1998 Acura Integra Restoration: Rebuilding a 'Teggy' for Mount Evans 🏎️⛰️

Classic car restoration of a 1998 Acura Integra. How a father and son rebuilt a "Teggy" to climb Mount Evans...

"We sat on a rock in the driveway, stared at the car, and thought: What did we just do?" 🛠️🧩.

What happens when a father humors his son’s "crazy idea" to buy a $5,000 project car during a global pandemic?. In this episode, we’re joined by Ruchin and Neil Kansal, the father-son duo behind the book The Kansal Clunker.

Neil shares the incredible story of receiving his driver's license just 24 hours before the world shut down, leading to a deep obsession with a "piece of junk" 1998 Acura Integra named "Teggy". Together, they navigate a ground-up restoration with zero prior experience—learning everything from interior teardowns to wiring via YouTube and the support of a "mafia-like" car community.

In this episode, we discuss:

• 🏎️ The "Teggy" Transformation: Taking a 1998 Integra from a clunker to a machine capable of climbing 14,130 feet to the summit of Mount Evans, Colorado.
• 🛠️ Learning the Hard Way: How to rebuild a car when you’ve never even taken off a tire.
• 🤝 The Power of Shared Projects: How the "Kansal Clunker" became a masterclass in collaboration, vulnerability, and father-son bonding.
• 🚙 The 4Runner Debate: Neil’s shift to a new Toyota 4Runner and his defense of the controversial 4-cylinder turbo engine.
• 🍎 Generational Legacies: From Ruchin’s silver Mitsubishi Galant memories to their current project—a 1983 Alfa Romeo Spider.

Whether you're a seasoned mechanic or someone who just "sat on a rock" staring at a project, this episode is a beautiful reminder that every car tells a story—and the best ones are built together.

Connect with our guests: 

🌐 Website: thekansalclunker.com 

📖 Book: The Kansal Clunker (Available at thekansalclunker.com/book or wherever books are sold) 

🔗🌲 Find all our 70+ episodes, social links, and YouTube video podcasts here: linktr.ee/carsloved

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Transcript

Welcome And Nostalgia Warm-Up

Dave 0:00

Hello, listeners. Welcome back. Or if you're just joining us for the first time, welcome to All the Cars I've Loved Before, your authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia. You know what time it is. It's time to get a little grease under our nails. Step back in time, make new friends, and if you're like my lovely partner here, have some car theme apparel to put on, uh, which we're going to talk about in a second. Welcome to our podcast where we go and we talk to people who have stories about their experiences with cars, their love of cars. And even if you don't have a car-rich history, you still have a story we want to hear. Hello, world. I'm Dave, and I want to say hello to Doug, my partner here. How are you doing, buddy? Good.

Doug 0:49

Good. Great to be back here with you. And while you don't have car-related shirts, you have a Volkswagen shrine for everybody to see every time we put out the YouTube version of this.

RX-7 Memories And Saving The Manual

Dave 1:00

My camera moved actually a little bit, so we're gonna fix that. Yes. And I see today you're wearing your lovely RX7 shirt. Tell me, tell me a little bit about your RX7 shirt. I'm I'm actually a little jealous of it.

Doug 1:10

And there'll be a little tie-in. So actually, this is the uh FD RX7, which was the last generation. I own the second generation, which was actually the FC from uh, and it was a 1986 first year, and that was my first stick shift car. Long story short, had a friend in high school had a RX7 Turbo 2, which was really awesome. I got a stick shift version, got rid of my Dodge Daytona automatic, brand new, traded in, uh not traded in, but my sister got it. And uh I got a 1986 red stripped RX7. It had air conditioning, it did not have power steering, did not have power windows, but that was my intro to um driving stick shift because my friend and friends who were driving stick shift and uh yeah, uh kind of never went back. Still still love stick shift, still own two stick shift cars, don't drive them very much, but still a huge fan of Mazda. And as you know, Dave, we had uh product launch manager from Mazda, John Leverett on, and his family had I think 12 different rotary-engined RX 7s over the years, is what he said. Great, great episode.

