To All The Cars I've Loved Before: Your First Car Tells The Story
Remember your first car? That freedom with the windows down, your favorite song playing, and your best friends laughing in the backseat? Every car tells a story—and those automotive stories reveal who we really are.
Welcome to our podcast, To All The Cars I've Loved Before, where we celebrate automotive nostalgia through personal car stories from everyday car enthusiasts, father-son restoration teams, father-daughter automotive adventurers, and families passing down car culture across generations. From first car stories and forgotten beaters to vintage car dreams and car restoration projects, we explore automotive memories through the vehicles that shaped our lives.
What Makes Us Different: We hold nothing back except politics, new car reviews, and focusing only on celebrities. This isn't another industry podcast—it's about automotive history told through YOUR experiences. Whether it's your first ride, learning to drive, or the car that changed everything, we share your automotive stories with classic car collectors, restoration junkies, and everyday drivers. Because automotive stories are life stories.
What You’ll Hear: Real people sharing real automotive memories—from father-daughter DeLorean projects to first-generation immigrants learning American car culture through a beat-up sedan. We feature car enthusiasts who’ve restored classic cars, students training in car restoration, and anyone with a first car story worth telling. Every episode proves your automotive history is your personal history.
Your Hosts: Doug and Christian—two friends who believe the best automotive stories come from everyday people, not just collectors and experts. We’ve loved everything from project cars to dream machines, and we know that vintage car memories and personal car stories connect us all.
Perfect for: Road trips, commutes, or anyone who still remembers that feeling of freedom—windows down, music up, going nowhere in particular but loving every minute.
Every Tuesday is #TorqueTuesday with new brand episodes..
Check out our website https://carsloved.com and listen to us on your favorite podcast platform or https://buzzsprout.com/2316026/episodes
To All The Cars I've Loved Before: Your First Car Tells The Story
Why I Drove Mercedes Diesels for Decades—Then Switched to Tesla
Click here to share your favorite car, car story or any automotive trivia!
Croom's first "car" was a Ford 1000 Tractor. His second was a 1984 Mercedes 240D diesel that he drove into the ground—and kept driving.
Most people see a Mercedes diesel from the '80s as just another old car. Croom saw it as a philosophy: build something right once, maintain it properly, and it'll outlast everything around it. That same thinking would eventually guide him from farm life to the cutting edge of healthcare AI.
The million-mile Mercedes isn't just about durability—it's about the mindset that comes from trusting something enough to keep investing in it long after others would have quit.
In this episode, Croom shares:
- What driving a farm tractor first teaches you about vehicles (it's not what you think)
- Why he chose a Mercedes 240D when he could have bought something newer
- The actual cost of maintaining a "million-mile" diesel vs. buying new cars every few years
- How diesel engine philosophy translates to healthcare AI development
- The specific moment he realized the car had taught him more than transportation
- What farm life and healthcare technology have in common (this is fascinating)
There's one story about the Mercedes breaking down at the worst possible moment that Croom says changed how he thinks about reliability itself. You'll want to hear what happened next.
Related episodes:
https://buzzsprout.com/2316026/episodes/15009054-what-was-it-like-growing-up-delorean-kat-s-personal-automotive-legacy-and-life-lessons
🔗 Connect: https://carsloved.com
*** Your Favorite Automotive Podcast - Now Arriving Weekly!!! ***
Listen on your favorite platform and visit https://carsloved.com for full episodes, our automotive blog, Guest Road Trip Playlist and our new CAR-ousel of Memories photo archive.
Don't Forget to Rate & Review to keep the engines of automotive storytelling—and personal restoration—running strong.
Welcome back listener land you have found or re-found, whichever it is, to all the cars I've loved before your authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia, where every car tells a story, every car has a culture. It is time to plug in, dust off and get a little grease under the nails. And you know, if you have one of those error code readers that you can just kind of stick in the port, that's always kind of wonderful. I wish we had that for humans. You know where you could just kind of stick in your ear this device that said hey code 1234.
Speaker 1:Yeah, strep throat and is an idiot.
Speaker 3:Anyway, welcome.
Speaker 1:Well, AI is going to help us.
Speaker 3:We're getting there. You know we're getting there. I'm jumping ahead, so just hang in there. I can't help it.
