Speaker 1: Welcome to the Fast Track, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radios How Stuff Works. Hi, and welcome to the fast Track.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Scott Benjamin, and I'm joined by Kurt Karen,
Speaker 1: producer of the show as well. Right, Kurt's doing double
Speaker 1: duty again and hopefully for the long term, You're gonna
Speaker 1: be doing double duty, because I think this is starting
Speaker 1: to work out. Yeah, we're getting we're getting kind of
Speaker 1: in our rhythm here and uh having some fun with it.
Speaker 1: So today I think we've got a topic that both
Speaker 1: of us can we'll probably have a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1: I think, uh, there's there's ten really unusual, unlikely, weird, strange,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call them. Race cars. There's been
Speaker 1: a list compiled by a place called driving line dot
Speaker 1: com and they had an unusual one from others that
Speaker 1: I've seen, which I thought was intriguing. So I chose
Speaker 1: that one to kind of follow along with. And then
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna add our own notes because there's
Speaker 1: not a whole lot of material on each page. You know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like one of those it's like a
Speaker 1: slideshow almost really when you look at it online and
Speaker 1: they go through and give you a little bit of
Speaker 1: information about it, just enough to kind of pique your interest.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what they do with me. So you know,
Speaker 1: I dug into each one of these a little bit
Speaker 1: deeper and know a little bit more about a couple
Speaker 1: of many way. So I thought that it was worthwhile
Speaker 1: bringing this list to the show today because they are unique,
Speaker 1: and there are strange and wonderful and unusual, and you
Speaker 1: know all of the uh, you know, all the ways
Speaker 1: you can describe race car that probably shouldn't be out
Speaker 1: there on the race course. And that's maybe the best
Speaker 1: way to put it, right. I mean, what do you
Speaker 1: just real quick when you saw this list that I
Speaker 1: sent over to you, anything really strike you as on
Speaker 1: like extraordinarily unusually You don't have to be specific. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about it when we get there, but is there
Speaker 1: anything that really stood out for you on this list? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Let mean, the look of a lot of the cars
Speaker 1: is unique. When I looked at and I tried to
Speaker 1: take each one and look at the era in which
Speaker 1: it raced, and things began to make a lot more
Speaker 1: sense when you look at the cars and the landscape
Speaker 1: of racing at the time that I don't want to
Speaker 1: jump too far ahead. But there are some that actually
Speaker 1: make perfect sense. When you look at all it's a
Speaker 1: little funny, little weird, But then when you um dive
Speaker 1: a little bit deeper, it definitely fits could have been
Speaker 1: ahead of its time in some ways. Right. But other cars,
Speaker 1: when you look at your like, I can't imagine at
Speaker 1: that time seeing that car on the racetrack. It would
Speaker 1: be so unusual that it would be the one that
Speaker 1: would get all the attention, even if nothing really spectacular
Speaker 1: happened with it. Just the fact that it's on the
Speaker 1: track at at any point you know, in that era,
Speaker 1: in that in that decade, or you know, whatever it
Speaker 1: happens to be or in that series. Um, it makes
Speaker 1: it fascinating and unique in some ways. I do want
Speaker 1: to tell you that going through here, I came up
Speaker 1: with a couple of topics for shows in the future.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of anything called road kill Knights? Okay,
Speaker 1: road kill Knights is something that's relatively new. I think
Speaker 1: that this year might have been the second, possibly the
Speaker 1: third year of it. I'll have to dig into it again.
Speaker 1: It's something that happens in Pontiac, Michigan, in coordination with
Speaker 1: the Woodward Dream Cruise. It is a legal drag race
Speaker 1: that's held on the actual city streets. You know, they
Speaker 1: block off the streets. They you know, have the grandstands
Speaker 1: set up and everything, and it allows people to bring
Speaker 1: out whatever they've got. I think there's like a couple
Speaker 1: of categories. There's I don't know if it's like small
Speaker 1: tire or I don't remember the two. There's like two
Speaker 1: classes and that's it. It's like small tire and big tire,
Speaker 1: or is wide tire and thin tire or something like that.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna dig into this. But some incredible street racing
Speaker 1: going on. One of the cars. On one of these
Speaker 1: cars that I saw racing, I think it was a
Speaker 1: fifty five Chevy I believe three thousand, two hundred horsepower. Unbelievable.
Speaker 1: And again I'll dig into road kill knights and I'll
Speaker 1: get all the facts right for anybody who's you know,
Speaker 1: screaming and shaking their fist at the at the you
Speaker 1: know the device right now, saying what an idiot. It's not,
Speaker 1: you know, thin tire, fat tire. But we'll get it.
Speaker 1: We'll get into that when we do the episode. The
Speaker 1: next thing that I want to mention is that this
Speaker 1: is held right near a place called the m one Concourse.
Speaker 1: Now m one, I believe is what word avenue, I think,
Speaker 1: and or the Telegram I think it's. I think that's
Speaker 1: what word avenue. The m one Concourse is like a
Speaker 1: man ugen, like a country club, but for car owners.
Speaker 1: And it's got a racetrack, a race circuit. It's got
Speaker 1: garages that you can rent, you know, like some of
Speaker 1: them are luxury, some of them are not. They have
Speaker 1: all different sizes. You know. You can just go in
Speaker 1: there and you can pull your car in there and
Speaker 1: work on it, store it, do whatever you want. It's
Speaker 1: the thing that you pay a membership for and and
Speaker 1: you belong to this club. And like for instance, today
Speaker 1: as we're recording this, and almost every day between four
Speaker 1: pm and six pm, they have an open track session
Speaker 1: where you can go out and drive your race car
Speaker 1: or your you know, your track track day car or
Speaker 1: whatever you have, or even your street car. I suppose
Speaker 1: you can go and watch this. There's a performance school there.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like when I went to that Porsche
Speaker 1: Driving Experience thing. It's like that, only you pay for
Speaker 1: a membership and you belong to this thing. For I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's a year or six months or whatever,
Speaker 1: but it's an interesting idea, and I know it's one
Speaker 1: that's kind of spread across the nation. I know that
Speaker 1: we've had other clubs like this where people usually it's
Speaker 1: usually not always all the time, but usually it's people
Speaker 1: with a lot of money that want to bring a
Speaker 1: car that's not streetly eagle and be able to enjoy
Speaker 1: it and they're able to park their car in their
Speaker 1: grudge that you know, it's a bigger than my house,
Speaker 1: a square foot grudge that has a luxury loft and
Speaker 1: everything along with it, and park one of their five
Speaker 1: six seven cars below and then just use them at
Speaker 1: will or you know, for these special events that they have.
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a really cool idea. I think,
Speaker 1: be towing your race car to the track every time
Speaker 1: you want to drive it in park right there. And
Speaker 1: if you're not into golf, if you're not, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't want to swim, and you don't want tennis
Speaker 1: and all that. You just want to belong to a club.
Speaker 1: You want to be able to use your vehicle that
Speaker 1: you can't use on normal city streets outside of the
Speaker 1: scarce weekend that you're able to get to a an
Speaker 1: event like let's say you're an sec A member or something,
Speaker 1: and you can have to tow it to the event,
Speaker 1: and you know you have to bother with the trailer
Speaker 1: every time, and all that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: You can set the car up the way you want
Speaker 1: it to be when you get it to the track,
Speaker 1: not to drive it there. You don't have your race
Speaker 1: tires on it and everything perfect, right out of the
Speaker 1: garage onto the track and go. You're right, You're just
Speaker 1: just warm it up and go right. I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit of maintenance just and probably a lot
Speaker 1: of I would guess there's a lot of social activity
Speaker 1: around this as well. I would think that, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a tight knit group of people, if I
Speaker 1: had to guess, just because you know, you kind of
Speaker 1: get kind of chummy with the people that are there,
Speaker 1: you know. Plus, I mean, we're else You're gonna see
Speaker 1: some of these cars, you know, and to see them
Speaker 1: in action, which I think is really cool. I mean
Speaker 1: outside of you know a dealership parking lot or you know,
Speaker 1: on the dealership floor or maybe in a museum or
Speaker 1: even at a car show, you're not gonna get to
Speaker 1: really see them in action. And I think that you know,
Speaker 1: something like this, the same one concourse, and I know
Speaker 1: there's a famous one in New York somewhere that I'll
Speaker 1: have to look up, but I know there are others
Speaker 1: all around the U. S. So this is kind of
Speaker 1: an interesting thing, and I think that we need to
Speaker 1: kind of jump on top of it and talk about
Speaker 1: it if we can sometime soon. Anyway, Okay, last little
Speaker 1: bit of information before we really dig into this list.
