Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 03-04-26_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

03-04-26_WEDNESDAY_6AM

This hour of the Bill Meyer Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausur drilling.com. Now more with Bill Meyer. Welcome to Wheels up Wednesday. Join in at 77056633-770 KMED. Let's see. As we got going on here, let's see, Iran and Hezbollah launching missiles at civilians.

Yeah, pretty much another standard day. Scott Bessent talking about trying to get the oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been a little bit dicey as of late. My boss and I were just talking about that just a few minutes ago. And he's wondering it had actually been closed. It's not been officially closed per se. I don't know if Iran necessarily has the power to do that. They've been taking a lot of incoming, but there's still a lot of weaponry for them for them to burn through.

but what was really interesting I was reading that best end of course is uh well president Trump has already been talking about escorting tankers as the price of fuel just spiking everywhere including here in southern Oregon and northern California but what's really going on yet and we don't even buy oil from that we don't we don't buy oil from Middle East much of it very little but i think it's only maybe a couple percent you know at best because we're pretty good at at cranking out our own crude, but it is a fungible commodity worldwide price. If there's a problem there, just a little bit of squeeze from Iran could cause a lot of issues. And some are wondering, well, that's okay. The United States can just crank up the fracking,

right? We'll just crank up the fracking. And then the fracking industry says, no, we're not going to do it. Number one, we like these higher prices because the frackers haven't been that incredibly profitable, you know, for a little while because oil prices have been low there for a while. But second of all, they're not going to go out there and hire a bunch of crews and get all the equipment out there for what they're thinking could be, you know, maybe a 60-day, maybe 90-day supply crimp. You're not going to do that unless you have more of a permanent demand for that. So that's the way it's looking right now. And then Scott Besson says, okay, well, we're going to work on the insurance side. And that's just it. The insurance. People don't think about

this. I guess it's one of those things where you have. Maersk or some other those other oil shippers out there. They got their tanker and then flow from Progressive, gets them on the phone and says, No, we're not going to ensure you going through the Strait of Hormuz. That's essentially what's been going on. And it looks like the Trump administration working that side of it. Yeah. And this one in the New York Times this morning, Iran steps up retaliatory strikes.

and what did they say here? I have so many Iran stories here. I kind of misplaced it. Let me see if I can find this. They were talking about, oh yeah, here it is. Iran says it is ready for, quote, complete destruction of the regions, military, and economy. And I think President Trump said, okay, well, your terms are acceptable. I don't think he really mean that, but your terms are acceptable.

I wonder if the, and this is coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, they issued its most intense threat. They're saying that, hey, complete destruction of the area's military and economic infrastructure. I don't think that they consulted with the people of Iran on that. So maybe they're going to have to say something to the Revolutionary Guard. So that's kind of the latest that we have there in this splendid little war. Okay. We have not had a microchip update for quite some time. It's been a while, but we got to do it.

Let's have one right now. R-F-ID. Chip in my right-hand. And I'll drink that government Kool-Aid when I can. Just be a good little sheep-o and buy on command. R-F-D. chip in my right hand. No ID chip for illegals, but one for you and me.

After all, we're the ones who obey willingly. RFID. Chip in my right hand. Yes, the RFID in your hand. It'd be your right hand. Well, you remember Mark of the Beast, we've been hearing the talk now for a long, long time. Talk to the people off and on about this. We've already been microchipping and putting the,

a mark of the beast on our beasts, you know, our dogs and cats, that kind of thing. But in the state of Washington, popular science reporting today, that it's a common trope in dystopian sci-fi stories. An evil corporation requires its employees to get microchip implants

in order to be constantly monitored where you are. While there aren't any known instances of the scenario so far, lawmakers in Washington State hope to make sure it stays this way. He had a couple of Democrats. Representatives, Breonna Thomas and Lisa partially, have introduced House Bill 2303, and it states that businesses may not request, require, or coerce any employee to have a microchip

implanted in the employee for any reason. The bill has officially passed through the House and a Senate committee with bipartisan support and is now on its way to becoming law. So you can't be, forced by your boss to take the chip. Yeah, I was just thinking about this. I would be willing to bet you that, you know, the evil corporation side of things,

they're not really going to care. We don't need your, you know, we don't need to put a chip in your right hand anymore. You're carrying around your cell phone everywhere you go. Okay. If you really want us to not know what you're doing, just go ahead and give up your cell phone. Oh, you won't give up your cell phone. Ha ha! Sucks to be you.