Speaker 1:Could be tomorrow. That's a wonderful lead-in to today's guest. You're welcome. Before we cue him in here, I want to welcome, whether you have found us or re-found us, refund, re-found we have Refund, refound, we have listeners, let's see. So we're growing.
Speaker 1:Doug got good news. We are growing in Japan, france, ukraine and Australia. If you can believe that we seem to be stuck in Germany, this is over the past five weeks. Look at it Downloads only. So I don't know what is going on over there in Germany. I am sure they're not preoccupied with Oktoberfest. It's the wrong time of year, but we need y'all to shift into gear. Welcome back to everyone Japan, france, ukraine, australia. Welcome Germany. Welcome back to you, let's pick it up. So new listeners glad to have you. And, as we say at the top of the show here, it's time to get a little grease under the nails and slip on the favorite car-themed shirt Before we pivot to Doug, who always has something interesting to share with his automotive-themed wardrobe I'm wearing.
Speaker 1:My team did not play in the Super Bowl last night. If you're an Eagles fan, congratulations. If you're not, hey, the 31 other teams crying in their beer, it's okay. So if you were an Eagles fan, congratulations. And my team, the Saints. You know, we just kind of went to a couple of games this season. Superdome had a great time, super Bowl was in New Orleans and just hope your team is going to do better next year than this year. Again, 31 others. I'm wondering what went wrong, all right? Oh, so your shirt. Let's see what you got. What you got, all right.
Speaker 3:What are you wearing, let's see who are we shouting out and giving some love to.
Speaker 3:Today we're giving a shout out to Rich Rebuilds. Rich is located up in Massachusetts. His YouTube channel is doubt amazing Rich Rebuilds. He was definitely the first I don't know if he was the only one. He took a destroyed Tesla Model S and put a Chevy V8 in it, so he took a car that was designed only as an electric car and turned it into an internal combustion engine car. Man, that's clever, Very clever. He does some amazing builds. Love the guy. Hope to have him on the podcast soon.
Speaker 1:So are you in? Have you spoken with him or conversed with him?
Speaker 3:We have not caught up yet yet, but there's an email coming his way.
Speaker 1:He's super busy, so I hear you yeah, ebay is wild because you can go on on ebay and find these high-end sports cars and they'll show you one picture and you'll say, why does he want four grand for this exotic, amazing car? And you get picture from the other angle and you know a quarter panel is missing and it's. You know it was rolled like it was a spare car on the Dukes of Hazzard and but I mean you can have these for a song, you really can.
Speaker 3:They're salvage lots.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, absolutely People know what they're doing.
Speaker 3:It's a challenge for them, right and then they get viewers right yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think that's great. And another word on all the presences on YouTube the people that we've had on this little podcast that could who have we had that? Had great YouTube shows, youtube channel, youtube show Nicole Johnson, right Speedy Cop, hh Wheels. We've had so many wonderful people who've been gracious with their time that just had these knockout shows on YouTube. Production values like you'd see on TV, if not better. So check them out. Oh, and you can get the full list on our website. The next thing I wanted to talk about we have a completely revamped website. All props to the technical guru, mr Doug. I can't believe how good it looks. It's leaps beyond and where it was. So. Good job, partner, congrats. And you can see a bunch of photos of cars. You can see our full episode list so you don't have to scroll through. I thought that was so clever, the way you made that work, as well as the intake form. What else is on there? It just really looks.
Speaker 3:We have a blog, which we always have, but now it looks much better. We have a reviews page that auto-scrolls, and let's see what other thing. We have an events page, so that might be an event you're going to. It could be a car event, it could be. If you look at tonight, you'll see that we're recording with our guest. There's more info on there. We'll do an introduction to him in a few.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I like the way that you've done that. And let's see, I wanted to mention something else. It was in my head and flew right out when you called on me oh, now we don't have reviews on the website, for that you have to go to the specific we are. Oh, no, we do, we do. Now, he didn't do the API to kind of port them back and forth, but they're just kind of.
Speaker 3:It's a manual dug process at the moment.
Speaker 1:Well, we love that. That's what built the internet the manual dug process. Speaking of reviews Speaking of. Over to you, Parker. Can I share one? Yes?
