This week on Ron Ananian The Car Doctor, Ron opens with a story about the “Price of Bagels” — and what a $126 breakfast says about the cost of living, value, and perspective. Then he takes calls from listeners coast-to-coast: Lee from Maine wonders if her rusted 2006 Toyota Camry is worth saving or if it’s time for a newer ride, and Carl from Wisconsin learns how to manage a weak battery and missing voltmeter on his 2024 Nissan Pathfinder.
In the second half of the show, Ron sits down with automotive journalist Matt DeLorenzo, author of Mercedes-AMG, to explore the hidden hot-rod heritage behind Mercedes-Benz — from the birth of AMG to the legendary “Flying Pig” race car and today’s hand-built performance machines.
It’s part car talk, part life lesson — all with that trademark Car Doctor mix of humor, heart, and horsepower.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to Ron and Nanian The Car Doctor, nationally
recognized auto expert trusted by Mechanics, weekend wrenchers and vehicle
owners alike. Ron brings over forty years of hands on
experience and deep industry insight to help you understand your vehicle.
Join the Conversation live every Saturday from two to four
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zero nine nine zero zero. That's eight five to five
(00:25):
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Ron's latest insights, and be sure to subscribe to the
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and more. Now start your engines. The Car Doctor is
(00:46):
in the garage and ready to take your call.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
You know we were. I was thinking about that bagel
recall conversation thing that I was spoken about last week
and the week before in the Price of Bagels, and
you know, by the way, for the record today to
day's bagel run, because there's a there's a seminar going
on that I was trying to help get started and
they purchased a half a dozen bagels, a half a
dozen muffins, two cups of Joe, you know, not Joe
(01:11):
the big things of coffee where it holds ten cups
of coffee, two ten cup containers of coffee, a quart
of milk, a lunch for one of the guys in
a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich. And they spent one
hundred and twenty six dollars. And you just weird, is it?
You know how, it's just it's it's mind boggling. But
I started thinking about what Danny and I spend every
(01:31):
week in the shop, and then I'll get going. I
promise what we spend every you know, every day Danny
and I have we have breakfast, you know, at ten o'clock.
And then we got to the local bagel guy. You know,
I don't know, ten twelve bucks. I started adding it up.
If we spend twelve dollars a day, some days it's more,
some days it's Listen, we spend twelve dollars a day
times five days, times fifty two weeks. We spend thirty
two hundred dollars a year just on a quick breakfast sandwich.
(01:54):
And you know what's everybody else spending because I see
the same people at the bagel store every day, but
nobody complains about the price of bagels. Nothing against bagels,
but let's keep it equal, right, that's my whole point.
Let's let's keep an equal footing. Anyway. Yes, this is
the Car Doctor, not the Bagel hotline. Eight five five
five six nine nine zero zero coming up down around
the bottom of the hour. Matt de Lorenzo. Matt wrote
(02:16):
this really cool book about Mercedes Benz Mercedes Benz AMG,
and he's going to explain what AMG stands for. And
I'm not going to really try to because I'll butcher it.
But it's all about the Mercedes Benz hot Rod Division
and how Mercedes Benz decided to go racing so many
years ago and what it's become today. So it's a
really great conversation. You're going to enjoy it. But right now,
(02:36):
let's go talk to Lee up in Maine and see
what's going on with her in a row six Camri. Lee,
Welcome to the Car Doctor. How can I help?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Well, good talking to you. I have my two thousand
and six Camri and as is just my mechanic told
me that it was all rusted, and I think he's
being cautious to work on it right, afraid that something
else might go wrong. And I have a small leak.
(03:05):
He said it was quite small because he's had a
hard time finding it. But he starts digging and apparently
the fluid is also flushing back to going back to
other parts of the car. Okay, and where it's all rusted.
My question to you is that I've been looking for
a car, and I'm maybe two years old, so God
(03:27):
only knows how long I'll be driving. I'm still Yeah,
my reflexes are pretty good, but I have I was
looking at a.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
What is it.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Twelve thirteen for a Ford fusion?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, yeahs huge.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Focus, a focus.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Some recalls right, right, transition.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
A fusion, a fusion or a focus le effusion effusion okay, yes, And.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
At twenty fourteen has thirty five one thousand miles right,
and he wants nine thousand and he said it was
his mother's and then his mother died and now the
dad was driving it, so it looks clean and what
have you. He has covered the bottom with what was
(04:17):
it roch diesel oil? I never heard of that. And
another thing too, is I'm kind of leary. I mean,
it's very reasonable. The price is very reasonable. It was
thirty five thousand miles. But it's I'm maybe two years
old and that you know, I'm not working anymore, right,
(04:39):
and so I would like here your opinion.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
So you don't need the surprise, right, you don't need
the what if because you have to you have to
play what if with this carly All right, let's say
you get it for nine grand and it's a great car,
and it's wonderful and it's everything he claims it is,
and you know he doesn't know of any defects and
it doesn't have any and then six months goes by
and the transmission fails?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
And it's five grand to put a trans in that car? Right? Well,
maybe it's maybe it's maybe it's three. Now it's probably
four grand to put a trans in that car in Maine.
In New Jersey, it's probably six. But regardless, okay, you
know it's it's bigger than a bread box. As I
like to say, would you put the four or five
grand into it?
Speaker 3 (05:23):
A pardon me?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Would you put the four or five grand into it?
If it needed a trans?
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Gosh, probably not.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So it's time.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
It's year.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
They're gonna give me a license in two three years?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Well, right, so so let's attack this from a different angle,
all right, and you know, you tell me where I'm wrong.
So trying to stay within some kind of a budget,
all right, if I were, if we were standing at
the counter, my advice and my question to you would be,
you know, can you get by? Could you afford two
hundred dollars a month or three hundred dollars a month
(05:57):
as a car payment?
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I probably could, but I hate to do it again
at my age.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Right. Well, there's no free lunch, kiddo, and I don't have
to tell you that. You know that, right, But if
you could find a cheap lease and lease for three years, okay, right?
If you you know, I'm starting to see some cheap
leases out there. Kia comes to mind. I saw one
on TV the other day, a Kia something for one
(06:24):
ninety nine a month. I didn't see what the downstroke was,
but you know, two hundred dollars a month, new car,
no worries, no aggravation. You know, maybe you'll drive until
you're eighty five. I mean, unless you think you're going
to drive till you're ninety.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Well i'd like to.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Right, you know, well, yeah, listen, I get it. You know,
I'm hiding keys now so my kids can't take my
cars away from me. But that's another story, you know,
it's it's you know, do we do we look at
this from a lease perspective or the other way around?
It is okay, without going into a lot of detail.
Is there a family member that you know, maybe when
he stops driving, they'll want to take over the car,
(07:03):
so we we we purchase something newer, better, a granddaughter,
a grandson, somebody that's gonna need a first car. And
then you know, with the with the thought process that
this now, this now goes to you know, Johnny or Jill,
so to speak. So it's not it's not wasted. And
you know, maybe we look at that down the road
and then you know what if you do that and
(07:23):
then grandma needs to get driven somewhere. Hey, you know
that car I get, I need to be picked up
at two o'clock next Thursday. I have to go to
the I have to go to the doctors, or I
have to go to the women's convention or whatever it is.
