"Inside the Auto Industry: Thefts, Infotainment Spams, and Top-Selling Vehicles"

Music. It's time to buckle up for this week's Let's Talk Wheels with Mike Herzing and Jeremy Bierenbaum.

AutoShop is now in session. Today we're talking about a theft range dealing $2,000 taillights, $2,000 and up. How about that? We have a new best-selling vehicle here in America. And what company is spamming owners on their infotainment screens? We're going to tell you today. These are just a few of our topics.

Welcome to your favorite auto show, Let's Talk Wheels. I'm Mike Herzing, and every week we give you the automotive and power sports news, interviews, car reviews, and some classic car information from my co-host, Jeremy Bierenbaum, based right there in Southern California. Hey, buddy, how you doing? Hey, hey, hey, I'm doing well. I'll give you a secret. You know, the Super Bowl is over, and the best time to go driving is during the Super Bowl.

Yeah, nobody's out. That's what I did, and the roads were empty. It was a beautiful day in L.A. Oh, come on. You're a Swifty. I figured you'd be watching Taylor Swift. Nah, didn't care. Ah, yeah. That's all right. He's a closet Swifty. There we go. All right. Before we get it ourselves, let's start with a news and notes segment and talk about the Saffirine was actually was right here in Houston. Well, there's several of them across the country, but one of them here got busted.

And, you know, these taillights are on the Ford Super Duties. And you know, they're LEDs. They look really cool. But they're expensive. And if they have the, see, what is it, blind spot sensors on them, they're even more expensive. What are these things selling for, Jeremy? Up to $2,500 for the ones with the blind spot monitors. Each. Each. And then the $1,700 range if you don't have them. But these bandits got away with almost $100,000 in theft with these taillights.

Yeah, that's just what they know about. I mean, what's wild is, you know, all you got to do is open the tailgate. Now, wait a minute. Now, most of these trucks that have the LED lights, those are the upper level ones, okay? And they have, you know, you push this button to lock the doors and it locks the tailgate too. I'm wondering if people are just forgetting to lock them or these guys are unlocking them or what?

Or maybe there's a way, you know, to get into the tailgates a lot easier than the car doors. That's what my thought is. You know, I must be agree, because I mean...

They're stealing people are just so bad first thought i'm i'm very conscious because i have to use my key to lock my tailgate but i know a lot of these newer cars you you lock the doors your tailgate locks yeah that's what i thought but either way either way but either way they're stealing a bunch of them and it costs gosh it's crazy and the problem is i i talked to a customer that had them stolen he says i i couldn't get the left side the right side i found but he couldn't You know,

I'm having to wait for it to come in and I have nothing there. You know, it's empty. I've seen some companies that sell these little kits that you can put on to kind of cover the screws and make it more difficult. Because like you said, it's two screws. You pull it out. If you're nice, you unplug the wiring harness. Hopefully they're not cutting it, right? You know, this is a lot easier than catalytic converters and a lot quieter. So I see why people are doing it. but lock your tailgates.

There we go. All right, let's do that. All right, now, you know, we've been talking about the fact that these, our infotainment screens are now, you know, the company can. The company that builds your car, whether it's BMW or Ford or Chevy or Toyota or whatever, they can see what's on your screen. They can, and we expected, how much longer is it going to be for somebody before they start selling ads and stuff like that?

Well, Jeep is spamming drivers with extended warranty ads through the Uconnect. So you pop up, you get a pop-up and it says purchase beats of mind. It keeps reappearing even when the trucks are past the warranty, you know, and they want you, it says odometer must be less than 36,000 miles to purchase this. Well, it's just showing up on people's cars and that's wrong. I mean, it's wrong. This is one of the things I didn't like about these new cars.

I don't want the Ford or Chevy or Toyota or Honda or whatever. I don't want the company that built my vehicle to be able to put stuff on my screen. That ticks me off a lot. Well, on the flip side, what if they're able to update and make your screen better? That makes you happy, right? Sort of. You got to give and take. I understand it. I think this is kind of a glitch in terms of Jeep.

You know you should be able to dismiss it once it shouldn't be telling you you can buy it if you're past the warranty mileage i think it's a glitch i kind of think it shows kind of like an immaturity on how they're doing it and i don't know i wouldn't have done it i'm not a ceo though, yeah there we go you're not a marketing person yeah there's no telling this maybe maybe they hired some of the people from bud light you know that anheuser-busch that went over there or something. I don't know.

See, I think it would be smarter when you turn the car off, it flashes up for a couple of seconds or, you know, when you're driving, you got so many other things on your mind. This is the last thing you want to do. I bet a hundred people hit X, a hundred percent of the people hit X. Yeah. And then it comes back up next time you start it up. That's what's what, that's what ticks everybody off. It won't go away. Either way, either way, that's just wrong.