Speaker 3:This is from Apple Podcasts from January 24th oh recently, so not too long ago of this year and it's by TR Holloway Jr. Title super cool Five stars. Thank you, love the five stars. And it says this podcast is a must listen for any car enthusiast. The host's passion for car shines through every episode with detailed discussions, fascinating stories and expert advice. Thank you.
Speaker 1:I like that. Thank you, mr T T Holloway, jr, 2007, or whatever it was. That's great, but this is not only for automotive enthusiasts. That's a great review, thank you. This is for anyone, you know, this is for anyone who wants to be on the show, who has a love for cars or simply a story to tell.
Speaker 3:And yeah, yeah, so we appreciate the speaking of which another youtuber and big podcaster we had uh on recently, crystal prophet. Oh yeah, you didn't think she had anything about cars to share, but man, her first couple cars were great stories and it wrangled in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the thing about. When you talk about these machines, you start to talk about family. Well, where did the first car from? It came from my dad. My dad owned a business. Tell me about the business, tell me about grandma, tell me about grandpa, and now you know everything. And when we get to the end of the shows, it's interesting how people are parents now and have their own kids. Oh, I got my. Like me, for example, I just got my kid the Mustang and he loves it.
Speaker 3:He's 11. So yeah, right on. I think there's a video of you in the Mustang introducing the new website.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that just dropped today. That just dropped today. Do we have a lot? Has that gotten a lot of traffic yet, or? Well the audio is doing great the audio is really.
Speaker 3:It's a great video we'll take it you got such a great deal on that car and that car looks brand new for a 2004 and we're on the way to a brand new for a two, yeah, and my son, yeah, and we're on the way to a super bowl party.
Speaker 1:So I got pick up my son and I said, hey, before we go to this party, we've got to do some, we got to make some content, we got to do a trailer, and so, hey, you know, it was my middle son and I chatting and talking and laughing and making some videos. So again, it was so again all about yeah. Now, before we pivot to today's guest, you saw a rare supercar, a 928, recently in a curious color and did the car look like it ran? In your humble opinion, the car was running.
Speaker 3:It was on Route 50. And I mean it looked brand new, yikes. I think the color was Moonstone, which is kind of a pinkish, purplish Maroonish.
Speaker 1:Much lighter.
Speaker 3:Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, I mean, it was probably 91, is my guess, so it was the second generation, if you will Wow.
Speaker 1:What a beautiful car car and that was near the wind down of that car. Right, they only made them to 94 96. I want to say something like that, something like that yep, was it? Was it an s4 perchance?
Speaker 3:77, 78, what's that? It wasn't an s4, was it? It didn't didn't say on the bumper gotcha.
Speaker 1:Okay, so then it wasn't Neat car.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 87 was the first year of the S4, and then they came out with GT and GTS. It was hard to tell what it was from the distance, but it looked great it was going down the road, no problem, at least for as far as you were tailgating. It looked like a little rocket ship, at least for as far as you were tailed, it looked like a little rocket ship. And, man, I wish I had taken a picture for you, because I know it's one of your favorite childhood cars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm happy because Drive and Ivan, we're going to have him on in a few weeks, at least on his YouTube channel. He owned one for quite a time, so I can't wait to talk to an owner. Looking forward to that in a few weeks. So excellent, thank you. On to. I think we've gotten, we've we're done with the prologue and we've we've gotten all the community announcements out onto today's guest. So, doug, please introduce the newest friend of the show. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we uh have a friend of the show. His name is Kroom Lawrence. I met him by way of. He was my neighbor. He still lives in the area, but not right around the corner.
Speaker 1:So he moved away from you as soon as he met you is basically what you're saying.
Speaker 3:Well, I think we kicked him out of the neighborhood. One of the two Beautiful. I've been here longer.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And yeah, Kroom turns outroon's got some great car stories. We reconnected just recently over some venture that we're going to chat with him about, where he's trying to help diagnose mild cognitive impairment in people using AI. So we're going to chat about that. But, Kroon, why don you introduce yourself? If there's anything I left out, which is probably a lot, Well, it is just so fun to be with you guys.
