MotorMouth Radio
Elana Scherr Senior Features Editor from Car & Driver magazine
We bring back an old friend who's made her mark on the automotive journalism world when Elana Scherr, senior Features editor of Car & Driver magazine shares the hour this week. We talk about her eclectic car projects; the Jensen, Opel & Trans Am, as well as her Car & Driver duties. Imperial vs metric measurement woes come up when Elana talks about a specific sewing class she recently took. Ray reports on the recent 442 project at the shop, and finding some very old MMR Cassette tapes of is first show...check the social media feed to see the pictures!
- Duration:
- 58m
- Broadcast on:
- 30 Jun 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
This Sunday! Every Sunday! Side-by-side at the microphone from the green light to the speed trap, Chris Witzer and Ray Carino calls him as they seize him and you better believe him. Here, relevant news by his opinions, and outright bullshit regarding every aspect of automotive culture, gasps, mechanical trickery never before revealed over FCC regulated airwaves, thrilled for the explosive tension as Chris and Ray cuss each other down the track and barrel roll across the finish line, laughing as certain disaster as they shake hands for the devil! All right, much more, this Sunday at High Noon on the Mortemouth Radio Hour, call in and speak live with the wizards of speed and live feed, Chris Witzer and Ray Carino, bringing the whole family, kids under 12, get in free, every Sunday at noon on WHPC. Take the Long Island Expressway to the Meadowbrook Parkway and look for the sign saying, "No parking on the expressway, and no express service on the Parkway." Go ride on Highway 24 to Garden City, $2 all day parking includes Pit Pass! Sunday! Well, if you can't figure out what we're all about, you ought to go out and catch a trout. Like the guy who's out on a boat right now, my buddy Ryan, who's boat carburets I rebuilt, who just sent me a video saying, "Dude, you did a good job!" So, I'm happy that that's working. I know he doesn't have a radio on that boat, but maybe he'll listen to the replay and he'll go catch a trout, figure out, trying to rhyme here, Mr. Switzer, you know how it goes. Getting so urban in your old age, it's so nice, you know how it goes, you know how it goes. Yo, yo, yo, yo, right, yo, yo is more like it, right. So we're hoping we should have a guest with us today. Yes, I'm very excited. You miss a lot of shares should you arm with us, I expect everybody on already, but she's not. So that's all right, we'll see. She may be running a little late, we haven't talked to her in quite a while, so I was looking to catch up with her on some cool mopar stuff, and oh, here she is, I see it coming in. So we'll swing in as you speak, and there she is, the darling of dodge, miss mopar herself. Look at that. It's Alana share. How are you, Alana? All right, you know, Sunday morning, it's all right, a little earlier for you, right? A little early for you, I see three hours behind us, yes, but not too bad, you know, civilized time, at least. Right. Yeah, it could be worse. It could be worse. Didn't want to catch you at six o'clock in the morning or anything. It's rough. It's rough at six a.m. You know, the dogs have been getting us up that early, but nobody likes it except for them. On a side note, my younger daughter, who's almost 30, she's at home now, and this morning she got up early. She usually sleeps late and she's dressed like, what are you doing? Don't get my nails done. Like, wow, now she goes, yeah, if you got, I said, you know, now you're seeing how old folks work. We get up early and we go do stuff early before everybody else is out. I said, the biggest problem is you find out, like, the store isn't open until nine or ten. Well, you know, there's nobody there or what I said, but that's good. I'm glad to see you just staying ahead of the curve. So that's good. So it's been a minute, Alana. You know, I'm, I know you've done a lot of stuff since we last spoke. We follow you as best we can on social media. What's up? Is it news? What's up with your YouTube channel? Okay. So, you know, I should pull Tom in here. He's in the other room. He's sorry, I was trying to do something, multiple things at once. We are still working on the YouTube channel. We have not published anything there since six months, 11 months. Yeah, I checked, I checked as well because I see it in my feed every day and I'm like, okay, nothing yet. Your Instagram is rocking. Yes. Yes. Well, we've been, we've been working on stuff. The problem is with video and I'm sure that everybody who does video for, you know, for content and stuff realizes this is like, you can get stuff done or you can make video about stuff and you can't really do both. And we've been doing a bunch of things that have been somewhat new to us. You know, I got that Jensen interceptor and we were doing, we did all the rewiring on it. And, you know, we didn't really know what we were doing. So it's like, if you were trying to do a video on that, you know, you would have spent all this time showing this video of us working on wiring and then it would be like, Oh, actually that didn't work. But strictly, you know, let's do that again. Nobody. The people might want to watch that, but we don't want to have ended all that. That's understood. I tell you though, like the, the driving videos you always did from the secret lot, you know, from the secret location, those were, I know they were wildly popular. I love them too. I thought those were great. I promise to restart, we have, yeah, we have, you know, we have cars that we haven't even shown the Jensen, we're redoing the old, the antique Dodge engine right now. So we're going to do a video about that because that seems like something people would like to see. And we've, we've got some other things that are running that weren't running before. So what are our plans? What's the, what's the, what's the state of the Nova? The Nova is in... You had a story ready. It was getting painted all that it was, then it went... Yeah, it's painted and it actually has an engine in the engine bay. And that was sort of where we stopped because I broke a bunch of other stuff and then I bought the Jensen and then, you know, rained all year, all in the spring, which was unusual for us. Yeah. Yeah. And, and then, yeah, but it's all, everything is in process still. Nothing is abandoned. That's good to know. Good to know. It's funny because what I always appreciated about your eclectic tastes and vehicles is the fact that you were willing to take on a challenge, AKA the Opal. And you know, every time I see the Opal, I'm always zeroed in. It's like, I'm always waiting for you to just throw the tools in the air and go, I've had it with this car. Let's just roll it off a cliff. But you haven't... No, no, I mean, I have to say the Opal has been one of our less infuriating cars. I really think they, I think they got a bad rap for undeservedly, you know, right now, I do need to redo a bunch on the Opal because, again, it rained all spring. And what I discovered, in fact, I, the