November 18, 2025 • 33 mins
Andy dives into the world of manual transmissions, exploring why learning to drive a stick shift is both a fading skill and a growing obsession for car lovers. With help from an instructor who teaches newcomers using his own car, Andy breaks down what makes stick shifts fun, challenging, and worth learning in 2025.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
We're gonna be taking calls for the next day, well whenever,
I guess, until we run out of calls to take.
Been talking about stick shifts, when you got your first
stick shift, if you drove, if you learned how, if
you've taught other people. One of the things that I
will never forget is having a stick shift in Los
Angeles and driving up Los Sianga, going to Sunset Boulevard,
(00:32):
just chirping the tires, try and keepe from rolling back
into probably some Maserati or range drover that was heading
over to the Saddle Ranch, some twenty two year old
multimillionaire who would have probably sued me into oblivion. And
I remember trying to sit there and feather the clutch
hold the e brake, put it into gear and then
(00:53):
killing the car trying and turn it on one. And
it was an old car. You know, old cars are
like the new stick shift card a lot easier driving
the old ones. But I learned how to drive on
a Volvo two forty. My parents were just like here,
figure it out.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Good luck.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Driving around Indianapolis, I think in the winter, trying to
figure out every ten miles an hour, I had to shift.
That's how like, that's how the gear ratio was. So
by the time I got to fifty miles an hour,
that was it. The car would just not go much
faster than that. But it was a brick and for
good reason. I think the zero to sixty time on
an early nineties Volvo two forties like truly sixteen seconds
(01:30):
or something like that. Crazy stuff. Ron Or have you
done a stick shift in a while?
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, I love them. They always made me feel like
Steve McQueen. You know, it really is a cool vibe.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I had one in La that I had to sell
because I was living up here in the valley and
I was working at Mattel in Elsegundo for hot wheels,
and I was driving over the hill every morning. It
would take like an hour and a half to get
there and sometimes two hours to get home. And I
was the heavy clutch, putting in this heavy clutch, and
my truly, my left thigh was at least a couple
(02:01):
inches bigger than me.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Write Okay, but don't think I'm gonna let you just
zoom past the hot wheels thing. I need to hear
about that.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
So I worked for Hot Wheels for about two or
three years back in the mid twenty teens. I was
the head of the YouTube channel essentially, so I got
to come up with content about hot wheels. We would
build these big hot Wheels setups would take over like
a diner in Santa Monica and put unlimited track there.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Okay, so did you get free tracks and like you
and your office buddies whip each other with them?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Oh, Mike, was that all the time? I mean, truly,
you reach a point where you have so much free
stuff that you don't want to see it ever again.
I had so many hot wheels. I had hot wheels
coming out of every orifice. I was just swimming in
hot wheels. The bathtub was full of hot wheels. That's
a problem a lot of people would like to have.
Do you remember the Wolf of Wall Street where they're
wrapping up all the cash on their model girlfriends, their
(02:54):
Eastern European girlfriends, because they've got like passports that they
can get through to the Eastern Bloc country. That was
you with hot wheek that it was me with hot Wheels,
but it was me around myself, and because I liked
the way that the the die cast metal felt on
my skin. All right, this is far too weird, but yeah,
I worked for Hot Wheels for a while. Those videos
(03:15):
are still available on YouTube if you'd like to go
see them. I don't know why you would. But we
did some really cool stuff we made. We went up
to the horse Thief Mile, which is a track at
Willow Springs which is way up in the desert towards
Tahtchapee High Desert, and we built a mile long Hot
Wheels track there. Whoa, which is really crazy that sounds
(03:35):
like fun. I think it's in the Guinness Book of
World Records actually, which is neat. But I don't I
don't even know.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
No, I think guys have Hot Wheel Love imprinted on
their DNA.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I definitely liked it because I thought it was a
very full circle thing for being a car guy and
like also a car kid who loved cars and playing
with cars as a kid. I think it gave me
a good headspace for what would work. And we did
really well. We did. We sold a lot of stuff.
I think the I, the influencer that we had, who
was like the star of a lot of the YouTube videos,
(04:06):
had a percentage of the back end on the sales
associated with that holiday season, and I don't know how
much it was, but I know it was a lot.
I mean that guy like could have retired many times
over just on that deal. Hot Wheels leading the Way
challenge accepted.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Everybody loves Hot Wheels. Meanwhile, the job left you with
one incredible hulk leg and one Bruce Banner leg.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
That's exactly right. Okay, well, now at least they've become
both Bruce Bannered. I also, I just I'll say this,
like being in the car, the toy car space and
the toy car YouTube space. You would think it would
be really fun, but it was very stressful. And the
only thing was that I got to feel like every
day I did something that was really fun and cool
and looked cool and made people happy. And that was neat.
(04:53):
But you know how Wheels is like one hundred percent
brand recognition. The marketing executives know that Hot Wheels is
known by truly every person on the planet. That's pretty amazing.
It's appropriate hot Wheels rule. Yeah, very cool. All right.
Checking in with Mike speaking of the high desert, calling
(05:13):
us from Apple Valley. Mike, you're on KF I good evening,
tell us about your stick shift story.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
Hey, and you are right.
Speaker 6 (05:21):
Everything everything's cool over here in Snapple Alley, I call it.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, are you are you? Are you staying above water?
I imagine you're getting a lot of rain there tonight.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
You know there's no rain, rains all day Saturday, yesterday,
no rain today. They keep any of these alerts saying
it's going to start at like, you know, seven whatever, nothing,
there's nothing. Here's me all day.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
You can't you can't trust anybody in the media.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
You know exactly, especially those people. Uh not to change
the subject, but I mean you were talking about hot wheels.
I have a hot wheel hack when I was a
kid growing up. You know the tracks, you know they
come in sections. Oh yeah, okay, well if well kids
don't try this at home. But if you like the
(06:10):
end of the track, it's it melts, but it stays flamed, right,
and it's so cool. We used to put our little
army men and build these trenches on the ground and
when it drips, it makes like a hot wheel napalm.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
That's all cool.
Speaker 7 (06:34):
Cool man.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
That that's the kind of thing that when I was
working at hot Wheels, I would have never been able
to even like reference or talk about, you know, because
they're very protective. They were like they have to be
careful because they are making sure that they don't make
something that hurts children. But that is very nice. Maybe yeah,
all right, well but anyway, tell us about your your
(06:56):
stick ship story.
Speaker 7 (06:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (06:58):
Back in nineteen seventy seven, I was eighteen years old
and I had a forty six Chrysler right wow, A
big car. Yeah, big car. I got it from some
old guy soldier me for like four hundred bucks.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
And it had a fluid drive. It's called fluid drive,
you see if anybody knows about this. And it's a
three speed on the three on the tree like you
said in the morning, New Yeah, and okay, you start
your car up, you take off first gear, second gear,
third gear. You come to a stop right and it
(07:37):
turns into an automatic.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
How does that have that?
Speaker 6 (07:41):
I have no idea and I'm a retirement caanic.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
So you just shift once and then it becomes an automatic.
Speaker 6 (07:48):
Yep, car off and you turn it back on and
you got to go through the first, second, and third crazy.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
So you have to like teach it. That is wild
called fluid drive. Fluid I've never heard of that. That
is awesome. Nineteen forty six christ or what color was it?
Last question?
Speaker 7 (08:04):
We'll get out of here dark blue?
Speaker 8 (08:06):
Ooo?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Nice, beautiful cool, well, thank you, Thank you so much
for calling Mike. Stay warm up there in Apple Valley
stay dry as well. We appreciate it, very very cool stuff.
