throw
out one car that is actually like sixcars in one, all based on the same

(40:17):
thing, Vauxhall VX220, Opel GT Speedster,Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky, it's
all sort of the same car at the end ofthe day, but specifically gray market.
The Vauxhall VX220 andthe Opel GT Speedster.
Love it.
Yeah.
How can you not like those cars?
Brad doesn't like those cars.
I already know that.
I don't fit.
So I don't care.
That's his answer to everything.

(40:39):
Brad?
Ozempic.
That's all I got to say.
Nice.
I'd say it's not my weight.
It's my height.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
It's six foot four.
He doesn't fit in a lot of things.
Comfortably.
There's like no room in those things.
And I'm six feet.
And like some of these cars are just.
You got to break yourknees to get the steering.
I have a friend in the city who's boughtand built a Caterham Super 7 recently.

(41:00):
And when I said to him, you need to worryabout the size of the, he's a big guy.
I'd said to him, haveyou driven one before?
He said, no.
I said, you need to worry aboutthe size of the pedal bar.
Because I remember the first time I droveone, going for the brake and hitting
the throttle as well at the same time.
Terrifying.
It's even worse whenyou've driven an original.
Seven that we won't even go there.
But that being said, let'sdive into mainland Europe now.

(41:22):
And we'll give the mic over to Chrisand William to talk about Italian cars.
And I'm sure the list isas long as your guy's arm.
And William, if you have some strongopinions, we probably share a common list.
I bet, but I'm an Alfisti, soI'm just going to start there.
The Apex Predator, I thinkof that era, is the 147 GTA.
That doesn't even countas a hot hatchback.

(41:43):
That's a lot of power.
And that Busso engine is justone of the all time greats.
There's just no two ways around that.
To be in a car that small with the Bussoengine ripping along, screaming, it's hard
to imagine something better than that.
Yeah, you know what's better than that?
The Alfa Romeo SZ.
That's what's better than that.
Yeah, that's cool.
It's a little earlier than this vintage.
I looked that up.

(42:03):
In fact, I pulled out all my Alfa booksand it's like, there's the SZ right there.
I love that car.
I saw one at a Cars and Coffee downhere in Richmond not too long ago.
Little secret.
We'll see if I can postabout it later this year.
I'm going to get the opportunityto drive one here stateside, so.
I saw those cars when theycame out new, and I have been
salivating since I was a kid.
So let me tell ya.
They're so rare, they stilllook incredibly interesting.

(42:27):
That's the right word for it.
Yeah.
It's Italian Brutalism, isn't it?
It's Brutalism like when you goto EUR Ugly concrete and it's all
like is Mussolini still with us?
Has the look of like Mussolini inthe side and and so on yeah I was
going to say the 147 gta and myunderstanding was the 156 gta was a

(42:50):
sort of more complete car to drive True.
And older, I think.
Yes.
I think this whole era of Alpha is really,the good cars are built around the Busso
engine, you know, the 155s, all that.
The 155ti, I mean, if you'regoing to import anything, right?
There's a sport wagon that theydid, kind of on that platforms.

(43:10):
And then they also, at that timeperiod, they had the new The re
release GTV6 at that time, right?
The really angular one.
Yeah.
Just called the GTV and it'slike the ultimate wedge car.
It's amazing.
They were pretty good with the twin spark.
Correct.
I mean, they were, they'reworth more with the Busso.
Yeah.
Twin spark's great.
Yeah.
And they, and handles better, you know, I,I feel like, you know, in these ages we're

(43:31):
moving towards where, you know, whateveryou're driving is going to be slaughtered
by the Tesla minivan next to you, that.
Handling and the theater the busois great because the noise but
those twin spark motors in the 75at least, you know, Milano That
was a better car without the buso.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more that theyhad some really good lumps at that
point in time And the one that I'mwaiting for it's not eligible yet for

(43:54):
the gray market, but it's a few yearsout still is the Alfa Romeo Brera.
Yes.
I'm salivating until Ican get one of those here.
And the coupe, it's kind of like, itlooks like a shooting break, actually.
I mean, I think a shooting breaktechnically has four doors though,
if I'm not mistaken, but, or five.
We had this argument ona whole nother episode.
Those Breras, I think if theyjust sold those today in the same

(44:17):
exact body styles, when they cameout and they still look great.
I a thousand percent agree with you.
And I always saw the Brera as.
The modern version of the SZespecially from the front because
it's got the six little headlightsand all that kind of thing.
I see that.
I wouldn't have thought about that.
But there's an alternate version,but unfortunately it's in the
same timeframe, which is theBrava, which is more like the 147.

(44:37):
So if they're all like the next generationto your point, Chris, so you're going
to have to wait now another five yearsor so before you can get them in.
I was so excited to talk about that.
And then I looked and it's like,yeah, we're missing it by just a few.
But you know, it's like for a runaboutcar, like a family car, they are just so
freaking sexy and they're very capable.

(44:57):
They're incredibly capable.
Anyhow.
This car is very much like the Italianversion of the new Scirocco to me.
A hundred percent.
It's all in that same sortof design language for sure.
I had one for a bachelor party years ago.
Oh yeah.
Bachelor party to the Nürburgring.
So I rented it and did it and did that.
It's a bit understeeryand it was diesel one.
It was a 2.

(45:18):
4 JTD.
It was new and it was rungout 149 miles an hour.
That was, I had no more to give.
149 in a diesel?
That's.
John, you seem to have thesame problem with all your cars
with understeering problem.
Yeah.
Are you trying to sayit might not be the car?
It might be the driver.
That's a good call.
That's a bit understeering.

(45:38):
It's like, you said that before.
Could be the driver.
Could be.
I'm just saying.
So let me, let me ask you,William, is it even worth
talking about F40s at this point?
No, I mean, yeah, all the differenceyou got, I mean, obviously
the big thing is the tanks.
I mean, that was kind of personalpreference, but a lot of people
switch them over because the U Sgas tanks were aluminum, whereas the

(45:59):
European ones were bags and he hadto change it was every five years or
something, no matter what you had tochange the gas tank got out of any
thousands of dollar proposition for it.
But I mean, there's really no difference.
The ones you're lookingat, it's not available yet.
will be the Enzo's that these are goingto try and change up the market here
in the United States because there'sonly the 120 some Enzo U. S. production
ones and especially you start gettinginto colors and stuff so once you also

(46:22):
you could open up into the Europeanones that people bring them in because
it's just having the car because Idon't think it really affects price
so much because if you look at F50sEuropean versus the 80, whatever, 55 U.
S. Prussia.
I mean, you're still in that 4.
5 to 5.
5 million range on them.
I think the ends of one's goingto be interesting because they
were so few in various colors.

(46:42):
I mean, majority of them are red.
So I think that's going to be interesting.
And then the other one would be,you know, now, especially with doing
these swaps is the five, seven, five.
Yeah, especially manual.
I mean actual factory manual.
So I mean, you can bring in a Europeanone, you can start getting your hands on
them instead of having to do that swap.
But, you know, I guess it'sall personal preference.
What's the price difference on a 575with a manual and a 575 with the.