column that's in car and driver this month is about this, what I discovered is that if you live in a place where it's never rained, you think your cars don't leak, but then it rains. You discover that that's incorrect. So, the Opal is a bit moldery right now. Ooh, this is a great word. The word we all identify with very well. That's, that's East Coast, yeah, that's an East Coast word for sure. Yeah. In Italian, it's called Mufa. Yeah. Mufa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ashtinco. Even from the Opal, and now you have truly gone into electric automotive category with that Jensen. I know what the Opal is like, you know, the marijuana. And now I'm deep in the deep in the usage. You know, I've always liked those Jensen's. I thought they were beautiful cars. I've never owned one, but I came close. I came real close. I could have had a Jensen and it was missing the transmission. The standard transmission was missing. And I found that was like the weak link of the car. And I said, oh God, first of all, you know, when am I going to find one? So I let it pass. I didn't take it. Wow. But how did you acquire that piece of road machinery? Well, so I wanted one for a while because Tom and I both like those, they used to call them hybrids before electric, you know, car, but like back in the 60s and 70s when they would do like European body style, European car chassis, but with an American engine. So like famously Pantera, but also Iso Griefo and Monte Verde. Is there any, you know, even what is it? Is it Sunbeam? Is that the one? Yeah. It's like, um, that there is just, it's just like a really cool idea to me. Cause it's sort of like a little bit familiar, but then in this totally different outfit and the Jensen made sense for us because it's a Chrysler drive train. Right. Yeah. Um, you know, so your missing transmission was just a 727. You could have, it was no big deal. Yeah. This was a manual. It was a manual box. Oh, that's, that's very rare. Yeah. But, uh, but anyway, they, um, so that made sense to us cause it was like, ah, well, we're not going to have any engine problems. We're not going to, you know, we don't know how to do that part. And then they just look so cool. Right? Yeah. Like kind of patch backy, kind of like a big bubble window, like an older kudos or something, but then, um, got this long run end and this low stance sort of, I don't know, Aston Martin E or something like that or very early Ferrari, which is great as we get older. You know, it's great to have cars that are lower and easy to get in. Right? You know, you know, I've been doing a bunch of, uh, you know, yoga and stuff so I can handle all of my car still. My goal is to not grunt when you're getting in and I'm. There you go. Oh boy. Internakes at the car without making a noise or your body making noise. Yeah. What's it have been getting me recently have been, you know, we've got all of these trucks and we have a ram charger, 80s ram charger and it doesn't have a step on it. I think it's high, you know, like, uh, I, I have to really joint myself in and we went to pick up some friends who were in their eighties and I was just really nervous about, I mean, they did better than me, honestly, like I was nervous about them getting in and out of it because it's like a pretty big drop. It was funny. This week we were out doing a bunch of cruises. I took my friend Kevin out in my Fiat in the spider, which is low. And then the next day I picked them up in my FJ cruiser, you know, which is still, it's like, Oh, good, at least you brought something I can climb into. So a lot of place for myself and for some other people, tell us the difference in a Jensen, like a Jensen helier, Jensen interceptor, the Jensen line, how, how, how many flavors of this is complicated and I don't know much about heli because that's like outside of my interest with the company, but it's like a bunch of, um, I think it was a bunch of partnership stuff. Right. Right. Right. Often heli as well. Right. Right. Right. Right. But the Jensen that I'm interested in is like Jensen of the mid 60s to the mid 70s, which was sort of a standalone, um, you know, English company that used Chrysler engine and transmission and made this one car, the interceptor. So there's like three versions of it, series one, two and three, but they all look basically the same. Do they cross over with Land Rover like they did with other vehicles of the day? Um, they didn't do anything else at the time. Um, you know, they, they kind of came and went, they gave it a really good try. They, they sort of, um, got taken out by a lack of sort of government money support. They needed support to keep going and the government was like, no, we're not going to, um, float you any loans and, and that sort of thing. Um, they did famously, uh, make an all wheel drive car, the FF, uh, which, uh, you know, is super, super rare and, um, was like kind of ahead of its time, but, uh, and that was a partner that, that box was a partnership with somebody else. How you finding Ferguson, how are you finding it to find parts for the car? Well, so unlike some of my previous purchases, the Jensen was a complete car when I bought it in a running, driving car with a nice interior and, um, a decent paint job and good body. So. It was great. Yeah. Look at me in the photos. Um, so it's already like a step up. You know, Tom and I've been joking because we've been building, um, or around the house, we've been building carports, you know, expensive constructions expensive. So, you know, we'll, we'll build a carport and then we stop for a while to save up some more money and then we build a carport, but, um, but the problem is, you know, we've always been dirtbags and, you know, cars out there and doesn't have paint, nice paint to begin with. So it doesn't matter if it gets worse, but now I'm getting nicer stuff and it's like, Oh, well, I have to put a car cover on it and work it under the carport. So I don't know. I don't know if I like this grown up lifestyle, having nice things, but, um, but, but the Jenson was pretty nice when we got it, um, the wiring was the main problem. There's a door that challenged amazingly, but I don't know what I would do without it. I'm not having a Jenson. Isn't it? I'm a running Jenson. Does it use, does it use strictly Lucas for like, yeah, you get the prints. Okay. Oh boy. Yeah. It's, uh, it's pretty wacky. Um, but, uh, but the rest of it was all in pretty good shape and there have been like a few little things we needed, some switches and stuff like that. Um, there are some companies that provide parts for Jenson. Um, I think there's one in the US and then there's a couple of purses. And for like triumphs, like here, you can buy jars of smoke so that when you smoke, you can refill it. