Speaker 1: Welcome to the Fast Track, a production of I Heart Radios,
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to the Fast Track.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Scott Benjamin, and today I've got a
Speaker 1: special guest in the studio. It's my producer Kurt. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm always in the studio, but usually I'm sitting across there,
Speaker 1: So it's interesting to be on this side of the table.
Speaker 1: You know what. I have found that, as you've heard
Speaker 1: in the past, I've had a little trouble like just
Speaker 1: kind of carry on this monologue, and it's much better
Speaker 1: to be able to talk to somebody and have somebody
Speaker 1: to kind of bounce things off of. And I think
Speaker 1: that Kurt is somebody that I can talk to and
Speaker 1: and we can really get some information out in a
Speaker 1: lot better way, you know, Like back when I had
Speaker 1: a podcast partner, it seems like it was a lot easier.
Speaker 1: And hopefully with Kurt here across the table from me,
Speaker 1: I'll be able to do that a little bit more
Speaker 1: effectively and have a much better show for you, and
Speaker 1: hopefully it's a little bit more entertaining. And uh, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you, in the last few years, I've been more
Speaker 1: and more of a fan of the Sedan, and I
Speaker 1: didn't think that I would be early days. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of times in life when you have
Speaker 1: different choices with with automobiles, and when I was younger,
Speaker 1: I really like the coups. I like to like buy
Speaker 1: the sports cars. I guess maybe like the the Honda
Speaker 1: Civic S I that kind of thing or But I
Speaker 1: also I had a Toyota SELT like a GT that
Speaker 1: was a two door coup as well, and it was
Speaker 1: kind of fun to drive for a while. But I
Speaker 1: did eventually kind of come around the idea that I
Speaker 1: needed a Sedan, and that was when I had a
Speaker 1: kid for the first time. But actually, of all things,
Speaker 1: I got an Audi A four and I really really
Speaker 1: enjoyed that car. It was a ton of fun. I
Speaker 1: held it for a long time, and uh it eventually
Speaker 1: required many many repairs in one year, and that was
Speaker 1: kind of the downfall the whole thing. But as far
Speaker 1: as Sedan's went, that was a fantastic way for me
Speaker 1: to kind of put both my feet in the water
Speaker 1: and get excited about Sedan's because it was a great car.
Speaker 1: It was fantastic to drive. It was as an all
Speaker 1: wheel drive car, it was a manual transmission, five speed.
Speaker 1: It was a long time with was about nine I
Speaker 1: think is when I got it, and it was a
Speaker 1: ninety nine. I think I got around two thousand one.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a couple of years old. And I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. I drove it for many, many years, and
Speaker 1: I went right from that into another coupe and then I,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of a hot hatchbag. I guess maybe
Speaker 1: a Civic s I Civic hatch back. It was just
Speaker 1: it was a basic, the basic, but I loved it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're fun to drive, aren't they. I mean
Speaker 1: it's a it's a blast and the real easy. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly right. It's a lot of fun. And you know,
Speaker 1: I ended up driving my Civic Asike for a long
Speaker 1: time and I got rid of that and I got
Speaker 1: a Volkswagen C seat. Now, the funny thing about this
Speaker 1: is that I didn't think that I was going to
Speaker 1: get another sit in for a long time. I mean,
Speaker 1: I have an adult child, she's she's almost eighteen, you know,
Speaker 1: ready to go into college and everything. But I've had
Speaker 1: this for a little while now, so I did need
Speaker 1: a back seat. I needed some extra space for people
Speaker 1: I needed to be able to carry some friends around
Speaker 1: or whatever and just have the room for carrying some
Speaker 1: things on the weekends, that kind of thing. And uh,
Speaker 1: and it's today and seemed to be the way to go.
Speaker 1: But I didn't have a whole lot of money to
Speaker 1: buy like a performance today, and I didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of money for like a luxury sdan or anything
Speaker 1: like that. And I'll tell you my my it's again.
Speaker 1: It's a Volkswagon CC. It's a two twelve, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of in between, and it's a It's a funny thing.
Speaker 1: I've I've thought about this many many times while I'm
Speaker 1: driving it. It's not quite luxury, it's not quite sport.
Speaker 1: CC oddly enough stands for Comfort Coup, which is weird
Speaker 1: because it's a four door car. I don't know why
Speaker 1: they called it comfort Coup. But CC sedan is fantastic
Speaker 1: and I love it. The only problem that I've ever
Speaker 1: had with this whole thing is that the car just
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to want to drive in hot weather. Now
Speaker 1: here's the problem, you Like, we live in Atlanta, and yesterday,
Speaker 1: this is early September in Atlanta. The temperature gauge on
Speaker 1: my car on the way home yesterday read one hundred
Speaker 1: and one degrees um, so it's humid hot. We've got
Speaker 1: hurricanes nearby. I don't know what the deal is with
Speaker 1: this whole thing. The fuel pump overheats, it shuts down.
Speaker 1: It's just a it's a disaster in that way. But
Speaker 1: I do have a good time driving this car, and
Speaker 1: it it's something that I didn't think that I would
Speaker 1: ever really enjoy driving, Like I didn't think I would
Speaker 1: really enjoy driving a sedan, but I do. There are
Speaker 1: many choices out there, and later today in the show,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about some of the most powerful sedans
Speaker 1: under fifty thou dollars. Now, I know there's a lot
Speaker 1: of qualifiers in there, and we're going to talk about that,
Speaker 1: but I chose to pick for today's list the most
Speaker 1: powerful sedans under fifty thou dollars. And there's a reason
Speaker 1: I chose that price point, and we'll talk about that
Speaker 1: in just a bit. But there's a there's a few
Speaker 1: news things that I want to get to. There's a
Speaker 1: couple of things that happened over the weekend, and actually
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start off with news is not good news.
Speaker 1: The first thing that I want to talk about is
Speaker 1: the uh, the death of Jesse Colmbs. She was attempting
Speaker 1: to land speed record. I think it was in the
Speaker 1: desert somewhere, right, wasn't it. It It was out west, Think
Speaker 1: it was in Alvoord, Desert, Oregon. Yeah, yeah, exactly. She
Speaker 1: was out far, far out west somewhere. She was attempting
Speaker 1: to reach something like like six hundred and nineteen miles
Speaker 1: per hour in like a rocket powered car. She was
Speaker 1: already the fastest woman on four wheels already. Um. She
Speaker 1: was the host for a short time for MythBusters Overhauling
Speaker 1: UM Extreme four by four. There was a bunch of
Speaker 1: television shows and if you look up a photo of
Speaker 1: Jesse Colmbs, you would probably recognize her almost immediately. I
Speaker 1: would think. I mean a lot of people that are
Speaker 1: listening to the show or you know, kind of fans
Speaker 1: of that type of thing, and they already know who
Speaker 1: she is. Tragic death. Of course, she was about thirty
Speaker 1: nine years old, or she was thirty nine years old
Speaker 1: when this happened. And again that pursuit of speed. You know,
Speaker 1: we just did a It's very timely, I guess, because
Speaker 1: we were just talking about the thrust SSC supersonic car
Speaker 1: and the ultimate record that it had, which was what
Speaker 1: like seven sixty three or something like that. It's crazy
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, it is an insane speed. It was
Speaker 1: above the sound barrier. Yeah, we were just talking about that.
Speaker 1: And then there was another death this weekend, um and
Speaker 1: something that you know I had talked about on tech stuff.