All know, for 40-something years, the Ford F-150 or the F-Series has been the number one selling vehicle. Well, it looks like, well, Ford had some production issues and all these other things, weird things are happening, but it looks like they got outsold by the Toyota RAV4 that they call an SUV. And you and I both agree that it's a CUV, not near as manly, But, you know, it's not a bad vehicle. Don't get me wrong. I mean, Toyota sells them crazy.

Although it's big like it's not big like an SUV. That's my whole thing. It's a five seater. Yes, but it's nowhere near SUV size. And I think that's its own category as a CUV. And I don't want to discredit anything from the RAV4. It's a great car. They sell thousands and thousands of them and people love them. It's just not an SUV. And I think when the numbers get tallied out because Ford breaks all their sales for the F-Series together.

And then an outside company does some, you know, research and tries to tabulate what it actually is. But I think when it's said and done, Ford still wins that category. Well, it's going to absolutely be the number one truck. That's not a problem. But they wanted to be the number one selling vehicle, period. I remember for years, it was, Let's see, the Ford Taurus was the number one selling vehicle. Then F-150 took over for it.

But it really is a good vehicle. Now, there's a company called Jatco Dynamics. And they looked at the data and they said they took the F-150 sales out of the numbers. And that's what the F-150, 250, 350, and 450, and 550, and all that. And they just call it F-Series. Ford just calls it F-Series.

And Toyota beat them out by just a little bit. But, you know, that's not, I mean, like when you figure the number one selling vehicles, that GMC Sierra is number 10, the Honda Civic is number nine, number eight is Nissan Rogue. Let's see, what is it? Six and seven with a Camry and Corolla. I don't know who would want those, no offense. I guess they're okay cars, they're just boring. Chevy Silverado is number five, okay, with 189,000. It's a Tesla Model Y, number four.

Honda CR-V, number three. They say the F-150 is sales that are $460,975, and the RAV4 is $475, so it's $15,000 more. They could be wrong because the F-150 lost 5% of sales and the RAV4 gained at 9%. Of course, Toyota is going to be all over this, okay? By the way, Mike Herzing and Jeremy Berman, let's talk wheels. We're talking about car sales. So what do you think? I think at the end of the day, it's kind of a, you know, a bit of a pissing mash anyways. Like it's all, you know, just for awards.

Yes, it is. It's all for awards. That's not the rest of the business. I don't know. We've got a great show today. We've got a lot of cool stuff to talk about. We're going to talk about E-R-E-Vs. You don't know what an E-R-E-V is. And they're being very popular. And they say this is the E-R-E-Vs are the future.

We're going to talk about what they offer and then what kind of vehicle that is we've got a couple of car questions to answer I've got a review of the Sherry Colorado Bison, GR2, off-road beast, we've got all kinds of stuff we've got some classic car stuff everything today, hang on for more Let's Talk Wheels after this short break, be right back. Music. Welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels. Welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels. Mike Herzing and Jeremy Barrowman. This is our car review segment.

And this week I was driving the 2025 Chevrolet Colorado Bison ZR2, or you could call it the ZR2 Bison. It is a off-road beast. Now, the Colorado is the midsize truck.

Kind of competes with a Ford Ranger, the Toyota Tacoma, the gmc canyon which is the cousin and you know what's wild and what's really nice is it beats them all it smokes them all oh is this car is great oh yeah especially if you take it off road it's got the the multi-matic shocks my neighbor has one i see it parked in front of his house all the time and i google it as i drive past i think it's the best looking truck in the small small truck segment.

It's got these big, boxy, flared fenders, big, meaty off-road tires. Oh, they're huge. They look like 35s or 37s, or you could say it's just, what is it, 315s, 75s, 15s, or 17s. They're just huge tires. I mean, I don't think a full-size F-150 Raptor has the tires this big. I mean, and this thing's got all kinds of ground clearance and things like that it'll tow 6,000 pounds.

Now, it's really capable, especially, you know, for the off-road segment where these big trucks don't really, they're too big. This is that perfect size. And this one comes already with the rock sliders on it all the way through the back rear bumper. I think it has steel front and rear bumpers. Like you said, dual stage shocks, you know, and all this, you know, it's just, you know, front and rear lockers and it's got automatic four-wheel

drive. And it's the most comfortable in the small truck segment as well. The interior is great. It really is. It'll tow 6,000 pounds. It comes with a four-cylinder, 2.7. This is the same four-cylinder they put in the actual Silverado. And it's got tons of torque and tons. It's like 310 horsepower. Tons of torque. I mean, this thing, I'm doing 75, and it's turning like 1,600 RPMs.

And you just hit the throttle, and it just accelerates. of course these big wheels and tires and the and the let's get it's got a lift kit and it's got you know rub guards underneath it and things like that big heavy duty bumpers and it's got this huge tire that's the spare full-size spare it's in the bed and it's kind of it's kind of mounted to the back of the cab of course you can't see out the back window very well with it but it looks so cool i mean what's wild is when you go to sima and you

see these things all built up this is what they do to it. This thing, it's AEV, and it's a company that does all these upgrades with it. But it is. It's got everything that people would spend the money on. Okay, now granted, it's not cheap. This thing, after delivery and everything else, is $64,000. But you know what? That's cheaper than the Tacoma. And it outperforms the Tacoma by a lot. Now, the only thing this thing doesn't do is get good fuel economy because of these big wheels and tires.

