Auto Industry Insights and a Deep Dive into the Mustang GTD

Music.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to your favorite auto show, Let's Talk Wheels. I'm Mike Herzing. Every week, we're going to give you automotive and power sports news, interviews, car reviews, and classic car information from my co-host, Jeremy Berenbaum, who is based right there in Southern California, where everything's happening. Let's bring him on right now. Mr. B, how are you doing, buddy?

Hey, I'm doing well, but I think even better that I get to talk to you this week, because you were gone last week. Yep, yep. Had a little medical issue. No big deal. I'm all better right now. So, yeah, it's been a crazy week. It's a crazy week. Of course, a lot of things have been happening, and my gosh, it's been a nightmare for some of these people in the automotive industry.

If you work at a car dealership, one of the 15,000 in the U.S., yeah, I feel sorry for you, buddy, because I've got a lot of friends that work for a lot of the dealership groups, and their management software is a company called CDK. And my gosh, those management systems, I remember them from the dealership, but they just kind of run everything, you know, parts and service and ordering everything and selling cars and, and they handle payroll and just so neat that they do everything.

It's just, you know, nice, Jeremy, it's just really cool that, that they do all this cool stuff for you.

You know, it just, it's a one-stop shop. Yeah, totally. And it does even more than you're realizing. It does marketing functions. And then something that we've been talking about, how you drive and your driving characteristics, all that sort of information is all stored within the same system. And it's great for a dealership because they don't have multiple things to work with. They're all within one suite of software.

Isn't that great? I mean, they can sell cars and they can look at your history and they can do all this stuff. That is until the company gets hacked. And then everything comes to a screeching halt, folks. Let me tell you. Last week, the company CDK, which is probably the biggest one on the market, CDK Global. There's Reynolds & Reynolds and DealerTrack and a few other players. But the big dogs are CDK Global and Reynolds & Reynolds. They make a lot of money.

And managing these dealerships and helping these dealership groups manage themselves. And they have all these trends and graphs and all this kind of stuff. Well, guess what? Their computer screens are dead. And they come to find out a group out of Eastern Europe hacked them. And it's ugly, folks. Let me tell you what, it's really, really ugly to the point that they want to get to where it's – I think they want $40 million or $50 million to get the keys to the kingdom back.

And this is the same group that hacked, what is it, UnitedHealthcare, some hospitals in London last year. I'm surprised that some group doesn't find these people and shut them down. in a bad way. It's so hard. And when one gets shut down, another one pops up. But it happened to some Vegas casinos recently as well. So it's happening more often than you think. And people need to be a little bit more careful where their data gets out.

And unfortunately, in a situation like this, the owner of a vehicle doesn't really have any control of that information. And you just hope that the company is dealing with reputable companies, which CDK is. But unfortunately, you know, it still happens. Well, I don't think these people are trying to sell your data. They're just trying to stop the dealerships from working so they'll make money. It's a ransomware rather than anything else.

So they're not trying to sell your stuff, although they may. That may be a whole other deal. But, I mean, these hackers want millions of dollars just to say, hey, you want it back to where you were? But it's a nice – it's ugly. I mean, guys, this is, I didn't realize this is a $1.2 trillion market that they put a screeching halt to. Trillion dollars. I mean, this is, I mean, this, but this is not going to be.

Fixed correctly until the, they say the end of the month, which is also the end of the quarter, which is tough for dealers. The only thing that could have made it worse was maybe doing it at the end of the year. You know, it's like having Amazon go down during Amazon, you know, a good Black Friday or something. You know what I mean?

It's a nightmare. I mean, dealers, dealers are still, you know, they're open, they're there for business and they're figuring ways around it, but But it's a little bit more primitive than what we're used to. Well, they went back to pen and paper or pencil and paper. And there are people that have never done that, ever. There are guys that work in that dealership that have never written a repair order by hand, ever. I'm laughing at them. And I have a friend of mine, and his family owns part

of the dealership group here called Demontron. And there's a wonderful, wonderful family-owned and operated company here in Houston area since the 50s. And he was laughing. He goes, there are guys that don't even have any idea how to do this. But guess what? They're learning. It's just the way it is. But, you know, it's a nightmare.