Speaker 1: I talked with Jonathan Strickland on tech stuff about Formula
Speaker 1: two and there's a guy named Antoine hugh Bert and
Speaker 1: he was only twenty two years old. He's a Formula
Speaker 1: two driver. He's a French driver. Also passed away on
Speaker 1: this weekend, and it's relatively unheard of. It doesn't it
Speaker 1: doesn't happen allay that often because there's so many safety
Speaker 1: features in place in Formula one, Formula to Formula all
Speaker 1: of the racing series, actually the f I a series
Speaker 1: where they are involved in an accident that generally the
Speaker 1: driver is very well protected. This in this case, the
Speaker 1: car was actually severed in two and it was extremely
Speaker 1: high speed crash. And uh. And we'll talk about Formula two,
Speaker 1: I'm sure in the future. And the third bit of news,
Speaker 1: this is a little bit of a happier news so
Speaker 1: let's let's kind of cheer up a little bit. This
Speaker 1: is really cool. This is this happened only a few
Speaker 1: days ago. And I don't know if you even know
Speaker 1: about this, but the Bugatti and I'm going to get
Speaker 1: this name right this time, Sharon achieved the fastest production
Speaker 1: car speed record ever and get this, three hundred and
Speaker 1: four miles per hour. Three three hundred four points seven
Speaker 1: seven miles per hour. So they've they've kind of like
Speaker 1: bridge this mythical. And I'll say mythical, it's not really
Speaker 1: mythical because people have been doing it on the on
Speaker 1: the Salt Last for a long long time. But as
Speaker 1: far as like just on a on a road crossing
Speaker 1: the three per hour barrier is incredible. It's it's just
Speaker 1: like it's an unbelievable feat really, and manufacturer has been
Speaker 1: trying to do this for a long long time. And
Speaker 1: of course Kona seg there's gonna be many many other
Speaker 1: manufacturers that are going to attempt to break this. Of course,
Speaker 1: Hannessy is gonna try to break it, and and I'm
Speaker 1: sure that you know, somebody will break this record. And
Speaker 1: here's the strange thing. I'm gonna tell you a few
Speaker 1: interesting little facts about this the speed record, if you
Speaker 1: don't mind, if you can just like of a few
Speaker 1: things without without without like, now, is this considered a
Speaker 1: production car? I'm glad you said that. I'm actually really
Speaker 1: glad you said that, because that's one big part of
Speaker 1: this whole thing is that they claim it's a production car,
Speaker 1: but it's like an early product version of a specialty
Speaker 1: car that they're producing, like of course Bugatti. Is they
Speaker 1: produced like these? Um I almost want to say it's
Speaker 1: like boutique sports cars really because they only produce a
Speaker 1: certain amount and there, you know, value to three million
Speaker 1: dollars something like that. It's very very expensive car. And
Speaker 1: this particular car is like an early production version that
Speaker 1: has several modifications. And I have a little bit of
Speaker 1: problem with this, as do a lot of people that
Speaker 1: I've read about in some of the forums. And it
Speaker 1: seems like the Sharon that they tested just a few
Speaker 1: days ago. Again, it was like it was stretched one foot,
Speaker 1: like the whole frame of stretched one foot, so the
Speaker 1: body work is all stretched out. It's like a um,
Speaker 1: consider it like a long tail version of the Sharon.
Speaker 1: And then it was lowered. They also drilled some holes
Speaker 1: in the panels, I guess, like the front faces so
Speaker 1: that you know, like the the air flow is a
Speaker 1: little bit better through it because here, okay, well we're
Speaker 1: getting into some of the interesting parts of this, I guess,
Speaker 1: and we'll just start here. When a typical jet aircraft
Speaker 1: takes off, like if you're on you know you're going
Speaker 1: to Miami. Let's you're on to Miami, you're in a
Speaker 1: jet aircraft, delta of whatever you get in the airplane
Speaker 1: about one hundred and fifty miles per hour. That's where
Speaker 1: the airplane takes off. That's when it can achieve flight. Okay,
Speaker 1: a lot of people drive a hundred fifty miles an hour, right,
Speaker 1: Cars can do that, right. The problem is about that
Speaker 1: speed of course, that's where lift happens. You're able to
Speaker 1: you're able to take off. And the problem with a
Speaker 1: car like this is that that car might take off,
Speaker 1: and it's a true thing like it might take off.
Speaker 1: We've seen that in racing many many times on racetracks
Speaker 1: where cars are you know, going over just a slight bump,
Speaker 1: a slight increase in in altitude, and the air the
Speaker 1: car just air comes underneath the vehicle. List it up.
Speaker 1: Car flips in the air and it might end up
Speaker 1: in the woods somewhere or something like that we've seen
Speaker 1: in the past. The problem with this car is that
Speaker 1: you're going twice that speed. You're going twice the speed
Speaker 1: of a typical aircraft when it takes off. And the
Speaker 1: way they did this was I guess they I should
Speaker 1: tell you where they did this, and I think it's
Speaker 1: called the air Lesson Track in Germany, and it's Volkswagen's
Speaker 1: high speed test track and it's the one that has
Speaker 1: like you know, high speed banks on both the entry
Speaker 1: and the exit to this track as well, so you
Speaker 1: can be able to go into it fast and come
Speaker 1: out of it fast. But in the middle there's this
Speaker 1: incredible I think it's five point four miles long that
Speaker 1: it's a straight track and you can actually see the
Speaker 1: curvature of the earth in this track. It's that long.
Speaker 1: It's it's like that long, that's straight. I think I've
Speaker 1: fot of that in the past. Yeah, you probably have,
Speaker 1: because I'm um. Top Gear infamously did a top speed
Speaker 1: record run with the Bugatti Veron that was what two
Speaker 1: d and sixty eight miles per hour. Okay, So now
Speaker 1: so now they've topped that by what thirty seven miles
Speaker 1: per hour or something like that. They've gone, They've gone
Speaker 1: faster than than ever before and the same track. And again,
Speaker 1: this is one of the advantages that the Bugatti and
Speaker 1: Volkswagan have over the other manufacturers, and that they can
Speaker 1: test on this track and do this kind of thing,
Speaker 1: the car to perform on this particular landscape. Exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not They're not allowing Gona Saga or you know,
Speaker 1: m Hennessey or anybody to come on and test their
Speaker 1: car on that type of track. And the problem that
Speaker 1: I've read about, gosh, I'm going all over the place.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm a disaster today. But um, they are exciting.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm jazzed about this. You could tell I'm
Speaker 1: excited about this. So, like the thing is like the
Speaker 1: car is able to go that fast because of the
Speaker 1: facility that they have and they're allowed to do this
Speaker 1: type of thing. Any manufacturer that is going to do
Speaker 1: this type of thing has to rent a facility. It
Speaker 1: just seems like there's not gonna be a lot of
Speaker 1: opportunity for the other manufacturers to do it unless they
Speaker 1: block off a certain amount of road in maybe one
Speaker 1: of the western states, like I think Kona Saga has
Speaker 1: done this in the past, where they achieve like two
Speaker 1: seventy plus on some desolate stretch of highway out in
Speaker 1: the desert. You know, they they sealed it off. But
Speaker 1: the problem is, and I guess we'll maybe the same
Speaker 1: with the the aer a lesson track, is that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, you get a deer that runs across at
Speaker 1: that type of speed, or you get a dog that
Speaker 1: runs onto the track, or I mean, you know, a
Speaker 1: pit or a cow or whatever you know, wanders out
Speaker 1: onto the road, you're in trouble. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: about it. For like a stone or something exactly right,
Speaker 1: or you have to have a controlled environment exactly and
Speaker 1: an air lesson is generally a controlled environment. And and
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a couple of things about this and
Speaker 1: then we'll move on, I promise. But um Bugatti is saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, now that we've broken three d and
Speaker 1: four miles per hour or three and almost three and
Speaker 1: or five, we're done. The crazy thing about this is
Speaker 1: that these types of speeds, air lesson is only smooth
Speaker 1: enough to run in one direction, to run miles. Now,
Speaker 1: if you look at that track. It's a beautiful track.