It gets like 16. It's like rated 16 on the highway, 16 in town, 16, period. You know, and I got right at about 16. The interior is great. And I love the new screens that they have. The infotainment system in the middle is beautiful. It's easy to use. And then the driver screen in front of them is really nicely done. You know, you get in this thing and you just sit in there and you pull yourself up because it's tall.

Granted, you're a pretty tall guy, but even you would have to reach up to get in this thing. And you're like, wait a minute, if I was going to up, if I was going to off-road, you know, equip a Chevy Colorado or a midsize truck or any truck, it's all the stuff I would do. You know, it's got all the snorkels. It's got all of the, it'll go through this, it'll go through that. It's got the big shocks. It's got the big wheels and tires.

It's got the heavy duty bumpers. It's got the heavy duty everything, drivetrain. And it's a beast. And it's all factory designed and warrantied and you don't have to mess with it. You know, with a lot of these cars, you go, oh, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that and blah, blah, blah. Just get this and be done. You know, you're right. You get this and have a warranty and be done, and it's wonderful. It kind of drives so good. But, you know, it'll put a lot in the bed.

It's got everything you want. I mean, it's got all kinds of power plugs and things like that. It's got dual zone AC. It's got all of the backup sensors and the forward sensors and the cameras. And it's got, you know, blind spot monitors. And it's got all the lane centering and all that's good stuff. Adaptive cruise control or intelligent cruise control, whatever you want to call it. It's got everything you would ever want. And it's like I said, it's all customized out for you under warranty.

So, you know, rather than like, let me make it better, dad. You know, you can't make it better. It wins every single award. I mean, and it's not just a little, but by a lot. And I just, kudos to Chevrolet for doing such a good job. It's got heated and cooled seats. It's got heated steering wheel. It's got this, it's got that. It's got all the stuff. It's got more stuff than the Tacoma does for less money than the Tacoma TRD Pro.

So that's its main competitor, and it kills it. You know, Nissan Frontiers is another way to do it, is another competitor. But it's just so different. I mean, I'm looking at this thing, and this has got to be a custom truck. No, it's a stock truck. I mean, Chevrolet did good. I'm a GM guy through and through, and I think this is hands down better than the other trucks you were just mentioning. Oh, it is. And the exterior was this really good-looking salsa-looking red.

They call it radiant red tint coat. Beautiful truck. Everyone likes to say the word salsa. I know. It looks like it, but it really is a nice truck. So, folks, if you want an awesome vehicle and you're going to spend all this money off-road it, buy it from Chevrolet already built. Because it's, man, and that's four-sown, even though it's 2.7, it'll pull a Silverado and tow a trailer with it. So, it'll have no problem with the Colorado. It's a wonderful vehicle. But check it out.

Anything from Chevrolet is good lately. And so, I'm so happy with this thing. I do not want to give it back. I tell you what, that's the worst thing about this. You fall in love with these things and that. So, all right, folks, Mike Herzing and Jeremy Berenbaum, Let's Talk Wheels, where we're talking about the Chevrolet Colorado four-wheel drive ZR2 crew cab Bison. And it's, oh, my God, it's just you need it. You need this car. All right, let's answer a quick car question.

Yeah, Jason has a 2000 Tacoma with a V6, or he's been looking at a 2000 Tacoma with a V6.

Is there any easy way to gain some power for driving at higher altitudes he lives in colorado and likes to drive through some passes that are over 10 000 feet yeah the truck loses a lot of power okay and that was not the fastest you know the best v6 it was only i think three liter back then and and but i had a friend of mine that worked with me for 20 years and i had my shop And he had one of these and he put TRD, Toyota TRD supercharger on it. He had a supercharger on it for 300,000 miles.

That was exactly what I was going to say as well. I've seen a bunch of people do it. It's low boost, so it's not crazy on the motor. It bolts right in from Toyota. Every plug it in is just, you don't have to do anything, just bolt it on. And it will immediately, you don't have to change the exhaust. You can, but you don't have to do any of that stuff. You don't have to take the intake or any of that stuff. He just bolted this on, and it's a wonderful accessory.

And he went, I think he went after about 250,000 miles. He rebuilt the supercharger, put it right back on, and it ran. That thing was, I think when he sold it, it was around 350,000 miles, and it still ran great. That's what I would do. So coming up, we're going to talk about EREVs and what they are and why everybody wants one because they are so popular. E-R-E-V. You know, they've been out before and they're going to be popular. Everybody wants one right now. So I tell you what, hang on.

