To All The Cars I've Loved Before: Classic Car Restoration, JDM, and Automotive History

2011 WRX & 1986 Honda Accord: Ethan Banks on Manual Transmissions

• Dave & Doug: Classic Car Experts and Automotive Storytellers • Season 7 • Episode 10

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2011 Subaru WRX cross-country trip and 1986 Honda Accord memories. In this episode, we welcome Ethan Banks to the virtual garage. While the IT world knows him as the co-founder of the Packet Pushers podcast network, we’re turning back the odometer to explore his lifelong obsession with car culture and automotive history.

Ethan shares the story of winning a World Rally Blue 2011 Subaru WRX on Cars & Bids and embarking on an unforgettable father-son road trip across America. We also dive into his first car stories, including a manual 1986 Honda Accord that suffered a snapped axle on the LA freeway, and his perspective on building a 300-horsepower VW GTI sleeper.

In this episode, we cover:

  • 🏎️ The WRX Road Trip: Buying a 2011 Subaru WRX and driving it from California to New Hampshire.
  • 💥 First Car Memories: Life in a manual 1986 Honda Accord hatchback and the move to a 1989 Ford Taurusbeater.
  • 🚀 The GTI Build: Teaching the next generation to drive stick in a modified VW GTI with a Cobb tuner.
  • 🏎️ Porsche Obsession: Why the Porsche 930 Slant Nose with the whale tail is the ultimate dream ride.
  • 🧠 Automotive History: The story of Ralph Teetor, the blind engineer who invented Cruise Control in 1950.
  • 🎮 Virtual Racing: Doug's sim racing laps in a Mazda Miata at P1 Sim Racing.


Don't miss Ethan's favorite past episode with Neil and Ruchin, authors of The Kansal Clunker, discussing their 1998 Acura Integra restoration: https://buzzsprout.com/2316026/episodes/18696226

Connect with our guest: 

🌐 Website: packetpushers.net 

🎥 YouTube: Packet Pushers Network

Connect with Us: Got a great car story? Email us at stories@carsloved.com. Find all our content and social links here: linktr.ee/carsloved.

Podcast News:


Remember, every car tells a story. What’s yours? 


Love the show? Please follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Welcome And Podcast Updates

Doug

Welcome back to All the Cars I've Loved Before the Podcast, where we park the specs at the door to focus on your stories told through the rearview mirror of your past cars. It's time to get a little grease under your nails and step back into the first memories that make us smile. That sense of pure freedom, windows down, music pegged, and your best friends piled in the back. Every car reveals exactly who we are. We're driving into that personal history behind the metal. So let's get into it. I'm your co-host Doug here. I'm driving solo today, and we've got a great show for you. I'm going to give you an update on the podcast. I am just coming back from a couple laughs at Summit Point Race Park or Summit Point Speedway from a Miata. And I did this all courtesy of P1 Sim Racing and driver development in Annapolis, Maryland. If you haven't tried sim racing and live in the DMV, this is the place to go. I find it helps me focus before doing a podcast recording. And I just beat my personal lap, personal best lap time, and I got a little personal instruction from one of the owners, Tommy. Their website is drivep1.com. And our podcast continues to grow, and we'd like to hear your stories and recommendations. Visit our link tree, l-inktr.ee slash carslove, and use that to connect with us or email us stories at carslove.com. Here's a recent review. This is from George P, who enjoyed our season one, episode four episode titled From a 1987's Corolla to Track Ready Infinity, Banging Gears the Wrong Way. George says Adam's episode was my favorite, mostly because I know him, and of course, because he is Adam. Well, thank you, George. Glad you enjoyed that episode. It's one of my favorites. And if you're enjoying the show, the best way to support us is leave us a quick review on Apple Podcasts or share this episode with a friend who still misses their first ride.

Meet Ethan Banks From Packet Pushers

Doug

Our guest and I have crossed paths many times virtually, mostly because I'm a huge fan of the podcast network that he co-founded. But these days I'm delighted to see his colleagues post about the latest technology on LinkedIn, which is how I was able to get him to volunteer to be our special guest today. Without further ado, we are thrilled to welcome Ethan Banks to our virtual garage. He's based out of New Hampshire, and he is the co-founder of the incredible Packet Pushers Podcast Network, a veteran IT practitioner who has spent two decades or more designing large enterprise networks, data centers, and global WANs. He is a technical powerhouse earning the coveted CCIE. He also co-authored the book, Computer Networking Problems and Solutions, and he co-hosts the flagship show, Heavy Networking, and one I really love, and is for networking. But what truly sets Ethan apart is his dedication to giving engineers a voice and educating the IT community. Welcome to the podcast, Ethan.

SPEAKER_00

That sounded like a commercial for incogni or delete me, because I got if you found all that online about me, I gotta do better about my online persona. Way too much information out there about me. My work.

Doug

Yeah. There is a lot. Yeah, maybe you should sign up for delete me. It'll take a few months for it to all disappear.

SPEAKER_00

I know all that's out there.

Doug

That's just part of the part and parcel of being a public figure. We're lucky to have you because you're not only a car enthusiast, you are our first guest who also runs a podcast. So that is very unique. So glad you're

First Owned Car 86 Honda Accord

Doug

with us. And I I did want to ask you, when was the last time someone asked you about your first car, Ethan?

SPEAKER_00

Oh man, I it's it might be you because uh it's just not a conversation I get into all that often. And it's kind of fun to get on and talk about something that's still nerdy and and techie, but but isn't computers or networks or packets.

Doug

Uh yeah, it's amazing. I agreed. As a fellow network guy, I'm with you. And and I have to say, when people ask me what I do, I don't go into networking anymore. I say, Yeah, I'm a podcast host. What podcast? Oh, we talk about our first cars. And then they start smiling. And you see them look up and think about their first car. And in our pre-show, that's what we were doing. And so happy to have you.

SPEAKER_00

So so my first car, and I'm going off memory here, so if I dug into the records, maybe I'd come up with some minor differences. But it was an 86 Honda Accord two-door hatchback. And I bought that with that. My wife and I were first married, and we needed a car, and that's what we could afford. We went to a dealer that was nearby where we lived. It was on the lot, and all the new cars were like way out of reach for young newlyweds. And uh, but that there was that car. I'm like, well, let's look at this thing. Took it for a ride. It was a standard, and we could afford it. It cleaned me out. It was like all everything I had in my savings account. What we put it down, financed the rest. As I remember, like two grand down and four grand financed, got us this 86 Honda cord. White, I kind of remember a blue, uh red pinstripe, and it was a blue cloth interior. And we had no kids, so two-door was fine. And it was a standard, that was fine. I don't remember being super good at driving a standard, but growing up, I'd had enough exposure to them with cars that my dad had driven over the years, and I'd had my shot at that that I kind of knew what was going on. And we we got it done. So that was that was car number one. Wow. So you was this back in high school? This was no, this was first married. So this was I was 21. I mean, I did driven other cars, but I had not owned a car. This was the first car that I owned and bought with my own money. I mean, so I mean, if you want to go back to first car I ever drove, we can have that conversation too.

Doug

Yeah. Well, why not why don't we hold that? Because I I do want to hear about that. But I also want to introduce today's trivia question, which is technology related and automotive related. And we're gonna, even if you know the answer, we'll save it for the end. But which common automotive technology found in almost every car today, I would say car 100%, maybe not that 86 Accord, was invented by a man who was completely blind. This this one surprised me. So because a blind man inventing something for a car, right, is surprising. You would think maybe it maybe a horn, but we're gonna save that to the end. But I I would love to hear about your first driving experience pre pre-marriage, pre-college.

