Are Auto Shows Dying? My Larry Chen Full-Circle

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
But we're going to wait for, butwe're going to wait for.
Fuck me. That was terrible.

(00:22):
This is hard Barking. Brought to you by Right Hunt and
Right Toyota out of Scottsdale, AZ, Arizona, Arizona.
I'm your host Jay Fanning, recording from my home studio
here in Gilbert, AZ. You know, I think for 2026 I'm
going to have to switch this up a little bit.
I shouldn't have to tell you whoI am and where I'm recording
from. My show is not that big, so
Texas beat Texas A&M. Those of you who love sports

(00:44):
understand that it's kind of a Big Brother, little brother
thing. I won't get too much into it,
but it was a big deal for Texas.Unfortunately, the season didn't
go like I wanted to go. Also, Michigan could not beat
Ohio State this time. What this really means is Q will
be back on the show very soon. I kind of want to wait until the
College Football Committee selects the playoff teams.
Michigan and Texas are not goingto be in the playoffs.

(01:06):
Unfortunately. The playoff selection is Sunday,
December 8th. Speaking of sports, today we
watched the Buffalo Bills on Discord on YouTube.
I saw the commercial, or I guessI saw the commercial on TV for
the NFL Ticket. Now just $48 for the rest of the
year. It's like, OK, good.
That's like a handful of games. It's $12.00 a weekend.

(01:27):
I guess there's only four weeks left in the NFL season and the
Buffalo Bills is our team and they were out of market.
I said, babe, we can get the games on YouTube TV.
We can get NFL Ticket now you can get NFL Ticket.
You don't have to have YouTube TV.
So we signed up for NFL Ticket on my YouTube account and the
game was blacked out. So wait a minute.

(01:50):
The Bills versus the Steelers inPittsburgh and the game is
blacked out in Phoenix. So when I was growing up,
blackout meant that your team that you were in the area of
they didn't sell enough tickets and they want to penalize the
local audience for not going to the game.
So the game is blacked out. Man, blackout is not the same in
2025 as it was in 1994. So YouTube TV is a freaking OK.

(02:14):
Why? I I guess I can't blame YouTube
TV. The NFL ticket without a YouTube
TV subscription is bullshit. Anyway, I get some thoughts
about Thanksgiving coming up after this word from Arcus
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Never saw the DM probably because he has listened to this

(02:34):
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(03:19):
So this is the Monday after Thanksgiving.
You know, I, I usually don't do a Thanksgiving episode and this
isn't technically a Thanksgivingepisode.
Sure, I can tell you that I marinated the Turkey, which is
different than brine the Turkey this year.
And I smoked it and everybody was over here and it didn't turn
out the way I wanted it to. But no one actually told me that
they didn't really like it as much as last year's Turkey,

(03:40):
except for I know because I'm the one who cooked it.
But Thanksgiving is, I think it,I think the meaning of it is
kind of changed. I'm an 80s slash 90s kid.
When I was in grade school, we said the Pledge of Allegiance
every morning before class. All the sports, you said all the
stuff, right? And you know, that's, that's

(04:01):
just changed. I don't think anyone does it
anymore. I mean, I haven't been in
elementary school in years or middle school or high school,
but things are different, for better or for worse.
One of my old peers, and this iskind of a narrative around
Thanksgiving lately, but one of my old peers have posted on on
Facebook about if you're celebrating Thanksgiving, you

(04:24):
should be ashamed or something like that, right?
Because the controversy is, you know, when you're little, when
you're coming up in school, theyused to teach that Thanksgiving
is all about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, and
Christopher Columbus landed and started everything.
And since then, we've learned that Christopher Columbus maybe
wasn't a very good guy, which ifyou really think about the

(04:45):
history of the history of civilized man, there's no
surprise, right? Everybody tries to conquer
everyone else. But they told us that when we
eventually got to the Pilgrims, the Pilgrims were suffering and
they made friends with the indigenous people, right?
The Native Americans. And the Native Americans taught

(05:07):
us how to fish, taught us how togrow corn with dead fish caught
us, how to survive. And because of that, we get
together and we have Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims,
we're celebrating with the Native Americans.
And what we find out as we get older is that's mostly bullshit.
But that doesn't mean you can't celebrate Thanksgiving.

