This week, Ken and John talk about:

Official website, Download MP3

The cars John and Ken have owned (OM212)

Ken

• Dodge Neon
• Old Toyota Corolla his wife had when they got married
• Used Toyota Corolla when he was on TV (in 2004) and he kept it for 10 years, his wife Mindy drove a Saturn
• Subaru Outback
• Honda Odyssey Minivan
• Chevvy Volt, which is very quiet and he can run over people and they never hear him coming

John

• 1972 Chrysler Newport Imperial. It would spin out as soon as you touch the accellerator.
• 1975 Fiat Spider Convertible. Several of John’s friends’ parents forbade them from riding with John because it was a death trap. Every other vehicle on the road in Alaska is either a giant truck driven by a maniac or some Subaru or Volvo. John was either going to roll it or it was going to get crushed beneath a Suburban.
• 1974 Volkswagen Bus. It caught on fire in Sprague Washington and sat and burned for a while until John could put it out with buckets of sand. After that John went without a car for a while.
• Nissan 4x4 Pickup (Nissan 720) with a King Cab. As he moved to Seattle his sister put possession of it and put 300.000 miles on it because she drove from Durango Colorado to Anchorage back and forth 3 times a year, which is 3400 miles (5500 km) one way, e.g. 20.000 miles (32000 km) a year for skiing and pretending to go to college.
• Ford F250 with a Chevy 350 motor from Delta Junction Alaska
• Ford E350 15-passenger tour van (probably this one from Harvey Danger.
• Chrysler Sebring Convertible
• 1997 Chrysler LHS
• 1989 Audi 5000 Quattro
• 1997 VW Jetta VR6
• 1979 3/4 ton GMC Suburban, John’s fantasy car

Not a single one of John’s cars was a new car or even a halfway functional car. He had multiple cars catch on fire and burn because he is a dumb-ass. If he wanted to be a junk car guy or a nutty car guy he should at least have had some cool cars. The Fiat and the Volkswagen Bus were cool, but nothing is cool about a Chrysler LHS.

John’s parents were Chrysler people all the way back. His mom drove across the country in a 1954 Chevy (Chevrolet Bel Air), but after that they bought Plymouths all the way through the 1960s. In 1972 they bought a Dodge Dart and drove it until his dad bought the Imperial (John’s first car). Their loyalty to Plymouth/Chrysler went back to the 1950s and got passed down to John. Ken’s parents were Ford people which probably came from their parents as well. John first turned into a Ford truck person and he still believes in Ford trucks, but Ford didn’t make a 1970s Suburban and he ended up with a GMC. There was only one Japanese car in John’s whole list (the Nissan) and John also forgot to include the GMC RV he briefly owned from 2015-2017.

John’s mom had a Chevy Nova that was manufactured by Toyota and branded Chevrolet during the period when Chevrolet didn’t even know how to make cars anymore. It turned out to be a lemon. John has spent a lot of time in Toyotas because he is an American person. His Nissan 4x4 was during the era of ascendancy of the Toyota SR5 Pickup (Toyota HiLux), the hottest, coolest truck from Michael J. Fox’s supporting role to the star of Back to the Future, which was the pickup truck. It was a jacked-up SR5 that was super-hot and it was emblematic of the 1980s. John overlooks that the DeLorian was the actual star of the film.

John was growing up in the 1970s when Japanese cars were seen as really cheap-o, small, badly made and dangerous little economy boxes, while American cars were at their most bloated and gas-gusting. The Japanese made small efficient cars with small motors that were great and manufactured to a high standard, but they were the opposite of what America thought of as a good car. European sports cars always had a small displacement motor and were light and small so they were fast, while American cars tried to get speed through pure motor displacement. American cars from the 1960s are legendarily very fast in a straight line, but as soon as you turn the wheel to do any kind of maneuver the car just becomes a Beluga Whale.

Ken was not a car fan, but a game-show fan and only remembers all those car being given away on game shows.

John’s High School friend putting aviation gas in his car (OM212)

John had a friend in High School who worked at Merrill Field (airport in Anchorage) swabbing down float-planes. In the winter when the lake was frozen he kept the ski-planes clean and gassed up. He would put aviation gasoline in his (Toyota) Celica which is a lot higher octane and makes the car run a lot hotter. He ran it until he blew the motor up.