And there we go. But at least, you know, no microchip. I know the microchip things a little more biological and implantable. It's there. And it's hard to get out. And then you have to be like all these dystopian things where you're pulling out the knife and you're digging out the microchip like the James Bond movies digging out the microchip once you figure you've been tracked and this and that the other. But they just know for the most part. Just look at your Instagram feed.

They know where you are. Okay. All right. It is 18 minutes after 6. Other news, too, will be chatting about that too. This is the Bill Meyer show on KMED and 993 KBXG. When Italian food sounds... Hi, I'm Matt Stone with Stone heating and air, and I'm on KMED. Kevin Sterrick called me last night. House Bill 4145.

That's the gun bill. Supposed they having a work session this morning, whether or not it gets passed or if Republicans will find common cause to walk out and deny that. at the quorum. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. It appears to me that there's been an overall collapse in real fight from the Republicans in this short session. Here it is. It's got short session. You've got five, six days left at the tops. Yeah, five days left, a maximum of five days. They, on both sides have nine days, nine days of unexcused absences each that they could end up walking out with, no harm, no foul, but not enough unity. All it takes is just a

few. All it takes is a couple of squishes and then the worst of the Democrats pass and then you have people that are saying, well, you know, I'm here to do my job. Yes, your job is to sit there and enable Democrats to pass the worst legislation. That's what you think your job is. In that right, squishy Republican. Yeah, you kind of wish you could kind of just put your hand around the neck a little bit and just gently, gently throttle. Just gently throttle. Just gently throttle. Now, we would never advocate physical violence. We would never do such things. But still, you understand the appeal of that sometimes, right?

Yes, I just want to smack you upside the head. Oh, I said that. I shouldn't say that. I shouldn't say that. What else we got going on? Oh, Ed Deal, good guy running for a governor. Does he have a chance? I don't know.

We'll find out. But Ed Deal comes out there and says, yep, we're going to sue. It was a day after the Oregon Democrats pushed through that state. vote on the transportation tax tax tax it's going to be in the may deal so ed deal and other republicans they are filing suit and they're going to see if a court is going to say hey listen you're not supposed to be able to change this everybody signed paperwork when they were signing up and doing all the petitions around here no tax organ that it was going to be in november we're going to vote in november of course the democrats find out it's going to uh what what they're going to

vote in November. We can't have that. Oh my gosh, because everybody knows that we, the Democrats, are the only ones that voted for this. It was one time when Republicans, other than maybe Javity, I think, we're actually, and of course, Javity's now a Democrat, but, you know, one of the few times the Democrats were Republicans, rather, actually, were united in common cause. Thank goodness.

But, yeah. So Ed's going to sue, and he's going to kill. keep us in the room on this one, I guess. So should be good. Should be good. In other news, Capitol Chronicle reporting that Oregon Senate has moved to penalize landlords, divulging citizenship status and private information. Under House Bill 4123, passed the Oregon Senate on Monday by a 24-3 vote. That means a bunch of Republicans helped the Democrats pass this. Oregon Senate, okay, so we have Republicans that are saying that it's okay to go after landlords?

I'm going to have to look a little bit more to fight out who actually voted for it, but there were three Republicans in the Senate that did not vote for this, but apparently there was some who did. But it's strengthening existing protections for immigrants without permanent legal status. The Oregon legislature enacted last year, so it's putting more rules onto this. I just have to ask you, why the heck would anybody in the state of Oregon want to be a landlord? Why would anybody? You're not supposed to know if someone's a felon. You're not supposed to do this.

