In this episode we are in Miami with a 1967 Volkswagen Kombi Bus, who was intrigued about the looks and performance of the all-electric 2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz and finally got the chance to compare them in person.
Total Car Score
S5E75 - How does the 2025 VW ID.Buzz compare with a 1967 VW Kombi Bus?
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It's the perfect holiday gift where your love speaks for itself. Unspoken, the dazzling new collection exclusively at Jared. Welcome to the Total Car Score podcast, bringing you the world of cars from inside the car, and now your hosts, Carl Brouwer, Lauren Fix, and Javier Mota. Well, today we're sitting here in the 2025 Volkswagen ID bus, and when I went to drive it in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, I got a couple of gifts, and there was one person who I thought about immediately, and it's Juan Manuel. How are you? Hello, hello, Javier, thanks for having me. So, this is the magic of the automotive industry. I just wrote an article talking about how I have to thank Carlos Ferreira for what he did for me 25 years ago, when he put me basically in the path of covering cars, and this is what I like about it. So, the ID bus comes out, and I remember that you had a bill when we worked together 20 years ago. My first... No, more than 20 years. No, yeah, 2000. So, more like 24-25 years ago. Yeah, yeah. Yes, it was my first classic that I ever bought with my Univision money. I was fresh out of college, and I bought a 1965 bill that was the one that started everything. And I was curious, like, this morning we went to Telemundo with the life segment and all that, and we were talking about the history of that, but I remember that. I remember the bill that you... But I didn't know that you were like a really car fanatic at this level. You have one, two, three, four, five, six cars here that I can see. I don't know if you are some person somewhere. At that time, I didn't know that I was really going to become a car fanatic. I really... I was young. I was in my early 20s, and I was making really good money for... Yeah, for good days. For... You know, I was living with my parents, had no debt, and you know, I had come a couple of years before that I was working as an ice cream guy, making five, five, five, 50 an hour in all of a sudden I'm here making, you know, a salary, like a professional salary. So, to me, I had never seen so much money in my life. So, I was like, what can I do with this money? And first, I started buying a bunch of old toys from when I was a kid. Like a... No, no, no, no, no, like Atari's, and like Masters of the Universe, a few years and toys and stuff. I was very homesick at the time. I had left Argentina and I missed Argentina. It had already been a good whatever, 10 years by then, but I still miss my country. You went to the point when you were remembering it. I miss my childhood. So, like, I get all this money, I discover eBay exists. I've been on eBay since 1999. Oh my god. And when I was done buying all that, like, let's say smaller stuff, I was like, what next? And I was like, oh, what's a good memory of when I was a kid? And I didn't grow up in a VW Beetle, but we used to play punch buggy in Argentina whenever you saw a VW Beetle, because they weren't... Really? They weren't that common, so you would punch each other with my friends and so I was like, oh, maybe I'll get a Beetle. And so, I got a Beetle, but it was really just to mess around, but it did become a gateway drug. But that wasn't your daily driver, you had something else. No, no, like your hobby. Yeah, yeah, 100%. You started a hobby back then. 100%. 100%. And then, for many years, I was very much only a VW person. I only cared about all VWs. I didn't really care for old cars, but then you get older, you start hanging out with people who have other cars, and you're like, oh, well, that's cool, then that's cool, and then I fell in love with other cars, and I started hoarding them. Pretty terrible. I can see that. Yeah, I'm costly, but I enjoy it. Why not? Yeah. And you can afford it, that's great. So, again, I went to drive it in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, and then I thought about it. I contacted him immediately, and I didn't know... Because I have a VW bus, I think. Well, no, no, no, I didn't know at the moment. Oh, when I called you, I remember you had the Beetle. Oh! So, when I called you, I would have a couple of gifts for you, because I know you were a Volkswagen fanatic, and this is like 24 years ago, maybe. So, I remember that. And we haven't seen each other since then, I don't think. More or less. I mean, I went by the office a few, like maybe in the mid-2000s, but it's been a very long time. But I have you on Facebook, I always follow with you. So, that's why I knew about his Beetle. So, I told him, I have some stuff for you, and then he sends me a picture of this one, the one you have now. That's a fascinating story, because I got this one to test right here in