Speaker 1: I mean, it looks like the perfect piece of asphalt.
Speaker 1: It looks like it's incredible, like well groomed, well maintained everything.
Speaker 1: But apparently at that type of speed, there's just no
Speaker 1: way that you were able to run that type of
Speaker 1: speed coming back the other direction. Now I don't think
Speaker 1: that has anything to do with like the air speed
Speaker 1: or you know, the direction or anything like that, but uh,
Speaker 1: they said that it's just not to be able to
Speaker 1: do that. And there are certain governing bodies that say that,
Speaker 1: here's the way you did a world record for full
Speaker 1: speed run, and it's typically two runs. It's one in
Speaker 1: each direction, you know. And I think we talked about
Speaker 1: this with the thrust S sc is that you have
Speaker 1: to run one direction, turn around, and come back the
Speaker 1: other direction in less than an hour, and it's the
Speaker 1: average of those two speeds. Crazy enough, but they said,
Speaker 1: you know what, we've We've broken three four. We're fine
Speaker 1: with that. We're happy. They will always be in the
Speaker 1: record book as the first one to break that record.
Speaker 1: And finally, I'm getting to what I wanted to say.
Speaker 1: I guess about this car, you know, we said that
Speaker 1: it was modified that it was, you know, strength, It
Speaker 1: was lengthened rather about a foot, so it has this
Speaker 1: elongated body look. It has kind of like a um
Speaker 1: a long tail look to it. Um It has a
Speaker 1: lower suspension. It has holes drilled in the offenders in
Speaker 1: order to increase air flow so that, you know, the
Speaker 1: lift is reduced in some way. When the driver, I
Speaker 1: think his name is Andy Wallace. I'm I'm stretching my
Speaker 1: memory here, and Andy Wallace incrementally took the car up
Speaker 1: fifty I think it was fifty kilometers per hour on
Speaker 1: several several runs in order to like determine whether or
Speaker 1: not the car was balanced correctly, if it was able
Speaker 1: to maintain the downward force that it needed. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't like feeling like it was going to lift, because
Speaker 1: you know, as you start getting faster and faster and faster,
Speaker 1: you just don't know how the car is gonna handle,
Speaker 1: how it's going to react. But it took many, many
Speaker 1: runs to get there. It wasn't something that was done easily. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe one of the most interesting facts about this whole thing,
Speaker 1: and I'll leave it at this, the tires in the car.
Speaker 1: We talked about tires on the thrust SSC and how
Speaker 1: like they can't really have rubber tires. Uh, this car
Speaker 1: does have rubber tires obviously, and it's on a tarmac.
Speaker 1: Has to have rubber tires. And in order to have
Speaker 1: tires that can handle that type of g force, that
Speaker 1: type of heat and just the rotational speed be able
Speaker 1: to handle that without breaking apart, they made these tires
Speaker 1: especially for this car. And shoot, I wish I had
Speaker 1: the manufacturer in front of me now right now I don't,
Speaker 1: but it was they were made by somebody that created
Speaker 1: these tires specifically for this one run. And the weird
Speaker 1: thing about this is, now imagine this. These these tires
Speaker 1: cost thirty thousand dollars per set, thirty thousand per set
Speaker 1: before they replied to the car, just in order to
Speaker 1: check the integrity of them, in order to check to
Speaker 1: make sure that, you know, the manufacturing process was correct
Speaker 1: for for them, they X rayed the tires before they
Speaker 1: put them on the car to make sure that like
Speaker 1: everything was exactly what. There were zero defects in those
Speaker 1: tires before they put them on the car. Now, can
Speaker 1: you imagine the attention to detail that, you know, like
Speaker 1: when they're making holes in the car. They probably didn't
Speaker 1: just drill them anywhere. They you know, it's like they,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was a very well thought out plan. No, absolutely,
Speaker 1: you've got yeah, you've got you've got You've got Bugatti
Speaker 1: engineers saying all right, here, we've got this this car,
Speaker 1: the Sharon Car, right, and and it's capable of zero
Speaker 1: to sixty and I don't know two seconds or whatever
Speaker 1: it is, two points six seconds something like that. It's
Speaker 1: already this incredible world beating supercar. It's you know, made
Speaker 1: a lot with a lot of carbon fiber. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's just it's an incredible vehicle. It's already three million dollars.
Speaker 1: Let's make one that's even better. Let's make one that's
Speaker 1: even the tops that and how are we going to
Speaker 1: do that? So it lets you know that the you know,
Speaker 1: the the engineers, the people that are putting this thing
Speaker 1: together are that that's the mindset of them that if
Speaker 1: they want to like just push the envelope, they want
Speaker 1: to go faster, they want to go farther. And that's
Speaker 1: what really is is interesting about this is that like
Speaker 1: they are really really pushing the boundaries of this whole thing.
Speaker 1: And and I love what they're doing with it. I
Speaker 1: think it's just really fascinating. Um. But but to go
Speaker 1: as far as like once you start reading about things
Speaker 1: like where they're X raying the tires before they put
Speaker 1: them on, that type of thing, to me is just
Speaker 1: ultimately fascinating. It's it's it's amazing, and I would love
Speaker 1: to know. Um, you know, who even dreams up this
Speaker 1: type of thing, you like, who says you know what?
Speaker 1: You know what? I never, personally, I would never even
Speaker 1: think of that. I would think, like, we get the
Speaker 1: thirty thou dollar set of tires, great, let's put them
Speaker 1: on the car the best. They must be the best.
Speaker 1: You know. I know that they manufactured them perfectly, but
Speaker 1: you know someone was saying, now, you know what, we've
Speaker 1: got to check them. And that's going back to the
Speaker 1: sad news you spoke about at the beginning of this segment.
Speaker 1: When you see the numbers and you see you read
Speaker 1: the article and you look at the car, you forget
Speaker 1: about the inherent danger in this pursuit. These people that
Speaker 1: do this are in constant danger while they're doing it,
Speaker 1: and the tires are that that's what hits the road,
Speaker 1: that's where it all begins. Absolutely, I would imagine that
Speaker 1: that's in their mind too, you know, just thinking about
Speaker 1: mitigating disaster of course, human being, that's uh that's doing this.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm sure that when they were when they
Speaker 1: were doing all this, they're thinking like, Okay, how are
Speaker 1: we gonna keep Andy Wallace alive? Because you know, we
Speaker 1: don't want we don't want Andy Wallace to die as
Speaker 1: he's doing this, as he's creating this record. I mean,
Speaker 1: that would be the worst news ever. Like, that's the
Speaker 1: that's the worst pr evert when I get that, And
Speaker 1: it's not just you know about pr it's it's about
Speaker 1: the person, you know, they want to make sure that
Speaker 1: the person is safe. Of course. I mean I think
Speaker 1: that the people have a genuine appreciation for the people
Speaker 1: that that put their lives at stake in order to
Speaker 1: do this kind of thing and to push the limit
Speaker 1: and to kind of it makes everybody, Uh, it makes everything,
Speaker 1: I guess a little bit better. And you know what,
Speaker 1: I feel like we've we've kind of gone off track.
Speaker 1: But there was so much news happening this weekend and
Speaker 1: I just felt like we needed to talk about it.
Speaker 1: We should probably get into our list, which is going
Speaker 1: to be the most powerful sedans under fifty dollars, and
Speaker 1: we'll get to that very soon right after this break.