You know that always plays a good hand too, you know,
you gram everybody thinks nice of Grandma then, but just options, right,
I would I would rather see you buy a better
(07:44):
car with the probability of less surprise, because you need
stability as much as you need a vehicle, right, And
if if you got hit with the five thousand dollars
ups or the three thousand dollars ups, ugh, you know,
and and and at eighty two, I'm gonna use your
(08:05):
number for age. At eighty two, you don't need the
you know you're out, You're out six o'clock at night,
and and that's late. I get it. You know, I'm
catching up to you, Leon, I'm not far behind. And
you know it's it's you don't need to be out
late at night, and all of a sudden there's a
surprise and you gotta wait for the tow truck and
the dead battery and the whatever, and you know, main
winters and you know, yeah, it's it's you know, we
(08:29):
want safety. Yeah, So I mean, that's that's kind of
how I look at it. The price of what we
pay for something now or how can I say this?
The the inexpensive price of what we pay for something now?
Can come back to haunt us later on. I'd rather
pay more now and not have the aggravation.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, you're right. My daughter man said the
same thing, right, so so, and there's no miracle that
I could do with the rust.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Hang if it's if it's that bad, if it's ss
rostolium and you need a tetanus shot looking at it,
I think it's over. You know, there is no there
there is no cure. Well, there is a cure for rust.
It's called the scrap yard, all right, and it's you know,
it's it's I mean, the honest answer is because Maine's
a very good state in the sense that in Maine,
I believe the car has to you know, have it
(09:19):
can't be rusted to the point of being unsafe. Would
it pass Maine state inspections? Right? Well, then this conversation,
it was fun talking to you. But the rest of
the conversation, it doesn't matter what we think. It's you know,
coding it with whatever, because I know how main works.
You know, we have a regular listener, Steve, who runs
(09:40):
the Bracket family markets up there, and he tells me
the story about the bath Bridge and Maine that you
know rotted away and I you know, the whole nine yards,
and you know, I hear about these things all the time,
so means a great state. But boy, you guys sure
get a lot of snow and you put a lot
of that chemical on the ground, so it just beats
up your car something fierce.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
So all right, kiddo, Okay, Well, thanks for your insuet.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
You're very welcome.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Thank you very much, and you have wonderful holidays, and
stay well.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Thank you you too, dear be well eight five five
five six nine nine zero zero. Run any of the
car doctor coming back right after this. Hey, let's get
over and talk to Carl in Wisconsin and see what's
going on here. Carl, Welcome to the Car Doctor, sir.
How can I help?
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah, it's good afternoon, yes, sir. So in spring, back
in April, I bought a used twenty twenty four Nissan
Pathfinder and we drove it around a little bit. I
have another car that actually a two thousand and one
Buckless Saver that still runs great. But anyway, so I
let the car sit, the Nissan Pathfinder let us sit.
(10:46):
During the summer, we were camping and stuff, and then
the battery died and so I came to realize there's
no volt meter on this Nissan Pathfinder. I have no
way of monitoring, you know, if the alternator is working
or or anything. It's and I asked the dealer about it,
the sales guy. He said, no, no volt meter. I thought,
(11:08):
so is this standard on It's a modern vehicle.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
It's becoming Yes, isn't it silly? It really is. It's
I want to see numbers. I'm like you, I want
to see gauges. I want to see you know, there's
a reason they call the idiot lights. When the when
the component fails, it's to me, it's useless because at
that point I I don't see the fault before it happens.
It's just it's Yes to Renault. Easy, easy solution for this, Carl,
(11:36):
Jump on Amazon. Do you have a cigarette lighter in
the vehicle? Yes, jump on Amazon. Get a charging port.
You know they make they make a uh it's it's
a I call it a chotchkey, which is like a gizmo.
It's just a charge port adapter you'll plug into the
cigarette lighter. It'll have USB C or USB A on it.
(11:57):
But they also make them with the charge port for
your cable for your your phone or your your device
whatever you're going to charge. And they also make them
with both of those, and you know, a vault meter
built in, so it'll say, you know, twelve and a
half volts, thirteen volts and so on of the vehicle's running,
so that becomes the gauge. And they're very hard and
it's you know, less than twenty bucks if you spend
twenty bucks you bought the super Deluxe model, all right,
(12:19):
you know, quick, easy solution. It's it's not it's not great.
I agree we should have it built into the dish,
but it's the cheapest, quickest workaround because they're not going
to fix that. And I think you're going to see
more and more car manufacturers going to that. I've seen
Honda do that and I've seen Toyota do that as well,
just on some of the simpler models. So it's it's
(12:40):
not uncommon, not uncommon, sir.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
So, So related to that, should I be concerned about
disconnecting the battery because the battery that it came with
is losing power rather quickly. I mean within a day,
it'll go from twelve point one bowls down to eleven
point nine the next day it's eleven points it and
so I'm going to change out the battery. Do I
have to put in a what.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Well, let's talk about that now. Are you charging the
battery or are you counting on the vehicle driving?
Speaker 4 (13:12):
I'm just driving it around?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Okay, probably not enough. So you know what I would do,
is I have I think it's I think it's the optimum.
I'm going to embarrass myself. Is the DS four hundred
their latest battery maintainer. Really cool little tool, right, a
couple of bucks. But you know what, we like our toys, right,
(13:34):
That's who we are. And you know, for the vehicles
I have sitting, and you know, it will show it
will show current voltage, it will show state of charge.
I can set it a number of different ways. It
does a great job of charging the battery and maintaining
the battery when I'm not using that particular vehicle. And
you may find that's the way you want to go,
because just driving it isn't enough, especially on a vehicle
(13:58):
that sits, because you need a good charge it like
the optima that's going to desulfate and clean up the
battery electrically, and you know that may rejuvenate it because
at twenty four is just what a year and a half,
two years old? How old is the vehicle?
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Yeah, it's it's it's a little overo. I think it
was manufactured in like August of twenty four, right.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
So that's kind of soon to be getting a battery. Yeah,
you know, but I mean, if if you have to,
if you have to know, disconnecting it, you should be okay,
you know, you should be.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
There's some automatiles they say, do not disconnect the battery.
It's nothing but trouble.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Well, because they're worried about adaptives, they're worried about driving habits.
They're worried about, you know, how smart are you you know,
or how smart is the car? And is it going
to understand that?
Speaker 4 (14:52):
You know?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
But you can get out to and it shouldn't be. Listen,
you get a dead battery, all right? Think of it
like this. Think of how many cars in America right
now might have a dead battery? Right, got to be
a few, pretty big right, pretty big country? All right.
Do you think it would be enough if every time
somebody had a dead battery or disconnected a battery, the
(15:14):
car didn't run, didn't run properly caused the problems that
couldn't be solved by just driving it. Don't you think
it would have made the national news. We might actually
have something, we might actually have something interesting in the
news for once, right, So so you know, yeah, you know,
if you have to disconnect the battery and you don't
have a memory saver, then just be aware when you
(15:35):
go to reconnect and just drive the car normal. Just
put it through its pace as a trip around the block.
Warm it up, turn on the air conditioning, turn on
the high beams, put a little bit of electrical load
on it, right, and just go through its paces, and
within a very short distance you'll find that that vehicle
learns its learns its, you know, its adaptives, and it
(15:56):
will you know, may take a little while, depending upon
the vehicle, but it will in time do what it's
supposed to do. But in the meantime, if you do
want to get a charger, go out to Optima Batteries
dot com and you can read all about I believe
it's their four hundred model that will that's their latest
and that will do what it's supposed to do for you.
