Nuts and Bolts (and More)

It's time for another installment of nuts and bolts, wherein Scott and Ben try (unsuccessfully) to squeeze in all the emails, news stories, stats and anecdotes that haven't made it into earlier episodes. Tune in to see if your letter made it to the air!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff Works dot com and welcome
to the show. I'm Scott h Scott. I mean hi,
I'm been Oh man, there we are again. Uh yeah,

(00:22):
rough night. You know I've got a I've got a
second job now where people will call me. I'm on
I'm on call as a cocktail trivia guy. Really. Yeah,
So somebody wants to sound educator smart or something, I
have to give them. You know, they call really quickly.
It could be anytime at night, and uh, I have

(00:42):
to give them a quick statistic about something sounds stressful.
It's it's uh it is man um, it pays pretty well.
But you know that's kind of economy. Everybody's gotta have
a hustle. There is one good thing though, I've learned
quite a few, uh small facts that aren't big enough
for a podcast on their own, but maybe altogether could

(01:06):
make something really enjoyable. I see, I see. That's what
we're pretty good at doing that, aren't we. Yeah. We
mean as far as like how stuff works goes, I
mean this this is the place to go for stuff
like that. Yeah. Oh, and don't tell our boss because
I think technically that's uh, a violation of my employment.
It might be it might be kind of moonlighting, Yeah, moonlighting.

(01:27):
But today, ladies and gentlemen, is the day where Scott,
super producer, Noel Brown and I get to do something
we always enjoy. Yeah, that's right. We get to just
kind of piece some of that little little stuff together
that we didn't have quite enough room for in a podcast,
or maybe some little bits of listener mail that come

(01:48):
in that you know, we want to talk about, but
maybe isn't appropriate for a full length podcast, right. Um,
you know, just there's all kinds of stuff, just some
catching up on some news. Um, we're gonna talk about
an important rally that's coming to road rally that's coming up.
We're gonna talk about, Um, I've had some car trouble recently.
We're gonna talk about some some nature. We're gonna talk

(02:09):
about bees. Bees planned to one of these stories heavily
and uh we'll talk about that. But it's an unusual
tie in. Um, it does have a car uh you
know relation in some way. I mean, we're gonna we're
gonna get it around to the cars. But um, there's
all kinds of stuff here. So where do you want
to begin? What do you want to start to talk about?
You do little listener mail man, Yeah, let's do I
like starting off listener mail You got one. Oh let's see,

(02:31):
I mean shuffle some notes here. You caught me off guard,
I suggested, and then I didn't have it on top. Okay,
so oh here's a good one alright. This one comes
from from Facebook and uh it was a guy named
Adrian T. And Adrian wrote in UM said, by the way, oh,
this is about the the best forward cars ever, and
I think that the car that came in number thirteen

(02:52):
on the list was the Capri, the four Capri, And
he says, by the way, I disagree with your thoughts
on the four Capri. It was a wonderful car that
was a massive hit in Europe throughout the eighties. You
should do an episode in that car and explore it's
rich history. And you should also note that the later
us u U s only Fox Body Mustang derivative and
the two see convertible off the MAS to one to

(03:13):
one platform. So I guess there's a lot to cover there.
And you know, I mean he's right. There was a
huge fan following of this vehicle over in Europe, I'm
not quite as much here in the United States. It
just wasn't as popular, but um yeah, I mean that's
probably why it was on this uh this this you know,
best boards of all timeless. Yeah, that makes sense, and
thank you for writing in Adrian. We we knew when

(03:35):
we did that episode that we were going to get
uh some feedback on that, you know, whenever it's somebody's
favorite or whenever it's something bad. Because I can tell
you this pretty honestly, guys, in my memory, almost every
time we've done an episode on cars that especially cars
that weren't great, we have received some email about it.

(03:57):
Even cars of the Iron Curtain, yeah, or cars that
are you know, the best of lists or the best
Because if you're taking a list and and you're you're saying,
here's number one on this list, a lot of people say,
how can you possibly make that number one on your list?
Or what do you mean that's number eighteen on that list?
There's no way, Yeah, exactly right. So there's always some
some contention once we read those. But it's kind of fun.

(04:18):
I kind of like that. I like that people right
in there, you know, it shows me that they're paying attention. Yeah,
I'm the same way. You know, if I if I
disagree with the list, I'll say something. But but that's
the thing is everybody's got their own opinion. Yeah, and
I welcome those opinions too. And and who knows, we'll
probably we'll probably end up doing a four capri podcast
at some point in the future. I don't know if
we're gonna do one right away, but but I will

(04:39):
put it on the list. It's on our list, Adrian.
Here's one from Joseph H. Who wrote to us on
Facebook and has something for all the rolling coal fans
out there. Uh So, Joseph sent us what maybe a
very important announcement for some of you guys. I'm not
going to name names, but for coal rollers, watch out.

(05:01):
The um Illinois Generally General Assembly has a new bill
in in play that would result in a five thousand
dollar fine for rolling coal. Now you know, of course,
the e p A already has laws that apply to
messing with emissions right mission controls, and they've had those

(05:24):
for a while, but this wants to This bill wants
to amend the Environmental Protection Act stating that no person
shall retrofit any diesel powered vehicle with any device, smoke stack,
or other equipment that enhances the vehicle's capacity to emit soot, smoke,
or other particular emissions, and shall or shall purposely release

(05:46):
significant quantities of such smoke or other particular emissions into
the air and onto roadways and other vehicles while operating
the vehicle. Wow, that's a thrilling read. But uh, five
grand thousand dollars, Yeah, it really is. Man, it would
it would make you think twice before flipping that switch
to dump the fuel. I mean, I just I feel

(06:09):
like that's an excessive fine. Yeah, we did that whole
podcast on rolling coal and it was pretty fascinating. How
you know, the the different levels that you could do that.
I mean, you can spend just a couple hundred bucks
and make it do a sort of you know, like
a kind of a home made job, and then you
can go all the way up to I think it
was like sears or something crazy like that. You could
you could get into some really heavy modification to make

(06:31):
that happen. But man, five thousand dollar fine, that's pretty
pretty excessive. Watch out Watch out in Illinois. All right,
there's one. Here's an email that comes from Patrick B.
And he wrote in about vintage car features, but he
had a note ahead of time here he said that, um,
regarding spare tires, um, he says, I have an off

(06:52):
road jeep and a full sized spare tires required, as
you can imagine, for different purposes, right, for different reasons.
If you're gonna be off road now on a passenger car,
a spare tire, I consider insurance. And I think that's
a good way to look at a spare tires. Insurance. Yeah,
that's a that's a really good point, man. And then
he goes on to say that said, listening to your
recent podcast, if you research some of the newer Space