Speaker 1: And I hope this, uh, I hope this is of
Speaker 1: interest to you guys, because we have been talking about
Speaker 1: top speed in vehicles for a long time, you know,
Speaker 1: since we started the show, and we've done several different
Speaker 1: measures of that speed. We've done you know, the Texas Smile,
Speaker 1: where we talk about how fast a car can go
Speaker 1: in one mile distance. Not necessarily a certain speed is
Speaker 1: certain within a certain marked mile. It's it's one mile,
Speaker 1: that's it. I mean, I don't know how better to
Speaker 1: describe that than that. I mean, the Texas Mile episode.
Speaker 1: If you haven't heard it, please listen to it because
Speaker 1: it's it's a unique test um. Then there's you know,
Speaker 1: the outright speed records we've talked about We've talked about
Speaker 1: the fastest cars for a certain dollar amount and that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, some other tests zero to six zero
Speaker 1: and how those are done. Yeah, exactly. Well, just this
Speaker 1: week in Sweden, the week we're recording this, I should say,
Speaker 1: on September twenty three, a new record was broken and
Speaker 1: it was broken by the Kona seg Regera, which is
Speaker 1: different because formerly they have used the egg Era was
Speaker 1: spelled with an A at the beginning and to the
Speaker 1: R at the beginning, So this is the Regera. The
Speaker 1: Regia has set a brand new record and the record
Speaker 1: is one point a seconds faster than the last time.
Speaker 1: So they're breaking, sometimes breaking their own record, and I
Speaker 1: think that's what they're doing at this point. But the
Speaker 1: new record for get this zero to two hundred and
Speaker 1: forty nine miles per hour and then back to zero
Speaker 1: is thirty one point four nine seconds, which I think
Speaker 1: is pretty good, pretty solid time. I mean, that's really fast,
Speaker 1: that's really moving and breaking, that's really breaking. So that's
Speaker 1: a quick speed. I know that it takes a lot
Speaker 1: to do something like that, but I mean to run
Speaker 1: up to two and fifty miles an hour and then
Speaker 1: back down to zero to I think the well, I
Speaker 1: think that they actually did break two fifty during one
Speaker 1: run just to say they did it, but it took
Speaker 1: thirty two point four eight seconds, so a little bit longer.
Speaker 1: But the reason is because of course silver in Sweden,
Speaker 1: they use the metric system and so what they were
Speaker 1: shooting for was four kilometers per hour. So this the
Speaker 1: actual record is zero to four hundred kilometers per hour
Speaker 1: to zero, so you have to kind of take that
Speaker 1: into a chemics well yeah, yeah. So anyways, the Kona
Speaker 1: seg Regera is the brand new holder of that record,
Speaker 1: and I mean brand new, so uh, look to look
Speaker 1: to see that broken probably in the in the very
Speaker 1: near future, because I think they're always continually breaking these
Speaker 1: these records. I mean it just one after the other.
Speaker 1: And we've seen that, and within the time frame of
Speaker 1: when we started this program, we've seen you know, just
Speaker 1: it seems like everybody just had to outdo each other
Speaker 1: by just a fraction of a second or you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and it's always going to be that way.
Speaker 1: There's always that Competition's almost like there's a schedule that
Speaker 1: we don't know about where they say we're going to
Speaker 1: break the record on this day, if you can come
Speaker 1: out and get pressed next week, and then next month
Speaker 1: will be another cars month, you know. I think that's
Speaker 1: what it's all about, right. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: this is just about press, is about getting your name
Speaker 1: and keeping your name out in front of the public
Speaker 1: for a while. Um, how much of this do you think?
Speaker 1: I just just kind of off the cuff discussion here,
Speaker 1: but I mean, how do how much do you of
Speaker 1: this do you think? Is um sand begging? How much
Speaker 1: do you think that like they could have got Do
Speaker 1: you think they could have gone faster? Or do you
Speaker 1: think that they're they're holding back in order to wait
Speaker 1: until someone breaks this record and then do it again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they may be doing some of that. A lot of times.
Speaker 1: They have the technology to go faster, even if it's
Speaker 1: not tested yet. They know when they're going to test it,
Speaker 1: and then they when they're going to be their own
Speaker 1: record or someone else's record, who whatever it is at
Speaker 1: the time. Sure, but it's it's counter It's it's a
Speaker 1: little counterintuitive to the rest of us, isn't it though,
Speaker 1: to think like, why would they hold back? Why wouldn't
Speaker 1: they just if they can? And I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: that Kona se is doing this. I want to make
Speaker 1: that clear. But why why would let's say that, let's
Speaker 1: say that they were. Why do you think that Kona
Speaker 1: sag would ever hold back? I mean, the rest of
Speaker 1: us would think, like, I'm just gonna go as fast
Speaker 1: I can. If I break this record by twenty five
Speaker 1: miles per hour, great for me, you know, and let
Speaker 1: somebody else try to beat me by one mile per
Speaker 1: hour or miles per hour faster than that. I wonder
Speaker 1: if it's just like we're getting to that point where
Speaker 1: it's such fine, so fine tuned these references. Now see okay,
Speaker 1: you know, here's here's one, and I have a very
Speaker 1: loose example of this, but I don't know even how
Speaker 1: to put this or the numbers exactly. But think about
Speaker 1: like like championship sprinters, you know, doing the hundred meter
Speaker 1: dash or you know, whatever the races. Think about when um,
Speaker 1: let's say, guys, the same bolt, he came in and
Speaker 1: just show added records, I mean, just blew them away.
Speaker 1: But up until that point, everybody was breaking records by
Speaker 1: just a little tiny I mean, just incremental points, and
Speaker 1: then he just came in and just blew it away,
Speaker 1: and I think that there's always gonna be someone that
Speaker 1: comes in and does that. I think there's someone that
Speaker 1: comes in and just destroys any kind of preconceived notion
Speaker 1: that you have about speed or about time, or about whatever.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that someone will just I think
Speaker 1: someone's going to obliterate this record in the next decade,
Speaker 1: maybe someone with some proprietary technology or something like that. Maybe,
Speaker 1: and maybe it might take ten years for someone to
Speaker 1: come along that does that, and you know of these
Speaker 1: little tiny incremental speed increases, but then someone I think,
Speaker 1: you know, comes in ten years later and just destroys it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's something that you know they've been working
Speaker 1: on for ten years, you know, trying to get to
Speaker 1: that point. Costs could come into play too. They might
Speaker 1: not want to take their car out to attempt to
Speaker 1: record until they have a pretty good idea that they're
Speaker 1: going to succeed. I think, like if every mark is hit,
Speaker 1: they know exactly what time they're going to get. Maybe
Speaker 1: they just don't want to go through the whole It's
Speaker 1: not like they take the car to the track. I
Speaker 1: can say, let's try to do this. I think they
Speaker 1: have already done the testing to know what they're going
Speaker 1: to do. They just take it to the track to
Speaker 1: measure it. They just don't want to take their four
Speaker 1: million dollar baby out there. Yeah, so maybe they don't
Speaker 1: want to take Yeah, they don't want to take the
Speaker 1: technology that's a year or two down the road out there.
Speaker 1: You're saying, keep it a little close to the vest, definitely. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well they already make the cars look all kinds of
Speaker 1: weird ways when they take them out there in a
Speaker 1: certain way and toptical illusion the camera. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: know what you mean. The camouflage cars. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we see a lot of that, and uh well we
Speaker 1: saw a lot of that in Detroit, and there still
Speaker 1: is a lot of that's happening around there. And it's
Speaker 1: not all that unusual to see a car that has
Speaker 1: either you know, the whole body painted that way or
Speaker 1: decalt that way or whatever it is now probably wrap.