We're gonna keep taking your calls here on KFI, we
are talking about stick shift stories when you learn how
to drive stick If you have any crazy stories about
learning how to drive manual transmission teaching anybody in your family.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I'm Andy Reesemeyer. Nice to be with you tonight on
this rainy evening. Is it still pouring where you are?
We are very curious. How are you doing? Run or
is it pouring in your room? Are you okay? I'm dry, Yeah,
you're dry. That's good. No leaks in here yet. The
all deck home Christmas tree is looking beautiful. Oh Christmas Tree,
Oh Christmas Tree, How lovely are your branches? Indeed, I'm
(08:57):
looking out the window here from the fifth, fourth floor,
fourth floor of the iHeartRadio building, I don't see a
ton of precipitable water.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
The iPhone app says it's coming down right here in
Burbank the iPhone.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
You know what I will say about this is that
it's amazing to me how there can be so much
discrepancy between what the National Weather Service says, what we're
looking at at KTLA, what the phone says, what Google
says versus Apple Weather. It's crazy. I don't understand how
you could have such confusing I mean, you think all
the data is coming from the same place, but I
(09:33):
guess not. I don't know. Looking at the radar right now,
and I'm seeing a bunch of I can think it
looks like a squall line, maybe some some serious precipitation.
Some some sections of the map that are getting hit
pretty hard, Riverside County, San Berdino County up towards Victorville
looking like some snow in the San Bernardino Mountain areas.
(09:56):
Parts of Glendale still relatively dark on that on that radar.
Darker green, lighter green may basically just sprinkles Virga as
they call it. Darker green. That's serious. But by the
time nine o'clock rolls around, we will start to see
some of the clearing that precipitation move all the way
out towards the Inland Empire and beyond. We've got a
(10:19):
talk back here on KFI. Let's take a listen, hey.
Speaker 9 (10:23):
Boss, what's going on man, flying fish at the airport.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
That's great. I love whatever wherever we're going here.
Speaker 9 (10:30):
Out here working over time.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Man. I'm an old street racer.
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Man.
Speaker 9 (10:35):
I had a five to ten dots and sixty nine
dots and five ten wagons, stick ship cool and all
of us was dots and boys and z's and everything.
We wouldn't get caught dead in and automatic. Yes, and
then we're the best days man, street racing days and
all that. And we had to put our transmissions. Manuel's
all about that. That's how it goes.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, yes, sir, wouldn't be caught dead with an automatic,
especially back.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
He's onto something. I had an old to eighties Z.
Do you remember those?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
You're a dots and boy too to eight Z.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Those are like zippy little well, it was like if
you couldn't afford a jag, that's what you have.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Those are real cool cars. I think the Nissan sports
car program, which of course was the Dotson originally, those
are amazing vehicles. And I think that I think that
the way they look. I can only imagine in the
seventies and the eighties that they looked like they were
from the future. Because they look they're still cool today.
What did this guy say? His name was, Hey.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Boss, what's going on?
Speaker 7 (11:33):
Man?
Speaker 9 (11:33):
Flying fish at the airport?
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Flying Fish? I love that?
Speaker 9 (11:41):
And flying fish at the airport out here working overtime, man, I'm.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
All working over time making that money. I appreciate and
respect it. I worked long days too. It's not as
backbreaking or serious as working at the airport, I guarantee you,
but it is fun. Mister flying Fish, thank you for
leaving a message. We've got Jim from Lake Elson or
who's been waiting very patiently. Tell us your story about
manual transmission car that you had, or a story about
teaching somebody else to drive manual transmission.
Speaker 7 (12:07):
And I was teaching my daughter how to drive, and
I took her back on a dirt road, which I
thought would be safe. Oh yeah, and yeah, And we're
cruising along fine in like second gear, and a car
came straight at us. She didn't know what to do.
Do we hit the grass, do we hit the clutch
(12:29):
a break? I don't know. She froze so I had
no choice but to grab the wheel out of her
hand and wheel us right into a ditch to avoid
the car coming right at us. So, yeah, that was
her experience. She's never drove a stick since.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
But does she drive drive or just not not a
stick shift?
Speaker 8 (12:47):
Card?
Speaker 7 (12:48):
Yeah, she drives. You know, she's not a great driver.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
But yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Is she on your insurance?
Speaker 8 (12:56):
Still?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
That's the real question.
Speaker 7 (12:57):
No, no, no, she's forty years old now. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, it's funny because I had I had a friend
who was similarly had uh uh. She really wanted to
figure out how to drive stick sat in the car,
got in, turned it on, put the put the car
into gear, held the clutch in, pulled the clutch out,
killed it, and was like, I'm done. I'm never doing
this again. But we didn't have to end up in
a ditch for that. But well, thank you so much
for calling, Jim, appreciate you. How's Lake Alsonar?
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Is it raining it it's moderately raining.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Any flooding on your streets?
Speaker 7 (13:28):
No, no flooding.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Do you still drive a stick shift? Last question?
Speaker 7 (13:33):
Uh no, I'm going an automatic.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Now all right, Well, thank you so much for calling. Cafie.
Please give us a call anytime. We've got uh, Richie,
we've got time for another one? He says, yes, Well,
mister Ronner says, yes, Richie's busy.
Speaker 8 (13:47):
Right now.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
We've got Rachel Colin. Rachel, you're on KFI. Good evening.
I'm Andy Reesemeyer. Oh, hello, you're on KFI? Is this
is this Rachel? I don't think it's Rachel?
Speaker 8 (14:04):
Hello?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Hello, that's it?
Speaker 10 (14:05):
Hello?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Hello? Who is this?
Speaker 8 (14:08):
This is Carl?
Speaker 10 (14:09):
How you doing?
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Hey? Carl? I don't know why it says Rachel on
my screen here, so I don't I apologize.
Speaker 10 (14:15):
Well, maybe it's my daughter, but anyway, I'm too real
quick shift stories. We're on a way back for San Diego.
I bought my wife is sixty. I mean it's seventy eight.
Toyota Celica if she never drove a shift in her life.
For my mother got out ninety two thousand miles on
original fudge.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Wow, that's an incredible story.
Speaker 10 (14:38):
My three hundred GX is about two inches off the ground,
non turbo with over three hundred and fifty horse power,
and it ran real.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Well, is that we got another dots and boy on
the line. Look at this. We've got a lot of
Nissan dots and dudes. This is the place to be.
Speaker 10 (14:53):
Well, we got some Chevy stories. It's original Mustang stories too,
but we've got lots of it.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I gotta tell you, Carl, I could listen Do you
tell stories all day? That voice? That dulcet tones? Do
you have you ever done radio? Because that's a serious
radio voice. You got there.
Speaker 10 (15:09):
Now you got my wife cracking up. I got a
fifty seven Jerry fifty seven shaved two eighty three and
two S fifty five p had on one side and
a three twenty seven hit on the other side with
the three screen forty six and blue off your bills.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Oh that is such a cool car man. People don't
understand these days, these kids gen z then they don't
know what it's like to live like this. I really
appreciate you, Carl for calling, and please call again anytime.
I'm out of time, but we have more calls coming up.
After the break.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
By me Andy Reesemeyer. We're taking your calls and your
talkbacks talking about stick shift driving experiences. Kids these days
don't know what it's like to have to learn to
drive on a manual transmission car. Good luck even finding
one new. I think BMW W and Porsche are like
the only companies that make cars with manual transmissions anymore.
(16:06):
How crazy is that? Used to be? Every car had that,
you had to pay more not to get one. Here
we are, here's a talkback.
Speaker 11 (16:14):
Let us listen a eighty I got my license in
nineteen eighty seven, and I learned on a stick shift. Yeah,
and I've had stick shifts off and on my whole life.