(47:03):
Oh shit, you're probably atleast double on a factory manual.
I mean, that's why I always tellthem, look, I mean, let's, if you
want to do a 575, you're just sayingyou want to drive it, why not buy
the F1 tranny, maybe drive a littlebit, then do the swap if you want.
After even doing the swap, what'sgoing to cost you, everything like
that, you'll save a hundred grand.
But if you're looking for it, causeyou want to try and make an investment,
find a factory manual, but thenyou're afraid to drive it cause

(47:24):
putting miles or anything like that.
I mean, if I had my drugs, I'd justbuy an F1 tranny one and do the
swap and drive the piss out of it.
I mean, I think we're all in agreement.
I mean, anything we buy,we're going to drive.
We're not just going tosit there and stare at it.
Absolutely.
Hell yeah.
And the Enzos are definitely withinthe time window, 2002, 2003, 2004.
We're getting close, meaningin the next couple of years.
Yeah.
So let me actually see how that plays out.

(47:44):
I didn't think about the exoticsbecause, you know, they were already
so aimed here, you know, in termsof all the Lambos, all the Ferraris,
uh, even the high end Maseratis,which came back online at that era.
That's when they were the.
Made in the Ferrari factory like the 3200and the coupes and those sorts of things,
you know Well this thing with thoseis a lot of time I don't think so much

(48:07):
lamborghini either you find this with Iguess a lesser valued cars usually saw a
big difference between the u. s market carand a european market car in regards to
Horsepower engine choice wise as you getinto Ferraris Lamborghinis and stuff like
that You're pretty much spot on with themechanicals and horsepower wise and stuff.
So it really wasn't much of a differenceIt was just some of the things to

(48:27):
meet us dot standards and shit.
Yeah, I found an interesting italianone digging around It was interesting
because it's so expensive overhere, if you can find one to buy,
which was the Maserati Shamal.
Oh, yeah.
It's not a bad looking car.
Yeah.
It looks great from every angleexcept directly on the side.
It looks really oddly proportionedif you're perpendicular to the car.

(48:49):
Not really weird rearwheel on every other angle.
It looks great.
It's like a Lancia Delta or something,but I think the Lancia is better.
But yeah, I think it's a handsome car tobe honest with you, but I just thought
it was interesting because the onlytransactions I can find for it are in
the eighties of thousands of dollars.
And it's based on a bi turbo,which I think comes free.

(49:09):
If you buy a sweater at a Maseratigift shop or the factory or something.
They're still trying toget rid of old stuff.
If you go on any search and dolike Maserati lowest price, the
first half dozen entries are alwaysbasket case i turbos, aren't they?
And I mean, William, is thatwhy the Shamal suffers in price?

(49:31):
Because people look at it.
But it's so expensive.
It's not suffering.
It's crushing it.
It's a good car, but mechanicallywise, it's a little touch
and go as with any Maserati.
See, this is the moment thatDon would have gone off the
rails and talking about the T.
C. Maserati.
They keep bringing Donin, he's here in spirit.

(49:51):
Yeah, that would have been an hour.
So, I agree with you there.
I look at this and I justimmediately think Maserati Bi Turbo.
And you know the joke about Bi Turbos.
You buy the one with the highest mileagebecause you know it was a runner, right?
Otherwise, don't walk,run away from a Bi Turbo.
It does scream 90s bolt onJC Whitney body kit stuff.

(50:14):
Like it is so un Italian in a way.
It would pair well with the TVR 450 SDAC.
Thousand percent.
Especially if they're in similar colors.
You did an ugly car show.
Yeah, you'd have a hellof a pair for Radwood.
And the back, the back lookslike there was a Peugeot.
The later.
405 or 505 or whatever, likefrom the nineties had that

(50:35):
same rear end as the Shamal.
Like, ugh, it's not for me, bro.
I'll pass.
I like the front end.
It's got a very slopey.
That rear wheel arch, trapezoidalrear wheel arch is amazing.
That is amazing.
Kuntosh, the Kuntosh hadweird stuff like that.
I know everyone's likedoing Google search.
Like, did you see thatRestomod of that Shamal?

(50:56):
Yes.
With the big flares.
Oh, it looks awesome.
The Restomod looks.
Really good.
Yeah.
M8 01.
Yeah, that doesn't look bad at all.
I mean, obviously it's all new bodywork and everything on that thing.
That's not bad looking.
All right.
You know, you mentioned thelaunch of Delta Integrale.
It's the R34 of Italy.
Yeah.
I took all those off.
I just struck all those through, I mean,as much as I'd love to talk about, you

(51:17):
know, the 93 different versions, theflared, the unflared, the eight valve, the
16 valve, the gen one, the gen two, the,you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, they're all the freakingsame and they've been importing
them now for a bunch of years.
So we could just kindof scrap all those cars.
And the HF Turbo, the little one,was just too poxy for American.
Well, and the fact that theStig, Ben Collins, and then the

(51:38):
other guy from counting cars inthe UK, would have Chris Harris.
So Chris Harris and Ben Collinshave been going back and forth
in this sort of urinary Olympicsabout their launch of Deltas.
And at that point, itsort of got turned off.
Even though I love those cars.
I'm like, yeah, I'm kind of done.
I don't really care anymore.
Too mainstream for me.
Before we move off the alphas, theone six, six, you got the one six four

(51:59):
here in the States, the one six, six.
I don't know when that would be eligible.
2003. That's the Busso motor.
It's a good size American car.
The stylings I, it worked forme, but a lot of people don't
like that funny clamshell.
Hood.
I like it.
I like it when people mod them andgive them more like fender flares
and things like some kits you can do.

(52:19):
I kind of like thoseversions a little bit more.
They look more like thetouring car, the racing.
They have trans I mean,they are great cars.
They really drive amazingly.
But they're ugly.
Yeah.
It does have a very Cyclops fromthe Odyssey look to it with that.
Oh, like that front end is.
That's a face only a momma could love.
Pindu, you're a mommajoke, but I decided to win.

(52:45):
All right, so, so Italian cars.
I got to give a nod to my sister.
She's here in spirit.
I'm just going to say prettymuch any Fiat Panda, because you
can, and they're pretty awesome.
And the 4x4 one.
The Sisley, yeah.
Now my car YouTubers inBritain rave about the 4x4.
Pandas.
And the early ones werebuilt by stare poo.
They weren't even built by fear.

(53:06):
James May swears by them.
Yeah, 100%.
Loves them.
So I wanted to just say the panda, Iwanted to put it out into the universe
and all that, but did you know youcan now import the ugliest of uglies?
Go ahead, Eric.
I thought you were going tosay the Fiat Coupe, Eric.
Oh, okay.
The 20 valve coupe?
Fiat Coupe, yeah.
Yeah.

(53:27):
You stole my Trump card.
I was going with ugly and then uglier.
I'm sorry, Eric.
No, to your point, both of those,right, are in period, they're cheap.
The Multipla, I've seen somecrazy stuff with that now.
There's some guy that's got this rearengine Nürburgring monstrosity that
he's running around sort of like a ringtaxi and it suddenly is super cool.

(53:47):
It's still way ugly.
But the coupe, we saw thaton the, was it the police
interceptor episode of Top Gear?
If anybody remembers that far back,he put the Bodecier spikes on the
wheels and the whole nine yards.
I saw those cars again whenthey came out new and I happened
to be in Italy that year and Ithought they were just so quirky.
I don't feel they've aged well.

(54:07):
No they haven't.
You know when you judge cars at car showsyou try and judge elegance and those Fiat
coupes they're cool but are they elegant?
No.
Not in the way that like an Alfa 159.
But what does it is if you've everheard that motor and if you've
ever heard that 20 valve run.
It sounds really good.
And that's sort of what makes up for it.