Speaker 1: But it's a strange auto environment, it really is. And
Speaker 1: you see you see some interesting things, but you also
Speaker 1: see some things that really make you think that why
Speaker 1: did he do that for you? You know, what's that
Speaker 1: all about. Let's get into some of these least likely
Speaker 1: and weird and unusual race cars in just a moment
Speaker 1: right after the break, and we're back and you're listening
Speaker 1: to the fast Track, and I'm well, I'm one of
Speaker 1: your hosts, Scott Benjamin, and I'm Kurt Garin. Kurt, you're
Speaker 1: right on top of things to right in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm impressed, very good. Alright, So I think we've already
Speaker 1: kind of introd this. You know, there's these unusual cars
Speaker 1: out there, right, I mean, as the author of this
Speaker 1: article says, is his name is Benjamin Hunting. He's a
Speaker 1: writer from a site called driving line dot com. And
Speaker 1: that's the list that we're gonna follow. As as Benjamin says,
Speaker 1: you know, racing gets weird sometimes, it really does get
Speaker 1: unusual and strange. And um, we all know this. We
Speaker 1: all know that racers in a particular series, whatever series
Speaker 1: it may be, are all about bending the rules. And
Speaker 1: especially we've seen this, especially in NASCAR, right, We've seen
Speaker 1: it so many times in nascars, so many different colorful
Speaker 1: characters and people that you are just right in your
Speaker 1: face about it too, you know, like I like, if
Speaker 1: it's not specifically exactly in the rule book like that,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it. And then you know, the
Speaker 1: next race has changed, you know, the rules in the
Speaker 1: rule book, and now you can't do that, so they
Speaker 1: have to change their tactic and and it's kind of this, uh,
Speaker 1: this cat and mouse back and forth, you know, play
Speaker 1: the game type thing that they do. And as fans,
Speaker 1: we love to watch this, right, we love to We
Speaker 1: love to see the you know, the characters that are
Speaker 1: that are like A Smokey Eunuch or M. Carol Shelby
Speaker 1: or any of those guys. You know that we're really
Speaker 1: just exciting to watch a J. Foyd whoever it happens
Speaker 1: to be. You know, it's just you know, it creates characters,
Speaker 1: you know, larger than life characters at the racetrack. One
Speaker 1: of the things that that results from this is unusual
Speaker 1: car design or car technology or just um tactics or
Speaker 1: you know, whatever it happens to be. But these happen
Speaker 1: to be the whole deal, like the complete package. These
Speaker 1: are unusual cars. Some of them do have just unusual technology,
Speaker 1: but along with that, form has to follow the function, right,
Speaker 1: So this makes the vehicle look weird because they're trying
Speaker 1: this new technology. It makes it look unusual on the track,
Speaker 1: and that's what makes it stand out. And sometimes these
Speaker 1: are the cars to get all the attention, whether or
Speaker 1: not they're on the pole position or win the race,
Speaker 1: or or don't even place at all. If they make
Speaker 1: one lap, everybody's kind of you know, owing an ony
Speaker 1: over that one car, or you know, laughing at it.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're laughing at it. That's the other thing. A
Speaker 1: modern example of some of these types of cars would
Speaker 1: be the delta wing the sports car. I think they're
Speaker 1: racing it anymore, very unusual. So that kind of gives
Speaker 1: you an idea. If you're familiar with a delta wing, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're about to dive into. Yeah, if you're not, take
Speaker 1: a look online. That is a really strange design. But
Speaker 1: that's exactly what we're talking about. And as Benjamin says here,
Speaker 1: you know that defy convention. In a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: the boundaries a good taste, and I agree sometimes that's
Speaker 1: the case. But you know, they all have something likable
Speaker 1: about them as well. You know, there's something about rooting
Speaker 1: for the underdog or something about you know, cheering for
Speaker 1: the guy that is trying something new and why not,
Speaker 1: And they do so behind the wheel of misfits. And
Speaker 1: that's the way it is with our number one car
Speaker 1: on the list here, Kurt, it is the Cadillac La Monstra.
Speaker 1: And I believe this is a French car, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: so French car. It's in nineteen forty nine car which
Speaker 1: is competing in nineteen fifty. And I'll describe what's going
Speaker 1: on here, but you really need to take a look
Speaker 1: at this car online. You need to have an image
Speaker 1: of what we're talking about here, because there is some
Speaker 1: unusual body work going on, right. Definitely, it's a very
Speaker 1: unusual looking card to me, you know what it looks
Speaker 1: like to me. And I I'm not a huge Star
Speaker 1: Wars fan, believe or not. I mean, I kind of
Speaker 1: grew up in that era and I think that was
Speaker 1: the first movie I ever saw like out, you know,
Speaker 1: with my parents, like at a theater. Uh, Star Wars.
Speaker 1: But doesn't it look a lot like the Is it
Speaker 1: the land Speeder or is that the is that the
Speaker 1: the Cadillac Series sixty one that this is built from
Speaker 1: or based on this ninety nine not the not the
Speaker 1: street car, but this car, this, this La Monstra, looks
Speaker 1: an awful lot like the land Speeder, and it looks
Speaker 1: like it's almost hovering above the ground. You can't really
Speaker 1: see the wheels underneath. It's such an unusual design. It's
Speaker 1: very very strange, very cool. Now, but imagine seeing this
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty on the racetrack in Lama, because that's
Speaker 1: where it raced. Briggs Cunningham was the one who took
Speaker 1: this car. And again underneath it's a nine Cadillacs Series
Speaker 1: sixty one. There's a couple of cars that he actually brought.
Speaker 1: He brought a factory spect manually equipped Series sixty one
Speaker 1: coupe and the other one was this one that they
Speaker 1: had designed in the wind Tunnel, and this is the
Speaker 1: La Monstra, which means, of course the monster for good reason.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you see that, guess um. But this
Speaker 1: car had a three thirty one cubic n B eight
Speaker 1: that had five carburetors, and it says it ran an
Speaker 1: eventful race, burying itself in the sand bank at one
Speaker 1: point and requiring Cunningham to leave the driver's seat and
Speaker 1: dig it out. And then despite all of that, he
Speaker 1: finished eleventh in the race. Now isn't that unusual? I mean,
Speaker 1: and now think about getting out of the car, having
Speaker 1: to dig it out of a sand bank, get it
Speaker 1: back on the course, came back in racing again, you know,
Speaker 1: for the remainder of the twenty four hours whatever whatever
Speaker 1: it is, and still finishing eleven and eleventh place. That's impressive.
Speaker 1: It is impressive. Impressive that the car survived that kind
Speaker 1: of a lick. Yeah, I think it's a decent finish,
Speaker 1: I guess for our vehicle, you know, that did something
Speaker 1: like that. Usually, you know, we've heard of these unusual
Speaker 1: cases where the driver will be in a race and
Speaker 1: they'll you know, they call it spin and winds. They've
Speaker 1: had a spin out, they didn't hit a wall or
Speaker 1: anything like that, and yet they win the race somehow.
Speaker 1: It's very unusual it happens, but it's very unusual. But
Speaker 1: this is not quite the same. I mean, finished eleventh place,
Speaker 1: but that's a long race and digging out of the
Speaker 1: sand that's something that you don't see anybody, do, you know,
Speaker 1: and still win the race by any means. Doesn't like
Speaker 1: it would take much to get this thing stuck in
Speaker 1: the sand. Then yeah, no exactly. And I do have
Speaker 1: a little bit of an update on this one, but
Speaker 1: as of seventeen and I have a feeling needs of moved.
Speaker 1: But as of seventeen or at least in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: UH the car was on display at a place called
Speaker 1: the REVS Institute in Naples, Florida, along with a collection
Speaker 1: of other Cadillac race cars from the two thousand seventeen
Speaker 1: wins at both the Rolex twenty four in Daytona and
Speaker 1: the Twelve Hours of Seabring and UM with the title
Speaker 1: wins that they won for those seasons as well. So
Speaker 1: this is a group was within a group of of
Speaker 1: other Cadillac race cars from the modern era, which I
Speaker 1: would have loved to have seen this in Naples, Florida.
Speaker 1: That's not too far off a drive from us here
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. The second corner list Kurt is the Chaparral
Speaker 1: to J and this one is from around nineteen seventy.
Speaker 1: And I do want to tell you that we have
Speaker 1: already done the full Chaparral story on car stuff a
Speaker 1: long time ago. We did this back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eleven. So if you want to get some info
Speaker 1: on that and about you know that whole thing, and
Speaker 1: a lot about the kN M series and you know
Speaker 1: the the cars that competed in that, you can, you know,
Speaker 1: check that out if you want to. So The idea
Speaker 1: behind the chaparal To j was that they were going
Speaker 1: to use something called active arrow. Active arrow had a
Speaker 1: different meaning back then, um a little bit of a
Speaker 1: different meaning back then than it does now. Now. What
Speaker 1: we typically see our movable wings that are just at
Speaker 1: speed and kind of change the airflow over the vehicle
Speaker 1: in order to produce more downforce. It you know, when
Speaker 1: it's necessary and where it's necessary. This one, however, was
Speaker 1: able to generate. This is the crazy thing. Able to
Speaker 1: generate something like like, was it one point five gs
Speaker 1: of down force regardless of whatever speed it was traveling.