Dave 2:22

It was a great episode. I really enjoyed it. If you haven't heard it, listeners, go back and listen to it because it is a great story. He was a wonderful guest. I wasn't part of that podcast at the time, but I I am an avid listener, so I go back and listen to episodes all the time just to hear the stories, refresh myself. But is there any new updates in your world?

Doug 2:40

No, uh just uh depending on when you're listening to this, it's January uh in Maryland. And it's cold. Dave and I are both in Maryland. It's cold. I think we're supposed to get some snow on uh Saturday, I heard, maybe a foot.

Dave 2:54

Well, we are on the other side of the bay, so you might get more than me, or I might get more than you. It all depends on how the storm goes. The bay always screws it up. We're not we're never sure who's gonna get much.

Doug 3:05

Yep, yep. And uh one of our guests is up north and the other one's got a heavy jacket on. Sorry, our guest up north has a heavy jacket on. We'll introduce them in a minute, and the other one has got a t-shirt on because he's down south.

Global Listeners And Show Updates

Dave 3:18

Speaking of different areas, do you mind if I throw in here listeners? Perfect segue. Thank you. So, yeah, going through the analytics, because you know, we're we're kind of nerdy in this place. We we ran through some analytics and we have some listeners from some new areas. Most importantly, we have some listeners from other countries. So in Ipswich, Suffolk in England, we have that. We have Lusaka Proverce. I cannot say province today. Auckland, Australia. We've got Bavaria. So we've got some literal herd around the world people. And I just want to say, welcome if you're from America, welcome. If you're from other places, welcome. If you like it, leave it a leave it a review and come back next uh next podcast because we we drop one every other week now. So we're talking to wonderful people. And speaking of to speaking of wonderful people, why don't you do some uh guest introductions? How do we how did we come across these lovely folks?

The $5,000 Stick-Shift Challenge

Doug 4:19

Yeah, yeah. So we have, and you you know I love the family element. So yet again, we're lucky to have uh this time father and son. So Rushton and Neil Consel. Yeah. So they're father and son. They reached out to us. They're also book authors, co co-authors on a book called The Consel Clunker. And we're gonna talk a little bit about that, which was Neil, the son's uh introduction to uh stick shift car and his father being a great dad really encouraged him, and they had some great times and travels. And I've been reading the book. It's uh it's fantastic. But I don't know if they would consider themselves car guys, but everybody's got a car story. Exactly. Everybody has a car story. So, gentlemen, thank thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it. It is our pleasure to be here. Thank you for having us, Duggan Dave. Yes, sir. Glad to have you. Thank you. And you too, Neil. Appreciate it. Yeah, and you you can't see Neil right now if you're listening to the audio version of this podcast, but he's got a logo for his book, being the co-author of the book, uh, a book called uh Console Clunker. Console referring to his last name, the clunker referring to the car. The car did have a more interesting name. Gentlemen, what was the name of the car?

Speaker 1 5:32

Uh Teggy, our 1998 piece of junk, Acura Integra. That was no longer a piece of junk by the end of it.

Doug 5:39

And uh can you can you tell us a little bit about the whole process? Like this was during, I think you were already driving Neil, but I think maybe you had a similar interest in StickShift, COVID came around, some something to that effect. But if if you gentlemen can fill us in on the kind of start process and then how you ended up with Teggy, and then we'll we'll probably loop back to first cars, uh, especially with uh Rushin, who's had quite a few.

Neil 6:04

Sure. Yeah. So actually, funny story, I got my driver's license the day before everything shut down for the pandemic. So made it right by the wire, and I'm really thankful I did. But that meant I spent my whole pandemic being a new driver and spending every moment obsessing over my car and driving around. And you know, somewhere in there I developed this fixation in my mind, hey, I really want to learn how to drive a stick shift. Uh and that's where the snowball's from. Daddy, you want to take it from there?