(07:12):
Saver tires, so uh, you know, the most recent models
that are out there, um, believe it or not, they
have speeds that are allowed up to seventy miles per
hour and ranges up to two hundred and fifty miles
or more. So remember we had talked about, you know,
the speeds were limited to like I think it's thirty
five miles per hour and fifty miles maximum. Now they're
up to seventy miles per hour and ranges of you know,

(07:34):
above two hundred and fifty miles if you know, not
all cases. Of course, you have to check, you know,
your vehicle to be sure that you have one that
is capable of that. But um, I thought that was
pretty interesting. And then you know, getting onto the vintage
car features that he mentions, Um, he said, you mentioned
the poll notb vents on old cars. He said, I
had a couple of old nineteen seventies vehicles, and I

(07:54):
believe one of my nineteen eighties four pickup trucks had
the kind of kick panel event that was down on
by the parking break and also on the opposite passengers
side that you could open this vent and this wonderful
rush of air would come in from the inner fender well.
And I remember these there it's almost like a pass
through to the front wheel. It was probably really dangerous
now that I think about it. I'm sure there was

(08:15):
some type of you know, screen in place so that
stuff didn't come in there, you know, whether it's animals
or debris or whatever. But um, it was air that
was directly from that inner fender well. And he says
that you know the rush of air, you know, not
only was it refreshing, of course, but it also helped
dry out carpet, floor mats and shoes if you were
working outside in bad weather. So that was a good point, Patrick,
I appreciate you, right, and in yeah, we've got another

(08:39):
Facebook message here that well, actually it's got I'll read
one of these. I read a couple, but I think
we responded to one earlier. Our buddy Josh b you
remember him. He was one of the people who wrote
in to UH talk about the car stuff or the
Car Talk episode. Excuse me, yeah, and he said thanks
for doing the Car Talk episode. What I was trying

(09:00):
to think of a favorite car Talk moment, and I
think mine was the man that called in wanting to
electrify the bodies of cars in his driveway to keep
the goats off of them. Mostly Say's girlfriend would start
visiting again. What a wild story and it's funny. I
think it was true between interesting and funny stuff like that,
the little ongoing things that would bring up, like the
sleek Black Beauty, the life and death of the dart

(09:22):
and stuff you guys mentioned. It was pretty often I
would listen and laugh until I hurt um. And that's
one person who wrote in for the for that. When
Mark f also wrote in, uh, said thanks for the
recent podcast on car Talk. I was navid off on
fan for a decade. They had a way of hooking
anyone who listened. I'll miss the show that you guys
did a good job of nine your heads to some

(09:42):
of the great car mines and honored him well. And
I just wanted to say Mark and Josh and everybody
wrote to us about that episode, thank you guys very much.
We had one guy we had somebody right to us
um which I think is on Facebook yead dot Conzo
wrote to us and said, thanks for putting me onto
car Talk. Guys. I was starting to get to the
end to car stuff. Oh yeah, and I he's got

(10:04):
to be joking. There's no way that you you haven't
heard about car Talk. Well, you know what I think
he meant by that. I think he was saying, like,
thanks for reminding me about it, because because you know,
all these podcasts are now available online, the best of
and you know all these kind of remixes of the shows,
and I too, am am starting to listen to these
more often now because after that show, it kind of
sparked my excitement about it again. You know, I would

(10:27):
catch it on the radio occasionally, not every week, because
you know, if I was in the car, happened to
be in the car at that time when it was
on and uh and now you know, being able to
access it anywhere, you know, at my desk or whatever
while I'm doing other things or just at home, you know,
mowing the lawn or whatever. Um, it's very very handy.
And I think I think that's what he meant meant
by it, is that he kind of reminded me of that.

(10:47):
And you know there's a year's worth of listening there
or more probably more so. Yeah, again, we we appreciate it,
and that remains one of our favorite shows. What do
you want to do? You want to do some more
listener mail? You want to do some stuff? Scott C's
I've got a weird one. Okay, I got just some stats.

(11:09):
You want to hear some Stafflet's hear some staffs. And
then I want to tell you about a road rally
that's coming up. Ah, yes, good, Yes, this is that's
a big one for us today. All right, So the
old eternal debate, Scott Benjamin, Ladies, gentlemen listeners of car stuff, Well,
I should say, ladies gentlemen. And the ill behaved. I

(11:30):
like it. Uh So, there there is this continual debate,
and it's something that's a that's a weird situation. You
have encountered yourself, my friend, Should you drive on the
right hand or the left hand side? What? What side
should have traffic? Right? Uh So if you are, if
you're like us, you've wondered because regardless of which one

(11:54):
might for some reason be a correct or incorrect or better.
Uh you're the one you grew up driving with, is
going to be the natural way for you. But the
statistics show us something different. Uh. Sixty of the world's population,
scott lives in countries with right hand traffic. Go US

(12:19):
and I'm totally kidding UK and Australia because they are
amongst the thirty five percent of countries with left hand traffic. However,
the world's total distance of roads like we measured by
miles or kilometers for anyone outside of the US, Uh,
of that is traffic on the right. Okay, all right,

(12:43):
that's interesting because those those um but just because of
the infrastructure that those countries have. You know, the majority
of Western Europe drives on the right. They've got a
bunch of roads. The United States drives on the right. Canada, Mexico,
we got a bunch of roads, all right. I know
what you're saying about. You know, feel like whatever you
grew up with is probably what you feel most strongly about. Like,

(13:04):
of course you should drive on the left side. Of
course you should drive on the right side. I get it.
But that's interesting when you tell me that six of
all traffic in the world is on the right hand side,
I would think that it would be more even well,
I was actually thinking it was gonna be more the
other way. I thought more of the world drove on
the left and that I I didn't know that the
number was thirty percent. I didn't know it was that low. No,

(13:25):
it's weird because there is I guess we're saying the
same thing, aren't we. Yeah, yeah, it's it's change. But
here's the thing. Um, remember when we did that road
signs episode and we found out that countries in the
United Nations have been duking it out over everything from
road signs to um the color of lights used a

(13:46):
traffic on traffic signals, and and and what type of
message should use and what type of font should be
on that sign, and what should the shape be, and
what should the illustration of a person be. Yeah, so
there's currently there's a thing called the Geneva Convention on
Road Traffic. Oh boy. Yeah, and it's been it's been
ratified by almost a hundred countries. But uh, this is

(14:12):
this is a big decision and it is yet to
be resolved. So I'm personally I'm not saying that one
is better than the other, because you know, I think
about British traffic every time I'm sitting at a light
waiting to make a left hand turn, and I think, man,
if I were just in another country right now, well