Speaker 1: And we're back and you're listening to the fast Track,
Speaker 1: and I'm your host, Scott Benjamin, and today I'm joined
Speaker 1: by my special guest, Kurt, who is my producer really,
Speaker 1: and you've decided to step behind the mic with me
Speaker 1: today in order to kind of ease things along a
Speaker 1: little bit have a conversation, because I think that's a
Speaker 1: much better way to talk about these things. And we
Speaker 1: both have a little bit of experience with sedans, and
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm probably more interested in sedans than
Speaker 1: you are. I have a guest. I think you've got
Speaker 1: a sdan right now? Right? Okay, what do have? Uha,
Speaker 1: Toyota Corolla. What's your general impress And be brutally honest
Speaker 1: here with me. You're you're you've got a Toyota Corolla. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what do you like about it? What do you not
Speaker 1: like about it? You don't have to go in two
Speaker 1: in depth because I've got things about my car that
Speaker 1: I like and I don't like and real simple, okay,
Speaker 1: So reliability, it's it's pretty spacious inside. Yeah, Um, that said.
Speaker 1: The design is kind of standard, kind of a plane
Speaker 1: Jane type type design, and it's it's a mode of transportation.
Speaker 1: It's nothing more. It's an a tow b car and reliable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, uh, you know what I've heard. It's called
Speaker 1: Kurt many times, it's called the bread and butter wagon.
Speaker 1: It's like just the reliable car that you can count
Speaker 1: on every day to start, get yourself to work, get
Speaker 1: yourself to school, get yourself wherever you have to go,
Speaker 1: and then get home safely. And uh and really no frills,
Speaker 1: not not a lot of frills. There are some cars
Speaker 1: that there's some sedans that do have some frills. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about those two. Because there's some expensive sedans that
Speaker 1: we'll talk about. I'll tell you what I think, well,
Speaker 1: I think we like about saddans because I made a
Speaker 1: short list here and we're gonna get to our our
Speaker 1: list of the fastest sedans under fifty dollars in just
Speaker 1: a moment, I promise you. And I don't think we're
Speaker 1: gonna spend a whole lot of time on a lot
Speaker 1: of details about these cars, just kind of a general
Speaker 1: quick thing because there's so many different ways you can
Speaker 1: break down the sedan lists. What I think we like
Speaker 1: about sedans in general, why people like them is because, uh, first,
Speaker 1: because maybe and not in any order really here, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's economy. They I think they're they're much more fuel
Speaker 1: efficient than maybe a big suv or truck or something
Speaker 1: like that. They're a little bit sleeker, they're kind of
Speaker 1: a little more aerodynamic, a little more fuel efficient. If
Speaker 1: you want to take a long trip in them. It
Speaker 1: seems like they're fairly comfortable that type of thing. So
Speaker 1: comfort is another thing you know that people tend to
Speaker 1: appreciate about about sedans, and I appreciate that about mine,
Speaker 1: is that it's definitely a comfortable drive. I really like
Speaker 1: taking long, long trips in my Volkswagen, and uh it's
Speaker 1: just simple transportation that gets decent mileage, and I really
Speaker 1: like that a lot. Performance. We're gonna talk about some
Speaker 1: performance today, off course, but uh, I don't know that's
Speaker 1: that's kind of a thing. Some people buy performance sedans.
Speaker 1: Some people buy just sedans that are just like like yours,
Speaker 1: that are more like um, just a two B type cars,
Speaker 1: and mine is kind of in between. It's not really
Speaker 1: one or the other. It's not even a luxury sedan.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like it's I don't know, sub luxury,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you don't call it. It's got
Speaker 1: a lot of features that I think are really cool,
Speaker 1: but it could have many, many more if it was
Speaker 1: maybe a Jaguar or something like that. UM security is
Speaker 1: another thing, of course that people like because you're able
Speaker 1: to lock your valuables into a trunk, which a lot
Speaker 1: of cars don't have trunks. If you look at a
Speaker 1: hatchback doesn't have a trunk. A lot of sports cars
Speaker 1: are are fastback designs or you know, um hatchbacks, or
Speaker 1: maybe they don't even have a trunk, so you have
Speaker 1: your valuables right at the open. So a lot of
Speaker 1: people like the security of having a trunk to be
Speaker 1: able to lock things up in h Safety is another thing,
Speaker 1: and uh, I want to point this out because a
Speaker 1: lot of people have kind of moved over to SUVs
Speaker 1: and that's what their thing is, like, that's their wheelhouse
Speaker 1: right now. But I would say that there's a lot
Speaker 1: less rollover possibility with a sedan because it's the lower
Speaker 1: center gravity. It's a little bit more dependable if you're
Speaker 1: trying to and I say dependable I guess maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit more flexible as far as like maneuverability, you know,
Speaker 1: being able to make a left right turn real quick
Speaker 1: on the highway if you have to, or if a
Speaker 1: tire blows out, or you know, whatever happens to be
Speaker 1: the case. It's a little bit more stable than an
Speaker 1: SUV might be because it's a lot lower to the ground.
Speaker 1: I know that comes with some obstacles for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, you know, just not being able to see
Speaker 1: as well or whatever. But I would say that safety
Speaker 1: is one of the factors. And of course these are
Speaker 1: loaded with safety features. I mean all the mandated stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, the A B S and the stability control
Speaker 1: and all that. But but they're loaded with the lane
Speaker 1: detection software where you know, like if you go into
Speaker 1: the other lane, like it kind of brings you back
Speaker 1: or it u it vibrates a little bit. The steering
Speaker 1: wheels assist type thing. Oh, exactly right. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of that going on, and there's so great. It's surprisingly agile. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of practicality to them. I mean, you
Speaker 1: could have five passengers in these things. Um. Of course,
Speaker 1: with worridors allow people to get in and out very quickly.
Speaker 1: If you have kids, it's very helpful, you know, to
Speaker 1: be able to get people in and out, or a dog,
Speaker 1: or you know, whatever the case happens to be. I
Speaker 1: just think that in general, Sedan's have made a lot
Speaker 1: of improvements over the last maybe thirty years. They've made
Speaker 1: some incredible leaps and bounds and uh and a couple
Speaker 1: of them that I think we should talk about it.
Speaker 1: And the reason I picked fifty thousand, and I think
Speaker 1: I've mentioned this in the past, is that the Kelly
Speaker 1: blue Book price for an average automobile is around thirty
Speaker 1: seven thousand, two d and eighty five dollars, which to
Speaker 1: me sounds ridiculously high. I'm I'm a used car guy.
Speaker 1: I buy cars that are at the most at the
Speaker 1: at the youngest two years old, that have been like
Speaker 1: maybe like least returns. They've got about thirty thousand miles
Speaker 1: on them. It's I find that's kind of like the
Speaker 1: sweet spot. The price thirty eight five for brand new car.
Speaker 1: I mean, I get it, and it grows every year
Speaker 1: by about three maybe four percent, And this is indeed
Speaker 1: up about three point one percent up from about so
Speaker 1: it's definitely growing and growing We're gonna get to forty
Speaker 1: average US car price very soon. It won't take very long.
Speaker 1: But anyways, I picked the fifty dollar mark because it's
Speaker 1: just a it's a good price point, because there are
Speaker 1: a lot of cars out there that are loaded with practicality,
Speaker 1: with performance. It seems like there's more expensive stands out there.
Speaker 1: They're less expensive stands out there. This is kind of
Speaker 1: like the middle of the road. This is where if
Speaker 1: you're going to buy a car for the average price,
Speaker 1: this is about where you want to be. And and
Speaker 1: the first car on our list here is the Subaru
Speaker 1: w r X S T. I just just on a
Speaker 1: gut feeling, like, what do you think about the Subaru
Speaker 1: w r X S T I, because I've got my
Speaker 1: own feeling about them. What I see, what I think
Speaker 1: about them when I see them on the road. Subaru
Speaker 1: seem to take a lot of different aspects into account
Speaker 1: creating their cars. But this particular one reminds me of
Speaker 1: the rally cars of the nineties early two thousand's absolutely
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Absolutely, And you know what the
Speaker 1: funny thing is, like the design has changed so much
Speaker 1: now it's a lot different vehicle. But I know exactly
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. It's that blue car with the
Speaker 1: gold the gold trim, and they sound very much the same.