You're not supposed to ask too many questions. Just turn over your multiple millions of dollars in apartments in townhomes and homes to dirtbags that the state of Oregon will protect. And apparently some of the Republicans will protect too, the dirtbags. You've got to love that kind of a story, don't you? Yeah. But, I don't know, maybe at some point the Oregon Senate to the Oregon House and Governor Kotech could just come out and be honest and say, All right, hey, you a landlord? Just hand us the keys to the property.

It's not really your property anyway. This state's going full commie. Just hand us the keys. We'll run the property better than you. And we know better who is more deserving of both owning that property. that rental house that you're hoping to make a buck or two from. We know who could run it better. And even better, who should actually be renting?

We have a much better idea of who should be renting. I have to tell you, this is an example where civil rights law, there are people that are saying that the United States of America essentially has been destroyed by the 1960s Civil Rights Acts. Because everything about it has just been an attack on private property and also the right to associate. And there is no right, there is no freedom to associate unless you have the freedom to exclude.

Well, everything about what everybody does now in our government right now is to keep anybody from excluding anybody. And yet, a free people have to be able to exclude people. You need to be able to exclude dirtbags from your existence. You need to be able to exclude dirt bags if you're a landlord from your home. In fact, you would think that in your rental home,

it would be perfectly just reasonable to just say, okay, you're not supposed to be here because you're an illegal alien. I don't want to actually enable you being here. All right? See, that's a free country. A tyrannical country is when the government tells you that you have to cuddle the dirt bag and the miscreants.

and the illegal types and the people who were committing crimes. That's where we find ourselves right now. I think they're right. I think civil right law from the 1960s, good intentioned, like everything else the commies come up with, but there we go. Hey, Tom, how are you doing this morning? Welcome. Just fine, Bill. Yeah, you know, the abolition of private properties,

the first tenant of Karl Marxist 10 points for communizing the country. Well, Oregon and the state senate with that latest landlord rule, boy, they're just running down that plank. You bet. Yeah, and any voluntary exchange, it has to be voluntary on both sides for to have a free market. If you don't have that, then you have tyranny. And that's what's going on when the government can come in and say, you have to complete this transaction, no matter of what you think. And so we're definitely heading down the road of communism. And, you know, the second plank of the Communist Manifestos, the IRS, and the fifth plank, is the central bank.

And isn't there another part of that, which is centralized government education for the kids? Isn't that part of it, too? That's a tenth plank. Tenth plank, I thought so. And so, you know, and so you have all these squishy Republicans. You know, you just had the Lincoln Day dinner and so forth. I'm afraid of going to places like that because I'm afraid. I'd probably just start screaming at some of these communists in the Republican Party.

I mean, we've had 100 plus years to get rid of the IRS and Central Bank, but we're going full bore on it. And it's the funny money that enables both the welfare and the warfare state. And the Uniparty is big on both sides of it. It certainly is. Have you ever seen Lindsay Graham looking happier than right now? I don't look at Lindsey Graham. Oh, no. But if you ever see him, and listen, when the bombs are flying and the military industrial complex is making bank,

and, of course, we're acting like an imperial power, I have a feeling that Lindsay Graham of old people, I think he's sexually stimulated by it. He's turned on. So, you know, but I swear that there, and you don't, and believe it, you don't want to see those pictures, okay? I'm sure Epstein has some, but, you know, I digress. Hey, hey, I got to go right now, but your point well taken. and Eric Peters is standing by. We're going to get things rolling here, and we're going to talk about some other stuff here, too, Tom.

But I always appreciate you thinking there. This is the Bill Myers Show on KMED. We'll have the rest of the news, and then it's time for wheels up. If you're turning 65 soon, understanding meds. News Talk 1063, KMED. This is the Bill Myers show. And Eric Peters, we have a theme for him.