Teggy Is Found And Named

Ruchin 6:29

So Neil said, Dad, I want to learn how to drive a stick shift. And I'm like, okay, fancy idea. You will. You know, when we find a stick shift car, you can. And so I kept, you know, nudging him towards, yeah, we'll do it in the future. But then the pandemic just kept things shut down. And I was like, okay, let me humor him. And I just crazily said, let's buy a stick shift, you can learn and we will set it off. And that's where it all began. Let's buy you a stick shift, you can learn and we'll set it off. And my wife caught the wind of it. And she's a physician, she was in the hospital on the front lines, and she was like, You guys are crazy. You cannot be spending any money on this. And she was very gracious. She she set a budget of $5,000 to do this work. And um, so it snowballed into let's buy a stick shift, learn it. Why don't we buy a really beat-up stick shift, but also learn to fix it because we have all the time on our hands. And then it became now that we have that, why don't we drive it someplace crazy? And we are now just idea storming. Maybe we can drive to Maine, maybe we can drive to uh Rhode Island, and then we're like, why don't we drive to someplace crazy? And that someplace crazy became Mount Ivan's, Colorado, which is the highest motorable road in the country at 14,130 feet. So we set the goal of, you know, we're gonna buy a used car, we're gonna fix it, we're gonna learn how to drive stick shift, and then we'll drive it at a crazy place. And that's what the project came to be.

Doug 7:52

This is a great story. I love this story already. Yeah, it's uh aligns with a lot of our listeners and what they've been through, Dave. Maybe it aligns with your Volkswagen, Alice. I'm not sure. Maybe not the Oldsmobile, but the Volkswagen. So yeah, a lot of a lot of great stories tied back into that. And uh, you know, what a what a great dad for humoring his son and and you guys having fun together. And Neil, what what got you interested in uh stick shift? I I mentioned that uh I had some friends in high school, and you know, who knew my parents didn't have any stick shift cars when I was growing up. So just curious what got you uh what lit your fancy, so to speak.

Neil 8:30

Yeah, honestly, I think Teggy and I were the first ones in my town to start driving stick shift in high school. And really, I think the fancy might just have come from too much time to binge watch Fast and Furious. Gotcha point of clear moment.

Doug 8:43

Yeah. It it's funny, Dave. You remember John Clock, who we had on a few episodes ago. He is the uh expert at trading up cars. Oh my goodness. Yeah, it's uh it's a disease. It catches you, it's it's fun. Uh, it's a shame that there aren't more stick shift cars, but you know, there's all these, there's all these memes and whatnot out there about uh save the manual. So really appreciate you guys uh going through those.

Dave 9:19

Okay, so I have a couple questions that I'm just doing it's boiling inside of me. So take it. As you've heard, I have an uh a Volkswagen Beetle named Alice. So I have to ask, where did the name come from? Where did it cut, you know, like where where did it originate? How did it solidify itself in in your uh car's life?

First Cars And Early Impulses

Ruchin 9:37

So I I'll start the story and then Neil will finish it off. There wasn't a name when we started looking, and we when we started to look for a car, we had criteria. The car had to be at least 20 years old, it had to have at least 150,000 miles on it, it had to be drivable so we could drive it home, and it had to be, you know, within the budget. And we started to look and we looked at an RX 7 and uh Mitsubishi Eclipse and so on and so forth, and then finally found this uh integral listed uh 100 plus miles away from our home in Amherst, Massachusetts. And uh we drive there to test the car, and it is an accurate integral, like we said. And um, I think right there, Neil, right? That right there you named it?

Neil 10:19

I think I might have. I mean, Teggy might not have been the most original thought. I know people here and there have gone through and called Integrith Teggy uh in the past, but I think um getting there and seeing that car, making our deal on it in this Turkish bazaar style yard sale, felt like the car already had so much personality. Uh and it felt wrong to not immediately start honoring that and calling it something it was worthy of. Wonderful.