Speaker 1: They still sound like, you know, that that incredible Boxer
Speaker 1: engine that they have. This one happens to have a
Speaker 1: two point five leader turbo four cylinder engine that delivers
Speaker 1: around three hundred and five horsepower and about two pound
Speaker 1: feet of torque. But I'll tell you, like, on the road,
Speaker 1: this car, it's stunning. It's a very beautiful car. It's
Speaker 1: really cool. It still has enough I guess, I guess
Speaker 1: outward design aspects that make it look really interesting. It's
Speaker 1: not very plain. It's it's got a lot of like
Speaker 1: little there's a little events here and there. There's still
Speaker 1: a wing on the car. There's still some side skirts
Speaker 1: and things like that. It's it's got enough design elements
Speaker 1: that make it look intriguing to me. And the price
Speaker 1: point on it is well below our fifty dollar point,
Speaker 1: which I was surprised by because definitely in the pocket. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they make cars that last a long long time, and
Speaker 1: these cars are very very durable, and you would think
Speaker 1: that we briced, you know, right up near the fifty mark.
Speaker 1: But it comes in a way under. It's just under
Speaker 1: thirty five dollars, So it's a it's a very um,
Speaker 1: if you want to put it this way, it's a
Speaker 1: very affordable car that's still under the average US car price.
Speaker 1: So not bad really. Um. Moving on, we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about the Cadillac A T S Sedan. Now, I don't
Speaker 1: think there's any surprise here when we say that. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's a little bit long in the tooth. Yeah. The design, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean when when I think of Cadillac, I think
Speaker 1: of fins, You think of the old old Cadillac. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: they seem like they were always at the forefront of design,
Speaker 1: even through the seventies. You know, they have beautiful, long cars,
Speaker 1: luxurious and beautiful, and now maybe they're struggling to advance past.
Speaker 1: Like the look of that it's kind of tired. I'll
Speaker 1: be honest, I'm kind of where I'm coming from. Well, sure,
Speaker 1: I've kind of lost track of where Cadillac is because
Speaker 1: it seems like all the cars are very very similar
Speaker 1: at this point, and I know that's gonna make a
Speaker 1: lot of people mad. There's you know, the electric version,
Speaker 1: there's the A T S, the CTS. You know, there's
Speaker 1: the CTSV, and there's a lot of different really interesting Cadillacs.
Speaker 1: And if we were to do a show all about Cadillac,
Speaker 1: I would probably fall in love with the brand again,
Speaker 1: because I really was in love with the brand. My
Speaker 1: my grandfather drove Cadillacs all his life, really, I mean
Speaker 1: pretty much all his life, all of his adult life.
Speaker 1: And they were always like the big, long, beautiful cars
Speaker 1: and you know, like luxurious, and they weren't fast, and
Speaker 1: they weren't, you know, anything like sporty or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But I remember taking long, long road trips in those
Speaker 1: cars with my grandparents and it was just luxurious and
Speaker 1: it was fun and it was like it's like, so
Speaker 1: you're sitting in a in a in a great big
Speaker 1: couch in the back seat. Now, of course, these sedans,
Speaker 1: I mean this is interesting because you know, there there
Speaker 1: are six speed manuals, and there's eight speed automatics, and
Speaker 1: you know they're powered by you know, three point six
Speaker 1: Leader tuned the six engines that have three and are
Speaker 1: in thirty five horsepower. They're very strong. It's a small,
Speaker 1: lightweight car relatively compared to what Cadillac used to be.
Speaker 1: They have you know, of course, magnetic ride control and
Speaker 1: all kinds of interesting features. So they're are quick and
Speaker 1: they're they're they're interesting vehicles, no doubt. But stylistically, I've
Speaker 1: lost all comprehension of the difference in every different type
Speaker 1: of Cadillac that there is out there. And I mean,
Speaker 1: they just look the same as they have, Like the sts.
Speaker 1: They stopped making it in two thousand eleven as a
Speaker 1: four door car, but they started making it in two
Speaker 1: thousand five or four. Yeah, this design carries that same badge.
Speaker 1: It's just a long time to keep that. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a little it's a little more refined, but it
Speaker 1: seems like they're at the point where they need to
Speaker 1: do something dramatically different otherwise people just aren't going to
Speaker 1: pay attention. And I think maybe like the slab side
Speaker 1: design and everything, it's it's great, it was, it's really
Speaker 1: interesting to begin with, but they just haven't done anything
Speaker 1: with it for a long long time, and I think
Speaker 1: they need to move on, and I wish they would.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know there are other luxury brands out
Speaker 1: there that are doing some exciting things, you know, Mercedes
Speaker 1: and some of the other higher manufact like more expensive
Speaker 1: manufacturers that have more dramatic, better designs, I think, and
Speaker 1: if Cadillac could kind of do something different at this point,
Speaker 1: I think it would benefit them. I think they're they're
Speaker 1: still making fantastic cars. They really are good cars. It's
Speaker 1: just a matter of like getting past that point when
Speaker 1: they when they release a new model, I can't tell
Speaker 1: the difference between the previous model and this model, and
Speaker 1: it's very very little different. I know that Cadillac can
Speaker 1: do this, and I know that Cadillac will be back
Speaker 1: with something exciting and new, and it will happen. It's
Speaker 1: just it seems like people are kind of ignoring the brand,
Speaker 1: and I wish it wasn't happening that way, but it
Speaker 1: really is. Uh. Next car on the list here is
Speaker 1: the Oud S four and the Audi S four. This
Speaker 1: is a three leader twin turbo charge V six, and
Speaker 1: I think in the past it had a V eight,
Speaker 1: had a big V eight. They have gone down to
Speaker 1: a V six and again twin turbo chargers on on
Speaker 1: a V six still has three d and thirty three
Speaker 1: horsepower and three hundred pound feet of torque. Of course,
Speaker 1: that has the the all wheel drive Quadra system, and
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with the Quadra system UM only many many
Speaker 1: years ago. I remember I told you early on in
Speaker 1: this podcast that I had a nine A four and
Speaker 1: I loved, loved that car. It was so fun to drive.
Speaker 1: I had it in Michigan and I was able to
Speaker 1: drive it through any depth of snow that you could
Speaker 1: throw in front of me. Really, it was just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: The car would not give up. It was an incredible
Speaker 1: system even back then. And then we're talking about twenty
Speaker 1: years ago. This is a twenty year old car. At
Speaker 1: this point, I would drive it on gravel roads. I
Speaker 1: would try to make the thing slide, you know, around corners.
Speaker 1: I would love. I'd love to take it out onto
Speaker 1: like back country roads that were gravel and try to
Speaker 1: just like push the limit of it. And probably dangerous
Speaker 1: now that I look back at you know what I
Speaker 1: was doing because all the trees around and lakes and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, But so much fun and honestly,
Speaker 1: like that car held the ground so steadfastly that it
Speaker 1: was really difficult in order to make it slide if
Speaker 1: I wanted to. I mean, it was one when I
Speaker 1: did get it too, and I could, I could push
Speaker 1: it in the snow and make it really do you know,
Speaker 1: some dramatic moves, but it was so much fun. It
Speaker 1: was so solid, so dependable, and so it just it
Speaker 1: just felt so right to drive, I guess in the
Speaker 1: manual form even in the rain, Like you wouldn't believe
Speaker 1: the confidence that that car gives you in the rain
Speaker 1: versus like when you get behind the wheel of another
Speaker 1: car that doesn't have the Quadra system. And I didn't
Speaker 1: think that I would ever be somebody that was like that.