(14:34):
then you'd be on the wrong side of the road,
you know, Scott, Okay, clearly, I don't have a plan.
This is just a this is just a thought, you
know what That that was. That was maybe the most
unusual thing I know that I talked about this when
I came back because I was in Europe recently and um,
I was driving in I was actually driving in Ireland.
I didn't get to drive in the other places that

(14:55):
I went, but in Ireland I was driving and I
was on the left side, and it was so unusual
when you get to that, you know, first few intersections
and having to deal with roundabouts but in the opposite direction,
and as things like that, we're we're we're so mentally challenging,
but but only right before you got to it, and
then once you're doing it, you kind of just follow

(15:15):
the way everybody else is going and it really becomes
not an issue. It's not that difficult, just an adjustment space. Yeah,
the the stewing about it is worse than the doing,
you know, because it's it's yeah, that's its term, right,
stewing is worse than doing. Yeah, it's truly it because
you know, you think about it ahead of time and
you kind of psych yourself out like it's going to
be difficult, but then when you get there, it's like, well,
you just follow the traffic patterns and you know, you

(15:37):
get to those intersections, the rare intersections where there's no
one around, and then it's a little bit confusing that
you know, you might I think you know, you just
might start to go to the right side of the
road there, or make the make the left hand turn
when you should I'm sorry, make the right hand turn
when you shouldn't be making the right hand turn. Um,
things like that. It's just the weird um you know,
trying to transition from one one way to the other

(15:58):
way is the most difficult part. So, uh, that's that's
really good point. I'm going to transition to some some
more statistics, but I won't give all the context for
that unless you want to stop me and tell them.
These are just things I found that I thought were interesting. Okay,
all right, there are more cars than people in Los Angeles.

(16:19):
There are one billion cars on the road right now,
one billion. The inventor of cruise control was blind. True story.
We can talk a little bit more about him if
you want. Car wrex are the number one cause of
death for Americans under thirty five. Yeah, I'm thirty three.
I better play it safe. I'm feeling like a cop,

(16:44):
you know, like a couple of days before retirement in
an action movie. You know. Apparently it is a crime
to drive around in a dirty car in Russia, but
they can't be enforcing that. You've seen the dash camps.
Far crazier things happening in Russia. The first car accident,
now this is debatable. The first car accident occurred in Ohio.

(17:07):
In I think they mean the first car collision into
another car, not the first time a car just hit
a person or something stationary. I would not think that.
I mean, do you think that the first day that
somebody was driving a car like the first car, probably
there was an accident. I mean as far as I'm
bumping a pole or a tree or something, you know.

(17:28):
But but yeah, that must be a like car to
car collision, like to two vehicle accident, car on car crime. Yeah,
two vehicle Uh se of cars that Rules Royce has
ever produced are still on the road today. I believe that.
And that's that's something we've we've talked about a little bit.
I think it is a great set. Uh, this one

(17:48):
is not so much. The average US driver spends about
thirty eight hours a year in traffic just in traffic.
I spend that much a month, just just just about
I really do not kidding. So let's see if I
had one more stat just for anyone planning a road trip,

(18:11):
I do want you to know that if you left
Earth in a car going sixty miles per hour somehow
in space, you could get to the Moon in a
little less than six months. What kind of stat has
that been if you're driving to the moon driving in
the moon. So if they build a bridge to the Moon.
How long would it take? Six months? A little less
than six months. It's easy. Then it's a year round trip,

(18:34):
so you can just take some time off, take a subbatical. Uh,
that's it. You're right, You're right. We'll We'll just have
one more real stat then, since that was a little
bit too sci fi, About a hundred and sixty five
thousand cars are produced every single day, no way, one
hundred and sixty five thousand cars every day around the world,

(18:56):
all around the world. And that number is probably going
to go up. That's amazing because then you know, we'll
like think about it, that's gonna that's gonna go up
because there are more foreign manufacturers that are creating smaller
vehicles um with honestly less regulation. So it's easier to

(19:17):
make one, but it's a tough thing to make it. Well,
you know all those times that I've been at the
like assembly factories, you know, the final assembly where you
see the cars coming off the line. I mean they
really are just cranking them out. I mean especially I
can think of the minivans in particular. The winds are
assembly plant a long time ago, like late nineties, and
they were just just one after the other, just fast,

(19:37):
fast assembly on those things. I mean as far as
you know, um being a popular model. Of course they
were popular for christ it was Chrysler product. I don't
know if his Dodge or Chrysler. I can't remember exactly which.
I think it's Chrysler. But they were really just flying
off the line. I couldn't believe how many of them
they were producing, just in a few minutes that I
was at the last part of the line, you know,
maybe an hour or whatever. I can't even tell you

(19:58):
how many a stock come off the line. Yeah, it's
it's strange to think about that number. And you can
I want to be clear, Uh, this is a rough estimate.
You can find other estimates that will be as much
as you know, two hundred thousands something every every year,
but or every day, but I think they count that

(20:18):
as every business day. So you have to watch out
for the stats. There is a neat thing you can
go to and just want everybody know about this called
World Ometers dot Info in their car section and they
have this let me show this to is this where
you got the moon stet? This is not where I
got the moon stat but it has a running count
of cars produced since the beginning. Now, sometimes you see

(20:41):
those on the highway or something, you know, with like
the number of tires the goodyear has produced this year,
you know, stuff like that. I mean, I love those
counters that that continually count out the number of hamburgers
served by McDonald's something. The number is always astound me.
I like them when there's something positive. But then sometimes
they're like the national debt. Well, yeah, that's true. That
one goes up faster than that one. Um. And you know,

(21:02):
although I think there's a population counter for here in Atlanta,
but I believe, and I I could be wrong. Maybe
maybe they've updated it, but I think it ran out
of positions really because the population grew to the point
where it was unable to keep counting like that. You
know us, Yeah, I guess. I guess that's part of
the reason I'm spending more than thirty eight hours in
my car every month. All right, all right, So let's

(21:24):
let's talk about something a little different. Let's talk about
something that we talk about every year. And I'm not
going to spend a whole lot of time on this,
but but it is a great cause, and I want
to mention again because we have a dedicated listener. His
name is Glenn Beck, right, and of course we're talking
about the famous Glenn Beck who works with this charity
every year. Yeah, this is the Glenn Beck, the the

(21:45):
car stuff listener, Glenn Beck. Yeah, not the radio guy. Right.
There is some other Glenn Beck, but I don't really
I don't really remember him. We do this gag every year. Yeah, yeah,
be careful with this bit. It's an yeah, I don't
go back. It falls a little flat every time. Alright.
So so anyway, so this is the Glenn Beck that
we're talking about, and he participates in this rally every
single year and he's something that writes into us about