Dave 10:44

I love that. It's just, you know, sometimes when you see a car, especially when you're when you're, you know, like taking it sounds bad, but like taking ownership from somebody else, you you automatically start making uh an idea of your mind, where you want to go with it, what do you want to do with it, uh, and coming up with an idea. And sometimes the name just pops in your head. So, like in your case, you saw the car, yeah, it's an integra. It doesn't mean it has to have the name Taggy, but that's the name it that popped in your head and you just went with it. And uh I honestly cannot remember because I've owned, I've owned Alice since I think it's been 22 years this year. Wow. And I can't remember where Alice kind of came from, but it's been Alice since the pretty much the day I bought it. Uh yeah, that's that's a wonderful story. So just one quick question. How far did you have to go to get to the Integra from your house? Like, was it an hour, two hours? Like, how far did you have to go?

Neil 11:34

Yeah, it was about two hours, hour and a half, two hours, something like that, which we weren't strangers to at that point. We had driven that far for a couple of different terrible cars.

Doug 11:42

One was even a no-show, right?

Neil 11:44

The guy never seen it. Yeah, we had a we had a no-show on a Mitsubishi eclipse. Yep. Yeah. Um that happens. It happens. I it's all part of it. But yeah, it was about that far away, and uh lucky for us, Teggy made it home after that.

Dave 11:57

It was the first uh first victory, right? You made it home. Yeah, exactly. Wonderful. So talking about cars, is Teggy the first car you've named? First car I've named.

Ruchin 12:07

Yeah, I think it's the first car we have named. We have had a few before, and we have had a few of our daily cars, but I think we have only named two cars so far, Teggy and Alpha, which was our second project car. Wonderful. Uh yeah, yeah. But now that we say that, maybe we should name all of our cars. Yeah.

Dave 12:27

They have to earn the name though. It's not it's one of those things like you can't just pull it out of uh thin air and just start. You gotta you gotta find the personality, and I think that really that really matters. But talking about first, let's talk about let's hop in the way back machine. Let's talk about your first cars. So if Mr. Rushan would like to go first, what was what was your first car? What got uh what got you on the road for the first time? 26 Mitsubishi Galant.

Why Write The Console Clunker

Ruchin 12:51

When I was growing up, I would watch Himalayan car rally all the time. And in Himalayan car rally, Mitsubishi's were one of the premier uh featured cars, and I always had stuck in my mind I have to get a Mitsubishi Kala. And when I was a student getting my master's and a scholarship, uh there was a one-for-two sale, not really one-for-two sale, but a sale going on at the local Mitsubishi dealership, uh, end-of-the-year sale, and uh I said, hey, I have to get a Mitsubishi Kala. I had no money, I had no budget, but I had to have a Mitsubishi Galant, and that's what impulse says. So not only did I get myself a Mitsubishi Galant, I convinced my roommate, who was also a master's student on a scholarship, come with me and buy a galant with me. So we actually went to this dealership, drove back with two galants. Mine was a silver, his was a green. And now we had two Mitsubishi galants, poor students with no money with brand new galants, you know, gallivanting across the city. And then that was my first car. But man, that car was so great. It took us all over the country. My wife, when she joined me, I drove to the airport, picked her up in that car, and with her, we navigated so many states across the US. And I'm talking 97, you know, we were young then. Uh yeah, it became part of, you know, we couldn't think of a life without it. It was just such a wonderful thing to have. It was the third member of the family. Wow, that's amazing. And how how long did you keep it? You know, we kept it for two years, and um at that time I decided to go back to school to get my MBA, and uh so we had a tough decision to make keep it or sell it. You know, again, we were still poor students and poor, you know, starting out. So we had to sell it. But yeah, we still have pictures. We've shown Neil all the pictures of that car, you know, parked in different places across the country and how beautiful. It still is a beautiful car to look at. You know, they don't design cars so beautiful anymore.

Dave 14:41

I understand that part. And it's you know, it still holds that special place in your heart because you had so many memories with it. Do you regret having to get rid of it? But I mean, obviously you got good out of it because you got your MBA.

Ruchin 14:53

Yeah, no, I mean I do not regret it. It served its purpose, it gave the thrills that you wanted. But if I could go back and buy it, would I? Yes, I would buy it.

Dave 15:05

Yeah. If the same one came around, if you have the same car.

Ruchin 15:08

Yes. If I found the same exact car again, I would want to buy it and keep it if my wife allows it.