Miami. It's almost the same color. So, tell us the story about this one. So, back in 2006, I've had my VW Beetle for about five or six years. I ended up meeting in 2004, this guy who is a really good friend of mine now, his name is Gus, and he was a young guy who was in the VW scene. He owned VW since he was very young as well, and he hits me up on the samadocom, which is the website that basically gathers the entire BMW community. It's been around for many, many years. Here in the US? Or in the US, but it's in the US, but it's become sort of a global thing. The guy who owns it and maintains it is here in the US. But he hits me up and he's like, "Hey, we're having a VW gathering this weekend here in Miami. You should come out. Our scene could be strong or whatever." And I was like, at that time, I thought, it's very, very bad of me, but I was like, VW guys are either old hippies or young stereotypes. Young gangbangers. I'm neither of those. I have nothing in common with these people, but sometimes I would be driving my beetle around and I would see other VWs around, and I'm like, "Oh, I want to be a part of those." I want to go around with other beetles and do like a cruise, whatever, but I don't know any of these guys. So I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to come out." And I was completely wrong. The VW scene is amazing. There's all sorts of people, and I made a really, really good friend. And that guy had, he had a convertible beetle, had a double cab of these. Because he has a double cab pickup truck. A lot of people think that they didn't make them that they cut it. No, because they were for industrial commercial. There were work trucks. So he had a double cab, and he used to, he had a daily driver as well, but he used to ride around in the car. We were in our 20s, so we didn't really care what we drove. I mean, you didn't care for AC that much, and things like that, power steering and automatic transmissions. So we started hanging out a lot, and a lot of times we were hanging around in his, like, drive around in his VW bus. And I was like, "Man, this is pretty cool. I think I might want to get one one day." And that was the worst thing I could say, because the next day, this guy is sending me links and links and links. Look at this one. Look at this one. Look at this one. Careful what you wish for. So I wanted the bus, but he really looked for it, and he found it, and he said, "I found one here near the IKEA, in Sunrise, here in Broward County, for those of you who are familiar with the South Florida area, which isn't very close to us, because we're in Miami Day. And we went to see it, and I paid $4,000 for it, and thanks to this guy, I now have this bus, and it's like 2006. I mean, you thought a fantastic job restoring it. It's beautiful, like, to every the smallest detail. Again, you stripped the, what, seven layers of painting or something. I stripped about six or seven layers of paint until I gave up, because it was too much. But then you found the original color, which is- I found the original color. And by then, because of my experience restoring the VW Beetle, I knew a lot about the resources to, like, what are the- I knew about the correct colors for years. I know all the names, and I know, like, what's specific to the years. So I had some experience, obviously, not so much about buses, but you learn as you go. Of course. And I said, I'm not going to restore this thing when I bought it. You know, like, it's rusting, it's whatever. But I'm going to- I'm going to ride, drive it as is, and I ended up restoring it twice. Well, it's beautiful and amazing. So, leaping forward to 2025, you see the- Well, actually, no. Like, let's say eight years ago, when Bolt's back in the beautiful concept car, you saw it, and then what do you think? No, everybody sent them to me, and at that time, I was, and I think I remained, to some extent, such a fan of the old Bolt's wagon, everything, that I just wasn't that enthused about it. I really thank you for contacting me, because I was really eager, now that I finally came to it, because Volkswagen took their time with this. I was like, this is never coming out. It's- it's- no, it's- it's not really- they just keep teasing and inteasing it, and there's not a production model announced until this happened, and I saw it at a- at the auto show here in Miami, like this year or last year, but it was behind ropes, you can get in, you can't do anything. And I was just like, man, I would love to see it, and I'm really grateful for the fact that you reached out to me. But you told me that you were kind of disappointed before you saw it up close, you sat into the driver's seat and all that, like, why? Because I just wasn't sure what the- what- what VW is pitching here. What is the proposition? Is it a van? Is it really a bus? Is it more for camping? Is it not? I just wasn't sure, and it seemed like there wasn't a lot of storage space with which this- the all VW bus is- even though it's much smaller. It's much smaller, but you can