To All The Cars I’ve Loved Before | First Cars
Christian and Doug explore automotive nostalgia & personal car memories on our podcast— featuring true automotive stories and childhood car memories from everyday enthusiasts.
To All the Cars I’ve Loved Before shines a light on everyday enthusiasts, from father‑daughter/father-son duos and automotive brand launch managers to the restoration students and expert-level instructors at McPherson and Weber State Colleges. Real stories, real people, real passion—thats why our car podcast stands out from others.
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To All The Cars I’ve Loved Before | First Cars
From Rust-Proof Roots to Global Vehicle Protection | Tom Wolfe’s Ziebart Story
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How do you shield your ride from relentless rust, road salt, and UV damage? Tom Wolfe—Mopar enthusiast and President & CEO of Ziebart International—explains how a small 1959 Detroit startup became a worldwide leader in vehicle protection. Hear why Wolfe compares corrosion to “termites that never stop,” how Diamond Gloss® and Ceramic Z Gloss™ coatings outclass traditional wax, and why paint‑protection film and window tint matter even on brand‑new cars.
Tom’s automotive journey spans a $500 Dodge Coronet road‑trip, a 1978 Little Red Express converted to run on E85, and a family legacy deep in Chrysler’s history. He also shares Ziebart’s veteran‑focused franchise program and partnership with Mission 22 supporting mental‑health services. Whether you drive coastal highways or snowy streets, learn the science—and passion—behind modern rust proofing and ceramic coatings that keep cars looking showroom‑fresh for decades. Dive in now, then explore services at ziebart.com and give your vehicle the long‑term protection it deserves.
Curious about protecting your vehicles from environmental damage? Visit https://ziebart.com to explore their services and find a location near you. Your car's long-term health might depend on it.
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Welcome back to All the Cars I've Loved Before, your authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia, where our guests are unique, each auto has an era and every car tells a story. So you know that's right. You know what time it is, it's time to plug in, get a little grease under the fingernails or toenails, depending on how you fix your car and slip on that favorite car theme t-shirt, hat or jacket. Speaking of my co-host, good afternoon from the mid-Atlantic, the East Coast. What is the shirt du jour?
Doug:The shirt du jour, and somewhat in honor of our Chrysler fan guest, that we will introduce is can you see it? Dodge Viper.
Christian:Oh, I see Fantastic. Look at that.
Doug:Yeah, yeah, Really really awesome car, and wasn't?
Christian:now, bob Lutz wasn't that kind of his, either his brainchild or one of the projects that he really championed from the get-go, but yeah, you know. By the way, I tried to get him on the show For repeat listeners. If you like what you hear, please give us a review on carslovecom. Carslovecom, and let's see. We have reviews there. We have all kinds of. I think we have some exclusive content you can't get anywhere else. Of course, on your podcast streaming platform of choice, you'll find everything in the show notes, but there's so much more on carslovecom you want to give them the link tree. Doug, are you in a space to do that?
Doug:I am L-I-N-K-T-R dot E-E slash carsloved.
Christian:Yeah, that's our digital switchboard and between the website and there, that's our social media presence, as you can see everything we're up to. Also on carslovecom I believe it's carslovecom slash photos you can see the carousel where people send us in pictures of their cars, their folks' cars, their kids' cars, car spotting cars you see around town. It's really a lot of fun and I called it up here and I just got to tell you, partner, you did a great job. This looks really good. It's a lot of fun. I see Aiden's Beetle, john's Mazda and just great work. This is a lot of fun. So our viewers are really getting into it. Speedy Cop, we've got some photos from him really getting into it. So send us what you have and we will get it up there. All you have to do is email us Christian at CarsLovecom, doug at CarsLovecom, or Inf. Carslovecom, or info the infamous info at carslovecom. So send them in.