Speaker 1: So the car, imagine you have to imagine this. So
Speaker 1: let's say that the car is sitting still on a
Speaker 1: scale and it weighs let's say a thousand pounds, just
Speaker 1: an easy round number to deal with. We flip on
Speaker 1: this giant fan that's in the back of the car
Speaker 1: that's run by a two stroke motor, and what it
Speaker 1: does is it sucks all the air out from underneath
Speaker 1: the car and pulls it down to the road surface. Right,
Speaker 1: it's driving it straight down, not any direction to straight down.
Speaker 1: The engine is doing nothing but pointing, and the fan
Speaker 1: is pointing the air up pulling it down vacuum exactly right.
Speaker 1: So you flip the switch and this thing starts up,
Speaker 1: and the vacuum starts up, and suddenly the scale will
Speaker 1: read or it will appear in the car that the
Speaker 1: car ways pounds. And that's a that's a crude way
Speaker 1: to put that, And I don't even know if that's
Speaker 1: true or not. But what I'm saying is it will
Speaker 1: pull down with the amount of force equal to one
Speaker 1: point five its own weight, like one and a half
Speaker 1: times its own weight, as it travels down the track. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean again, it could be sitting still and do
Speaker 1: the same thing. That's why I use that example. But um,
Speaker 1: that's probably a terrible way to put that. I hope
Speaker 1: an engineer doesn't call in and say, that's that's completely wrong.
Speaker 1: You've you've just screwed everything up. I'm backpedaling a little
Speaker 1: bit because I'm terrible at this type of thing. But
Speaker 1: but that's my understanding of it anyway, is that the
Speaker 1: car effectively as it travels down. That's the goal, right,
Speaker 1: is to to make it heavier. Likes as you go faster,
Speaker 1: it pushes down on the tires more than it does
Speaker 1: when it's sitting still, and this car, no matter what
Speaker 1: speed you're going, it's pushing down on the tires with
Speaker 1: like one and a half times its own weight, which
Speaker 1: is crazy to think about, I mean, and so imagine
Speaker 1: the advantage of that the driver has when they're driving
Speaker 1: this car through a corner. I mean, it's almost as
Speaker 1: if you could take away. Not not that you can
Speaker 1: completely take away, but you could almost imagine a driver
Speaker 1: with less skill being able to corner harder than a
Speaker 1: driver with a lot of skill, because the faster you go,
Speaker 1: the more this thing creates down for it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a ridiculous amount of down force in
Speaker 1: this car. There's another kind of related car that I
Speaker 1: want to talk about in there's the Brabham bt B,
Speaker 1: which is called the Fan car, and it was designed
Speaker 1: by a guy named Gordon Murray. It would use kind
Speaker 1: of like a similar down force principle. This one was
Speaker 1: powered by the car's engine itself, so the faster the
Speaker 1: car went, the more down force of a Career eight.
Speaker 1: So um again, this one even even more than the
Speaker 1: other one. I would guess that suction effect, you know
Speaker 1: around the corners was just unreal. I mean, you're able
Speaker 1: to corner inside outside, you know, right down the you know,
Speaker 1: the perfect line wherever you want to. Everybody else would
Speaker 1: have problems. You wouldn't have any problems at all. So
Speaker 1: one thing interesting I thought was the lead driver for
Speaker 1: the car during that era for Brabham was was Nikki Lauda.
Speaker 1: He was the Austrian driver at the time. And of
Speaker 1: course there was also another Brazilian driver, you know, another
Speaker 1: code driver and it was Nelson Pk so they both
Speaker 1: got some time behind the wheel. A couple of big
Speaker 1: names in F one and uh and worth mentioning anyway, Um,
Speaker 1: number three in the list, this is one that I
Speaker 1: bet a lot of people do kind of laugh at.
Speaker 1: But this is the lot of Granta. I hope I'm
Speaker 1: saying that right, the Lot of Granta. Now, I know
Speaker 1: I'm getting a lot of part right, but I hope
Speaker 1: the Granta is right or East Granta. It's granted, I
Speaker 1: don't know. The Lata is not necessarily the best car.
Speaker 1: It's a Russian brand of car. And um, you know
Speaker 1: they make a lot of street cars in Europe, they
Speaker 1: make a ton of them. Actually they make gosh, I
Speaker 1: want to say it's it's in the millions. I mean,
Speaker 1: they've been making them since two thousand eleven. I think
Speaker 1: they're still making them. But it's built in in Russia,
Speaker 1: in the Ukraine, Egypt, and even in Kazakhstan is where
Speaker 1: this thing is built. Of course they're going to take
Speaker 1: one of their their cars to compete in the World
Speaker 1: Touring Car Championship Cork. Why not? Why wouldn't they, right?
Speaker 1: But they chose the lot of granted, which is an
Speaker 1: unusual choice. It first competed in two thousand twelve, and
Speaker 1: it has a different engines as a turbocharge four cylinder engine,
Speaker 1: and it has three eighty horse power. That is not
Speaker 1: a lot of granted that you're gonna get. If you
Speaker 1: buy it out of the dealership, you're gonna get a
Speaker 1: one point six leader eight valve in line four engine
Speaker 1: or possibly if you if you want, if you upgrade it,
Speaker 1: you can get a sixteen valve in line four as well. Now,
Speaker 1: one thing I do need to mention this, I think
Speaker 1: we probably should talk about this just for a second,
Speaker 1: is that the World Touring Car Championship actually folded in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seventeen, So it's no it no longer exists.
Speaker 1: It started in seven, so this was around for thirty years.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a big deal along the lines of this, well,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it. Have you ever heard of something
Speaker 1: called the North American Touring Car Championship? You have? Really,
Speaker 1: I was very close to this one. I was working
Speaker 1: for Diamler Chrysler at the time, and uh, I was
Speaker 1: closely closely involved with this new Some of the drivers,
Speaker 1: got to get to some of the tracks, got to
Speaker 1: you know, some press access, that kind of thing. It
Speaker 1: was really I'll tell you, I'm I'm excited about talking
Speaker 1: about that one. And I kind of put that into
Speaker 1: the back of my head for a long time, and
Speaker 1: so maybe maybe we should talk about that seriously at
Speaker 1: some point. But but I think that you know what
Speaker 1: goes along with that is the World Touring Car Championship,
Speaker 1: and um, let's definitely get into those two as well. Sure,
Speaker 1: al right, it's number four on the list, is uh
Speaker 1: the Citron I D nineteen and Okay, before we start
Speaker 1: even talking about where this one appeared, because this one
Speaker 1: has some history. Um, we did do a couple of
Speaker 1: car stuff episodes on this one too. If you want
Speaker 1: the entire Citron story, Part one and Part two, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it was done in New November two thousand fourteen.
Speaker 1: It's got an extensive history on you know, the whole thing.
Speaker 1: But this is the maybe one of the craziest ones
Speaker 1: on the list, from what do you think? Do you agree? Um,
Speaker 1: there's some a little nuance that makes it not as
Speaker 1: crazy to meet in my opinion? All right, yeah to me.
Speaker 1: To me, this is one of the more fascinated ones
Speaker 1: just because of how this would be even possible today.
Speaker 1: And I don't think this it wouldn't be possible obviously.
Speaker 1: The Citron I D nineteen if you don't know what
Speaker 1: that is, that is a it's part of the D
Speaker 1: series of cars. Um. The I D meant that simply
Speaker 1: that it had a manual transmission in the cloth interior,
Speaker 1: and the D S had leather seats and uh, something
Speaker 1: called a citro matic transmission. So it's an automatic, but
Speaker 1: it had a shift lever but no clutch. So the
Speaker 1: D I'm sorry, The I D and the D S
Speaker 1: are kind of along the same appearance but different. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, trim packages and things like that and options.
Speaker 1: In between nineteen fifty and nineteen seventy five, well, they
Speaker 1: built one point four million of these cars, so a
Speaker 1: lot of them were out there. However, early on in
Speaker 1: the run of these cars again they started the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five. In nineteen fifty eight in Riverside, California, an
Speaker 1: I D nineteen are actually a pair of I D
Speaker 1: nineteens ran in a NASCAR race. Do you find that
Speaker 1: hard to believe? Somewhat a NASCAR race it was. It
Speaker 1: was a road course. That's the thing that makes a
Speaker 1: little bit easier to believe. His NASCAR was a bit
Speaker 1: different back then. It was a lot different back then apparently.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you if you know what a Citron
Speaker 1: I D nineteen looks like, you know from nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: take a look at one online. If you don't, and
Speaker 1: imagine that running in NASCAR, that's really hard to believe.