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Mm hmm. Now that's a great car. So the other one that I'm interested in is the Trans Am. That was supposed to be, it was, there was shade talks of paint jobs going on for that car. Right. Yeah. I haven't done that yet. Um, it definitely needs it. Um, you know, that was, that was one where I bought it and it looked pretty great when I got it, but that was a real auction special. So, um, it's so funny. The paint actually went through several stages of badness, which, so it started, like it started to like fade and peel. And that was like the embarrassing stage because it looked like a cheap paint job. Right. But now it's burnt off so much that it just looks like a survivor. So now people are like, Oh, this is really cool original car and I'm like, yeah, original car. Like a really crummy five year old paint job. Nice. That's good. Hey, you know what? Everything old is new again. That's cool. But, uh, but the interior is good. And amazingly, uh, that car has been, um, my knock on wood right there. Yeah. Yeah. Very reliable. It has not been a problem car really at all. Like a couple of super minor issues. Yeah. Legally fixable and it just fires up and goes every time I need it. And then you got the behemoths in the fleet. You got the big cars, you know, and the trucks too. Let's use the can't, you know, we can't forget the trucks. So you do have quite a fleet of vehicles. Oh, yeah. I got to say. I know, I know it. Um, we did sell something. I sold a wagon. I'm out of Plymouth wagon and I sold, we sold that to our friend Rory and he's already got it running. So that's great. I feel like it went to a good home. It'll be happier now because really it was just housing mice. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of roots. Smells thick. How many mice you could house in a wagon, you know, from that era, you know? So many mice. Yeah. All of them. I don't know where they all move to now. The neighbors must be like, where do my mice come from? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Oh, that's something. Let me imagine that if people want to call and speak with Alana, ask her a question. You can call us five, one, six, five, seven, two, seven, four, four, zero or Chris, how could they text us? Yes. You can text Alana at two, three, six, seven, zero, four, one, two, seven. That's not her personal number. That's ours. Right. Yeah. Watch what you say. I'll be the go between. Right. On the filter. Exactly. So it's going to be a bunch of people, you know, questioning my car choices. Like really? Oh, I love them. I love them. I sell it. I'll tell you, I know that today around here, there's a lot of shows. The centurion cruises shows going on at St. Chris, St. Who's church? St. Who's high school? I've seen indies. Right. That's going on. Of course. There's a lot of shows. A lot of guys are out of shows right now. So they may not be a lot of people. I'm sure they hear the show on replay or they'll catch it on YouTube. We do put it up on our YouTube site, more real underscore more to mouth videos. And yeah, they'll probably catch it in a replay, which is. Now you can always send in your questions to you guys later and you'll just save them for the next time I show up. Right. We can do that. Of course. We can do that. Of course. So the Jensen came from where? Who was browned off to sell it to you? So we actually tried to buy a Jensen that was like listed up in Northern California and Tom called on it, offered the guy exactly what he was asking for it. Wow. Nah, I don't think you're going to come get it. And I was like, what? What? This is how selling a car works, right? Like, you know, I'm telling you I'll come get it, but I was just sort of like, nah, I don't think so. So it just once I was a cop. And it just so happened that I was on a work trip, you know, for anyone who doesn't know my day job is I is not actually working on Jensen's or Opal's. I work for car and driver and I get to drive new cars, which is very fun and they all have air conditioning. Yeah. Real luxury. But I was on a work trip for a Subaru drive and the PR guy for Subaru has great cars. Really good car tastes, interesting cars. And I happen to know that he had a Jensen and I sort of mentioned casually that I was looking for one and would he want to sell it. And about a year later, he called me and was like, I'm going to list the Jensen. You want first dibs and I was like, I'll send you the money right now. So I did and it was great and, you know, came on a big car, you know, car hauler got like dropped off at the end of our street and you know, like came out on the tailgate, it just looked so good. And even the guy who was dropping the car off the truck driver, he was like, this is a good car. That car sounds really good. Yeah. So it was really lucky there and I think with cars like that, the best way, you know, it's kind of like getting a job, you know, like, yeah, you can go through the classifieds. But really, if you just know someone, that's probably a better approach. Yeah. Right. Know someone who knows someone. I like the way, you know, what does Jay Leno always say about a Jensen or any of those cars with American power and Italian or English coverings? He calls them road runners that have gone through college. Yeah. Totally. They're just a more educated, it really is. It really is interesting though, because you know, we have challenger and charger. So we've got plenty of 440 powered muscle cars and quite nice ones with, you know, some modified suspension. That's a little bit, you know, a little bit better handling. But the Jensen really drives differently. Has a totally different chassis and suspension than a Chrysler. So it's very stiff in the terms. It's, you know, it doesn't have that kind of American muscle car wallow. And it's also just very smooth. You can drive that thing on the freeway 80 miles an hour. Oh, I forgot to tell you the best part of my car is that someone before Dom did a six speed Richmond swap on it, so it is an annual six feet. Nice. So 440 of the six feet behind it. I mean, it's just like, oh, you don't limit it, right? What gears are looking? What's outback? What gears are in the back of that thing? That is a good question. They are very, very high way gear because the first gear is not very much fun and stop and go traffic. You really got to ride the clutch. So they're, they're not, they're, they're, it's not a low gear set. I'm like three, twenty threes or something. Yeah. I think it might be, you know, higher than that. You know, when you have, when you have enough horsepower and torque, there's always one little spot in the curve that's not fun, but everything else makes up for it. Yeah. Well, and it's interesting because I've never had a car on the manuals that I've had, I've always had like a pretty low first gear. So I've always been like, why do people care about driving manual and traffic? Yeah. The car has a really stiff clutch and a really high gear. So you, you just have to ride it. It won't, you know, it'll just lug, lug down too much. Right. But on the highway, not in traffic, you can go, you know, 75, 80 miles an hour, both windows down, your hair just blows back nicely, it's unbelievable. It's really so sophisticated in your new way, it's a real GT car. So that was a good great purchase all the way around. That's good. It's so happy. Yeah. And so funny because they really do, I really have it appeal for them. I guess as I'm