Matchbox Cars And Car Mag Dreams

SPEAKER_00

So there, I mean, I I got a bunch of interesting, you know, little little stories because I loved cars. As a little kid, I loved, loved cars. I collected matchbox cars and and I'd buy them with uh with allowance money, or you know, maybe my dad would pick one up for me. So this is this is me as a little kid collecting matchbox cars, many of which I still have. I still have their the matchbox had their collector showcase. It was a brown wall-mountable little like grid that you could put cars into these little individual cells and show off your matchbox collection. There was a matchbox magazine, like a newsletter thing they'd put out. Oh, wow. Kids that had collected tons and tons of cars, they'd have pictures of them in the Matchbox uh magazine that I remember. And I remember this one kid was showing off his collection of like 900 and something cars with a custom-mounted wall display. Anyway, all that to say I loved cars growing up. And and my dad and I would split the subscription to car magazines. And for a while, we were getting the three big ones: car and driver, road and track, and motor trend. We got all three of them, and I would read them front to back. I would cut pictures out of the magazines as they aged out and make collages to put on my wall in my room and and and so on. So, I mean, cars like lived in my head. I thought about them all the time. I'd be in the back behind my dad as a little kid, and we'd pass cars on the interstate, and I'd like count the number of cars we're passing because in my head I was pretending we were in the indie 500, and I'd start us at the back of the field, and there were 33 cars in the field until we were you know there in first place. Okay. So long way to say I grew up loving cars, man. I really did.

Doug

It it it's funny you you mentioned the matchbox, Hot Wheels, like because I'm a DeLorean owner, I'm always looking for DeLorean matchbox or Hot Wheels, and I'll go to the store and you know, in the I'm in the toys section, right? And I see a lot of adults in there looking for cars, and they're just they don't have a kid with them. They're looking, they're like me, they're looking for their fave to add it to their list to kind of relive that. I I do have to ask you, since we're in the same age group, did you have the poster justification for higher education? No, the I didn't have that one, but I know the one you mean.

SPEAKER_00

But it's the garage with the the three cars parked by the beach with the sunset kind of things, kind of how to do it. Oh yeah, and there were all these awesome exotics. I but the one I did have was the the classic white Lamborghini Kuntage with the you know side shot with the black background and the beautiful font. Yeah, with the black background. Oh yeah, that that hung on my wall for years and years. I had that, and I had a model of a Ferrari Testerosa in red that I've had since high school. It's still kicking around this house somewhere, I think. Yeah, but so not a poster, but but that model of you know of the car. Come to find out years later, it's like, wow, you know, as a driving experience, maybe the testosterone wasn't all that, but it was be able to look at.

Doug

Do you do you still have any of the magazines? And there's a leading question with that. I do not have any of the paper magazines from back in the day. No. Hopefully this shows up. These are not original. Oh man. But I bought these a few years ago. I have more from eBay. I read these specific magazines. I remember reading them. And you, of course, you can find anything thanks to the internet. We help make the comment on that, right? And yeah, these these magazines are fantastic.

SPEAKER_00

So you've got are those of them got Miattas on the cover, I think I'm seeing.

Doug

On this one, there's a Miata and there's a 300ZX. Miata I've owned. Actually, I just came back from racing virtual Miata. I've owned two of the NA Miattas. And I have a three, I have a 300 ZX in my garage that's about five different colors because it kept getting hit on my nearest street. And uh I need to get it, but there's a this is your show, but I do want to equate the we were talking earlier about our early careers in Novelle networking or no. And when I was trying to figure out what to do, I wanted it post-high school, graduated in 91. I was screwing around in community college. How am I ever gonna afford a 1990 Nissan 300ZX? Well, I looked in the WAN ads, and I was already a computer guy, of course, thanks to my dad, but what am I gonna do? No network and Novell Netware Administrator, $31,000 a year. Yeah. I'm going for it. And it took me probably, I don't know, let's see, 30 years before I went and got that car. I kind of forgot about it along the way. But one of my best friends had owned one. He was his family was total car crazy. They had, when I met him, he had a RX7 Turbo 2, then he got a Miada, and he was the only child, so he wrecked all of them. His dad bought a 944 turbo. They bought most cars used. He had this Z. He wrecked it also. But man, I loved that Z. And I I I still love mine. My dad taught me to drive stick shift, and that was the last car I think my dad ever drove stick shift in.

SPEAKER_00

So my dad had a mix of of interesting, like awesome cars and beaters. So because he'd he'd work on his own cars. He loved cars too, big enthusiast. He had a a Taurus SHO, the one with the Yamaha head on it. That he had that car. That thing was incredible. What a car. But state would be getting rid of old vehicles and he'd buy you know a thousand bucks, twelve hundred bucks for an old state police cruiser, and he'd bring it home and put brakes on it and fix it up, whatever needed, just for cheap mileage to commute in. He was always on a budget. And so that was, I learned how to wrench on cars from my dad. He and I spent you know quality time out in the barn working on cars. And he did living up here in New Hampshire where everything's rusty. You'd do things a brake job could be take you new know how long because of rusty bolts. Just trying to get things apart so you could put them together. A simple thing like a brake job could take a long time. So you learn about penetrating oil and how to wait for things to settle in, and then that's still not coming apart. Okay, get out the blowtorch. Let's heat this thing up and see what we can do, and finally get it all apart and and and get it back together again and make it work. So I learned a lot of stuff from my dad about about cars and not just being an enthusiast, but how to work on them and how to care for them and how listen to the noises they make and and the importance of keeping the oil changed and you know, all those practical things that you gotta know as a car owner if you really care.

Doug

Yeah, growing up, my I was not too mechanically inclined, but my dad made my sister, my brother, and I we had to know how to change the oil because we he always he was too cheap. He always changed the oil at home. And we had to know how to change a tire, all valuable things. Yeah. My own daughter, I she got a used CRV. I said, Does it have a spare tire? She's like, I don't know. Like, do you know how to change? Now her her mom bought her mom got her the car, so it's not my car. But I I at least went and bought her one of those in you know spare tire inflators or inflators. Yeah. Not only the inflator, but the tube of spray, the whatever that green stuff is, just in case I know she's not gonna know how to change the tire. Which didn't have the technology, right? We were it was up to us to figure it out, and we we survived.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. You you mentioned you mentioned a Miata. You drove you just drove that in a sim, you said, right? Yes. So a couple of Miata stories. Yeah. One, I the the the the boring tourists we were driving got wrecked and we needed another car, my wife and I. And one of the cars I was looking at was a Miata. And I remember my buddy, because we didn't have a car for a moment because that other car had been totaled out. And we stopped and looked at a Miata, got in that thing. I'm sitting in the driver's seat, he's sitting next to me. This is a small car. This is a really small car. And he just looks at me and he goes, You're gonna kill yourself in this thing. That was his comment. And I started thinking about that. Like, yeah, he's probably right. So I did not buy a Miata, but I thought about it real serious. This would have been, it would have been mid mid to late 90s. So I don't know how old exactly this Miata was, but it would have been one of the first generations. And that really was a tiny car. But a friend of mine later ended up buying a Miata from that era. This is, you know, fast forward 10, 15 years. He bought a Miata from that era. And I I drove him out there to go pick it up and then followed him all the way home back to his house with that uh that car in it. That was fun. I remember he got on it this on a ramp to get on the highway and disappeared. And I'm in a car like that. That was the Miyata's not the fastest car in the world, but I could not keep up with him because the car I was driving, which was an all-wheel drive scoop, understeered horribly going up the ramp. So I just watched him drive away. All I could do to get caught up with him after a little bit and catch up to him. And I'm looking over at him as he's in his new Miata, well, new old Miata, but with this big old grin on his face. So that's a car I I have yet to drive and would like to one of these days. Yeah.

Doug

Yeah. No, and 35 plus years later, they're still making them. We we actually had somebody on from Mazda USA in a past episode, and we were talking he he was involved with the 35th anniversary, the product launch for U the Miata in the USA for the 35th anniversary special.

SPEAKER_00

So I love the look of those new cars, the latest gen Miatas are wow MX5. It's just gorgeous things. Just absolutely beautiful.