(54:29):
It's like, well, it's ugly, butthey say they're fun to drive.
I've never driven one, butthey sound really good.
And so that's sort of like whatmakes up the difference, right?
I guess maybe it's likethat alpha one, six, six.
So the, I think the early oneswere four cylinders, weren't they?
And then the later oneswere five cylinders.
Hence there was a 16 valve and20 valve and a 20 valve turbo.
You could get that 20 valve motor.

(54:51):
In the sort of golf sizedhatchback that Fiat were doing
at the time called the Brava.
And I actually tire kicked oneon a used car lot in Liverpool
some years ago, a Brava HGT.
But anytime you put the key in thelock and try and start the car and
it cranks and won't start on theirdealership lot, that's probably a sign

(55:13):
that you should thank the man and leave.
So sadly, I didn't buy a BravaHGT, but yeah, that was the
other home for that five pot.
Actually, I say that.
There was also a, the Mireya, therewas a sort of boring midsize called
the Mireya and that five cylinder20 valve motor was in the Mireya.
And those of you who like wagons,there was a weekend version of the

(55:33):
Mireya that, I don't know, I mean, Idon't know if you'd want to import it.
There's a guy in Britain who's gotone, one of the British YouTubers.
That's like saying you want toimport a Lancia Tema, really?
I already have a GeoMetro, I don't need one.
Those Temas, I thought,as in a bit boring.
Bobby Basic, you know, the obviousone of those is they did one of
those with a Ferrari motor, the 8.

(55:54):
32. Yes.
Yeah, they also did one with the turboone, which is vaguely interesting.
Uh, they also rebadged the Chrysler 300later as the Tama and tried to have us
like, come on, this is a joke, right?
Anybody got anything else on thelist coming from the Italians?
It's actually worth, I wantto take it to a car show.
The Fiat Strada 130 TC, thegreatest hot hatchback of the 1980s.

(56:19):
The advert in the 80swas a photo of the car.
And underneath, just a table thathad horsepower, top speed, and 0 to
60, comparing the Strada with theGolf GTI, whatever, Peugeot 205,
309, whatever you care to mention,Escort XR3i, the Strada was faster.
It was bigger.

(56:40):
It had two Weber carbsinstead of fuel injection.
It was super unreliable.
It rusted away.
Hardly any of them are left.
They're unobtainium now.
Really cool.
That's my vote.
They're not because ofthe Fiat Ritmo lineage.
And so suddenly I get the Agida.
Just burned them all to the ground.
You're a Ritmo hater, are you?

(57:02):
Oh god, they're awful.
The big problem though withthose Stratos was though.
Understeer.
I was going to say William, Idon't know, I've never driven one.
I mean, when you, especiallythe Mark IIs, it looks like a
Saab 900 had a baby with a GTI.
It's like, I don't know, they justmake me cringe every time I look at it.

(57:25):
Yeah, everyone, thatwas the thing in period.
Nobody even knew what they were.
Right.
So you just floated below the radarand looking back, I wish I'd had
the courage of my convictions tosay to my dad, I'm going to get one.
Instead of when I put it to mydad, it was like twin carbs.
Oh, I had a friend who had a tripe PI.
He could never balance the carbs.
You know, you can't buy it.
You need a special tool.
And I shouldn't let me put me off.

(57:46):
I might have said abouthaving had three Cortinas.
I might've had a fitstrata one 30 instead.
Well, I see that Fiat all of a suddencame back with it, reintroduced it, but
it looks like it's a pickup truck now.
Oh, that's awful.
In this time frame, the late 90s, Italy,we haven't brought up this brand at all.
The DiTomaso, what do they call that?
The Guara?
The Cuvale.

(58:08):
Oh, yeah.
No, they have, it's, it's with a G. Guara?
Guara?
It's a very cool looking car.
It was very 2000.
The Guara?
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
Yeah.
It's like the Jaguar XG.
220 kind of kind of, but if you'regoing to buy at that time period,
you buy what they called the Q valet,which was the 1999, which was also sold

(58:28):
as the new Mangusta, which it looksnothing like the original Mangusta.
If you're familiar with thosecars, it's all very low to Ceylon
MG F. It's all, I disagree.
I think it's cool.
That was a good call.
No, it's definitely cool.
Eric's just wrong.
It's okay.
Yeah, is that its ownchassis and everything?
Mustang based, I thought.

(58:50):
I thought so too.
I thought it was a Ford, yeah.
Well, because like your point, Eric, withthat Corvalli thing, whatever it was,
wasn't there a Ford version of that theyhad here you could get in the States?
I'd have to think about what itwas, unless it was based on like,
the Mustang Well, before theSN95, I think it was the Fox Body.
So, okay, then it would havebeen the first of the new
stuff, then after the Fox Body.
Or was it, what's his name, um The Shelby?

(59:12):
No.
Atlanta.
Don Pano's?
Yeah.
Did Pano's do something with the Cavalli?
The Pano's Esperante?
Yeah.
The Guara is ugly though.
I know he dabbled in a few differentthings or his kid did whatever.
Yeah, the Esperante looks similar ishto it, but I think it's a bigger car.
Probably just the body.
I'll pass.
That's not for me, Don.
All right, so Italians.
Anything else Italian beforewe move a little bit more?

(59:34):
Inland in Europe.
Go for it.
All right, how about the French?
I mean, we all know whatcar is coming with them.
Can you guys guess which oneBrad and I have already selected?
R5 Turbo is the R34 of France.

(59:55):
Well, the next generation,so not the Williams Clio.
But the, the Renault Clio sportV6, the mid engine one, those
are right for the picking.
Yeah.
That was my top pick.
That good.
Didn't they call it the Clio 24 valve?
Yes.
It came out alongside of the R32Volkswagen, not the skyline to compete
with that and other hot hatches ofthe period, but it is the ultimate

(01:00:16):
B road bomber if there ever was one.
And it's still, if you don'tlook at the mark one Clio
sports, you look at the mark.
Two's slightly newer,like 2003, 2004 timeframe.
Still again, within our window, thoseare the ones to have, I've seen that
there are some Mark ones running aroundin California and stuff like that.
They've already been imported, butif you can get your hands on that 3.

(01:00:37):
2 liter mid engine.
Second generation that is still a goodlooking car to this day and a performer.
I don't think it's very understeery.
I believe it has somesnap throttle oversteer.
The last car I had inEngland was a Laguna.
So that was like Renault's Mondeo withthat same V6 motor, which it was a revver.
It was a 24 valve revver, but it wasdown on power next to the other stuff.

(01:01:00):
So when that Clio V6 came out.
It didn't have the impact thatI feel like it should have had.
And when you listen to peoplewho have them now, they
have a hell of a reputation.
They're sufficiently rare.
You compared them with the Golf R, but theGolf R still got the engine in the front.
I feel like they're notin the same category.
It's something far more like thePuma RS in terms of something.

(01:01:22):
Really special.
The advantage that the R 32 had theoriginal golf R had over the Clio was
that it was all-wheel drive so you couldput all 250 horsepower to the ground
versus the Clio was rear wheel drive,which makes it more fun and more agile and
all the other things that come with it.
But the R 32 wasn't a normal GTI.
It was a TT with a GTI body on top of it.