(05:27):
Because I think for most people who are adults now, most of the
families out there, most of you listening or watching this, do
you sit down and you, maybe you say grace, maybe you eat buffet
style like we seem to do now. I don't think we've said grace
on Thanksgiving in a few years. Are you celebrating the
Pilgrims? Are you celebrating the early
days of America? And are you thankful because

(05:52):
Christopher Columbus discovered America and the Pilgrims and the
Native Americans sat down at a table and had this great feast?
Or are you celebrating family? I mean, Friendsgiving is a
thing, right? Are you celebrating family and
friends? And at the end of the day,
regardless of how Thanksgiving started, I mean, Lord, for

(06:13):
there's so many terms and there's so many things that have
a completely different meaning now than they did when they
originally produced or created produce, created.
I think you know where I'm goingwith that.
Sometimes my words are not so good.
But Thanksgiving is not about that anymore.
Maybe originally it was, but it's about being thankful for
what you have now, the people around you now.

(06:34):
You know, I was listening to Wes's episode about Thanksgiving
the other day and he was talkingabout things in his life, three
things that he's thankful for that molded who he is today.
Unfortunately, my name didn't make the list.
Thank you very much, Wes Tanker.So you're off my list.
No Christmas cards for you, no annual gift for you for
supporting this show. No, but all all things being

(06:55):
said in seriousness, it's about what you are thankful for in
your life or what got you to theplace you are now.
No one cares about the Pilgrims and the Indians anymore this
weekend during Thanksgiving, youknow, the time that we celebrate
family and friends and things we're thankful for.
And not really the Pilgrims anymore, unless you're in 4th

(07:18):
grade, if that's what they're teaching 4th graders.
I have no idea 'cause I'm not there.
But I took my car to the auto show in a sense, right?
And this is the Phoenix auto show.
Man, auto shows are so differentnow.
When I was a kid, my dad would take my brother and I to the
Dallas auto show. And it was just this, it was
this big thing that was my firstintroduction, like real

(07:40):
introduction to cars, really, honestly.
And then it's you like cars, You, you don't know really the
difference between a Porsche anda Lamborghini or a Ferrari, just
like cars. I remember getting into a Ford
Probe. It's just like 19.
This is at this point, I think Iwas in high school.
Yeah, for sure in the 90s and itwas a cool car, but you get to

(08:02):
go to the auto show and it's allthe manufacturers.
Like what does Cadillac have out?
What's Ford have out? What's Chevy have out?
What's Honda have out? There was no Acura yet.
I guess there was. It was definitely Acura.
Anyway, so we go to the car showand it was different.
It took up the whole Convention Center and, and now, at least
here in Arizona, this is actually my first time going to

(08:22):
the car show. It's small.
I was talking to Robbie Tormolin, friend of the show of
We Don't Lift Racing Southwest Speed Festival coming up at the
end of January. By the way.
I'll be there. I'll be on the mic being the
commentator, believe it or not, but he had a booth.
And so I took my car down there and I left it there and I just
picked it up today on Sunday. And I had friends that were
sending me pictures of my car there, which is cool.

(08:45):
The auto show used to be special.
And I don't know if it's a dying, one of those things
that's just kind of dying because you have the big LA Auto
Show, right in the Detroit auto show, the Frankfurt auto show.
And anybody watching or listen to this can can kind of identify
because you, I'm sure you've allgone or heard of it.
Actually, if you're in, I'm going to say Grand Rapids, which

(09:07):
is very obscure, but I know I have some listeners there and
supporters there. It's like going to the Grand
Rapids auto show, right? I mean, I'm sure you've been at
some point. I'd never, I don't think I've
ever went when I was living there for 15 years.
But it was cool to have my NSX there.
You know, I don't, I don't know what's what the future of those
are people just in the in, in the world of social media and

(09:30):
constant coverage, constant media coverage.
You can go anywhere and see the same content.
So man, I would, I would hate tobe an organizer of an event like
that. That's probably, you know, I
wouldn't be surprised if that went away.
But according to Robbie, it's actually a lot bigger now than
it was years, like a few years ago, I guess, after COVID