Doug

Yeah, and they they have a extremely loyal following. And uh it's funny. The the hardtop on that first gen, I think it fits the second gen, but in some cases worth more than the car itself. People want that hardtop. I think for racing, well, little little side thing. I uh trying to get in touch with somebody who's got a broken down Miata with a hard top nearby because I think it needs a fuel pump. I've been sitting for years, but that kind of ties into my I, you know, it's it's sim racing is like the gateway into everything else. And if you you ever thought about racing cars, sim racing will make you think really hard about doing it. I mean, the closest I can say is like playing Forza on an Xbox or something. Yeah, yeah, for for sure. And the uh actually the owner of I know we're getting off topic, but the owner of the Sim Racing place, you have you seen that movie Gran Turismo?

SPEAKER_00

Not recently, but yeah, I have. It came out a few years back, right?

Doug

Yeah, yeah. So he was actually not in the first season or first year. He was a finalist in Gran Turismo. He was selected, he went over to England and raced, and uh unfortunately, or fortunately, his wife got pregnant. He's like, Yeah, maybe it's the best idea. So he stepped he stepped away from that. But he's like the real life Gran Turismo guy. He's like, Yeah, movie wasn't quite like that. But I'm like, wow. So you you learn to race in a rig at home, and that's cool. There's there are now that I'm connected with more people in motorsports on LinkedIn, I mean, just a comment the other day about the rigs and how how great they are to get you out there and get you know, professional drivers are using rigs all the time just to get practice laps and I've seen that with the F1 drivers.

SPEAKER_00

That's just part of part and parcel of what they do. They're spending time learning the tracks, learning the cars, and so on in the Sims because they've gotten so exotic and so capable now of simulating what's really going on. Really

When The Accord Fought Back

SPEAKER_00

impressive stuff.

Doug

So so what happened, you know, and of course I have the benefit of your from your intake form. Circling back to the Accord, what happened to the Accord?

SPEAKER_00

Oh man, so the core the Accord was was with me for probably two and a half years or so. And after I bought it, I was young and naive when I bought it, and I didn't realize the thing had been beat on pretty hard before I bought it. The springs had been chopped by the previous owner, so it was a lower ride, and that was bad. That that stressed out the axles and so on. The thing had also been in some kind of a significant accident in that after I'd bought it, I found broken glass in the back and I found that it had had a it had been painted. Its original color was some kind of a silver gray, and it was white when I got it on the outside. Didn't and these are things I didn't I was young and naive. I didn't know this first car, right? Transportation. Exactly, exactly, exactly. And so one of the things that happened to me that was very dramatic, I was living in Los Angeles when where I bought and was driving this car. And so the LA freeways are serious business. You merge onto the LA freeways at freeway speed, or you die. Those are your choices. Yes. So you get to ring out a car like a little 86 Honda core. The thing probably had 100 horsepower. I mean, it wasn't a very heavy car, so 100 horsepower doesn't sound quite as grim as it might, but you know, you gotta get on it. And I will I habitually got on it on the ramp so I could merge at some kind of a uh useful speed. Shifting from second to third under full throttle, whatever you were I was getting out of this poor little car, all of a sudden the it just went, you know, the tack just maxed out like, whoa, what happened? I got no power. And it wasn't the clutch. What had happened is I'd snap the axle, you know, shifting from second into third gear, uh, and then reflecting back on it because the car had been lowered by the person chopping the springs. This axle was just too stressed. It was not at the correct geometry that the engineers had designed for that car. And so I merged I'm merging with traffic. Thankfully, I wasn't going from third to fourth, right? So I wasn't going that fast. I was able to get it stopped and literally pushed it backwards down the ramp back to the surface streets and to somewhere where somebody could pick the thing up and take it away for me. Got fixed. We got the proper suspension in the thing, did a lot of maintenance work on that car to get it to be just a decent runner, just good and solid, and then the reliability that Honda at that time was known for. Not so much that, I don't think they're known for quite so much these days, but but still, if you grew up there, Honda and Toyota, those are your two brands if you wanted a really reliable car, right? So that car ended up towing our higher belongings in the smallest U-Haul little trailer that they would rent us because we didn't have much, you know, young and poor. And we drove that thing cross-country all the way from California to New Hampshire and hauling a trailer. I that car had no business having a trailer hitch installed and hauling a trailer. I don't know why. Someone should have said something to me. It's like, dude, you're gonna trash the clutch in this thing if you do this. What are you doing? But no one said anything, and I didn't know any better. And the car was fine. I didn't destroy the clutch somehow. But its underpowered nature meant as we were driving cross-country, trying to get up over the continental of I was a thing. I remember being in Arizona and seeing this enormous hill in front of us on, I don't know, the I-10, I-40, whatever we were on, and just going, here we go, as hard as I could, winding this thing up and and having a downshift as we're going up the hill and downshift again. It's like I'm gonna run out again, and then getting near the top. I'm in second gear with the thing just screaming and losing revs, but getting over the top and then dropping down the other side and like, ooh, okay, that's that's good. I'm glad we made that. That's that's good.

Doug

Yeah. This comes up often the planning that used to be required in driving an older car, right? Whether it's going through mountains, whether it's in traffic, including uh a previous guest, Marla, who talked about she she thinks there would be less accidents and less aggressive driving if people had everybody had to drive a stick shift car because the planning that's involved in it. Like I need to rev up here, oh, I need to get around, or going up the hill, I need to downshift. Going down, I gotta get as much speed as I can because I'm gonna have to.

SPEAKER_00

A lot of which I'd forgotten because man, I I've been driving automatics for years until my my current car is a stick. I'm driving a stick again after you know 20, 30 years of not driving stick. And yeah, you're right. You do you gotta there's a different way your brain works as you're navigating, coming up on corners and negotiating a bump and coming up behind people and and and going through stop and go traffic, especially is a whole different way your brain engages to drive the vehicle for sure.

Doug

For for sure, yeah. And if you uh twenty plus years ago I broke my left ankle and it put a hamper on my uh stick shift obsession for a while. It still it still hurts. I only have one stick shift. Well, I actually have two, but my daily driver is not a stick shift anymore.

SPEAKER_00

So the end of my poor core. Poor Doug. I gotta tell you that I gotta bring closure to the poor vehicle because I it's it's it's sad. I got it back to New Hampshire. We were living in New Hampshire and I was driving around, going to work, doing whatever. And I I stopped on Route Three, just a major state route to go in two ways, not a highway, but I was stopped to make a turn into where I was gonna do some shopping. And I got rear-ended from someone who never slowed down. There were no skid marks involved. I was sitting there waiting to turn. I had just taken my foot off the brake and was about to engage the clutch to make my turn when I got hit. So thankfully the car was able to absorb a little bit of that energy moving forward, as opposed to me being laying into the brakes at a dead stop. So I was not hurt, but man, that car took a beating. It just the frame was bent, the roof wrinkled, the rear glass and the hatch had a tint on it because it came from California. Very common for these cars to have tinted windows. It was as if the car moved and left the window behind. It smashed straight out and dropped to the ground in a pile held together by the tint. Wow. All kinds of stuff went flying around in the car and so on. And it was, yeah, I mean, the car was total. It was done at that point. And I and I was sad because that was my first car. It was still a good car. And it hadn't given me any problems in snapping that axle and getting that car sorted. Since it was sorted, it was a good car, and I and I loved it. It was my first car. It wasn't super powerful, but it was fun to drive. I enjoyed it. I missed it after that. But that was the sad ending to it. I remember going to wherever the tow truck had taken it, there was some kind of a uh a record yard and looking at the car and talking about it with the insurance guy. And he's like, Yeah, it's done. Look, frame spent. And he pointed the wrinkle in the roof. He's like, That's how you know. And he's like, Come here. And he and we we stood back from the car and looked at it straight on. He's like, that thing will never go down the road straight again. Okay.