(01:01:43):
So it's a whole differentball of wax at that point.
'cause you've got Quatroand a really smart Hal deck.
Yeah.
So the only other car I came up with.
And it's an oddball becauseit sort of leans into what
we talked about with Toyota.
Mark, you brought up some of the bigcruisers and the sleepers, and I sort of
found a Renault sleeper that's in thistime period, and it came as a twin turbo.

(01:02:05):
The Saffron Bi Turbo.
Right?
It's an elegant car.
It's kind of handsome, you know,in that sort of subtle Cosworthy
Vauxhall sort of way as well.
And I think nobody's looking at these.
And if you dress it up witha set of wheels, you've got
something to write home about.
Now that's super rare.
They were not sold in Britain.

(01:02:26):
And because I had the Lagunaat the time, the Saffron looked
like a big version of the Laguna.
And it was the time in Europe when.
Big Renaults, big Vauxhalls,big Fords just weren't selling.
So that's the Franc.
The high trim ones never came to England.
We never got right hand drive ones.
And the last time I had a vacationto France, I actually frustrated my
family by stopping and turning around.

(01:02:48):
Getting out at a garage at theside of the road and looking,
because I thought I saw a saffronby turbo in the yard at the back.
It wasn't.
It was a Saffron Monaco, which hadthe same wheels and trim, but it
was not a by turbo rated at over 400horsepower back in the late nineties.
That's crazy.
Total sleeper.
Yeah.
It's ugly as sin, though.

(01:03:09):
Just blobby and ugly, right?
Yeah.
Very 90s.
And inside, plasticky.
The Laguna was, I had a top trimLaguna, and it was still plasticky.
My understanding is theSafrans weren't much better.
Maybe the Biturbo was.
The other Renaults to think aboutin that period that are much
more interesting than the Safran,Is the Valsatis and the Avanti.

(01:03:30):
The weirdly angular hatchback van thing.
One was a coupe, like aminivan, a two door minivan.
I think that was the Avanti.
Yeah.
And then the, so onewas like way out there.
And then the other one was like,let's try and be a bit practical here.
And that was the Valsatis.
I always felt that was pretty interesting.
That would be best had probably with adiesel rather than with the V6 petrol.

(01:03:50):
If I'm going to go that way with it, Iwould then just buy a Renault Esprit.
Time period because that's one of thoseminivans sort of like the euro van and I
hate to say the dustbuster the silhouetteand some of those other quirky ones
where people are like, that's a reallycool van because it's so different.
So if I'm going to spend the money onsomething very French, the Aventine, I'm

(01:04:12):
going to kind of push to the side andgo, I'm going to get into spas because.
I'm gonna show up at the Cars and Coffeeand be like, Wait, where'd you get that?
That's cool.
The Esplats is a boring shape.
The Avantime and the Valsatis,if you want something unique.
I wouldn't do them.
I'm not trying to buy a Valsatis.
I'm getting out looking at theSaffron by Turbo, aren't I?
In that same time period, you saidsomething that triggered it in my head.
One of the best movies of the late 90s,which is right in this time period.

(01:04:35):
And you can gaze at all the carsin the background while you're
watching it as the movie Ronin.
And in Ronin, you had that Citroen XM.
So what about something from that camp?
All right.
So Citroen for me, the AX GT,the AX was the little one.
The GT was the hot rod one.
This thing weighs aboutthe same as a Coke can.
They were fun to drive.

(01:04:56):
Super dangerous, but fun to drive.
How understeery was it?
Bigger model, the BX.
There was a version of those that had,we'll talk about Peugeots in a minute.
The same as the Peugeot 205.
Same motor as that 1.
9 16 valve head thing could do 140miles an hour and it had Citroën's
weird hydropneumatic suspension.

(01:05:18):
So if you look up Citroën BXGTI 16 valve,there's one that the British YouTubers
have been sharing that's called Tomato.
I mean that car, it's not super weirdold Citroën like Citroën GSA was
sufficiently mainstream to have real.
appeal and actually cross over toCortina man, but if you're going

(01:05:38):
to spend that kind of money, youwouldn't go back and buy a BX four
TC, like the rally car that never was.
No, because that's like afull on rally car, right?
This BX 19 GTR.
That's like a hot rod, that's a five,ten, fifteen thousand dollar proposition
rather than a The other one I've gotthat I think is really interesting,
and if I was actually trying to help acollector build something that was going

(01:06:01):
to impress people out of cars and coffee.
How about the Citroen CX Turbo?
You can get a three row wagonversion of that as well.
Oh yeah!
They're rare!
There's even a version of thata newspaper firm in France used.
If you look up, so there's like a vanversion of it that was designed to

(01:06:22):
deliver like Figaro all over Europe.
It's like a three axle trailer one thatsome guy in Paris used to build that I
fell down a rat hole of reading about.
But look, a turbo Citroen CX,that has to be a wow moment.
The problem I've always had with is thesame problem I have with the DS, right?
The Diane.
I just I can't and then I look atit and I go was Citroen challenged

(01:06:47):
to make an Audi 200 Avant becausethat's what it looks like.
I don't know there's something aboutthese Citroens that makes my blood curdle.
I mean Citroens you do either love themor hate them and I am not a Citroen guy.
To drive they're really weird they havelike hydropneumatic brakes so the brakes
are like really really sensitive andthey have this super like Bloaty ride,

(01:07:08):
like a lot of French cars of that periodhave a good ride, Peugeot or whatever
will handle well and be compliant.
But Citroens, they were in adifferent class for ride quality.
The big ones in the BXs, you know,the AX is just like a little hot rod.
I don't think it got mentioned, butthe Peugeot 206, they had a rally
car version, hot hatch kind of deals.

(01:07:28):
Any of those hot hatch special editions,I think just are automatically cool.
I agree.
Yeah.
For Peugeot, I had the 6,which had the same wheel as.
The 205 Turbo 16, the 205 GTI 1.
9 that had different wheels on it.
That's how you can tell them apart.
If you're watching Anglia car auctionsand watching them roll through, there

(01:07:50):
was also a model called the 309.
Now that was interesting because that wasdesigned by the team in Coventry before
Peugeot took over what was left of.
Chrysler and it was due to be thelast Talbot or the last Sunbee and
the 309 in GTI form is consideredto handle better than the 205.

(01:08:11):
I never had one.
I came close, 500 quid was agreed inthe pub car park and then the bloke
no showed and I never did get the309 GTI with the two week MOT on it.
The other one to think about, andthese are rare now, is the 405 MI 16.
So that's the same motor as in theBX 16 valve, but a Peugeot 405.

(01:08:32):
So arguably more boring.
Well, aren't those 205s hugelypopular or even now and back then?
People are importing the ralliesas well, which is like the
base model version of them.
Pricing are crazy from my understanding.
But the rallies were rarer andwere arguably an even more pure
form of what Peugeot were doing.

(01:08:52):
There's another model, they did asmaller model called the 106, and the
106 rallies are arguably even cooler.
If we're looking at that small size,talked about the Clio 24 valve, that
had the engine sort of in the back seatand like wide tires and a good stance.
You could get like a Clio William,as in the Williams Formula One team.
So this was when Renault were in bedwith Williams and had Williams building

(01:09:15):
their British touring car team.
There was a special Williams breathedon version of the Clio 16 valve.
So this was like 1.
8 liters, 180, 190 horse, buttiny little car, lovely gold
wheels handling by Williams.
I feel like the challenge with thoseis that they're so well loved at home.