In fact, right now, I drive in nineteen eighty nine
for an FT fifty. That's a stick shift.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Classic. Love a truck with a good stick shift. That
gear you know, like the old ones, especially from the eighties,
where the gearbox is like that crazy accordion rubber and
the bottom of the floor, and then the actual stick
shift is like a long Bob Barker esque microphone that
sticks all the way up. Oh, like a Gene Rayburn microphone.
Oh yeah, that's right, excuse me, Gene Rayburn microphone. I
(16:53):
have to, of course give you have to give credit
where credit is due.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Yeah, everybody loved those those cheap little rubber housing thing.
Yeah right, I can tell you forget the feeling. It
could also have been used as a jello mold, right.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Just sure. Maybe it's funny because you look back at
cars in that era and it was just everything was
one color. Now it's like all the carpet is black,
all the floors are black, and then maybe the seats
are a little bit of a different color. But back
in the day, it was totally appropriate to cover the
interior of a car with mauve gray beige from top
(17:25):
to bottom.
Speaker 12 (17:29):
Uh, here we go, Hi, this is Lori from Corona.
Speaker 13 (17:33):
Stick shift.
Speaker 6 (17:34):
Wow.
Speaker 12 (17:34):
I bought an Acura Integra and thousand Oaks with my
fiance and I literally learned how to drive a stick
shift on the way home from.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
The dealership.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
That's awesome.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
Yeah, he tried.
Speaker 12 (17:49):
Teaching me while we were on our test drive, and
I bought the car and then slowly, slowly, slowly drove
it home.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Wow, that's awesome. That's pretty brave. I always was terrified
of burning out the clutch, you know, something that I'll
only ever had to put in one clutch, And I
don't think it was my fault. It was on a
used car. Do you get weird about that too? Do
you ever feel like you're like, really proud of how
good you are operating a clutch. I'm such a good shifter.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Well, let's see. It's like the first time you ride
a bike and you realize, oh yeah, there's nothing to this,
But before you catch on to shifting and doing the clutch,
you're like.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I can't do this, Oh I can't do it. Oh yeah, Well,
and also like you got to especially driving in LA,
there's so many things to pay attention to because many
whack jobs out there are gonna run you off the road.
My favorite thing was I learned this later in life,
how to rev match on a down shift.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
What's that mean?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
So you basically put in the clutch if you're at like,
you know, gear five and you're coming off the freeway
and you're gonna decelerate, instead of putting in a neutral
and waiting all the way till you get to the
stoplight at the bottom and then shifting into one. If
you take the clutch out, you're in five. Okay, walk
through this. If you're in five, I've put it in
a neutral clutch in right, stab the accelerator so that
(19:06):
the you know, you peg the needle right, then you
can rev match the engine speed. Do what the transmission
speed needs to be too, so then you can smoothly
shift down into a lower gear. If you don't do that,
you'll get a real bad jerk.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Rev Match sounds like a character named and a Paul
Thomas Anders movie rev Match Colonel rev Match rev Match.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Checking with Dan and Chatsworth. You are on KFI Dan.
Speaker 8 (19:32):
Hey, guys, how's it going good? I started great? Yeah,
me too. The rain finally stopped out here. I started
to riding motorcycles at a very young age. My brother
taught me all about the clutch, and I learned on
a dirt bike, graduated up to a street bike, and
then I got a seventy three Ford Supervan with three
on the tree, suirp going in the second.
Speaker 7 (19:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (19:58):
Later I got a Gloria fourteen cool. Oh yeah, just
a kick in a half man. That was so much fun.
I taught my girlfriend had to drive that?
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Was that a really heavy clutch? Because I know the
eighties Porsches had like the heaviest clutch you've ever felt
in your life.
Speaker 8 (20:16):
You know it could have been if I recall, I
remember you had to kind of lean into it a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, and I know that the pedals and the Porsche
are all offset, so like your legs have to go
to the right a little bit because of the way
that the body sort of gets smaller in the front.
It's a crazy people are crazy. We're crazy that we
we had it, you know, we had it good. But
it was also a lot to think about.
Speaker 8 (20:37):
You know. This one had the gearbox like it was
like a mid engine car, so all underneath the dash
it was all open. You could lay down there.
Speaker 11 (20:48):
Wow.
Speaker 8 (20:50):
Yeah. Later on I dated Sue Susan. Her dad would
cheap the surgery over at St. John's Averture County. They
were yeah him. He took his wife to Italy. They
were Italian, so they went to Italy and he says, here,
you got to use the car, just watch it when
you're done. I was like, great, no problem there, and
uh we took it to my ten year class reunion. Right.
(21:16):
Don't tell anybody, but we were drinking champagne on the
way there. It was pretty hilarious anyway. So we had
a blast coming up from uh Camrio on the backside
on the one eighteen. I think I hit one hundred ten.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Oh my god.
Speaker 7 (21:33):
It wasn't a.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Target with a bottle of don Perrion. On the other hand, So.
Speaker 8 (21:44):
We got there, had a blast, took our pictures, danced
like crazy, I got lit, and she had to drive home.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, but did she she knew how to drive the
I guess that would have been a six speed, right,
the nine to eleven target during that time would have
been a six.
Speaker 8 (21:55):
Speed I think so, And yeah she knew how well good.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
That's always my fear, as if I go out to
eat or something and I get incapacitated and my girlfriend
doesn't know how to drive stick, then we're going to
be stranded. But she knows, so it all worked out.
So Dan, thank you so much for calling from Chatsworth.
Appreciate you being on the phone. We've got one more
call here than We're going to take a break and we'll
take another couple of calls after that before we get
back to some other news. We have Nikki from Corona.
(22:23):
Is that is that who we have online? Or Yvonne Yvonne.
Let's let's go to let's go to von Oh, we
have Nikki from Corona. Okay, I'm sorry, Ivon, if you're
still there, keep waiting. I'm sorry to keep everybody waiting
We've got a lot of people want to talk here.
This is great, Nikki. What can I do for you
this evening?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
I'm just sharing my story. But yeah, Joe stick started
on eighty nine Nissan CenTra and it only had four
years and then we've only upgraded two five years and
then six years after that.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Another Dotson Nissan person, this is crazy I have. This
is such a cool thing that all these Nissan people
are calling. Uh, do you still drive a stick sh
I do? That's awesome. What do you have now?
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Twenty pounds the accurate Antigra.
Speaker 6 (23:07):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Oh so that's a new move, A new car that
has a stick shift. Yes, wow, that's awesome. Does it
feel a lot different than like the eighties stick shifts?
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Oh my gosh, yes, Like I've never downshifted before. It
was always just throw it neutral and wait till you
get to the step, you know.
Speaker 6 (23:23):
But now now it's so smooth.
Speaker 7 (23:26):
But you want to downshift?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah? Are you doing heel to toe breaking? Are doing
any clutch drops or burnouts or anything like that?
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Oh goodness no, but you barely even need to use
your clutch like it's so I have adaptive crewse control.
Speaker 6 (23:38):
I don't understand how Wow, that's wild. Yeah, that's incredible,
and it's got like you know, sport mode and then
comfort moves regularly.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Well, i'll tell you what, you're a brave person with
how much traffic jams happened down in Corona. For for
having a stick shift car. That's a that's a brave.
Speaker 8 (23:55):
I just moved here and I'm learning right now.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
My first experience in the rain comes from Manhattan.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Be Oh no, how long did it take you to
get home?
Speaker 4 (24:05):
I waited an hour and a half to leave and
it still took me about an hour twenty Oh.