And that's a great little charger. Very handy to have around,
all right, sir.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
All right, all right, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
You're very welcome, very welcome. Yeah, common stuff, right, common
sense about batteries, and that's that's really what it's all about.
Coming up next, Matt de Lorenzo. I had a great
conversation with Matt. We carried on and you know, in
the pre interview before the show talking about Mercedes Benz,
(16:38):
I didn't realize how big a deal Mercedes Benz is
as far as racers are concerned. You know, you look
at Mercedes, I think of Mercedes. Well, I'm sort of tainted.
I remember somebody telling me once that Mercedes Benz in
Germany is like a Chevy in pala here right back
when we made in Palace. You know, that's that's how
long ago I had this conversation. But you know, you
(17:00):
think about Chevy and Palace racing. No, that never really happened.
But you think about Mercedes Benz, you know, in the
F one Formula series in you know, Mercedes factory support
in what they do. You know, it's it's it's kind
of an interesting story. And Matt wrote this really great
color pictures the whole thing hardcover. If we're getting ready
(17:21):
for the holidays. We need a book to buy for
our favorite, you know, car enthusiast, Mercedes AMG. It's going
to be available in November. It's available now, I think think,
I think we'll talk about that in the interview. I'll
have to make sure I mentioned that to him. But
just some good stuff, and most importantly, I will get
him to explain what Mercedes AMG stands for, because I've
(17:43):
always wondered about that every time I pull up behind
wanted to stop light. What the heck does AMG mean.
Matt's going to be here to tell us all about
it right after this. I'm ronnin Andy and the car Doctor.
We'll be back. Don't go anywhere. There's a lot of
things I've talked to you about over the years, and
a lot of interviews, and we've talked about a lot
of cars, and we've talked about a lot of books.
(18:04):
And I recently came across Mercedes a MG and I thought,
you know, there's something we've never talked about, you and
I and we need to discuss it and understand just
what is it. You know, I think of Mercedes bens.
A lot of people think of Mercedes Benz and it's
it's well, tell you what, let me, let me bring
our guests on and and get started here. Matt de Lorenzo,
(18:24):
he's written a book, Mercedes AMG. It's available now on Amazon,
and we're happy to have him with us here. Welcome
to the Car Doctor, Matt.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
Thanks Ron, I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
So, you know, Mercedes AMG, where do you want to?
Where do we start?
Speaker 4 (18:37):
Right?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Let's you know, I think of Mercedes. Okay, if I'm
the average consumer and I'm going, well, it's a status symbol.
I drive a Mercedes. It's a nice, fancy, luxurious car.
But but there's a hot rod side to Mercedes Benz, Right.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
Yeah, and that's the that's the AMG brand. And you
know that perception that you talked about people considering it
just a luxury car, that's what AMG led to the
genesis of AMG to begin with. Back in the late
nineteen sixties, there were two engineers, Hans Werner off Wrecked
(19:12):
and Erhard Melcher, and they were young engineers. They worked
within Mercedes. They wanted to go racing. They developed some
racing engines and built a race car and campaigned it
for a year while they were still employed, and they
were told either you win or you're going to lose
your job. They won, they kept their job, but Mercedes
(19:32):
stopped racing and at the time people were thinking, well,
there was nothing wrong with you know, Mercedes the ultimate
luxury car performances and part of the thing. They went
off and started their own company, AMG and they started
building hot rod Mercedes for racers and they were very successful.
(19:53):
And so that AMG is off wrecked Melker and then
the gas Grossodspotch, which is the small German town where
Afrech was from.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, so you know, is it that I would go
into it? Not to make this about how to get one?
But is it that I would go into a Mercedes
dealer and I want to buy an AMG or they
already have them. Now their relationship with Mercedes is so
that the dealers just stock.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
These vehicles, so to speak, right right, Well, what happened was,
at first Mercedes wanted nothing to do with these so
called garage tinkerers, and they kept a fairly arm's length
relationship with them up and through the nineteen eighties, and
then they introduced this car called the Hammer that got
(20:42):
everybody's attention. It was putting a big V eight in
a midsize Mercedes. And then they started helping Mercedes with
their German touring car racing and they were very successful there,
and then all of a sudden, Mercedes goes, well, why
don't we let them sell our cars through our dealers,
(21:02):
And that happened in nineteen ninety and then about nine
years later they bought half the company, and then six
years later, in two thousand and five, they bought the
rest of the company and they turned it into the
Mercedes AMG division, which is the performance division of Mercedes.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
The late don Imis, the radio host, was once interviewing
and I'm quoting from the introduction in the book by
Sam Posey, and the book is phenomenal, by the way,
I can't tell you enough the color pictures, in the detail,
and the way, you know, you feel like you're at
the racetrack driving in some of these cars.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
The late don Imis was talking to Bo Didle, the
former New York City detective, and they were talking about
a Mercedes in which one to buy, and don Imus said,
buy a Mercedes S sixty five AMG. And his reasoning was,
that's just the most expensive one. But that's not necessarily
the only reason. Right, Mercedes's AMG is a real performance
(22:02):
car then as now.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
Right right, And I think that that's that's you know,
the perception of Mercedes being a luxury brand was around
and that you had to have the most expensive one.
They have the best one and Amgs since they were
you know, they have handbuilt engines, that their engines are
(22:24):
built by one technician and then they're exclusive to the
AMG car. So that's why they were sold at a
premium to other Mercedes. But as you say, there's a
lot more to it. I mean that the suspensions are different, Uh,
the engine tuning is different, they have different interiors in
(22:49):
different styling, and they are actually now bespoke a MG
models like the AMG G T, which is a sports
car that actually competes with the portioninal eleven.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
And in your book when you when you wrote this, Matt,
and for those of you just tuning in, we're talking
to Matt de Lorenzo. He's written a book Mercedes AMG,
and we're discussing it at length here on the Car Doctor.
You know, Matt, when you wrote the book, how do
I attack this question is Mercedes your car? I mean,
is this is this your passion? You know, what do
you what do you normally write about? Did you just
(23:21):
wake up one day and say I'm gonna write about
you know?
Speaker 5 (23:25):
I've been I've been writing about cars since the late seventies,
actually so, and I've written other a couple of other books.
I did one hundred and one hundred year anniversary of Dodge.
I did a book on corvettes. I did a Mustang book.
So I've been writing again, sort of across the the industry.
(23:46):
I do like performance cars, and about a year and
a half ago I was talking to my publisher and
I said, you know, I'd like to do something different,
and he said, we want to do an AMG book.
They had done a book on BMW, which is somewhat
analogous to AMG. You know, it's a performance motorsports division
(24:08):
of BMW, and the publisher found that nobody has really
done a comprehensive history of AMG. So I looked at
that as a great opportunity. And I knew I knew
quite a bit about AMG, especially since AMG had bought
(24:28):
or Mercedes had bought AMG. And I actually traveled to
Germany when I was at Road and Track and saw
some of the early development on the SLS gull Wing,
which was the first pure AMG products, so I was
familiar with that, I wasn't familiar with the history, and
when I went down the internet research rabbit hole, I
(24:48):
was absolutely fascinated by Offreck and Melker and what they
were able to accomplish.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
You know, chapter six, the title from road back to Track,
the chapter seems to cover that we're taking everyday cars
and we're taking them to the racetrack.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
Right, And you know, that's kind of a recurring theme
with AMG because in the beginning they made race cars,
and the racers would come to them and said, well,
we want to we want to have you work on
our road cars. So they started doing road cars. Well.