(01:09:37):
that you wouldn't buy for a cheap price.
If you were trying to impresspeople at a Cars and Coffee, great,
nobody else is going to have one.
If you're trying to make money, I feellike if you filled a shipping crate
with Alpha GTVs that you'd paid 3, 000for in England and you could sell here
for 8, 000 or 9, 000, I feel like youmight be able to make money with that.
Similarly with the TVRs.

(01:09:57):
But I feel like with the hot hatches,They're just too poxy and slow for
American enthusiasts to really get them.
Perhaps with the exception of Chris there.
Didn't they make that Cleo Williams?
Did they make a super special rare onethat was named after one of their drivers?
Like they make like one waslike 25 cars or something.
And that's like your JDM specialedition ones that if you.

(01:10:18):
of a guy that remembers that, becauseone of the reasons why I like TVR is
that my best mate in England lent acar to a TVR guy to go to Le Mans one
year because his TVR was broken andthat favour has never been repaid.
And I've always said to my buddy, youknow, if we ever want to buy TVRs, you
know, get Stu, come car shopping with usbecause Stu still has TVRs, still knows

(01:10:42):
people in the community and knows whichmechanics are the good ones and which
are the expensive ones and And I feellike you need that unfair advantage if
you're going to make a business out of it.
If you're just going to impresspeople at the cars and coffee,
totally different matter.
Well, that's what we'reall about here, John.
Well, I've got one for you fromthe French camp that you all
have probably forgotten about.

(01:11:02):
Three letters, sort of like TBR.
Instead, this is MBS.
They created the Venturi, theyhad the Atlantique, they had
the 300, the 300 GT, but morespecifically the MVS Venturi 400 GT.
That is the car to get.
Yeah, that was on my list.
I was about to bring that one up as well.
I was going to be a little more brave.
The whole, all Venturisare cool in my opinion.

(01:11:24):
Thousand percent.
That was the one that they erasedit actually didn't do too bad at Le
Mans, didn't it, in a couple of years?
Correct.
They erased it in their version ofIMSA over there before it was WECC.
But yeah, they did pretty well.
And they were just an independentFrench brand kind of shooting
after the likes of Lotus.
I mean, the cars have similardesign and things like that.
And in borrowed parts, likealways, they still look good today,

(01:11:45):
especially if you buy the right one.
But the 400 is a littlebit more ostentatious.
Because it's sort of the last of theline, it's got the most horsepower.
It's got the big wine, it's gotthe big wheels and the flares.
And it just, it looks like ahomologated GT three car, right?
So that to me is a huge draw and youshow up with something like that.
And immediately people aregoing to ask you what body kit
is that on your Lotus Esprit.

(01:12:07):
But the reality is it's Frenchand it's cool and I wouldn't
kick it out, that's for sure.
I think it's a littlebigger than that though.
Like if you want your Lotus Espritbody kit and a low volume French
maker, how do you, is this Hamel?
Hamel?
I only knew it from GranTurismo 20 some odd years ago.
And then doing some research for thiscaused me to kind of dig it back up.

(01:12:29):
But the Pommel Berlinette,it's a short wheelbase wide.
It was made by a former race car driver.
He started the company andthey made one model 1990, 2003.
Like I said, I only knew of it cause I,25 years ago, I played it in Gran Turismo.
But it is very much in that kindof 200 horsepower, lightweight
four cylinder kind of style.

(01:12:50):
I think probably going head tohead to the, with the Elise in
the mid nineties, when the Elisefirst started coming around.
So the Hamel or Hummel,depending on how you put it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It has that sort of Celica STS lookto the front of it, like the gen
three, you know, X rally car withthe four headlights in the front.
And it has some designkeys from some other cars.
It's peculiar, especially thatGT 40 reverse scoop in the hood

(01:13:13):
and all that kind of stuff.
I mean, it's different.
I would drive one, I justwonder how understeery it is.
LAUGHING You're joking the show.
No, but we've been talking aboutthose hot hatchbacks, this is what,
as Americans, get enthusiastic about.
They are understeery.
Since we're talking French and we'retalking quirky, and I think, unless we
find something totally obscure outsideof that, I want to give a nod to Sort of

(01:13:36):
a French cousin coming from the Swedes.
And we actually have an episode in ourcatalog that you can go back and listen
to about importing a gray market Volvo.
And that's the Volvo 480i turbo,which shares a lot of Renault parts.
It's an interesting design.
It gave way to cars like theC30 and, uh, things like that.
So it's another hothatch coming from Sweden.

(01:13:57):
That's another one that there aren't many.
I mean, I know there is onea couple of miles from me.
I can go see it whenever I want.
And they're super nice people.
And, you know, they told the wholestory of how they got it here and
all that, but you're not going tosee too many of those in the States.
I know when Nate and Emily take theirsto a show, people are like, what is that?
I didn't even know Volvo made a hatchback.
So that's another kindof cool one to consider.

(01:14:18):
And that sort of bringsus to the last country.
I think we need to talkabout, which is the Germans.
Do the Germans really have anythingthat they didn't send to the States?
RS2?
You can build an RS2, that's the problem.
Fair enough.
That's that Audi wagon thatPorsche built, is that right?
I don't even want to getinto a debate on that one.

(01:14:39):
Yes, so Porsche supposedly,allegedly, massaged the engine.
And as like they did forMercedes and some other things.
But the reality is that car Once youtake the 911 wheels off and the big
brakes and you know, whatever they didto the tuning of the motor, it's still
a boxy Audi 90 Avant with a big turbo.
Right.
That's why I say you can build those cars.

(01:15:01):
My dad had a replica S2, which isthe coupe version of that Avant.
And that was built in Florida by BAT.
So it was a North American S2.
It had all the bits and piecesfrom Europe and all that stuff.
Brad remembers that car later gota V8 because he wanted more power.
That being said, I mean, yes.
Sure, but doesn't, what's his facefrom Cars and Bids have one of those?

(01:15:22):
Doug DeMuro?
Yeah, Doug DeMuro has one, right?
He's got the S2 wagon, yeah.
I was offered one, my lastjob in the city in London.
We hired like some city whizkid dude and he raced historic
group C cars at the weekend.
And one day we were in the pub and hesaid, Summers, I've got this Audi wagon.
Do you want to buy it?
And I was like, maybe.
Cause I was not longing intothe Laguna at that time.

(01:15:43):
And I wasn't selling a lot of software.
I was reaching the point where Iwas like, I'm done with this shit.
10 grand he wanted for it.
Oh, it was an M plater.
So that would have meant it was95, 96 and it had done 85, 000
miles at the time, 10, 000 pounds.
Away.
If we're talking Germany andMercedes Benz, there are quite a
few that they did not bring over.

(01:16:04):
Okay.
But they're all trucks.
Oh, we're doing some Unimogs?
Even better are fire trucks or ambulances.
In looking at this, there's acattle truck that I saw that you
could turn into a car hauler easy.
I crave one of those.
Wouldn't that be amazing?
I think you're alone on that island.
But I support you.

(01:16:28):
I just don't know what.
Well, everybody has all these idiotthings that, you know, they go out
and spend all these big renter vans.
It's like, wouldn't it be coolerto have like an airport fire truck
that you convert into a camper van?
Wouldn't it be cool to havea Mercedes ice cream truck?
It'd be way more badass rollinginto the mountains, you know?
It might be an Oregon thing.
Did BMW have quite a few of the wagons?

