B/F: The Man, The Myth… and the little blue Miata

[00:00:00] Grand Touring Motorsports started as a social group of car enthusiasts, but we’ve expanded into all sorts of motorsports disciplines, and we want to share our stories with you. Years of racing, wrenching, and motorsports experience brings together a top notch collection of knowledge and information through our podcast, Brake Fix.

But before we get into it, I’d like to introduce our newcomer to the show, Rob Lors. Well, we got eight o’clock on the dot is what I see on my clock. Bum, bum, bum. That’s great, Rob. We can’t hear you. Rob, in this Pit Stop episode, we’re going to get. The rest of the GTM crowd to get to know you a little better.

And so I think a lot of folks don’t realize that you’re a second year member. You’ve been around since 2015 and, you know, they see your name pop up on slack and other places like that. And it’s been a minute [00:01:00] since you’ve been out on track and we’ll get to that a little bit later in the conversation, but you.

Also have an interesting background as a car enthusiast, lots of knowledge there. You’ve grown up in New England and we’ll talk about that as well. But you’re also part of the reason why we have a fantasy football league in GTM. And that’s been going on for almost like forever. It feels like a lot. I think the only GTM event that’s longer is the virtual racing league.

That’s true. So I guess the first question is, Are you a Pats fan? Patriots? Oh my god. Nothing wrong with Patriots. I live in D. C. but I grew up in, uh, just outside of Boston, so. I was a fan when they sucked, so just to be clear. And as people get to know you better and talk, I mean, you bring up New England a lot.

Have you ever thought about going back? We’ve had extensive conversations because of partially COVID of moving to like, Vermont, basically. Some place where we could ski all the time and go play in the mountains all the time. Just, and I was like, if we did that, I’d have a place with a two or three car garage and I’d keep it and drive it over to New [00:02:00] Hampshire Speedway and over to Watkins and Thompson and all those.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Thompson’s not far and it’s a I think a four hour drive to, um, to Palmer, like club motorsport. Yeah. You got some stuff up there. A bunch of tracks. There’s a lot of tracks I can get to from there if we did something like that. But I mean, yeah, that she’d have to find a new job is the problem.

There’s no jobs in Vermont and the coast guard. Yeah. Yeah. Right up there is like. The one 80 year old guy who’s, you know, an ex captain of the planet type of thing. So as we kind of already alluded to, you’re a big sports and football guy. So I think it’s important that we talk a little bit about your crazy drafts and things like that.

And before we really dive deep into your motor sports and car background. So let’s talk about that for a second. So one of the ridiculous dynasty leagues I’m in. is 48 teams, and it’s a, and it’s a dual copy league, so there’s two of everybody, and there are 42 rounds of the draft, because it’s also, it’s also devi, which [00:03:00] means you can draft college players and sit on a taxi squad until they get to the NFL, and so, we started the draft, like, three weeks ago, I think, we’re on, like, round 30, we still have, like, 12 rounds to go, and we’re, we’re starting to get into the, like, the, I don’t know who these people are, sort of category.

Like, I don’t know these names anymore. Wow. I thought, I think the best draft we had was when Rob paid somebody. My god, that was awesome. I didn’t, I didn’t pay him, but he sucked. He did. He was terrible. I hope you got your money back for that. Exactly. You ended up as a toilet bowl, I think, with with that team.

That was pretty funny. It’s like, I got my substitute drafter, like, Okay. You’d have been better off with Autodraft. Well, now that we’ve covered football, Brad, I think it’s time we probably ask some of those hard hitting questions, like Best car of all time? I feel like that’s gonna require more thought than a quick response.

Yeah, it depends on what the requirements are. Alright, alright, alright. Number one poster on your wall [00:04:00] as a kid. 959. The other car that was always on my wall was the Lotus Esprit Turbo. Nice. But I got a chance to drive one. Like I almost bought one. There was one like at like Criswell or something in Tyson’s Corner and it was like on sale.

I went to go drive it and like I couldn’t fit in it. Like I got behind a wheel and I was physically unable to drive it and literally like my childhood dreams shattered because it was one of the two main poster cars for me. And I was like I’m in a position I just got my first tech job and it was like sort of the NFL thing.

I was like I could actually own a Lotus Esprit Turbo and I get it and I’m like, but I wouldn’t be able to drive it. And like everything just crashed. I was like, God damn it. This is the, this is the earliest Esprit Turbo then. Yeah. This is the earlier one. I just, I couldn’t fit it at all. Yeah. I, I, I didn’t like the V1 and I can’t fit in that one either very well.

Like same thing with the NSX. I don’t fit very well in an NSX. Like it’s, my knees are too high in the steering wheel. It just doesn’t, it’s not, it doesn’t work. For me, it’s all, there’s only been ever one car. There was. Really up on my wall [00:05:00] that I just drooled over constantly. And that is, I know what it is.

Do you? Yeah. The F40. Yeah. I think because, because my dad was German, I grew up with like the 959 was the pinnacle that like my dad’s got a 1980 SC. I think it’s phenomenal looking. Um, just the way the lines, the way the lines look from the driver’s seat are, like, one of the few cars that’s beautiful from the driver’s seat, just the way the haunches go.

I mean, I had F40s and Koontox and stuff, like, on the walls, but, like, the 959 was the one that was the The, the noticeable one and like for, for attractiveness, the Lotus was the second one. It was the nine, nine for the two. Well, the 9 59 was the F Forty’s rival there for quite a long time. So I mean, it was everybody’s rival.