Speaker 6 (24:10):
Well, but it wasn't bad.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah, and this is very rare. You know so well, Nikki,
thank you so much for colling. We've got more calls
coming up. After the break, we'll talk to Yvonne from
Santa Clarita and Cassidy, and then we'll go back to
some more news.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
The next Bill Handle show. It's I Am six and forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I think that
was Bill Handle literally just yelling at the TV. I
think it was the Grandpa Simpson. I think but also
you're right it was Grandpa Simpson. But what I'm saying
as a concept, it was just handle yelling about too
many TV channels. I love that big fan. Get him
(24:59):
A Zelman had his Elmas recently. Actually, what are they like? Oh,
I've still not had one?
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Experience?
Speaker 10 (25:06):
Is it?
Speaker 7 (25:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Because you get like the little hit of the cooling
minty gel at the top. By the way, not an
ad I am not paid to say this, But then
the truth is that when you when you swallow the capsule,
it does like continue to provide you with sort of
a minty fresh from deep in the gut experience.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Have you gotten feedback on this from key personnel at home?
We both sort of were like, we like this. They're like,
this is maybe a new thing that we're going to
be doing now. I feel like there should be a
bowl of these for us here at work.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
What is the deal with that? You're absolutely right? Where
are the zelments? What the heck man bill'scaping them for himself?
Is that what it is?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
I mean, the staff here needs to take these things
on a test drive.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
I'll be real with you. I have worked in media
in some form or another since I was like fifteen
years old. I had a red show back in high
school called the Andy Reestemeyer Show on eighty nine point
three wj EL the Power Jam. It was a high
school radio station, but it had a real transmitter of
like fifty thousand watts what's what, And we actually got
a lot of listeners because we didn't have commercials. But
(26:15):
I learned very early in my in my journey that
it was important to have good hygiene in radio because
we are all in small, air tight rooms. So if
you're a stinky guy or a lady, there's not a
(26:36):
lot of breeze happening here. You know, there have been
people here who enjoyed working barefoot. That is so crazy
in this on this carpet in the past, in the past,
I won't ask no checking in with von from Santa Clarita.
Good evening, you're on KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 14 (26:59):
Well, thank you for letting me call in, Andy.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Thank you for waiting for so long. I apologize for that.
Tell me your story about having a stick shift car
or learning how to drive stick I learned.
Speaker 14 (27:08):
How to drive stick shift in the early eighties on
a Toyota Tursell in the hills of Bourbank.
Speaker 6 (27:15):
Yeah, and going up.
Speaker 14 (27:18):
The littlest hill, you're like clutch gas clutch gas break.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
There's very few ways back to somebody.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
There's very few ways that you can put yourself in
real peril like that, just on every day, random day,
you know.
Speaker 7 (27:36):
For sure.
Speaker 14 (27:37):
But I have to say, you were talking about hot
wheels earlier. I was the first girl on my block
growing up playing with hot wheels in the sixties.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
That's cool, that's great. Did you have track too or just.
Speaker 7 (27:49):
The cars everything?
Speaker 8 (27:51):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Oh, that's awesome. Did you were you the most popular
girl on the block?
Speaker 8 (27:57):
Of course?
Speaker 14 (27:58):
And then I went into the car business.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Did you really? What did you do in the car business?
Speaker 14 (28:03):
I did inventory control and worked for Ford in Subaru.
But my favorite six ship car was the Subaru xt
Tube that came out in the late eighties.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Ooh, that's cool. Was that all wheel drive?
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Mine?
Speaker 14 (28:17):
Unfortunately was not. Ah, but they did it did come
that way.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
That's a cool man. Those are those are some great cars.
That's a good era of car. If you've ever been
down to Radwood, they do that over in San Pedro
port of La every year. It's a celebration of all
cool cars from the eighties and the nineties, and it's
they They've got all those kinds of cool, cool Nissans, cool,
Subaru's culture cells, old BMW's good stuff. Well, Von, thank
(28:42):
you so much for Collin, and thanks for waiting. I
really appreciate you being on the show. Checking in with Cassidy. Cassidy,
you're on CAF I am six forty.
Speaker 13 (28:49):
Hey.
Speaker 15 (28:50):
Hey, So I started high school in seventy eight and
my brother and I were gifted with seventy four until cool,
which was.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Did your parents? Was it from your parents?
Speaker 8 (29:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah, they not like you very much.
Speaker 13 (29:13):
Well, you know, we were a modest family. We grew
up in Iowa, Midwest, right, so you can both appreciate that.
So the first experience I had was coming out the
driveway getting into I think they called this a well pump,
one of those antique old fashioned pumps that my mom
had stuck in the middle of the yard. And then
(29:36):
we lived on a very steep hill, so we had
to go up and down and I kept going down
down downtown oh Man, and I can never get back up.
Speaker 7 (29:46):
How many of my dad said.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
I don't I think it was four.
Speaker 8 (29:51):
I don't know it was.
Speaker 13 (29:54):
So let me just say this. My dad gave up,
my granddad took over, and it got to the point
where my brother was driving it and one day his
foot went through the bottom of the car.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Oh my god.
Speaker 13 (30:09):
And we tried to give it away and nobody would
take it. So my dad had to fill it up
with groceries just to give the car away because they said,
nobody wants this, and we said, we love the sick shift.
And you know why, I just want to say this
because we were taught in the Midwest.
Speaker 15 (30:28):
How do you drive into a snow drift?
Speaker 13 (30:30):
How do you drive out of a nice thing?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
That's right?
Speaker 13 (30:32):
And when I was going from college in Fargo back
to Iowa and we hit a moose, you knew how
to spin out of a situation.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Oh my goodness. I hope not not in the Pinto,
because that would have been the end of.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
It.
Speaker 8 (30:49):
Was one of those old buicks.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Man, Yeah, that moves. That moose probably had had had
met his match that day. Unfortunately. Wow, I don't know.
Speaker 13 (30:58):
You know what, nothing having him? Oh my god, of course,
and we were fine and we were.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Wow, that's amazing. Well, Cassidy, thank you so much for calling.
Look at that In nineteen seventy one. The base engine
for a Ford Pinto at seventy six horse power, which
seems like a lot for that car. But the thing
about scary about having a stick shift Pinto is if
you slide down the back you know your driveway too
quickly and you get rear ended or you rear end somebody.
(31:26):
I guess because you're sliding back you're worried that, you know,
the fuel tank would explode. That wasn't that that was
the major issue with all those cars too, right?
Speaker 15 (31:34):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, very chill one. All right, well, Cassidy, thank you
so much for being on the show, and thank you
so much for everybody who called in the last hour
to talk about stick shift drive in I love cars,
you know this. I grow up in Indiana. I still have
a stick shift vehicle that I like to drive. And
nothing makes you feel more connected to the road like
having to shift. And also it's real hard to text.
(31:57):
You want kids to learn how to drive and not
have to text, and you put them in a stick
shift until they learned how to text and drive and shift,
and then then it's real bad.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Kind of sends a mixed message if you give your
kids a Pinto, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
That's what I'm saying. I did they not like them?
Did they not like her very much? Did you just
take out an insurance policize me? That's what I mean.
My parents got me a Volvo. They obviously loved me
very much. They wanted you safe that you know what
happened with this Volvo. They bought it from somebody who
they knew, for I think eight hundred bucks. And it
was a pos. This thing could not get out of
(32:35):
its own way to save its own life. I'm sure
it was rusted. The radio didn't even work, and it
would just die randomly on the freeway. And it would
happen all the time. And my parents wouldn't believe me
because they're like, you just want to drive a nicer car,
and I was like, no, I'm telling you. And it
would just I'd be going down the freeway will we
call it a highway then, and it would just just
all of a sudden stop working, and I'd say, well,
(32:58):
this will be an interesting way to go. Well that's
a rite of passage, having an unreliable car. Don't stop
any place. Well and listen, did I learn my lesson? No?