(01:16:48):
Was those the 3 seriesor the 5 series ones?
They did them over there, theydidn't bring them over here.
And then they would flop where they'dbring them here and not over there.
Then some alpena that we never sawand then like all sorts were some too.
But like on previous, what should I buyis when we talk about that, you can sort
of to the point of the Audi as well.
Yeah, build it.
You could build it.
If you take an E 36, which there'slike a B eight, E 36 alpena, something

(01:17:11):
that we, I saw that pop up on thelist and I'm like, great, so tell me
what's different and I'll build one.
Because overall the chassisand everything is the same.
It's sort of like, you know, thethe M versus the non M argument.
I struggled with the Germans quite a bit.
I did find something, but to William'spoint, the touring, you can't just
go out and just take a regular E 36and slap the wagon rear end on it.

(01:17:33):
I mean, I feel like they've probablyimported, I don't know if they've
actually chopped up the car and.
Welded on the wagon rear end to 'em.
I mean, where are the receipts?
Right.
, . I mean, if I'm gonna dothat, I want an E 30 wagon.
Those are cool, especially thelate ones, like 90, 91, 92 at

(01:17:53):
the tail end of the e thirties.
I think those are supercool as a station wagon.
Yeah.
Weren't those like three eighteensor three sixteens or something?
Something like that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think those are really neat.
I've seen some of those stateside and I'malways like, ah, it's a good looking car.
I think it does an all wheel drive too.
I think it was too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The three, two, five IX.
IX.
Yeah.
Cause you couldn't get them in Britain.

(01:18:13):
I remember years ago being in Europeand seeing them in Europe and thinking
the IX ones always road higher.
Whereas the three, two, fiveones road that little bit lower.
For me, that was the game changer.
And like, I like a car to be low, not.
Looking like an SUV.
And that's the same inthe Volkswagen camp.
You know, once they ditched the wholeSynchro moniker, they went to what they

(01:18:35):
called with the Mark 4s and the Mark 3s.
They had the Variant andthe Variant was their 4x4s.
So you could get like a Golf Estate4x4, you know, all this kind of stuff.
And like, okay, that's cool.
There's guys that cut the floorpans here and then they, you
know, bolt up Audi rear end.
So again, that's in that weird restomod.
Category, like if you want to spend themoney, it's probably cheaper to build one
than it is to import one in some ways.

(01:18:57):
Unless you want like a righthand drive Mark 3 GTI, you know,
something bizarre like that.
Like then you're kind of going only toEngland to kind of bring that stuff in.
The only thing I came up with, and it'sGerman by proxy, and it's a lot older than
the stuff that we've been talking about.
And it made me scratch my head going,why haven't we imported more of the
Mexican and South American variants?

(01:19:20):
The Super Beetle?
Well, not even the SuperBeetle, but like the Brasilia.
All the parts are interchangeablewith the Carmen Ghia, and with
the 911, and the Beetles, andeverything that it's based on.
And it's like, how cool wouldit be to have a Brasilia?
Not that cool.
Is your ice cream shop?
This is Eric's ice cream truck.
I went in the other direction.
Like, there are some, whatdo you call them in the UK?

(01:19:41):
Like, Hedro Automated, like two guys ina shed with some spanners or whatever.
You know, you have Weissmann.
I think from that time period,it was like the MF3 around 2000.
Curatec, they would put like inline.
You know, it almost looks like a GermanMorgan in that kind of retro styling.
They're actually still around.
They didn't die off somehow.
They're still making stuff.

(01:20:02):
Similar kind of old, uh, retro styles.
And then there was Gumballa.
Were they around or wasthat more like 2005, 2006?
No, Gumballa was allthe way back to the 80s.
Yeah.
Cocaine could only make those designs.
Like DeLorean.
Gumballa, man.
Any time I think about those, oof.
Let's make a slant nose, even more slanty.

(01:20:23):
Let's put some lines on the sides.
Yeah, big test to roast thestraights down the side.
I'm like, what is this?
Did you ever see the Gimbala 928?
That thing just will melt your brain.
It's so bad.
I love 928.
Yes.
Left alone.
They're perfect.
We were kinder to Japan.
It feels like, right.

(01:20:43):
We were willing to kindof cater to the special.
It's like you have allthese aftermarket, right?
You know, AMG wasn'tacquired until late nineties.
You know, there are other big tunersin Germany, some for Mercedes, some
for Porsche, like a Brabus, the you gotBrabus, you got rough, but not all those
things made emissions for the US, right?
Like there's got to be some specialeditions worth farming out there

(01:21:04):
to bring back, I would think.
Well, there's a bunch of those, likea lot of the AMGs and stuff like that.
I mean, I always thought was odd isthey Japan only sale original whatever,
but they were left hand drive.
And then AMG had a, I was a dealer orit was themselves, but They actually
ship them there, then the conversionswere done there in Japan, to make
them the AMG and stuff like that.
But like, Curated does a crap loadof stuff like that from Japan.

(01:21:27):
Getting like a lot of those AMGs,like they're big on those, but
get big money for those cars.
Non Mercedes owned AMG cars.
It's a weird thing with cars fromJapan though, when I've written
about a number of them for auctionhouses, and they're always in superb
condition, but with zero history.
So I wrote about an E30 AMG.

(01:21:48):
Alpina, and from the photographs, thecar looked like it was a brand new car,
but there were no service records and nohistory with it whatsoever, because the
Japanese are that obsessed with privacy.
Like, you've really got to challengewith those AMG cars, like that version
of Ed Boleyn, who you see on VinWiki,who's trying to do the same thing with

(01:22:08):
AMG as Ed Boleyn's done with Lamborghini.
I feel like he's got a hell of a challengebecause the history just isn't there.
Any car that comes from Japan,there is just zero history.
There's no, like, if I'm writing abouta Corvette and I can see that the
Corvette's been worked on by a mechanic,I'll call that mechanic and ask him.
Whereas with the Japanese, they won'tsupply any of that information, even if

(01:22:31):
you were ready to pick up the phone andBreak out your best Japanese to talk to.
Well, the last one for the Germans.
I'll give a nod back to James Humphreybecause it was one of the few German
cars he had on his list outside of someAudi station wagons like the RS four.
Again, another car you can basicallybuild with Boltons here in the
United States was the Luo GTI.
We actually battled back and forthabout this car on the drive through

(01:22:53):
episode and whether it was worth.
doing that or findingyourself an original Mark 1.
You'd be better off with a Saxo GTI.
The best hot hatch of that period,small one, was the Citroën Saxo GTI.
And the proof of it was, it's probablystill true in Southern Italy, in Spain,
France, those kind of places now.

(01:23:14):
The youth tune the Saxo GTIs, theydon't care about the Lupo GTIs.
Less understeering, I get it.
I see what it's all about.
Alright, so as we wrap this thingout, like we always try to do
before we do our lightning roundis actually give some sane advice.
To our collectors that are listening tothis again, I will say, let's refer back
to the Volvo 480i episode with Nate andEmily, where they talk about bringing

(01:23:37):
in a car from Sweden, the process goingthrough the docs, like the paperwork
and registration and all those kinds ofthings, because they gave a lot of detail.
And I don't think we needto cover all that again.
We will have a link in the show notesto an article that's very well written
that I found that also goes througha more modernized version of all the
rules and the regulations and like whatit takes to bring these cars into the

(01:23:59):
states because even though they're legalnow doesn't necessarily mean that the
process It's still a challenge to getthese cars delivered, verify that they
are what they are, that you're not gettingscammed and all those kinds of things.
And then there's some shops,reputable or otherwise, that
they specialize in import export.
And so, your mileage may vary on all that.