Speaker 1: It would say, I can completely tell the difference between
Speaker 1: this car and that carpet, but in the rain even
Speaker 1: like I could tell the grip of that car was
Speaker 1: so much tighter than any other car that I had
Speaker 1: ever driven at that point. It was just it was
Speaker 1: an unbelievable car. I loved it, and uh and I
Speaker 1: wish I had it back. It was it did get
Speaker 1: to be very expensive towards the end, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: expensive to buy. It wasn't the price point that we're
Speaker 1: talking here, because this one is just under the markets
Speaker 1: around forty nine thousand, two hundred dollars for the brand
Speaker 1: new version of this. I feel like a few of
Speaker 1: these kind of cheap that ice point a little bit
Speaker 1: just the fall. Mine was not that expensive, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you that it was. It was half of this, you know,
Speaker 1: less than half of this actually, as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: um at the time. And I was super proud of
Speaker 1: it too, because you know, it's like the first, I
Speaker 1: guess maybe the first real car that I owned. You know.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like, uh, you know, the car that I
Speaker 1: picked up off the used car lot that was really
Speaker 1: crappy and allowsy and everything. This was like the first
Speaker 1: one that allowed me to drive home overnight and really
Speaker 1: kind of check out, and you know, it was it
Speaker 1: was it felt like a real car purchase at the time. Um.
Speaker 1: Just something different about that car, and I loved it,
Speaker 1: and I wish I could gole back to it. But
Speaker 1: the next car on the list, the this is kind
Speaker 1: of unbelievable. It was the Jaguar on the list, um,
Speaker 1: the Jaguar x E thirty five T and uh, this
Speaker 1: is kind of an interesting entry here. The prices started
Speaker 1: around forty two thousand six nine. It is a supercharged engine,
Speaker 1: a supercharged three liter engine, UH with the V six
Speaker 1: around three forty horsepower and about three thirty two pound
Speaker 1: feed of torks. So it's a very strong car. And
Speaker 1: the other thing is that you know, Jaguar is a
Speaker 1: well known luxury brand, which makes it kind of interesting
Speaker 1: that it's on this list. I mean, is this their
Speaker 1: entry level? Entry level? But is this there it has
Speaker 1: most inexpensive model. It has to be, because I know
Speaker 1: that there are many other Jaguars out there that you know,
Speaker 1: are well well up towards the hundred thousand dollar mark
Speaker 1: above that maybe even Um, I've seen a bunch of
Speaker 1: on the road recently, and I know that some of
Speaker 1: them are are very very expensive. And uh and yeah,
Speaker 1: you can expect to pay hundred thousand dollars for a
Speaker 1: Jaguar that you know is at the top end of
Speaker 1: the lineup. But for this one to get in at
Speaker 1: forty two and to still be able to drive a
Speaker 1: Jaguar not bad. I know they had some reliability issues
Speaker 1: in the past, but I think that's that's taken care
Speaker 1: of for the most part. I mean it used to
Speaker 1: be that a long long time ago. They would say, um,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're gonna buy Jaguar by two one
Speaker 1: one for when it's in the shop for any British
Speaker 1: car trade, then yeah, it well exactly that's any British car.
Speaker 1: You're right, You're absolutely right. I mean now nowadays, I
Speaker 1: think there that's a little better. Yeah, it's a little
Speaker 1: better now. And I think that you know, when Ford
Speaker 1: took over Jaguar for a short time, and I want
Speaker 1: to say that was in the nineteen nineties, I believe
Speaker 1: um some of the reliability issues went away. And now
Speaker 1: Ford does not own Jaguar anymore, but the reliability is
Speaker 1: still there and I think that they're definitely on track
Speaker 1: to be a much more reliable vehicle. But to be
Speaker 1: able to get into one for forty dollars, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know it still sounds like a lot of money,
Speaker 1: but a brand new Jaguar for that price is not
Speaker 1: bad at all, and you can imagine that it's loaded
Speaker 1: with a lot of luxury features. And you know what,
Speaker 1: we're making some pretty good progress on this list. So
Speaker 1: let's let's take another break here, if you don't mind,
Speaker 1: And we're back and you're listening to the Fast Track,
Speaker 1: and I'm your host, Scott Benjamin, and I'm joined with
Speaker 1: my special guest, Kurt. Kurt is my producer, and we've
Speaker 1: been talking about sedans and I think we're well into
Speaker 1: our list at this point, Um, there's been a couple
Speaker 1: of maybe I don't know about surprises so far, but
Speaker 1: there's been a few that I don't know, just a little, um,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't expect them on this list, maybe like the
Speaker 1: Jaguar I think was one, and there's a few more
Speaker 1: that are coming up that I think you might be
Speaker 1: surprised by. The next one on our list here, which
Speaker 1: is a list of the fastest sedans under fifty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: is the Ford Fusion Sport. And this may be the
Speaker 1: first true sleeper car on the list, might be, but
Speaker 1: it's you know, Ford Fusion. You wouldn't expect that, right,
Speaker 1: This is this is a fairly common car, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's something you see on the road quite a bit.
Speaker 1: It is. However, and this is hard to believe. This
Speaker 1: is Ford's quickest sedan ever they maybe not ever, but
Speaker 1: Ford's quickest sedan currently. I should say that three hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty five horse power in the sedan, which I
Speaker 1: had no idea. I had no idea. I thought this
Speaker 1: car was like a two hundred horse power just nondescript
Speaker 1: vehicle that you see every day in the parking, you know,
Speaker 1: very strange it has three horse power, three dred and
Speaker 1: eighty pound feet of torque. What are people doing with
Speaker 1: how much torque in a Ford Fusian todan are they?
Speaker 1: Are they pulling stumps out in their yard or what?
Speaker 1: I don't know. It seems like that's an awful lot
Speaker 1: of torque for a car like this. And and what's
Speaker 1: funny is like he used the same two point seven
Speaker 1: leader turbo charge V six that the F one fifty
Speaker 1: use as well as the Edge Sports so much bigger vehicles,
Speaker 1: they have stuffed it into this little Ford Fusion Sport
Speaker 1: and again the sport model. Maybe that's the that's the
Speaker 1: key there. We see probably a lot of Ford Fusions
Speaker 1: out there, but not a lot of forward fusion sport
Speaker 1: cars out there. All wheel drive. I didn't know that either.
Speaker 1: I had no idea that they were all wheel drive,
Speaker 1: six ft automatic gearbox, which is I guess fine, that's
Speaker 1: that's all right. That's what it seems like a lot
Speaker 1: of manufacturers are doing at this point. But prices, if
Speaker 1: you want to talk about price, it's it's still well
Speaker 1: below the fifty dollar mark. In fact, it's below even
Speaker 1: Is this the lowest I think so? It might be
Speaker 1: thirty three thousand, four hundred and seventy five dollars. So
Speaker 1: you're talking less than thirty four thousand dollars for a
Speaker 1: pretty strong vehicle. And you're right. I hesitated to call
Speaker 1: it sleeper because I want to say that, like, sleeper
Speaker 1: is more reserved for cars that are just ridiculously overpower. Right,
Speaker 1: this one is a lot of power. I get it.
Speaker 1: But it seems like we could argue this all day,
Speaker 1: I think, Kurt, But um, it seems to me like
Speaker 1: when you get up to like the five dred horse
Speaker 1: power six hunder horse power in a sedan, that's where
Speaker 1: you get to kind of the sleeper. But then again,
Speaker 1: a lot of those cars look fast, all right, So
Speaker 1: we're getting to uh a little bit higher in the
Speaker 1: the price point here with the BMW and you could
Speaker 1: probably expect this, But the BMW three forty I, it's
Speaker 1: got a three leader twin turbocharge in line six cylinder
Speaker 1: horse power and about three two pound feet to torque.