Dave 15:14

That's awesome. Well, thank you for sharing. Yeah, so just real quick, once you got done with the the glant and got through your part of school, what uh what was the second car after that? What did what did you go to next?

Ruchin 15:25

Uh zinc yellow food Mustang. Okay. Okay. Brand new. Yeah, you know, you'll see some uh trends in the story here. Again, a poor student who has just graduated who did not have enough money to pay cash to buy a used car. So what does the student do? Freshly graduated student who has a job that's lined up, buys a brand new zinc yellow food mustang because hey, there was a $500 student rebate. Three months, no payments, an installment that I thought I could afford once the salary started to come in. And so now we were proud owners of a beautiful, like I said again, zinc yellow food mustang that we took elevating across the northeast now. Um that was the second car we had.

Dave 16:06

Okay, wonderful. That's awesome. Yeah.

Doug 16:09

Great. I'm gonna let Doug get in here for a second. Well, I want to shift to Neil because uh he's gonna tell us about his first car and then we can jump back to Teggy.

Neil 16:18

So, what what was your first car, Neil? Back in high school, uh, when I turned 16, uh my dad bought me a used uh BMW X1, and I loved that car and it was a lot of fun. We had it for a couple of years until it turbo blew. But I'm also seeing a little bit of a trend here because we got rid of that car and all. But I just graduated college last June. Uh, started working and come November. I bought a brand new Toyota 4Runner. Same impulse, no control. So I guess uh Apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Dave 16:43

Yeah. Sometimes that bug gets bit early on in life.

Two Voices One Story

Doug 16:46

So you were uh driving around in the in the X1 and uh yeah, really great car for a 16-year-old to have, right? Safe, awesome, safe, fun, turbo. And then you still had the X1 when you got Teggy, right? I did, yeah. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. So, and then that's when the whole stick shift thing happened. So speaking speaking uh of Teg E, um, you know, I'd really like to share with our listeners what led you guys. The book is great, and there's so many great, you know, uh parent stories. Your motherslash and and your wife is referred to as the CFO, which I which I love. And uh, and there were lots of tie-ins to to travels uh and back to India. Really, really great stories. But what got you where who came up with the idea for the book and like at what point did it happen? Was it after the fact? Obviously, you were documenting along the way because I saw the pictures of the the hundred paper cups full of different parts, all labeled, um, which was a lot of fun and you had to do a lot of work on the car. But yeah, just wondering what what got you guys whose idea was it for the book, what launched the idea, um, and what the process was to get to that point. And then, of course, it got published, I think, end of last year, if I remember.

Learning To Wrench From Scratch

Ruchin 18:06

Yes. Yes, so the book was uh my idea a little bit, and Neil Neil kind of grudgingly agreed to it. Um and the way it came along was you know, we had built the Teggy and we had the ride of a life. And when we came back from the trip, Neil was about to go to college and we didn't know what to do with Teggy. It was going to go to Rust if it stood on our driveway, so we decided to sell it off. Okay. Another regrettable decision. Uh, but we sold it off and uh, you know, we had spent five thousand dollars, we sold it for $4,500. So for just $500, we had the experience of a lifetime spawning experience, travel experience, everything that we can name it. Best thing $500 can ever buy. But then we got very sad. Uh when he was visiting for spring break, we just started to drive around Connecticut to see what we can find in the barns. Not that we will end up with a car, but we ended up with an alpha, 1983 Alpha Romeo. And again, the same process, you know, uh a clunker that we turned into a beautiful uh machine that we drove to the easternmost point in North America, which is Cape Spear, Newfoundland, and Canada. It's another round-trip journey that we did. And you can look at all of the videos and journey details on our website, theconsilclunker.com. Uh, but you know, now that we had completed this journey, we decided we are gonna keep alpha. But uh now because of that, there was no other car we could be building. Plus, Neil was now in college in Virginia, I was in Connecticut, so like what can we do still do together? Because we like the idea of working on shared projects. And I said, Hey Neil, why don't we write a book about it? And Neil was present, Ah, okay. And and uh that's where it started, and uh it wasn't easy. I mean we we wrote it, uh we looked at it, it it wasn't flowing, we shelved it. And then after a few months we picked it up again and looked at it and uh wrote a little bit more, and then we were like, Who would want to read this and shelved it again? Mm-hmm. And then the third time we picked it up and said, No, let's just do it. And by this time we started to really form some frameworks around uh what the book should be like, and then and that's how we started to really write it. So, Neil, do you want to talk a little bit about you know how that came to be?