Eric Peters, E.P.O.S.com. We wanted to get an update on how you're trans-M, putting the manual trans in the TransZM is working out this morning. You keep sending me pictures and you look ever so close. Are you on the road yet, Eric? Welcome back. I'm very close. I am waiting for the delivery of something I forgot. There's always some little thing that you forget while you're doing these projects. And while I was very happy to have found and gotten myself a set of new old stock shifter rods and the hearse shifter and the shift knob, original Pontiac shift knob, I've forgotten to get those little levers, you know, that mount on the side of it. case that the levers hook up to. So I had to go back on eBay, find those. And according to UPS, they should be arriving today or maybe tomorrow. And once I've got that, then it's green light and I can put the transmission in the car. And then all I got to do is button everything up. And I should be able to have it operational very soon. Can't wait to see the video of this. And I had a curiosity, not to pry too much, but about how much is this project costing?

Because I know anything involving transmission can be quite expensive sometimes, especially when you're converting something, one to another. You know, it wasn't cheap, but it wasn't nearly as expensive as you might imagine. I may end up doing an article about this. Just give you an example. I got a professionally rebuilt to Borgo Warner Super T10 4-speed, you know, which is a desirable high-performance transmission for about $2,200. Okay. Well, I look at that. Well, that's kind of pricey, but I suppose on the other hand, well, no, maybe I'm

It's not pricey these days. It's not pricey. Have you, have you, the cost of replacing a modern cars automatic transmission these days can easily run to 3,000 on the low end. And $5,000 is more typical with, with a lot of the modern cars. So it's a massive expense. And I was able to defray some of the expense by, for example, I sold the automatic that I had in my car, got some money that way.

And it paid for the bell housing clutch and pressure plate. and so it hasn't been that bad. It hasn't been cheap, but it hasn't been that bad. And you only lived once. And I thought, what the heck, I haven't done anything like this in a long time. So I figured the time had come. Yep. And that transam, the big orange pumpkin, deserves to have a manual transmission. That's the way, that's what I remember. If you had a muscle car, that's what you had to have. It wasn't the automatic in those days. Absolutely. You know, I harp on this a lot. You know, automatics are quicker because they're more consistent. You never have to. worry about missing a shift. If it's properly programmed, you'll get down the quarter mile sooner. But there's something missing. You know, unless you're racing for money, in which case, I get it, you know, if you're just enjoying the car, there's something visceral and just emotionally appealing about shifting the gears for yourself being involved in that experience

of controlling the car. How is the commentary on reacting, rather, to what happened over the weekend with the United States in war with Israel and Iran right now. Well, from what I can tell, not only on my site, but everywhere else that I can see, this war, unlike back in 2003 when there was all this whipped up hysteria about how we had to get the weapons of mass destruction, this war is already overwhelmingly unpopular. And yet Trump decided to go ahead and pull the trigger on it anyway. I've started posting what I expect to be regular articles that I'm going to call the war tax update. and what do I mean by that? Well, the cost of a barrel of crude oil is now, as of this morning,

over $75, and that's more than a 10% increase since this war began. And around the country, people are paying, you know, anywhere from 20 to 30 cents more per gallon for fuel already. And I can only imagine what's going to happen as this continues to worsen, and people are suddenly having to pay $4 and $5 for a gallon of gas. In California, it's probably going to be $7 or $8 a gallon for gas. President Trump is definitely has, you know, you can tell he's calculating this and trying to thread a needle. He's spoken about this, that he wants this done within, what, four or five weeks is what he was talking about. And he doesn't have troops on the ground per se, but there are 50,000 troops that have been deployed, according to Centcom, you know, over to the Middle East in reaction, you know, to support what is going on here.

