Still a gear head

I couldn’t sleep, I was wide awake at 3:00. I finally rolled out of bed and got ready, I gave Cakes a kiss at 3:30 and got on the road to Santa Cruz. There was no traffic on 101 as I headed north. I set the cruise control at 80 and kept my eyes on the road and the mirrors.

An hour and a half later I was south of Santa Maria. Still no traffic. I was driving my 2007 Corvette Z51. I slowed down to 20mph, shifted into 1st gear and floored it, I shifted at the 6,000 rpm red line, 1st then 2nd, then 3rd, then 4th I shifted into 5th gear at 140mph. The heads up display showed 168 in 5th gear. I lifted off the accelerator and let the the car lose momentum. While I was accelerating I’d kept my eyes ahead on the road, a long way ahead. As the speed dropped I cautiously looked around, I was slowing down but everything except the road ahead was a blur. Road signs whipped by, too fast to read. The speed dropped under 100, then 75 and I reengaged the cruise control and continued north to see my daughter and her kids.

168 is the fastest I’ve ever driven a car, the 2nd fastest? I hit the 155mph speed limiter on our AMG Mercedes one night on the Mass Turnpike. According to all the road tests a Z51 has a top speed of 186. I did 20 mph less than that and never shifted into 6th gear.

Modern high performance cars are mechanical miracles, the Corvette (and the Benz) settled down over 100mph, the design and aerodynamics literally push the car down on the road the faster you go. Both cars were stable and comfortable at speed. As fast as it was, the Corvette routinely delivered gas mileage in the high 20’s even the low 30’s when I drove at the speed limit. I never got less than 20 in town.

The amazing thing is as I accelerated the Corvette, the car never slowed down, it accelerated as hard over 100 mph as it did between 20 and 100. I didn’t time it, but I know from start to finish my high speed run from 20 to 168 took less than a minute. Checking the road test numbers bear me out. Funny the car had a built in timer, I could have timed my run, but didn’t think of it.



The first time I believe I drove a car over 100mph was my dad’s buddy Bob Anton’s ‘56 Thunderbird.

I was 13 years old. I don’t think I really topped 100, the ‘56 Bird’s top speed with a 312 V8 and a stick was 113 mph. Hard to believe, a basic Toyota Corolla with an automatic would kick the T-Bird’s ass.

I use Amazon Prime, it gives me a chance to read new magazines and delete them when I’m finished. I downloaded the July Car and Driver yesterday on my Kindle. Good issue, very good.

C&D tested the Ford EcoSport tiny SUV, it has a 3 cylinder turbo charged engine. In the performance test, the writer said, “your grandmother could knit a sweater in the time it takes to get to 60, have her keep knitting and by the time the EcoSport finishes the 1/4 mile she would have a turtle neck and a pair of mittens done.” So not all the new cars are that great. The EcoSport is about as fast as its great, great, grandpa, Bobby's old T-Bird, the car I thought I drove 100mph.

Did you know Rolls Royce is building an SUV, an all wheel drive, 3 ton SUV? They are, it’s called the Cullinan and it’s even got a low range! It has traction settings like sand, mud, snow, etc. Base price $325,000.

RR offers 90 different colors for the leather interior and they’ll paint it pretty much the color you want, all it takes is money.

One of the options RR offers on the Cullinan is the “Viewing Suite” two well appointed leather seats electrically emerge from the tailgate, a table, matching the wood trim inside the car, appears between the two seats. You can sit back, enjoy tailgating at your alma mater, watch a polo match or your kid’s soccer game. No matter what you’re into, Rolls Royce has you covered. Like to fly fish, you can order a fishing module, like to shoot trap, you can order a shooting module, anything you want, customized for your taste and desires. You can order your Cullinan set up to be driven by your chauffeur with a glass partition that separates you from the hired help. The car comes with custom glassware for in flight cocktails.

The Cullinan is quite the beast,it has 563 horsepower from it’s 6.75 liter V12 and a top speed of 155mph.

You know where they debuted the Cullinan? Abu Dhabi. RR feels the oil rich countries of the middle east will be their biggest market for the Cullinan.