Speaker 1: On a road course, on a oval, whatever. But this
Speaker 1: was the old Riverside track and it ran in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight. Is part of the Crown America five hundred.
Speaker 1: Get this. They both finished with inside inside the top twenty.
Speaker 1: They finished eighteenth and nineteenth overall, but that means that
Speaker 1: in their class they were first in second place. So
Speaker 1: a Citron has won a NASCAR race with a seventy
Speaker 1: horsepower engine. That's it. Now, look at what they're running today,
Speaker 1: and you know, like the horsepower and you know the
Speaker 1: appearance of them and that you know the how closely
Speaker 1: closely they're matched, how they had they this you know,
Speaker 1: they look essentially the same, essentially. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: there's variation between manufacturers, but um, it's such just such
Speaker 1: an unusual thing. I hadn't put this together, but the
Speaker 1: author did. They used it kind of as a punch
Speaker 1: line in the um was it Talladagan ancess the one
Speaker 1: the legend of Rickey Bobby? Right? Yeah, they used it
Speaker 1: as a as kind of a punch line because the
Speaker 1: challenger is the French guy, right, he's the Perier driver,
Speaker 1: Sasha Baron Cohen. Is that who it was? Yeah, think
Speaker 1: it's very funny. So it's kind of a funny thing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I hadn't put that together, those two things
Speaker 1: together until this point, but I think it's really funny. Also. Um,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go into number five here in just a minute,
Speaker 1: but I want to make sure that you do something
Speaker 1: for me in the future. I want you to hold
Speaker 1: me to this. Um. I find that I'm not as
Speaker 1: drawn to NASCAR stuff as I as I probably should be.
Speaker 1: I just haven't had as much of an interest in
Speaker 1: it as I have in Open Wheel and that type
Speaker 1: of thing. So I want to make sure that we
Speaker 1: equally cover all these different series. And I'd like to
Speaker 1: cover NASCAR because I think there's a lot there. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of stories there. Of course, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of technology that I don't want to ignore. Um, it's
Speaker 1: just not my favorite series right now. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm growing to love it over the years. I'm growing
Speaker 1: to I should say, growing to like it. I still
Speaker 1: don't love it yet, but maybe i'll can. I could
Speaker 1: be convinced along the way. I used to call it
Speaker 1: nas crap. I'll admit to that. I still do with
Speaker 1: my dad just to be fun because he likes he
Speaker 1: likes Nascar, And I know it's just a little you know,
Speaker 1: father's son ribbing that goes on, you know, just a joke,
Speaker 1: you know. But so yeah, we will talk about some
Speaker 1: some NASCAR stuff in upcoming shows. I promise that you
Speaker 1: know the series, the drivers, some of the oddities. There's
Speaker 1: plenty of those oddities out there. And alright, number five
Speaker 1: here on the list is uh, oh boy, this is
Speaker 1: an unusual one, but I bet it's one that most
Speaker 1: people can picture in their mind. At least most of
Speaker 1: our listeners can picture in their mind. I would think
Speaker 1: this is the Volvo eight fifty wagon that was in
Speaker 1: the British Touring Car Championship. It was some one to
Speaker 1: me as as iconic. Oh I I completely agree, And
Speaker 1: how it came about is really really unusual. There's a long,
Speaker 1: long story that I'm not going to bore you with,
Speaker 1: but it raised in the season of the British Touring
Speaker 1: Car Championship. And again there's a fascinating story behind why
Speaker 1: it raced in there and I can I can give
Speaker 1: you just the highlights right now. Um. But again I
Speaker 1: bet that most of our our listeners can picture this
Speaker 1: in their in their mind and just just close your
Speaker 1: eyes and if you're not driving, close your eyes, imagine
Speaker 1: what this car looks like. And typically you'll think of
Speaker 1: this car going around a corner on two wheels. And
Speaker 1: that's what the photographers just loved about this car is
Speaker 1: that it was always on two wheels, but it had
Speaker 1: some other advantages, or maybe it wasn't advantages, it was
Speaker 1: just it didn't have the disadvantages that you would think
Speaker 1: that it would have. This was a car that that
Speaker 1: actually performed just as well as the eight fifties Sedan did,
Speaker 1: and they didn't really know that until there was a
Speaker 1: shortage at the factory. So here's here's how all this
Speaker 1: goes down. So Volvo hadn't raised since about nineteen eighties six,
Speaker 1: when it was in something called the European Touring Car
Speaker 1: Cup which was called the e t c C and
Speaker 1: that went defunct. And then in the early nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: Volvo senior vice president decided that it was time to
Speaker 1: return to race and to pep up the brand that
Speaker 1: was at this point better known for safety. You know,
Speaker 1: they had all these safety nations. They still do. I
Speaker 1: mean there there's still a brand known for safety, which
Speaker 1: is not a bad thing, that's a really good thing.
Speaker 1: But they wanted to kind of, you know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: spices up a little bit, right, I mean, it's time
Speaker 1: to you know, get back on the racetrack and show
Speaker 1: what we can do as well. And so a Swedish
Speaker 1: performance company was chosen. It was it was called Stephenson
Speaker 1: Automotive or Stephenson Automotive, helping up pronouncing that totally wrong.
Speaker 1: But U S A M is how they do the
Speaker 1: acronym for that. The story is they went to the
Speaker 1: factory to pick up the cars they were supposed to
Speaker 1: pick up, and there's a shortage of the eight fifties
Speaker 1: Sedan bodies at the time they were supposed to go
Speaker 1: to customers or you know, they were. They just simply
Speaker 1: didn't have them. They weren't building them fast enough to
Speaker 1: be able to provide them the racing effort, and the
Speaker 1: only bodies that were available were the wagons. And they decided,
Speaker 1: let's take the wagons. Let's just do it. We've got
Speaker 1: a you know, assignment we have, we have a short
Speaker 1: amount of time to build these race cars. We're gonna
Speaker 1: take these wagons. We're gonna do it. You know, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be unusual. One two best ideas of so they
Speaker 1: find out that, as it turns out, there's no disadvantage
Speaker 1: to running the wagon versus the Sudan aerodynamically. It's really
Speaker 1: a cool looking vehicle. If you're a wagon fan, you
Speaker 1: fall in love with this immediately. I did. I'm a
Speaker 1: huge wagon fan anyway. Sad that there are you don't
Speaker 1: find wagons anymore. It's hard to there's a few. There's
Speaker 1: a few out there, and I've been seeing them in
Speaker 1: commercials recently. This this vehicle, this this particular vehicle was
Speaker 1: probably photographed more than any other car in the series
Speaker 1: during that season, which was just a boon for for Volvo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it was. It was an unbelievable stroke of
Speaker 1: genius on their part. And they didn't even know what
Speaker 1: was really gonna happen like that. The company didn't know it,
Speaker 1: the company that was building them, the stephan Son Automotive,
Speaker 1: the performance company. They didn't know what was gonna happen there.
Speaker 1: They figured they were going to be ridiculed, and I
Speaker 1: think initially they were, they were kind of laughed at,
Speaker 1: but they actually happy accident. Yeah, yeah, they I think
Speaker 1: that they said that the best that they finished with
Speaker 1: something like fourteenth and fifteen in the one season. It's
Speaker 1: a cool looking car. If you haven't ever seen it,
Speaker 1: you know, look it up, the Volvo eight fifty Wagon
Speaker 1: from the British Touring Car Championship or bt c C.
Speaker 1: And you know what, We're gonna have the rest of
Speaker 1: our list in just a moment after the break and
Speaker 1: we're back and you're listening to the fast Track and
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Scott Benjamin, and I am Kurt Garant.
Speaker 1: Kurt's holding in there for number six. All right, this
Speaker 1: one's that's an unusual one too. These are all unusually.
Speaker 1: That's well, that's why they're on the class, isn't it. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is the Mercedes Benz three s c L A MG.
Speaker 1: Now a couple of things make this really unique now
Speaker 1: this one, Well, for one, it's a limousine. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you look at it, it doesn't look
Speaker 1: like it should be on the race doesn't. But I
Speaker 1: think the more that I see this one, the more
Speaker 1: it grows on me. I initially didn't necessarily like it.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a fire engine red AMG sedan, I
Speaker 1: guess a limousine. It's a longer version of the car anyway,
Speaker 1: which is really weird. This one raised in the twenty
Speaker 1: four hour race a SPA in ninety one. And this
Speaker 1: is the first race car that was ever built by MG.
Speaker 1: Which when you look back, I mean you see a
Speaker 1: ton of Mercedes on the roads right now that have
Speaker 1: the MG tag on it, a lot of AMG cars.