And these kind of decapitation strikes were pretty good at decapitating. It's what happens next. And I don't know. A lot of it depends on how long we hold out, how long Iran could hold out. Because there's a lot of ifs that we don't know about because even President Trump himself was talking about that low to medium quality munitions we got a lot of. But those really expensive, the expensive, what do they call them, the thades or whatever, there's. those extra special missiles, we don't make them very quickly. So we don't know at this point, how long? Well, what we do know is that this is demoralizing the nationalist populist movement that Trump putatively headed.

And after all, a lot of people, me among them, voted for Trump because he told us no more of these wars of choice in the Middle East. And this is manifestly a war of choice. You know, the idiocy that somehow this was an imminent threat to the United States had to be countered. It's just that. It's ridiculous. Well, it's hard to square that statement that, you know, it was going to be an imminent threat when we were told a year ago with the bombing attack that we had sent them back decades. It wasn't even a year ago. It was June July. It was last summer. Yeah, June July, last summer. And so, I don't know, I can understand why there are questions being raised by many in MAGA, and there are just as many in MAGA. I think there's just a real schism. Real schism is split, you know,

in that right now. And I think the jury is out. If it is taking care of relatively quickly, I figure that the political class will be relatively forgiving of this and they'll move forward. If it drags on more than a month or two, I don't know. It could be a tough time for the... And I think that it will because, you know, for Iran, I think the Iranians understand that this is existential for them. It's not just about the Ayatollahs. It's about them as a country as a nation state. Do they want to become a poodle? Do they want to become a poodle? Do they want to become, a Gimp state, you know, unable to defend themselves and control their own destiny. And yet, Eric, don't you have to admit, though, that it's appealing when you see people who

have been oppressed, you know, expressing joy at no longer being oppressed by the mama types. You know, well, in principle, yeah, but there is something hallucinatory about this. You know, after all, Israel has admitted, the state of Israel has admitted to killing 70,000 people in Gaza, 70,000 people, you know, and this is the country that's telling us, oh, we, got to do something about the human rights abuses in Iran. I'm sorry, it doesn't sell well with me. Okay. All right. And I imagine a lot of people on the side door are that way, too. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I'm, you know, and again, I feel like it's Groundhog Day again. In other words, I feel like it's back to 2003. And I'm one of the people who is raising his hand and saying,

wait a minute, what is all this stuff about attacking Iraq and weapons of mass destruction and all that stuff? And it took a while for a lot of other people on our side of the fence to come around. I think it's going to happen a lot sooner this time. Yeah, I would agree that, but I think a lot of it depends on if he is in and out of there. You know, I think they'll let it slide. I think they will, if it's in and out. But that's a big gap. If it's in and out.

I agree with you on that, yeah. All right. The EV checklist, now that we have a price of gas and diesel, everything soaring right now, are people looking for the EV now? Are they saying, hey, maybe we gave it a little too much of a short shrift early on? Maybe we should go back. Maybe there's something to think about here? What do you say? Not that it's necessarily a good alternative, but a friend of a friend asked me privately whether I thought it would be a good idea for them to buy a Chevy Bolt, which is a small EV made by General Motors. Now, is this the Volt or the Bolt? The Volt isn't made any longer. The Volt was a hybrid. Yeah. This is a, you know, the Bolt is a pure EV. And I thought, you know, obviously you and I and a lot of people who listen to us already are familiar with most of the stuff, but I thought it might be helpful to people, generally. generally to put together an honest fact-based checklist of some of the things that people would have to deal with if they decided or if they were thinking about buying an electric vehicle. So that's the featured article up on EP autos today. And it gets into the serial and compounding things that you're going to face, you know, not just the range issue, but the dealing with having to charge it, the fact that you can't pay cash, that if you want to charge at home, well, it's not as easy as just plugging it in because you need to have a 240-volt outlet and you may have to get an electrician.

to come out and upgrade your panel and a number of other criteria such as that that are worth considering when you're thinking about buying an EV. Okay, very good. Are people starting to look at this maybe because the prices of them have dropped dramatically in many cases because they're just sitting on lots in many cases because the subsidies have gone away and the market demand has dried up a lot for many of these? Interestingly, no, because notwithstanding that dealers really do want a deal, You can still find brand new 2024 EVs sitting on dealers lots.