fit so much in there. Yeah. It's crazy how spacious it is inside, and I just- the- the range, you know, to handle- Oh, the electric, yeah. The electric range, I think- I think it's short. Uncover one of history's greatest mysteries in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. A first-person single-player adventure video game set between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Last Crusade. The year is 1937. Sinister forces are scouring the globe for the secret to an ancient power connected to the Great Circle, and only one person can stop them. Indiana Jones Adventure calls Indiana Jones and The Great Circle releases on December 9th on Xbox Series X and S, Game Pass and PC. Pre-order Indiana Jones and The Great Circle now, rated T for T. Copyright in trademark 2024, Lucasfilm Limited, all rights reserved. Sometimes words seem so unnecessary. Introducing Unspoken, the new diamond fashion collection you'll only find at Jared Jewelers and just in time for the holidays. Discover the brilliance of natural diamond pendants, rings, earrings, and bracelets in a range of carrot weights, expertly interwoven and white or yellow 14-carat gold. It's the perfect holiday gift where your love speaks for itself. Unspoken, the dazzling new collection exclusively at Jared. I would have liked to see more storage space. The interior didn't really call my attention much. I don't know. We're sitting in it now and I'm like, okay, let's go for a spin and like you're talking and we'll see how you feel about driving it. Lakeland is really good, trunk space when we put the seat down. The third round sits down. It's really good. It's actually a pretty sizable vehicle. I think it's huge. It's like for a minivan. There's no mini here. There's no mini about it. So this one, you just turn the note towards you or backwards or reverse. Everybody's got their own system now. Yeah, that's not that. We're reverse now. But now you saw it like we were talking about all morning about it. You've driven electrics before. So the range still an issue for you in any car, but in particular in this? Well, we had a Tesla here in the house. Am I in drive? I was in drive. Now I'm not anymore, do you? We had a Tesla that had the long range and that was good. I mean, going to Orlando, which is a three and a half hour, 220 mile drive, you still have to stop and recharge for comparison. I just went to Orlando this past week in my 2022 Equinox. Very sexy. Very not sexy, but very utilitarian in the true sense of the word. I can destroy it. It's good on gas. We went on one tank of gas. Got us there. I drove around Orlando. I didn't have to refuel until literally Wednesday night when I was about to leave on Thursday morning. Wow. And I drove around Orlando quite a bit. So having, I don't know, I just feel like I want a car that will take me to Orlando without having to stop to recharge. That's kind of my best. It's true. I mean, we'll get there at some point. We will there at some point. This one is the four motion. So it has the motors in both axles. So you get about 240 miles. Right now we're at 59% and we have 144 miles of range. If you get the rear wheel drive, you'll get like almost 280 to 85 depending on how you drive. Okay. So it's, I mean, I think every time that people ask me about electric cars, I think the first thing I tell them is like you have to learn to live with it. You have to change your mindset. Yeah. True. If you're planning to go to Orlando, plan two more hours because you're going to stop and then you're going to hopefully get a way to charge. Enjoy. Enjoy your time waiting in a station. Enjoy those rest stations, the rest areas or whatever. Yeah, if they are function. So I mean, they're different. Obviously, I don't think we're there. I think the technology is evolving. And maybe in a few years, five, 10 years, who knows, we're going to get to a point where you're going to have a 500 range battery that can recharge in 10 minutes. And then people will be happy, I guess, or people will still be complaining because that's human nature. People complain about everything, right? I do want to say, well, I want to ask you about horsepower. I don't know if you know off the top of your head with the whole thing. I don't remember. But if it's substantial, all electric cars, I think it's like more than 300. Okay. So that's pretty decent. This is a very big probably really heavy car. You got to hit here as a stretch where you can accelerate a little bit of a new feeling. But I want to say the visibility sitting in the driver seat is pretty amazing. And somehow they managed, I've never seen this before. I know that I see it on Instagram posts and I'm like, Oh, somewhere in the world, people have this. I just own a regular 2022 Equinox. But in the windshield, as I'm driving, I can see the speedo like the I have a digital panel that's showing me my screen, but on the actual windshield, the heads of display. That's pretty cool. You can see how like you can see your speed and the speed limit, the posted speed