It became like the, the Kosh rival too. And then it was like the DIA’s rival as well. Like, it just sort of just stayed as like the rival. Like I remember being at the, what’s it called? The, whatever the, the museum is in Boston, the, the Museum of Transportation. There. And I was there with my dad for like a Ferrari show.

We were just looking at [00:06:00] everybody’s Ferraris and like, you know, you name a Ferrari, it was there. It was, you know, everybody brought up their best stuff. And then this 90 year old guy, and I think I told some of you guys a story in person before drives in in a Countach, like a mint. Koontash. And every head just, everything stopped.

Every conversation, people, you know, pining over this little stitching in their Ferrari, etc. Everything just stops as they just watch this thing rumble down the street to come in, because it just had a different level of presence than anything else. It was just, and the guy who got it, I guess, was somebody who had driven nothing other than, you know, whatever, Honda Accords for his whole life.

Right. When he retired at age 68, bought his first Ferrari. And then every three years would get rid of that Ferrari and buy a different Ferrari. Cause he was like, that’s what he wanted to do. And he was like, I think it’d be 92, 93 years old. I forget. Whatever age he got to, he finally switched and got a Countach.

And so he brought it in. And it was one of those, the guy took five minutes, no joke to get out of the car. It was like, [00:07:00] yeah, the door went up and he slowly eked his way out of it. I was like, Maybe 16 at the time, and he ended up letting me get in it and drive it up and turn it around and drive it back down.

It was like my one time I’ve ever driven anything Lamborghini. But the, the guy was awesome and the guy was like, the jokes he made were awesome. He’s like, oh, I wish I had this car 10 years ago. It pulls chicks like nobody’s business and everyone there was like, you were like 83 years old, 10 years ago.

What the hell are you talking about? ? Yeah. Right. I just remember the presence though, like the, in a world of Ferrari, I mean there was a couple of Testarossas there, there was some of the older stuff there, there was, uh, uh, an F, uh, a 512 Scalietti, I mean there were some beautiful machines there, but everybody just froze just to see a Countach coming in.

We just had a different, it was back when, when Lamborghini did nothing but build crazy weird angles and edges, and it just, it just was like, Captivating to see. Again, it wasn’t beautiful, so it doesn’t fit that. All right, so let’s pivot this question into another one. What’s the, [00:08:00] in your opinion, the best looking car of all time?

Oh, dang. It doesn’t have to necessarily be the best performing car, but just the car that gives you the feels, best looks, best look. Most of those newer McLarens are pretty, like, when you see them in person, they’re pretty gorgeous. Yeah. Like, the amount of, like, they have, they have just the right negative space in the right spots.

Like, that was it. Union market and there was, uh, just one of the lower level ones, like a, a five, whatever it was, five 60 or something. It’s just the lower level. Just the lower, just the lower level McLaren. It wasn’t a six was like thousand dollars. It was a, yeah, it a budget. Budget. McLaren. I was, I was riveted to it.

I was like, oh my God, this thing is just gorgeous. That was also for a long time in my, my, my pantheon of cars was a, you know, uh, a V8 Aston Vantage, just because I finally heard one in a tunnel. And it’s like, just amazing sounding. I mean, that thing just sounds ridiculous. Like they knew what they were doing with that.

I mean, some of those really old, like Delahays and Bugattis though, are just a different caliber. [00:09:00] Yeah, I wouldn’t want to drive them, but they are just works of, like, pure works of art with nothing else behind them. There’s some really good looking Packards, too. I mean, yeah, all those, yeah, all those. I mean, like the, the Clyde Custler, I call them cars, right?

The stuff that, uh, Ralph Lauren always, you know, would have a whole show of nothing but ridiculously gorgeous cars. Hand built, that car is. Yeah, it’s just ridiculous. That’s like the Penguin’s car from Batman. It is, but the lines are just amazing. It looks like a Harley with saddlebags. Look at that interior though, that’s really cool.

Look at that, it’s sexy. Look at that! Talk about flexing. I think that it’s just like again a dick tracy car or early batman It’s a giant penis and it’s awesome On a I mean different level of pretty Rob, have you ever driven anything that old like back from the 30s? Um Not in memory. I [00:10:00] have not i’ve driven a couple the most recent one I got a chance to drive a 37 packard and I tell you what it was an experience Because the mechanics of driving are the same as driving a modern car.

The problem is, you know, the steering wheel is like four feet around and it’s like, everything’s awkward because the suspension is just like gross. And I don’t mean gross isn’t disgusting. I mean, it’s like gross motor movements, you know, like big swings rather than like fine adjustment that we’re used to and you know, that kind of thing.

So it was a little awkward, but you know, it was, it was interesting. They’re very soft, you know, they’re very comfortable, very luxurious. I see the appeal. I’ve had a chance to, yeah, I’d love to, but I think with the oldest thing, I mean, I’ve driven like a 1950s bus, but that’s about it. Greyhound or? No, it was, um, like a 25 passenger thing.

It was an international, if I remember correctly. It was one of those things like UMass had, I drove. UMass Transit when I was in school, and so like we got our bus driver’s [00:11:00] license and they had like a couple old ones they used for ceremonial crap or to drive professors for a convocation or whatever, and I got to drive one of them, like the thing that was sort of in the garage at all times, I got to drive one of those shifts.

I think it was the mid 50s. I think that is the weirdest internship I have ever heard, Robby. It was an internship, no, it was the highest paying job on campus for underclassmen. So all of Western Mass. So there’s five colleges out there. So you have like Holyoke, Hampshire, UMass, Amherst, Amherst College, and then, um, the all women’s school.