During the seventies, with the energy crises and all that
(25:27):
other stuff, motorsports kind of went into a little bit
of decline and AMG concentrated more on road cars. They
were doing body kits and wheels and engine upgrades and
primarily for road cars for the public. The eighties thing
shifted back towards competition and that's when they got involved
(25:52):
with the German touring car series, which was wildly popular.
Over one hundred and fifty million people around the world
would watch these races, and AMG took the baby Benz
the one ninety Mercedes and won the championship. Was very
successful in there, and and that caught a lot of
people's attention to that. You know, AMG is Mercedes are
(26:17):
very closely alive with Mercedes.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Or vice versa. You know, yes, what we're what we're
really saying here in a sense is AMG is a
factory hot rod. It's a factory race car. You can
go out and buy something exactly, drive it to the track,
race it around the track, and then drive it home exactly.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
They have a lot of track specials and they still
compete heavily in sports car racing. So the AMGGT has
competed very well. It's one. It's class at Lamart, it's
one at Daytona twenty four. It's really the two are
are interrelated. The performance aspect on the road and still
(27:00):
their ability to do really well in motorsports. And incidentally,
one of the guys who's helping Mercedes with that is
Hans Werner Offrecked and after he had sold the company
to Mercedes, he formed his own company called HWA. His
initials Hans Werner Offreck and he actually builds a lot
(27:20):
of the privateer GT racing cars for Mercedes. And his
shop is located right where AMG was kind of grew
up in Walterbach, which is north of Mercedes headquarters in
Shuttgard Well.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
A grassroots effort and look what it became. Hey, Matt, Yeah, ladies,
let's take a pause. I'll tell you what. Stay right
where you are, let me come back. I want to
talk about the flying pig. Don't say anything else, Okay,
I want to give it away to the listeners and
I want to get that out there. And I'm runnin
any and the Car Doctor. We're here today with Matt
de Lorenzo and we'll both be back right after this.
Don't go away? Do pigs really fly? Hey, Ronanini and
(28:02):
the Car Doctor. I'm here with Matt di Lorenzo. He's
the author of Mercedes AMG, a brand new book. It's
available out there on Amazon. It comes to us from
Quarto Publishing. And we're just sitting here chatting about Mercedes
and AMG and the performance side of it in the book.
And great book. I can't say enough good things about it, nice,
big color pictures, a lot of history on Mercedes. First chapter, Matt,
(28:24):
this pig can fly? What are we talking about? Flying
pigs in a carbook? What are we talking about there?
Speaker 5 (28:32):
Yeah, we're talking about Hey, how AMG really got on
the map in the first place. Alfreka Melcher had left
the company and they were tuning race cars and they
were doing some road cars for people. Mercedes had put
a V eight engine in their S class. It had
originally been used only in the big six hundred Limos,
(28:53):
and they wanted there was some engineers inside the company
wanted to take it racing, and they tried to take
it racing, and management kind of put the kebash on it.
They tried to run at Spa in nineteen sixty nine
in a twenty four hour race. So AMG took up
the challenge and they bought a wrecked sel with the
(29:17):
six point two leader V eight in it, punched it
out to six point eight leaders, painted it red and
took it to Spawn nineteen seventy one. Well, you had
this big luxury car roaring around the track with a
vight engine, open pipes, and people said that looks like
(29:38):
a big red Pig. But the crowd loved it. And
actually they finished second overall of Ford Capri one. But
the Red Pig came in second overall and first in class.
And they actually they were raising a couple of other
VA cars. There was a Camaro that had sat on
(29:59):
the pole and a Mustang in the race, and uh,
and the Red Pig beat them both and almost won
the race overall. So a big sensation.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Suffice it to say, you pull up to a traffic
light and there's a Mercedes in front of you, and
it says a MG on the back. That's just not
fancy interior and bitter carpeting.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
No, it's a it's a faster car. And and that
was the thing about those the big luxury cars. And
again the hammer that they did later, they were sort
of they were luxury cars, but they had these hot
rod engines in them that would shut down nine to
elevens and and BMW's, so they they really, uh, they
(30:40):
really brought it when it came to performance.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
The name of the book is Mercedes AMG Matt Inside
one of the chapters, is it a MG one story?
In our in our final two minutes, they talk about
you talk about they made an F one engine into
a into in Mercedes and it was a handbuilt prototype
car some kind of Yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:58):
They they did a hyper car for the streets and
they actually adapted the same Formula one engine that's used
by the racing team. Now the racing team has actually
run out of England and has minimal it's more of
a badging thing between AMG F one and AMG road cars.
But they did develop this car together and they made
(31:21):
a street car that uses current F one technology. Very
difficult to do because it's a hybrid. You know, it
has a battery that the kinetic energy recovery system, the
curve system and it's like a it's a two million
dollar car. It's really amazing. But you talk to the
engineers and they're like, yeah, we'll never be able to
(31:44):
do this again because of the emissions. They had noise
regulations emissions. Even just starting the car, it takes ten
guys to start an F one car. This car you
go in and you push a button, it starts, and
I took a lot of engineering.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Took a lot of technology, I'm sure. So yep, Hey Matt,
and your closing thoughts, where can the listeners go get
this twenty seconds or less. What should they look for
in the book? What are they going to get out
of it?
Speaker 5 (32:10):
I think they're going to get a great background history
and where AMG came from and kind of where it's
headed with their next round of products. And you can
find it on Amazon.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Cool beans. Matt de Lorenzo, We appreciate you taking the
time and spending it with us here on The Car Doctor.
We'll have you on again real soon and you be well, all.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
Right, Thanks so much, Ron, it was great being here.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
You're very welcome. I'm running aeny and the Car Doctor.
We're back right after this. Boy, what a fun time,
right driving a factory hot rod or Mercedes that can
do all the things that Matt was talking about. It's
good stuff, good stuff. And I can't say enough about
the book. If you're looking for a holiday gift for
the car person in your life, just you know, you
(32:52):
look at it and you go, but you know what
it's got some the color quality of the pictures and
just the whole story of Mercedes. And it's an interesting story, right.
Not everything has to be a black fifty five Chevry
or a yellow Douce Coop, well almost not everything, but
you get the point. So, and kudos to Research Kathy
who reached out to me during the break and she
(33:13):
was able to order the T shirt for me for Nate.
So at least I know that the T shirt Nate
is going to the right address out there in Oregon.
So we thank Kathy for that. She's on top of
her game as always. And she had a comment about Lee.
She said, you know, you wonder if she can lease
a car at eighty two? Would they allow her to
(33:35):
do that. I don't know the answer to that. If
anybody has the answer to that, is there an age
limit unleasing a car? I'd like to know. Is that
is that you know? Are they are they limited by that?