getting older as well, because when I was younger, I'd go, I, you know, I'd much rather have a road runner or a GTX or, or a CUDA. But now you look at them and you sit in them and you go, look at this fine dash. Look at all the appointments. Look how well, how comfortable you are. It's a great environment to be in. When I'm in my Chrysler convertible, it's like I'm sitting in a taxi cab. I mean, I love mopars, but they're interiors, they must have spent like a couple of bucks in a ham sandwich. Everything is all black plastic and switches snap off in your hand. It's just, I sit in my own car and I go, uh, I'll do something about this. It's fun to have a little bit of both, you know, you like get in and it smells like leather and you're like, oh, how fancy this is. Yeah. Yeah. It's a nice place to be. And so I, I, I approve of the purchase. I think it's fantastic. I'm envious of the, of what you've done. I think it's, it's wonderful. But yeah, like you say, now you have to get into that, that realm that we know nothing of called waxes and polishes. Yeah. That Tom just bought a bunch of fancy, you know, car detailing stuff. It's like the last thing in the world that I want to spend my day doing. Right. No, you know, I want to help. Well, I opened up the can of J waxes is used for what's going on in the, in the can of Michael, you know, J waxes from 78. Yeah. Exactly. It's still on my shelf. Now I, I, I apologize for forgetting his last name, but we had an Evan Steger we had on from, um, he's a, he's a metal polisher and I came across his chrome polish because one of the guys at the shop had some and blew me away how easy it was to work and how well it worked. They since bought his chrome polishes, stainless policies, aluminum polish, uh, I'll send you his information. His line of products is fantastic, um, uh, easy to use, just so ridiculously top shelf. I couldn't believe it and not that expensive. So I'll send you the info and, uh, you know, I've also bought it, but it's still sitting in the box. Yeah. I'm just going to say, did you just replace your old one on yourself and, you know, you'll check in with it in eight years, but here's, here's the irony of this. All throughout history, Chris has been the polisher in the waxer and I'm the wrencher. I could kill less about, you know, shot, I like something to look nice, but I'm not going to go out there and bust my butt over it where he would. And now I'm the guy with a call with paint and new chrome and I'm out there cleaning it because it's so easy to do. It's just so easy with his policies. Yeah. I'd buffed out cars for a living when I was young man. Now it's like, yeah, oh, how many of those Jensen's were produced? Do you know? Oh, gosh. I mean, I, I have known this answer in the past, but I cannot give it to you right now. Not a ton and very, very few of them came to the US. Oh, yeah. That makes it. Yeah. It's cool. Very cool. It's true, but that's, that's great. So, how's the job? What have you been driving? Um, job has been great. I've been really on the road recently. So it's actually very nice to be home for a weekend and very nice to be home for the next couple of weeks because I've got plenty of projects to do, but I just went to Le Mans. So that was, um, that was spectacular. It's always good. I went with the Ford team so they were running in the GT3 class. They were running those, the Mustangs. So that was fun. You know, I got to like, rah, rah, go USA. And they did well. And I think they got a third place finished with one of the cars. So not bad, you know, first, their first time at Le Mans. So, um, that was good. That was a lot of fun. Um, what else have I been, been doing? We did some truck comparisons earlier this year, like some off road truck stuff. And that was a really good time. Um, one of my coworkers, Dan Edmonds is, he's just great off road. He's had a lot of experience. So if we do a comparison, he always knows all the best, um, sort of trails to take. And he's a really good spotter. So it did some really gnarly stuff, you know, like when you get to see a photo of yourself and you got like a wheel up in the hair, another wheel on a rock. And you look like, oh, I'm a badass. What a good, that happens. That happens here on the LIE all the time. It's exactly what I was going to say. And you watch the Subaru commercials that they're the best, like when you don't want to follow the, just the road that's well scripted, big, a right. And then you're, they have a great off road segment to their commercials. Subras are a nice, good job. So that was a lot of fun cause I got to learn some stuff too, you know, like, um, drive, you know, driving on pavement is fun, but like driving off road and especially out in the desert out here. Yeah. And the beginning of the year was really beautiful, they were like wildflowers and stuff. Well, it's kind of, it's kind of funny because I have, I'm just FJ Cruiser and I drive it on the street. But my wife, well, she doesn't understand. I said, you know, people off road these things and they go nuts. So I show her on Instagram all the time, like from the FJ sites, what these guys are doing. And I said, how about this one? Like one wheel on the ground. They're like, oh, the guys are the chasm up on rocks or throw you in this water up to the windshield. And she's like, you don't want to do that. Do you? I'm like, no, I don't. I really know. Do you guys ever watch Matt's off road recovery on YouTube? I haven't seen that. No. Oh, like I was super recommend it. It's a great YouTube channel. Um, it's this guy. I think he's in Arizona, maybe. Um, okay. And he just runs a company that does rescues of people who have gone beyond their limits or their car's limits off road. And so he like pulls him out and you know, you'll, like you'll watch a video and you know, it'll be like a Nissan Versa and you're like, how did you get here? Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Like what was the process of continuing to drive your Nissan Versa over this road that like a Jeep would have to work on to get, you know, like what it is. Sound like inside the car, as you were just scraping over these. Yeah. Right. And he was saying, you know, which had a truck, which had a truck, which had a truck, which had a truck, but just for the fact that it was a Versa and it got as far as it did. Yeah. That's testament. You're going to hand it to that. Right. Yeah. Well, but that is something about off-roading for real is that you, you'll be in something really capable and you'll, you'll, you know, really be caning it through and feeling pretty good about yourself. I remember I, I did this off-road rally and yeah, I had my helmet on and I was like going through a big rooster tail, feeling pretty good in my, you know, off-road vehicle and come around the corner and it's like some guy in like a 90s Corolla and go in the other way, you know, like he's already done with that. That obstacle. How? How did you do this? Yeah. Yeah. Good question. Did you lose a bet? How did you get here? I mean, well, it's a real ego buster too because, you know, you got to helmet on and guys in like a