Speaker 2:I'm really thrilled, and it was just going down memory lane was just so fun. Thinking about all the different cars I've had over the years, from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, each with its own sort of you know, each era was a big time in my life where the car really was maybe emblematic of what I was going through or what I was trying to accomplish or what I was trying to stand for. But having grown up on a farm, you know, with Ford 1000 tractors that had this incredible energy and power in the motor, when I got to my first car, which we're going to talk about, the mercedes-benz, the 240d, that sort of rhythmic thrum of that engine has always been near and dear to my heart, and so I hope we can talk a little bit about that as well in the next couple of minutes all right.
Speaker 3:So no, go ahead, doug no no, I'm, I'm a, I'm a green I was just before.
Speaker 1:Before we start talking about the cars here. You just kind of gloss over that. You grew up on a farm and I find that so interesting. If you could a minute or two on where it was, what that was like, what did you grow? Was it successful? What were your memories of it? Did you pitch in at all?
Speaker 2:That's wonderful. What were your memories of it? Did you pitch in at all? That's wonderful, and yeah. So I grew up on a small farm out in Virginia where we had cows and pigs. Where in Virginia, where in Virginia, out in the plains, virginia, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Beautiful Horse country.
Speaker 2:Gorgeous. Granddaddy was essentially a cattle farmer and dad was a small town lawyer, so we had a. It was a little bit like the All Creatures Great and Small show on the BBC. You know where we're out, in the middle of a blizzard with sheep and they're giving birth to lambs and we're sort of covered in sort of muck trying to like help sheep, you know, give birth to their lambs. Lots of exciting moments, but a little bit different, doug, from our wonderful life in Annapolis, maryland, where we are and where we met just you know, a couple of years back. And so yeah, doug and I, you know we met in town and I've moved out a little bit closer to the Bay. It was great to reconnect, doug, especially to bring back memories of the wonderful car in your garage, and I hope we touch on that a little bit.
Speaker 3:Sure, I think it comes up often Happy to chat about it anytime.
Speaker 1:I actually had it out yesterday. He's got a couple of cars in the garage Kroom. So which one are you referring to? The one that runs, the one that doesn't? I think the silver one. Okay, all right, we'll let Doug take it from here. That would be the 1981, delorean.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's amazing.
Speaker 3:Fantastic. All right, it's a great car. It inspired this podcast thanks to Christian actually.
Speaker 2:Yay.
Speaker 3:He doesn't like to take credit, but he should All right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me, let me powder my nose here a little bit, get ready for my close up. So what's the status of the Z in the garage?
Speaker 3:too, or should we not?
Speaker 1:talk about that.
Speaker 3:Oh no, 90 Nissan 300zx when they first changed body styles mm-hmm d32, not pop-up headlights.
Speaker 3:That was the z31. Actually had a friend in high school at a z31 also and I always liked that car. I had the, as I've talked about on other podcasts. I had a 89 240s X which was kind of the poor man's version of that car. Always liked that car. Keeping the story short, that car wanting to buy the 300ZX got me partially into my field. Looking in the want ads, thinking in 1991, 92, what am I going to do for a job as a career? And hey, here's a job as a network administrator. It will pay $31,000 a year and so fast forward 30 plus years. I forgot about the car. I never bought it and one day I just went and got one and it was a impulse purchase it. It got a few times on my very narrow street in annapolis. It's about five different colors and it's in my garage and I hope.
Speaker 1:But I resurrect it amen, and that is beautiful, and you know, that's the thing about getting these items on the bucket list. At some point in your life, you got to start checking them off, and so I I think that is, um, that is commendable, that you checked it off and we're moving on. Speaking of moving on, so, kroon, would it be fair to say that your first car was a tractor, or was your first car a Benz? First car was a tractor.
Speaker 2:So I would sit on my dad's lap, he would teach me how to use it safely, and then, by probably the age of probably 10 or 11, I would. I would go out and bush hog in fields, you know, just by myself on the on the tractor, and they can be extremely dangerous, very powerful, they could turn over, they can be lethal, but um, but we still have them today. In fact we have two of them and they run beautifully. They're they were from 1965. So all these years later, these tractors start up.
Speaker 1:Wait, wait, wait, wait. You're saying the tractor that you drove as a child is still on your folks' farm. Yep, what kind of tractor.
Speaker 2:It's a 1000. It's a classic sort of blue. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I know it.