I just I just assumed that I never really thought
about it. But that's why we have Research Kathy. She's
handy like that. She does a lot of the odd
jobs around here and we'd be lost without her. So,
(33:56):
but just just things to think about. What do I
want you to think about a couple things. I want
you to think about improving your relationship with your mechanic
in the weeks to come. I think I want you
to also just be aware of cold weather's coming winter
months taking better care of the car. And if I
can ask you, if you're in the position on our
(34:17):
YouTube channel, on our Facebook page, to like this radio
show in any way, shape or form it helps us
so we can be around to help you. Till the
next time I'm running Andy in the car, Doctor good
mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless. See you
You're listening to Ron and Nanian The Car Doctor, nationally
recognized auto expert trusted by Mechanics, weekend wrenchers and vehicle
owners alike. Ron brings over forty years of hands on
experience and deep industry insight to help you understand your vehicle.
Join the Conversation live every Saturday from two to four
pm Eastern by calling eight five to five five six
zero nine nine zero zero. That's eight five to five
(00:25):
five six zero ninety nine hundred. You are direct line
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and more. Now start your engines. The Car Doctor is
(00:46):
in the garage and ready to take your call.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
You know we were. I was thinking about that bagel
recall conversation thing that I was spoken about last week
and the week before in the Price of Bagels, and
you know, by the way, for the record today to
day's bagel run, because there's a there's a seminar going
on that I was trying to help get started and
they purchased a half a dozen bagels, a half a
dozen muffins, two cups of Joe, you know, not Joe
(01:11):
the big things of coffee where it holds ten cups
of coffee, two ten cup containers of coffee, a quart
of milk, a lunch for one of the guys in
a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich. And they spent one
hundred and twenty six dollars. And you just weird, is it?
You know how, it's just it's it's mind boggling. But
I started thinking about what Danny and I spend every
(01:31):
week in the shop, and then I'll get going. I
promise what we spend every you know, every day Danny
and I have we have breakfast, you know, at ten o'clock.
And then we got to the local bagel guy. You know,
I don't know, ten twelve bucks. I started adding it up.
If we spend twelve dollars a day, some days it's more,
some days it's Listen, we spend twelve dollars a day
times five days, times fifty two weeks. We spend thirty
two hundred dollars a year just on a quick breakfast sandwich.
(01:54):
And you know what's everybody else spending because I see
the same people at the bagel store every day, but
nobody complains about the price of bagels. Nothing against bagels,
but let's keep it equal, right, that's my whole point.
Let's let's keep an equal footing. Anyway. Yes, this is
the Car Doctor, not the Bagel hotline. Eight five five
five six nine nine zero zero coming up down around
the bottom of the hour. Matt de Lorenzo. Matt wrote
(02:16):
this really cool book about Mercedes Benz Mercedes Benz AMG,
and he's going to explain what AMG stands for. And
I'm not going to really try to because I'll butcher it.
But it's all about the Mercedes Benz hot Rod Division
and how Mercedes Benz decided to go racing so many
years ago and what it's become today. So it's a
really great conversation. You're going to enjoy it. But right now,
(02:36):
let's go talk to Lee up in Maine and see
what's going on with her in a row six Camri. Lee,
Welcome to the Car Doctor. How can I help?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Well, good talking to you. I have my two thousand
and six Camri and as is just my mechanic told
me that it was all rusted, and I think he's
being cautious to work on it right, afraid that something
else might go wrong. And I have a small leak.
(03:05):
He said it was quite small because he's had a
hard time finding it. But he starts digging and apparently
the fluid is also flushing back to going back to
other parts of the car. Okay, and where it's all rusted.
My question to you is that I've been looking for
a car, and I'm maybe two years old, so God
(03:27):
only knows how long I'll be driving. I'm still Yeah,
my reflexes are pretty good, but I have I was
looking at a.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
What is it.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Twelve thirteen for a Ford fusion?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, yeahs huge.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Focus, a focus.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Some recalls right, right, transition.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
A fusion, a fusion or a focus le effusion effusion okay, yes, And.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
At twenty fourteen has thirty five one thousand miles right,
and he wants nine thousand and he said it was
his mother's and then his mother died and now the
dad was driving it, so it looks clean and what
have you. He has covered the bottom with what was
(04:17):
it roch diesel oil? I never heard of that. And
another thing too, is I'm kind of leary. I mean,
it's very reasonable. The price is very reasonable. It was
thirty five thousand miles. But it's I'm maybe two years
old and that you know, I'm not working anymore, right,
(04:39):
and so I would like here your opinion.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
So you don't need the surprise, right, you don't need
the what if because you have to you have to
play what if with this carly All right, let's say
you get it for nine grand and it's a great car,
and it's wonderful and it's everything he claims it is,
and you know he doesn't know of any defects and
it doesn't have any and then six months goes by
and the transmission fails?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
And it's five grand to put a trans in that car? Right? Well,
maybe it's maybe it's maybe it's three. Now it's probably
four grand to put a trans in that car in Maine.
In New Jersey, it's probably six. But regardless, okay, you
know it's it's bigger than a bread box. As I
like to say, would you put the four or five
grand into it?
Speaker 3 (05:23):
A pardon me?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Would you put the four or five grand into it?
If it needed a trans?
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Gosh, probably not.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So it's time.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
It's year.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
They're gonna give me a license in two three years?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Well, right, so so let's attack this from a different angle,
all right, and you know, you tell me where I'm wrong.
So trying to stay within some kind of a budget,
all right, if I were, if we were standing at
the counter, my advice and my question to you would be,
you know, can you get by? Could you afford two
hundred dollars a month or three hundred dollars a month
(05:57):
as a car payment?
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I probably could, but I hate to do it again
at my age.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Right. Well, there's no free lunch, kiddo, and I don't have
to tell you that. You know that, right, But if
you could find a cheap lease and lease for three years, okay, right?
If you you know, I'm starting to see some cheap
leases out there. Kia comes to mind. I saw one
on TV the other day, a Kia something for one
(06:24):
ninety nine a month. I didn't see what the downstroke was,
but you know, two hundred dollars a month, new car,
no worries, no aggravation. You know, maybe you'll drive until
you're eighty five. I mean, unless you think you're going
to drive till you're ninety.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Well i'd like to.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Right, you know, well, yeah, listen, I get it. You know,
I'm hiding keys now so my kids can't take my
cars away from me. But that's another story, you know,
it's it's you know, do we do we look at
this from a lease perspective or the other way around?
It is okay, without going into a lot of detail.
Is there a family member that you know, maybe when
he stops driving, they'll want to take over the car,
(07:03):
so we we we purchase something newer, better, a granddaughter,
a grandson, somebody that's gonna need a first car. And
then you know, with the with the thought process that
this now, this now goes to you know, Johnny or Jill,
so to speak. So it's not it's not wasted. And
you know, maybe we look at that down the road
and then you know what if you do that and
(07:23):
then grandma needs to get driven somewhere. Hey, you know
that car I get, I need to be picked up
at two o'clock next Thursday. I have to go to
the I have to go to the doctors, or I
have to go to the women's convention or whatever it is.
You know that always plays a good hand too, you know,
you gram everybody thinks nice of Grandma then, but just options, right,
I would I would rather see you buy a better
(07:44):
car with the probability of less surprise, because you need
stability as much as you need a vehicle, right, And
if if you got hit with the five thousand dollars
ups or the three thousand dollars ups, ugh, you know,
and and and at eighty two, I'm gonna use your
(08:05):
number for age. At eighty two, you don't need the
you know you're out, You're out six o'clock at night,
and and that's late. I get it. You know, I'm
catching up to you, Leon, I'm not far behind. And
you know it's it's you don't need to be out
late at night, and all of a sudden there's a
surprise and you gotta wait for the tow truck and
the dead battery and the whatever, and you know, main
winters and you know, yeah, it's it's you know, we
(08:29):
want safety. Yeah, So I mean, that's that's kind of
how I look at it. The price of what we
pay for something now or how can I say this?