tank top like, you know, drinking a Coke, bags full of chickens or something. Yeah. All right. All right. You're at the bottom of the hour. Let me take care of some business here so we can stay on the air on this fine station. And I'll tell you about a show called Hidden Gems that's on Friday nights at 11 p.m. If you're tired of mainstream music, check out Hidden Gems for newly released music from up and coming hip hop, R&B and pop artists, while also playing some hits you may have missed. You might just find out your new favorite artists or so on. Hmm. Excellent. And today our weather, the WHPC weather forecast is powered by Pentano's Gourmet with locations in Yulandale. We have a beautiful day today. It is absolutely gorgeous, sunny. The temps were, I was in the mid 70s when I came in, they say we're gonna have a high of 84. Some rain tonight. It'll, of course, that'll bring some clouds and scattered showers or whatever. It'll be gone by the morning and we'll be, we'll be cool and all of that. Chris, do we have an honor group of the hour to share with anybody who may be listening? That's right. Of course, here at Motorbout Radio, we like to celebrate a group of people. We call them the honor group and this honor group of the hour and talk about finishes on vehicles. If you park your expensive car outside because your garage is filled with useless junk, is your garage filled with that junk that isn't worth keeping or that partially disassembled long forgotten project car? But the Range Rover is subject to the extremes in the driveway or worse on the street. Do you have to step over old broken pieces of furniture to get from one side of the garage to the other? Is all that junk worth keeping? Your car outside where it could be subjected to the elements, rain, snow and wind, dings and scratches from hail or falling tree branches, sun and temperature extremes, theft or vandalism. So if you think all that junk in your knife size storage container that looks like your garage is worth more than the new SUV you still have 52 payments on, then you're part of the Motormouth Radio honor group of the hour this week. Excellent. All right. There you go. We play our quick spots here and we'll be back with more Motormouth Radio, Chris Switzer, Greg Warrino, Ms. Alana Cher on 90.3 WHPC. Keep it where you got it. We'll be back with answers to your car questions. Give us a call at 516-572-7440. This show on 90.3 WHPC is brought to you by CarStar Celebrity Chase Collision. With two locations in Liberty and Oceanside who remind you that New York state law says you always have the right to choose which shop will fix your car. CarStar Celebrity Chase Collision offers a full range of services, 24 hour towing between Montauker Manhattan, shuttle service and it can help you with a rental car arrangement if needed. The repairs include the CarStar Lifetime Nationwide Warranty, ensuring that the experts at Celebrity Chase Collision are always on your side. More information is available at 516-593-0920 or online at celebritychasecollision.com. Okay, Mark Worman here from Graveyard Cars hanging out with my buddies at what's in a minute again? Motormouth Radio. Hey, Mark Worman here from Graveyard Cars hanging out with my friends at Motormouth Radio. It's Sunday morning. I don't know what this fat bald guy is laughing about. You'll forget stuff soon enough too, my friend. Be sure to listen when you guys on 10 a.m. Sunday's at noon. Oh my god. On Sundays. Excellent. That's, you got the promo for, the best one was the first one. That's why I was going to say what was the name of this again? That's the promo. That better presentation could you do than that? Hey, you. Get over here. Every Sunday, 12 to 1, you are going to tune in to hear the motormouth, my friend's Ray Guarino and Chris Switzer, 90.3 FM WHPC. You might learn something. You've learned that you never know what to expect when you're tuning in to Motormouth Radio. We're back. Yes. Ray Guarino Chris Switzer and a line of the show. We're back with the second half going into the third half of the show later on, after hours. So we're back. That works. It's something like that. We have weird math over here on the East Coast, Ilana. You know how it is. Man, let me tell you a math story guys. Okay. It's something really cool a couple of weeks ago and it'll be a feature story in the next car and driver. But you guys know the McPherson School, the McPherson College? Yes. You know, they, it's a cop, the only college that has a four year program with a degree in automotive restoration and they do a summer program where you can take like a week long sort of version of their, of their college classes. So, you know, as an adult, you can go. I mean, you could go to college as an adult too, but harder to get four years off, right? So it's easy to get a week off. So I went and I took the automotive upholstery class. Oh, cool. And it was so fun. I had never sewed in my life. My mom did not sew. I'd never used a sewing machine, I could like do a button and that's about. So it was a whole lot of fun, a lot of learning, you know, because it was just like all brand new. But the one thing, it was pretty humiliating, but I did come away with, with a little more skill. And it is, I realized I cannot read a ruler or I could not read a ruler, like an imperial ruler inches and stuff. I just did not actually know how to do it because I sort of always just, you know, like a half inch, right, I could get, you know, you know, six and a half inches, sure. But like, you know, when you start getting to, you know, six and eleven, six and thirty seconds or whatever, you know, and then, and then the patterns like half of that, you know, because you're going to find the middle a lot of, I don't know how to do this. I do not know. I have to say the map on this. And so what are the other people in the class, this lady Wendy, like who was a retired teacher? She like sat me down, showed me how to read a ruler and do the map on fractions. I got to say, Tom must have been incensed. I mean, because he knows that, of course, using measuring equipment, dialing, dialing the cares. I know Tom knows how to use all the precision equipment. That's conversations I've had with my own daughters about, you know, the imperial system. I say, listen, the metric system was a lot easier. We never adopted it. We should have. You know, it's easy. So when you get into fractions, it almost doesn't make sense. But yeah, yeah, I can do it. No problem metric. And every, every job that I've had where I've had measuring that I've had to do has, I think, been metric. Yeah. You're lucky. And, you know, I mean, how often do you use a ruler with like real fine details in the car together, you know, like, if you're doing fine, you're using like a dial. But, you know, I got to say, I got to digress a little, I do because I do a lot of fabrication stuff. I'm making little brackets and things. So you're always measuring. I use a veneer caliper to measure. So I'm doing it in tents and hundreds. But sometimes you have to go back to a ruler to draw it. And then, you know, you got to convert fraction to