I can’t remember the name of it. But that whole five college area, all of sort of Pioneer Valley, as they call it. So the, the PVTA, Pioneer Valley Transit Authority, for all the Western Mass, was owned by, The same guy who owns Peter Pan and it was stationed out of UMass, out of UMass Amherst. And so the highest thing, so like I went to school in, in whatever year that was like 96, let’s say I was in college.

And it was like 19 bucks an hour to drive school, drive buses once a year. And they like, they paid for you to get your license. [00:12:00] And after I got a license, I became a trainer, which paid like 22 bucks an hour and you could drive like seven or eight hour shifts. And so you’ve made serious money for a college care.

I mean, it was like, By far the highest paying job on campus. And if you wanted to make more money, every so often the, the guy who ran, like they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t have a driver would call in sick for like the, the Peter Pan bus lines down to like New York City and, and sort of back up to Worcester and Springfield and everything.

And so they’d call like, they’d call the shop and they’d be like, Hey. Anybody there, uh, free for the next six hours and want to make, you know, like a thousand dollars, and we’d be like, oh, we’ll do it. So we would drive the actual, like, Peter Pan bus line buses with, like, regular, like, have to make regular tourist stops and stuff, because we’re all, you know, we’re licensed for them all.

We all had CDLs, and we had spent our whole time driving buses of that size. It was a pretty sweet job, actually, in terms of, like, the We did like, we used to do, you’d love this stuff, we used to do, um, uh, bus rodeos, which was like ridiculous slalom courses and, uh, like obstacle courses and things you had to like work on like [00:13:00] three point turns on stuff.

And the guys who were good were like legit, cause the first time, the first time as a bus driver you try to do, uh, a bus driver rodeo course, you would hit every cone. Like you’d be trying to try to do a slalom and you’d be like, this thing doesn’t fit. It just doesn’t fit. And you get somebody who knew what they were doing.

It’d be like, they just whipped through it. And you’re like, how did you make it fit? This doesn’t make sense, but it was super fun. But yeah, paid lots of money. That’s the only reason I did it because it paid a lot of money. Cause holy cow, he’s autocrossing buses, all sorts of stuff. Holy smokes. Setting up those courses was weird.

And then we would do, like, the, the way, when I was a trainer, the way we’d kill people, like, so all the buses we drove normally were automatics, but everybody had to learn on a full manual transmission, full double clutch uh, old school buses. And so you’d get these, like, freshman kids who were coming in, like, you know, five foot two women who were like, oh, best paying [00:14:00] job on campus, I’ll try.

And you’d put them in this big ass school bus with, you know, teaching them. They’d never driven stick before and trying to teach them how to double clutch. And like by day three, you’d have them on like some hill in the middle of like the athletes part of campus where they’re trying to like go up a hill and not stall it.

And you’d make them stop every like 10 feet. So they have to start again on a hill just so they were comfortable and just getting laughed at by all the students. It was awesome. The kind of crap we did, but. So were these front, were these front engine buses or rear engine, I’m just curious. Both, uh, a little bit of both.

So the school buses, the school buses were all front engine. The, uh, tour buses are all, uh, rear engine. They all have the engine underneath the rear seat, like you go to the airport and stuff, those kind of shuttles and things. Um, but all the school buses were front engine and we had, we had like really ancient school buses.

And then we had like two really nice, like the ones that they Uh, used for official campus functions that had like, you know, beautiful colors on the side were perfectly maintained. And those were actually, those were automatics, but they were just, I mean, they’re really nice school buses. They drove really well.

Then we had like this old, what year was it? [00:15:00] It might have been a 60s. It wasn’t the old 50s, but we had like a 60s, we called the Bug Eye. So it had like, the front was these two sort of bulbous windows. It was this really old school bus. Uh, and we’d all like fight over the chances to take it on shifts. And so like we’d be yelling at the, the dispatch guys were all career, You know, worked for the transit authority, but they were stationed on the campus.

So they’re used to their drivers changing out every year, basically. And we’d all, the main guy was a guy, Glenn, who just retired. We’d all be like, Glenn, can we take the bubble bus? Like, you’d be like, Oh, I have a shift. It’s 5 30 in the morning. Let me take the bubble bus. Cause it’s like a little shorter, but it was this ancient thing.

And like, it just, it shifted beautifully. It was to your point, it was like an old bus, but like the mechanics were awesome on it. It was just, it was actually fun to drive. Rob’s college adventures are very different than the rest of ours.

We did silly stuff. We drove buses. I played ultimate frisbees. It’s different up there in the colder states. Yeah, it is. Now that it’s been out for a while, what do you guys think of the new Corvette? Eh, [00:16:00] I think it’s like parts of like, I think the previous, the previous one, but this one is better looking, I think.

I don’t, and I realize that, and I’m in the, I’m in the minority, I feel like, on that opinion. But having seen the new one, it just looks like it’s trying to copy six other types of, of sort of high level cars. Whereas the one before, it looked like they were trying to do a Corvette, but kind of cool. And I’m not normally a Corvette guy per se, but the previous one, I was like, I would like, one of those previous Stingrays, the first time I saw one, I’m like, I would drive one of those.

That looks awesome. And the new one, and I was like, uh, well, I’d drive the previous one. I’d be happier with it, the appearance of it. So Rob, growing up in New England, that means as a car enthusiast, you’re into probably two things, right? Swedish cars and wagons. Like, my favorite looking wagon of sort of that 2000 or 2000, 2010 2015 world is the Saab wagons.