(01:24:19):
I will also say that I found a loophole.
You can bring cars through Canada.
Now that might changethis year, we don't know.
Canada can bring in carsas new as 10 years old.
But if you want to export from Canadainto the United States, you only have
to wait 21 years and not 25 years.
So we have a four year gap that youcan work with between us and Canada.

(01:24:41):
But now you got to take that other step.
You got to get somebody to bring itinto Canada and hold it, and then
bring it into the United States.
State.
So are you really buying any time?
They're very interestingdebate, but the reality is the
hardest part in this process.
And William, maybe you could talkto this is registering, insuring,
and getting parts for these cars.
It's almost like buying an exotic.

(01:25:02):
Yeah.
Bring it in.
You're going to have allyour hurdles and stuff.
You got to jump through.
I personally try not to getinvolved in that aspect of it.
I'll try and steer them tosomething or not because I
just don't want the liability.
So it's not something, again,it's kind of same thing like with
transport, everything like that.
Here's some bunch youcould call if you want.
I'm not recommending them say yes orno to any of them, but here you go.

(01:25:23):
I don't want to have that ball becausesomething goes wrong and you know
everyone's looking to blame someone else.
You know, hey, it'syour fault, your fault.
I always recommend going to, especially ascompanies, not trying to do it yourself.
I mean, unless you wanna start doingit multiple times and hey, learn to
process, spend the money a few extradollars and have it just brought in.
Have them do it all there.
There's actually carsInternational with the shipper.

(01:25:43):
There's some in there that willactually do from door to door and
all your pay, everything, doctorate,nine yards, shipping it, the whole
nine yards, not just say once youget here, then they'll handle it.
I mean, they do everything.
So once it hits the port,then it's end, then they ship.
They do it all.
These companies are startingto get more one stop shop
because that's what people want.
They don't want to be callingfive different entities to
try and get a card here.
So they actually wantto make one phone call.

(01:26:03):
But again, it's like reputation, whatnot.
Any company, they're always goingto have a hiccup here and there.
Won't go smoothly a hundredpercent of the time.
Let them do it.
Except they do on a regular basis.
I don't say, Oh, use this or do this.
I just don't want the liability.
Parts wise, though, that'sthe big thing, though.
Okay, now you have it here.
Is there any here?
Are you going to beshipping everything over?
Should you just start buying partsjust to stay ahead of the game?

(01:26:25):
Wait till something, youknow, it's kind of that thing.
You start hoarding stuff.
Depending on the model and stuff, like,does the factory even make them anymore?
Are you going to go complete aftermarket?
I mean, are you going toneed to hunt down NOS?
I mean, there's so many differentavenues to go on that stuff, you know?
You bring up a really important point thatI kept kind of mulling around in my head.
If I had to buy a gray market car myself Iwould probably lean towards something that

(01:26:47):
either had cross part number pollinationwith a vehicle that was in the United
States that it was easier to get like youstart buying French cars and it's sort
of like going to the track and you lookaround the paddock and you're the only
one with that car and something breakswell nobody can help you right it's the
same thing you bring a French car andyou're all by yourself unless you find a
specialty shop versus you bring in a weirdVolkswagen or Some of these BMWs that we

(01:27:10):
talked about, or even some of the Asiancars where they share a lot of DNA with
their U S cousins, you're like, ah, well,that's actually the same part they used on
the Camry or the Lexus GS 400, you know,and you can like kind of cross match it.
So you can build to your point, thatsort of repository of parts without
having to bend over backwards, but youbring in something really odd ball.

(01:27:30):
You're in exoticterritory where it's like.
Go find a fabricator.
Cause you're on your own.
Yeah.
And you're going to spendit 10 times as much too.
That's the other problem.
But again, you know, it's one dayif you poured it and then something
happens, then you've got a nice littlesavings account because then you could
start selling stuff or a nice markup.
Look at the price side of stuff, right?
So our import export startup guys.
John, Chris, and especially Mark,you've been looking at BAT and some

(01:27:53):
of this, where do you think peopleshould be putting their money?
Should it be into Asian cars, somethingfrom mainland Europe, Australia?
Where do you think the best investment is?
Sure.
From an investment perspective,you know, you just, you got
to ride the demographics.
And so as your millennials moveinto their peak income, you know,
they haven't gotten there yet.
I think there's still an upwardtrajectory on those 95 to 2005 cars.

(01:28:18):
I think even in this show, we showeda little bias towards the JDM cars.
I'm guilty of that as, as anyone else.
And so I think, yeah, I wouldlean in that market, you know,
but you got to be smart about it.
The buying advice, you didn't ask me forbuying advice, but I'm giving it anyway.
It would be buy something thatsomebody else already imported.
That that would be find somebody whowas super passionate and super in

(01:28:39):
love with that car and for whateverreason they have to get out of it now.
It's really unfortunate thatthey have to get out of it.
That's the best card.
I takes a while to find those.
You got to look for a long time, butthat would be 100 percent my advice.
Chris, what do you think?
Where would you put your money?
I think there's some edge cases andwe talked about a few where there's.
kind of a car that's relativelyunknown, but when you bring it over,

(01:29:00):
it would really catch attention likethat Venturi or something like that.
I mean, that's probably not a greatexample because they're super rare, but
I'm more thinking about what's going toget the biggest crowd at Cars and Coffee
and less about the money side of things.
And again, this shows my own personaltaste, but it's like, I'm all for
like, you know, modded or upgradedrace car style, especially the Tommy

(01:29:22):
Mackinnon, especially that one.
That's an awesome car.
That's a cool car.
I think they're very impressiveand they're very authentic.
I just think there's a realconnection with the racing
lineage from which they came.
It's where those win on Sunday,sell on Monday kind of vibe.
And I really relate to that.
I really feel like you're not gettingthe car that's on the track necessarily,

(01:29:43):
but you're getting something that'sextremely evocative of that, unless
you have those little fantasies.
Whether it's rally cars or touringcars, anything in that vein, I
think, is where I put my money.
All right, so John, as our importexport expert, how about some
fatherly advice for our listeners?
Where would you put your money?
Are you siding with Mark andChris about kind of sticking
with the Asian domestic market?

(01:30:04):
I definitely like the idea of reducing thehassle and buying something that somebody
else has already had all the hassle doing.
I mean, that's like The whole thing ofinstead of buying a project car, you buy
the car that somebody else has alreadybuilt, you buy it off them and then you
can drive it straight away kind of thing.
So I feel like there's alot to be said for that.
In terms of investability, itis about the demographics, but

(01:30:26):
I think it's also about rarity.
And it's also about that fundamentalthing of whether or not it's cool.
So that DiTomaso, Bangusta or Cavellor whatever you want to call it.
Rare as hen's teeth.
Maybe desirable for some people,but it's a small minority.
Most people are just not, uh, Youknow, certainly if I was going to do
it as a business, you know, I like TVR.