Christian:And the last item I have here before we move to today's guest is last night we had such an interesting show, a lot of food for thought, and it was a gentleman who's a very interesting fellow in his own right, but his father is the fellow who invented the intermittent windshield wiper switch and that was just really a lot of fun. And that's what this show does. We hear it time and time again. We bring people together, we make new friends, teach others. We're always learning. So again, reach out Christian at CarsLovecom, doug at CarsLovecom. Always more to learn, more wonderful people to meet. But be that as it may, it's time to pivot and ask the world-famous Segway, the Prompteer, doug, how did today's guest land in your virtual garage, yeah.
Doug:So as the show has gained some matured and gotten interest, we've found wonderful people through public relations really looking to get their stories out, share information about themselves, their background, their companies. And, you know, one of the things I'm excited about is the gentleman tonight who I'll let him introduce himself in a moment. He also grew up in Detroit, just like Tim Kearns and the Kearns family, when they, Dr Kearns, invented the intermittent windshield wiper. So we're really starting to get that Detroit connection on the show. So I'd love to call that out.
Christian:We are a show about cars, so there is that, it seems fitting. Tom, welcome to the show. How are you this afternoon?
Tom Wolfe:I'm doing good, christian, and thank you for having me on the show tonight.
Christian:Well, thank you. Thank you, it's a pleasure. So tell us a little bit about what you do and it could be professionally, personally any projects you have going on. If you've got grease on your fingernails, just tell us what you've been up to in the garage. Where do we start? I know you're busy.
Tom Wolfe:First off, I'm president and CEO of Zubart International Corporation, an original Detroit company started in 1959, so 65 plus years in the metro Detroit area, protecting vehicles, taking care of vehicles, making them look good A lot of stuff that we do window tint, paint protection film, ceramic coatings and, of course, you know from back in the day that everybody our age knows, of course, rust proofing, and that's where we got our start in the 50s, from a gentleman named Kurt Zbart, and that's you know. That's where we're at today. We still rust proof cars, we still protect them, but we've expanded our portfolio to a lot of other services that we do for vehicles Fantastic and I read somewhere that, oh, go ahead, you weren't.
Tom Wolfe:Oh, I was just going to say, you know, personally I'm working on building a house but I'm always, you know, kind of tinkering out in the garage. I've got a 78 Dodge little red express truck, so I'm always out there, out there doing something or thinking about something that I want to change, you know, on the vehicle.
Christian:So so, right on Love it. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I read somewhere that, uh, in the fifties, when Mr Z Bart was starting, they first thought it was a hoax, because, at rest, proofing, how does it? Uh, what, what is this? What are you talking about? But then they saw, uh, they became convinced of its integrity and saw word of mouth that allowed the product to spread. Very important, because then what happened? Well, you got to learn that you got to. Everybody thought you got to salt roads in the winter and that just destroys destroys the undercarriage of a car. Now where I live in Florida not that big of a deal, but where Doug lives Mid-Atlantic Indiana, obviously the Northeast more and more of a problem. So talk for a bit of how rust is so insidious. Why must that be kept at bay?
Tom Wolfe:Well, I mean, it basically destroys the asset that you purchased Back in the day when Mr Zbar was working on vehicles. He came from Germany so he's got kind of a Germany, has kind of a chemist background and he was also. He came from German so he's got kind of a German, he has kind of a chemist background and he was also a master mechanic. So as he's repairing cars in Detroit he's seeing all of this rust damage as he's repairing body panels and going through the vehicles. So that got him thinking and got him into developing a product and patented tools to protect vehicles from rust.
Tom Wolfe:That enemy like a termite, it never stops, it's always there and eating. And granted, manufacturers today have come a long way, have done a lot better job in protecting those vehicles than they did in the 1950s with their e-coatings and their paint technologies and things like that. But if you're observant enough and you look out on the road, you will still see vehicles out there rusting. And I know, christian, you said you're in Florida and it's not very prevalent in Florida. But you know there's a lot of countries where we deal in the Middle East and you know those oceanside communities have that that salt air that can affect vehicles as well. So we're, we're still out there, you know, protecting, like I said, in the middle Middle East and some of those you know, you know smaller countries maybe in the Caribbean or you know, out in the Pacific. So we're, we're still, we're still relevant, we're still protecting vehicles and, as I said before, we've expanded that portfolio quite a bit from those early days.