Neil 20:19

Yeah, so I think for me especially the most important thing if we were going to write a book was that it needed to be humorous. In my mind, that makes our story a lot more interesting for people. And so that's what I really tried to achieve throughout the process was how can I, well, one, make people laugh and enjoy the story, but two, even you know, let them laugh at me and the stupid things I did and how that can turn into maybe a learning or inspiring experience as well.

Doug 20:45

Yeah, I loved how um and and I'm sure it was planned, but you had there would be a section your dad would write from his experience during that time, same time period, and then Neil, you would write yours, and so they would follow each other. And that that was just, you know, from a you guys are of course talking the whole time, right? But the different perspective, right? Like your dad's frustrated with you about something, you're frustrated with your dad about all these internet popular interest places that you like, dad, why would you want to stop there? Stop doing that, right? And uh I mean that that was just uh a ton of fun. I'm curious, Neil, were you taking any writing classes or did you sign up for any while you were at college while you're going through this process?

Neil 21:30

Uh no, I took my writing 100 class first semester of freshman year and never looked back. Okay.

Doug 21:34

Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. And so you guys were just kind of pushing each other to keep it going. I I think maybe Rushin was pushing a little bit harder, but it that's that seems to be the way for uh for parents.

Community, Parts, And Paying It Forward

Ruchin 21:50

Yeah, and they was pushing a little bit harder, but at the same time, you know, we were trying to just stay true to ourselves and uh you talked about, you know, how we wrote about Situations, instances from two perspectives. And I think that's uh the key part of the story that um you know all of us look at situations differently, but we never come together on a common point of view on this. But if we can, there is so much learning, so much relationship building, so much trust building that happens in the process as to why am I looking at this way, why are you looking at it this way, and then then you hear the backstories, and that's where the magic really begins to happen. And I think that's what we want people to really take away from this. We have tried to stay very true to what was in our heads, and uh, at times, you know, we feel we had to be a lot more vulnerable because we have really put our lives out there, but that's where I think you know people can really see how by being vulnerable and uh sharing, can you really create magic and do a lot more together? And that's what we really want people to take away.

Dave 22:53

I love the idea of having both perspectives because especially from a father-son dynamic, because I know I love my father you know exponentially, but if I had to work on a project with him, there is going to be a butting of heads because we both have very I don't I don't want to say strong personalities, but we both have our own ideas and sometimes they don't mesh. So I love that you guys are writing from the same experiences from the two perspectives. And I I think that it really does help sell the story too, because you get to see it from the the older generation and the father side, and then the younger generation that the the son side. And so I love that dynamic. And then to add on top of it, you have these adventures that you guys are going on too, which is awesome. So I I think that's a great, a great thing in itself that you guys are spending that time together building the cars and then taking the cars' places. That's just awesome.

Doug 23:47

Yeah, yeah. No, and uh, you know, I think for our listeners who might want to do something very creative like you guys do, go find a a clunker and rebuild it from your book. I don't think you had a lot of car skills short of maybe changing oil, changing tires. So uh can you share with everybody how you learned? Was YouTube a factor? Um, I think there were maybe some friendships built out of it.

Neil 24:10

Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, when we started, uh, you know, a key memory of mine, we pull into the driveway, we park Teggy in our driveway, and then we're sitting on this rock and, you know, next to our driveway staring at it. What did we just do? You know, we didn't know where to even start, what to do, how to do anything. I mean, I had never taken off a tire off of a car before that. Um, and so there was a lot of learning involved. I mean, we did a full teardown on the interior, you know, we repaired and replaced panels, fixed wiring, you know, wrapped the whole car. And all of that knowledge came, yeah, a lot from YouTube, a lot from endless Google searching, but also from a couple of friends we made along the way. Uh, and I thought that was really cool. So one of my, you know, still a friend of mine now, I was talking to him yesterday. He sold me a door handle for Teggy, because he had one that had been totaled out. I and I, you know, I went out there and I I met the guy. I bought the door handle from him. And then, yeah, how do I, how do I do this? And he, if he knew, he would tell me. And, you know, from there, like we're friends, what, six, six years later.