decimals. So a lot of that you do want to calculate if you don't know all the conversions. Yeah. I knew none of them. Yeah. Wow. That's. Like third grade math skills, so I'm feeling pretty good if it was a week well spent. Right. Right. You know what? I got to tell you something. I have been a closet sewer for years and, because I, but I just never crossed the barrier to become a good sewer and I have a sewing machine and I was kept saying I'm going to go take classes and, and, and my wife said, you didn't feel funny. I'm like, no, I won't. I said, I can run a lathe, a milling machine. I can do comp. I can do all the measurements. I can, you know, I can all this crazy equipment. I said, I can run a sewing machine, damn it. It stopped that hard. I said, well, I don't sew my finger to my cheek, you know, like, I was very concerned about doing that. I did not sew any body parts to anything that, and so do. So that was, that was a big relief. Um, but yeah, I mean, those, Joe, those machines, especially the industrial ones, that's no joke. I mean, it was like, it was like driving a go cart with a needle, you know, you know, especially, like steering it around and, um, yeah, I, I mean, there is, you know, there's no, there is no shame. There is only glory. Right. Learning how to use a machine like that. I give you a ton of credit. You know, and especially when you get to like the leather machines, the one that's so leather, those things are heavy. You can go through a cow. They are heavy heavy. Like that's what we were using and one of the projects was, you know, kind of making this little, uh, sort of a miniature door panel on a board. Okay. So, you know, you got a board that's, you know, like, I don't know, quarter inch thick, and then you've got a big foam pad and then you've got your leather and, you know, and then you've got folds in the leather because you're making plates or whatever and some piping that you're putting on the side. And that thing just goes like punch, punch, punch, but I thought you'd have to put holes in or something. It goes right through it's very intimidating. Right, right. Oh, that's right. We got to keep it all from wrinkling. Yeah. We're getting to kind of that. Well, that's when, you know, you see the benefit of a walking foot, you know, and things like that, you learn all the specificities of sewing. So that's great. You know, I, I still say I want to go do it. I'm going to do it. What people should do it, you know, just, just for the experience, you know, yeah, no, it's great. I mean, and I've always, you know, my dad always said when I was growing up, you know, that money you spend on tools or skills is money well spent, you know, then you'll have this ability to do something that you, you didn't, or at the very least, you have an understanding of it. You know, right before I took this class, I paid in a post tree guy to do a panel for the Jensen just in the back, there was like a small panel that needed to be covered in leather. It was quite expensive. And, you know, I mean, I didn't begrudging, but I was like, oh, that's quite expensive. Right. Well, now having done some upholstery class, I'm like, that was money well spent. He deserved every penny. I should have tipped him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you watch it. You know, and that's the thing when you watch the guys on TV instead, they never show enough of it, but they have shown a lot of upholstery guys. And you know, when the guys make it look easy, that's hard, and I always was, I always admired upholsters because their work is dry, and they're working upright. And that's usually how I categorize jobs, automotive jobs, are you laying down? Is it wet? That's not a good job. Is it cold? Is it cold? You're standing upright, and you're working in a dry environment, and you're in like a regulated room, and you're doing something automotive. That's a good job. It is. That's why I don't mind convertible tops. Convertible tops are okay. It's true. As long as you don't have to do the disassembly because if you do the disassembly of upholstery, then you get all of the good and adventurous, and that kind of thing, which is, it's surprisingly dirty, actually. I've done that on a few cars. The main part is only at the end. No, I've done that on a few cars where I had to remove, rip out that headliner, or take the top off, and, oh, yeah, you need double masks and gloves, and it's hazmat time. It's crazy. It's crazy. It sure is. I just did my first sewing job last week on an armrest on my Explorer. It seems that the door armrest, all of those explorers tend to split, and it was one molded piece of plastic. That must have just been a weak link. So I did a Google search YouTube on how to fix those armrests, and lo and behold, it was a stitch pattern that you can do it, and you can lay the thread in where the fake threads were on the panel. You can't see them. I had to do that stitch over it, and I ran it all around it. I'm so proud of myself. You just say, "Hey, that's right." I mean, really, everybody's talking about AI, this, and AI that, and how it saves you time. I'm like, "You know what? There's a real satisfaction to learning how to do something, and then doing it, even if it isn't always easy to do." Yeah, no, hey, the heart of the better. That really is an accomplishment. So now you're going to go out. You guys are going to buy a nice sewing machine, a big commercial machine. No, I think what I came away with from taking the upholstery class is that I don't have the right mindset for upholstery, because here's the thing with sewing. It's very different than, I don't know, for me with writing or something, is you need to know the end point before you even start marking things in the beginning. You can't change course halfway through if you realize that you've messed something up, or you'd rather do it differently. Like, you are committed to the cuts that you made, to the markings that you made. If you didn't mark something, you probably can't figure out where it should have been marked. It really requires a real far-seeing approach to the world, which I do not have, because I like to wing everything. Okay. And you know, upholsterers are not -- I'm with you. Yeah, but I was going to say, it's like when I do metalwork, it's the same idea, and you do develop that with time. You will. You do develop that skill with time, because you know, through the screw-ups, or you're going to give it up altogether and say, "I ain't doing this." It's caused me to achieve that. Right. I mean, in my 40s, when am I going to develop these good skills? A lot of you still have time, this still time. Adult learners are the best learners, always the best learners. I didn't go -- I went back to college in my 40s, you kid me? Like, another degree in my 40s. Yeah. All right. Well, that's all right. That's good. Yeah. But I am -- I was thinking there is a singer store that's right near us, that singer, the sewing machines, not the singer, the Porsche. Right, right. And they do have some Saturday morning classes. So I was thinking that maybe I would take a few more classes and see