Speaker 1: You know what's funny, Look at this one. Look at
Speaker 1: the numbers on this one far when that far below
Speaker 1: below what the Ford fusion support provide, which is and
Speaker 1: the price is a little bit more so we're talking
Speaker 1: about a car that starts around hundred dollars, and you
Speaker 1: know that when you start adding features to that car,
Speaker 1: the price only goes up. Now the next one, oh,
Speaker 1: this one, this one is probably this one gets my
Speaker 1: vote as the best sleeper and on the list, and
Speaker 1: I've we've talked about this car a few times on
Speaker 1: car stuff and and uh, the Chevrolet SS. And I
Speaker 1: think that maybe this is probably the one that I
Speaker 1: would pick because it just doesn't look like much of
Speaker 1: anything when it's on the road, it really does. And
Speaker 1: the thing is, it has a six point two later
Speaker 1: V eight and it makes four hundred and fifteen horsepower
Speaker 1: and about four hundred and fifteen pound feet at work.
Speaker 1: Extremely strong. But also it puts all this power through
Speaker 1: a six speed manual transmission or a six speed automatic transmission,
Speaker 1: and of course rear wheel drive only it's not all
Speaker 1: wheel drive or anything like that, so it's a little
Speaker 1: bit different. But a six speed manual, I think that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool for a sedan. You know, on our list
Speaker 1: here only a couple have that at this point. But
Speaker 1: I do feel like this one is one of those
Speaker 1: cars that you don't think much of it when it's
Speaker 1: on the road. If you're next to one and you
Speaker 1: see one really using all that power, you know, somebody
Speaker 1: who really really pushes it, it's impressive. And I have
Speaker 1: I've I've seen this, and I know that you've probably
Speaker 1: seen the Pontiac G eight, remember the old Pontiacs Pontacs
Speaker 1: gone of course, you know, years ago. But the G
Speaker 1: eight sedan that they had, and of course the G
Speaker 1: t o uh that we've we've talked about in the
Speaker 1: past and car stuff. Both of those cars extremely fast,
Speaker 1: kind of surprising fast. The overall looks of the Chevy
Speaker 1: Ss just don't they belie what's underneath. Really, I mean,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't think that there would be that strong of
Speaker 1: a V eight engine underneath this this car, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's it's a really cool package. I would I
Speaker 1: would love to be able to drive one. The price
Speaker 1: on them, however, is there's forty seven thousand reasons why
Speaker 1: I can't get that car. You know what would be
Speaker 1: really cool? And I know that Okay, this is branching
Speaker 1: off from this and we'll get to the end of
Speaker 1: our list here real quick. But I know that uh,
Speaker 1: um Ford and uh, there's a lot of car manufacturers
Speaker 1: right now, surprisingly enough, that are stopping automobile production and
Speaker 1: they're just doing They're focusing on SUVs, they're focusing on trucks,
Speaker 1: they're focusing on just sports cars. Maybe. So Ford is
Speaker 1: one where they're just gonna build the Mustang and that's it.
Speaker 1: They're gonna stop all other car production. So if they
Speaker 1: were continue to build a Ford Usion and stuff the
Speaker 1: Mustang engine into that car and it just as like
Speaker 1: a special edition and you know, maybe they make uh
Speaker 1: ten thousand of them or whatever it would be would
Speaker 1: be a high number because it's Ford. You know, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be like five hundred or something like a boutique manufacturer.
Speaker 1: But imagine if they were to stuff that engine into
Speaker 1: the Ford Fusion kind of like you know, of course
Speaker 1: Chevy's doing that with well the six point two Leader.
Speaker 1: That's that's a version, a derivative of the Corvette engine.
Speaker 1: So if if it would be kind of the same
Speaker 1: thing to be able to do that kind of thing. Now,
Speaker 1: I know the price would go up dramatically on the Fusion,
Speaker 1: but that would be kind of fun to have them
Speaker 1: in a little bit of a horse power work. Okay,
Speaker 1: there are three cars on our list, and let's kind
Speaker 1: of buzz through them kind of quickly. Here the Mercedes
Speaker 1: mg C L A forty five Formatic. That's now, that's
Speaker 1: a long name. I hope they don't try to put
Speaker 1: that all on the back of the car, because they'll
Speaker 1: put in different places on the back. It'll all be there.
Speaker 1: It's gonna it's gonna wrap around the car. Um. But
Speaker 1: the output for this car is something like three hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy five horse power and three or thirty two
Speaker 1: pound feet of torque. So that's that's more power than
Speaker 1: a BMW M two, which is pretty strong. That's a
Speaker 1: that's a pretty good point to begin it. Now. It
Speaker 1: has a seven speed dual clutch transmission, which is I
Speaker 1: believe automatic. All four wheels are powered, so it's an
Speaker 1: all wheel drive, which is impressive. All right, So if
Speaker 1: you want to get into a Mercedes on this list,
Speaker 1: you're gonna, you know, pray almost exactly the maximum price
Speaker 1: on this list, which is a forty nine thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. Now we're getting to the very very end
Speaker 1: of our list here, and I'll tell you I want
Speaker 1: to skip what is number two on this list and
Speaker 1: go to number one and then come back to number two.
Speaker 1: And there's a reason because I have a question for
Speaker 1: our listeners when we get to this point. But going
Speaker 1: to number one on the list, this is the Infinity
Speaker 1: Q fifty Red Sport four hundred, and this one's a
Speaker 1: little tricky because the Red Sport four hundred models starts
Speaker 1: around forty eight thousand, eight hundred and fifty five dollars
Speaker 1: for the rear wheel drive model. If you want to
Speaker 1: go with the all wheel drive model, it does push
Speaker 1: it over the fifty dollar mark, just barely though it's
Speaker 1: around fifty eight hundred and fifty five dollars. Uh So,
Speaker 1: again that's for the all wheel drive version. The Red
Speaker 1: Sport four hundred, as you can imagine, stands for four
Speaker 1: hundred horsepower and about three fifty pound feet of torque,
Speaker 1: has an adapted suspension, and has all kinds of you know,
Speaker 1: luxury features as you can imagine with an Infinity UM
Speaker 1: seven speed automatic transmission. I hate to include this one
Speaker 1: because it does go over the threshold, but again, if
Speaker 1: you just want the real drive version does keep it
Speaker 1: underneath it. But an interesting looking vehicle, it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: the best looking vehicle on this list. I don't think
Speaker 1: just my own personal opinion. I mean, I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people have it, you know feeling and a
Speaker 1: huge fan of Infinities. Look but there. But they are
Speaker 1: staying true to their their thing, which is admirable, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people out there love it. Seems like
Speaker 1: refined luxury. Of course, you know, it's it's very luxurious,
Speaker 1: it's very it is sporty, but um again, it's tempered.
Speaker 1: You know, let's say, it's not like they've gone overboard
Speaker 1: with it. And there's some Infinity models that I think
Speaker 1: are a little sportier looking, of course, and people do
Speaker 1: things to their car to make them look sporty or
Speaker 1: you know, lower them and different wheels and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing and make them look really cool. But for
Speaker 1: the most part, I think it's mostly like a luxury
Speaker 1: brand at this point. Now, this is the one that
Speaker 1: was came in a number two in the list, and
Speaker 1: and it's the last one that we're going to cover.
Speaker 1: Um this is the Dodge Charger RT scat pack. Now,
Speaker 1: the reason we're talking about the scat pack version is
Speaker 1: because this one does fall underneath the fifty dollar mark. Now,
Speaker 1: if you want to buy a Dodge charger right now.