Speaker 2:You've seen them around. We have one that's called Highlight, Another one we have called yeah I air conditioning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So kind of a one-seater for you to do your thing.
Speaker 3:And was it a diesel? They're gas, they're gas.
Speaker 2:Okay, we do have a Massey Ferguson that is diesel, so you have to have a little bit of a love of the smell of diesel when you're going on a farm or something, well, a um little piece of trivia.
Speaker 3:Uh, both porsche and lamborghini started making tractors really that is great trivia story great nugget, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then there are all these legends like they were angry, what, what was? One guy went to the Ferrari dealership and was disrespected. That's not a true story.
Speaker 3:That was Maurizio Lamborghini, Lamborghini. He wasn't happy with the clutches and he was making tractors at the time. So, he got disrespected by Mr Ferrari Enzo and he's like I'll build a, I'll build a competitor now, that's not true.
Speaker 1:Is there, you have it. It is that story's apart. No, it's true. It's true, amen, let's go with it.
Speaker 2:So, speaking of diesel, crew was so taken with the early 80s. This was a 1984 2.4 line, an inline four that probably had about 250,000 miles on it, so it's probably about a quarter of what it was supposed to do. These things were supposed to go a million miles and they're famous for being, you know, incredibly slow but incredibly powerful and just a lot of momentum and a lot of steel and just you know, kind of a funny ride. You know you stomp on the gas, a huge cloud of black smoke comes out the back. You know in the wintertime you'd have to, you know, turn on the glow lights. They have little weird glow bulbs, and then it was actually the first plug-in right.
Speaker 1:So back in the day in the winter you'd plug in this thing element.
Speaker 2:So we were really ahead of our time with this. It was a plug-in diesel, that's right. Yeah, you know, we had seen them as taxi cabs.
Speaker 1:You know, in Germany they're sort of everywhere they're not a luxury car at all.
Speaker 3:So we had, we had called ours the lime limo, the lime limo.
Speaker 2:Now we know the color. That's right, it was green. I'll just say one more little tidbit, which is sort of funny and maybe gets back to my country roots a little bit, is that the green color was starting to fade, you know, you know the thing was so old, you know, and had been several hundred thousand miles. So we then had it camouflaged, and so we were like, let's just roll this thing out into the duck blind, and we'll just stand up out of the roof and, you know, blast away at the geese or something like that. Are you serious? Yeah, we literally had the thing camouflaged, you know, at its last sort of end of life stage. Anyway, there it was in the driveway, this camouflaged 240D. Anyway, the thing you couldn't kill it Indestructible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it kept going. You'll see these things on the road. Now you will. And gosh, I was going through the Craigslist one ads once the guy had one of these for sales and he said man, this is it, this is the original battle wagon. And I always thought that that was interesting because, as you say, indestructible. Just keep going and going and going.
Speaker 3:Yep. The model code is W123.
Speaker 2:Correct Known as the greatest car ever made. Yep, yep I know, you can certainly debate that, but at least back in the 80s you know, yeah, it's dominable yeah, I was.
Speaker 3:Um, I think I told you before we started. I uh or maybe it was over a text. I uh was watching a show called the car wizard on youtube that I really like and he happened to have a 240d on last night. I'm like perfect timing, so awesome, got to learn about it. And yeah, they're, they're very prized. I mean especially ones from the west coast.
Speaker 2:People will pay upwards of 30 grand or more if you've ever had one, you know there's a distinctive leather smell.
Speaker 3:That that's what they were talking about. We really do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know what it is, but it's very distinctive. Yes, I mean, you mix that with a little diesel. You might even have like a you know to go cut maybe a little light beer. You know, you might be cruising down the country roads in there. Anyway, it's a whole lifestyle.
Speaker 3:Yep, it is, it is, and everybody's got a, at least from our generation. Everybody's got a Mercedes diesel story. Right, right, christian, you helped out your girlfriend who had a Mercedes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I was golly. This podcast, it dredges up so many memories.
Speaker 3:Good and bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I was dating this girl for a short and she drove one of these. It's this exact one. It was this big, it was just jet black. It was like rolling around having first dates in a hearse or something. But this thing was something else. I'll never forget. I haven't thought about this in decades. Thing was something else. And we went. I'll never forget, I haven't thought about this in decades.