New 4Runner, Old Lessons

Dave 25:11

It's also dynamic that every time we talk to people who are building or rebuilding cars, there always a little bit of like that apprehension of asking, you know, how to do something. But as a car culture, we want to spread knowledge when we have it. And so, like, it's amazing to hear how many friendships come along through this process because you go, hey, you know anything about, you know, this and this, and they go, absolutely. And then boom, friendship sparked, and you, you know, now you're six years later, you're still talking to the guy, even though that door handle's been, you know, here and gone a long time ago.

What We Drive Now

Doug 25:45

Yep. Yep. Yep. And that, and you know, you're helping them in many ways. If they love Acura Integrants, they love Acura's, right? They should want to help you, right? Because they're helping, helping that dream, that thing that's important to them. Maybe it was, you know, a car that they had in high school, right? You're just helping continue recycling the parts, right? If you didn't buy that part from them, it would end up in the garbage, probably, right? And so that that part lives on. It doesn't end up in the garbage, right? And um, listeners of the show know I own a DeLorean. If not for the powerful community, you know, they only made 10,000 of those cars or about 6,500 left. If not for a few things, one being the power of the community, two being back to the future, and three being when DeLorean went out of business, they had a ton of extra parts. And this company in Houston ended up buying all of it. And then between that, there have been people who like the DeLorean and they're like, hey, if I do this, I can make it better, or hey, I can build an engine swap kit, or I can design some fuel injector retainer system, which I bought, just to keep the fuel injectors in better so they seal better. And so, you know, that knowledge could turn into somebody's career. And I know, Neil, I'm pulling from the book. I think there was a little bit of interest in maybe becoming a surgeon while you were wrapping the car, maybe. And I I know your mind changed, but you know, you never know where it's gonna go. And cars just bring people together. They really do. Fathers, sons, fathers, daughters, friends. That's how Dave and I met. Um, yeah, it's just it's it's fantastic. And, you know, you guys are some people might say you guys are doing the Lord's work, keeping the uh old cars going. That's what we say to my DeLorean friend who's always fixing car DeLoreans for other people, because there are just some things you couldn't. That is, even though it's a poorly built car, is such a weird combination of different cars and different pieces and just all this knowledge that nobody could have at all. But thanks to a community, I'm sure you were you probably found an accurate community, probably found an integral community for for Taggy.

Teaser For The Alfa Spider

Ruchin 27:59

Yeah, and and then uh you know the key thing here is people like stories and people like to be part of stories. Yes. And and that's I think what this project did to us and all of the people who became part of our stories. Because yeah, I mean, car was just a medium, but what we were really building were friendships, but experiences were memories, and then you know, uh relationships. So yeah, I mean, people are nice, people want to help people, and uh projects bring people along really well. Yeah, yeah.

Dave 28:27

No, it's well, I just appreciate you guys sharing your story. Before we slow this down and and head for the the off-ramp, as we like to say, Neil, what are your thoughts on this brand new Toyota that you went and bought? How do you feel about it? What are your thoughts?

Neil 28:40

Oh, it's fantastic. All the all the fifth gen die hard fans are hating on it. Uh it doesn't have a V8, doesn't have a V6. I'll tell you the four-cylinder turbo engine, phenomenal. Really smooth, actually picks up on the on-ramp. I love good gas mileage, significantly better. Yeah, so yeah.