9 5 wagon would be pretty slick. Yeah, those 9 5 wagons are really attractive cars, they drive pretty well, you could still get them with a stick if you wanted, you don’t have to. But they had tons of space, they have [00:17:00] like, a little bit of the quirkiness with the key on the floor and stuff. And they drove, drove really well.

And those Sobwagons are, are, I think, really, really attractive. I’m not a big fan of the, the, the, the old, like, 1920s robber headlights. It looks like a raccoon on those, those three model Sobs. They’re weird. I thought they were fly cars. I like the, uh, uh, I’m trying to look up what years they had those wagons.

But those, those Sob What, what does fly mean? One of my favorite cars in sedan form is the last 9 5 Arrow that they made. It’s just a slick looking car. I had a buddy who bought one of those, um, when he had his first kid and like got it like one year old but brand new on the lot sort of thing. And with a stick.

And I was like, if you saw that the next two years, you better call me first, phenomenal car. He didn’t, he still has it and he still loves it, but that’s a good looking car. I will say the, this, I have worked on a lot of cars over the years and I have never used so many expletives. As when I work on a Swedish car.

Well, [00:18:00] and it’s just one of those things that as good looking as they are and whatever, I just can’t, right. And it’s the old ones were so easy to work on though. Like I remember driving somewhere where the buddy and an old 900 and like the shift Lincoln broke and we nursed it in third gear to some like truck stop and bought like literally I think a string.

A couple things of bubble gum and some paperclips and we rigged up the shifter so we could get like three or four of the gears for the rest of the way home and we did it from inside the car like you take off one panel and you’re like there’s the whole linkage we’ll just fix it I mean it’s so easy to work on I find it interesting as a car guy But it’s definitely more car guy interesting than traditional decent looking car.

So I know for like for my family, we had a Jetta that my wife loved and we finally got rid of it and got her a Subaru Outback, which the Outbacks are I mean, we love ours and everybody who owns one loves them. I mean, there’s a reason everybody who has an Outback buys another [00:19:00] Outback because they’re great.

And just in the last eight months or almost a year, you can get the, whatever they call it, the XT model that has the turbocharged motor. So instead of dealing with that 178 horsepower, you get the 268 horsepower one. And it’s only like a three or four mile per gallon hit. And so it’s actually gets out of its own way.

But the, the one complaint from anyone who’s driven one, and I’ve had them as rental cars a few times, cause I’ll, I’ll seek them out cause they feel familiar, which is nice. And they’re much better than most of the crap you can get is just that CVT drives you insane. I mean, you just, you’re driving it and you’re like, everything about it just annoys me as I’m driving it.

Well, we’ve actually talked about, you know, like scaling down the number of cars we have, because we live in the city. I don’t have a garage. It just is what it is. And so one of it was like combining the Pathfinder and the Outback into the new Ascent. And the new Ascent at least has like the better version of that motor.

So it’s like a CVT, but it can get out of its own way. And most of the tuners have a, like actually make chips for it now, which is pretty nice for that motor [00:20:00] based on what it is. So, cause it’s, you can actually, you know, get it up to a decent spec pretty cheaply, like, you know, whatever the Cobb tuning or something has a couple that are pretty well tested on those.

One of our members has one of those, uh, lug, lug, lug mat. They’re big Subaru fam. Yeah. Does he like the Ascent? Yeah, I’ve seen it in person. I mean, it’s an SUV or whatever. I just wouldn’t, I mean, I know he’s gonna tow with it, and I’m just like, yeah, I don’t know how to feel about that. I tow with my Pathfinder, but my Pathfinder has, like, 1, 500 pounds more headroom than Ascent does.

Well, it also has 1, 500 more foot pounds of torque compared to that Ascent, right? True. And it’s body on frame, it’s also, it’s a truck chassis, basically. Yeah, so I’m like, eh, I mean, cause, I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not sitting here trying to knock Japanese motors, but it’s, I don’t know, I feel it’s probably another torqueless wonder, you know, why don’t we talk about how you got into road racing and track and HPD and all that kind of stuff.

Well, so like the guy who got me [00:21:00] into track stuff originally is, is Ian McFarlane, which some of you guys know, who’s a pretty fast GTI driver. And so like, I’ve always been sort of jealous of the fact that like, Hey, when that, if, if I’m not using the Miata on the track, if I had a GTI, I could actually take the kids for fun drives and on short, and I can’t do that with the Miata at all.

Like my wife doesn’t even fit into the. Like, most people, I should say, don’t fit into the passenger seat. It’s, it’s pretty, like, I’m a big guy, but I have very skinny hips, and so the seats are, like, for me, and they don’t fit bigger people very well. I think Eric hated driving it that one time. It was not the most comfortable thing in the world.

Tanya would slide into it and be like, this is fun, I don’t care, but yeah. And so it’s like, I can’t take the kids, I mean, I take them around the block once in a while at the, against my wife, better wishes. I’m like, it’s a six point harness, but yeah. Um, but like, I can’t do anything with it. And so it’s like, if I’m not going to the track, it’s, it’s useless really.

I mean, part of our issue is like, I don’t have space to have a trailer. And so like, I haven’t gotten to the track recently enough. And that was like the original reason I bought the Pathfinder, right. It was [00:22:00] like the first weekend or within the first three months I had it is when I met Crutch and his wife and I drove from here with the whole family up to Palmer for a track day.

It was great because like I could have all four people and all my extra tires and all the luggage. And your trailer at the time and, and the Miata on it. It had no problems at all. Like I still got 20 miles to the gallon and I drove happily from DC to Connecticut and up to Palmer and all the way back.