Know what a “Glider” is?  It’s a new truck with all the latest in safety and comfort features built by Peterbilt, Freightliner, Kenworth and others. They sell the truck without a drive train to aftermarket companies who install rebuilt pre-2002 engines, transmissions and running gear in the “new” truck. They do it to beat the EPA diesel standards. The gliders put out 430 times the particulates of a modern truck. Our new trump EPA has loosened the rules and are allowing the glider builders to build and sell 3 times the number of trucks allowed under the old rules. The glider builders contributed over 600k to republicans in 2016.

ZF the German transmission maker has 29 locations in the US, in their main plant in South Carolina, they employ 8,000 American workers. ZF has had facilities in the US since 1880. I wonder if anyone in the administration even cares about pissing them off?

C&D interviewed engineers from all the major automakers, they asked about the lowering of the fleet mileage goals, consensus was it is stupid and makes no sense.

Let's Take a Peek Inside the Car Business

I took classes, live and on line, I went to seminars, had lengthy discussions with engineers, marketing people and sales consultants during my time in the automobile business. I consumed reviews, road tests, comparison tests and consumer reviews of cars. I worked at it. I even took classes on "phone techniques"!

Here's a few things I learned:

The number one complaint people have upon the delivery of their new car is so stupid, I couldn't, still can't, believe it.

                                                   THE WINDOWS WERE DIRTY!

Survey after survey of customers post delivery, all over the country, every make, every model, every brand the number one "piss me off" is dirty windows. It has been for years and nobody does anything about it. That is so easy to fix, it's mind boggling. You get a clean shop cloth, a bottle of window cleaner and clean the damn windows, all of them. Takes no more than 5 minutes.

Another complaint, "the tires didn't look shiny". How hard is to wipe the tires down with Armour All? Squirt each tire and wipe. About a minute a tire.

Another complaint, "my cell phone wasn't hooked up". This takes longer to do, but it isn't brain surgery. Walk the customer through the process, make sure their phone works and they have a grasp on the process and remind them the owners manual and the accompanying DVD has all the information in an easily understandable, step by step form. Mark the page with the instructions with a paper clip or post it note.

Another complaint, "the sales person wasn't knowledgeable about the car". Once again, there's a lot of down time in any job, the car business has more than most. Most of my associates in the sales department, shot the shit with each other all day long, they stood around, playing grab ass, talking about sports, sex and staring at heir phones and then they'd share some stupid video with the other guys. You know what would happen?They'd get an "up" bump into the wall when they couldn't answer a question about something and they'd come and get me or the one other sales guy who knew "stuff" about a truck or a car they were attempting to sell. It happened every day! The result? I'd get half of the deal, one month I had 9 half deals, because I knew "stuff".

When I decided to sell cars out of a combination of utter boredom, depression and the desire to help my wife with her start-up agency business, I talked at length with my retired car dealer friend Ralph Thomas. Ralph told me the biggest problem with the car business is the management. He was right. If you look at the top four customer complaints all are an easy fix, by management. Maybe they are too easy, so easy that nobody pays any attention

Another thing.

Part of the pay plan for sales people, managers and the dealership is based on something called CSI or Customer Satisfaction Index, it's a sliding scale with 10 being an A. The problem is a 9 is an F. It's an ongoing survey that tells the manufacturer, the dealer, the management and the sales person nothing about their performance, useless. You know who loses the most from bad CSI? The sales person. Bad CSI slashes not only the pay per unit, it knocks back or eliminates bonus money.

I had perfect CSI, why? Because I tried.

I was taken aside one day and told by an idiot sales manager, "You know you've got a problem." I asked him what it was? His reply, "You know too damn much about these cars!" This was the same guy who when I asked how he evaluated used cars, he told me, "You don't need to know any of that.",  Over time I learned how he did it. He quickly looked over the car, then went on line to the Kelly Blue Book regional auction price site, put in the car's parameters  and offered the lowest price to the customer. Used car expert, right?

I could go on but it makes my head hurt too much...

Thoughts and insight from the “New Career” files…

I have a friend who built a formidable fortune in the car business. He is still involved in selling cars via his auto auctions.