And yeah, you can get a good deal on it, but would you want it? You know, you maybe not going to pay full price for it, but you're going to still pay the time cost, the hassle cost, and the depreciation cost. You know, that's not often talked about, but it's a big consideration. EVs generally depreciate about 30% faster than an otherwise equivalent car. That's a big hit to your bottom line. And it really detracts from the supposed imputative savings that you get by. not driving a gas power vehicle. EP autos.com.

We talk with Eric Peters this morning. You got a car you're looking at? Question about something on the road? Maybe even some of the politics, too. We can go ahead. We talk about it all every Wednesday here. 7705633-770 KMED. Eric, we'll be right back.

This is the Bill Meyer show. James. Give Bill a call at 541-770-5633. That's 720 KM-E-D. It's wheels up Wednesday with Eric Peters. Talk about anything that you got going on. 7705-633. Hey, Eric, we had

Stacey, Stacey was online and then her call dropped, but she told me what she wanted to ask you. And so I'm going to fire it by you. And it has to do with the EV checklist. And she said that she has the ability at work to be able to just, you know, free access, free charging, you know, at her employer, which is pretty cool, all right?

That's pretty cool if someone will do that. And she was wondering about what kind of what kind of used EV options might be reasonable and good for such a thing? Because she's considering it for the work commuter car, given her situation there.

Well, I mean, that's a broadly open-minded question. It guess it depends on what type of vehicle she'd like to have. You know, there are a number of different EVs out there. You can get a little sort of commuter car like the Nissan Lee for the Chevy Bolt. If she wants something small, they're also larger vehicles, sedans and hatchbacks and so on.

Something tells me, I kind of interpreted it as wanting something small and reasonable that way. Yeah, you know, probably I would then steer her towards something like a Nissan leaf, I mean, or even a bolt, because those are pretty much the least expensive ones that are out there. And I'm sure she could find a lightly, you know, I'm going to say probably, you know, 17, 18,000 or even less than that. Yeah, I think so too. I've seen leaves, even older leaves and, and they'll even say, okay, yeah, we got 80 miles of range left on the battery instead of the 100 or 105 that it may have come with. But at least you know what you're getting, that kind of thing.

Yeah, you know, and another thing to consider, too, she should look to see whether there are any of these lease offers that some dealers offer incredible lease deals on these things. You know, like 150 bucks a month. Essentially, it's a free vehicle. Right. So, you know, I would do some research in that respect as well. All right. I appreciate that. Let me go to Deplorable Patrick. DP, you want to the report more or dig deeper into the transmission project on the transportation. Rand Zam, right? That's correct.

And thanks for coming in, Eric. And it sounds like it won't be long for you. You'll be out there getting tickets. Well, if I can afford to put gas in the car, I don't know if you guys, I was going to mention this bill, the latest breaking news. And it's not been confirmed yet, but apparently an American destroyer has been hit and is on fire out in that part of the world. Up, haven't heard that one yet.

I'll look it up. Yeah. I do have two questions about the. the conversion. I may have missed it, but did you say you were going with a Hearst linkage, or did you find some stock pieces to go all stock? No, both, because the Trans Am came with a factory, from the factory, Hurst Shifter. That was one of the cool features, about 70 to 81 Transams. All the manual cars came with factory Hearst Shifters.