Doug

So that's what it was. Well, we we get attached to our cars, and for the for people who are watching on YouTube, or if you're listening and you want to see Ethan's reaction, right? Like, I mean truly great memories and and sadness over that car. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It's it's funny, Doug. It wasn't the fastest car. It wasn't the sexiest or the most beautiful looking car, but it was special. It was my the first one I'd ever bought that was mine mine, not one I was borrowing from mom and dad, you know? And it symbolized the beginning of my life just out of college, newly married, you know, moving to California, big adventure, and and to have it end ignominiously. It's just it was a it sucked. It's a too bad of a it was an unfortunate for what that car had been and what it meant to me for it to end the way it did was like, what a crappy ending. That's too bad.

Doug

Yeah. Oh wow. So what what was the replacement for this wonderful accord? Did it live up to the reputation of the previous car?

SPEAKER_00

So you're reminding me that there's even more to the story with this Honda

Novell School And A Beater Taurus

SPEAKER_00

Doug. Okay. And you you brought up Novelle earlier. So before I the car had been totaled, I had refinanced my accord so that I could go to Novell School. So those of you that are listening, because you're car nerds and not computer nerds, Novell was like an up-and-coming big technology company that a lot of us could, we could you could go to Novell School, get a certification, and you're that skill set was in demand.

Doug

And I was what I did. You too.

SPEAKER_00

And and and me too. Yeah. And I think we we were going around the same time when it was netware three. I went to, I was taking classes, but they were expensive and I didn't have access to the as much money as I needed. I'd refinanced the car. And so when the car got wrecked, I was upside down on the loan that I had on the car. And so it's like, oh crap. So I got my insurance money is not gonna pay, pay off the loan. So I had a loan I needed to pay off. I was dead broke and I had no car. And and and my dad helped me out. My dad comes into the story again. I was like, Dad, this is what's up. I'm need some help. He's like, All right, we got you. And uh he helped me, he loaned me enough money to get the loan paid off, however much that was, probably maybe a thousand bucks, maybe, maybe fifteen hundred, I don't know. And uh and then enough to buy a a a real beater dug. I mean, is this an 89-ish Ford Taurus with like 190,000 miles on it? I think it was like a Gen 1 Ford Taurus. Yeah, I think that sounds like Gen 1. And and absolutely this car, it has a New Hampshire car with 190,000 miles on it. She was not a beauty, you know what I mean?

Doug

Had a lot of rust, I'm guessing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it it was hurting. And but it was transportation. It worked. It worked, and I could get around in the thing. And over time, it I was doing a little consulting because of Novell School that turned into a consulting job not long after that was able to do start consulting. But that car was lost reverse. It that that tourist did not have reverse after a while. So you learned to park in the Walmart parking lot where you can pull through. You need reverse if you can pull through, and uh and so on. So that but that got me through. You know, and again, yeah, my dad entering the story was was a big deal because he bailed me out, got me a car, and I paid him back as quick as I could when I got when I had a job. And I did have a job after getting through Novell School. It turned out Novell School was that my Honda had helped me pay for was an investment that ultimately was a gamble that paid off and sent me on a career in IT. It ended up being worth it all.

Doug

The old uh netware CNE, certified netware engineer. I remember those I remember those days. Yeah. I and actually that reminds me. I so when I was driving the Miata all over the company I worked for was a Novelle training company and hardware and software reseller, and they did work all over the Novell Platinum, yeah. Yeah, mostly Baltimore. Actually, they have a they have a computer museum. It's the place is called Systems Horse. They're still around, they're in kind of northwest Baltimore near near Pennsylvania, way up there. But I was I was working at one of their customers and I was on the belt Baltimore Beltway every day, but I was driving that Miana. I drove that car with the top down into October time. Was it as fun as I think it is? Yeah, it was fun. It was a great car. A little underpowered, but like underpowered, but light and rear-wheel drive, yeah? Rear-wheel drive. I like to tell people like the convertible is the best car on a nice day. On the worst day, not so much. There was a little supercharger kit for that car, wasn't there? I didn't have it, but now there are supercharger kits, there are turbo kits, there are let's see, Ford 5.0 swaps, like you go down the eBay rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_00

I you could fit a Ford V8 under that hood.

Doug

Man, it must have been tight. Yeah, to put a bump on it. They call it the monster Miata, but for obvious reasons.

SPEAKER_00

Upset the handling a little bit, I imagine.

Doug

Yeah, you could say that. But yeah, I mean, there's professional racing leagues that are Miata Cup Club leagues. Yeah. Mazda really and I've owned four Mazdas, so I'm a I'm a huge fan. Mazda builds great cars. And uh, we're gonna actually gonna have somebody else from Mazda on in the near future. So I'm looking looking forward to that. So we we talked about the first couple cars, and you and you have a lot of stories, so I'm hoping you'll come back. That's up to you. I'm gonna say yes then. Okay. So tell us about your current fun, awesome

Falling For Subaru And The WRX

Doug

car. Speaking of tuner and doing mods, and we talked about it a little bit in passing, and it it has a very strong following, these cars. Very strong.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, yeah, I'll I'll set it up by saying I got into Subaru's around 2010. My wife needed a new car, and we were tired of fighting the snow that we got to deal with up here and just dealing with the the headaches of driving in the snow. And I wanted something better for her to be driving around in. And we got her an outback. And I saw her, I remember her looking out the window as she drove up the with the kids heading off to school, taking them to school. One of the first days we had it on a slippery, nasty day, and the car just drove like there was nothing wrong whatsoever, like it was dry pavement. I was in awe and I fell in love with Subaru at that very moment. Because we'd heard about how wonderful Subrews were in the New Hampshire winters. And that just seeing that moment, knowing the previous car she had in on a day like that, that previous car would have spun the tires and fought and been a thing and then drama to see if you could actually crest the little hill we lived on and then get on the flats and be on your way. Not the Subaru. I got into Subarus and Subaru culture at that point. And I had wanted forever to buy a WRX, just had wanted it, but they were always a bit out of reach and not practical. And for a lot of years, I was needing to be kind of practical about cars and just couldn't quite get there. But now I at December last year, so actually New Year's Day, I picked this car up. A 2011 WRX in the classic, iconic World Rally Blue hatchback. I'm all about the hatchbacks. I love the hatchback body style. Every Subaru we've had has been a hatchback in some form or another. And in this Rex is a dream come true. I found it largely unmodified. They are difficult to find unmodified because they're a reasonably affordable car, and a lot of young guys will buy them and mod the crap out of them and beat them to death. They don't take care of them a lot of times. And so if you buy one that's modded, that's that's a risk. You don't know really what you're getting into. If you can find one that's largely unmodified, it's rare. But if you can and it's been taken care of, that's a special car. And I found it. That's but that's that's that car's my baby. That's I love this thing. So I bought it on Cars and Bids, Doug DeMiro's at the Doug DeMiro's auction site. Been watching auctions kind of idly because I bought everybody watches. If you're a car guy, you got you watch Doug. Everybody, we all know Doug.

Doug

I knew, I know Doug very well. Right? So I love his name too.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, of course you do. And so this car comes up on cars and bids, and I was not thinking about it too seriously, but kind of looking at it, like, oh wow, what this is this is what a nice car, and but more admiring it rather than thinking I'm gonna buy it. But then my son calls me. My son had been driving my his grandfather, my father's Taurus SHO, a two or 2013 SHO for some years. He bought it from his grandfather, who had was moving out of that car and bought bought something else. And so my stuff was. Wasn't that the V8 SHO? It's a twin turbo V6. Oh, okay. So it's it's the Ecotech V6 in that in that SHO. I don't think that ever had a V8.

Doug

Yeah, I can't remember. They did something unique for a certain time, but that was towards the end of the SHO.