But speaking of nightmares, I hear that Toyota's got a big recall. You know, they're Highlanders. Top production and recall in the 2024 Grand Highlander. Well, a nice vehicle, too. I mean, people love them, but they've got a problem with one of the airbags that might not go off right, which is really bad. So far, they've recalled 145,000 vehicles manufacturing in the United States in Princeton manufacturing plants. Okay. Well, that's ugly. I mean, that's a problem.

Toyota, they're safety people, but they've got an airbag problem that's just on the driver's side. It could have a faulty airbag. What are they going to do? They don't know, so they've got to go out and check them all. It has to do with whether your window's up or down. So if you have your window down and you have an accident, it could be a problem. And they found this out because they've evidently had some issues with it. So the government is going to have them recall these numbers.

So if you've got a question. Just call your dealer. Hopefully, they won't have a software problem, and they'll be able to tell you. Give them your VIN number. If you've got a Grand Highlander, and they'll say, okay, I've got my VIN number. And Sam only came out on the market last year in February, so it's not that many of them. But it's a great vehicle. You know what's interesting to me? It kind of shows that the government is always

testing these cars. You think it goes through an initial test process, and then once they're up for production, they don't get tested anymore. But that's not really the case. Even when they're out on the market, they're still being tested for faults. Well, a lot of it is warranty claims. When they look at these warranty claims and these cars that are coming in, and they get flagged for, okay, this is a safety problem, and we see more than one or two of them coming in on these claims.

I guess it's insurance companies, too. You see it that way. The government doesn't really go in and test them. But when they see warranty claims and the same thing, they see a pattern by looking at claims, insurance claims and warranty claims. You know, like Ford has got a problem right now. They've got a huge recall and it's kind of comes on the heels of one that was just a few years ago on the F-150. They've got a problem with 2014 F-150s. They're going to bring back over 500,000 of them.

And this is ugly too, because what happens, the transmission control module and the powertrain control module either lose communication or something, but for some reason... If you're driving down the freeway at any speed, sometimes if you do it at 10 or 20 miles an hour, it wouldn't be so bad. But if you're doing 70 or 80 miles an hour, sometimes it fixes itself, but it'll lose communication. And sometimes it'll go into first gear. Yeah, that's interesting.

The default mode is to shift down instead of just going to neutral. Right, right. And so it goes into first gear. And if it's doing that at 70 or 80 miles an hour, that's going to really be tough on the engine or transmission. Besides the fact that it locks up the back brakes, locks up the back wheels. So, I mean, that can cause an accident. It's evidently had some problems and they've had some people that have had accidents because of it.

And, you know, so what happens is when they've got some complaints from people and or insurance companies and that, the government kind of goes, let's do an investigation. So they open an investigation, and then they start looking at warranty claims. They start looking at insurance claims and things like that. So then they kind of go, hmm, unfortunately, these repairs won't be happening until the fall. They update the power control module, power train control module.

They're going to do it for free. Don't get me wrong. But it could be an electrical short. It could be corroded connectors. They've got to figure out by looking at so many things that happen. and do it. So either way, we've got a lot of stuff happening today. Great show for you. So we've got a lot of good stuff happening. I've got a car review coming up. So if you've got one of those F-150s, be sure to call the dealer and find out if yours is involved in that.

But we've got car reviews coming up. Talk about a Honda Ridgeline. Music.

This is our Car View segment. This week, I am driving the Honda Ridgeline, which is a truck, kind of. It's really a good truck for people that don't like trucks. How's that? It's a middle-sized, unibody pickup truck. It's not even if you don't like trucks. It works out for a lot of people in different situations that say, want a smaller car, but like the utility of a bed. Yeah, it is.

This has been out for several years. and you know ford has come out with the the maverick and you know hyundai's come out the santa cruz and that kind of goes into their market that's the maverick is a really good i guess competitor to this car this this truck you know it's a neat truck it really is they used to look really funky when they came out i was like oh my god you know but now they look really good good looking truck this one i had was called the trail sport which is kind of an

off-road version of this vehicle and kind of impressed with it it's got all the neat skid plates and all stuff this is not four-wheel drive but it's all-wheel drive and it's got skid plates and stuff like that and and looks good you know honda's pretty unique it's got a little five-foot bed but let me back up a little bit it's a mid-sized truck it'll seat five a little bit cramped but it's five they make it in sport version and sport plush and see it's had the trail sport the The,

let's see, let's see, the Black Edition version. There's the Sport and the RTL. RTL. Yeah. And so, you know, this is not a version. Basically, it starts in the low 40s. And this one, it says you can get the Black Edition up to 47. My Trails Fort had a few options on it, and it was 55. So, I don't know, you know, with the destination hand-weight.