Christian:Yeah, and you mentioned you're worldwide, and that's something that I didn't realize until I started looking into this. Is that a recent expansion or has that been going on for decades.
Tom Wolfe:No, actually we sold our first master franchise to our friends up north in Canada in the early 60s. Oh, if I remember correctly, the Philippines in the early 60s. If I remember correctly, the Philippines in the early 70s, Saudi Arabia in the mid-70s. So we still have a lot of international partners out there that are master franchisees, flying the ZBART flag.
Christian:Yeah, that's great, and I will tell you, it's so true. A good point you make about the salt there. You know, anytime you go to the beach anytime and I don't live far from the water here. There is just this gunk in the air that gets over. You know, paint chips, all that stuff is undefeated.
Christian:Okay, because once that starts to eat at your car I love the way you put that it's termites, because it never stops. It never stops. It's. You know it's. Everything tends towards entropy and chaos. Everything breaks down. You got to protect it, you got to protect it. You got to protect it. So talk a little bit about the coatings, which I thought was really interesting in doing the research for your company. You have proprietary coatings, you have films that you can put over top things. I mean it's really impressive. It's a full portfolio of how to protect.
Tom Wolfe:Yeah, absolutely. We've got our original paint coating, which we call Diamond Gloss, which is like a predecessor to the ceramic coatings that are out there now. It's a resin-based formula, so it's leaps and bounds above the old waxes that we used to apply. That's good for a year. We offer a warranty on it and a number of years ago we came out with our Ceramic Z Gloss, which is a ceramic paint coating. It's actually three, three layers. You know that's the process that we've have and developed. So it's got three layers on it just from the the start. So if people are kind of shopping z-bart against the competition, just know that you're getting three layers from us.
Tom Wolfe:And then, if you move into the films aspect which you had mentioned, we've got paint protection film which you know you talked about. You know the stone chips and the rocks and things like that. It's a six mil film. It protects the front end of the vehicle, those abrasion areas. Some people actually wrap their entire vehicles in it.
Tom Wolfe:There's a story from the middle east where there was an individual driving across the the desert and you know they wrapped their vehicle just for the so it wouldn't be sandblasted for for the trip. So that's, you know, some of the protection that we've got there. Then, of course, we've got you know, you know, on the film side. We've got all of our window tint, we've got our, our metalized films, we've got our ceramic films. You know, they protect, you know, not only do they look cool, but there's a protection feature to those as well, where it's protecting the contents. And what are we as drivers? We're contents of the vehicle, so it's protecting us from those UV rays and the harmful sun rays that all come in and fade interiors, burn us and do all those kinds of things. So we've got the film to protect people and the contents of the vehicles.
Christian:Yeah, I love that. I love that. And one thing that I read somewhere is that all right, well, it would make sense if you have something old that you want to stop the decay on All right Z-Bar. It makes a lot of sense there. But from the word, as soon as you get your car, it needs to be protected, because the moment you drive it off the lot it starts to deteriorate. So this is not only a solution for cars that have been out in the world and starting to look their age. How much of your business is preventative, would you say, on either a fleet vehicle or a personal vehicle. Is it sort of half and half new and old, or mostly new? Do people understand that they have to protect this asset from the word go?
Tom Wolfe:The majority of the business is new and that's the best time to bring that vehicle in because we have warranties for a lot of our products. But we do see classic vehicles coming into our stores and you know we'll hear about it. My daughter actually works at one of our stores as a salesperson and you know we'll hear about it. My daughter actually works at one of our stores as a salesperson and she'll always, you know, text me a picture of a classic vehicle that comes in, because she knows I like seeing them. So there's still that element of classic vehicles coming in, where people are purchasing them and getting them protected, you know from you know, the rust proofing side or maybe some film to protect, you know the paint chips and things of that nature. So yeah, it's majority new vehicles, but we're seeing, like, as you mentioned, fleet vehicles. You know municipalities are protecting their vehicles to keep them on the road as long as possible. So it's really cool when I see a little bit of everything coming through the stores.