(22:07):
and says, hey be great if you guys could kind
of spread the word. And that's what we're doing. It's
we we do this every year. It's say he runs
in a team called Team Limber and he rises a
Mustang and very cool in Mustang. By the way, if
you get a chance, go to go to Rally North
America dot com and take a look in the gallery
and it's it's likely that you'll see a photo of
him there. I quickly looked through it before we went

(22:27):
came in to do this podcast and um, there's a
lot of pony cars that participate in this. But I'm
sure that he's in there somewhere. Well, we'll find him.
I'll try to get a shot of him. Um. The
dates of the rally this year, it's called Rally North
America and this year's specific rally is called the c
J Pony Parts Smokey Mountain Rally, and the dates are
July fourteenth through July. And I'll tell you where it

(22:51):
goes to and from in just a minute. But it
benefits a charity, and it's a different charity every time,
and they do a couple of rallies every year. This
one in particular benefits Hope for the Warriors and registration
unfortunately for this rally is already closed. But that's good
news because that means all the spots are filled, so
this rally is full. You can still donate, of course,
if you want to go to the site and check

(23:12):
that out. Um, But if you in the fall, you
know there's another one coming up. So if you can't
make it to this one, you know you want to
be involved, but you can't do it. There's another one
coming up in the fall. It's called the Ohio Valley
seven uh fall and this the next one will benefit
the Epilepsy Foundation of Western Ohio and that's from October
nine through October eleventh. Um. The locations of that one,

(23:34):
you know, where they're gonna go is unknown, But the
one that's happening right now is really close to us.
Ben It's it's the one that, um, you know, there's
a chance we might be able to go out and
see I don't know, We're gonna try to talk to
our management and see if we can get out to
uh make you see this. But it's not a race,
so there are definitely rules in place, but it's a
it's a road rally. And Day one starts in Knoxville, Tennessee,

(23:54):
at the World's Fair Park. But registration does open on
August one for that second fall alley if you want
to do that. Now, going back to the one that's
gonna happen right now, the one that's gonna happen in
the Smoky Mountains, you know, the one that's kind of
close to us. By the way, we're gonna try, We're
gonna we're gonna ask management if we can somehow get
out to this. Well, I'm not gonna guarantee or the
we're gonna try to get out. Yeah, we're gonna try.

(24:17):
So the day one of this rally, it's again July
four teenth, It starts in Knoxville, Tennessee, and it ends
up in Henderson, North Carolina. They two is from Henderson,
North Carolina to Athens, Georgia. Um with with this includes
and this is why this rally is so cool. This
usually includes some racing activities that go along with it. So, um,
when they're in Athens, Georgia, they're gonna go to the
Atlanta Dragway and have drag races. Yeah, so after a

(24:40):
day of rally, road race and the rally rallying, I guess, um,
you go to the Atlanta Dragway and do some drag
racing against all the other competitors. And then the next
day you start out in downtown Athens, Georgia and you
drive to Savannah, Georgia historics Savannah, which is a beautiful place,
and they're gonna go to the I think it's called
the Robling Road Raceway. So it's a road course that
they're gonna be and this is open racing with with

(25:02):
no limits, no limits in place. So you can just
openly race with it, with your you know, fellow competitors.
And as I said before, if you go to the
gallery and you look at who's participating, its cars with
you know, they're all dec heeled up. They look like
race cars. A lot of pony cars. So you're gonna
see you know, lots of Camaros, Mustangs and chargers and
things like you know, um, challengers, things like that. A
lot of those types of cars are going to be there. Um.

(25:24):
So it's it's always a fun event. I mean, I
love watching it, I love hearing about it from Glenn.
So hopefully look at some you know, some big donations.
I mean, it cost four hundred dollars to enter this
plus a one hundred dollar donation for the charity. But
if you're not able to participate right now, like I said,
you can still donate if you want to, because it's
a good cause. The hope for the Worriors for the
first one and the second one will be again for
the the Epilepsy Foundation of Western Ohio. So we always

(25:46):
mentioned this stuff and uh, and it's a great cause.
They sometimes benefit children's charities and things like that. It's
it's just a it's a great group of people and
and check it. Check it out if you'd like to. Yeah,
we can't say enough good things about the rally, so yeah,
please do let us know. And speaking of high performance vehicles, Scott,

(26:07):
did you know that demand has already driven Dodge to
build more hell Cats? Really that's good news. Yeah, that's
they managed just to Uh, they just recently managed to
figure out how to add a thousand cars to the
build schedules, so we can write a thousand more hell Cats.

(26:27):
I'm assuming that a lot of our listeners have already
heard stuff like this. We we haven't done a podcast
on a hell Cat yet, but we have certainly talked
about it. And we even saw one kind of we
didn't get to well sort of. It was in the
rain and it wasn't running. Yeah right, yeah, so, but
but we did see one, and it's it's pretty unusual
to be able to see one in person. I know that,
I think, Yeah, I think each dealer received one maybe,

(26:50):
so it's kind of like a halo car to bring
people in. But fascinating car. I would love to see
one in action. We just haven't seen it yet. And uh,
and we didn't talk to we talked to somebody recently
that he was looking for a manual transmission version of
the hell Cat. Oh yeah, yeah, Dennis McCarthy remember that. Yeah,
that's right, Dennis McCarthy, whom we spoke with or you

(27:12):
spoke with, specifically regarding the Fast and Furious seven. Yeah. Yeah,
it's called I think it's just Furious seven. And because
they'll have a little bit little variation on the name,
but this one was Furious seven. And look back in
our podcast history if you didn't catch that one. Yeah,
I just I like to say the whole thing he was.
He was a nat guy. He was a fun guy
to talk to. It with an interesting job, oh gosh, fascinating. Yeah.

(27:35):
So just a quick thing about the hell Cat here
if you don't know, it has a seven hundred and
seven horsepower V eight engine, which makes it the most
powerful production engine ever made by an American brand, a
production car engine at least. Yeah, yeah, not too bad
for Sudan. I guess the four door Sudan was seven
plus horse power. I mean, just you know, sometimes you

(27:57):
gotta go yeah, usually use that term in a different
way when you're on a road trip or something. All Right,
So let's see I've got a few different things here.
I mean, man, I do want to get to the
I want to get to the Red Bees. I like
to talk to tell that story. But um, but maybe
before that, let me just maybe briefly mentioned some of
my person my own personal car woes that I've been having.