So, basically, it's $44,980. And it's got some post-production options as in front grill and some fender flares and some wheel lugs and 18-inch wheels with the neat tires on it. That's another $2,750. Another package with different front grills and different machine wheels, another $2,200. Utility package for $1,450 with roof rails, crossbars, and running boards. Another utility package with roof rails and crossbars. For $765, it seems to be a little redundant, but either way.

Tonneau cover and things like that in bed cargo net for $1,465. Another $1,465. A function pen with a bar cart bed cargo net, $290. Tailgate blackouts with a neat Honda on the back for $295. And $1,395 in destination charges. So basically, it's an almost $56,000 truck. And there are no deals on these, I don't think. So this one is the loaded version. I'll tell you why. I guess the black edition might be more loaded.

It's nice. It's still a little plasticky like most of the trucks on the interior in this market. But it's a nice truck. It drives really well. It's got lots of power. It scoots really well. It's 280 horsepower, 3.5 liter V6, 9-speed transmission. Wow. It's got all the coolers and all that kind of stuff. It's really neat. One of the cool things about this one is in the bed, it's kind of a composite bed. In the very back, it's got like a hidden cooler.

You can put your groceries and you can lock it all up. It's got a nice storage underneath the bed. And that's really kind of nice. And it's insulated. Really kind of unique about this vehicle. And it's neat. Lots of safety features.

You know the truck and has all the airbags and all of the you know the the lane divergence and automatic braking and automatic backup controls and and all this kind of good stuff and and heated outside mirrors and power holding mirrors and yeah i was really impressed with it you know you know it's good yeah i i see it in the los angeles area a lot of times with dirt bikes in the back and that's because they're so easy to load and the bed is long enough with the tailgate down to fit them

in but you know sometimes getting a dirt bike in a full-size truck is tough on a ramp oh they're tall it's very tall yeah this is this is really nice for someone living in the city that still needs you know a truck in their life and you know even i drive a truck every day a couple weeks ago i went and picked up 150 fence posts wood fence posts and i'm driving home and And I go, you know what? My truck drives better right now with all this weight, you know, because it's really rough.

And people don't understand it. You don't need a truck. It doesn't ride that great. But something like this is the perfect, you know, middle ground. Yeah, this is, you know, this is competitive parts-wise with maybe a Tacoma. This is a little bit more than the Maverick, but it's competitive with the Tacoma. This is probably the same with a Ranger. Yeah, this is actually, but a Ranger's body on frame. So it's really not exactly the same.

You know, the Ranger is going to haul more. This thing will tow 5,000 pounds. You know, since it's nothing to scoff about, you know, a little little trailer. No problem. If you don't, if you want, you need a truck occasionally to tow a few things here and there. You know, the original ones of these things looked like the minivan that they just put a bed on the back. But this one isn't that way. This is a nice vehicle.

I like it. You know, one thing I did notice that the backup camera was not, I went to backup to hook up a trailer hitch. I was like, man, that just wasn't sharp enough. I wished it, I wished it was. That's the only thing I, the only thing I wished it wouldn't. So, but this is, you know, it was assembled in Lincoln, Alabama, as a matter of fact.

And so the country of origin is usa so i was impressed with it you know i ended up getting about 19 miles a gallon 18 miles a gallon around it you know and i think if you eased around you could get the 22 or 23 it said you could get on the highway and it's not bad for the average size about the same as a ranger or a chevy colorado or something like that but it's a mid-size pickup truck that doesn't have all the failings of a pickup truck so if you like that this would

be a good truck for you i really wouldn't it's built like it's a honda you know it's.