Mike Herzing and Jeremy Beerbomb, we're going to tell you all about EREV. Music. Welcome back to Let's Talk Wheels. I'm Mike Herzing and he's Jeremy Berenbaum. We're talking about EREVs. Now, what the heck is an EREV? We know what EV is, don't we? Electric vehicle. EREVs are extended range electric vehicles. You know, the first one of these that I ran into, you know, there are people that have hybrids, things like that.

You know, hybrid was, you know, it has electric power and then it transitions into gasoline power. Toyota makes a very good one. They've had made several, you know, and there's just a pain in the butt when you're trying to cut down on the electric motor and then have the gas motor cut in. There's always a jerking or a shaking or whatever. And Toyota's pretty good about smoothing all it out. But that's a lot of work.

What an EREV is, and the closest one was similar to an EREV, is those EREVs, it's electric vehicle, and the battery runs the wheels and tires, right? But you have a way with a gas engine to extend your range. I know Mazda's talking about doing one with a rotary, a little rotary engine. I remember driving a Chevy Volt years ago, 20 years, 15 years ago. And the Volt was a electric vehicle. And after about 25 or 30 miles of electric range, the gas engine would cut in and run the wheels and tires.

Wouldn't charge the battery, but it ran the wheels and tires. And it did it electrically. So basically it was a big generator. So the key difference for an EREV is that the engine never touches the drivetrain of the car. It's not powering the car at all. All it's doing is working like a generator to send power to the battery. Right. It's like, hey, I'm going to go and plug in a generator and stick it in the trunk and I'm going to extend my range. That's what it's doing. Right.

Well, it's a good idea. It's a good system. They don't, because everything is still running off electricity. Now, think of the diesel electric railroad locomotives. That's diesel electric. The diesel engine, all it does is generate electricity to run the wheels, okay? You've got boats and submarines and things like that that kind of run like that. I think the BMW i8 and i3 were both EREV style electric cars with generator motors.

Right, because a lot of the complaints of people that drive hybrids, Toyota hybrids and all the different brands, Nissan and Hyundai and Chevy and this kind of stuff, is that when the hybrid runs out and the gas engine takes over, there's a little bit of either a shutter or a lurch or you can tell it's happening. Yeah, and you know what? A lot of the companies have gotten better by it.

Some of them have actually replaced the starter motor in the cars with the electric battery is what starts the car through movement. And that kind of helps change. But I think a lot of it is also the noise and the vibration. You feel that once the car turns over. Oh, sure. And you're like, OK, so now if, say, you buy a vehicle, like Ram is working on one right now. And, and there's actually everybody's working on them right now, rather than a series parallel hybrid, like a Prius.

Okay. Or a plugin hybrid. Think of it, a hub plugin hybrid. And maybe the first 50 miles is, is electric. And after 50 miles, if you haven't come back and charged it again, the, the gas engine will come on and charge the battery or run the wheels. You know what I mean? And maybe charge the battery and run the wheels. And so that would be really kind of cool.

You don't have the hype, they don't have the powertrain shutters or transition problems because there's so much they try to do to make that happen. But no, this is basically, and the only disadvantage is you don't hear the engine rev up. It's going to run certain speed, just like a generator, like my own end generator, my generag generator at my house. It's going to come on at so many RPMs and stay there to charge.

So you're not going to, if you accelerate, you're not going to feel that engine go faster or slower. It's going to say the same speed, just kind of drone on. Now it won't be loud because it's usually maybe a thousand C, it's a small engine, you know, a small gas engine. But I think that's the future here, guys. I really do. Do you see this type of technology only in commuter style cars or you think it'll trickle into performance cars as well?

Well, I don't know. It'll be a while before it trickles into Well, I don't know, because electric cars are stupid fast. They have all kinds of torque. I mean, right now, all the performance cars, the top performance cars and hyper cars coming out have some form of electric, you know, hell. Yeah, but that's also, once again, it's two different powertrains. You've got electric powertrain, you've got a gasoline powertrain. Two separate entities living, organisms living in one vehicle,

you know what I mean? And that's why we talk about it.

How difficult it is on cars and programming and why there's all these issues and people feel transmission this and that and you're switching through systems when you go to an erev it's not switching through systems you're always on your electric system the only thing is it's getting some power from a generator motor so it's a much smoother ride all around i think also with packaging you don't have to package a huge horsepower you know engine to try and keep up with the great power that you

have for your batteries and your electric motors, because those have such great torque. And then when you run out of that torque, you need an engine to kind of keep up with that. Otherwise, you have like a fast car sometimes and then a slow car sometimes. So there's all that packaging. But if you go strict electric with the electric motors, you have a lot less packaging you have to worry about. And you can design more for the occupants in the car.

Well, you really can. All right, folks, Mike Hersey and Jeremy Bierenbaum. Let's stock wheels, we're talking about EREVs, extended range electric vehicles. But, you know, this thing is, this thing here, basically it'll have several, I remember having a Volt here, and if I could drive 25 or 30 miles on electricity only until the gas engine cut on.