The the inexpensive price of what we pay for something now?
Can come back to haunt us later on. I'd rather
pay more now and not have the aggravation.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, you're right. My daughter man said the
same thing, right, so so, and there's no miracle that
I could do with the rust.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Hang if it's if it's that bad, if it's ss
rostolium and you need a tetanus shot looking at it,
I think it's over. You know, there is no there
there is no cure. Well, there is a cure for rust.
It's called the scrap yard, all right, and it's you know,
it's it's I mean, the honest answer is because Maine's
a very good state in the sense that in Maine,
I believe the car has to you know, have it
(09:19):
can't be rusted to the point of being unsafe. Would
it pass Maine state inspections? Right? Well, then this conversation,
it was fun talking to you. But the rest of
the conversation, it doesn't matter what we think. It's you know,
coding it with whatever, because I know how main works.
You know, we have a regular listener, Steve, who runs
(09:40):
the Bracket family markets up there, and he tells me
the story about the bath Bridge and Maine that you
know rotted away and I you know, the whole nine yards,
and you know, I hear about these things all the time,
so means a great state. But boy, you guys sure
get a lot of snow and you put a lot
of that chemical on the ground, so it just beats
up your car something fierce.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
So all right, kiddo, Okay, Well, thanks for your insuet.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
You're very welcome.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Thank you very much, and you have wonderful holidays, and
stay well.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Thank you you too, dear be well eight five five
five six nine nine zero zero. Run any of the
car doctor coming back right after this. Hey, let's get
over and talk to Carl in Wisconsin and see what's
going on here. Carl, Welcome to the Car Doctor, sir.
How can I help?
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah, it's good afternoon, yes, sir. So in spring, back
in April, I bought a used twenty twenty four Nissan
Pathfinder and we drove it around a little bit. I
have another car that actually a two thousand and one
Buckless Saver that still runs great. But anyway, so I
let the car sit, the Nissan Pathfinder let us sit.
(10:46):
During the summer, we were camping and stuff, and then
the battery died and so I came to realize there's
no volt meter on this Nissan Pathfinder. I have no
way of monitoring, you know, if the alternator is working
or or anything. It's and I asked the dealer about it,
the sales guy. He said, no, no volt meter. I thought,
(11:08):
so is this standard on It's a modern vehicle.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
It's becoming Yes, isn't it silly? It really is. It's
I want to see numbers. I'm like you, I want
to see gauges. I want to see you know, there's
a reason they call the idiot lights. When the when
the component fails, it's to me, it's useless because at
that point I I don't see the fault before it happens.
It's just it's Yes to Renault. Easy, easy solution for this, Carl,
(11:36):
Jump on Amazon. Do you have a cigarette lighter in
the vehicle? Yes, jump on Amazon. Get a charging port.
You know they make they make a uh it's it's
a I call it a chotchkey, which is like a gizmo.
It's just a charge port adapter you'll plug into the
cigarette lighter. It'll have USB C or USB A on it.
(11:57):
But they also make them with the charge port for
your cable for your your phone or your your device
whatever you're going to charge. And they also make them
with both of those, and you know, a vault meter
built in, so it'll say, you know, twelve and a
half volts, thirteen volts and so on of the vehicle's running,
so that becomes the gauge. And they're very hard and
it's you know, less than twenty bucks if you spend
twenty bucks you bought the super Deluxe model, all right,
(12:19):
you know, quick, easy solution. It's it's not it's not great.
I agree we should have it built into the dish,
but it's the cheapest, quickest workaround because they're not going
to fix that. And I think you're going to see
more and more car manufacturers going to that. I've seen
Honda do that and I've seen Toyota do that as well,
just on some of the simpler models. So it's it's
(12:40):
not uncommon, not uncommon, sir.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
So, So related to that, should I be concerned about
disconnecting the battery because the battery that it came with
is losing power rather quickly. I mean within a day,
it'll go from twelve point one bowls down to eleven
point nine the next day it's eleven points it and
so I'm going to change out the battery. Do I
have to put in a what.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Well, let's talk about that now. Are you charging the
battery or are you counting on the vehicle driving?
Speaker 4 (13:12):
I'm just driving it around?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Okay, probably not enough. So you know what I would do,
is I have I think it's I think it's the optimum.
I'm going to embarrass myself. Is the DS four hundred
their latest battery maintainer. Really cool little tool, right, a
couple of bucks. But you know what, we like our toys, right,
(13:34):
That's who we are. And you know, for the vehicles
I have sitting, and you know, it will show it
will show current voltage, it will show state of charge.
I can set it a number of different ways. It
does a great job of charging the battery and maintaining
the battery when I'm not using that particular vehicle. And
you may find that's the way you want to go,
because just driving it isn't enough, especially on a vehicle
(13:58):
that sits, because you need a good charge it like
the optima that's going to desulfate and clean up the
battery electrically, and you know that may rejuvenate it because
at twenty four is just what a year and a half,
two years old? How old is the vehicle?
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Yeah, it's it's it's a little overo. I think it
was manufactured in like August of twenty four, right.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
So that's kind of soon to be getting a battery. Yeah,
you know, but I mean, if if you have to,
if you have to know, disconnecting it, you should be okay,
you know, you should be.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
There's some automatiles they say, do not disconnect the battery.
It's nothing but trouble.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Well, because they're worried about adaptives, they're worried about driving habits.
They're worried about, you know, how smart are you you know,
or how smart is the car? And is it going
to understand that?
Speaker 4 (14:52):
You know?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
But you can get out to and it shouldn't be. Listen,
you get a dead battery, all right? Think of it
like this. Think of how many cars in America right
now might have a dead battery? Right, got to be
a few, pretty big right, pretty big country? All right.
Do you think it would be enough if every time
somebody had a dead battery or disconnected a battery, the
(15:14):
car didn't run, didn't run properly caused the problems that
couldn't be solved by just driving it. Don't you think
it would have made the national news. We might actually
have something, we might actually have something interesting in the
news for once, right, So so you know, yeah, you know,
if you have to disconnect the battery and you don't
have a memory saver, then just be aware when you
(15:35):
go to reconnect and just drive the car normal. Just
put it through its pace as a trip around the block.
Warm it up, turn on the air conditioning, turn on
the high beams, put a little bit of electrical load
on it, right, and just go through its paces, and
within a very short distance you'll find that that vehicle
learns its learns its, you know, its adaptives, and it
(15:56):
will you know, may take a little while, depending upon
the vehicle, but it will in time do what it's
supposed to do. But in the meantime, if you do
want to get a charger, go out to Optima Batteries
dot com and you can read all about I believe
it's their four hundred model that will that's their latest
and that will do what it's supposed to do for you.
And that's a great little charger. Very handy to have around,
all right, sir.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
All right, all right, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
You're very welcome, very welcome. Yeah, common stuff, right, common
sense about batteries, and that's that's really what it's all about.