No you can't beat that it's it's a it's a nice vehicle so you want to check it out check out the honda riddle i haven't ridden driven one in a while and they have really improved that list they've dramatically improved how's that let's answer a car question or two what do you think yeah so jim is looking at a 1969 gto that's for sale has the original original ac but it's not very good can they be improved well you know that's the problem i'm looking at these kind of cars and

the problem i yeah the original ones are made for r12 and if you could find one the original compressor and and all the the system is really designed for a whole different type of refrigerant and the 134 it just doesn't work as well and a lot of times the fan you have to put it you put an electric fan on it on the you know the condenser and that'll help some but and you You can retrofit it to 134, and that's okay. But it'll still not be as good as a system designed for the new refrigerator.

So the newer refrigerator. The new refrigerator is 1234, and I haven't even bothered with that. But it's not a bad deal. Now, if you want to go and retrofit it to a new style sanding compressor or one of those newer style scroll type compressors, that would probably help.

Dramatically and if you went and put vintage air on it that would and just keep all the old stuff in case you want to do that but the old york compressors that comes impressive were really pretty horrible and they drew a lot of power but either way you can improve them they can get better i have my must admit so but it's just the original airs were pretty terrible all right guys we have a great rest of the show we got a lot of cool stuff happening we're going to talk to jim

owens from ford everybody's been asking me about the new mustang gtd gran turismo daytona and it is awesome so we're going to talk to this man jim owens has been around the mustang forever he works for ford and he is the mustang marketing manager so we're going to talk to him in just a second he is the guy. Music.

All right. As promised earlier, we're going to talk about Mustangs, and we got the Mustang guy. There is not a better Mustang guy around. It's Jim Owens. He is the Mustang marketing manager and just Mr. Mustang up and forward in Dearborn, Michigan. So, Jim, welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels. We've had you on the show several times over the years, but there's no question No more important than this one, because we're going to talk about Mustang GTD.

How you doing, buddy? I'm doing so good, Mike. It's always good to chat with you. And, you know, before we set up here talking about two-wheelers and four-wheelers, yeah, but I've been blessed. I've been on Mustang in performance and racing for, you know, pretty much the last 25 years. Worked for Carroll Shelby for a while. Sitting in the Ford Performance garages right now with, you know, some of the test mules of the GTDs, literally 30 or 40 feet from me.

There's no better way to start a day than to hear that rumble of that 800 horsepower modified Predator motor that will produce more than 800 horsepower. This car is... I sit there and I've been blessed. I've driven everything in basically from the Cobra hours forward. Actually, SVO. Started with the old SVOs in Southern Virginia out at Martinsville on the paperclip, but like I still, and there's a whole bunch of us, Greg Goodall, the chief engineer, Anthony Collard, who's the designer.

Like we sit and look at each other and we go, holy shoot. Well, maybe put a little different expletive in there. We can't believe we're doing this. Yeah. And getting paid for it. Yeah. I mean, that's the, that's the beauty of it. Right.

You know, when you can get track time in your job description, that's always a a good thing but this mustang gtd is changing globally what mustang means you know for the clubs that we have on six of the seven continents but the competitors the racers you know what we're trying to do is literally change it from an american muscle car to a world-class sports car that will be seeing porsche 911s in its rearview mirror well you know it's kind of neat the fact that,

you know, over the years, people used to kind of, the Europeans were kind of smug about this. And in the last few years, you know, the Chevys brought the Corvette up level, 15 levels up, and you guys have done the same with Mustang. Yeah. And, you know, the neat thing about Ford and Mustang is they've never given up on it. They've never, you know, they've never wavered, except for maybe Mustang II. But they never wavered. The Mustang badge is on there. We had the old King Cobras.

I know. Remember the white with blue stripe and fair deposit badge sitting on the hood? I did make ready on them. So, yeah, I know about them. But it's such a great vehicle. 60 years. 60 years of Mustang, Mike. And continually, there's been times when, you know, maybe some of our brethren down the streets, owner lots were empty. You know, there are some of the 2000 years where the Camaros were gone and the Dodgers.

But we've been there and we've been there straight for 60 years, you know, from April 17th, 1964, you know, to the Tour de France races that we did in France. It wasn't the bike race, right? The Mustangs finished one, two and three in the first race ever.