And then like. Three weeks later, drove down to VIR with it. I mean, it was awesome, but I haven’t, I haven’t towed with it now in a couple of years. And it’s like, I don’t need body on frame SUV for driving kids around. And those are becoming, those are becoming few and far between anymore too. They’re all, all unibody now.

It’s like the Forerunner and that’s it. Which was, which is one of those funny things. Like they have the Ranger and the Canyon and all those other, you know, sort of the mid size, smaller truck stuff. They haven’t made decent SUVs on top of those, those frames yet. Which is one of those weird things. [00:23:00] Which is basically what the Pathfinder is, right?

I mean, the Pathfinder is a Frontier that they made into an SUV. The, the Subarus are coming with that thing, what do they call it, EyeSight. But I drove when I thought the car was going bad because it would randomly like until you don’t turn everything off every time you start the car You go to merge on the highway, and it’s like, No, you want to be over here, or over here.

And you’re like, let go of my damn wheel, car, let me just drive. So annoying. Everything about it sucked. Um, but our Outback is a manual, so it’s actually a ton of fun. And the dog loves being in the back of that thing, and the kids love sliding around in it too. I mean, ours is a 98. We’ve had zero problems with that.

I’ve had to do a couple of like, the valve cover gaskets I’ve had to do, but I’ve done them myself, because they’re a joke to work on. I drove up a pair of ramps, and half an hour later, they were both replaced. In a week, I’m replacing the power steering pump, and mine’s got 170, 000 miles on it. And that’s like, the first three things I’ve had to replace are those things.

[00:24:00] My holy grail of wagons is still like a, I’d rather have like a Volvo 850R. You get one of those tinted up and nice wheels and tires. That thing is phenomenal looking. Brown with a manual? Exactly. I mean, you got a manual. Brown with that weird blue color.

Like you can get the, what’s the other one? The V70R or something. Is the other one that’s like the six speed and 300 horsepower. Uh, I think if you go to the Volvo, it starts edging into that, like, you have old money sort of feel, as opposed to just looking nice, it looks like you’re loaded. A close friend, classmate’s parents recently got rid of their Mazda 3 and picked up a pre owned, you know, V70 wagon, and literally the first joke on the first camping trip was like, Oh, who died and left you a pile of money?

Because it just seemed like that was the joke to make when you get a Volvo wagon. So the Buick wagon, we saw it at one hiking trip and it is gorgeous when properly outfitted, like we walked up to it and my wife and I [00:25:00] literally stopped in our tracks and both of us were like, what is that? Cause at a distance across the way, it actually has a little bit of a look of the, uh, the Jaguar wagons they made for a while that were pretty sweet looking, even though they wouldn’t necessarily want one, but they were pretty sweet looking, so it has a tinge of that Jaguar wagon look, a tinge of that Volvo wagon look, but it’s a Buick.

So no one thinks that you’re rolling in dough. And it looks pretty fly and has meets all the criteria. So it’s tough to beat that option. So I, I would agree with you there, Rob. I really thought the Regal was a handsome car until I saw it in person and the photographs of it were much better than when I first saw it at the DC auto show a couple of years ago when it debuted.

And the reason I say that is the concept Regal Torex was different in the rear and what really turned me off is I didn’t like the chrome and I didn’t like the way it felt like the artist’s pencil broke as he got to the d pillar and it’s like well I don’t really know what to do here so I’m just going to continue this chrome from the front all the way to the taillights [00:26:00] so Styling is, is a personal thing.

It’s very subjective. I still think it, at the right angles, it is a good looking car, but it is deceivingly large. Yeah, definitely. It was, it had been backed into a spot, so that, that front three quarter view, it is a gorgeous vehicle. I mean, it’s one of those, you definitely, you know, you stop yourself in a parking lot to look at it, which is, Amazing to see let’s let’s call a spade a spade We’re saying this about a buick which is kind of ridiculous for a buick made in the last 20 years Like that’s the car like your grandmother happened to have bought that you kind of laugh at that’s about it It’s like your grandfather’s grandfather’s volvo I got a neighbor with a cross door and that has not aged.

Well looks wise. Yeah, I I agree from a from a Usability standpoint. It’s perfect, right? It’s balloon tires. It’s it’s they use it to putz around you know a few thousand miles a year at most in it and You know, they have, uh, they have a dog and a daughter. So like, right. The difference in my brain for a wagon is if you have a dog that’s bigger than a shih tzu, a wagon helps a ton because then you can actually have a passenger and a [00:27:00] dog if you want to go out camping and stuff, or keep at least your interior slightly clean, but yeah, that’s the, the Crosstower, like it’s a very usable functional vehicle, but it’s, it’s looks have not, I mean, I see it every day when I walk my dog outside and it’s.

It hasn’t aged well. But you also have stuff like the Cadillac CTS station wagon. Which, I mean, if you’re a car guy, that’s the holy grail of wagons. But they’re also tiny, itty bitty cars. They’re teeny weeny cars inside. They’re, they’re normal size on the outside. Every auto show I would go sit in those things.

Because I was excited as an enthusiast to get in one. And I’m like, I wouldn’t, even the passenger seat was too small, and I’m barely six feet tall. It’s a tiny, tiny car. No, and I normally can squeeze, I mean, I have a Miata, it is what it is, but like that car just felt claustrophobic coming out of any other vehicle I sat in, including like a Boxer or Cayman.

Like you sit in that CTS V and it’s like you’re in, You’re in like this weird little shell. It’s the weirdest. It’s it’s too small. It’s comically small. Go travel in [00:28:00] Europe enough, especially over the last decade. Wagons were everywhere. It was the hot commodity. It was the thing that everybody had. And it all diesel.