(28:19):
I hinted at this at the in the last and
I'll just quickly go through this. I mean, there's there's
trust me, there's a lot of material here. There's a
lot of little nuances in this in the story that
I will not go into. But this is just kind
of what's been going on since about mid February for
me with with my own car. Um. First of all,

(28:40):
all right, Valentine's Day, my wife and I are out.
I don't know what we do. We went to a
movie and then we were headed to a restaurant and
it's in the mall area. You know, they're outside the mall,
like you know, on the property though, and driving her car,
her Hanta Element, it's two thousand and six Honda Element.
And as we were driving around the mall, and you
can picture this, there's a there's a you know, a
drive that goes all the way around the mall and

(29:01):
it's a couple of lanes wide on each side. Well
I'm in the uh, I guess I'm on the inner lane.
And there's an outer lane also, and that's one that's
exiting the mall property. So there's a backup of traffic
to a stop sign. And my lane was clear, so
I'm driving through, and a taxi cab was coming in
the other direction and was cutting through the stop line
of traffic and the person who was waving someone waved

(29:23):
them through from the stop line of traffic, and the
cab just drove right into the front end of our
cars as we're in the inner lane, you know, at
not at speed, but you know, going slow, like maybe
ten to fifteen miles. And the crazy thing is that
he I don't think he ever looked um so you
know that the person waved him through, and he didn't
even look, you know, at the traffic that was approaching

(29:44):
just when he was trying to enter the mall parking
lot area, and um, we we contacted, and I thought,
oh my god, you know, so we both kind of
abruptly came to a stop, you know, with the front
ends together like his side and my front at his
passengers side of my front end. And then he can
continued to drag his taxi cab along the front of
our car to pull into the parking lot. Slowly, right,

(30:06):
slowly drug his car across the front end of ours
like trying is nearly removed the bumper, the front bumper.
It was so frustrating because it didn't have to be
that bad. I mean, it was already bad. You know,
there was a lot of damage already, but it got worse.
I mean in the in the seconds that followed. It
was the strangest thing. So, so that happens, and now
you can imagine that wasn't a very happy Valentine's Day

(30:26):
for anybody. Um it it's a bit awkward. Uh So,
you know, I destroyed my wife's car, and you know,
then there's that whole renal car cycle that goes along
with this, and and contacting the paint shop and the
insurance company all that. So that's all happened right then.
At the end of uh, I think it was the
end of that month, the beginning of March, I was
driving to Indian I was gonna spend um my grandfather's

(30:49):
birthday together with him. He's ninety three, this year, and
I was, you know, I was having a birthday as well.
That's you know, two days away from each other. So
we're celebrating together like we've done, you know, for a
long long time, many many years. And it's like a
round trip. So I drive up there, it's to northern Indiana,
and I come back home in my Honda Civic. Is
that two five Civic SI. I had the hatchback. Well

(31:12):
about two days after I got back from the trip,
or a day at a day after I got back. Um,
I pulled a new gas station. I went to start
the car and it wouldn't start, and it would would
run like maybe three seconds and then die and run
three seconds and die. And I was thinking of his
fuel problem. So it wasn't a big deal. So I
called AM. I called the service. It's like twenty dollars
to get hauled to the nearest pet boys, and I
did that. I thought this was a great deal instead

(31:34):
of eighty bucks or whatever. So I did that, and uh,
I'm waiting around for it, thinking they're gonna tell me
it's you know, a thirty dollar part or fifty dollar
part or whatever. Well, they walked me in the back
like like a couple of surgeons that had some bad
news to do to tell the family, and and they
showed me and the and they showed me that there's
zero compression in any cylinder of my car. All four

(31:55):
cylinders have zero compressive, zero, zero, none. So the engine
has just given up. I mean it's They looked inside
the you know, the oil fill area, and I could
see the camshafter one of the cam shafts that had
lots of wear on it from where there had been
metal inside. You know, it's been in there for who
knows how long, um, and it just destroyed the cam
and it and it was you know, not allowing them

(32:16):
to you know, the valves to lift up at the
right time, etcetera. You know, you know what's going on there.
So it was more expensive to open that engine up
and figure out what was wrong with it than it
was to replace it. And the cost to replace it
was more than the car was worth. Because what year
was it again, was the two thousand five on a
Civic S I was the hatchback version, and the engine

(32:37):
was very expensive. Whether you went used or rebuilt. Used
was cheaper obviously, but still even then it was more
than the car costs. So I had to do this
whole cost analysis on paper and figured out that it
just wasn't worth it to put an engine in it.
So I no longer have that Honda that I loved.
It is a shame. And that car was so clean,

(32:57):
and and suddenly, you know, I'm driving to work and
and the next thing you know, I have no car
and I've got really nothing to sell because it's I mean,
it's it's essentially scrap. I mean it really is, unless
you unless you can find somebody that's willing to put
that much money into it. And I was calling around.
I literally was calling around to scrap yards, like asking
him how much they'll give me, and they're they're pricing

(33:18):
it by the pound. Ben in that car, that car
was so clean. I know it's a two thousand five,
but my neighbor even said this NEX thing looked brand new.
I don't know, you know, it's I really did, and
I was up on all the maintenance and everything. I
the source of the metal is still unknown. I'll never
ever know what happened there. I don't know if you
know the timing chain skipped a gear or what. I

(33:40):
don't know how that would be possible if it was loose,
but I don't think that happened. Um, it's just the
most bizarre situation, I mean, And they're the only signal,
the only sign I got of that that was going
to happen. And I didn't even know this was a sign.
On that trip, when I was about twenty or thirty
miles from home, I had stopped for fuel and I
got back in the car, and when I started up,
it sounded like I had a pinhole, um, a pinhole

(34:01):
in the exhaust somewhere, and it sounds like a really
because it sounded a little bit meaner, it sounded like
a little more throaty, a little more like it was growling.
And that was the only indication that something mechanical was
going wrong. But I thought it was something outside, something
physical to the exhaust, that maybe I had hit something
on the road or something that you know, had had
punctured a hole, or it just had worn out, because

(34:22):
I had one hundred and seventy one tho miles on it,
I think at that point, and after this long, long trip,
it had been performing flawlessly. It was fine, no problems
at all, and then that sound, and then then you know,
two days later, it's totally dead. It's bizarre. It's a
weird situation. So, I mean, I know there's a ton
of other stuff we could talk about, but now I'm

(34:44):
stuck with a car that is scrap, no down payment
for a new car. Can't really I can't afford to
fix that car because it just doesn't make good, you know,
financial sense. It doesn't have a good business sense to
rend the car. But there's light at the end of
the tunnel. There is. Yeah, I had a rental car
for about two weeks, um, you know, while I was
trying to figure things out. I had to do that
as kind of a stop gap procedure, and I got

(35:06):
a I've rented in Mini Cooper, which was very nice.
And when I got in that one, I realized immediately, Yeah,
my other car was pretty old and whipped. It was
pretty beat up. Um but um, you know, mechanical wise,
I guess as far as like in the way it felt,
it was definitely a lot crisper, a lot cleaner handling. Well,
of course it's going to be though its Mini Cooper.