We've been racing on you know this weekend alone you know three of the continents mustangs were racing on and we've been there for 60 years with a vehicle that means something to people everybody has a mustang story and we can't wait for people to get into the mustang gtd to to deliver the stories that you know are epic sub seven minute on the nerberg ring right that's our target but it's amazing i mean but but you know a couple years ago i mean

we were talking about you're going back to you're going to le mans okay fine and they all kind of laughed and they said okay we're going to put you in the back and we're going to make everybody get we're going to make you slow down and everybody goes to lap you and i'm like wait a minute.

What makes you think we're going to lap us and it was like well it's because it's a mustang and we're like and it was funny all the people that i know of went to there and they were like Like you guys were killing it and you were competitive and we're like, all right. And then you're coming out. You said, all right, we're going to come out with the GTD. Tell the folks what GTD means and what it means for Ford. Yeah. So, you know, this, this kind of started its life in a little bit different way.

Right. You know, think of like when 16, when we went with the Ford GTs, right. We wanted to go back to win Lamar 50 years later. Right. Right. From the GT40 program back in the sixties with Edsel and the Deuce and Carol and his merry band of hot rodders.

Like the movie we all saw the movie all saw the movie and you know then to come back and try to take the mustang there took a little bit it took a little bit of a different approach right and the seventh generation mustang when we launched that in 22 out at heart plaza you know in michigan and bill ford gets up there and says hey and we're going to see in lamar we that car was being developed as a GT3 race car.

Okay. And then Jim Farley and some of the designers, a small group of people, along with Larry Holt from Multimatic, looked at the GT3 race car and said, can we make this a street car? Oh, yeah. And we had already homologated it off the Dark Horse, which is, you know, our 500-horsepower, naturally aspirated Coyote V8. You know, the Dark Horse R that we're running in the Challenge Series. Series, that was the car that we homologated.

So then you could take this GT3 and do things with it that you couldn't do with the sanctioned body car. Active aero, right? Active suspension, two-position suspension. It drops 40 mils in the front and about 30 mils in the rear.

Rear transaxle, right? Mustangs, you know, predominantly have been front heavy, right i mean if you think about it because they're the front engine cars so how do you get you know that balance that you need well we move the transaxle back to the rear of the car right now that's that tremec eight speed kind of developed in with the corvette but with the high torque version because we're putting out more than 800 horsepower and substantially more torque than the vets do

we're a little heavier yeah so i mean that car is just going to be phenomenal. And it started its life in a shed behind the garage. And in the 25 model year, it'll be out on the street targeting a sub seven minute ring time. Well, all right. So now what's it take to get one? You're not going to make very many. No. We haven't announced a total number yet. Like the Ford GT before it, we're doing an application.

It's open right now in Europe. Our application in the US and Canada was open April April 17th, and closed about 30 days later. We had about 7,500 applicants come in. We said in the terms and conditions that we were doing between 300 and 700 per model year. This application was for the 25 and 26 model year.

And those applications are in, and we're currently scoring them, and we'll be looking at, around July-ish, in around July, where we'll be notifying those people who would be selected to go down and select their dealer and then have this car purchased through their dealer and delivered to their home in a reliable carrier or delivered to the racetrack, wherever they want it delivered. It's a special car and a great way to change the perception of Mustang globally.

Absolutely. Folks, we're talking to Jim Owens. He is the Mustang Marketing Manager, or just Mr. Mustang, the Ford Motor Company, he is the Mustang guy. From Mustang, from the beginning all the way through Mustang II, all the way up to now. And this is the luckiest SOB that I've ever met. I've been blessed, Michael. He gets paid to do this. And actually, you know, it's funny. Bless his heart, as they say in Texas. My friend Mark Fields used to say that Jim Owens is one of the luckiest guys.

You know and uh yeah i mean yes i mean you are you are blessed because you've and you've done such a great job you do such a great job with the brand the mustang is everything and we can obviously go on ford.com and find out more about the mustang we can go and check but, jimmy you have done a fantastic job and you know it's because you guys love racing barley is is is just as guilty as you are. You guys love racing. You love cars.

That is the exact type of person that needs to run, be up there with making decisions for car companies. And it's so nice to have somebody who believes in the racing and believes in the Mustang. And he took his first cross-country drive in a Mustang. And then to have Greg Goodall and Anthony Collard and Todd Valentine and all the people who love Mustang doing it, it's a great team to work with. Jim Owens, Ford Motor Company, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks, Mike. As always, love to chat with you and hope to get to chat with you soon. Folks, check out the Mustang GTD. You're going to be amazed. It's awesome. Thanks. Music.