I've only ever had unreliable cars for the rest of
my life. I mean, Andy Reesmer.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
We're gonna be taking calls for the next day, well whenever,
I guess, until we run out of calls to take.
Been talking about stick shifts, when you got your first
stick shift, if you drove, if you learned how, if
you've taught other people. One of the things that I
will never forget is having a stick shift in Los
Angeles and driving up Los Sianga, going to Sunset Boulevard,
(00:32):
just chirping the tires, try and keepe from rolling back
into probably some Maserati or range drover that was heading
over to the Saddle Ranch, some twenty two year old
multimillionaire who would have probably sued me into oblivion. And
I remember trying to sit there and feather the clutch
hold the e brake, put it into gear and then
(00:53):
killing the car trying and turn it on one. And
it was an old car. You know, old cars are
like the new stick shift card a lot easier driving
the old ones. But I learned how to drive on
a Volvo two forty. My parents were just like here,
figure it out.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Good luck.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Driving around Indianapolis, I think in the winter, trying to
figure out every ten miles an hour, I had to shift.
That's how like, that's how the gear ratio was. So
by the time I got to fifty miles an hour,
that was it. The car would just not go much
faster than that. But it was a brick and for
good reason. I think the zero to sixty time on
an early nineties Volvo two forties like truly sixteen seconds
(01:30):
or something like that. Crazy stuff. Ron Or have you
done a stick shift in a while?
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, I love them. They always made me feel like
Steve McQueen. You know, it really is a cool vibe.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I had one in La that I had to sell
because I was living up here in the valley and
I was working at Mattel in Elsegundo for hot wheels,
and I was driving over the hill every morning. It
would take like an hour and a half to get
there and sometimes two hours to get home. And I
was the heavy clutch, putting in this heavy clutch, and
my truly, my left thigh was at least a couple
(02:01):
inches bigger than me.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Write Okay, but don't think I'm gonna let you just
zoom past the hot wheels thing. I need to hear
about that.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
So I worked for Hot Wheels for about two or
three years back in the mid twenty teens. I was
the head of the YouTube channel essentially, so I got
to come up with content about hot wheels. We would
build these big hot Wheels setups would take over like
a diner in Santa Monica and put unlimited track there.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Okay, so did you get free tracks and like you
and your office buddies whip each other with them?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Oh, Mike, was that all the time? I mean, truly,
you reach a point where you have so much free
stuff that you don't want to see it ever again.
I had so many hot wheels. I had hot wheels
coming out of every orifice. I was just swimming in
hot wheels. The bathtub was full of hot wheels. That's
a problem a lot of people would like to have.
Do you remember the Wolf of Wall Street where they're
wrapping up all the cash on their model girlfriends, their
(02:54):
Eastern European girlfriends, because they've got like passports that they
can get through to the Eastern Bloc country. That was
you with hot wheek that it was me with hot Wheels,
but it was me around myself, and because I liked
the way that the the die cast metal felt on
my skin. All right, this is far too weird, but yeah,
I worked for Hot Wheels for a while. Those videos
(03:15):
are still available on YouTube if you'd like to go
see them. I don't know why you would. But we
did some really cool stuff we made. We went up
to the horse Thief Mile, which is a track at
Willow Springs which is way up in the desert towards
Tahtchapee High Desert, and we built a mile long Hot
Wheels track there. Whoa, which is really crazy that sounds
(03:35):
like fun. I think it's in the Guinness Book of
World Records actually, which is neat. But I don't I
don't even know.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
No, I think guys have Hot Wheel Love imprinted on
their DNA.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I definitely liked it because I thought it was a
very full circle thing for being a car guy and
like also a car kid who loved cars and playing
with cars as a kid. I think it gave me
a good headspace for what would work. And we did
really well. We did. We sold a lot of stuff.
I think the I, the influencer that we had, who
was like the star of a lot of the YouTube videos,
(04:06):
had a percentage of the back end on the sales
associated with that holiday season, and I don't know how
much it was, but I know it was a lot.
I mean that guy like could have retired many times
over just on that deal. Hot Wheels leading the Way
challenge accepted.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Everybody loves Hot Wheels. Meanwhile, the job left you with
one incredible hulk leg and one Bruce Banner leg.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
That's exactly right. Okay, well, now at least they've become
both Bruce Bannered. I also, I just I'll say this,
like being in the car, the toy car space and
the toy car YouTube space. You would think it would
be really fun, but it was very stressful. And the
only thing was that I got to feel like every
day I did something that was really fun and cool
and looked cool and made people happy. And that was neat.
(04:53):
But you know how Wheels is like one hundred percent
brand recognition. The marketing executives know that Hot Wheels is
known by truly every person on the planet. That's pretty amazing.
It's appropriate hot Wheels rule. Yeah, very cool. All right.
Checking in with Mike speaking of the high desert, calling
(05:13):
us from Apple Valley. Mike, you're on KF I good evening,
tell us about your stick shift story.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
Hey, and you are right.
Speaker 6 (05:21):
Everything everything's cool over here in Snapple Alley, I call it.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, are you are you? Are you staying above water?
I imagine you're getting a lot of rain there tonight.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
You know there's no rain, rains all day Saturday, yesterday,
no rain today. They keep any of these alerts saying
it's going to start at like, you know, seven whatever, nothing,
there's nothing. Here's me all day.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
You can't you can't trust anybody in the media.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
You know exactly, especially those people. Uh not to change
the subject, but I mean you were talking about hot wheels.
I have a hot wheel hack when I was a
kid growing up. You know the tracks, you know they
come in sections. Oh yeah, okay, well if well kids
don't try this at home. But if you like the
(06:10):
end of the track, it's it melts, but it stays flamed, right,
and it's so cool. We used to put our little
army men and build these trenches on the ground and
when it drips, it makes like a hot wheel napalm.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
That's all cool.
Speaker 7 (06:34):
Cool man.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
That that's the kind of thing that when I was
working at hot Wheels, I would have never been able
to even like reference or talk about, you know, because
they're very protective. They were like they have to be
careful because they are making sure that they don't make
something that hurts children. But that is very nice. Maybe yeah,
all right, well but anyway, tell us about your your
(06:56):
stick ship story.
Speaker 7 (06:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (06:58):
Back in nineteen seventy seven, I was eighteen years old
and I had a forty six Chrysler right wow, A
big car. Yeah, big car. I got it from some
old guy soldier me for like four hundred bucks.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
And it had a fluid drive. It's called fluid drive,
you see if anybody knows about this. And it's a
three speed on the three on the tree like you
said in the morning, New Yeah, and okay, you start
your car up, you take off first gear, second gear,
third gear. You come to a stop right and it
(07:37):
turns into an automatic.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
How does that have that?
Speaker 6 (07:41):
I have no idea and I'm a retirement caanic.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
So you just shift once and then it becomes an automatic.
Speaker 6 (07:48):
Yep, car off and you turn it back on and
you got to go through the first, second, and third crazy.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
So you have to like teach it. That is wild
called fluid drive. Fluid I've never heard of that. That
is awesome. Nineteen forty six christ or what color was it?
Last question?
Speaker 7 (08:04):
We'll get out of here dark blue?
Speaker 8 (08:06):
Ooo?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Nice, beautiful cool, well, thank you, Thank you so much
for calling Mike. Stay warm up there in Apple Valley
stay dry as well. We appreciate it, very very cool stuff.
We're gonna keep taking your calls here on KFI, we
are talking about stick shift stories when you learn how
to drive stick If you have any crazy stories about
learning how to drive manual transmission teaching anybody in your family.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I'm Andy Reesemeyer. Nice to be with you tonight on
this rainy evening. Is it still pouring where you are?