(35:28):
But I did buy a new car and recently, and
it's a I bought a two thousand twelve Volkswagen CC
Sport And I love this car. It's a great car.
I've only had it, um, I only had it a
few days now, um and I've put probably three miles
on it already. I bought it in Macon, Georgia and
got to drive it back, you know, one on the weekend.
That was that was an interesting trip on its own.

(35:49):
But um man, there's so much to talk about. But anyways,
that's my new ride. And if what's been happening in
the last like, let's say, month and a half colation
and crazy, thank you very much. I pretty but it's
been insane with the cars in my house recently. It
was a hard road to get there. Yeah, and sorry,
I apologize for going on and on about it, but man,
that's a lot happening. It's it's because I I didn't

(36:11):
want to say it. But after the Valentine's Day parking
lot massacre, which side I think of that story in
my head. After the Valentine's Day parking lot massacre. Uh.
There there was a time where I think I can't
remember if you and I were supposed to meet up
to work on work on something for the show or
what it was, but it was one day where you

(36:33):
just weren't in the office. That was probably the day.
And um, that was back in March ten. I think
I I don't think I emailed you because I figured, well,
he's gonna go in. But there was there was a
moment where my spider since twinged ma shining went off
just a little. I thought, should I should I text
this guy? Should I, like, you know, call him or something?

(36:55):
But uh, but were I'm glad it worked out, and uh,
you know it was tough rope, but you ended up
with a new car. I did, and you know that
kind of thing is rough to go through. I mean,
especially when you're getting rid of an old friend like that,
because I mean it's hard. I mean I really, I
truly loved that car and I would be driving it
today if it made financial sense to drive it, and
in a way it did. But but I would have

(37:15):
to keep that car for so long, and it needed
other things and it just didn't balance out the right way.
And I think I made the smart decision. But I'm
back having a car payment again, and that's that's kind
of a drag. But man, I really do love the
new car too. It's it's nice it's nice. It's a
nice switch, so you gotta do that occasionally. And uh,
who knows, Ben, I mean I said never about that
one too, but who knows Miney Minty Carlo maybe next right, Yeah,

(37:38):
well it could, it could happen. I am offended that
you say so, but I understand. But yeah, you're you know,
you're not wrong. It's the It's as I've said before
on this show. Listeners, you know this, it's not the
best car, but uh, it's not the fastest, the smartest,
but it but it's my car, it's your car, and

(38:00):
you love it. I love not having a car payment, man.
And it's comfortable. Oh yeah really, but you know it's
got it's got some issues. It's oh, for um, about
a hundred and seventy three thousand on it. So eventually
there will have to be there. There will have to
be a reckoning. Yeah, I know. I mean you're in

(38:21):
the kind of the same spot I was in. I
mean as far as like, you know, you grow attached
to these cars. Yeah, I mean, you and I both
keep cars for a long time. So when I when
I was looking for something new, it was very puzzling,
like what am I gonna am I gonna be happy
with for eight years? What am I gonna happy with
for ten years? Yeah? Um, that's really a tough decision
to make when you you weren't even expecting to make it,
and suddenly one afternoon you have to decide what you're

(38:43):
gonna do. Oh yeah, it's just a bad spot. If
you can plan for it, that's another thing. And listeners,
if you have, you probably have a story like this.
This has happened to most families. At some point, there's
gonna be there's gonna be something that is unforeseen, no
matter how how well you care for your vehicle. It
could be another driver, it could be an internal problem,

(39:05):
but it could end up with your car going comput
If I got a different car now immediately, I've been
considering a couple, and one of them I'm thinking about
as a foreign car. Scott. Really, Yeah, it would not
have expected that from you. Well, yeah, I wouldn't have
expected my myself either, But it would be more expensive

(39:26):
than the one you're driving. Or is it less expensive?
It's a little more expensive? Yeah, what have you got mine? Well,
remember when we did that previous episode for Fast and
Furious seven, or excuse me, Furious seven and uh, okay,
you can say the full thing, is it? Okay, it's
it's not the title, but you can say it. It
just I like the way it rolls off the tongue.

(39:47):
So there's something that our buddy Dennis mentioned there, which
was the like in hyper sport. Oh that's what you're considering. Yeah,
like it just like a daily driver, kind of really
easy going, sure some speed. Yeah, that seems totally plausible, ladies,
And generally we are totally kidding. This car is three

(40:07):
point four million dollars. It's a very very expensive car
and only seven of them were made. Right, Yeah, it
is the third most expensive car to ever be made,
in fact, and there there's some reasons why. Right, it's
pretty luxurious. Oh it is, yeah, they it's all the well,
of course, you know it's got a Porsche engine, right

(40:28):
and it says like a turbo v six or you know,
yeah it's a flat six flat six, that's turbo flat six,
and uh so it's a Porsche engine. It's a it's
a you know, it's a it's a high performance supercar.
But really the devils and the details on this one,
because that's not where all the cost comes in. You know,
a lot of the cost comes in precious stones, precious

(40:49):
stones that you add to your supercar, your exclusive supercar.
So so what are some of the available precious stones
like and locations you can get in the headlights? Now,
the front lights themselves are actually titanium led blades right
with four and twenty diamonds on them. Carrots of diamonds

(41:09):
in the headlands, yes, yes, there uh. And you you
can choose which rubies or diamonds you want embedded in
the headlights. You can also choose between selection rubies, diamonds, sapphires,
or yellow diamonds to be integrated into the vehicles somehow
at your wherewithal to me, that's I'm just gonna say

(41:30):
to me, that is overdoing it. Well, I don't think,
I do not think that there's anybody listening that thinks
that it's a it's it's not over the top to
choose the precious stones that you're going to embed in
your head lamps and your inner vehicle. Oh there's there's
one person, surely and the show there's one person listening
to car stuff. I don't know there's one person who says, well,

(41:51):
if I'm paying three and a half million dollars. I
want to be able to do stuff. Okay, well, if
you're paying that price, I guess. So this is this
is car that's made in Lebanon. So this is a
this is this is the first Middle East supercar that's
been that's been produced there. And again it's very very exclusive,
seven built all in I believe. Yeah, and I think

(42:11):
three year sold three year, three year, So you know what,
it's hard to believe that they're not all sold out
when you here, when you're things like you know, the
law Ferrari and uh, you know some of the other
the McLaren p Ones and all those sellout production before
it even starts. But that three and a half million,
that must be the point where people say, maybe this
one's not for me. I'm gonna drop it down level

(42:32):
and go with the most exclusive Ferrari, right yeah, yeah,
to to slum it a bit. But the the the
weird thing is though, too for early adopters, uh that
this the company making this is a company named W
Motors and this is also their first car. Yeah, first
car and bold statement, I mean, I mean I think