Speaker 1: They range dramatically in price. They go from something like
Speaker 1: twenty six thousand dollars where you have to like the
Speaker 1: base version with the V six and it's not terribly strong,
Speaker 1: and it's still strong. Maybe you know, I'm gonna ballpark this.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you have a note in front of me,
Speaker 1: but three power something like that, up to about sixty
Speaker 1: six thousand dollars for the hell Cat version of this vehicle.
Speaker 1: Now we're not talking about the hell Cat of course,
Speaker 1: that's the one that everybody wants, you know, and the
Speaker 1: the seven hundred and seven horse power. It's it's an
Speaker 1: incredible vehicle, it really is. But for under fifty thou
Speaker 1: dollars if you want to go to if you want
Speaker 1: to call it reasonable, thirty nine thousand dollars, so just
Speaker 1: under forty dollars, so well underneath our our fifty dollar threshold,
Speaker 1: you can get a six point four Leader hemy V eight,
Speaker 1: which has around four five horsepower, four hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: five pound feet of torque, and has an eight speed
Speaker 1: automatic transmission. I see these on the road all the
Speaker 1: time around here in Atlanta. There's a ton of these
Speaker 1: uh scat pack chargers. I followed one just the other
Speaker 1: day on the road. Um, not that I was being
Speaker 1: creepy or anything. I mean, I was just following it
Speaker 1: on the road. It was in front of me. Had
Speaker 1: um a license plate that was you know, a specialty
Speaker 1: plates said scat Pack on it, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Is blue. Uh, looked like the tires were like a
Speaker 1: foot wide on every corner. It was amazing looking and
Speaker 1: it looked like it and I know it hadn't it
Speaker 1: just it looks like it's been lowered. It sounded incredible.
Speaker 1: It's got that light bar that goes across the full
Speaker 1: back end of the vehicle, which is really distinctive. And
Speaker 1: you can just you can spot that car a mile away,
Speaker 1: really you can. It just sounds incredible, It looks incredible.
Speaker 1: Dodge has a amazing lineup right now. And we're we're
Speaker 1: at the end of our list here, and I want
Speaker 1: to ask our listeners this. And I've been watching this
Speaker 1: for a long time, and I think they have to.
Speaker 1: Dodge has been incrementally creeping up and up and up
Speaker 1: in horse power, and I know the prices are coming up,
Speaker 1: and you know they're offering these these crazy engines and
Speaker 1: these hell Cats and the Red Eye hell Cats, and
Speaker 1: you know the performance versions of these cars, and I
Speaker 1: know there's some that are dragstrip only or track only
Speaker 1: type cars, but I'm talking about street cars. This is
Speaker 1: my question to you, the listener. When do you believe
Speaker 1: that we're going to see a major manufacturer create a
Speaker 1: car that is affordable but has a one thousand horsepower engine,
Speaker 1: you know, a V AT engine that's a thousand horsepower,
Speaker 1: or they go to maybe they go to a V
Speaker 1: ten engine. You know, they might take that old you know,
Speaker 1: that old V ten from the Viper that they had
Speaker 1: and repurpose that in the Dodge Charger. Rather, so we're
Speaker 1: talking about a sedan, and I don't mean a challenger,
Speaker 1: you know, two to our coop or a sports car.
Speaker 1: Something seems to me that that's that's very doable. But
Speaker 1: define affordable for the listener. Affordable you say under fifty
Speaker 1: or no, I'm not even gonna say under fifty because
Speaker 1: you know, we're already at sixty six thousand for a
Speaker 1: and a seven hundred and seven horsepower hell Cat version
Speaker 1: of the Charger. So as far as affordable, and I
Speaker 1: know it's all relative here, but let's say that it's
Speaker 1: still under and I don't want to affordable. Let's say
Speaker 1: let's say nine dollars but a thousand horse power and
Speaker 1: it has to be a sedan. When do you think
Speaker 1: that's going to happen? Because I feel like I feel
Speaker 1: like Dodge is gonna do that, and once it does that,
Speaker 1: it's just going to drop the mic and be done.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's like, you know, once we've achieved a
Speaker 1: thousands exactly like I'm you know what, We've done it.
Speaker 1: No one else is going to be able to do
Speaker 1: that again. We're done. Let's move on and and we'll
Speaker 1: still make great looking cars, but you know, we're gonna
Speaker 1: make them a little bit more affordable. And you know,
Speaker 1: maybe they're only maybe they're only gonna have eight hundred
Speaker 1: and eighteen horse power or what ever it is, you know,
Speaker 1: some crazy number. What's is just ridiculous. But I mean,
Speaker 1: we're talking about a seven hundred and seven horsepower car
Speaker 1: and it's growing and growing and growing, so a thousand
Speaker 1: horsepower doesn't seem to me like it's that far off. Maybe,
Speaker 1: uh And if I had to put a guess on this,
Speaker 1: gonna guess like five years because they're gonna want to
Speaker 1: grow it incrementally and slower, you know, just slowly, slowly
Speaker 1: and build build the anticipationtention right, And and no other
Speaker 1: manufacturer seems to be keeping up. I mean they're they're close,
Speaker 1: but they're not they're not trying. They're not in this
Speaker 1: like back and forth war with Dodge. And I feel
Speaker 1: like dodges in its own place right now, and I
Speaker 1: feel like that's what's going on. So we got our
Speaker 1: list out. I I did, however, neglect to get into
Speaker 1: you know, the most expensive luxury cars, the sedans rather
Speaker 1: the fastest sedans, you know, the fastest cars for the money,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. We'll get to that, I think, well,
Speaker 1: we'll do it in another episode, if that's all right.
Speaker 1: But I have I've I've truly enjoyed having you here
Speaker 1: with me today and I've app and it's been a blast.
Speaker 1: It's been fun, it really has. And I'm so happy
Speaker 1: that you've been able to sit on this one because
Speaker 1: I don't know how you feel about the sidekick thing.
Speaker 1: So there, you know, there's some great sidekicks out, dude.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Like I look at myself as maybe like
Speaker 1: a Garth Algar type or like a fam wise camge
Speaker 1: what about Jesse Pinkman, But he didn't you didn't say
Speaker 1: bitch every other word. But but no, Honestly, like some
Speaker 1: of the sidekicks, I think, um and I don't mean
Speaker 1: to like downplay your role here by saying your sidekick.
Speaker 1: And I'm just so happy to be able to have
Speaker 1: you behind the mic with me for once. It's it's
Speaker 1: been a lot of fun and all right. So if
Speaker 1: you want to contact us on on social media, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of different ways to do that, and we
Speaker 1: are on Facebook and on Instagram where we are the
Speaker 1: fast Track Shuttle, and if you want to go to Twitter,
Speaker 1: we are the fast Track Pod. And of course we
Speaker 1: have a website. It's a brand new website actually where
Speaker 1: we are the fast Track Show dot com and you
Speaker 1: can check out all of our previous shows there and
Speaker 1: it's only going to grow from this point for we
Speaker 1: we're gonna have some more shows to add to that
Speaker 1: every single week. And if you like what you hear,
Speaker 1: you can leave a review on Apple Podcasts or even
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio Apple or wherever you look
Speaker 1: in your podcasts and definitely, you know, tell your friends,
Speaker 1: do you want to say that you know, you like
Speaker 1: what you heard on the Fast Track show and you
Speaker 1: want to you want to check it out or you know,
Speaker 1: maybe listen to it at the shop or you know whatever,
Speaker 1: just out loud, you know where other people can be
Speaker 1: exposed to it and and get um, you know, some
Speaker 1: valuable information, I hope, and again we just we appreciate
Speaker 1: it and thank you for listening. The fast Track is
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