Christian:Yeah, that's great. That's great Good stuff, Good information, and we had a gentleman on the show, Doug. I think it was a few months back this fellow Matt. Now is he in Delaware.
Doug:He owns a paint shop. Well, he owns a body shop. Right, he's in Maryland, but close to Pennsylvania. Okay, okay, Top coat garage. Sorry to interrupt.
Christian:Top coat, that's it. No, you nailed it. Yeah, that's it. Thank you for the prompt. You're welcome. Top coat, that's it. No, you nailed it. Yeah, that's it. Thank you for the prompt. So he talked about we really got into talking about paint, the sophistication of the paint, chemistry, what goes into a good paint job and it really we all know that painting a car these days is a very expensive thing, so you really have to look at it as an investment. Well, once you paint the car, you have to immediately protect it Right. And so Matt was really, really educated us on that process of what did he call it Prismatic paint jobs and then the the flex of either ceramic or metal or whatever. Yeah, you pay 10, 15, 20 thousand dollars on a paint job. You're going to want to protect that.
Tom Wolfe:Right, even even paint jobs from the OEMs are quite dynamic, because there's certain vehicles that have very soft paints and other manufacturers have harder paints and we see a lot of differences in those paints when we're doing paint restoration, where you're polishing the paints and things of that nature. So you know some of the imports that come in. You know the higher ends. They tend to have a little bit harder paint. But there's a broad spectrum of what's out there and you have to understand what you're working with.
Christian:Yeah, that's a really good point. I visited the. My sons and I toured the Hyundai plant. Hyundai plant, yeah, in Montgomery, alabama, to make all the Santa Fe's, tucson's and Elantra's, I believe. 17 hours to make a car, or something like that. Soup to nuts, and about nine of it is the car sitting in the paint shop. So just to give you an idea of all these complicated moving parts, guess what First thing people are going to see is that paint job. So, yeah, interesting stuff. I know Doug wants to hop in there and bring us in the way back, but just one more mention.
Tom Wolfe:when you think of Z-Bar, I was going to say I got a quick story on paint jobs. I owned a 71 Dodge at one point in time and it was an original paint survivor car.
Doug:And I was talking to somebody.
Tom Wolfe:I was talking about the paint job on it and I pointed out a couple of runs, and that's when they used to have painters on the line and the guy thought he's like.
Tom Wolfe:He says man, I would be, I would be mad, I'd take that car back to whoever painted your car. I'm like, well, that would be a little bit difficult because there's big runs on the sills and the rockers and it was just factory paint from the 70s. That's the way they came out of the factory and that's the way it was. It'd be a little bit difficult to get that one back to the, to the factory so interesting.
Christian:so, yeah, he was a guy that just had a bad day, had a bad day. Maybe it was the new guy, maybe he had a bad day, but it happens. Okay, variability in any manufacturing process will bring you defects, right? So, wow, great story, great tale. Now, before I hand it over to doug here and we hop in the way back, z ZBART does all kind of stuff. So we've talked here about coatings, but Tom alluded to it. All kinds of accessories Got to go to the website ZBARTcom, z-i-e-b-a-r-t dot com. We've talked about coatings. We've talked about rust protection, but interior fabric protection. We talk about rust protection, but interior fabric protection that's important too. Okay, window tint important stuff, as well as the paint protection films. So I mean, it's really a full portfolio of stuff. Make your car look good, completed. Yeah, you were going to say something.
Tom Wolfe:Tom, yeah, we've got everything One-stop shop. We've got accessories for the truck guys we can get those. The soccer mom that comes in that's been hauling around four, six, eight kids. We can detail that vehicle inside and out. We've got proprietary products that we can clean vehicles, make them look good, and the majority of our products and all of the proprietary products are made in the. United States, our products and all of the proprietary products are made in the United States.