Second part of it is there's a technical thing. That transmission came out with a close ratio, 220 to 1 or a regular more sane 256 to 1 first gear, depending upon how you're driving. Did you have to make that choice? And did you have that choice? Yeah, I did. And I went with the wide ratio one for just the reason that you're talking about. And I already got a little bit of an issue in that I have a 390 gear in the back,

which you can imagine with that 4 speed is going to make it a screamer on the highway. And eventually I'm probably going to bring that down to a 323 or 308. But, you know, that's going to have to wait a little while. I'm kind of curious about this. I recall that, now, didn't you put an overdrive on the automatic of the Transam a number of years ago? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was able to get away with the 390 rear gear. That was the very first thing that I did when I got the car, because originally, if you can imagine this, it had a 2-41, I think it was final drive ratio with the automatic.

And so it was slow. Looked fast, it was slow. So I put the 390 gear in it. And, of course, with the factory stock three-speed non-overdrive automatic, that made it scream on the highway. So the next thing I did was to put the more modern four-speed overdrive automatic. That was a direct bolt in, easy to do that. Good. And that made it very drivable.

You know, it cut the engine RPMs at 60, 65 miles an hour down to about 2200 RPM. Now here I am going back to the four-speed manual without overdrive. So I'm going to have to mess with the rear axle again at some point. Any other questions there or comments? Well, no doubt you got a posy track rear end for that, huh? Of course, all transams came standard with limited slip axle. Mechanical, not electric ABS stuff like on a farm. I can't wait to see this on the road.

I bet you can either, Patrick. I can't. I mean, I really can. I'm going to do some extensive videos in particular. I want people to be able to hear the sound. One of the great things about those old Super T-10s is they had straight-cut gears, and you could hear this wonderful gear wine as you went up through the gears. Well, yeah, the gear wine.

Is it all four? straight cut gears? I think so. I'm pretty sure. I actually can't answer that definitively, but I think so, yeah, because that wine is through all four years. Yeah, and the straight cut gears are actually more durable. Isn't that the case they can take a little more power? Yes. Yeah, the Super T-10 is actually a really good transmission, you know, for performance use. Now, it doesn't have an overdrive. But if you're okay with that and don't need to go on long road trips on the highway, it's not an issue. 770-MED. You put something out there the other day. I'm, let's Let me see if I can find the article. I was reading it yesterday. Things that you don't see any longer. And it was such, it was such a great, I'm having trouble finding it on the site. Oh, here it is. Things no longer seen. You actually put this out a couple of days ago. And you're taking a picture of a Lincoln Continental door. And there's the, the, the ashtray. The ashtray. The ashtray and the lighter. It is just like, yeah, that was kind of such a standout. It's like, there are all sorts of.

of things that you were wondering what might be happening with cars in the future. People will look at the stuff that are in cars right now and have no idea what they were talking about. Where were you going with this particular thing? It's great. Well, sure. You know, we all have context based on our generation. And so, you know, you and I can remember the ashtray. Now, I'm imagining that people who grew up in the 90s will at some point in the future, when they're old, they'll be able to look back on the era of the automatic seatbelt from the mid-late 90s. Remember those guys? I hated. those things. Everybody hated them. You know, this was an intermediate thing in between the mandating of seatbelts and the mandating of airbags. The government decided it would be a fine idea to have it

so that, you know, when the door opened, the seatbelt, the upper part of the harness retracted with the door. I mean, you sat in, it buckled you up. Everybody hated them. And it's just a strange thing to see it now. And if, you know, if you're in your 20s today, you may never have seen one. And so when you see it, you're probably wondering, what the heck is that? Well, that's what that is. Yeah, yeah. That kind of reminds you. me, I was in Sherms yesterday in the grocery store, and in front of me, and there was a woman who was talking to the checkout clerk, and was thinking, oh, man, I so missed the music of the 90s. I love the music of the 90s, and you're talking about the cars from the 90s. And then I,

I quipped, I said, boy, you know, I never thought I would ever hear anybody pining for the 1990s as the good old days. I know. Right. And she laughed. And the checkout person was saying, well, that's all right. I'm actually from the 70s. The 70s is what I like. But you're right. We're all products of whatever we had generationally when we were growing up. That tends to be it. And so you have to wonder, in the future, I think you even quipped in the article that in the future, you could see a day coming which people will have no idea what those USB ports that are festooned around the modern cars are all about. Yeah, I think so. You know, technology changes so rapidly. We've already gone from the, you know, the rectangular ports to the new little chicklet-looking ones. Yeah. So, I mean, fast forward 30 years.