Doug 28:58

And you you just reminded me I had a 03. I had some crazy, you know, here we here we go about just impulsive decision that went in. I think I had a Mercedes ML320, which I bought use, which was kind of a junker. And then I'm like, I'm gonna go buy, I got some raise or bonus at work. So I go and buy a 03 Toyota 4 runner. And then shortly thereafter, I had to start driving to Virginia, and that thing got the it was a six-cylinder with a four-speed automatic. That thing got the worst gas mileage. I had to stop selling it, and I just bought a used 1998 Honda uh Accord, which was a fantastic car. And after that, my whole family, including my parents, who had were American car people, they all started buying Hondas. So it's funny how it catches on, but I mean, you can't go wrong with the Toyota, and it's uh it's it's funny because people want to take the older Toyotas, including Land Cruisers, and put a big lift on them. And I was talking to a friend of mine, and I'm like, hey, why don't you buy the Lexus version? He's like, Well, the funny part is the Lexus ver Lexus version is actually worth less because people want the the uh forerunners, they want the Land Cruisers. So I'm sure I'm sure you run into some of that.

Neil 30:15

Yeah, it's a mafia of sorts, for sure.

Where To Find The Book And Sign-Off

Dave 30:17

Yeah, that badge is is desirable to a lot more people than the the Lexus. Yeah. It's one of those things where, well, even our mutual friend and previous guest, Megan, has the the old school forerunner, and you know, she loves that thing too. Yeah, it was uh 83, something like that. Land cruiser, and not a forerunner, it's a land cruiser. And it's one of those things that they if you treat them right, they take care of you forever. But uh yeah, that that's that's awesome. I'm glad you I'm glad you have a good, reliable car to get you back and forth to school. So, Mr. Rushan, what are you driving now? So funny, I'm driving a Lexus.

Ruchin 30:56

No disrespect to the Lexus. Yeah, yeah, it's a Lexus CS hybrid. It gives me 45 miles per gallon, it's a great commute car. And it's a hybrid, so it just picks up like you know, any sports cars. I love it. And uh I hope it uh lasts me my lifetime. Yeah.

Dave 31:16

Well, this has been this has been a great story. I know we uh we we've uh we're kind of l running low on time.

Doug 31:24

But we do want to have them back to talk about alpha. Oh yeah, absolutely. Would you guys like to come back? And whether there's a book or not, I'm hoping Dave will Dave will uh check out the book. And if there's a next book, let us know about alpha. By the way, what uh it's an 83 Alpha what what model?

Neil 31:41

It's the spider.

Doug 31:43

I was hoping it would be the spider. Awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and you took it on a long long road trip. So with a British car on a long road trip, that had to be interesting. Uh that one was something.

Neil 31:56

We'll save that story for when we're back.

Dave 31:57

Yeah, because I had I have some questions too, because if you're if you're a fan of Top Gear, you know that those the original three, you know, they love the Alfa Romeo look, but they don't speak highly of the reliability. So we're gonna save that for next time too. But I want to I want to thank you guys for being here to our listeners. If you'd love to reach the book, you can find the everything, including pictures and and videos and the book at the consoleclunker.com, console spelled K-A-N-S-A-L, clunker spelled normally, but the consoleclunker.com. And you can find the book, same thing, consoleclunkers.com slash book, or anywhere books are sold. So please do us a favor if you uh if you want to hear more of the story, see more of the story if you're listening to this, go check them out. Um, and I just want to thank you both for being here and to Doug for bringing me back and having a wonderful conversation, making new friends. And I just want to say thank you for all the listeners for joining us. If you like us, sorry, dog stepping on me. So there's a dog in my lap. You can't see him, but he's sitting there. Um so thank you all for joining us. You've just heard the high revving, low mileage, late model heard round the world authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia. He's Doug. You can reach him at Doug at Carslove.com. I'm Dave. You can reach me at Dave at Carslove.com. That is Rushin and Neil. You can find them on their website, theconsoleclunker.com, K-A-N-S-A-L. And please, if you enjoyed our podcast, give it a like, give it a review, tell your friends, tell your family, tell everybody. And you can find everything associated with our podcast at our link tree, l-a-n-k-tr.e slash carsloved. And I just want to say again, thank you. Join us next time when we have another wonderful conversation, and join us when we have Rushin and Neil back to talk about the alpha.