But if I wanted, if I got up and said, you know what, I need to go across town to get some parts, it's 80 miles, I don't have that much electric range, oh well. No, I just go on, because if the gas engine cuts on, it runs the wheels, I'm good. You know what I mean? It probably uses part of it to charge the battery, but... It was just so fine. You can have a range of 450, 500 miles without a problem. You don't even have to have a big fuel tank. You know what I mean?

It would just be, it's so logical that it's stupid. Yeah. Right now we're at this weird turning point with, you know, electrifying cars. A lot of people are seeing some of these big pitfalls to fully electric cars and they're going, what's the option? What's the option to be, you know, eco-friendly, get something, you know. That's good for everyone, but doesn't mess with, you know, my day to day in a way that's detrimental.

Like right here with the fires in L.A. recently, there are a lot of neighborhoods without power for over a week. Right. What do you do if you have an electric car? Now, all of a sudden. Which there's lots of them there. And then you got to go. You put more and more stress on the charging network around, which is already, you know, not the best. Well, let's say you're in L.A. And you want to go inside. You want to go up to Arizona or whatever.

Well, there's no charging areas where you're going to go. Well, I've got to plan my trip around where the charging stations are. No, not anymore. You can just use an EREV. You'll have an EV. You're doing your stuff for the planet. You're making everybody happy. But if you need to go somewhere, you've got a vehicle. It makes it so an EV is not just a city vehicle or just a sometimes vehicle. Because there are places like, oh, in Texas, lots of them, that there are no charging.

And if there are, maybe there's one in the city and who knows if it even works. This would solve all that problem. It would solve all the software problems. And the thing with the people that had the I3s and, yeah, more the I3s than the I8s, because they drove those more as commuter cars.

They would say, if I plug it in in my house every night, which you do with an electric car, you don't have to fill up the gas tank more than, like, once a month every other month, because you're rarely using it. You're running on electricity all the time. But you still have that backup range that you don't have in a full EV car. You got a Ford Lightning. You want to tow a trailer.

Well, guess what? All of a sudden, your range that was 300 miles is now 100 or 90 because you're towing this travel trailer. Guess what? Gas engine comes on. It runs the wheels. You can go as far as you want. You know, you want to just put fuel in it. It makes it so much more flexible. Have you ever seen the charging stations? You couldn't be able to back up a Lightning with a trailer into one of those, you know. No, you can't. You've got to unhook your trailer and do all that stuff.

What a pain in the butt. And so this solves all that problem. All right, guys, we've got more stuff. Jeremy's got some classic car questions he's going to answer. And all about classic trucks and some muscle cars that are getting worth, be worth a lot and getting more expensive. So maybe you want to buy one or maybe you already have one. So hang on. More Let's Talk Wheels coming up after this quick break. Music.

Transcription by CastingWords. Music. Welcome back. Let's talk wheels. Mike Kersing and Jeremy Berenbaum. All right, Jeremy, we've got some car questions for you. 10 muscle cars that are worth a lot and getting better. There was an article from Hagerty on the other day and somebody asked me about it. Kevin wrote me a note and said, hey, could you all explain a little bit about some of these muscle cars? And could you also maybe talk about some affordable classic trucks?

He hadn't decided one that gets a classic car or a classic truck. But I tell you what, after looking at all that, these companies that are starting to spam people on their infotainment screens. Okay, I'll go with a classic all day. What do you think? I mean, yes, it really has to thin your lifestyle. You know, I drive a ton of miles during the week for work. I couldn't make a classic work even if I wanted to. But, you know, some people, they can't live with it.

Yeah. Yeah. No, actually, it's Dax Street that wrote this article. And they were talking about some of the things that some of these people have, you know, one of these cars that's getting ready to be worth a lot is this 2024 Chevy Camaro ZL1. End of an era, man. Yeah, let's talk about the list in general a little bit before we get into the list itself. And, you know, anyone can say, oh, yeah, you want to get a good collector car? Go get a Boss Mustang, you know, 429.

That's like, duh, it's a blue chip car. You're never going to lose value in it, but you need, you know, half a million dollars to enter of the market. So pass. These are cars that kind of a mix of new and old, old, maybe some a little bit forgotten or undervalued and new. Definitely. We're talking about a numbers game. We're talking about the last of something small production. I mean, you know, that's what makes some of these cars valuable and worth holding on to.

And it's kind of silly when a lot of times they're the exact same as their brother a year before in terms of performance and and options and equipment. in. It's just that it's the last of something, right? And that's somehow triggers something inside people that says, I'm going to give you more money for it. But let's get into the list. And the first one that you were talking about, 2024 Chevy Camaro ZL1.