Christian:Oh, I love that. I love that. Okay, so again, America in the world. Z-i-e-b-a-r-tcom Got to check it out. It's a really nicely laid out website. You get to a ton of information very quickly. They have a find my ZBART widget here off to the side. You plop in your zip code. You see where the closest one in is. Go visit, See what they can do for you. Doug, I'm going to hand it over. Partner. What do you think? Are we ready to go back in time to see what Tom owned and what do you think?
Doug:We are. But I know in our pre-show we talked about Tom being a Chrysler guy and that really goes back to your roots, Tom, because you actually worked at Chrysler as well and I was hoping you could share a little bit about that. And, if you don't mind, if we're good with time, I'd love to hear a little bit about your. Father was CEO of ZBART before. Zbart has been a family owned, employee owned business for quite some time as well, as I don't know if a majority of ZBART stores or all of them are franchises, as you alluded to.
Tom Wolfe:Yeah, so, wow, there's just so much to unpack there. So if we go way back, my grandfather worked for Chrysler from like the early 40s to the early 70s and that's kind of where I got my, my Chrysler Mopar roots, if you, if you will, and then you know my, my uncle, was a plant manager. And then we mentioned Bob Lutz earlier.
Tom Wolfe:Actually, my, my stepmom, was Bob Lutz's admin for a number of years no way Yep, so neat Yep, both in Highland Park and then when they moved to Auburn Hills. So it was kind of my hero company where I wanted to work for them. And you know, I got my chance in the mid-90s I started at Chrysler Financial and then moved over to Motors. I was always on the finance side for my stint at Chrysler Financial and then moved over to Motors. I was always on the finance side for my stint at Chrysler. So I started in IT finance so I supported their IT department with their finance. But then the back half of my career at Chrysler was in product development finance. I was an area finance manager. So for me that was really cool, kind of I call myself, you know, a closet engineer with finance tendencies.
Tom Wolfe:So engineers didn't really like me when I'd call them out on some of their costs and things like that, because being a car guy I kind of knew how much stuff would cost. Yes, but the cool part about that was is, you know, I got to, you know, work with the engineers. I made friends in the, in the dyno room, and I get to take home cars once in a while and I give evals to the, to the engineers, so they kind of see what maybe a regular person might be thinking about. You know, on a product, because sometimes, as you know, if you're too close to the product you can overlook some things and things of that nature. So they give it to a lot of different people to try those vehicles out so they could get different perspectives. So that's kind of my high level.
Tom Wolfe:You know Chrysler story, if you will. I know, doug or Christian, you'd mentioned talking about Z-Bart a little bit. So I've had actually a couple of stints at ZBART. I had worked there, worked here, you know, when I was finished up high school and I was going to a community school working on my degrees. You know we had a manufacturing plant at that time and I'd run the mail back and forth between the two facilities and took a break off to finish up my degree and then came back and worked at ZBART for another few years before I left for Chrysler. But you had mentioned my dad had worked here as well. So my dad had worked here since the late 70s and then in the early 90s he facilitated what's called an ESOP program, an employee stock ownership program, and that's been in place just over 30 years now.
Tom Wolfe:So he's taken a step back the last couple of years. He just celebrated a birthday and he keeps telling me he's like when you don't want me to come in, just let me know. But he's always a part of ZBART, he's always welcome to come in. And I told him hey, if you're one day and you want to come in and balance your checkbook and take a nap in your office, you know come on in and do that. You know I just want him to get out of the house and stay as active as possible. But for the last couple of years, you know I've been in charge. I've got a great team that supports me and the decision making and the direction of the company. So you know it's not just me, it's the entire team that is growing the company at this point in time.
Christian:Good job. Thank you for sharing that.
Doug:Good stuff. That's a nice legacy. I love the family connections. Like you can't beat it.