Here are some insights he gave me about the business.

“The biggest problem in the car business is poor management.”

“Dealers hate the manufacturers and the manufacturers hate the dealers.”

“Some dealers are afraid of the internet and some embrace it. If a customer shows up with a print out from a website, they’ve already bought the car, show it to them, test drive them and write the deal up.”

After 7 months selling cars (or as my sister says, “trying to prove something to Dad”) I have some thoughts as well.

Customers need to do the math. You can’t buy a $50,000 car for $400 a month unless you have a superb, paid for trade-in or are ready to put 30k down on the new car. The rough rule of thumb is $22. a thousand financed over 60 months or 220 a month for every ten thousand financed.

You won’t get a discount for cash. Paying cash for a car makes no difference. Yes, the dealer makes money on the financing from the bank, not a lot, but some.

Leasing makes sense if you drive 15k a year or less. You always have a fresh, up to date car and you only pay for your use of it. Research the residual value of cars you are interested in. For instance a Jeep Wrangler Sport has an extremely high residual and that has a huge effect on the lease payments.

If you finance a new car, know you are going to be “upside down” for a long time. Remember the bank always gets paid first. Essentially you are “buried” for the first 3 or 4 years in a long term auto loan.

Nobody is trying to “screw” you at a legitimate car store. It’s illegal and if a dealer does it, they get huge fines and can lose the right to business.

Buying a car is generally the 2^nd largest purchase you’ll make, there are a lot of details to take care of, a lot of papers to sign and it takes time to do it right, Don’t rush it and ask questions if you don’t understand something. If there is something that needs attention, get it in writing and get it confirmed by management, before you sign off on the car.

The credit application has to be filled out correctly, no fudging on income, nothing can be crossed out and leave nothing essential blank. Never let the salesperson or manager fill anything in for you. Never! The credit application generates your car’s registration so it is doubly important.

You’ll never know what your payment is going to be until your credit is run. Payments are determined by the car you’re buying and your credit history. I will get you a ball park number if you know your credit score, not exact but close. Be aware the management hates it when I come in and ask them to run a number without a credit app. However, if you hand me a recent copy of your credit report it’s less of a hassle. Don’t ever go from dealer to dealer and let them run your credit. It’s dumb and it drives your score down.

I sell a lot of trucks. My clients buy trucks for many difference reasons. Here are a few truck tips, unless you drive over 17,000 miles a year don’t opt for the diesel engine, the fuel savings don’t add up. The more miles you drive the quicker the diesel pays off. The Cummins diesel option on the Ram 2500 costs almost 10k more than the V8, think about it. The diesel gets better mileage and has more power, but unless you drive a lot or tow heavy things around on a regular basis you are be spending money you don’t need to spend.

If you buy a truck to tow a boat or a trailer calculate the towing capability this way, use 70% of the towing capacity as the holy grail of towing. Here’s why, add up all the things you are going to be carrying in your trailer, fresh water, black water, food, ice, clothing, etc, etc. Now your 6,000 lb trailer weighs 7,000. Then add people to your truck, 4 people at 150 each. Now add coolers, luggage, bikes, tools, lawn chairs and your dog. Now you’ve added another 700 lbs to the load. If your truck is rated at 8500 lbs towing capacity you are pushing it. Be like a pilot and leave a large margin of error.

One last thing…

Buying a car is the balance between need and desire. That said, there is nothing like owning a car (or truck) that puts a smile on your face every time you start the engine.

Driving Forces

I read a long article yesterday about self-driving cars. The Google test car in the picture has no steering wheel or pedals, the technology takes you for a ride. I don't think the goal is for you to have one of these in your garage. It would be more like a subscription service, need to take a trip to the store, call up the car service, the car shows up, takes you to the store, makes what ever other stops you need to make and brings you home and it disappears until you need it again.

There is sensational automation in new cars today, automatic braking, adaptive cruise control, warning signals in the rear view mirrors, lane centering and all kinds of warning systems. My Grand Cherokee Overland Summit has all of those with the exception of lane centering. The automatic braking has saved my ass at least once. The side mirror set up eliminates every blind spot. The adaptive cruise control is great on the Freeway and for long trips.