Okay, folks, this is the car question segment, and we're going to ask Jeremy some questions about classic cars. And he and I will both answer them because I'm kind of in the middle of this stuff. But, Jeremy, I've got a great question for you. Carl is looking for a classic Mustang Camaro just like me or a Cougar Firebird just like I am.

Why are the 71s and 73s so much less desirable? I mean, the value in them, you know, they seem like cool cars, but the market and the values doesn't seem to reflect that. Is it a personal preference or is it because of those emissions or why? It's definitely a personal preference for a large deal of people. You know, I think the heyday, at least muscle cars like these, Mustangs and Camaros was, you know, 67, 68, 69.

By 71 to 73 the cars just got a lot bigger and bloated and their performance wasn't it's terrible yeah it wasn't as good yeah you know it's funny if look at look at these cars and you see a 85 mile an hour speedometer you know and and we're 55 is highlighted highlighted i can't remember the last time i saw a 55 you know remember those you don't remember the days of 55 miles an hour. It was horrible. It was horrible.

If we ever go back to that, we'll have a revolt. Well, I definitely, you know, I had a truck that had a hundred mile of governor. And to me now looking back at that, that was slow. Yeah, but I'll take a hundred, but I mean, the, the days of, you know, you got, you're going 60 and you get a ticket. I was like, are you kidding me? You know, you go 50, 60, you know, on neighborhood roads.

I mean, now we're, we're joking the other day. They have somebody, you know, we have the roads here in Texas, some of them are 85 and you do an 85 and people go blasting past you like you're sitting still. And it was just kind of funny. And, and, and, you know, and the police don't, if you're not driving like a fool, if you're not an idiot, they just, they just like, Hey, just be safe, be cool. And, you know, as long as you're going 10 over 15 over, it's not a problem.

Out here in la you could be sitting in in the middle of a four-lane freeway watching someone going you know 45 in the slow lane and someone flying past you at 95 in the fast lane that you know yeah yep here that wouldn't be that way here would be in the slow lane would be doing 75 and the fast lane would be another 10 or 15 over that but you know it's just the way it is but fuel is not expensive the big highways are big and open and safe and the roads are straight and and safe

and so it's it's not so bad either way but but these cars you're right and and the market you know they had those i guess it was 73 when it got really bad but i mean when you look at a 67 or 68 mustang oh they 67 especially 68 you know look at the bullet mustangs and that's how they look so great and then you see the 70s and 69 maybe 69 not too bad you look at 70 71 72 and you kind of go, ooh, ooh, what happened? And then they go to the Mustang II, and you're like, oh, my God. Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, Mustang II, actually, you know, it's funny. The Mustang II Cobra really wasn't so bad because it had that, you know, kind of a big engine, little car. But those days were really so terrible. You know, the Jimmy Carter 55 mile an hour was just so bad. And that's why you see very few of those cars, you know, On the collector market, pulling any kind of value. And the only ones that really do, in my opinion, in that time frame, are the European cars.

Because it looks so much better than what we were doing in the 70s. Sure. And what's funny is you don't see any Asian cars. You don't see any Japanese cars. Very few of them, I'll say. No. Towards the end of the 70s was when they really start hitting their stride with a good design. And America couldn't figure out these low emissions engines. But in Japan, they nailed it with what they had. Well, they were selling them. They just rushed it out so bad you don't see them anymore.

You'll still see Volkswagens, and you'll see some old BMWs and stuff like that, but you don't see any of the old – you don't see any 73 Hondas around ever, 74, 75, or Toyotas. The other day, I had a friend of mine who bought an 83 Silica.

You know silica was an st or gt or something and i was like what's that you know and it was a hatchback and it had the louvers on the back i was like this is so cool i never see these things he said yeah this has been storage stored in arizona so it wouldn't rust other than that you know the you're i had a really nice civic 75 civic that had been stored but come to find out you know it was in great shape a customer just gave it to me because

father passed away and he said you can have this car and i was like man it's a nice car yeah like 60 000 miles on it but the that subframe was rusted where they hit the body and this is a texas car but it was it was like 2000 so it was like 15 18 years old now those are like 25 years old and so it was so rusted you can if i lift it up on the lift the whole subframe would fall out from under it and and this kind of gets into our second question

which is would you rather find an original car with supposedly little to no rust or find one that's already been restored with the critical parts replaced. And it really depends, you know, what kind of card is, because, you know, some are more prone to rusting than others. Sometimes you can't see rust. And then once you, once you find a little spot and you chase it down and you try to get to some good metal, it just keeps going and going.