Coming up next, Matt de Lorenzo. I had a great
conversation with Matt. We carried on and you know, in
the pre interview before the show talking about Mercedes Benz,
(16:38):
I didn't realize how big a deal Mercedes Benz is
as far as racers are concerned. You know, you look
at Mercedes, I think of Mercedes. Well, I'm sort of tainted.
I remember somebody telling me once that Mercedes Benz in
Germany is like a Chevy in pala here right back
when we made in Palace. You know, that's that's how
long ago I had this conversation. But you know, you
(17:00):
think about Chevy and Palace racing. No, that never really happened.
But you think about Mercedes Benz, you know, in the
F one Formula series in you know, Mercedes factory support
in what they do. You know, it's it's it's kind
of an interesting story. And Matt wrote this really great
color pictures the whole thing hardcover. If we're getting ready
(17:21):
for the holidays. We need a book to buy for
our favorite, you know, car enthusiast, Mercedes AMG. It's going
to be available in November. It's available now, I think think,
I think we'll talk about that in the interview. I'll
have to make sure I mentioned that to him. But
just some good stuff, and most importantly, I will get
him to explain what Mercedes AMG stands for, because I've
(17:43):
always wondered about that every time I pull up behind
wanted to stop light. What the heck does AMG mean.
Matt's going to be here to tell us all about
it right after this. I'm ronnin Andy and the car Doctor.
We'll be back. Don't go anywhere. There's a lot of
things I've talked to you about over the years, and
a lot of interviews, and we've talked about a lot
of cars, and we've talked about a lot of books.
(18:04):
And I recently came across Mercedes a MG and I thought,
you know, there's something we've never talked about, you and
I and we need to discuss it and understand just
what is it. You know, I think of Mercedes bens.
A lot of people think of Mercedes Benz and it's
it's well, tell you what, let me, let me bring
our guests on and and get started here. Matt de Lorenzo,
(18:24):
he's written a book, Mercedes AMG. It's available now on Amazon,
and we're happy to have him with us here. Welcome
to the Car Doctor, Matt.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
Thanks Ron, I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
So, you know, Mercedes AMG, where do you want to?
Where do we start?
Speaker 4 (18:37):
Right?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Let's you know, I think of Mercedes. Okay, if I'm
the average consumer and I'm going, well, it's a status symbol.
I drive a Mercedes. It's a nice, fancy, luxurious car.
But but there's a hot rod side to Mercedes Benz, Right.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
Yeah, and that's the that's the AMG brand. And you
know that perception that you talked about people considering it
just a luxury car, that's what AMG led to the
genesis of AMG to begin with. Back in the late
nineteen sixties, there were two engineers, Hans Werner off Wrecked
(19:12):
and Erhard Melcher, and they were young engineers. They worked
within Mercedes. They wanted to go racing. They developed some
racing engines and built a race car and campaigned it
for a year while they were still employed, and they
were told either you win or you're going to lose
your job. They won, they kept their job, but Mercedes
(19:32):
stopped racing and at the time people were thinking, well,
there was nothing wrong with you know, Mercedes the ultimate
luxury car performances and part of the thing. They went
off and started their own company, AMG and they started
building hot rod Mercedes for racers and they were very successful.
(19:53):
And so that AMG is off wrecked Melker and then
the gas Grossodspotch, which is the small German town where
Afrech was from.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, so you know, is it that I would go
into it? Not to make this about how to get one?
But is it that I would go into a Mercedes
dealer and I want to buy an AMG or they
already have them. Now their relationship with Mercedes is so
that the dealers just stock.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
These vehicles, so to speak, right right, Well, what happened was,
at first Mercedes wanted nothing to do with these so
called garage tinkerers, and they kept a fairly arm's length
relationship with them up and through the nineteen eighties, and
then they introduced this car called the Hammer that got
(20:42):
everybody's attention. It was putting a big V eight in
a midsize Mercedes. And then they started helping Mercedes with
their German touring car racing and they were very successful there,
and then all of a sudden, Mercedes goes, well, why
don't we let them sell our cars through our dealers,
(21:02):
And that happened in nineteen ninety and then about nine
years later they bought half the company, and then six
years later, in two thousand and five, they bought the
rest of the company and they turned it into the
Mercedes AMG division, which is the performance division of Mercedes.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
The late don Imis, the radio host, was once interviewing
and I'm quoting from the introduction in the book by
Sam Posey, and the book is phenomenal, by the way,
I can't tell you enough the color pictures, in the detail,
and the way, you know, you feel like you're at
the racetrack driving in some of these cars.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
The late don Imis was talking to Bo Didle, the
former New York City detective, and they were talking about
a Mercedes in which one to buy, and don Imus said,
buy a Mercedes S sixty five AMG. And his reasoning was,
that's just the most expensive one. But that's not necessarily
the only reason. Right, Mercedes's AMG is a real performance
(22:02):
car then as now.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
Right right, And I think that that's that's you know,
the perception of Mercedes being a luxury brand was around
and that you had to have the most expensive one.
They have the best one and Amgs since they were
you know, they have handbuilt engines, that their engines are
(22:24):
built by one technician and then they're exclusive to the
AMG car. So that's why they were sold at a
premium to other Mercedes. But as you say, there's a
lot more to it. I mean that the suspensions are different, Uh,
the engine tuning is different, they have different interiors in
(22:49):
different styling, and they are actually now bespoke a MG
models like the AMG G T, which is a sports
car that actually competes with the portioninal eleven.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
And in your book when you when you wrote this, Matt,
and for those of you just tuning in, we're talking
to Matt de Lorenzo. He's written a book Mercedes AMG,
and we're discussing it at length here on the Car Doctor.
You know, Matt, when you wrote the book, how do
I attack this question is Mercedes your car? I mean,
is this is this your passion? You know, what do
you what do you normally write about? Did you just
(23:21):
wake up one day and say I'm gonna write about
you know?
Speaker 5 (23:25):
I've been I've been writing about cars since the late seventies,
actually so, and I've written other a couple of other books.
I did one hundred and one hundred year anniversary of Dodge.
I did a book on corvettes. I did a Mustang book.
So I've been writing again, sort of across the the industry.
(23:46):
I do like performance cars, and about a year and
a half ago I was talking to my publisher and
I said, you know, I'd like to do something different,
and he said, we want to do an AMG book.
They had done a book on BMW, which is somewhat
analogous to AMG. You know, it's a performance motorsports division
(24:08):
of BMW, and the publisher found that nobody has really
done a comprehensive history of AMG. So I looked at
that as a great opportunity. And I knew I knew
quite a bit about AMG, especially since AMG had bought
(24:28):
or Mercedes had bought AMG. And I actually traveled to
Germany when I was at Road and Track and saw
some of the early development on the SLS gull Wing,
which was the first pure AMG products, so I was
familiar with that, I wasn't familiar with the history, and
when I went down the internet research rabbit hole, I
(24:48):
was absolutely fascinated by Offreck and Melker and what they
were able to accomplish.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
You know, chapter six, the title from road back to Track,
the chapter seems to cover that we're taking everyday cars
and we're taking them to the racetrack.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
Right, And you know, that's kind of a recurring theme
with AMG because in the beginning they made race cars,
and the racers would come to them and said, well,
we want to we want to have you work on
our road cars. So they started doing road cars. Well.