This car is the last of the Camaros. Chevy has announced 2024 is the last year of the Camaros. The ZL1 is the biggest and baddest on the block in terms of performance 650 horsepower 6.2 liter supercharged v8 and they're doing a special edition and a garage 56 edition if you're not familiar with the garage 56 car that is the one that ran in lamaze last year that was such a cool car to see. And, you know, the Garage 56 edition, they're making 56 units and the ZL1 is only 350.

So, of course, people are banking on it. And sadly, most of these cars are going to go to high value, you know, clients for Chevrolet and they'll get tucked in a garage with 12 miles. And your son's grandkids can go buy this car for three times the amount with 12 miles on it, you know, in 40 years. You just keep the mileage down. I mean, the next one would be a last call Dodge Challenger or Charger, either one. And that's their last final V8 Power Challenger and Charger models.

Supposedly, they just came out, CEO of Dodge came out last week and said, eh, well, you know, you never know what could happen. If they can find, if they could back off on the omission numbers just a tiny bit, Dodge will bring it back. You know what? I don't, I really don't think they should. I think they should, state of the word, keep the last call and do a new car that has the hurricane and an electric platform, because that'll blow this away in performance, and that'll be a step better.

Well, the new one is totally different. You're right. And the new Challenger Daytona, Charger Daytona, I think, it's going to be a different thing. But these things are really bringing money in now. Oh, for sure. Especially some of those SRT Demon 170s. They're doubling what the MSRP was on it. But the last call is a series. So there are a lot of different cars within that last call series that you can get different paint schemes and individual options.

So there's a lot of one of one that'll be coming up. All right, folks. Mike Hursing and Jeremy Verbaum. Let's talk wheels worth. If you just tuned in, we were talking about classic cars are going to be worth a lot that are worth a good amount now, but they'll be worth a lot more in the future. 2013 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500, yeah, of course, it's going to be worth a lot. You can get them as cheap as $35,000 right now. I think that's the thing is they're undervalued right now.

They're semi-low production with 4,800 units. 662 horsepower is just great from a 5.8 liter supercharged V8. 3.50 to 60, this is a car you drive for a long time and not get sick of. No kidding. How about an 89 Trans Am 20th anniversary? You know, performance is kind of anemic, but it's the same motor that was in the Buick GNX. So, you know, you're getting top-of-the-line performance. The Trans Am 20th anniversary is a 1,500 unit, so it's a limited production.

That's where the value's coming from. But it's one of those cars that was kind of overlooked. People would always go, you know, earlier or later in terms of Trans Am because of performance. And I think you can still pick these up for quite some cheap dough. Yeah, all right. 70 model Chevy Nova SS. Of course. Yeah, you know, it's kind of the little brother to the Chevelle. So I think that's why the Chevelle gets all the love and all the value right now.

But you can still get it with a 396 as a stock car. I know, you get the big engine in a little car. Oh, that's what you want. Oh, yeah. I mean, some of these things would do a quarter mile in 14 seconds. I mean, it's still, and you can get these things reasonably priced. Novas are not real expensive. So I think that's a good vehicle. And again, they look good, too. You know, he said you can get them anywhere from like, you know, 12,000 to 75,000.

Anyway, how about a 71 Le Mans, Pontiac Le Mans GT37, which is some kind of weird number. But the Le Mans is really cool. It's just kind of a cousin of a GTO. Yeah, you're talking about, you know, little cousin type of deal. It has a lot of the performance factors that the GTO had. You could get it worth the 455 cubic inch V8. 1,000 production units for the GT37 package. So, you know, you're talking about a pretty rare car in its production.

Yeah, but all of these Le Mans are working more, you know. I mean, they're worth more and they look, it looks as good as a GTO. I mean, how about an AMC Javelin SST 70 model? Those are always going to be worth a lot, especially if you get one of the red, white, and blue ones. I'm surprised this is on the list because it's not a sleeper. I mean, the Javelins are, people don't always think of them, but they're such a cool car. You get them with the 390.

The SST has this red, white, and blue package. American flag. Oh, yeah, it's gorgeous. But the side pipes are where it's at on the SST. Yeah, I have to admit, it's an awesome vehicle. You got a Mercury Cougar Eliminator 69 model. So Mercury Cougar is overlooked and it's worth, you know, they sell for a lot less than a Mustang, but it's almost the same vehicle. With this exact car, the 428 Cobra Jet Mercury Cougar, black on black with the black vinyl top.

It's a beautiful car and it's a sleeper. He got it, you know, for a song back in the day because no one really cared about it. Now when he goes to car shows, everyone's oogling over it. You know, they're good looking cars and Cougar was, it was, it was a neat car. I just, I wish this came back, but it's a good looking one. And so how about a Barracuda, but a 69 Barracuda? You know, 70 is what everyone always thinks of, but 69 has a lot of value. You get it with the 440.

It was a great little car. It was a smaller packaging, which I thought was cool. I liked it better. Small vehicle with a very big engine. And I liked the way the rear glass shaped it. Great design car. It just doesn't get some love because the 70 was so good. The last one on the list is a 68 Dodge Dart GTS. Also, you can get it with the 440. Really good performance. Huge engine in the little car. I mean, it's, you know, like you get hurt with one of these things. They put out so much horsepower.