Yeah, and if you didn’t have a wagon, you had a hatchback. I mean, a sedan, and especially SUVs, that was not a thing, you know, so. Even recently, that, like, my dad was over there with, uh, on a trip with, uh, my parents with another set of parents, and they had rented a, uh, a Tiguan with the diesel and a six speed, and my dad was, would kill for one.

He came home and he’s like, why can’t I have a car that gets, you know, 40 miles to the gallon, perfectly drives up hills all over the place, easily fits four adults with all the luggage in the world, and was awesome. Because it kills people, allegedly. Yeah, but he, he was like, I wish they would sell it over here.

Instead, he bought the final generation Forester that you could get with a stick. So he has a six speed Forester that he loves. He’s driven it down to Florida and back up. He lives in Massachusetts, so he loves his Forester wagon, but he bought like, the final year he could get a stick on it is what he bought.

That [00:29:00] one. Because he refuses to ever own a car that has an automatic, so only manuals for him. A4 manual, like a newish A4 manual on the Forester, and then he has his 1989 11SC from Europe. Dream Wagon, I want like Tomas’s, you know, the, you see Brad Donning, that thing is a friggin rocket ship and sounds amazing at full chat and you gotta get rid of the doll back stickers to get some level of sort of sleeperville, that thing is just on a different planet of awesome.

Dream Wagon. And I believe Rob is talking about the A6 Allroad with like 1, 500 horsepower that that can get through half a session on track before it overheats and needs to come off. But in that half a session, no one can keep up with it. I mean, he’s exactly fair, but the thing just halts. Eric, you’re on mute if you’re chatting with us.

I mean, shit, I’m a diehard VW guy, right? But. It’s weird. Like I didn’t, yeah, I know. I saw that Rob. So I don’t know that that’s just me. I guess I like [00:30:00] euros. Same here. I got my, um, my wife’s parents, best friend had a, uh, three 28, I wagon with a manual that they own forever. And. Every time I saw it, I was like, Are you gonna get rid of that?

Are you gonna get rid of that? Are you gonna get rid of that? And they, you know, No one ever, they were like, Ha ha ha, no, we love it. And then one Christmas, we go up there, and they came over for Christmas, and they pulled up in a GTI. I was like, What, what happened to the wagon? And they’re like, Oh, we, We decided we didn’t need a car that big, so we got rid of it.

Of course, it’s not that big. Yeah, yeah. We got rid of it for the GTI. I was like, why didn’t you call me? I’m like, you probably traded it in and got like three grand for it. I was like, goddammit, I would have totally taken that car because I’m the same way. I’m like, I grew up driving around in Volkswagen buses and stuff and Sciroccos and Rabbits and everything.

And, and I, yeah, I just, yeah, wagons is sort of where it’s at. You know, it’s, Big slap, slap sides and a box in the back. It just makes me happy. And the newer ones, the newer ones don’t do anything for me unfortunately. No, they’re, they’re too rounded. Yeah. And then also, [00:31:00] go ahead. And, and this, this speaks to like my pathfinder over Cherokee sort of thing too, is like the, the reason I like that old, like the Volvo V 70 R and those things is it’s, it’s the boxiness of the back, which is like of the new SUVs.

Why I like the new Bronco, the new defender, even from Land Rover, I think looks great because instead of going with this like. What all the BMW is doing and Cadillac of like, oh, let’s have a great roofline and then just sort of chop it to make it look funky. I’m like, I don’t want that chop, like fill out the damn box.

So I had like, I just like the clean look of the full boxiness to me is so much nicer. It’s similar to those sort of, you know, the Mark IV Golfs and Rabbits and GTIs and such same thing. Is they, they fill out the box. They’re not trying to bulb a size that are cut off angles. Weird. It’s just make it a box, have some slab sides.

Makes me happy. My Scirocco is the same sort of thing. So I’d like my 16 Scirocco. I was going to college and I picked up like a, what it was a 42 inch television, like old school television with a whole back and everything. And I went to whatever it was [00:32:00] best by whatever place I bought it from on sale.

Back it up and they’re like, This is a tiny little red two door car, what the hell do you think? And you open that trunk and you’re like, Just slide that shit in, what’s the point? Like, I put that in, I’m like, Oh, I’m also buying that and that, like, And suitcases next to it, like, I drove it to college with all the shit I needed for the whole year, Like, in the back of a Scirocco without any problems at all.

It’s a, like, it’s basically the same shape. So, they’re huge inside. The other car that’s huge for its size, of course, is the Honda Element. My brother and his wife bought one because she’s a music teacher and she needed to be able to transport like two timpanis and two tubas at a time. And so this is before they had kids, so she bought an element and she could slide all that shit right in, no problem at all.

Now, of course, going back to tie it back in, you know, they have a whatever, a Grand Voyager or whatever, some big minivan that fits it all even easier. But at the time the element was like the smallest car that had the most inside space was basically the there’s two there’s two things that I don’t want to steal Matt’s joke, but there’s two things about the element for one I’ve ridden in one and if you’ve never ridden in one, [00:33:00] I swear to God, there’s a needle like out of minority report that hits you in the back of the head and anesthetizes you.

’cause it was one of the most mind numbing vehicles I’ve ever been in. And the seats might as well be out of a church because they’re about as , they’re about as comfortable as a pew can be. But, but you can recline it, Dr. And to make matters worse, it’s not a light vehicle. It’s built on top of a civic, and it’s still powered by a civic engine.