Speaker 1: AMG has been around for fifty two years now, they've
Speaker 1: been around since nineteen sixty seven, and this was the
Speaker 1: first race car that they ever created. Now I know
Speaker 1: that they were working on other things, you know, for
Speaker 1: Mercedes Benz at the time. It's kind of their performance
Speaker 1: division if you want to call it that, or the
Speaker 1: Performance House. But it is a full size sedan. I
Speaker 1: maybe a limo is. I've seen it called limos some places,
Speaker 1: but full size sedan is it's probably a better way
Speaker 1: to say it. UM. The car actually want its class
Speaker 1: and was second overall in the race that it was in.
Speaker 1: UM we're talking about again this the SPA twenty four
Speaker 1: hour race in ninety one. Huge horse power four d
Speaker 1: and twenty eight horse power, four hundred and forty eight
Speaker 1: pound feet of torque, and that comes from um an engine.
Speaker 1: I think I want to say that this was an
Speaker 1: a board out version of the already giant V eighth
Speaker 1: they had under the hood, which was either I can't
Speaker 1: I can't determine this. It was either a six point
Speaker 1: three Leader engine or a six point six Leader engine
Speaker 1: that they then board out to be six point eight Leaders.
Speaker 1: But it hasn't some unusual things it has like a
Speaker 1: it has a wood dash. UM it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a sleeper car. I guess if you want to put
Speaker 1: it that way, you know, I mean, it doesn't look
Speaker 1: like outside of the decals, if it didn't have all that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a little bit jacked up in
Speaker 1: the rear. It's got you know, rally lights in the front.
Speaker 1: If you took all that off of their the decals,
Speaker 1: the lights, it would just look like a sedan on
Speaker 1: the road. It really wouldn't be anything, you know, much different.
Speaker 1: I mean, the tires are a little bit wider. Sure,
Speaker 1: I get it, but I don't know. It's just like
Speaker 1: taking whatever car you had on the street and throwing
Speaker 1: it on the racetrack and you know, putting a number
Speaker 1: on it and calling it a race car. But it
Speaker 1: still has the chrome trim on. It doesn't look like
Speaker 1: a race car. Doesn't like it would be very fast.
Speaker 1: They called it the Red Pig. I mean, if that
Speaker 1: says anything, So the Mercedes Benz s l A MG
Speaker 1: or if you want to search the Red Pig, you'll
Speaker 1: find an image or a photo this car. Now, so
Speaker 1: here's what happened to the original car, Because lot of
Speaker 1: people are wondering, you know, where is it as a
Speaker 1: museum somewhere or something like that. That's unfortunately not the case.
Speaker 1: That didn't happen, and it had a tragic end, and
Speaker 1: replicas of the original are available there, you know, you get,
Speaker 1: of course, there are museums and you know, people are
Speaker 1: building in that kind of thing, and their exact replicas
Speaker 1: they're they're very they're very detailed, right down to you know,
Speaker 1: exactly the way it was. But the original was sold
Speaker 1: to an aircraft company and because it was one of
Speaker 1: the fastest cars in the world at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: is huge horse power. Again, um, it was perfect, as
Speaker 1: they say, for testing landing gear at speed by dropping
Speaker 1: the landing gear through holes that they cut into the
Speaker 1: floorboards of the car. So they would drive this thing
Speaker 1: down the track at speed and then drop the landing
Speaker 1: gear through these holes, which would just tear the hell
Speaker 1: out of the car. I mean every time they did
Speaker 1: it right. Unfortunately it didn't take a very long but
Speaker 1: this thing eventually just became such a total wreck that
Speaker 1: they couldn't even use it for that. So, um, the
Speaker 1: original Red Pig met quite a strange end. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of cars that had a history
Speaker 1: like that, or you know an end like that. Especially
Speaker 1: race cars, usually they either crash or they end up
Speaker 1: in a museum. You know, one of the two next
Speaker 1: one on the list, this is number seven. It's the
Speaker 1: Toyota Prius. G T might laugh throwing a g T
Speaker 1: at the end of Prius, but until you see the
Speaker 1: Prius GT, uh, you don't understand. I mean this is
Speaker 1: This is the Super GT Prius, which debuted in the
Speaker 1: Super GT series in two thousand twelve. It took the
Speaker 1: class pole position in the GT three hundred class and
Speaker 1: then took sixth place at the two thousand twelve Fuji
Speaker 1: GT five KO race. It is, as you may have
Speaker 1: already guessed, not a your typical Toyota Prius. Still hybrid.
Speaker 1: It still has a what has a larger lithium ion
Speaker 1: batteries you might expect, But the biggest difference is that
Speaker 1: it has a mid mounted three point four leader V
Speaker 1: eight engine that produces three hundred horsepower. Of course it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's naturally aspirated. It's not a turbo engine. It ran
Speaker 1: from about two thousand twelve until two thousand eighteen, and
Speaker 1: it got the podium several times during that time. This one,
Speaker 1: I have been staring at photos of this for a
Speaker 1: long time trying to figure out where the Prius is
Speaker 1: underneath there, because it doesn't have a whole lot of
Speaker 1: shared panels or anything like that. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: buried somewhere underneath some really impressive looking body work, just
Speaker 1: real quick. Is something that comes back to the road
Speaker 1: Kill Knights. I was watching a little bit of the
Speaker 1: road Kill Knights footage, you know, some of the drag events,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that they had paired up
Speaker 1: was a I think it was a Dodge Dart Demon
Speaker 1: and a Prius, and you might think, okay, well what
Speaker 1: are they what are they doing with this? Well, the
Speaker 1: Prius was actually powered by a Dodge Hellcat crate engine
Speaker 1: and not just the hell Cat engine because you might think, well,
Speaker 1: maybe the dark Demon still has a chance against this
Speaker 1: lightweight Prius, right, But they had upgraded the seven and
Speaker 1: seven horsepower Hellcat engine by adding a four point five
Speaker 1: Leader Whipple supercharter to that. So it's it's achieving one
Speaker 1: thousand horse power in a Prius that just falls into
Speaker 1: that y categories. So this is not your you know,
Speaker 1: this is not for fuel economy or anything like that, right,
Speaker 1: But but it's it's funny as hell to watch this
Speaker 1: dreg and of course it just it destroys the Dodge
Speaker 1: Demon right off the line. I mean it's within ten feet.
Speaker 1: You're gonna see who's gonna win. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: that quick. It's like it's just gone. Let's let's speed
Speaker 1: through these last couples so that we can get to
Speaker 1: our extras. Okay, so the there's the nineteen seventy six
Speaker 1: Terrell P. Thirty four. Actually this is called the Project
Speaker 1: thirty four. Consider this the most unusual f one car
Speaker 1: you've probably ever seen. Is so we I'm gonna say it. Um,
Speaker 1: this is the six wheeler. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people can also picture this one in their mind.
Speaker 1: This is the six wheeler that has I think it
Speaker 1: has ELF printed on the side. A lot of people
Speaker 1: can picture that as well. I think Elf was like
Speaker 1: a fuel or something at the time. Wasn't something like that,
Speaker 1: but it was one too. Yeah, you're right through the
Speaker 1: two thousand's or late nineties. Yeah, yeah, I think of
Speaker 1: sponsorship or you'd see banners or at least you know,
Speaker 1: it's some kind of signage for those. Um, this is
Speaker 1: a car that was designed by a guy named Derek Gardner,
Speaker 1: who is actually better known as a transmission designer up
Speaker 1: until the point that he met Ken Tyrrell in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy and he convinced him to start designing cars, and
Speaker 1: he did so. I think around nineteen seventy they started
Speaker 1: building cars in God, I think it was just like
Speaker 1: a private garage. Maybe even it could have even have
Speaker 1: been Derreck Gardner's garage. This one has a V eight engine.
Speaker 1: It's a Ford Couseworth engine um DFV engine, which stands
Speaker 1: for double four valve engine. The reason behind this, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people will wonder why why bother with
Speaker 1: extra wheels? You think that would just be extra trouble.
Speaker 1: And you know, the advantage comes in increased breaking power,
Speaker 1: which I guess makes sense. You get more breaking surface
Speaker 1: so you're able to, you know, go harder into the
Speaker 1: corners when you need to. And that's exactly what they did.