if I could at least maintain a level of knowledge. I mean, just to do your own stuff, like I want to do, you know, be able to hem a pair of pants, sew a patch on, or jacket, or whatever, or do some, you know, minor repair, or whatever. You know, just stuff like that. You don't want to follow the, you know, the longstanding housewife tradition of making a nice, neat pile in your laundry room of things that need to be mended, and then just waiting until whoever owned it outgrows it. Yeah. And then -- That's always -- That's how I grew up. That always happens. That always happens anyway. But now I find it's a lot more fulfilling to be able to fix something. You know, you have to, like you said, that pride in workmanship, you know. Even if it's crappy. He's like, "Hey, I did this." You know. What did you do? No, that's great. That's great. I'm glad to hear that. That's very good. Oh, good friend Billy G from Whitestone says hello, by the way, who I'm going to say hello to you today. He's out at a car show. He's busy wrangling. Of course he is. Of course he is. Yeah. Give him all my love. I hope he's doing great. He is. Yeah. Bill's doing good. Keep him busy as always. He's a hard-working guy. So, yeah. I will tell you. So what was the high point this year of a car test? What have you really enjoyed? What have you liked driving the most that you can highly recommend? I liked driving the most. I would say I really liked the new Tacoma. Yeah. Yeah. Taco. The TRD one was, I thought, was a very pleasant vehicle to drive on road and also great off road. Yeah. If you actually were going to do that, I drove a Maserati Gran Turismo, which is, you know, I don't know that I would say like this is the car that the average person should buy. It's quite expensive, but I was surprised how much I liked it. And Grand Tour, and I really like a good Grand Touring car. And a lot of things get called a GT car, and then they're not really a GT car. You know, it's just a big sports car, or it's just like a luxury car that has a lot of horsepower, but the Maserati really was very comfortable and a lot of fun to drive. And it was one of those every once in a while, I'll have a car loan where I have it over a weekend or something, and I can take a friend out in it. And that's so much fun because I wouldn't say I get jaded, but, you know, I'm like, yeah, of course I'm driving a fancy car or whatever, and to be able to take someone who hasn't been in one and go do some candle roads and see how excited they get about it is really enjoyable. That's cool. I liked that one as well. I was surprised because I didn't expect to like get that much, but I thought it was very unique. Do you have a lot of a lot of those twisty turny roads where you are? Oh my gosh, yes, so I'm based in LA, and, you know, people love to say what they don't like about Los Angeles, but I'm telling you, within 20 minutes in any direction from where I live, I can be in the mountains and, you know, like, you know, legendary twisty roads. And there are like the famous ones, like Angela's Crest and the Mount, you know, Mulholland, but then there's a ton of side roads that people don't use. They don't know about, you know, I mean, I could get on highway one and be doing that along the ocean if I wanted to. So I would say that Los Angeles is one of the best driving places in the world in terms of opportunity. No, you have to wait. Not on the freeway. No, no, no. When you're not on the freeway, I do say that having just spent five hours to get to San Diego, which should be a two and a half hour drive because they're the nasty accident and they close the five five. Yeah. Yeah. You trade offs, right, right. Yeah. Listen, we have our traffic woes over here, too. We know what it's like. It's terrible. You pick and choose, you know, so it's kind of funny because up here in Connecticut, we do have those same two lane roads and they're gorgeous. They're beautiful, especially now, days like today. And I had, at the time, a triumph to our six. So driving that was sheer pleasure, but unfortunately it was only a two seater. So I needed a back seat and I went and bought this big Chrysler 300 convertible, which is got to be, you got to put two wheels on the double yellow line, the other two wheels on the white line and God help you if a dump truck is coming the other way, it's like you're playing chicken. Like everybody's like this. I take the roads of Connecticut where my go to motorcycle roads back in the day, I would go up there just to eat, you know, and then just weave across the Connecticut, New York border on all those back roads. It was just phenomenal. Yeah. And I never get tired of, you know, if you get a nice car that matches the road you're on and you've got some of it to yourself, I mean, it's not even about going super fast or anything like that, it's just about that, that sort of sense of opportunity. You just like feel when you look at a road ahead of you and it's got curves and it has scenery and you're just like, I could go anywhere. I could do anything today. Yeah. And then, you know, you go home and do laundry. Right. Right. Because a longer train, so something. Right. So true. So true. Oh, that's great. Yeah. A certain value for traveling swiftly, you're not, you're not just plodding along and you're not doing 120 miles an hour. You're just like you say, you're just leaning into the turns a little bit. You're just getting the juices flowing. Yeah. You got that. You just get that flow. It feels like a kind of dance. It's really nice. Right. Right. Yeah. And it's so perfect when like you have a mozzarella. Yes. Oh, there's a kind of charm to it in doing it in sort of a bad car too because you do it at a much slower speed, but it's actually like far more exciting. Right. Trying to survive it. You know, the mother audio kind of drove itself, but you know, you do it in a when you're on that same turn and something jerky in a wheel is like lifting off the ground. Yeah. Yeah. You're like, what's that sound? It was everything attached. We'll find out. We used to call it. Yeah, we used to call it new noise. What's that? It's a new noise. Yeah. Oh, no. You don't want a new noise. Right. You don't want a new noise. Yeah. Fun stuff. I am running up against my time. I know. You have to run. So a lot of we will we thank you very much for coming on with us and you know, we'll be in touch. I'll keep in touch with you again. We'll get you or you know, like I say, if there's ever something you want to talk about or just want to come on and have a spend an hour with us on on a radio, reach out. We'll get you in. Yeah. We love to have you on. Yeah. We can compare sewing projects. Absolutely. You got it. Come on. I'm proud of mine. I got pictures to prove it. You got it. It's great. It's awesome to see you guys to talk to you guys again. And yeah, I I'm waving I'm waving at all of the East Coast car people because I got to come visit. It's been a while. Thanks for coming on. Say hi to Tom for us. Yes. And we'll see you again soon. Thanks a lot. Okay. Thank you. All righty. Bye bye. All right. Alanna, share. So glad to talk to her. I