Speaker 1:We went, we were going to arlington national cemetery and, uh, we park, and she can't roll up the windows and she flips out. What are we gonna do? What are we thinking? You know nobody's gonna break in your car, we're arlington national, give me a break. But I said, you know, it's probably just a fuse, honey, let's, uh, let's, go crack the hood and get under there fuse box on there's a spare one right here and we plop one in and five minutes later windows are working. She thought I had split the atom. It was unbelievable. On and on about, boy, I got free dinner, that like that that night, let me tell you. But yeah, they just kind of kept going and I, you know, I drove a rust bucket. Um, didn't have the best luck with cars back in the day. I made her drive everywhere and it was just like being chauffeured that. That was a great car, man, and, like you say, had this very up, upscale interior. Obviously it was a luxury for the time that it was made so well appointed on the inside. Absolutely a beautiful machine.
Speaker 3:Did she mind you sitting in the backseat while she was driving?
Speaker 1:Oh no, I guess I was sitting in the front. Yes, drive up, drive up. It wasn't the lime limo, it was the black limo right, yeah, this thing was a trip man, this thing was a trip man, this thing was a trip anyway yeah, okay, so this was the. This was the greatest car ever until croon, until he liked the product line so much. His next car was a well, a 300d turbo diesel.
Speaker 2:So it was the same thing, but a little bit longer. It had the turbo, and so it, so it really then had some good acceleration, but still the same weight and just the diesel odor and all the things that go with that, the crazy fuse box and stuff.
Speaker 3:The U126? Yeah right, it had an inline five. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:I think so yes.
Speaker 2:Inline five. This one was also sort of indestructible. It's funny, when you were talking about your girlfriend, I was. I was on this incredible, you know, this wonderful romantic date with a wonderful girlfriend of mine back in the day and we're driving around and he's, you know, I don't know. We're driving through this parking lot and somehow I I was, I was focused on this conversation with my girlfriend and I drove the car off this five-foot retaining wall, whoa, and between these two parking lots and probably sort of this mall went right off this five-foot wall. The thing just absolutely landed like a big hunk of steel and it was totally fine. There was zero damage to the chassis, nothing was bent, the thing drove beautifully, it was. It was a funny memory, you know.
Speaker 1:Thinking about that, uh, coming on today, Fantastic, I can't believe that story that you're here to tell the tale.
Speaker 2:Moral of the story is you got to pay attention when you're driving.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter. Yeah, right, I mean, you know can't, can't be distracted when driving, can't be? It's a bad look on your first date to you know? Run your, run your companion off an embankment or something. Yes, I think that would be a problem. Words of wisdom, Doug, what do you think about all that?
Speaker 3:Well, I think if the Mercedes is indestructible, Kroon's going to find a way to see if that's true.
Speaker 1:I guess so. And yeah, three nuggets we got to squeeze in here before we go any further. In writing. Yeah, so, so, so, croom, let us know that. Um, okay, so the first car, the 240d his dad got him for his 18th birthday phenomenal, fantastic, love that. And in describing his first car he says it was slow and smelled like diesel but was unstoppable, which I love. And the next car he describes as a little this is the 300 turbo diesel a little faster but still smelled like diesel. So it obviously made a big impression on you, man. There must be diesel running through your veins.
Speaker 2:I think you're right and that you know the, the, the, the smell of leather and the diesel, it's all. It all comes back, all these great memories of growing up. I I do remember I think it was uh $3,600, uh used. So we, we, I think we got it with 100,000, 120,000 miles on it, so very, you know not, you know, seemed economical at the time and just needed, you know, probably a couple thousand dollars a year to kind of keep it going. You know, you know the repairs weren't necessarily cheap, you know, going to the car and auto place, but anyway it was a lot of fun and I took that down to college and was able to drive people around and all that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:so yeah, good, good stories there I can't remember where it ended up, unfortunately. I was trying to think what was the ultimate demise, this car, car no one's had it. I bet you they're still driving it somewhere.
Speaker 3:Oh, you know I forgot to ask you and this was going to be a new segment. Living out in Virginia, I live in the DC area. You're a little farther out. Were there any radio stations you liked when you were driving this Mercedes and any particular songs when you were thinking back of the 84 and 90 Benzes?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I do. You know, we used to love DC 101. We loved the DC 101. Yeah, we loved Howard Stern.