And you’re like, when the hell is VTEC ever gonna kick in? Which is the third of never, right? But, to steal Matt’s joke, the Honda Element is the ultimate, ultimate Halloween vehicle when you purchase it in silver and put two pieces of brown foam on top because it becomes a rolling toaster. A lot of people, a lot of people did that.

It used to go like, my wife used to do triathlons and stuff, because the weird sunroof in the back, you could just pop out and do the same thing. So you could have your head down. Yeah, [00:34:00] exactly. You could stand up and like, you put your head out and still change. Yeah, you change your bottoms, no problem at all.

And actually they built in the rack where you could just slide your bikes in standing up and you could have like, whatever bikes you need all standing up. So we’re in Wildwood, New Jersey. My buddy’s Element, we had taken there for a frisbee tournament. And no joke, we put 22 people in there to drive to the restaurant to get food.

Just just stacked them all up like everybody’s standing like all lined up. Which was funny to me because so I have a buddy who has like a three or four, he’s the final general, the final outback you get with a manual. So like there was only nine left in the country when he went to a dealership and ordered his.

And so it’s the same body style as mine though. And the key with those though is if it rains, you could sit the hatchback up and he’s like six, three, he and I could like sit with our backs inside the trunk and our legs sort of stretched out comfortably. And so we were in Colorado for a Frisbee tournament and I had the rental out back and I opened the trunk and the two of us went to sit in it and [00:35:00] immediately we’re like, why is this half the size of our car?

Like. It doesn’t fit anymore. It was like a bigger trunk from a number standpoint, but we, it no longer was sized such that like an adult could just sort of sit back to hang out in the middle of a rainstorm. It was one of those weird where the numbers didn’t match the actual way the space was laid out.

You’d laugh at this. Every holiday, I, the amount of, and Eric knows this, the amount of crap you just sort of end up with with two kids. So like when we go to visit my family, my wife’s family and my family for Christmas. Like, I have a full size Toulé box that goes on the roof rack, that like, I mean, fits my skis and tons of other crap.

Like, we have the roof rack filled, and a lot of that is, so when my dog was younger, he’d curl up between the seat between the two kids. Now he’s like 14 and so the trunk is like his dog bed and then we surround him with stand up, you know, uh, The luggage whatever but all the little crap you got to bring for kids like, you know Bundles of toys because we’re going for a week.

That’s all in the roof box [00:36:00] So last year around this time, maybe a month or two before this My wife and I went with another couple that has two older daughters, but we dropped the two older daughters off in Pennsylvania, I think. And we drove up to the Finger Lakes to go to a bunch of wineries. It was, it was our friend’s, the wife’s like 40th birthday.

And we had plenty of space for the, the, the girl stuff that we dropped off at grandma and our stuff in the, in the minivan, you know, big Chrysler minivan. But we get up there and we bought, I have a picture of it somewhere, probably over 10 cases of wine. And we ended up with like, Layers of wine off the whole thing and I was like, well, how how are we gonna get all this crap home?

Like we got to pick up your daughters too. It was the same thing It was like oh out came this like little tiny pouch and this huge and we literally loaded all the suitcases just bang bang Bang bang bang bang up into the huge bag and strapped it onto the the roof rails. We’re like Done! Yeah, it was pretty awesome, so we used one of those things.

And, like, the amount of stuff we fit in there is pretty similar to what I fit in the giant Thule box. And, like, the Thule box was a Christmas gift from my parents, because I wanted to be able to hold all [00:37:00] my skis and such. Is that how you pronounce it? It’s not Thule, or Thule, or Thor, or whatever? Thule?

Okay. Yeah. How dare you go to the Fingerlates and not go to Watkins Glen? I went to Watkins Glen. I did the hike in there. I went to the shop. I bought a couple of t shirts. No, no, no, that’s not Watkins. That’s not Watkins Glen. I know. I’ve driven, as we all know, I’ve got, I have pieces of Watkins Glen still in a bumper cover on the back of my trailer.

So, um. What a weekend that was. It was also like 900 degrees while we were there. It was so, oh, and the amount of The crap I got from the um, the event guy was there. Oh, the Audi Club guy? Yeah, yeah, whoever it was like tried to yell at me. He’s like, why are you on R comps? And like, and Anthony is there like, ’cause I told them to, ’cause there’s no reason to be on these.

And like I threw back on the non R comps and basically just drifted all of Watkins Glen. I was just like, all this is more fun. I’ll just slide it around everywhere instead on, you know, the res I had or whatever. That was silly we hit like and everybody analyzed like crazy. It was just like car was doing fine All of a sudden it [00:38:00] was like, oh we’re backwards like, you know, it was such a weird incident So do you think you’re gonna get rid of the miata if I can get the right money for it?

Yes, if I can’t I got I got 50 bucks. So exactly andrew. We got a track car for you If I had a garage Then i’d keep it without any question because I could like right now I could be going outside and working on it and doing little Things to keep it where I want to keep it But like, during COVID, the only yard my kids have, you’ve been at my house, Eric, before, is like a little concrete pad behind my row house.

And the Miata took up a quarter, you know, a third of that space. And so my neighbors, um, went away to, like, a parent’s, uh, lake house in North Dakota, and they’ve been gone for months. So while they’re gone, the Miata’s living in their backyard, so my kids have a bigger space. But at some point they’re coming back, and then I gotta put the Miata back into my little concrete pad.

I mean, not if a bear got him. Exactly. Can I introduce you to the [00:39:00] GTM storage facility, Stauffer Mountain? That’s true. I mean, you got 30, 35 acres up there that you can park on, so you’re alright. Got three lots. It’s, that’s the issue, right? If I had a garage, I’d be fine. It’s just, it’s not fair to the car.