We are very curious. How are you doing? Run or
is it pouring in your room? Are you okay? I'm dry, Yeah,
you're dry. That's good. No leaks in here yet. The
all deck home Christmas tree is looking beautiful. Oh Christmas Tree,
Oh Christmas Tree, How lovely are your branches? Indeed, I'm
(08:57):
looking out the window here from the fifth, fourth floor,
fourth floor of the iHeartRadio building, I don't see a
ton of precipitable water.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
The iPhone app says it's coming down right here in
Burbank the iPhone.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
You know what I will say about this is that
it's amazing to me how there can be so much
discrepancy between what the National Weather Service says, what we're
looking at at KTLA, what the phone says, what Google
says versus Apple Weather. It's crazy. I don't understand how
you could have such confusing I mean, you think all
the data is coming from the same place, but I
(09:33):
guess not. I don't know. Looking at the radar right now,
and I'm seeing a bunch of I can think it
looks like a squall line, maybe some some serious precipitation.
Some some sections of the map that are getting hit
pretty hard, Riverside County, San Berdino County up towards Victorville
looking like some snow in the San Bernardino Mountain areas.
(09:56):
Parts of Glendale still relatively dark on that on that radar.
Darker green, lighter green may basically just sprinkles Virga as
they call it. Darker green. That's serious. But by the
time nine o'clock rolls around, we will start to see
some of the clearing that precipitation move all the way
out towards the Inland Empire and beyond. We've got a
(10:19):
talk back here on KFI. Let's take a listen, hey.
Speaker 9 (10:23):
Boss, what's going on man, flying fish at the airport.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
That's great. I love whatever wherever we're going here.
Speaker 9 (10:30):
Out here working over time.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Man. I'm an old street racer.
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Man.
Speaker 9 (10:35):
I had a five to ten dots and sixty nine
dots and five ten wagons, stick ship cool and all
of us was dots and boys and z's and everything.
We wouldn't get caught dead in and automatic. Yes, and
then we're the best days man, street racing days and
all that. And we had to put our transmissions. Manuel's
all about that. That's how it goes.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, yes, sir, wouldn't be caught dead with an automatic,
especially back.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
He's onto something. I had an old to eighties Z.
Do you remember those?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
You're a dots and boy too to eight Z.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Those are like zippy little well, it was like if
you couldn't afford a jag, that's what you have.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Those are real cool cars. I think the Nissan sports
car program, which of course was the Dotson originally, those
are amazing vehicles. And I think that I think that
the way they look. I can only imagine in the
seventies and the eighties that they looked like they were
from the future. Because they look they're still cool today.
What did this guy say? His name was, Hey.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Boss, what's going on?
Speaker 7 (11:33):
Man?
Speaker 9 (11:33):
Flying fish at the airport?
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Flying Fish? I love that?
Speaker 9 (11:41):
And flying fish at the airport out here working overtime, man, I'm.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
All working over time making that money. I appreciate and
respect it. I worked long days too. It's not as
backbreaking or serious as working at the airport, I guarantee you,
but it is fun. Mister flying Fish, thank you for
leaving a message. We've got Jim from Lake Elson or
who's been waiting very patiently. Tell us your story about
manual transmission car that you had, or a story about
teaching somebody else to drive manual transmission.
Speaker 7 (12:07):
And I was teaching my daughter how to drive, and
I took her back on a dirt road, which I
thought would be safe. Oh yeah, and yeah, And we're
cruising along fine in like second gear, and a car
came straight at us. She didn't know what to do.
Do we hit the grass, do we hit the clutch
(12:29):
a break? I don't know. She froze so I had
no choice but to grab the wheel out of her
hand and wheel us right into a ditch to avoid
the car coming right at us. So, yeah, that was
her experience. She's never drove a stick since.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
But does she drive drive or just not not a
stick shift?
Speaker 8 (12:47):
Card?
Speaker 7 (12:48):
Yeah, she drives. You know, she's not a great driver.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
But yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Is she on your insurance?
Speaker 8 (12:56):
Still?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
That's the real question.
Speaker 7 (12:57):
No, no, no, she's forty years old now. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, it's funny because I had I had a friend
who was similarly had uh uh. She really wanted to
figure out how to drive stick sat in the car,
got in, turned it on, put the put the car
into gear, held the clutch in, pulled the clutch out,
killed it, and was like, I'm done. I'm never doing
this again. But we didn't have to end up in
a ditch for that. But well, thank you so much
for calling, Jim, appreciate you. How's Lake Alsonar?
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Is it raining it it's moderately raining.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Any flooding on your streets?
Speaker 7 (13:28):
No, no flooding.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Do you still drive a stick shift? Last question?
Speaker 7 (13:33):
Uh no, I'm going an automatic.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Now all right, Well, thank you so much for calling. Cafie.
Please give us a call anytime. We've got uh, Richie,
we've got time for another one? He says, yes, Well,
mister Ronner says, yes, Richie's busy.
Speaker 8 (13:47):
Right now.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
We've got Rachel Colin. Rachel, you're on KFI. Good evening.
I'm Andy Reesemeyer. Oh, hello, you're on KFI? Is this
is this Rachel? I don't think it's Rachel?
Speaker 8 (14:04):
Hello?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Hello, that's it?
Speaker 10 (14:05):
Hello?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Hello? Who is this?
Speaker 8 (14:08):
This is Carl?
Speaker 10 (14:09):
How you doing?
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Hey? Carl? I don't know why it says Rachel on
my screen here, so I don't I apologize.
Speaker 10 (14:15):
Well, maybe it's my daughter, but anyway, I'm too real
quick shift stories. We're on a way back for San Diego.
I bought my wife is sixty. I mean it's seventy eight.
Toyota Celica if she never drove a shift in her life.
For my mother got out ninety two thousand miles on
original fudge.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Wow, that's an incredible story.
Speaker 10 (14:38):
My three hundred GX is about two inches off the ground,
non turbo with over three hundred and fifty horse power,
and it ran real.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Well, is that we got another dots and boy on
the line. Look at this. We've got a lot of
Nissan dots and dudes. This is the place to be.
Speaker 10 (14:53):
Well, we got some Chevy stories. It's original Mustang stories too,
but we've got lots of it.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I gotta tell you, Carl, I could listen Do you
tell stories all day? That voice? That dulcet tones? Do
you have you ever done radio? Because that's a serious
radio voice. You got there.
Speaker 10 (15:09):
Now you got my wife cracking up. I got a
fifty seven Jerry fifty seven shaved two eighty three and
two S fifty five p had on one side and
a three twenty seven hit on the other side with
the three screen forty six and blue off your bills.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Oh that is such a cool car man. People don't
understand these days, these kids gen z then they don't
know what it's like to live like this. I really
appreciate you, Carl for calling, and please call again anytime.
I'm out of time, but we have more calls coming up.
After the break.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
By me Andy Reesemeyer. We're taking your calls and your
talkbacks talking about stick shift driving experiences. Kids these days
don't know what it's like to have to learn to
drive on a manual transmission car. Good luck even finding
one new. I think BMW W and Porsche are like
the only companies that make cars with manual transmissions anymore.
(16:06):
How crazy is that? Used to be? Every car had that,
you had to pay more not to get one. Here
we are, here's a talkback.
Speaker 11 (16:14):
Let us listen a eighty I got my license in
nineteen eighty seven, and I learned on a stick shift. Yeah,
and I've had stick shifts off and on my whole life.
In fact, right now, I drive in nineteen eighty nine
for an FT fifty. That's a stick shift.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Classic. Love a truck with a good stick shift. That
gear you know, like the old ones, especially from the eighties,
where the gearbox is like that crazy accordion rubber and
the bottom of the floor, and then the actual stick
shift is like a long Bob Barker esque microphone that
sticks all the way up. Oh, like a Gene Rayburn microphone.