Speaker 1: And it raced. It was sort of successful. It raced
Speaker 1: during I think it was ninety six and nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: seven or and it retired after nineteen seventy seven. It
Speaker 1: kind of won over fans it it initially, you know,
Speaker 1: fans laughed at it thought it was kind of ridiculous,
Speaker 1: and it still looks ridiculous a little bit, but it
Speaker 1: did win people over it. It ran in thirty races
Speaker 1: it had it had only unwin, which was in the
Speaker 1: Swedish Grand Prix, and that's when Jody Scheckter drove that
Speaker 1: car and then had one pole position and get us
Speaker 1: three times. It's at the fastest lap in a race.
Speaker 1: Then there's the number nine, the Rolls Royce Corniche. Now
Speaker 1: we've done a lot of cars to episodes on Rolls
Speaker 1: Royce and you know all about the uh, the the
Speaker 1: luxury and you know the opulence of the of the
Speaker 1: Rolls Royce, and that's not what this one is all about.
Speaker 1: This is a different animal altogether. This is my weirdest
Speaker 1: one on the list, is it really? Yeah? Oh se
Speaker 1: you like? Do you like this one a lot? Do you?
Speaker 1: I mean? Do you like it? It's just it would
Speaker 1: be strange seeing a race across the desert? Yeah. Back,
Speaker 1: where was it the Paris to d Car Rally. This
Speaker 1: was a nine one entry to the Paris to the
Speaker 1: Car event and I don't know how many years it race,
Speaker 1: But it's not entirely a Rolls Royce. Underneath there's um
Speaker 1: a Toyle Land Cruiser chassis. It's powered by a five
Speaker 1: point seven Leader small block Chevy V eight. They thought
Speaker 1: it was a joke again, but um gosh, I mean
Speaker 1: it did pretty well in the standings. I think it
Speaker 1: was as high as thirteen in the standings. Not too
Speaker 1: bad really, And it's a ruling race, a very difficult
Speaker 1: race to make. And to consider that you're in a
Speaker 1: Rolls Royce. I mean, it's a funny idea, isn't it
Speaker 1: that you know that this is such a luxury car
Speaker 1: and it's known for its oculence, but here it is
Speaker 1: blazing across the desert and I'm sure that inside there
Speaker 1: it was uncomfortable and it wasn't. It wasn't a comfortable
Speaker 1: trip by any means. It's not like you're in the
Speaker 1: lats of luxury like not like in one of the
Speaker 1: hardly a Rolls Royce's not like in one of the
Speaker 1: Cannonball Run movies or something where it's you know, a
Speaker 1: race car underneath, and you know it's a race car
Speaker 1: inside as well. It's you know, it has to have
Speaker 1: all that as well. Yeah, I love the name to Jules. Jules,
Speaker 1: do you name your cars, Scott, I do not have
Speaker 1: you ever named a car? Uh? They kind of developed
Speaker 1: names over time. Let me ask you this, does your
Speaker 1: current car have a name? It does? Yeah, Jane. Okay,
Speaker 1: Jane is right, plane Jane. Then I've had the silver Bullet,
Speaker 1: um was my first car. That's cylinder, Honda Civic hatchback. Okay,
Speaker 1: so silver Bullet that's good. Yeah, it's funny. I would
Speaker 1: bet a lot of people. I I just never even
Speaker 1: think about this, but I would bet a lot of
Speaker 1: people name name their car. I'd love I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear some people, you know, some of our listeners right
Speaker 1: in with the names of their car or cars that
Speaker 1: they've had in the past, and what type of car
Speaker 1: it was, and maybe even you know, a short description.
Speaker 1: Why number ten you don't. I'm gonna do something unusually.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna actually change the order up
Speaker 1: of our show here right as we're talking just a
Speaker 1: little bit, not not too much, because number ten relates
Speaker 1: to what I'm going to talk about later. So um,
Speaker 1: I do want to bring out one that I did
Speaker 1: not find on the list that I think was really
Speaker 1: unusual in nineteen fifty again with nineteen o ninety eight
Speaker 1: was the the Citrum nineteen fifty UM in the poor
Speaker 1: Man's five hundred, which I think is a great name
Speaker 1: for a NASCAR race. It's so funny. The poor Man's
Speaker 1: five hundred at Canfield Speedway in Ohio. A Tucker participated
Speaker 1: in a NASCAR race. It's it's believed to be car
Speaker 1: number one zero two three. The photos appeared in Hemmings.
Speaker 1: I think it started somewhere around two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: when they kind of, you know, pose the idea that
Speaker 1: you know, this might have happen, and and here's a
Speaker 1: photo of a car that looks like a NASCAR Did
Speaker 1: this really happen? And you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: discussion and back and forth, and then eventually the son
Speaker 1: of the man that ran the car in the NASCAR
Speaker 1: race wrote in with another photograph of his dad standing
Speaker 1: next to the same car on the same car lot,
Speaker 1: so um proof positive that you know he definitely did
Speaker 1: run this thing. The photo was taken in the Mount
Speaker 1: Oliver section of Pittsburgh. UM. I think it's um. It's
Speaker 1: a used car dealer, a lot that it's on off
Speaker 1: all things I mean, and and I'll tell you about
Speaker 1: cars car number one or two three. This is unusual.
Speaker 1: This is one that was actually lost in a fire
Speaker 1: later on, and then it was buried under the garage
Speaker 1: of the Tucker Automobile Club of America's founder in Florida.
Speaker 1: So if you want to know where it is, it's
Speaker 1: underneath a slab of concrete in Florida. But an unusual,
Speaker 1: unusual thing. And if you go to Hemmings dot com
Speaker 1: you can see photographs of the NASCAR Tucker. It's got
Speaker 1: the number twelve um painted on the side there and
Speaker 1: it looks like Joe Nagle Jr. Motor Sales is the
Speaker 1: name printed on the side. So I thought that was
Speaker 1: interest seen. The driver's name was Joe Morola and he
Speaker 1: was out of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Alright, So number ten on
Speaker 1: this list is Jungle Gym's Chevrolet Vega Wagon, a second
Speaker 1: wagon to make the list. And I see why. This
Speaker 1: one is a drag car, you know, drag racing. I mean,
Speaker 1: do we see that kind of thing now see it anymore? Maybe?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how common it was back then. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know in the late sixties and seventies, like you
Speaker 1: wanted your car to look you try to be outrageous,
Speaker 1: exaggerated and weird, and it gonna be a little crazy, right,
Speaker 1: It would be a little little outrageous, a little different,
Speaker 1: a little unique. All right. Well that's coming up in
Speaker 1: just a second too, so hang on. Uh So, the
Speaker 1: thing is that wagons actually had a kind of a
Speaker 1: surge of interest, as they say, in the nhr A
Speaker 1: Pro Stock class because of the mass at the back
Speaker 1: of the the wagon, which actually added to the traction
Speaker 1: of the vehicle. So think about going back to that
Speaker 1: Volvo eight fifty wagon in the Touring Car Championship, similar idea.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's probably a lot of the same reason.
Speaker 1: There's a bit of advantage, I mean, and once you're
Speaker 1: at speed again, there's a little bit of an aerodynamic
Speaker 1: advantage as well. So one of the craziest cars that
Speaker 1: was out there was it was jungle Jim Lieberman and
Speaker 1: he raised in the nineteen seventy two Chevy Vega wagon
Speaker 1: and of all things, a Chevy Vega. A lot of people,
Speaker 1: you know, laugh at the Chevy Vega because it was
Speaker 1: supposed to be more about economy than it was about performance.
Speaker 1: Of course, and you know, it doesn't matter. In n
Speaker 1: hr A pro stock. You just throw an Enginea. It's
Speaker 1: just a shell at that point, really, I mean there's
Speaker 1: nothing underneath it. That is. His stock really had a
Speaker 1: short wheel base because it was a compact wagon um
Speaker 1: and had a lightweight design, you know. But but waited
Speaker 1: in the right way, you know, it was waited exactly
Speaker 1: where he needed it. So you know, it was actually
Speaker 1: a strong performer. And jungle Gym was he was like
Speaker 1: a He wasn't one of the early guys that that
Speaker 1: was like really, I would call him flamboyant, but I
Speaker 1: don't mean that. I mean he was more like a promoter,
Speaker 1: like a showman. He ended up dying fairly young. He
Speaker 1: died at the age of thirty one. He was killed
Speaker 1: in a He had a m a Corvette and I
Speaker 1: think he was in Pennsylvania. I believe at the time.