I’ll put it that way. It’s not fair to the vehicle. I mean, what are you looking to get for it, Rob? In all honesty, what do you think? So, the problem in my head, right, because it’s a Miata, the problem is I can take all the parts apart and I can get five grand for the parts. If I just started because it’s like three or four sets of rims and all this all the other stuff Yeah, but then the guy that the guy that wants it’s got to spend five grand on all your parts, right?

If I threw 200 bucks at it to clean it up and everything, I could probably get between 3 and 3, 500 for it, all in, if I, if I had to guess, and, but that would be somebody who wanted basically a turnkey track package, right? It’s like, here it’s got everything, and if I wanted to get rid [00:40:00] of everything, and I still have a really nice autocross trailer with, you know, an extra set of tires on it, and a huge, you know, conical box on it, And all that other extras and it’s like I also have Stuff that like on the miata forums goes for a few hundred bucks for each thing I have the original bilstein still even though I replaced the suspension But a lot of people love those because they just revalve them and they’re better than a lot of the crap you could buy so like I still have the originals of those I still have the Like the trailer itself is like goes for 250 bucks is what people are selling used Like well done autocross trailers for so like there’s money there.

I have the hardtop on it. That’s worth a thousand dollars just Like, I could take it off tomorrow and sell it for a thousand bucks on Facebook without blinking. And then, like, Kerwin offered to buy, like, one of the sets of rims. And I was like, yeah, but part of the way I’ll get, you know, 3, 500 or something in that realm is the fact that it’s, like, all the rims.

You know, you want a set of rain tires and a set of track tires and a set of, leave it out in the snow and sit in a pair of, you know, rubber band tires, whatever. Here’s three sets, have fun. [00:41:00] So it’s like, it’s more of that kind of crap. Do I want to put the time into selling everything piecemeal and just getting it down to the point where I have a car?

Cause I sold the original seats and everything. I mean, so I could arguably put it back to mostly stock interior wise. But I feel like it’s that weird, you know, there’s too many choices to make. The other reason I ask me is I keep teasing Sam that we need to put that mzr that he just pulled out of his formula enterprise And put it in a miata because it bolts right in but that’s a 200 horsepower Miata racing engine, right?

And I’m like, yes, this needs to happen. Right. Cause he’s like, I’m just going to junk it. I’m like, junk it. Are you, are you nuts? That’s a good motor. Let’s drop it in something and go have fun. You know? And like, and Mike, the, the thing about the Miata too, is it’s literally other than, you know, stupidity it’s been faultless, like it’s one of those, like you, you, you put it away wet and it wakes up the next morning and it drives great.

I mean, the biggest problem I had is when the battery exploded at summit, Bain Because it hadn’t been recharged enough [00:42:00] time. Like, I literally started it and the whole trunk, like, popped up. And I stole Ryan Compton’s Jeep and, like, drove to some West Virginia auto store and picked up a new battery. And I missed, like, 30 seconds of my first session.

And that was it. Like, the car was like, whatever. And it drove beautifully the whole time. And, like, it, I mean, I have the whole, like, hidden hitch package on it. So, like, I towed the autocross trailer down to VIR multiple times, up to Watkins the first time I went. And the car is happily, you know, in a rainstorm, towing a trailer, drives along at 85 miles an hour comfortably, like it’s, it’s done nothing wrong.

It’s just, like, I have a four year old and a seven year old, and so the amount of time it’s going to take before they’re old enough that I can take them to the track. suddenly that Miata is 10 years older. But on the flip side, as you said, the hard part about getting rid of it is in 10 years, 3, 500 bucks won’t get me the same car.

I won’t be able to get a fun track car for 3, 500 bucks ever again. And so getting rid of it. Exactly. But it’s [00:43:00] also what’s the right decision, right? And so if I get rid of it and turned it into something I enjoy, it’s a little easier, right? Like if I immediately say, okay, I’m going to buy myself a, a GTI the way I want it.

And. Be able to drive the kids around, you know, maybe do a little suspension, a little chip or something, just little, you know, standard sort of enthusiast stuff. And then if I, if I get the opportunity for a track day, great. And the Miata’s getting, I mean, it’s a 99, right? So it’s not, it’s that old, but at this point, if I like, let’s say next weekend was suddenly free and I wanted to take it to the track.

I need to spend three days going through it to have any chance of that, right? Like there’s there’s so much just stuff that needs to at least get touched and tightened up and tweaked That if I had a garage I could do that, you know every night for half an hour an hour or whatever But the way it is now like while we were talking we had a rainstorm blow through And everything every work i’ve done in this car is the you know Bring the toolbox out of the basement get everything out of the shed jack it up Get it on jack stands put the tires over here You Start working on it, and [00:44:00] then, oh crap, we’re gonna have dinner soon, okay, put it all down, put it, like, it’s, it’s an hour of setup and an hour of takedown to work on the car for two hours.

Yeah. And as you know, the kids are old enough where it’s like, halfway through, it’s, there’s some other event happening, we gotta take, you know, go for a bike ride or go do something. It’s opportunity cost, like, I, I love driving it, I mean, I’ve even just taken that around the block, it’s like, this is the best car ever, because it’s just so tight and fun, but I could get the same fun out of a, 5, 000 GTI that I could then put a pair of car seats in and take the kids places.

Exactly. That’s more than I expected. Yeah. Just don’t Google, don’t Google TBR wagon. There’s some crazy ass stuff out there. Go away.

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