know. I know. You know, we sometimes that happens with guests. We have those long stretches in between. And I'm glad that at least, you know, we still get to make up that time and come back. It's good. Very good. No, it's it's very true. And it's it's nice to at least, you know, it's kind of funny when it's something you've always preached, Ray, where you're on different parts of your in different parts of the world, different parts of the country, yet you we all have almost like the same issues, the same problems, the same successes. Yeah. And it's really nice to compare notes at times. I know. You can say you to me too. I know. You know, I want to tell you something. I'm going to compare some notes because I want to post this this week. I told you that we we were shuffling projects in the shop. The Mustang had to come out. That's going to go to an alignment shop to have the independent suspension set up. And we brought in a 442 yesterday that had been sitting in the garage for 20 some odd years. Oh, wow. What year? 1970. Beautiful car. And the owner is stoked because now it's going to have new life. It's coming out of a storage garage, and it's going to go back to his house garage, which means he's going to be using it. So he's going to store it for another 20 years. No, no, he's going to use it. He's going to use it. He's ready. You know, now he's retired from his job and he's got time. So now he's got time to get back to like many people to get back to what they did before all the work drudgery. And the car, we're going to say, you know, it's when a car, this is something we can talk about. Like where do you start? And I'm going to start right at the back at the fuel system. We're going to look at the, I'm going to take my scope and go down into that tank and see how good or bad it looks. Yeah. Maybe drop that tank, clean it out. Maybe send it out to Bill Carberry and have it, you know, cleaned out and coded. So this car is not running. It is literally at this point in time right now, it is still in that 20 year. And last ran in 20 suspended animation. I think he said it was like 2014 or 15 that it last ran, but it's been stored. So still it's, you know, it's old. It's the fluids are old and he said, that might have been a slight motor noise. You know, we got it back to the shop. It's a beautiful car. I'll post pictures. You'll see it. It's gorgeous. When he, when I put it up on the left, because I got it, we pushed it into the shop and I just set it up and I raised it. I said, I got to look underneath this clock because it was so clean. And the first thing I saw, I honed right in on it is two blown out mufflers and it took me back to when I had my Riviera with the 455 and I just put a brand new exhaust system on it, came home, boom, the car backfired and blew out one of the mufflers. I had bad exhaust valves. So I'm glad that you did that because usually that's the case. Something goes horribly wrong with this vehicle. You just stuff it in the garage and they go, I'll get to it later and 20 years go by. He did say anything about that and we talked about it later, but I'll find out because you know, I'll get a running. You all get the car running and we'll see and you know, timing issue, electrical issue, but something had to make it like you said, make it backfire. And now you just go, I'll worry about this later because I can't tell you how many cars the Chrysler included where that was the case. I know this engine had been rebuilt years ago by a reputable shop, but I don't know if it ever had hardened valve seats put in it. And you know, when we changed to unleaded gas, solely you had to have hardened seats. And you know, that so could be an issue that goes back that far. And I'll find out, you know, I mean, it may be a matter of, we'll see, we got to do, we'll do what we have to do, but the car is in real nice shape otherwise. And it's going to be a nice, it should be a fairly quick turnaround based on the shape of the car. Then of course, it's going to go through all the brakes. We have to go through and, you know, we have to see if we have brakes and what has to be replaced, you know, brake part wise, but those are all off the shelf parts. That's easy stuff. Bleed flush, all of that, I want to drain the rear end. You know, we'll look at all of that stuff. It's a good solid car otherwise. I'm just glad to see it come out of the garage. Eddie's a great guy. I listened to the show a couple of weeks ago when I first mentioned the car. He had heard the show. He was telling us his son, he said, "Yeah, this is the guy from the radio." Like, "Yeah, that's me." The guy from the radio. That's you. He also wields a wrench. Yes. And you know, real fast, we just got a text at 203-670-4127 from our old friend Joe, the undertaker. He says, "Long island is good for just driving. It's good for just driving if it wasn't for all the other drivers." Exactly. He says, "Never worry about getting lost on the island because if you hit water, turn around." I'll add to that. I was in the garage. I found some tapes in the basement. I thought I found it when I was looking for, but I found two cassette tapes that I listened to. And one cassette tape was when I... Not those VHS tapes that you have. No, no. When I came in here to this studio to talk about the Father's Day car show with you, Mikey T. and Bronk, I found that tape. And then I found the tape that was right after it was when I came in and did my first show. Oh, what day was this? That tape was... It was in 2004. What was it date? I don't know. I have them at home. I'll post a picture of it. Yeah. Because it was probably a week or two prior where you called when we talked about... That's the one I'm looking for. And I haven't found that yet. I got it. I just need... I know. I had that whole range. I just need the date that you gave me a date that if I can go back... I can. ... one or two shows. Because I had the one from when I came in with Bronk, we talked about the car show. I had that. So I'll tell you. Listen to the back throws. And Joe, Joe, the other thing was called. He called back then, you know? So that was great. The other thing is I got word. I told you I did a... In the middle of all this stuff. I did the car inspection on the 27 Rio this week, which was phenomenal. I already posted pictures of that. And then I got a call from a friend to do three carburetors for Yamaha boat engine, which I did. He picked them up yesterday and we didn't really see a smoking gun, but he just sent the tech saying he's out on the water, the thing that's running. It's great. He was great job. I charged him more. So that was another success. The boat carburetors, just like motorcycle carburetors, no biggie. So we're going to get out of here because Kim is going to do Thunder Road, Best of Spring Steam. And Chris, why don't we tell everybody who's waiting for me out in the parking lot? Don't follow us home and wear something that's easily flying about. Right. So if Chris wants a reg warino, we'll be back more and more to mouth radio next week on 90.3 WHPC. See ya. See you. Bye. Bye. . . . . . . (upbeat music) (upbeat music)