Tom Wolfe:Yeah, and he's around, he's like kind of a, you know he's a resource if we need it. Yeah, and he's. You know he's around, he's like kind of a, you know he's a resource if we, if we need it. You know he's a historian, so he's got a lot of knowledge that that we'll use from time to time, you know, and I'll bounce ideas off of them, you know, kind of behind the scenes and things of that nature. But, yeah, great resource and and of course, he's very proud of you, of course, and your daughter's involved and I love him as well.
Doug:Yes, Yep, yep, absolutely Love those stories. Yeah, so we detoured, but Christian wanted me to pop you in my DeLorean and take you back to your first car. And no surprise to our listeners, it was a Chrysler product. Can you tell us about it?
Tom Wolfe:Yeah, it was a 1970 Dodge Monaco station wagon, nine passenger station wagon and as far as station wagons go it was probably top of the line in terms of options that it had on it. It had the auto temp air conditioning options that it had on it. It had, you know, the auto temp air conditioning, cruise control, rim blow, am, fm, you know with the thumb, you know the thumb wheel dials, power windows had power, six-way seat. It had what's called the dual package on it, so it had dual snorkel air cleaner, had dual exhaust from the factory. So it was a pretty loaded car, had a sure grip, you name it, it had it on it, you know. So the only bummer part was it had about 140,000 miles on it. When I got it and you know it was a great car, I loved it, you know my friend.
Christian:Wait, it had 140 on it when you got it.
Tom Wolfe:Yeah.
Christian:Wow Battle, wagon Right on Okay.
Tom Wolfe:Yeah for sure. So that's kind of what you know. It was like kind of like I said, you know, chrysler is my hero company. I wanted to work for them, you know. And that was kind of the start where I started reading everything that I could find. You know, car craft, hot rod, everything about you know hopping up cars and engines and camshafts and and all that stuff. And then it's just progressed over the years and camshafts and and all that stuff, and then it's just progressed over the years.
Doug:Yeah, and your, your grandfather, helped you buy it. Um, where did you find it, if you, if you recall? Actually, actually it was it was.
Tom Wolfe:It was his car and I bought it. I bought it from from him and he had you know being that he worked from chrysler. He got it off the executive lot at the time and that's probably why it was so loaded with every option that you could get on it, because it was probably some executive car at some point in time, right, right.
Doug:And so that was your high school car. You could fit. I know you said it's a nine seater, but you probably put a few more than that in there, Tom. Yeah, a couple more in there than that. And uh, we, we like to ask about, um, a favorite song that might come to mind, and uh, you know, a car with 140,000 miles, especially with all those options. I don't did the radio work in that car.
Tom Wolfe:It. It did, but not not too well and I know we had talked a little bit before we came on and a lot of the vehicles that I had, if the radio did work, it was AM and in the Detroit area here it was like honey radio. But then a lot of the cars the radio didn't work and one of my other cars actually from the factory was a radio delete car and I had driven that daily for a number of years. So I can't say that there's one song that sticks with me because I was more into that, the hot rodding scene than the music scene. Yeah, so you know that's what I was about.
Doug:Just you know, cars, engine and smelling gasoline yep, you had the windows down and your, your soundtrack was your engine, the engine pretty notes.
Christian:Yeah yeah, my favorite band is the exhaust notes. I thought it was.
Doug:Drive Shaft.
Christian:There you go.
Doug:Yeah, so, and you're what happened to that car.
Tom Wolfe:I was convinced to sell it, unfortunately. So I had sold it to some guys that I know and ended up, you know, taking it apart for the engine and junked the body. And then you know the parts went wherever they they went at that point in time they, they lived on, and that car lent itself to your next car, which was also.
Doug:It was also a.
Tom Wolfe:Dodge yes, tell us about it. Yep, um, the one that I think I, the one that we're talking about it was a 67 Dodge Coronet, yes, white. We actually found it in Florida and it was about 1986. And we left a note on the windshield of the vehicle asking if they were interested in selling it. So my dad, my brother and myself were down there on vacation visiting our grandparents and we got a call that they wanted to sell it. So my dad, my brother and myself were down there on vacation visiting our grandparents and we got a call that they wanted to sell it. So we traded in our airline tickets and paid 500 bucks for the car and drove it home Wow.