SPEAKER_00

But yeah, this was the yeah, yeah, right. You're in the the latest body style Taurus. Fairly big car, but all-wheel drive, tons of power, 360 horse, I think. I mean, you stood on that thing and you knew something was about to happen. It was for real. That was a fast car, a lot of car. But my son, being a young man, was just struggling to keep the thing on the road. He put 50 something thousand miles on it, but as it got into six figures on the odometer, and it was, I don't know, it had 110 something thousand, just various things were starting to go wrong with it. And the car became too expensive for him to maintain. And uh, long story short, what we decided to do was my son was gonna drive one of my Subarus, and I was gonna drive, I was gonna buy this WRX was the plan. But of course, I got to win the auction. So it's an auction car on Cars and Bids on Doug DeMiro's site. Okay, here we go. And uh long story short, I won the auction. But it was one of those auctions the way cars and bids works, you you have to have no bids for 60 seconds after the auction closes. If someone bids, then it runs for another 60 seconds and keeps going until there's no more bids, and then finally the auction will close. And as long as you meet the reserve price, you're you're good to go. And it was like that. My my my son's watching in real time. He's on a call with my wife who's looking over my shoulder, and I'm sitting here, I'm bidding. It's me and another guy going back and forth, back and forth. And I'm like, stop bidding, stop it, stop, stop, stop, just no, this is my car. It was a little irrational at that point. But but won the car at a price that I'm not too embarrassed about, but I got it for 18 when it was all said and done, you know, plus fees, plus whatever. But here's the thing I live in New Hampshire, and that car was in Cali. So it's all the way out on the West Coast. So it couldn't have been much further away from me. But what I talked to the guy and I could have had it shipped and I thought about it, but I I talked to him and I'm like, well, could could I drive this car back? Would this car make it back across the country? He's like, oh yeah, I'd drive it back. No worries. I've been taking care of it. And he had all the car facts, records showed it had been a very well-maintained car and had nothing wrong with it. And so that's what happened. That's what I did. I my uh with my son. So my son and I made uh you know a big important memory in this car together. He was right there all the way, you know, needing a car and was gonna drive one of my other cars and knew what this car was. He he himself, one of his cars in his history, he had tuned his own. He had a 2015 VW GTI that he tuned and done a lot of things to. And uh he knew what this WRX was. He was into it. And I'm like, well, can you fly to Cali with me and let's drive this car back across the country together? He's like, Yeah, and I can do it. Let's let's and we we figured out his window to get off work, and that's exactly what we did. We flew out of Boston, all the way to San Fran, and then down the coast to a little San Luis Obispo airport, met the guy at the airport with the car. We shook hands, did what needed to be doing with paperwork and stuff. There wasn't much. Cars and bids takes care of pretty much everything. I put my temp in the hatch and drove away. And I'm trying to remember how to drive a stick again. So it had been a minute. And we drove, we we drove all the way back across the country in the racks, baby blue. In four days, we, you know, we drove Arizona up into up through Oklahoma and Missouri and all the way across and finally ended up back in New Hampshire after four days. And that car gave us we paid attention to tire pressure, and that was it. I mean, we were paying attention, you know, we were being adults staring obsessively at the water temp gauge and and other things, but it gave us no trouble at all and and got on got it all the way home in in one piece. And you know, what a joy driving that thing. It came from the factory with a short throw short throw shifter kit. Okay. That was a factory option. I actually went on eBay and I got the original dealer catalog that showed you all the options for the rest at that time. But they asked short throw shifter from the factory and a cat back exhaust from the factory as well, which which didn't doesn't change the power much, but does give you that notable boxer burble because they that car's got unequal length headers. That's the standard Subaru config. Not great for speed, but incredible for sound. I mean, that that's iconic boxer, Subi boxer rumble. That thing sounds amazing with that catback exhaust. Oh, it sounds so good. Yeah. And and what a joy, man. I love that car. And I've been I've had the car.

Doug

I'm chucking your ear off right now, but uh this has been well. I'm I'm thinking about we we talked a little bit about it, and and it reminds me of I'm gonna quote your favorite episode from our podcast, which was the episode with Neil and Rushin about call they wrote a book called The Console Clunker. They they live not too far from you, where they rebuilt a 1998 Acura Integra and drove across country in it. And then they did the same thing with the Alpha Romeo spider, I think. Something something similar. Yeah, they just brought their integrated closer together. Yeah, it's a great story. That was a great story. It it is a great story, and yeah, just doing that with your son and you know, you're lighting up talking about your son, but you're lighting up about the car too, and and all the facts and the Subaru like book for that year.

SPEAKER_00

You you know, when you're younger and for whatever reason you can't buy that car, whatever the car is you're looking at in the magazine or reading about, or you see someone else driving on the road, and then finally you get it, and it's the one you want. It's the one you've been looking at, it's the one that turns your head every time it goes by the other direction. God get that thing. Now you have one. Now, and I have one, and it's a good example. And it's a Cali car, so it's it's in New Hampshire, but it's not all rusted

OEM Plus Mods And Upgrade Plans

SPEAKER_00

to death, you know. And I I get at home and I say I've been modding it, but it's all been very careful, tasteful things. I'm not touching the drivetrain. Drivetrain is is is being left alone, but I'm doing things to update the car. So I I've I had the entire interior out except for the dashboard to put a stereo in it. I put sound deadening in it and I got a subwoofer in it and put a head unit in an amp and did all the wiring. You know, that's all stuff I know how to do, but I did it very carefully, all very meticulous. I I got I ordered the JDM panel that fits around the doubled in opening correctly. If you have the USDN one, it's wide. It's a little wide because of what the factory head units, they were not doubled in standard. So you have to go to the JDM parts bin to get the panel that actually fits correctly around a doubled in aftermarket head unit. And I owned one. I have it took me three orders to get the right one. The two that I'd ordered were wrong. They showed up supposedly being the correct part. No, they were not right. And it took me three tries to actually get the right part. So I have I have two Subaru and Present WRX model 2011 dash panels. If anyone's looking for one, maybe I'll put them up on eBay.

Doug

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

That aren't the right thing.

Doug

Well, definitely referencing them referencing them on our show in the show notes to help you out. We all end up with extra parts that way. It's it's kind of the the rabbit hole of this looks like the right thing, I'm gonna pull the trigger. It shows up. Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_00

It's but I've been having fun doing things like that. So this car was uh limited. And well, the STI side mirrors have have marker lights and the stock WRX, because there's the WRX, and then there's the STI trim, which is a cut above. It's it's it's more of it's got a very different drivetrain in it, and it's got uh a somewhat different motor in it, uh, and so on. It's not the one I was looking for because I because they ride really rough, and in New Hampshire, the roads are really rough, and so you don't want a rough riding car, and so I wanted the Rex, not the WRX STI, but the STI did have some nice perks, and one of them was just a thing like those side marker mirrors. Well, I found a set of them on eBay, bought them in, put them on the car. They look great, and now I've got side marker lights on my mirrors. That's that's a nice little thing, you know, little upgrades like that. I'm doing that, are I we call it OEM Plus, is the way I'm trying to do my I like that plus.

Doug

I like that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Doug

So, what is next for the Rex?

SPEAKER_00

Next for the Rex, I have skid plates to install. So I am a hiker and a trail runner, and I go to I go down forest roads to get to trailheads so I can get up into the mountains. So a skid plate seems like a really smart thing to do on this low-riding car. Those are here. I got them from Primitive Racing. They're sitting in their box waiting for me. That's coming. I have headlights on order from Morimoto. Moramoto is a company that makes a lot of aftermarket headlamp and tail lamp assemblies for a whole bunch of different cars. And one of the things that lets the stock wrecks down that I have, this is model year 2011, is the lights. Modern lights are awesome. They're bright and white and LED and so on. And the old halogens just don't cut the mustard by comparison. And and but Moramoto makes some aftermarket upgrades for the car. And I've got them on. I actually I pulled the trigger on them last night because I've been waiting for because they're expensive. Expensive. And I'm finally like, okay, let's go. Click the button and they're coming. So things like that that that are modernizing the car. I've got like okay, I feel like a boy racer when I say this, but I'm doing the the hella horn upgrades because you got to do that on your Subaru. You have to. So I've got I've got them sitting in the box. And so there's a day coming because I got to take the front bumper off for all of these things. The front bumper's coming off. I'm gonna do the skid plate, I'm gonna do the headlights, I'm gonna do the hellahorn install, and that's gonna be a fun day. That's coming. See if I can get my son up to help me with that.