Oh yeah, that's right, excuse me, Gene Rayburn microphone. I
(16:53):
have to, of course give you have to give credit
where credit is due.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Yeah, everybody loved those those cheap little rubber housing thing.
Yeah right, I can tell you forget the feeling. It
could also have been used as a jello mold, right.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Just sure. Maybe it's funny because you look back at
cars in that era and it was just everything was
one color. Now it's like all the carpet is black,
all the floors are black, and then maybe the seats
are a little bit of a different color. But back
in the day, it was totally appropriate to cover the
interior of a car with mauve gray beige from top
(17:25):
to bottom.
Speaker 12 (17:29):
Uh, here we go, Hi, this is Lori from Corona.
Speaker 13 (17:33):
Stick shift.
Speaker 6 (17:34):
Wow.
Speaker 12 (17:34):
I bought an Acura Integra and thousand Oaks with my
fiance and I literally learned how to drive a stick
shift on the way home from.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
The dealership.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
That's awesome.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
Yeah, he tried.
Speaker 12 (17:49):
Teaching me while we were on our test drive, and
I bought the car and then slowly, slowly, slowly drove
it home.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Wow, that's awesome. That's pretty brave. I always was terrified
of burning out the clutch, you know, something that I'll
only ever had to put in one clutch, And I
don't think it was my fault. It was on a
used car. Do you get weird about that too? Do
you ever feel like you're like, really proud of how
good you are operating a clutch. I'm such a good shifter.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Well, let's see. It's like the first time you ride
a bike and you realize, oh yeah, there's nothing to this,
But before you catch on to shifting and doing the clutch,
you're like.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
I can't do this, Oh I can't do it. Oh yeah, Well,
and also like you got to especially driving in LA,
there's so many things to pay attention to because many
whack jobs out there are gonna run you off the road.
My favorite thing was I learned this later in life,
how to rev match on a down shift.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
What's that mean?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
So you basically put in the clutch if you're at like,
you know, gear five and you're coming off the freeway
and you're gonna decelerate, instead of putting in a neutral
and waiting all the way till you get to the
stoplight at the bottom and then shifting into one. If
you take the clutch out, you're in five. Okay, walk
through this. If you're in five, I've put it in
a neutral clutch in right, stab the accelerator so that
(19:06):
the you know, you peg the needle right, then you
can rev match the engine speed. Do what the transmission
speed needs to be too, so then you can smoothly
shift down into a lower gear. If you don't do that,
you'll get a real bad jerk.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Rev Match sounds like a character named and a Paul
Thomas Anders movie rev Match Colonel rev Match rev Match.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Checking with Dan and Chatsworth. You are on KFI Dan.
Speaker 8 (19:32):
Hey, guys, how's it going good? I started great? Yeah,
me too. The rain finally stopped out here. I started
to riding motorcycles at a very young age. My brother
taught me all about the clutch, and I learned on
a dirt bike, graduated up to a street bike, and
then I got a seventy three Ford Supervan with three
on the tree, suirp going in the second.
Speaker 7 (19:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (19:58):
Later I got a Gloria fourteen cool. Oh yeah, just
a kick in a half man. That was so much fun.
I taught my girlfriend had to drive that?
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Was that a really heavy clutch? Because I know the
eighties Porsches had like the heaviest clutch you've ever felt
in your life.
Speaker 8 (20:16):
You know it could have been if I recall, I
remember you had to kind of lean into it a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, and I know that the pedals and the Porsche
are all offset, so like your legs have to go
to the right a little bit because of the way
that the body sort of gets smaller in the front.
It's a crazy people are crazy. We're crazy that we
we had it, you know, we had it good. But
it was also a lot to think about.
Speaker 8 (20:37):
You know. This one had the gearbox like it was
like a mid engine car, so all underneath the dash
it was all open. You could lay down there.
Speaker 11 (20:48):
Wow.
Speaker 8 (20:50):
Yeah. Later on I dated Sue Susan. Her dad would
cheap the surgery over at St. John's Averture County. They
were yeah him. He took his wife to Italy. They
were Italian, so they went to Italy and he says, here,
you got to use the car, just watch it when
you're done. I was like, great, no problem there, and
uh we took it to my ten year class reunion. Right.
(21:16):
Don't tell anybody, but we were drinking champagne on the
way there. It was pretty hilarious anyway. So we had
a blast coming up from uh Camrio on the backside
on the one eighteen. I think I hit one hundred ten.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Oh my god.
Speaker 7 (21:33):
It wasn't a.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Target with a bottle of don Perrion. On the other hand, So.
Speaker 8 (21:44):
We got there, had a blast, took our pictures, danced
like crazy, I got lit, and she had to drive home.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, but did she she knew how to drive the
I guess that would have been a six speed, right,
the nine to eleven target during that time would have
been a six.
Speaker 8 (21:55):
Speed I think so, And yeah she knew how well good.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
That's always my fear, as if I go out to
eat or something and I get incapacitated and my girlfriend
doesn't know how to drive stick, then we're going to
be stranded. But she knows, so it all worked out.
So Dan, thank you so much for calling from Chatsworth.
Appreciate you being on the phone. We've got one more
call here than We're going to take a break and we'll
take another couple of calls after that before we get
back to some other news. We have Nikki from Corona.
(22:23):
Is that is that who we have online? Or Yvonne Yvonne.
Let's let's go to let's go to von Oh, we
have Nikki from Corona. Okay, I'm sorry, Ivon, if you're
still there, keep waiting. I'm sorry to keep everybody waiting
We've got a lot of people want to talk here.
This is great, Nikki. What can I do for you
this evening?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
I'm just sharing my story. But yeah, Joe stick started
on eighty nine Nissan CenTra and it only had four
years and then we've only upgraded two five years and
then six years after that.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Another Dotson Nissan person, this is crazy I have. This
is such a cool thing that all these Nissan people
are calling. Uh, do you still drive a stick sh
I do? That's awesome. What do you have now?
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Twenty pounds the accurate Antigra.
Speaker 6 (23:07):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Oh so that's a new move, A new car that
has a stick shift. Yes, wow, that's awesome. Does it
feel a lot different than like the eighties stick shifts?
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Oh my gosh, yes, Like I've never downshifted before. It
was always just throw it neutral and wait till you
get to the step, you know.
Speaker 6 (23:23):
But now now it's so smooth.
Speaker 7 (23:26):
But you want to downshift?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah? Are you doing heel to toe breaking? Are doing
any clutch drops or burnouts or anything like that?
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Oh goodness no, but you barely even need to use
your clutch like it's so I have adaptive crewse control.
Speaker 6 (23:38):
I don't understand how Wow, that's wild. Yeah, that's incredible,
and it's got like you know, sport mode and then
comfort moves regularly.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Well, i'll tell you what, you're a brave person with
how much traffic jams happened down in Corona. For for
having a stick shift car. That's a that's a brave.
Speaker 8 (23:55):
I just moved here and I'm learning right now.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
My first experience in the rain comes from Manhattan.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Be Oh no, how long did it take you to
get home?
Speaker 4 (24:05):
I waited an hour and a half to leave and
it still took me about an hour twenty Oh.
Speaker 6 (24:10):
Well, but it wasn't bad.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah, and this is very rare. You know so well, Nikki,
thank you so much for colling. We've got more calls
coming up. After the break, we'll talk to Yvonne from
Santa Clarita and Cassidy, and then we'll go back to
some more news.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
The next Bill Handle show. It's I Am six and forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I think that
was Bill Handle literally just yelling at the TV. I
think it was the Grandpa Simpson. I think but also
you're right it was Grandpa Simpson. But what I'm saying
as a concept, it was just handle yelling about too
many TV channels. I love that big fan. Get him
(24:59):
A Zelman had his Elmas recently. Actually, what are they like? Oh,
I've still not had one?