Doug:Wow, that had to be a fun road trip and the car made it, it made it, it was no problem.
Tom Wolfe:I don't remember how many miles were on it, but it made it. It was a 318 and no problem. I don't remember how many miles were on it, but it made it. You know it was a 318, and those engines seemed to live on forever and I think we got 20, 21 miles to the gallon with it. You know, coming back Back then the speeds were 55, so you'd push it to 62 or something like that. You know, coming north.
Doug:Yeah, no, family road trip. And for the listeners right, that evolved into the.
Tom Wolfe:You know the Coronet RTs and the Super Bs, they're all based off that same B body. So you know, in a Coronet B body you could get you know, depending upon the model, anything from a slant six all the way up to the mighty 426 Hemi.
Doug:Wow, yeah, and so I have to ask do you still own that car? Wow, yeah, and so I have to ask do you still own that car?
Tom Wolfe:I do not own that car. Unfortunately. I cut it up for for parts and I still have parts, you know, not not any big parts, but you know I got bolt buckets with. You know bolts in there from that car and I run across them from time to time.
Doug:Nice, nice. Well, there, you mentioned it earlier, you have a 1978 dodge little red express truck and maybe some of those parts actually work and maybe the bolts the right size. Have you had any crossovers?
Tom Wolfe:no crossover on on that one. That one is, uh, it's a fairly low mileage vehicle 80 000 miles. But you know, I pulled the the engine out of it and rebuilt an engine. I did an E85 engine, so it runs completely off of, you know, e85 these days.
Doug:Wow, that's awesome, and you did a lot of the work yourself. It sounds like.
Tom Wolfe:I did all of the engine work myself. You know I didn't machine it, took it to a machine shop, but I gave them all the specifications that were. I wanted the bores.
Doug:Oh, wow.
Tom Wolfe:Yeah, and all of that good stuff.
Doug:So wow, I mean, I'm in awe and I don't know if you've heard of McPherson College in McPherson, kansas. I have not. Some people call it McPherson, so they are the only, and I mentioned it because we interviewed a instructor and student from there. But they are the only automotive restoration college four-year program in the united states and they got a lot of um acclaim in the news because a couple years ago they read, they came in second place in pebble beach with a what was it?
Christian:a 1955 mercedes I think it was a 53 benz.
Doug:Yeah, gorgeous gorgeous and I, I, so I mentioned that for our listeners, but also, uh, my interest. So I want to learn to rebuild engines, and so they have for 25 and over crowd. They have summer camp, effectively, and they offer different things including, um, wood, um, I guess I'll say wood repair for those classical cars.
Christian:The body was wood on cars the 100 years of that. He sort of invented these very old cars in the store.
Doug:Yeah, for frames. Yep, absolutely, and I'm going to take an engine rebuilding class, hopefully next summer, for a week, that's pretty cool.
Tom Wolfe:A lot of details you got to look at.
Doug:Yep, yep, I want to be like you, so we'll. We'll get there, just need it. I need a beater to start with. I actually have a couple of them, but they're too complicated for me to mess with. So, yeah, so we, we talked about the, we talked about the little red express, but you're tell us about your daily driver, which I think is also a Chrysler product.
Tom Wolfe:It is. My daily driver is just a Ram Cummins 2500. Just a nice truck. I do a little bit of towing here and there, so it gets the job done and it gets uh, it gets great mileage, so I'm a big proponent for diesels.
Doug:Yeah and uh. I read something interesting in the news I think it was on a Jalopnik, which is a popular online car magazine, that people are buying old diesel trucks because they feel they're apocalyptic proof. They're not subject to emissions especially I, I learned in christian state of florida there are no emissions on any car, no emissions testing at all. This is florida, man, we don't do rules, yeah. But uh, yeah, the diesels are just so sought after. They, they're so well built, they're so well engineered. I mean, they're just amazing engines.