It's funny how quickly you get used to the electronic aids to driving, I don't think I could live without a back up camera anymore.

Lane centering devices allow you to drive hands free already...

Tesla has test driven a car from San Francisco to Seattle hands free on I-5.

My Corvette had "heads up" technology, I miss that-a lot. It had a wide range of selections for the windshield display.

Uber is involved in driverless technology, their reason? It will eliminate their one expense, human drivers. The trucking industry is also doing research on driverless systems for over the road trucks. Their reason? No drivers to pay.

There are some big issues with all this technology, if the no steering wheel, no pedal Google car gets in an accident, who's at fault? If there is a glitch in the electronics and you're at sleep behind the wheel and get stopped for speeding is it the car's fault or yours? The biggest question is, who owns the data from the car? You or the manufacturer? Insurance companies have already pulled data from automotive ECUs and used it to determine fault for accidents. The car convicted it's owner. What about hacking?

Think about this. I took my Mercedes AMG in for service, when I picked the car up. The service manager laughed and said, "I see you drove it 151 mph." I said, "How the hell do you know that?" he said "The car's computer told me."

My black C-6 Corvette's computer hides another secret of mine, 168mph. The C6, other than our Volt got the best gas mileage of any car I've owned. Example, 85mph, 1850 RPM in 6th gear, 33 mpg. At 70 it was just north of 35mpg. The new Vettes with 4-6-8 technology get close to 40 on the highway. If I kept my foot out of it in town, I was never less than 20mpg.

I love to drive, I don't like to commute and I don't like to drive for hours on long stretches of Interstate highways. Give me a piece of road like Highway One in Big Sur or the Million Dollar Highway in Colorado and I'm there, alert and behind the wheel. The rest of the time, I'll take all the automation I can get.

Slow Hand is a Gear head

This is a Ferrari SP12 EC. The SP stands for "Special Project", the 12 means its the 12th custom car to come out of Maranello's specialty shop and EC is for the owner Eric Clapton. Clapton has owned dozens of Ferrari's over the years and this is truly a custom since Ferrari gave him the molds for the body panels and another will never be built. I fully expect this car will show up 50 or 60 years from now at a classic car auction and sell for double it's current price of about 5 million.

In his biography Clapton wrote that after Cream returned from their first world tour the first things he did was to buy a house (he still lives there) buy a house for his Grandparents who raised him and then he bought a Ferrari. Since he didn't know how to drive (neither did John Lennon) he used it as his training car. Clapton has a nice collection of cars in England and at his home in Ohio (his wife's home state) including a few classic American cars and hot rods.

Here's my Ferrari story

A few years ago when I was making the big bucks (hah!) running a radio group (that's being generous,too) a guy I knew told me about a great deal on a Ferrari 348. The price was so good I drove to Long beach to look at it. It was a '93 and only had 31,000 miles on it, new tires and had just been serviced. It was sexy as hell. It had that Ferrari sound, more of a scream really. I was in love, crazy, movie star kissing in love. The price was right, I thought the car had some real upside since it was about 14k under book.

As I drove home from Long Beach, I called my stellar, retired foreign car mechanic, who has taken such great care of our old AMG Mercedes. I asked if he knew anything about Ferrari's. He said "Of course, I do." I told him about the car and that I wanted to buy it. He said, "Forget it, it will drive you fucking crazy and make me crazy, too. If you need brakes, it will cost over $2,000 dollars, a simple tune up is $16 hundred dollars, to change the belts and the fuckers wear out every 7-8 thousand miles, you have to pull the engine to change them and it costs close to two thousand dollars to do that job." The mechanic finished off my Ferrari dream by adding this gem, "Think of it this way, my friend, a Ferrari is like a beautiful woman with a bad temper, a bad attitude, expensive tastes and no matter how much you love her, you can't afford to keep her and sooner or later she will drive you crazy."

6 weeks later I bought a C-6 Corvette. I drove it 33,000 miles and all I had to do was change the oil. As a bonus it was faster than the 348, too.