Speaker 2:I remember that Grew up listening to that. For a long, long time Some of the you know they played a lot of the classic rock stuff. You know probably a little acdc and probably a little grateful dead and little eagles and some doors and all that stuff. I remember we did go to an acdc concert. We were teenagers and you know just total nincompoops and we got these bean jackets, we cut off the sleeves, put on you know t-shirts and you were trying to look all cool and stuff you know, rolling up in this in this old Benz. It didn't make any sense, but you know what are you going to do.
Speaker 1:You were the height of cool, my friend, with cutoff jean jackets going to an ACDC show win your. Benz, the height of cool man you bet it was a good years yeah yeah, so you're moving forward.
Speaker 3:What's your current car?
Speaker 2:Right, so I ended up with I was getting in. I was interested in AI, right, and I did end up reading the Elon Musk biography, which I thought was very interesting, and I ended up getting a. I got a Series series three the little baby Tesla, white on white.
Speaker 2:So, I have that now and I drive it to death and that thing is an incredible workhorse. Very happy with that car because there's just a lot of cool stuff going on. You know it updates every two weeks and it's you know, just the software and the functionality and the capability just keeps getting better and better and better. It's just fascinating to watch the evolution of that, that ride yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I'm on my second tesla. My first was model three and uh, yeah, it was amazing from the day I bought it to the day I sold it. It got better, it got faster. Yeah, it's crazy, it was more responsive. The uh, the features just kind of unbelievable. Right For sure, they call that the software-defined car. Some people have said right, that's fascinating, and I think you were telling us about some interesting features in the new Model Y, but also available in some other cars outside of Tesla, and we were talking about that and the tie-in to your company.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, so the you know, sky's the limit on imagination. If you have an iPad on wheels and a battery, you know, and different sensors, you can do a lot. And one of the fascinating things, you know, that Elon did was really to streamline and strip out as many sensors as he could, just to save costs, reduce weight. But he really had a minimalist approach to the Series 3. That I thought was interesting.
Speaker 2:But now in the healthcare context, you can add back different sensors that you know in some instances can measure your heart rate, you know. Look at your breathing rate, look at different you know in some instances can measure your heart rate. You know. Look at your breathing rate, look at different you know aspects of mood or other capabilities that could have sort of a more real-time healthcare capability. So if you are, if you're having, if you're feeling anxious or stressed, it could automate into a more relaxing mode. If you're having some sort of visible you know health or cardiovascular event, you know the car could detect that potentially in the future and just automatically reroute you and take you to the ER. There are just some interesting use cases that I'm trying to follow and understand. You know that I think are very inspiring and I think, practical and, frankly, don't cost anything. It's just simply code and capability.
Speaker 3:You know, it's just marvelous to see If you can dream it. It's there right. The features are there right.
Speaker 2:I think that's right.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting that you mentioned that, the nexus of healthcare and the car, the car being able to take you somewhere where you need to go. And at this point in the show we'd like to pivot to, uh, what it is you do for a living, your passion, what do you do during the day, and and and how does that interweave with with what we're just talking about?
Speaker 2:well, thank you. And so I am interested. I've been in the health care commercialization space for my career ever since in the late 90s, really more coming out of biopharma, and then I've gotten into diagnostics and digital and AI powered care. Ai stuff on the diagnostic side, or usually in the bioinformatics, ai on the commercial side is more automating content, marketing, automating digital experiences, but so I'm thinking all the time about bringing medical breakthroughs to market. So I will work with scientific founders to they might have discovered something that is absolutely game changing. It's on the shelf. They need help to get it to market.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, I just loved and, and I think you have to be a hands-on keyboard person this day and age. So, even being in the Tesla, just experiencing the software, the language, the data privacy elements, the opt-ins, the updates, the personality that comes from the Tesla that you can kind of get a sense of, you know Elon's sort of potty humor, if you will, you know, but it inject of potty humor, if you will, you know, but it injects some personality, but all those things I think equal sort of the kind of a brand experience that's unique and ownable and exciting, and I frankly try to bring that inspiration back to some of the work that I do in the healthcare setting, you know. So to me it's all kind of one integrated experience. It's on point.