(42:54):
they have headquarters in Italy or they have a design
house in Italy. Yeah, they have a design house in
Italy and man so so a Lebanese sports car. I mean,
that's just a strange or strange way to think of
this whole thing. Is the Lebanese sports car? Yeah it doesn't.
I mean, it's just somewhere that doesn't typically come up
with something like that. But maybe we'll see more from
that region. Who knows. Yeah? Maybe, well, I you know,

(43:16):
for my part, I'm all about more global car companies
because I think that kind of competition is ultimately better
for the consumer. There's some big oil money in that region.
I mean there really is. I mean there's certainly no
shortage of people that can afford three and a half
million for that kind of car. Yeah, it's it's not
a yeah, it's not not a secret. I think the

(43:38):
um that the market exists, I just don't know. You know,
how do you persuade people This is something for different podcasts,
but how do you persuade people to take a chance
on the car that you have built this brand new
name when the they are partially buying a brand name,
when they pay that much for a vehicle, You know

(43:58):
what I mean? Well, best of luck to w I'd
love to hear what turns out. I might need them
to drop the price on the like in a little bit.
So I'm gonna keep the money carlled going for now.
That's probably a good thought. Well, you know, I want
to be reasonable, hang on to it for another year
or so, see where things are, where the market is.
Seal it out. Yeah, I understand. Does it coming yellow?
Because you know, I was thinking that the Rainbow Cheek

(44:20):
might like to pick one of these up. Yes, the
Rainbow Chic. I wonder how he's doing. Yeah, I don't know.
He never wrote to us, No, he didn't. I don't
think he's a listener. What do you have next? All right, Ben,
So here's an interesting story, and I'll try to keep
it all straight and I'll keep it concise because there's
a there's an intriguing tale that's happening or that happened
I guess in Brooklyn recently. Oh yeah, I love this one.

(44:42):
And it has to do with red Bees and a
car collection, the Cherry King Um, a nondescript factory, over
the top security. Um. It just has a real true
crime feel to it. And I really like this story.
And uh, and it didn't quite turn out to be
the the car story that I thought it was gonna be.
But I was excited about it initially, thinking that, well,

(45:04):
this could really turn into something. But it turns out
of it was just kind of a I don't know
a little less than I thought it was gonna be.
But it's as it's a great story. What's the word? Okay,
So here's what happened in UH in late February. One
of our listeners, his name is Rudy Smith, and I
know I mentioned Rudy many many times around this podcast.
He sends us all kinds of great material. We definitely are.

(45:27):
He sent me a link to a story UM about
a Marischino cherry king that was caught with UM an
alleged underground marijuana operation and a luxury and sports car
collection that they had not known about, that committed suicide
as they were investigating his factory. And how could you
not be intrigued by this by this layout? Right? So,

(45:50):
but there's more to it than just that. The undoing
of this guy, the downfall of this guy began back
in two thousand ten was something that they call the
red Bees of Red Hook, and I mean it's a
it's a fascinating way that this all ties together. And
I'll try to walk you through this and tell you
but but again, my my initial interest in this was
that they started pulling cars out of this factory that

(46:12):
no one really knew were there, and I thought it
was going to become some big collection, you know, like
some massive exotic collection or something like that. It turns
out he did have some pretty amazing cars in there.
I think it a Rolls Royce he had, um, Um,
I think a Harley Davidson motorcycle of Porsche. You know,
there was a couple of things like that in there,
but it didn't really amount to a whole lot. It
wasn't a huge collection like I thought it was gonna be.

(46:32):
So again back in two thousand ten, Um, this guy's
name is Mandela, his name of the cherry King. His
name is Arthur Mandela. And there's no way that he
knew back in two thousand ten what was going on here.
But um, you know, this would be his undoing in eventually,
but it but it would be because back in um,

(46:54):
this company that owns this is this Maraschino cherries company
that he owns, and it's a very profitable business. I
guess it. It supplies to a lot of big name operations,
you know, big name stores. Um, it's called Dell's Marischino
Cherries Factory, and it's in Red Hook, which is a
part of Brooklyn. Um, the bees in that area, you
know that they're beekeepers in that area as well. And

(47:15):
the bees were coming back to this this beekeeping facility red.
They were turning red and they have apparently bees have, um,
I guess they have like a translucent stomach and instead
of carrying you know, pollen and you know, the the
ingredients to make honey. I guess I don't know the
whole process here. I'm gonna sound a little ignorant on that,
but um, the bees were getting into, um, the red

(47:38):
dye that was used in the cherry factory. You know,
can you can picture the red dye from a Marichino cherry.
So those are artificially died with red dye number forty.
And so the beekeepers are getting mad that their bees
are coming back with you know this, uh, this this
gunk in their stomachs instead of you know, what they
need to in order to make good honey. So the
beekeepers are mad and at the same time, Arthur Mondela

(48:01):
is getting mad because he's the CEO of this cherry
company and he's angry that, you know, the bees are
getting into his factory. So this is all going down
in two thousand ten, and they eventually discover I think
that and I'm gonna wing this because I read it somewhere,
but um they eventually discovered that the bees were getting
into the vats of cherries somewhere between when they were
loaded and unloaded, and they needed to find a new
way to um enclose those bins be able to keep

(48:23):
them out. And that was the solution. So that worked
for a while. You know, back in two thousand ten.
Well when two thousand fifteen, the red bees started showing
up again, the red bees of red Hook, the red
bees of red Hook showed up again. And you can
look up red Bees of red Hook and read some
of this right. And so this is something with which
the local police forces familiar. So this story is pretty
recent because in February, on a Tuesday morning, around eight am,

(48:48):
NYPD stops by. Yeah, they stopped by, and you know
they're going on a hunch. You know, they had because
this is this this is something that they had been
watching they've been watching for him, thinking that he was
dumping uh, you know, the waste material from the factory
into you know, the nearby river or something like that.
You know, there's a there's someplace that you know, the
bees were getting into this outside the factory, that he

(49:10):
was up to some no good that way. Well, then
when they're watching, like they're watching for this this dumping activity,
they start realizing, like, Okay, this guy's acting a little weird.
He's driving around the block five times after work to
look for surveillance. He's he's got over the top security here,
like I mean, I mean, this is a cherry factory.
It looks like just a it looks like just any

(49:30):
old warehouse in Brooklyn. It's you know, brick wall has
got graffiti all over it. It's way over the top security.
He's got you know, like razor wire around its security
cameras everywhere. They're thinking, well, this is unusual. This is
really strange. And not only that, and I don't even
know if they knew this at the time, but they
had tips from somebody and they didn't say who. This
wasn't informed that said there is a huge underground pot