During the seventies, with the energy crises and all that
(25:27):
other stuff, motorsports kind of went into a little bit
of decline and AMG concentrated more on road cars. They
were doing body kits and wheels and engine upgrades and
primarily for road cars for the public. The eighties thing
shifted back towards competition and that's when they got involved
(25:52):
with the German touring car series, which was wildly popular.
Over one hundred and fifty million people around the world
would watch these races, and AMG took the baby Benz
the one ninety Mercedes and won the championship. Was very
successful in there, and and that caught a lot of
people's attention to that. You know, AMG is Mercedes are
(26:17):
very closely alive with Mercedes.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Or vice versa. You know, yes, what we're what we're
really saying here in a sense is AMG is a
factory hot rod. It's a factory race car. You can
go out and buy something exactly, drive it to the track,
race it around the track, and then drive it home exactly.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
They have a lot of track specials and they still
compete heavily in sports car racing. So the AMGGT has
competed very well. It's one. It's class at Lamart, it's
one at Daytona twenty four. It's really the two are
are interrelated. The performance aspect on the road and still
(27:00):
their ability to do really well in motorsports. And incidentally,
one of the guys who's helping Mercedes with that is
Hans Werner Offrecked and after he had sold the company
to Mercedes, he formed his own company called HWA. His
initials Hans Werner Offreck and he actually builds a lot
(27:20):
of the privateer GT racing cars for Mercedes. And his
shop is located right where AMG was kind of grew
up in Walterbach, which is north of Mercedes headquarters in
Shuttgard Well.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
A grassroots effort and look what it became. Hey, Matt, Yeah, ladies,
let's take a pause. I'll tell you what. Stay right
where you are, let me come back. I want to
talk about the flying pig. Don't say anything else, Okay,
I want to give it away to the listeners and
I want to get that out there. And I'm runnin
any and the Car Doctor. We're here today with Matt
de Lorenzo and we'll both be back right after this.
Don't go away? Do pigs really fly? Hey, Ronanini and
(28:02):
the Car Doctor. I'm here with Matt di Lorenzo. He's
the author of Mercedes AMG, a brand new book. It's
available out there on Amazon. It comes to us from
Quarto Publishing. And we're just sitting here chatting about Mercedes
and AMG and the performance side of it in the book.
And great book. I can't say enough good things about it, nice,
big color pictures, a lot of history on Mercedes. First chapter, Matt,
(28:24):
this pig can fly? What are we talking about? Flying
pigs in a carbook? What are we talking about there?
Speaker 5 (28:32):
Yeah, we're talking about Hey, how AMG really got on
the map in the first place. Alfreka Melcher had left
the company and they were tuning race cars and they
were doing some road cars for people. Mercedes had put
a V eight engine in their S class. It had
originally been used only in the big six hundred Limos,
(28:53):
and they wanted there was some engineers inside the company
wanted to take it racing, and they tried to take
it racing, and management kind of put the kebash on it.
They tried to run at Spa in nineteen sixty nine
in a twenty four hour race. So AMG took up
the challenge and they bought a wrecked sel with the
(29:17):
six point two leader V eight in it, punched it
out to six point eight leaders, painted it red and
took it to Spawn nineteen seventy one. Well, you had
this big luxury car roaring around the track with a
vight engine, open pipes, and people said that looks like
(29:38):
a big red Pig. But the crowd loved it. And
actually they finished second overall of Ford Capri one. But
the Red Pig came in second overall and first in class.
And they actually they were raising a couple of other
VA cars. There was a Camaro that had sat on
(29:59):
the pole and a Mustang in the race, and uh,
and the Red Pig beat them both and almost won
the race overall. So a big sensation.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Suffice it to say, you pull up to a traffic
light and there's a Mercedes in front of you, and
it says a MG on the back. That's just not
fancy interior and bitter carpeting.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
No, it's a it's a faster car. And and that
was the thing about those the big luxury cars. And
again the hammer that they did later, they were sort
of they were luxury cars, but they had these hot
rod engines in them that would shut down nine to
elevens and and BMW's, so they they really, uh, they
(30:40):
really brought it when it came to performance.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
The name of the book is Mercedes AMG Matt Inside
one of the chapters, is it a MG one story?
In our in our final two minutes, they talk about
you talk about they made an F one engine into
a into in Mercedes and it was a handbuilt prototype
car some kind of Yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:58):
They they did a hyper car for the streets and
they actually adapted the same Formula one engine that's used
by the racing team. Now the racing team has actually
run out of England and has minimal it's more of
a badging thing between AMG F one and AMG road cars.
But they did develop this car together and they made
(31:21):
a street car that uses current F one technology. Very
difficult to do because it's a hybrid. You know, it
has a battery that the kinetic energy recovery system, the
curve system and it's like a it's a two million
dollar car. It's really amazing. But you talk to the
engineers and they're like, yeah, we'll never be able to
(31:44):
do this again because of the emissions. They had noise
regulations emissions. Even just starting the car, it takes ten
guys to start an F one car. This car you
go in and you push a button, it starts, and
I took a lot of engineering.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Took a lot of technology, I'm sure. So yep, Hey Matt,
and your closing thoughts, where can the listeners go get
this twenty seconds or less. What should they look for
in the book? What are they going to get out
of it?
Speaker 5 (32:10):
I think they're going to get a great background history
and where AMG came from and kind of where it's
headed with their next round of products. And you can
find it on Amazon.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Cool beans. Matt de Lorenzo, We appreciate you taking the
time and spending it with us here on The Car Doctor.
We'll have you on again real soon and you be well, all.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
Right, Thanks so much, Ron, it was great being here.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
You're very welcome. I'm running aeny and the Car Doctor.
We're back right after this. Boy, what a fun time,
right driving a factory hot rod or Mercedes that can
do all the things that Matt was talking about. It's
good stuff, good stuff. And I can't say enough about
the book. If you're looking for a holiday gift for
the car person in your life, just you know, you
(32:52):
look at it and you go, but you know what
it's got some the color quality of the pictures and
just the whole story of Mercedes. And it's an interesting story, right.
Not everything has to be a black fifty five Chevry
or a yellow Douce Coop, well almost not everything, but
you get the point. So, and kudos to Research Kathy
who reached out to me during the break and she
(33:13):
was able to order the T shirt for me for Nate.
So at least I know that the T shirt Nate
is going to the right address out there in Oregon.
So we thank Kathy for that. She's on top of
her game as always. And she had a comment about Lee.
She said, you know, you wonder if she can lease
a car at eighty two? Would they allow her to
(33:35):
do that. I don't know the answer to that. If
anybody has the answer to that, is there an age
limit unleasing a car? I'd like to know. Is that
is that you know? Are they are they limited by that?
I just I just assumed that I never really thought
about it. But that's why we have Research Kathy. She's
handy like that. She does a lot of the odd
jobs around here and we'd be lost without her. So,
(33:56):
but just just things to think about. What do I
want you to think about a couple things. I want
you to think about improving your relationship with your mechanic
in the weeks to come. I think I want you
to also just be aware of cold weather's coming winter
months taking better care of the car. And if I
can ask you, if you're in the position on our
(34:17):
YouTube channel, on our Facebook page, to like this radio
show in any way, shape or form it helps us
so we can be around to help you. Till the
next time I'm running Andy in the car, Doctor good
mechanics aren't expensive, they're priceless. See you
Host
Ron Ananian
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