What a fun big one. You can pick them up cheap. Both of those are the antithesis of why the car got bigger. And it was for racing and better performance. And they said, wow, we got this big motor. We now need to build a car around it. All right, folks. Thank you, Jeremy. Great to pick your brand. Folks, if you enjoyed our show, tune in to the same station next week for the following episode. And if you missed part of the show, you can catch the podcast on all major podcast

plot terms. Just look for Let's Talk Wheels. 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 or questions you need us to answer, email mike at letstalkwheels.com we'll always respond we'd love to hear all your car questions as always folks on behalf of jeremy bierenbaum matt peralta and myself thank you for joining us today on the talk media radio network i'm mike herzing stay tuned for a car review from our reporter matt peralta coming up next have a great week folks see you next one,

thanks for joining us on another edition of let's talk wheels we'll see. Music. All right, guys, this week I was driving a 2023 Toyota 4Runner, the TRD Pro, in a very bright, bright orange. Man, these vehicles stand out in the wintertime. These are the types of vehicles you want to be driving because, well, you kind of feel like you're in a tank and you can't be touched. Sticker price in this thing is not cheap, but it's a 4x4.

It's a TRD Pro, so you've got the Toyota Racing decals all over the place, and it's a V6, so the engine does exactly what you need it to do. A lot of power, 270 horsepower engine, 278 pounds of torque in this bad boy. Sticker price though coming in a little over $55,000. So it's not a inexpensive vehicle, but it's a Toyota. And if you like forerunners, man, they just keep on pumping these things out and people still love them. Even with the gas mileage, they don't care.

It's not great, like 15 to 17, 18 miles per gallon. It's not outstanding, but this thing will get you where you need to go through basically any type of weather that might be going on. I mean, these these tires are awesome. Seventeen inch TRD Pro matte black alloy wheels. They look awesome. They're just grappling. These have grappler tires on them. Literally grappler tires, what they call them. It is something they can get up and down, basically anything that you need to get up and down to.

And for those folks that love the rugged nature of the 4Runner. I mean, this thing fits right into what you would expect when you get in. It's not a soft vehicle. This is not a luxury vehicle, even though the price tag is a little bit on the pricier side. It gets the job done. It's a powerful, masculine, want to use that word, type of vehicle. Now, it does have premium audio with an 8-inch touchscreen with nav,

Apple CarPlay, and Android Auto, which are great. The 15-inch speaker system subwoofer amplifier, man, it really bumps. It's fun. It's a really fun, fun stereo to listen to, really clear. I love what they have done with the interiors. Toyota has really taken an opportunity here to say, all right, we got to refresh a little bit and we need to make it a little bit more of a modern type of ride. It can't just be an SUV that's a truck, essentially. It's got to have some of

the modern conveniences that people are expecting. and the 15-speaker JBL sound system definitely gets the job done with that. Now, safety-wise, this is a Toyota, okay? So this thing is going to be a very safe vehicle. Your pre-collision warning with pedestrian detections, nice. It's. I mean, I like a lot of the things you'll see with a blind spot monitor in the rear cross traffic awareness, traffic alerts in the panoramic view monitor lets you see all around the vehicle.

And here when you're driving sort of a larger SUV and I'm driving a lot of these things in parking decks and parking garages, it's important to have those things. It's important to be able to see around you and not bump into anything. So I do love that to have that as well. Locking rear differential really makes sure this vehicle is going to stay put in nowhere it's going to go from a suspension standpoint. You got all the TRD tuned Fox shocks and springs.

It can bounce and move and get over any type of terrain that you ask it to. It's got part-time four-wheel drive system with active track. I didn't put it in four-wheel drive all that much. I really didn't need to. I mean, you can basically drive this thing in two-wheel drive and get almost anywhere. I mean, it's not really something that you can throw into four-wheel drive if you want, but you don't really have to if you don't need to.

I mean, I think the price tag of this vehicle might scare some people off because, you know, There are some people out there that might feel it's a bit expensive. 5,000-pound towing capacity, though, is pretty good. People are going to tow light boats and light trailers around with this thing and feel really have no problem with it. Overall, the interior is very convenient. It's very easy to find all the knobs and everything that you need to go.

I mean, I still think that we need to have a little bit more on the USB side, a little bit more on the connectivity side. But it's not something that you're really not buying this vehicle for those types of things. You're doing this, you know, from an off-roading perspective and you're doing this for driving in snow, in sleet, in rain. You want to feel safe. You want to feel comfortable.