(09:51):
obviously destroyed everything. So we'll see what happens next
year, maybe I'll go. I mean, I went this year to pick
my car up and I was able to walkaround and I was there for an
hour and a half at the most. And I was able to see anything
and everything I wanted to because it was one of the halls
in the Phoenix Convention Center, which is they have a N
hall, South hall or whatever, east hall, whatever, multiple

(10:12):
buildings. But it was just in one part kind
of sad. Also went to Hope for the
Homeless, which I've been there before, is my third time going
to Hope for the Homeless. So what this is, it's a local
monthly car show. So they have prizes you can win
best whatever. And I went with a friend of
mine, Jim Jangles, which we're trying to get on the show,

(10:34):
hasn't been on the show yet, butI met up with him and a few
other Hondas, took the Z becausethe NSX was at the auto show and
that was a cool event. The the thing that's good about
that event is like I live in a world obviously of imports and
imports being not just Japanese cars, European cars, Italian

(10:55):
cars, the American, as we call USDM, United States domestic
market, the American cars, hot rods.
They usually go to things like Hope for the Homeless, which is
at a church in Awatuki, and Hopefor the Homeless is obviously a
charity and it's a cool event. It's cool to go and see because
you see 90% of USDM vehicles there, at least 90% and then a

(11:18):
few imports kind of sprinkled in.
But it's always a great show. The reaction to my Honda Z was
awesome. I didn't win anything, but
that's OK. I would have.
I would have kind of felt bad ifI won Best Asian.
It's one of those shows where there's 500 different
categories, but one for imports and it's Best Asian car, I think

(11:38):
a Toyota Super one, best Asian. But mine was so unique.
But I haven't washed my car. I washed my car like once in the
almost 2 years, I guess 18 months, 19 months, 20 months
that I've owned the car. And so I would have kind of felt
guilty if I won, but I didn't win.
I also attended on Saturday. I attended the warehouse event.
I talked about it last week at the last episode, and that was

(12:01):
the Kodar event where they have all the GTRS.
If you haven't for some reason, listen to or watch last week's
episode with Jake Johnson. That was kind of in the spirit
of Kodar. Unfortunately, he didn't take
any of his GTRS to that event, but that event was full of some
really, really, really awesome cars.
The premiere showing, of course,being Larry Chen's Immaculate,

(12:24):
Immaculate blue. R34.
If you don't know who Larry Chinis, that's OK.
He might, he might one day be a future guest of this podcast.
I did get some one-on-one time with him.
And then of course, Rebecca talked me up a little bit
because she's awesome and I'm going to try to help him get an
NSX, a right hand drive. He's a big right hand drive guy.

(12:46):
But for those of you, I'll give you a quick overview of Larry
Chin. Larry Chin is, I think one of
the few automotive photographersof the current era that has
truly made it. And what I mean by that is he
got really popular with his really unique angles of race
cars. And he's known for having like

(13:07):
this big hat, like this big hat.And now he's, I mean, he's he's
grown his YouTube channel significantly.
He travels around the world and interviews people.
He actually interviewed the great Peter Cunningham that
we've talked about on this podcast multiple times.
Years ago when I was covering Peter at Pikes Peak, I went to

(13:28):
Pikes Peak two years in a row with with Peter Cunningham.
2017, 2018, So 2017, I went out there with a good friend of
mine, Jake Cole, who's been on this podcast before, briefly at
the John Vossos episode. That was a that was a totally
awesome experience. But I was there to do media for
Peter and I wrote the articles for the club magazine and
everything. But so I spent all weekend with

(13:48):
them are all week with them in preparation for the big event.
The big event is you go up the mountain once and you you
practice for weeks in advance before you get your one shot to
go up the mountain. It's a time trial.
Essentially. Those of you don't know what
time trial is. It is basically timing you from
point A to point B. That is a time trial.
And so you're competing with a ton of different other vehicles

(14:10):
in your class also overall. But anyway, Long story short,
I'm filming Peter with my iPhoneas I get this back view of his
race car his his TLXGT. This is Cunningham right across
the back bumper and I'm filming him as he's getting ready to
take off and as the the light goes green for him to launch, a

(14:32):
guy stands up in front of me andblocks my phone.
This skinny dude with this big hat.
I go, ah, Larry Chin just blocked my video and I, I'll
never forget he kind of turned around.
I was like, Oh my God, I'm so sorry 'cause he's a really nice
guy. And anyway, so this weekend I
was kind of chit chatting with him, got a photo op with him.