And other times, you know, a little rust isn't going to hurt anything. Yeah. I know what you mean. And And you're right. And you don't know which one is going to be. That's the worst part. And if you're looking at a car to buy and you look underneath it and it's got all this undercoating and stuff like that, you go, what do I do? This guy is not going to – I'm looking at this car and this customer, the guy that owns it is not going to let me sit there with a pick and scrape it away.

I personally would go with something that has the critical parts restored.

And then i can you know i'm not a very like purist where i i i me personally value original paint or anything like that like in the most part a lot of things have been repainted and even if they tell you it's original paint it's original to them but that doesn't that doesn't add value to me if i know down the road i gotta do the work anyways yes you're exactly right i thought i just want a driver, you know, I want something I can drive and my feet don't fit

through the, through the floorboards, you know what I mean? And you know what, you and I might not be in that price range where original paint matters, you know, but if you're talking about, you know, a $250 million Ferrari, you know, 250 GTO, then yeah, you might be concerned about original paint and that sort of thing. But, you know, on, on most cars that you and I are messing around with, I think I'd rather things be repaired and done right. And then...

Less on my plate. Half of those, I can't even spell the name on those. But I mean, if I'm looking at a Mustang or a Camaro, but the Camaros are so much more expensive than the Mustangs. And, you know, the Firebirds are not quite so bad. But Camaros and Chevelles are just so expensive. Well, you think about like the Mustang you have from 64 and a half, 65, all the way to 69. But the Camaro is really 67, very few, 68 and 69. And then, you know, going to the second gen.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's not a smaller pool of Camaros out there. Yeah. And they're really, really, really proud of them. And, you know, just hopefully that would be, you know, hopefully the bet. But it seems like when you look at this stuff on some of these places and you see these prices and these cars will have this and they'll have that and they'll have the vintage air and they'll have the disc brakes and they'll have all this other stuff.

And you find out it's not even a real car. It's kind of like talking to some girl on the internet and you find out it's not even a girl. It's some guy named Bruno and he's in Kazakhstan. Well, yeah, I mean, that's a bummer in itself. But you got to really look at the quality of what you're looking at and then the price.

And if you're going, this is too good to be true. That's for certain because you just start factoring in the things you listed as positives, a rebuilt motor, new paint, a new top if it's a convertible, vintage AC, nice looking interior. Those are each a few thousand, thousand dollar, $5,000, $10,000 things. Add them all up. Yeah. Your Venegera is going to be $2,500 just for that alone. loan.

And so, but it's just so folks, if you're looking at something, whatever you do, don't spend any money, don't buy anything. I don't care if it's from a dealer or whatever, until you have somebody go out there and physically look at the vehicle and make sure, A, it exists and B, it's not a scam, you know, and it's got a right title. It's got this, it's got that. I mean, there are people out there selling these cars without a title. And so what if you go and you buy it.

And then you go to register it and come to find out it's got a lien against it or it's got somebody looking for it or it's stolen or this or that. Then you go back to that person and who knows where they're at. So it's your deal. So either way. All right, folks.

Don't forget, you can catch this show as a podcast always. And we'd like it. We'd love you to get our podcast. We'd love to even sign up for it and subscribe. That would even be better on Spotify, iTunes, Podbean, iHeartRadio, Amazon, all over the place. You can find it and you can listen. You can listen to it, and you can even go on any of the social media finds and find us there. It's really great.

The podcast contains this show and a bonus segment with an extra car review, so be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out. And if you have any topics you want us to cover, you can always email Mike at letstalkwheels.com. We'll always respond. We love to hear your car questions. As always, folks, on behalf of Jeremy Birnbaum, Matt Prowl, and myself, thank you for joining us today on the Talk Media Radio Network. work. I'm Mike Herzing, and we appreciate you. Have a great week.