Tom Wolfe:Yeah, especially the old ones, because they're not saddled with all of those emission controls, they're not out rolling coal, which a lot of guys like to do. You know, they get the job done, they make a lot of power, they're great for towing, their longevity is great. They get great mileage. You know, I I'm curious to what my truck would get if I didn't have all those emissions on it, because right now running around town, I'm getting 20 miles to the gallon with my, my truck, and then as soon as I see the dpf comes, come on, I lose about two miles per gallon.
Tom Wolfe:So I've always questioned you got to burn more fuel to make it run cleaner. But I am getting worse gas mileage or worse fuel mileage.
Doug:Right and go into the pump more. Yeah, exactly.
Christian:Everything in life is a trade-off. Gentlemen, everything in life is a trade-off. So, as we guide the podcast gently to the off ramp here, tom um you, you wanted to share something, a cause that's important to you, something called mission 22. Can you take just a minute or two to talk to us about what it is, what it does and why that means so much to you?
Tom Wolfe:well, I think it's actually bigger than the the mission 22 cause. We as a franchisor, have made the decision for veterans and people who serve, whether it's, you know, firemen, you know, you know, police officers, etc. You know, we we value what they've done for us as individuals. We value what they've done for countries. So we don't charge a franchise fee for those individuals when they come to ZBART and if they're interested in starting a ZBART. So that's one of the things that we do for veterans.
Tom Wolfe:The other thing that we do in the last couple of years is we partnered with Mission 22 to help them with their cause. They're a nonprofit and Mission 22 focuses, you know, focuses on, you know, veterans' mental health, their wellness, community support and helping, you know, veteran families deal with everything that those veterans have had to deal with, you know, whether they served overseas or not to help them with just some of those you know life activities that might be challenging or whatever challenges that they might have on a daily basis. So we've partnered with them the last couple of years to help them out with their cause.
Christian:Wonderful, thank you. That is beautiful. Thank you for supporting that mission. And yeah, one footnote, doug, we're going to do something I'm inventing on the fly called a digital footnote, a digital footnote On the way out here.
Christian:Tom mentioned something in the pre-show and I looked it up while we were doing the program. In the program there is a old commercial. Tom said early mid-70s I think that's right. There's a YouTube video, a Z-Bart commercial with Rod Serling. The Twilight Zone fella, tom's right. They cut a car in half and then Rod Serling starts talking about look at all the nooks and crannies. You need a product like ZBART to get way up in there. So do yourself a favor and maybe we can throw this in the show notes. We can link to it directly Rod Serling, rod S-E-R-L-I-N-G and then ZBART, z-i-e-b-a-r-t. Just type in Rod Serling, zbart and it will put a smile on your face because it's so outrageous. And on that note I got to say Tom, it was wonderful having you. Thank you for making some space for us in your schedule and it was a delight to have you on.
Tom Wolfe:Christian and Doug, thank you for having me and making this so easy to get through this. I appreciate it and I love talking about cars. You know my cars and just hearing everybody's stories about you know what invokes. You know their, their, their passion and votes. You know that those feelings that cars bring.
Christian:You got it Well. Thank you again. It was a pleasure and you are welcome here anytime.
Tom Wolfe:You had just heard.
Christian:you bet You've just heard the high revving, low mileage, late. Thank you guys. You had just heard. You bet you've just heard the high-revving, low-mileage, late-modeled herd around the world. Authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia. He's Doug. Reach him at Doug at CarsLovecom. I'm Christian. Reach me at Christian at CarsLovecom. He was Tom at ZBART. If you like what you heard, please follow and tell a friend. It helps us grow and meet wonderful people like tom.
Doug:try out cars lovecom, especially the car ocell in our link tree at l-i-n-k-t-re-e slash cars loved our digital switchboard I'm sure we'll see you at the next local car show show.
Christian:We appreciate you taking a lap with us. We will see you next time.