Speaker 1: He went around a corner too fast and head on
Speaker 1: with a bus of all things. He hit a bus
Speaker 1: head on. I mean that's what you hear about, like
Speaker 1: he could get hit by a bus, who knows. But
Speaker 1: he was only thirty one years old. Made quite a
Speaker 1: an impression on everybody. But I said that he was
Speaker 1: kind of a showman, right, all right, So I have, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you what I'm doing here. I'm gonna slide
Speaker 1: a piece of paper over to you, and I have
Speaker 1: stapled a piece of white paper on top of this.
Speaker 1: The Kurd has never seen what I'm about to show him.
Speaker 1: He might already know. He kind of has annoying look.
Speaker 1: But to go along with the Jungle Gym story, we
Speaker 1: have to include one other character that Jungle Jim had
Speaker 1: with him on the track. Can I guess? Or you
Speaker 1: want me to look first? You want to guess? I
Speaker 1: want to guess? Okay, what was the is it? His wife?
Speaker 1: Is his girlfriend? Girlfriend? His girlfriend? Her name, I don't
Speaker 1: know her name. Her name was Jungle Pam. Jungle Pam. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm Jungle Pam Hardy. Now, Jungle Pam Hardy. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm showing him some photos of Jungle Pam Hardy. And
Speaker 1: what Jungle Pam Hardy's job was on the track. Now,
Speaker 1: she was something that they call a stay on staging girl.
Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to be derogatory in any means
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna try to be very careful about this,
Speaker 1: I am. But she was a rather busty persons Buxom
Speaker 1: Good looking lady. She was good looking lady. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it was his girlfriend, he kind of I think
Speaker 1: he just met her like cruising buyer one day on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk or some some story like that. They were
Speaker 1: boyfriend and girlfriend. She toured with him for a while.
Speaker 1: She would come out in these extremely skimpy unif you
Speaker 1: know outfits, I'll call him uniform, but it's an outfit, um,
Speaker 1: go go boots, you know, really tiny little shorts and
Speaker 1: you know, a halter top. And you got to remember
Speaker 1: the era. She would come out and um in these outfits,
Speaker 1: drive the guys you know at the track crazy, and
Speaker 1: you know her job was to back him up, you know,
Speaker 1: once he had done his burnout, and she would also,
Speaker 1: uh she would very seductively bend over and check for
Speaker 1: fluid leaks under the car and add fluids and you know,
Speaker 1: make sure that they do final checks right. She actually
Speaker 1: was the one who packed his parachutes. She would do
Speaker 1: more than you knew behind the scenes. She was hands on,
Speaker 1: she really was, and not a lot of people knew
Speaker 1: that she was hands on in the pits, in the
Speaker 1: pit area. She was definitely like a pin up type girl. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that they loved to photograph her. Jungle Jim
Speaker 1: knew that, and that's why she was there exactly, And
Speaker 1: other teams copied that they brought someone like that with
Speaker 1: them as well, because Jim was stealing all the attention
Speaker 1: from every other driver, no matter how he did in
Speaker 1: the race, no matter how poorly he was performing, everybody
Speaker 1: was looking at his team and his name was getting
Speaker 1: out there because of Jungle Pam. So he knew how
Speaker 1: valuable Pam was, not only for you know, because she
Speaker 1: was she was actually helping on the team, but also
Speaker 1: the promotional aspects of this whole thing. I want to
Speaker 1: tell you something that I found pretty unusual going through
Speaker 1: and finding these Jungle Pam images and kind of learning
Speaker 1: about her. And there's kind of a resurgence of that
Speaker 1: right now happening, and uh, and it's kind of a
Speaker 1: popular thing. I didn't know that. I'm not one to
Speaker 1: hang out at the race tracks. Maybe you've you've seen
Speaker 1: this in person. I feel like it was even back then.
Speaker 1: It was just kind of part of the show, even
Speaker 1: when it was like a street racing type thing back
Speaker 1: in the fifties. But you can only imagine, but the
Speaker 1: women also played that part in the whole thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: seen Greece before. Yeah, but a good point. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: you know what, I here's the thing, and I'm not
Speaker 1: just talking about you know, the the um the rockabilly
Speaker 1: looking girl that throws the green flag, you know, jumps
Speaker 1: up and down, you know, wearing shorts or whatever. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about, like a full on backup girl at a
Speaker 1: drag racing competition, just like Pam Hardy was that has
Speaker 1: other duties. But you know, dresses in go go boots,
Speaker 1: dresses like they're in the late sixties. Uh, they have
Speaker 1: that look intentionally if you want, if you want to
Speaker 1: get an idea of what I'm talking about, you can
Speaker 1: look up articles about the backup girl or the comeback
Speaker 1: of the backup girl. Or there's a video online called
Speaker 1: um Southeast Gasser's Backup Girls Season. It's a brand new version.
Speaker 1: You'll see. Uh. You know women from this year that
Speaker 1: are doing this. I mean, and and before you write
Speaker 1: in hostile letters or whatever, these are women of all ages, sizes, shapes,
Speaker 1: different styles address. I mean, it's girlfriends, it's wives, it's daughters,
Speaker 1: it's anyone really that that wants to do this. And
Speaker 1: it looks like a lot of fun. It really does.
Speaker 1: It seems like you know those rockabilly events where they
Speaker 1: have you know, rat rods and things like that in music,
Speaker 1: and it looks like the women that are participating in
Speaker 1: that as well, that are doing this. It's just that
Speaker 1: similar kind of feel. It's kind of a neat, nostalgic thing.
Speaker 1: That's it's taking grip and I kind of like it.
Speaker 1: I like that. I like the trend. It gives you
Speaker 1: that feel, that that old time feel when you see it,
Speaker 1: even if about the cars, but then to just they
Speaker 1: were more wild and out of control. You can hear
Speaker 1: the you know, the supercharger whining and everything, and that's
Speaker 1: the thing that he was coming out and it was
Speaker 1: just to me, the cars of that era and the
Speaker 1: whole spectacle of it is just more raw and well
Speaker 1: you were sharing you shared with me a video recently
Speaker 1: of as a drag racing documentary. I guess we'll call it.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it was called, but um it
Speaker 1: was from the late sixties in Indianapolis, um at the
Speaker 1: national event and oh my gosh, I think it was
Speaker 1: a Hurst sponsored thing because the Hurst appeared everywhere. But
Speaker 1: it was it was film obviously, it was you know,
Speaker 1: the old film and it had that that alone gives
Speaker 1: it a great texture feel. But the cars and the
Speaker 1: people and the dress and the you know, the way
Speaker 1: it's narrated, just everything about that piece was it was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: It was really really cool. I loved watching that. And
Speaker 1: you know, the music as of course, it's original music
Speaker 1: that was scored, you know, just for that documentary. Very
Speaker 1: much of the era, very much of the late sixties,
Speaker 1: early seven I think it was the late sixties. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you're right. The just the raw power of
Speaker 1: those cars. I mean, a lot of them are you
Speaker 1: know if if they screw up, it's in a wheel
Speaker 1: stand and you know that's or a lot of them
Speaker 1: were drifting over into the other lane and bumping the
Speaker 1: other car and the engine was just right there in
Speaker 1: front of them and it will be losing parts because
Speaker 1: it flew down the track. Beautiful cars. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just unreal. It's so cool to watch the watch that
Speaker 1: old stuff. But well, I tell you, Kurt, I think
Speaker 1: we've a lot of topics just from this one list
Speaker 1: that I think are going to do to uh kind
Speaker 1: of be spinoffs that we're gonna do for future shows.
Speaker 1: So so look for that for sure. And uh in
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you want to check us out on
Speaker 1: social media, we are on Facebook and Instagram where we
Speaker 1: are the fast Track Show, and you can also go
Speaker 1: onto Twitter where we are the fast Track Pod. And
Speaker 1: if you want to go to the show's website where
Speaker 1: we have an archive of all of our um all
Speaker 1: of our podcasts and you know, just do a little
Speaker 1: bit of everything that we we do, you can go
Speaker 1: to the fast Track Show dot com and that's probably
Speaker 1: one of the better places to do that if you
Speaker 1: you know what, Actually, you can go anywhere. You can
Speaker 1: go to Apple Podcasts, or you can go to the
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio app or wherever you listen to podcasts. You
Speaker 1: get them, but they are kind of archives there at
Speaker 1: the fast Track Show dot com. And if you uh,
Speaker 1: as we always say, if you like what you're listening to,
Speaker 1: if you like where you're hearing, make sure you tell
Speaker 1: your friends because we're trying to grow our audience and
Speaker 1: it's one of the best ways to do that by
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Speaker 1: know and say, you know, you might want to give
Speaker 1: these guys a shot. So with that, we'll bid you
Speaker 1: ado and see you next week. Thanks. The fast Track
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