Doug

Okay, we'll we'll take pictures and post some videos for us. That would be cool to cool to hear. And you, you know, we were talking about things from the past, and and you mentioned headlights and you know, having two old cars, the the 1990Z and the 81 DeLorean. Like and and I don't know, maybe that's just the way it was back then. Maybe it they're just old. I I I don't know. I can't imagine how safe that could have been in 1980. But I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

What's weird is I don't remember them. I mean, I drove plenty of cars at night as a kid. I don't remember that lighting being a problem. That's I guess we're spoiled in the modern era. I don't know.

Doug

Yeah, I think I I think so.

Dream Cars And The C8 Debate

Doug

So what would I think you have one of your dream cars, but what would be your dream car if you know money weren't an issue, time, garage space, you had a chauffeur, all that good stuff.

SPEAKER_00

I that's a long list. I'll I mean I'll I'll still stick to what I sent you just to have a starting point. But yeah, but one car that I adored the look of when I was a kid, look going through magazines was it was the Porsche 930, technically the 9-11 slant nose with the whale tail on it, that big old tail. The lines of that car, something about it just captivated me. I love that thing. Such a handsome car that was distinct from the traditional 9-11 nose with that that's iconic. Yeah, everyone knows what that car looks like, but the slant nose with the pop-up headlights and the whale tail was something special to me. I just, I was obsessed with the look of that thing. And every time it popped up in a magazine, they were doing a test on, I was like, love it. Look at it. And see us have captured my attention over the years as well. And the the Stratos, which is kind of the wedge with the rounded big haunches on it and kind of the round tail lamps, if you can remember what that thing looks like at the louvered hood. Really interesting, handsome, fascinating car. And I don't know how it was a rally car. So I mean it, I'm sure it was a very good thing. Yeah, there's a rally car. But you know, so I I don't technically know how fast it was, but boy, it looked fast, that's for sure. What a thing. And they there's a restomod version of that car these days, I think, too. I forget who's making it, but it's modeled after that. That and I think there's uh the Lancia, oh, I'm gonna get the model name wrong, but it was a it was a those the Strawdale, but it was more of a traditional hatchback kind of a shape. There we go. That's the model I'm thinking of. It was right in there, too. Interesting cars. But I I would come back to a variety of Porsches over time. When I was nine years old, I had to do a research paper in school about something that was a thing they were teaching us how to do. And I had a big Coffee table style book about Porsche. Porsche, a tradition of greatness, is what I believe the title of this car was that covered Porsche's history. Up through, I mean, I was a kid, so it couldn't have been much more than the early 80s. And I just ate up everything Porsche because of that book and studying that book to I could write this research paper as a little kid. And man, I still remember images of the Porsche 928 S4, and it had this checkerboard patterned interior and all this stuff.

Doug

And I guess Asha interior, that's what they call it.

SPEAKER_00

Was that what it was?

Doug

Yeah, P-A-S-H-A, I think.

SPEAKER_00

So now I as an adult met someone that owned a 928 and said, you don't want to own one of these. They're a nightmare to keep on the road. They're so expensive to maintain. Yeah. And but still cool looking. I want to go for a ride in one. I don't think I want to own one.

Doug

Yeah, I think I I think I drove one once just for the heck of it. I don't know why somebody would have let me drive one when I was, you know, 18 or whatever. And I remember the gas pedal getting stuck down. And there were all these warning lights, but and that V8. And you know, it's funny you mentioned 928 because I I was watching part of Risky Business last night because my best friend and co-founder of the podcast, Christian, loves the 928 and he loves that movie. So I was just watching it. It it is such an amazing car. But the 944s get more attention in the market than 928s, 929.

SPEAKER_00

And I think there's more of them around. I mean, that was just it was a more affordable car. I I yeah, how many of them are in good running order? I don't know. But yeah, I I tend to see more 944s than 928s come up for auction and out there. But yeah, a lot of Porsches. I'd love to own a V8 American muscle car at some point. That's pretty interesting to me. Yeah, I I grew up in a Ford family. And so a lot of my dad was not exclusively Fords, but he he did have a lot of Fords, and so I was pretty fascinated by Mustangs for a lot of years. But man, the uh like my dream you know, Mustang would be uh, let's say a late 80s notchback. Or uh sorry, that would have been an LX, I think. But it had the 5-0 in it. But the notchback, you know, hard that that car, not that with all the louvers over the tail lights and all that.

Doug

Louvers every yeah, louvers hurts, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. But but when those come up for auction, they go for a lot because it's people like you and me with some money that finally decide they're gonna have one and go and rack up the price.

Doug

And it it's funny you say that because of course, my I can just pick out car stuff from my day-to-day life, but the new Nissan apparently has been doing really well. And why are they doing it? Retirees are buying those cars, and that's what's keeping it alive. And I'm like, that could be me and you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Would I want one? I don't know. I I still want to get my Z back on the road. It's just so I'll throw another car at you, and then I've got to ask you a question.

SPEAKER_00

Please. So the I don't know exactly what year it would be, but it would be a vet with a split window rear is such a gorgeous thing to me. 1963 only. So beautiful that car, right? What do you think of the C8 Corvette looking at it?

Doug

God, I have I know so many people that have them, including I have a friend who has a C8 and a DeLorean with an LS motor and a bunch of other Corvettes. He, he, I'm gonna use his term because he was in Italy and he got to drive a Ferrari. Obviously, he's a car guy. He's like, this is the American Ferrari. I don't know. The engine lid, I'm not like engine cover, I'm not a fan of. I think it's just something about that just kind of throws me off and makes me lose interest. It is apparently the maybe not the answer you wanted to hear, but it it is like the car to have, like for the money. You cannot beat that car at track events. I actually I'm going to a track event in April in Richmond with the extreme experience. Actually, we had this plug. We had their CEO on our podcast too. So they they bring supercars to tracks and take you get to drive them, depending on how much. But he said the C8 Z06, he said that is amongst their most popular car. It's it's not the Lamborghini, it's not the Ferrari, it's it's that car because it's it's reasonable.

SPEAKER_00

It so I I asked the question, not because I don't think that the C8 vet is a heck of a car, it is in all its flavors. Uh the whether it's the Z06, and I forget the I forget all the new letter designations, but they think Zero One is and they just came out in the Zero One. Yeah, I knew there was an X involved somewhere. Yeah. And these cars are astonishing with what their performance is and their capabilities, and it's it's all that. It's a heck of a car. But I look at it and I compare it to the shapes of a C6 or a C7, let's say. And if if looks were the only consideration, I will have a front engine vet, C6 or C7, all day over a C eight. I don't like looking at the C eight, and I feel like I shouldn't be saying that. But that's how I feel about it. It looks wrong to me, and I can't get my head around what it is. Part of it is the engine cover and the lines, and it's very busy and it looks disproportionate somehow to me.

Doug

Yeah. It kind of looks a little like a Batmobile somehow, like a later Batmobile. Yeah, I know exactly why you say that. Yeah. Well, and and it it it's funny if you want to see something happen to you of that, if you've heard of whistling diesel on YouTube. Oh, I who'd haven't heard of Whistling Diesel? You just recently destroyed a C8, so it's probably worth watching if you're looking at it. Oh, the oh, the old Montana loophole. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't go to a car show without seeing a few cars with Montana plates. True, true story. But yeah, the Corvette, I think the thing for me is there are a dime a dozen. And I mean, you might see more of those than you see of your Subaru, to be honest.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

Doug

Right. And so it's but it's an incredible car. In my case, I would want to see five only because of the pop-up headlights. Like that's the only reason, but like that's tie ties me back. But so man, we talked about so many cars, and I have more questions for you, If you're a couple more minutes for us, Ethan. I do. Okay, cool.