(49:53):
operation going on in there. There. He's growing marijuana inside
that factory and and I don't know they ever invested
I don't think they ever had grounds to really investigate
it prior to this. So that's all kind of a
like on the back part of their their their memory
here as they're investigating him or watching him to see
where he's dumping this this red dye number four you yeah,

(50:14):
and it's all right, it's all floating around. And when
did these things start to converge? So when they when
they come by and they they bust Arthur Mondeli's about
fifty seven years old with warrant for environmental environmental what violations? Yeah, yeah,
I think it was something something environmental. But anyway, so
they're in there searching around and they've got, you know,

(50:35):
this warrant to come in and look at the factory.
And they're there for like five hours. Yeah, and they
go into a of course, they search the whole factory,
don't really find a whole lot. It all looks pretty normal.
They've even done um aerial surveillance of the place because
they think like, okay, well this may be a chance
to check out that, you know that that supposed marijuana
situation and someone said that there's even a basement there,

(50:57):
but the plans for the building said there was never
a basement there originally, So that's that's something that would
be new. This was doug after the fact, after the
building was put up without any kind of city permits
or anything like that. Yeah. Yeah, so they're saying that, right,
and they said, well, we don't really even see evidence
of a basement here. There's there's nothing. It's a it's
a clean factory. It's just you know, they're just producing cherries,

(51:18):
that's it. And they've even done like helicopter surveillance with
with infrared cameras to see if there's like, you know,
the signature glow of a grow house, and there was
none of that because of course it was shielded by
you know, the the floor of the building, the heavy
concrete floor of the building. So they're in there and
there and they do, you know, since a like a
faint smell of marijuana in the building, which was a

(51:41):
giveaway of course, and they're in his office and they
find this fake wall with some shelves they're attached to
it by magnets, and right in this area is where
they smelled the marijuana. So they knew to dig further
right there, and they pulled the shelf away. It reveals
the stairway down to lo and behold a marijuana grow house,
which is uh. I mean they think they said it

(52:01):
was like they had something he had on the hanunds
eighty pounds or ninety pounds, but they think that was
right after he had just harvested and sold it, you know,
so that this is what's left over. So at the
same time the investigators are discovering this, or maybe slightly before,
Mandela calls over his sister Joanne, who's working at the location,
and he asked her to take care of his kids.

(52:21):
He goes to a restroom. After that, he locks the
door and he shoots himself with a three fifty seven
magnum dramatic ends. So the police are on site. They
just discovered this, this elicit uh, you know, growing operation
in a basement that shouldn't even be there, you know how,
you know, hidden by secret shelves. They are held in
place by magnets, and uh, the investigators are talking to him,

(52:43):
he excuses himself. He does he kills himself in the bathroom.
This reminded me so much. Ben. We talked about this.
This reminded me so much of that scene in Breaking
Bad when the head of was it Madrigal I think
the medical foundation or chemical supply company in Europe. Yeah, yeah,
I remember that he went into the bathroom when he
hooked the defribolator up to himself and killed himself when
he knew the authorities were coming. That's exactly what this

(53:05):
guy did. And they said, you know, afterwards, that's when
they discovered Like, okay, but I think they maybe had
discovered the cars already at this point, but afterwards they said,
you know it really, I mean, it's a big deal,
but it's not a big enough deal that that warranted
this type of response from him. I mean, it wouldn't
have been a huge, huge issue. Um, I understand that,

(53:26):
you know, he had done some wrong things and you know,
it probably would have been the end of his company. However,
that's a dramatic response to something like this, And it
was just it was just an intriguing enough headline that
it made me dig in further. And the whole red
beat hie in and all that. I mean, it was
just fascinating. And again I thought that, um, you know,
the when, the when the high end vehicles started coming
out of the building. I thought, oh my gosh, here

(53:47):
here we go. We're gonna find you know, one hundred
cars that are museum quality or luxury sports cars or whatever.
I mean, I was really anticipating something big out of that,
but it never ended up more than just you know,
three or four pretty interesting vehicles like this. Yeah. And
the strange thing though, is that the of course, you
wonder what else could have happened that would have you know,

(54:09):
prompted this guy to take his own life. I guess
there's the concern about the reputation, of course. Yeah. It's
a family business from what nine I believe that is
his grandfather started and uh yeah, I mean but it
was profitable too. I mean, so it's not like he
really needed to do this as you know, like a
side business to make bank axtra money. I mean that
that money that he made from the marijuana business, I guess.

(54:31):
I mean, just just an example, I mean, you know,
the eighty or ninety pounds of weed that was there,
they found two hundred thousand dollars in cash on hand
that was stashed in suitcases. Um, so you know, he
had he had a lot of money. On hand, I
know that was the illicit money that we're talking about,
but twenty million dollars in revenue for his business, he's
a success. I mean, he doesn't need to do this
side you know, this this uh, this dangerous um, you know,

(54:54):
illegal activity in order to make money on the side.
He didn't have to do that, but he did. And
I guess it was probably with a shame that brought
him to that. But I love the whole true crime
aspect of this thing. And again, I was just I
was really hoping that he was going to have some
crazy sitting, you know, hidden secret stash of cars like
we sometimes hear about. I mean, there's there's a story everywhere.

(55:16):
It may well be that there's more to this story
than we realize. It sounds like there is. Well, I'm
kind of I'm kind of wondering if what are we
gonna hear about, Like what did they discover at his
house or you know, maybe maybe he's got a vacation home.
Maybe he's got another place somewhere else that he keeps
you know, his prize vehicles at I don't know, a
cabin in New Hampshire. Yeah, maybe maybe. Uh. Unfortunately, we

(55:39):
have to go. But I think that is a great
point to end this on because what a story, man,
it is. And you know, I'm probably not doing it
justice if you look it up, if you hadn't heard
about this Maraschino Cherry King and the suicide that happened,
and you know, the car collection and all that, it's
a fascinating story. And again look up, you know, for
further information, go back to a story called the Red
Bees of Red Hook. Yeah, and that will kind of,

(56:01):
you know, tie the two together. And it's fascinating. So
thank you to Adrian, Joseph Patrick, Josh Mark Glenn and
of course really as well as everyone else who has
written to us, tweeted, or just listen to uh, listen
to our crazy little show here we are heading down.

(56:21):
Oh but we do have something good. Okay, if you
got excited about the idea of secret car collections, then oh, brother,
have we got news for you, because there are a
bunch and so many that we did a podcast on
it earlier. Where can I find that, you might be wondering, Well,
we have the answer for you. It is Car Stuff
show dot com, where you can check out not only that,

(56:42):
but every podcast we've ever done along with some blogs
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(57:06):
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