(01:30:48):
Although they're super unreliable, Ifeel like if I greased Gammy's mate
Stew's palms properly, Stew, and Gammywent with him, we could make sure that
whatever was arriving at the docksin Southampton in England, was okay.
And I feel like I could then with mybuddy here to have something that I could

(01:31:08):
drive round and then he could sort out andflip on and perhaps just maybe we might
be able to make some money out of it.
I feel like the Frenchstuff's really interesting.
You know, the hot hatches.
All of that stuff.
I feel like there's notnecessarily money to be made there.
The one four seven GTA.
Now that's something differentbecause I've seen alpha GTV that

(01:31:28):
were not worth very much at home,make ridiculous prices here.
And if you are at that cars andcoffee and somebody's never seen
an alpha one four seven GTA before,and they go out for a drive in it.
And that torque steer snatches thesteering wheel out of their hands.
They're probably gonna wanna buy thecar because it's thrilling and exciting.
And so I feel like those, I mean I, I waswatching a car auction just the other day,

(01:31:53):
Anglia car auctions in Britain and theyhad now for GTA and it rolled through for
like 12,000 pounds or something like that.
Well, I feel like you could probablysell it for about double that here
if, but there's a big risk associatedwith I importing it and fixing.
And, and, and, and, and.
So yeah, so I like the TVRs.
I like that Alpha GTV.

(01:32:14):
I'd try and do the Murcas and theCapris back to Europe, I think.
I tell you what though, ProfessorSommer's imports would be one of the
funnest dealership showrooms to go visit.
Did you like how he masked the understeerby talking about torque steer instead?
He's like, pay no attentionto the understeer.
Jerking the wheel out of your hands.
So that being said, it istime for our lightning round.

(01:32:36):
In honor of John being the newest onour, what should I buy handle this time?
We'll start with you, John, you get topick a gray market car, and I'm going
to give you a little bit of leewayhere, and this goes for everybody.
It might not be importable today, butmaybe in the next two or three years, that
way I give Chris some breathing space.
You get to pick a graymarket car of your choice.

(01:32:57):
Maybe it's completely off this list.
You've been hiding thatace up your sleeve.
Money is no object and your favoriteundersteery car of all time.
Do you get to get picked too?
So John go.
I do a Strada 130 TC.
I never had one in period.
I'd really love to have some teeny light.
Hot hatch, but I would neverrecommend that to anybody else.

(01:33:17):
Best understeering car of all time.
Ford Mustang.
You got a Mustang to understeer?
Wow.
Yeah, they push on entry, don't they?
They push on entry and thenyou need to come in the gas.
I think we're seeing the patternhere of a Ford Mustang understeer.
You should go to a driving school.
He's driving backwards.

(01:33:37):
Don't talk about those 911 guys like that.
Don't insult Mark.
That said, Chris, you're up next.
Yeah, obviously, the Alfa Romeo Brera,that's literally on my list, like,
when I can do that, I'll probably dothat, just because I've been waiting
since I visited there, you know, oh,those many years and saw them on the
road, so I would definitely take that.
That's first in.
Y'all gave me a lot to thinkabout, to be honest with you.

(01:33:59):
I really like that, I hadn't heard ofit before Venturi looked really cool.
I don't know, I thoughtthat was sexy as hell.
I'd probably check one of those out.
Alright, let's pop overto your arch rival.
I'm gonna go with the firstcar I talked about tonight.
The Toyota Chaser.
I just think it's very unique.
You're not going to see one over here.
It's a good practical car.
It's, it's something you could buildon top of and make really fast,

(01:34:21):
inexpensive to get into, easy to getparts over here, even though they
never sold one because it is a Toyota.
I really thought you would pulla Mitsubishi FTO out of your hat.
You know, my favorite understeeringcar was my 1998 Eclipse GST.
That car was a lot of funand very, very understeering.
William.
Money's no object.
You're buying yourself a gray market car.

(01:34:43):
What is it?
Probably an E36 M3 GT.
Ooh.
One that won't be foranother, what, two years?
E46 M3 CSL.
Yeah.
Understeery, I don't know.
Any front wheel drive car ispretty much all understeery.
Anything older than 10 years old frontwheel drive is going to be understeery.
Writing them all off like John.
Yeah, those are the ones I'd look at.

(01:35:03):
Bradley, what you got for us?
What are you buying?
You know, I'm kind ofdigging that Lotus Carlton.
Either that or any early2000s Land Rover Defenders.
Yeah, we didn't talk about those too much.
I love those.
No, I'm looking at one right now.
It's a really cool, it's a Defender130 double cab pickup truck.
I mean, that's super unique here.
I mean, never seen one here.

(01:35:24):
It just looks really, really bad ass.
It's really well done.
Uh, and then understeery car.
I mean, any stock Mark four Volkswagenis pretty damn understeery before
Eric dials in the suspension.
And then it's very oversteery.
100 percent oversteery.
Go completely the other way.
All right.
So for me, I've been hiding oneright here, right in my sleeve.

(01:35:46):
It is my extra ace.
I only have to wait one more year.
I'm going to give a nod to my sister.
A couple other people because I thinkthey would buy one of these too.
I would have in my garage,it only came in silver.
It only came with aroll cage for interior.
And that's the 2001 Beetle RSI with a 3.
2 liter VR6 and all wheel drive.
That's the precursor to the originalGolf R. Those things are awesome.

(01:36:10):
And that's what I wouldhave as my gray market car.
And in terms of understeery frontwheel drives, you know, the worst
front wheel drive car I everdrove was my grandfather's Alto
Bianchi Y10, which is the Y10.
It had the skinniest tires on theplanet, the worst suspension, and
the most wheel deflection I have everseen, that I literally curb rashed

(01:36:33):
the wheels from its understeer.
That's how bad it was.
Complete rollover.
Absolutely horrible,horrible handling car.
There you have it folks, yet anotherwhat should I buy in the bag.
So Brad, take us home.
From JDM icons to forbidden Europeanspeed machines, we've explored the thrills
and potential pitfalls of bringing theseonce unattainable cars to US roads.

(01:36:55):
Whether you're dreaming of owning one inthe middle of an import process, or just
love the idea of these automotive uniformsfinally getting their moment stateside,
the adventure is just beginning.
And if you'd like to continue theconversation or expand on some
of the topics here, don't be shy.
Check out our break, fix discord,where you can get in contact with
the panelists you heard here tonight.
And I want to thank all of ourpanelists for another great,

(01:37:17):
what should I buy debate?
Sorry, Don Weaver, we ran out of time.
We'll have to have you on nexttime, you know, and uh, good night.
And with that gentleman, I can'tthank you enough for returning yet
again for an evening of frivolity and.
Seriously, thank you for coming backon, sharing your thoughts, and I look
forward to seeing all of you backfor yet another What Should I Buy?
We got some others lined up for theseason, so thank you again for sharing

(01:37:39):
your wisdom and your comic relief.
Careful with that understeer.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Next time I come through, head south,I'm gonna drop in on you, Jonathan.
I'd like to meet you properly, Chris.
Thank you.
Great, thanks.
And thanks for the invite, fellas.
Appreciate it.
Thanks, man.
It was a lot of fun.
Ciao.

(01:38:12):
We hope you enjoyed another awesomeepisode of Brake Fix Podcast brought
to you by Grand Touring Motorsports.
If you'd like to be a guest onthe show or get involved, be sure
to follow us on all social mediaplatforms at GrandTouringMotorsports.
And if you'd like to learn moreabout the content of this episode,
be sure to check out the followon article at GTMotorsports.

(01:38:32):
org.
We remain a commercial free and noannual fees organization through
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What Should I Buy? - Gray Market Cars!

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}What Should I Buy? - Gray Market Cars!