(14:54):
I told him that full circle moment.
I said, hey, in 2017 this happened and you went to
Wisconsin and interviewed Peter at the real time collection
hall, which obviously he remembers that.
And I sent the photo to Peter also and he said hi Larry, but
this is a full circle moment. Here we are standing here.
So I had asked to get my contactinfo from Rebecca.

(15:17):
I end up leaving the event earlyto come home and spend some time
with family. But that Kodar event was
awesome. So if you were here in the
Arizona area or Phoenix area, actually Arizona's big.
If you're in the Phoenix area and you got an opportunity to
see that, good for you. If you didn't, not good for you.
I am working on planning an event with Rebecca on December

(15:38):
13th and I think we're going to get the ball rolling.
Right now. It's an NSX event, so we have it
in stone on our calendars, but we haven't sent out any
communication on it, but that's coming up.
Finally, what's also coming up is this Friday, December 5th,
just before Fuel Fest on December 6th.
You know, I've talked about FuelFest before and that is usually

(15:59):
Tyrese Gibson and obviously CodyWalker and they put it on and
this is their fourth, maybe fifth time in Arizona.
But I'm not going to be able to attend because Supernova, my
oldest of my grandchildren, the girls, because Zeke is the
oldest. She'll turn 3 on December 5th.
Obviously that means a party on December 6th.

(16:21):
Hopefully that means a party on December 6th, but that obviously
takes priority. So on December 5th at Strad
Pizza, we're going to do the right Honda Wright Toyota toy
Drive. No, LG reached out to me.
You know, Hector, obviously he and his assistant Gina reached
out to me this weekend. It's like, hey, can we do
something? We don't really want to do it at
the dealership because we don't really get as much people up

(16:43):
there on such late notice on a Friday, but we'll do whatever
Jane would like us to do becauseeverybody loves Jane, which is
true. So then they decided they want
to do on Sunday, they go, hey, maybe we should do it on Sunday
after Fuel Fest because it'll beduring the day and maybe if you
know anybody then we can maybe set up shop somewhere.
It'll be myself, which I'm talking in in tents of Noel G,

(17:07):
Hector, Steve Viegas and Cesar Garcia and a couple other people
aren't going to be there. So I reached out to a good
friend or colleague. I guess he's a good friend.
I've only talked to him a few times.
I've talked. I've talked to him about him
before on the podcast, Freddie Wynn and asked if we can use
Strad Pizza. So Strat Pizza is interesting
because they had that big huge event and it got, it went viral

(17:30):
and there were people standing on buildings and, and they kind
of got in trouble with with Scottsdale.
So they will very selectively allow people to do events at
their site, but they don't want to be a Co.
They give you the ability to do an event there if you're if
you're careful, but they're not going to promote it on social
media or anything, which is fineright.

(17:50):
Long story short, we end up switching it to Friday.
So Friday from 6:00 to 9:00, it's going to be the right
Honda, right Toyota toy drive atStrad pizza and it'll be a meet
and greet. So you'll get an you'll get an
awesome chance to meet Hector. Yes, the three spoon civics,
Hector Steve Viegas of my block and swat the TV show and Cesar

(18:11):
Garcia, which is he's I think he's been in fast and furious.
He's in a bunch of movies. He always plays like kind of
this really tough, mean Mexican gangster.
But these guys are so freaking nice.
So that's what's coming up this weekend.
So I'll probably be talking about that next week's podcast
episode. You know, I don't as this as
this year winds down, I'm tryingto forecast what I'm going to do

(18:34):
for December. I will probably leave you with
some best of episodes at the endof the year.
I need to reorganize my office. I need to organize my garage and
just kind of strategize what 2026 is going to look like.
So that's all I have to say about that.
Well, another month, another closing.

(18:54):
If you like what you heard todayor like what you watched today,
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(19:14):
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(19:34):
There's a buy me a coffee optionthere if you want to support the
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Questions, comments and concerns?
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(19:55):
watching on YouTube and I will see you guys next week.
Now it's stripping time. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Shut up.

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