The Tuned GTI That Scared Him

Doug

So one of the questions we like to ask on the podcast is what is the most dangerous car that you've been in, you've driven, or you were a passenger in, and you're smiling. I know, I know the story, but I haven't heard you tell it.

SPEAKER_00

So I was in okay. So I'm gonna describe this more as a dangerous situation that scared me as opposed to the car itself was dangerous. Because I I don't think the car itself was dangerous, but it was so I mentioned my son's 2015 VW GTI. This uh, and and that that car as is, it's very, very small. You ever been in a GTI? You ever been in one of them? Yeah. So you know how tiny that thing is, right? You know, you you you turn around and your elbow's gonna hit the rear glass. Okay, it's not that bad, but it's it's a small car. Yeah, a small car with a backseat. And it's and it it's a stick, it's definitely an enthusiast car. It's a lot of fun to drive. And uh my c my son and I bought this car together. This was his first car, and he was, and it was a stick, and he was determined to learn how to drive a stick, and I really wanted him to have the the the knowledge of uh a kid growing up in the you know in the modern era where everything's an automatic or you know, paddle shifters or whatever, to actually know how to drive a proper stick with a clutch. And he'd be one of the few people in the world that you could do it at this point, that hardly anybody knows how anymore. And he got it, he got good and he could drive that car, and then he got into modding. That is there's a big modding scene around the GTI. Yeah, there is ships, ships are easy roads for he got a cob uh tuner, and he got a tune put on this thing, and he got an exhaust, really obnoxiously lost, but he loved it. And uh, and this car got fast. I I don't, it was never dynoed, we don't know exactly, but gotta guess this car was pushing, getting near 300 horse engine, I don't think wheel, but it was it was getting up there because you can you can go a long way with just a cob and a tune, pump gas, and uh and a cat back. You can make some pretty good power in that car. And man, on the road after he'd gotten his latest tune done, and we were on a back road, we went on the highway, and he got on it, and it scared the crap out of me, not gonna lie. Was it dangerous? Did we almost have an accident? No, but I was petrified of this car, this monster my son had created in this thing. It was fun, but it was it it scared me. Yeah. And in another moment, in that same car, he was driving and I was in the car too. Yeah, the three of us were definitely in the car while someone pulled up next to him and on the highway, this is on the interstate, and and they got the nod, and it was the three, two, one, and they took off the pair of them. And I'm just along for the ride going, this is happening. Okay, here we go. And it didn't last long. You know, they they they were showing off, you know, young men demonstrating how much power they got under the hood. And again, nothing bad happened. There was no accident and no close calls or anything. But that car to me was dangerous because it was so small and so fast, and it's the kind of car, if you get into a bad accident, they just bury you in the car. That would be the most convenient way to deal with you. Does he still have the car? We had to sell that car. We he got he put a ton of miles on it and it it it it outgrew its useful life, required tons and tons of maintenance and money. And after that car is when he bought my father, his grandfather's Taurus SHO, which became his next daily after that. So we we sold the GTI. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. And he he still has the SHO? The SHO is what just died at the end of last year, and that became too much money to maintain when it developed a significant oil leak. It was gonna be into it was something wrong with one of the turbos and that engine, and it was into 4,000 sun. Fixable, not fixable when you're a broke college student working on you know what's next in your life. So with less maintenance. So he's he's he's driving one of dad's cars right now, one of my Subis.

Doug

Okay. All right. Well, we know that's safe and not too fast. It's on the As long as it's not the Rex.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, the the car he's driving is is still a turbocharged subaru and uh can get out of its own way, but it's uh it it it's got all the nannies, all the electronic modern tech stuff on it that doesn't let you have too much fun.

Doug

Yeah. Well, you did things in a roundabout sort of way with your son. You got him the super fast car to make him hopefully i appreciate power, right?

SPEAKER_00

He does and he does and in and now that he's older, he also appreciates the practicality of a car and being comfortable in a car when you have to go long distances and and all that. He's actually car dad's car.

Doug

Dad's got the cool car.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

Doug

Yeah, yeah. I get it.

Favorite Car Movies And TV

SPEAKER_00

So, what is your favorite car movie or TV show, Ethan? There's a few different memories here. When I was a kid, do you remember a show that was only on briefly, but it was called Automan.

Doug

I do. It had Jesse Arnaz Jr. in it.

SPEAKER_00

So Automan is just on my memory because it was they used special effects and and so on. And this car was it was an imaginary car. I don't know what the thing was actually based on, but it had you know it glowed and special effects that made it look like it was very fast and on the road and stuff. So that's kind of a weird, a weird one. But I just wondered if you too remembered that because it really made impression on me as a little bit.

Doug

I think it was one season, and you remember the uh the car what created it was called Cursor.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yes, right. Cursor would draw up a thing, yeah. Yeah, and other stuff too that would come to life.

Doug

Yeah. Back to our IT, IT fun. That actually, my former co-host Christian, he he loves that show too. So it's it's gotta be so bad to watch now. But yeah, I do I do wonder what kind of car that was. I always considered that movie, I think it came out right around or that show right around the same time, Tron. There was some cursor and all that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. You're a bit, they would say, in Tron and Cursor was kind of that same sort of creation, yeah.

Doug

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, that's fun.

SPEAKER_00

So another car movie is Smokey and the Bandit, of course, the first one. The second one's got kind of forgettable, but the first one was a lot of fun. And uh and that's another one of those cars that that black trans am that he's driving, which is actually not that fast and not that powerful, but the way they filmed it, you know, made it look that way. And my favorite scene from that movie is the convoy scene where he needs to hide. He's got someone chasing him down, and he tucks in between these semis that are riding at a convoy, and then the other semi pulls out and pushes the cop out of the way and then screens him so he can hide effectively. What a fun scene. Just a great scene. A movie I just watched recently that's in the YouTube catalog. YouTube's got a whole movies series that they run a whole bunch of different movies through there. And the Gumball Rally shows up from the Gumball rally. Like 70s, early 80s? I don't remember exactly what year that came out, but there's a bunch of neat cars in there, Ferraris and Porsches, and just a mix and match of a variety of interesting cars and drivers that have backstories if you start digging around on the internet about it. That's a fun movie.

Doug

I've I've got a movie for you that you may it will tie back to your por love for Porsches. No Man's Land with Charlie Sheen. Have you seen it?

SPEAKER_00

No, I don't think so.

Doug

You've you've got to watch it. It's Charlie Sheen and DB Sweeney. And Charlie Sheen steals Porsches. That's like what he does. He has a Porsche shop, which is like a front for him stealing Porsches and true. DB Sweeney is is an undercover cop and probably not the best movie, but there's some great chase scenes and scenes with 9-11 going around some crazy hairpin turns, and as you know, the the weight in the back, right?

SPEAKER_00

It's yeah, that the the Widowmaker. Yeah. The Widowmaker.

Doug

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Trouble trouble. So some other other cars, you other movies you brought to my mind. Again, maybe not the greatest movie in the world, but well, we'll let me back up a step. Steve McQueen, Bullet. Great movie. Great that iconic car scene in the San Francisco Hills and all that at the end with the bullet Mustang. What a great, just an iconic, memorable scene. But then fast forward to the the the remake of Gone in 60 Seconds with Nicolas Cage was in that, Angelina Jolie was in that, and I forget a bunch of other cast of characters. The whole thing is about them boosting cars and moving them on, and then then Eleanor, you know, his white whale, you know, the one he could never quite steal, you know, and package up without things happening. That is a fun car. Fun movie. And and Eleanor in that movie was a beautiful, beautiful car. Just the look at that thing was was great. And I I know it's a remake. I don't think I've ever seen the original Gone in 60 Seconds. I'm interested in seeing it, but I have not.

Doug

I had I have not either. So on uh since you said the Eleanor, the one that got away, what is your car that got away?