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Experience?
Speaker 10 (25:06):
Is it?
Speaker 7 (25:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Because you get like the little hit of the cooling
minty gel at the top. By the way, not an
ad I am not paid to say this, But then
the truth is that when you when you swallow the capsule,
it does like continue to provide you with sort of
a minty fresh from deep in the gut experience.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Have you gotten feedback on this from key personnel at home?
We both sort of were like, we like this. They're like,
this is maybe a new thing that we're going to
be doing now. I feel like there should be a
bowl of these for us here at work.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
What is the deal with that? You're absolutely right? Where
are the zelments? What the heck man bill'scaping them for himself?
Is that what it is?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
I mean, the staff here needs to take these things
on a test drive.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
I'll be real with you. I have worked in media
in some form or another since I was like fifteen
years old. I had a red show back in high
school called the Andy Reestemeyer Show on eighty nine point
three wj EL the Power Jam. It was a high
school radio station, but it had a real transmitter of
like fifty thousand watts what's what, And we actually got
a lot of listeners because we didn't have commercials. But
(26:15):
I learned very early in my in my journey that
it was important to have good hygiene in radio because
we are all in small, air tight rooms. So if
you're a stinky guy or a lady, there's not a
(26:36):
lot of breeze happening here. You know, there have been
people here who enjoyed working barefoot. That is so crazy
in this on this carpet in the past, in the past,
I won't ask no checking in with von from Santa Clarita.
Good evening, you're on KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 14 (26:59):
Well, thank you for letting me call in, Andy.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Thank you for waiting for so long. I apologize for that.
Tell me your story about having a stick shift car
or learning how to drive stick I learned.
Speaker 14 (27:08):
How to drive stick shift in the early eighties on
a Toyota Tursell in the hills of Bourbank.
Speaker 6 (27:15):
Yeah, and going up.
Speaker 14 (27:18):
The littlest hill, you're like clutch gas clutch gas break.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
There's very few ways back to somebody.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
There's very few ways that you can put yourself in
real peril like that, just on every day, random day,
you know.
Speaker 7 (27:36):
For sure.
Speaker 14 (27:37):
But I have to say, you were talking about hot
wheels earlier. I was the first girl on my block
growing up playing with hot wheels in the sixties.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
That's cool, that's great. Did you have track too or just.
Speaker 7 (27:49):
The cars everything?
Speaker 8 (27:51):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Oh, that's awesome. Did you were you the most popular
girl on the block?
Speaker 8 (27:57):
Of course?
Speaker 14 (27:58):
And then I went into the car business.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Did you really? What did you do in the car business?
Speaker 14 (28:03):
I did inventory control and worked for Ford in Subaru.
But my favorite six ship car was the Subaru xt
Tube that came out in the late eighties.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Ooh, that's cool. Was that all wheel drive?
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Mine?
Speaker 14 (28:17):
Unfortunately was not. Ah, but they did it did come
that way.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
That's a cool man. Those are those are some great cars.
That's a good era of car. If you've ever been
down to Radwood, they do that over in San Pedro
port of La every year. It's a celebration of all
cool cars from the eighties and the nineties, and it's
they They've got all those kinds of cool, cool Nissans, cool,
Subaru's culture cells, old BMW's good stuff. Well, Von, thank
(28:42):
you so much for Collin, and thanks for waiting. I
really appreciate you being on the show. Checking in with Cassidy. Cassidy,
you're on CAF I am six forty.
Speaker 13 (28:49):
Hey.
Speaker 15 (28:50):
Hey, So I started high school in seventy eight and
my brother and I were gifted with seventy four until cool,
which was.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Did your parents? Was it from your parents?
Speaker 8 (29:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah, they not like you very much.
Speaker 13 (29:13):
Well, you know, we were a modest family. We grew
up in Iowa, Midwest, right, so you can both appreciate that.
So the first experience I had was coming out the
driveway getting into I think they called this a well pump,
one of those antique old fashioned pumps that my mom
had stuck in the middle of the yard. And then
(29:36):
we lived on a very steep hill, so we had
to go up and down and I kept going down
down downtown oh Man, and I can never get back up.
Speaker 7 (29:46):
How many of my dad said.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
I don't I think it was four.
Speaker 8 (29:51):
I don't know it was.
Speaker 13 (29:54):
So let me just say this. My dad gave up,
my granddad took over, and it got to the point
where my brother was driving it and one day his
foot went through the bottom of the car.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Oh my god.
Speaker 13 (30:09):
And we tried to give it away and nobody would
take it. So my dad had to fill it up
with groceries just to give the car away because they said,
nobody wants this, and we said, we love the sick shift.
And you know why, I just want to say this
because we were taught in the Midwest.
Speaker 15 (30:28):
How do you drive into a snow drift?
Speaker 13 (30:30):
How do you drive out of a nice thing?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
That's right?
Speaker 13 (30:32):
And when I was going from college in Fargo back
to Iowa and we hit a moose, you knew how
to spin out of a situation.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Oh my goodness. I hope not not in the Pinto,
because that would have been the end of.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
It.
Speaker 8 (30:49):
Was one of those old buicks.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Man, Yeah, that moves. That moose probably had had had
met his match that day. Unfortunately. Wow, I don't know.
Speaker 13 (30:58):
You know what, nothing having him? Oh my god, of course,
and we were fine and we were.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Wow, that's amazing. Well, Cassidy, thank you so much for calling.
Look at that In nineteen seventy one. The base engine
for a Ford Pinto at seventy six horse power, which
seems like a lot for that car. But the thing
about scary about having a stick shift Pinto is if
you slide down the back you know your driveway too
quickly and you get rear ended or you rear end somebody.
(31:26):
I guess because you're sliding back you're worried that, you know,
the fuel tank would explode. That wasn't that that was
the major issue with all those cars too, right?
Speaker 15 (31:34):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, very chill one. All right, well, Cassidy, thank you
so much for being on the show, and thank you
so much for everybody who called in the last hour
to talk about stick shift drive in I love cars,
you know this. I grow up in Indiana. I still have
a stick shift vehicle that I like to drive. And
nothing makes you feel more connected to the road like
having to shift. And also it's real hard to text.
(31:57):
You want kids to learn how to drive and not
have to text, and you put them in a stick
shift until they learned how to text and drive and shift,
and then then it's real bad.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Kind of sends a mixed message if you give your
kids a Pinto, doesn't it.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
That's what I'm saying. I did they not like them?
Did they not like her very much? Did you just
take out an insurance policize me? That's what I mean.
My parents got me a Volvo. They obviously loved me
very much. They wanted you safe that you know what
happened with this Volvo. They bought it from somebody who
they knew, for I think eight hundred bucks. And it
was a pos. This thing could not get out of
(32:35):
its own way to save its own life. I'm sure
it was rusted. The radio didn't even work, and it
would just die randomly on the freeway. And it would
happen all the time. And my parents wouldn't believe me
because they're like, you just want to drive a nicer car,
and I was like, no, I'm telling you. And it
would just I'd be going down the freeway will we
call it a highway then, and it would just just
all of a sudden stop working, and I'd say, well,
(32:58):
this will be an interesting way to go. Well that's
a rite of passage, having an unreliable car. Don't stop
any place. Well and listen, did I learn my lesson? No?
I've only ever had unreliable cars for the rest of
my life. I mean, Andy Reesmer.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com