Speaker 1:Everybody else. Yeah, I like that, I like that. And as we ramp down the podcast and move to conclusion here, one last thing I'd like to discuss with you is you have this outlook about how the body can kind of I can't really put it into words the way you can, but how the body sort of is a I can't really put it into words the way you can, but how the body sort of is a great analogy for a car and vice versa, with holistic machines working, and Doug and I were talking about this some time ago. So, yeah, could you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there's some fascinating philosophical dimensions that are very practical. So in the human body, you know my work at Alzheimer's and mild cognitive impairment.
Speaker 2:If the if the body is unhealthy, your brain is going to be unhealthy, and so we're taught that there are a lot of different functional systems in the body. Really, there's one system. It's super interdependent, and so when we look at cognitive health and body health, it really is just having, um, like a 30 point checklist and so that I think the car is the same way right. I mean, you know it's a bunch of independent parts, but it really has to function as one independent or one integrated system, like my Mercedes, like if there's one little tiny plug that's out. You know you're toast, right. So you gotta got to make sure all the parts work. And we had a little chuckle earlier, thinking back to a Saturday Night Live skit. You know I can't remember, you know who it was, but you know it's something the notion of is better to look good than to feel good.
Speaker 2:You got to do that from SNL, but I think with the car it's both, and I think with the human body it's both. You need to look good, you need to feel good, you know, because sometimes the exterior of the car is sort of emblematic of what's happening on the inside. You can lose of how to kind of keep this integrated system going. You know had its best performance.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, you raise a good point in one of the most. So the body is this incredibly complex machine, the brain even more so, so mysterious even now. And people say, well, how can I ward off these bad things that you were talking about Happened to me later in life. And it's as simple as being active and what you put in your body. There's no magic, there's no real magic recipe Genetics to a degree, but overwhelmingly being active, moving, very simple to do. Put a pull-up bar in your parlor and then just eating. Look, more salads, less carbs, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. So could you talk a little bit, or as much as you would care to, about your company, maybe its name, its website, if you care to.
Speaker 2:Well, sure, sure. So Predictive Healthcare is the company. The URL is predictcareai, and that's a fractional chief marketing officer consultancy. My favorite company, though, which is adjacent to it, is called Accurist AI and that's a teleservices company where we have a compound pharmacy, we have OTC retail to build holistic solutions really outside of the healthcare system.
Speaker 2:So healthcare is such a thorny mess and it's so daunting. You wait months and months to get an appointment. You get a couple of minutes with a doctor. You may not have access. So we're really trying to build care, you know, for consumers, for people really in the longevity space, and so you know, if you can have a million mile Tesla, we want to have a million mile body, and so we're focused a lot on what you're talking about a healthy mind, healthy, healthy body, and it can be really simple. I mean changing out a like a spark plug or changing out one of those, those little weird Mercedes Benz things. It's a lot like eating your salad, you know, and if you procrastinate with your car, same thing as procrastinating with your body. You got to get out in front of it and sort of lean into the prevention thing.
Speaker 1:Such a good point. Such a good point. Well, Kroom, it's been such a pleasure meeting you, getting to know you, hearing about your past. Thank you for being willing to be on the show and for stepping into our world.
Speaker 2:Tonight we had a blast. Thanks guys. Me too Great to be on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, did it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you are welcome back anytime.
Speaker 3:So, doug, what do you think? We're going to guide this to the off ramp? Did you have anything further? Can we talk us out? I think you've talked us out. Amen, it was great reconnecting with Kroon, and you and I are going to catch up some more about some other adjacent work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kroon, we've been talking about you for some time, so this was such a pleasure. We appreciate you again, thank you. Thank you All right, he is Doug at CarsLovecom. I'm Christian at CarsLovecom. He was Kroon, and this was a great episode. Thanks for spending some time with us. Please follow and tell a friend, write a review if you like what you hear, and we would specifically love to hear what you think about the new website, wwwcarslovedcom. You can see all of our pictures, presences, episodes, blogs, posts. All kinds of stuff is there for you, so I'm sure we'll see you at the next local car show, showroom, race strip or concourse. We appreciate you listening.