This vehicle's for you. That's what you're looking for. Heavy vehicle, not heavier as heavy as some other ones, but definitely heavy enough to get the job done. This is a fun ride. And man, if you want to get it in a bright orange, the color schemes are really, really cool for these vehicles that they've got. It's the Toyota 2023, the forerunner. We had it in the TRD model this week. All right, Mike, this week I was driving a 2023 Toyota Highlander Limited all-wheel

drive. This is the platinum trim level, so this is a sticker price. It's pretty expensive. It's over $50,000, but it's a very fun, very nice vehicle that I will commend Toyota for stepping up their interior. here. We've talked about this a lot here on the show about, you know, look, Toyota's. Dependable. Toyotas are very attractive to a lot of people. Their brand loyalty is high. People like Toyotas. They are dependable because, look, the engines are phenomenal.

They go for a really long time. A lot of bang for the buck. This vehicle is a vehicle that's a family vehicle, but it's also one that can be used for towing, as we've seen with the 5,000-pound tow capacity here for this vehicle. But you have an eight-speed automatic transmission, four-cylinder, 2.4-liter engine that gets the job done. Now, very safe, right? These are Highlanders. These are extremely safe vehicles, five-star overall safety rating from the government. You get in this thing.

Look, it's not a tank, but it kind of feels like it. You're really high up. You got big, big wheels. You feel comfortable. Your sight lines are tremendous. I mean, your 20-inch chrome finish alloy wheels gives you the feel that you could go anywhere, right? You could go through whatever may be in front of you, whether it be standing water, whether it be going over off-roading into areas, you know, I wouldn't go like where a Jeep would go, but I'd go pretty aggressively.

If you wanted to go off-roading in this vehicle, you absolutely could do that. But you know, I'm an engine guy, I'm an interior guy and the 12 point inch interior Toyota audio multimedia system, they call it wireless Apple CarPlay. Phenomenal. Okay.

These are things, the wireless car play until you have it and same thing for the android auto as well once you get it you realize you never want anything else you have to have it again like you can't not have it once you do have it so it's really nice to have this in this vehicle and for a price tag about 50k these are the items you expect right these are the things you want to see the jbl 11 speaker sound system is awesome heated and ventilated power front seats beautiful for

someone like me who is in Las Vegas. This is very comfortable. This is very convenient, both in the hot or the cold, depending on what you're dealing with at that time of the year. The third row is a 60-40 split, which is good, okay? You want that. You want that 60-40 split. However... The third row is kind of like a kiddie third row. It's not for adults. It's for small children. It's not the biggest of vehicles. So if you want a true three row vehicle, this might not be one for you.

But for someone like me, you know, I have a small family. This is not that big of a deal for me. So it wouldn't take me out of buying this vehicle given the third row not being gigantic. So you have wireless charging here in this vehicle, which is really nice to go along with the wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which I loved as well. The safety features are pretty standard for most Toyotas.

You have, you know, your lane detection and your full speed range, dynamic radar cruise control, if you like it, lane departure, automatic high beams. The road sign assist, I like. Tells you a little bit about what's going on around you. Are you speeding? Are you not speeding? Going too fast? Going too slow? Where are you in terms of what's happening on the roadway. I like that. The front and rear parking assist for a vehicle of this size, I liked it a lot.

That was nice to have that because you do want to see where you are. Oftentimes when I'm in Las Vegas, I'm driving around in different garages and whatnot. So to see what's in front of you, as well as what's behind you, equally as important in my personal opinion for how I like to drive. So look, this is not the fastest of vehicles, but you aren't getting this thing for the speed. You're getting this thing because you want to feel comfortable. You want to be able to sit in long drives.

You want to be able to tow a boat. You want to be able to tow a camper or something behind you to be able to do it. Look, you know, V6 are great, but the gas mileage on a four-cylinder is fine by me. Some people are a little bit, you know, annoyed by that. They'd rather see a V6 than a four-cylinder. I'm okay with it personally. If it gets the job done, it's there. I feel like if you're in the market for this type of SUV, looking at a Telluride or looking at an Atlas.

Looking at this type of vehicle, Mazda, I think the price tag might scare you off just a little bit, but I think it's worth at least driving because you can get this thing at a starting price at about $37,000. You don't have to go all the way up to the platinum and get the fully loaded everything that you have. But if you want it, it's there. The vehicle I tested had multiple USB charging points. They had second row USB charging points.

Now, if you've ever gone on a long drive, you know exactly what I'm talking about when it comes down to having those very convenient USB charging points in the back, not just in the front, but in the back, something I always look for. So not only do you have a wireless charging for both in wireless Android and Apple CarPlay, but I also have the USB input. So this vehicle is built for the family. This vehicle is built for throwing whatever mother nature may throw at you,

but it's comfortable. It's convenient to be inside of it. It's not something you have to stress out over. You can get in and out very easily in this vehicle. It's a relatively quiet ride. Liked it a lot. The turbocharged four-cylinder engine gets the job done. Check it out. Hands-free power liftgate as well on the higher trim levels. Really nice as well. It is the 2023 Toyota Highlander. This is a fully loaded vehicle, all-wheel drive platinum that we tested.

Very nice. Definitely worth the test drive.