limit. That's pretty cool. But the front windshield and the visibility is at the height of the city. We're complaining about how big is the real estate between the steering wheel, the windshield. It's huge because of safety reasons like yours, the 1967 model, right? In a 67. Like the car ends. In a 67, you are the crumple. It's extremely unsafe. So some people were complaining about that. It's too big. It looks weird. But I mean, it's what it is. I mean, you have to have a regulation. Don't you think that VW like, I listen, I don't want to, I don't want to shit on anybody's work, obviously. But it's like, did they really think this through? I'm wondering like, why, why this vehicle, why now? And is it like, did they really think to me, it seems like they thought, ah, you know what, we have this iconic, one of the the most iconic car in the history, right? When, why don't we put out, like, you know, everybody's, everybody's doing it. The Bronco's back, the Land Cruiser, this, all of these cars. Defender. Right. So like, let's bring back, back the bus. But it's like, let's make it cute and pretty on the outside. But then what's happening inside, what's happening with like the driving experience? Isn't great. Like the seats, are they really that comfortable? Like, I don't know. Do you? I like it. I mean, I want you to tell me, no Juan, you're, you're, you're wrong, like, or not, like, do I have a point? Do you have a point? But again, like everybody states and expectations of different things are completely opposite, maybe. So Volkswagen says that this is the most important launch since the old bill came back in like 20 in 2000. They are appealing to, obviously, here in the US, to families who need a big minivan, three-row vehicle and all that kind of thing. And then like, they're, they're going electric. So it's a first step. I mean, with a very good start because of the history of this particular vehicle. So I don't know, I mean, I always try not to criticize too much. As you were saying, others people's work because if we were managing Volkswagen, probably would be bankrupt like 50 years or 100%. I would have kept everything the way it was 50 years ago. And it would be terrible. Yeah, terrible business. It would make any business, any money. But anyway, so I'm glad that we were able to reconnect almost 20 years ago. And I hope it's not another 20 until they come up with a supersonic IV boss. No, I think, listen, I was just accelerating and the pickups actually really good for me. Minivan is amazing. And in terms of it is room in here, guys. It is very roomy, actually. I just, I mean, minivans are tough cells for men. I think in general, right? But you told me you liked the Kia carnival. The Kia carnival is amazing. It looks pretty amazing. I haven't driven it. I've only been inside of it. Oh, okay. At a car show, I have to drive it. I don't know much about it, but I get one, I'll bring you back, I'll bring one to you and we'll go again. But I think if I were to buy a minivan, this would probably be at the top of the list always. And you don't have to restore it. So exactly. Well, thank you very much for your time. And we're going to go for a little spin here, and then we're going to go and drive his old one, which is going to, for me, it's more interesting than this one completely. So enjoy this because the other one's going to be really rough. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you for listening. For more, check us out online at TotalCarScore.com. Even with prostate cancer, he's still our everyday hero. He's an airport kicker-upper. Hi, dad. Hostasauce jar opener. Thanks. And Wi-Fi resetter. Right now. And Ehrlida Apoludomide helps keep him going. Ehrlida treats prostate cancer that is spread to other parts of the body in response to testosterone lowering treatment. Ehrlida may cause serious side effects, including heart or lung disease, stroke or severe skin reactions, which can lead to death, falls, fractures, and seizure. Call your doctor right away and stop Ehrlida if you have chest pain, shortness of breath, numbness, weakness, severe rash, peeling, sores, and seizure. Avoid settings where loss of consciousness may cause serious harm. Ehrlida can cause harm to or loss of an unborn baby. Use birth control during and for three months after Ehrlida. Common side effects were joint pain, rash, feeling very tired, high blood pressure, hot flash, diarrhea, and reduced appetite or weight. Keep your everyday hero going. Ask his doctor if Ehrlida is right for him. Or tap this ad to visit Ehrlida.com. Sometimes words seem so unnecessary. Introducing Unspoken, the new diamond fashion collection you'll only find at Jared Jewelers and just in time for the holidays. Discover the brilliance of natural diamond pendants, rings, earrings, and bracelets in a range of carrot weights, expertly interwoven and white or yellow 14 karat gold. It's the perfect holiday gift where your love speaks for itself. Unspoken, the dazzling new collection exclusively at Jared. [BLANK_AUDIO]