The Acura TL That Broke Hearts

Doug

What's your Eleanor? I know we talked about your dream cars, but it would have to be a car that you've owned. What's your Eleanor?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I can tell you about a car that broke my heart. This was when the TL was like in all written up in all the magazines as like, this is the one, man. This this car is great, Acura, nailed that they got it just raised. This is, I think I had it as I think it was a 2006 that I had. Because I remember that the 2008 edition of that car had some tail lights I liked so much better than my 2006. And I was jealous, if I remember right. Anyway, this car was Acura, of course, Honda's premium brand. And at that time, Acura was ruling the world. They were knocking it out of the park with so many cars. They'd come on the scene, I don't know, 15 years earlier with the legend, 20 years earlier with the legend. And everybody just knew the Acura mark and held it in the highest regard. And man, if you drove an Acura, that was the thing. And I just I had this opportunity to buy a TL. It was used and but I loved that thing. It was blue, it had a saddle interior, beige, beige leather. I don't remember, you know, perforated leather seats. Had came with a nav system, which back at the day where that was kind of a big deal. You didn't have car play. And so to have a car with a built-in nab was kind of awesome. Had a really nice stereo in the thing, and the engine just got up and went 260-something horse, I think, if I remember right. And lots of power. It had a lot of aluminum in it. So the thing was light. You know, you got under it, and you know, part of the chassis was aluminum, and part of the engine was aluminum. And it was just like it felt like driving an exotic to me. You know, I've been driving, I drove a lot of Ford Tauruses, man. Those were not exciting cars. They got you from point A to point B, but they weren't exciting cars. A lot of plastic.

Doug

Yeah, a lot of plastic in those cars. Plastic. Yeah, TL. I I remember a friend of mine when I worked at a company that begins with a C. He he got what it I just remember it took voice commands. I'm like, show me how it works. Yeah. And he's like, okay, passenger heat, seat, heat, turn on. And that was it. I was like, oh, that's maybe not that exciting.

SPEAKER_00

And they didn't understand you about half the time, anyway.

Doug

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. But the the car broke my heart because it this was my daily. And uh and and I drove the family around it. I had two little kids at the time, and uh coming home from church one morning with all the kids dressed up and you know, and so on. And the car overheats bad, and we're almost home, but the car is like doing making bad noises and doing bad things, and I'm like, this isn't happening. This is a Honda, basically. This is like supposed to be the most reliable car in the world, and it's my baby, and I love this car, and this isn't happening, and I'm in denial as this is this is going on. Long story short, is the car overheated badly. I think it was a like it had like a fancy thermostat. It wasn't just a simple bimetal, you know, thermostat that would open when the temps got hot enough. It was something electronically controlled and something failed. And that thermostat got shut, caused the car to overheat, and it had issues and other sorts of problems because it had overheated and whatever got warped. It was just never quite right. It was drivable, but never right. And I never trusted it anything. And every time I had to take it in for service to the dealer, there was only one Acura dealer around. And I'd I'd brought it in there and they'd give me a loaner and I'd go to work. And it was a bit of a pain in the butt forever after until I uh I traded it in on, I think that was, I think that I think I traded that car in on my first Subaru, actually, on the first Subaru that I bought. I wife uh had bought one, but then I bought one after because I was so impressed with with what she was driving. And I think I traded in the TL to get that first Subaru, which was 2012 Impreza Hatch. Not the WRX, but but but the the first year of the next generation of the Impress, which I think was a Gen 4 at that point. Anyway. Okay. So the TL not exactly the one that got away, but the one that I had the highest expectations for and killed me because of some crappy part that basically wrecked the motor. Yeah. Now we're Subaru family. Yeah. Got all Subarus I've had and Impresses. I had a I had a Forester XT for a while that we drove very high miles, and the engine eventually blew, kind of a known problem with the banjo bolts, decided to not put the put another engine in it, had had had had a crosstrek, had multiple outback. Now I've got two outback wildernesses, 2022s, and and the Rex, big 2011 WRX hatch. So I don't know how many total Subarus I've had. I have to think about it, but a bunch.

Doug

A bunch. Yeah, yeah. Definitely, definitely a Subaru family.

Cruise Control Trivia And Farewell

Doug

So I want to shift to the trivia question and answer. So what was a what was the device created for cars? And it's present in every modern day car. I can't think of a single one that was created by a blind person. Got me, man. I do not know. So the gentleman's name was Ralph Titor. He was an engineer who lost his sight at age five, and he invented what was called the speedostat, later renamed Cruise Control in 1950. And the creation came from the fact that he was frustrated in riding with his lawyer. They would talk and the lawyer was slowing down, speeding up. And I think it just kind of made him feel a little sick. And so he went home and engineered this creation, and we have him to thank for it. Isn't that amazing? Where ingenuity comes from. And you know, I have to plug, we we have so many, I I I feel like I'm bragging, but we have so many great episodes, and we've talked about a bunch of them. I don't know if you've heard the episode with Dr. Robert Kearns or his son, who Timothy Kearns, who lives nearby. He his dad created the intermittent windshield viper in Detroit. It was kind of stolen by the big three, it was the longest case of patent infringement running for over 30 years. The children were involved in it, and there was a movie about it, which Tim is very proud of the movie. I I think it's a fantastic family movie, and for car enthusiasts, it's called let's see, what is it called? It is called Flash of Genius with Greg Kneer, who's a famous actor. So highly recommend watching the movie. Tim is portrayed by a kid with a blue shirt. His older brother, who actually just recently passed away, Dennis is involved, and the family helped the father go to court, and the father was very, you know, driven. And he could have had, I don't know, 30 million dollars from Ford and he said no. And he took it to court and he won.

SPEAKER_00

He probably got less money, but he was idealistic and he got he he he was a r he was righteous in his indignation and wanted justice served. Yeah, well done for him.

Doug

And uh yeah, what it it's a great story, and just having having met Tim, who also owns a Porsche, by the way, that he ri that he races. He l I live in Maryland on Annapolis in Annapolis, which is the state capital, and he lives on the eastern shore, what we call the other side of Maryland, where you have to go over the large Chesapeake Bay Bridge. But yeah, having met Tim in person and just hearing the story and I watched the movie with my kids is a wonderful tale. So just made me think of them. So yeah, we, if people want to find you, Ethan, I mean you're all over anything with networking, pack and pushers, network pops up. Up. But if you want to find Epen, you can find him on his website, the company website, PacketPushers.net. You can find him on their YouTube YouTube channel, Packet Pushers Network. And of course, anywhere you get podcasts, there are a total of 13 different podcasts on your website.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, 13 active shows we've got now and some other miscellaneous feeds. But but yeah, yeah, there's lots and lots of Packet Pushers content out there, lots of pods, and I'm on I'm on three of them.

Doug

Nope. Hear your voice often and I I see your LinkedIn and I'm glad to have a another car guy, same age, who's also also into tech and he's got great stories. So thank you for inviting me. This was a lot of fun, Doug. That's fun. Yeah, love to have you back. You have more stories. Love to have your your son or your wife on, your colleagues, friends, any anyone. So looking forward to getting this out. And as we gently steer the podcast into Pit Lane, I want to thank Ethan Banks for being on the show. Again, it's been an honor having listened to your show for 15 years. And I think really it was the first podcast of its type to go out there and talk about computer networks. And it was. Yeah. And you guys continue to impress and all the different podcasts that have spawned from it and the events, Network Field Day and all those other things. Well, we didn't start Network Field Day, but we certainly were a part of it back in the beginning. And still are. Yeah. And just having seen the podcast grow. And then yeah, this is fantastic. So you have just heard the high revving, low mileage, late model heard round the world, authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia. And if you have a great story to share or have a friend who has a great story, please drop us a line. And we're active on all the social media, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. But the easiest way to find all our content is to go to our link tree, L I N K T R dot E E slash Cars Love, or drop us a note, send us a story, refer a friend, stories at CarsLove.com. And we'll see you next time.

Head Shot

Doug

Co-host