You know there's going to be, who knows what they're, by that time, we'll probably be driving holographic cars if we're even allowed to drive at all. And you'll have a brain chip that will automatically download your music playlist. And so people will look at what the heck is that strange little hole for? What does that do? Yeah. And there will also be the download of the news approved by the government for you to, you know, be completely happy with what is going on.

That too. Like one of the fun things about my Trans Am, and you'll know this already because you've had some GM cars from that area. They used to have a floor-mounted dimmer switch. Yes. To the left of the clutch bell. Yes. Yes. Kachunk, Kachunk.

Kachunk. And in Ohio, they always rusted out. They were always exposed to the salt spray, you know, underneath the car. And so you'd always have the dimmer switches go bad. You'd have to take them out and replace them. And in fact, I remember my grandfather's car had a Chevy with a floor-mounted. It was like a really old car that had a floor-mounted electric starter switch. Yes.

Yeah. Yep. Yep. You know, we were puzzled by that when we were in high school, but show a 20-year-old today the floor-mounted dimmer switch and ask them what it does and see if they can tell you. Yeah, not a clue. Not a clue. That's just the way that goes. Fun article for sure. And hey, as we wrap up for this week's wheels up here, Eric, let's talk about the latest review here. The one that you ended up talking about was the Mazda CX-70. And you've been a real fan of the Mazda's because they're some of the few driver's cars left. And they tend to not go all in. in on the CVT, you'll still get a regular automatic transmission. Is that still the case with the CX? Oh, absolutely. But even more significantly, I think, yeah, I have great praise for Mazda for having at the height of compliance fever. We're going back about three years now during the worst part of

the Biden years. Instead of designing and going with another 2.0-neeter four-chilander engine, they actually developed this brilliant new inline six cylinder engine and they put it as a standard engine. It's standard. They have an inline. It's an inline six like the beamer. Like the old beamer. Yep. And it gets even better. It's mounted front to back. It's a rear drive platform. So this is a crossover SUV. But it's highly unusual in that in the first place is built on a rear drive type of layout. All wheel drive is standard, but it's rear drive based. And it has a standard inline six cylinder engine, which is something that generally speaking, it's not available in most non-luxury brands. And even in the luxury brands, typically you have to pay extra.

You know, go into something like Alexis RX, which used to come standard with a V6. Now it comes standard with a turbo-hybrid, augmented little four-cholinder engine. So Mazda was really bold to do that. And, you know, given that this thing costs about $40,000, it embarrasses the luxury brands. I did a whole separate article about that, about how really at this point, the only thing that defines a luxury car is its price, not so much what you get. Yeah, that is one of the challenges for the luxury brands that you and I've been talking about often. on is that even the so-called lower-priced cars still have 90 to 95% of all of the luxury features of the much more expensive vehicle. I think the challenge that you're running into at this point

is that, well, it's good and bad. It's great that a lower-priced car ends up having so much loaded in it. I mean, we can see that as a value. But then it also makes it very difficult to have a truly, truly cheap car for sale, too, doesn't it? It absolutely does. Yeah. Everything kind of has met in the middle. There's no longer such a thing as an economy cars. You and I have talked about. There's simply an entry-level car. Yeah.

And, you know, the luxury cars are not really particularly luxurious anymore. They're just expensive cars. It's a very weird time in the car business. Yeah. Is anything changing additionally in the regulatory state? Now, we know that the carbon dioxide endangerment finding, that's gone now from the EPA. So that's a good thing. Is it leaking, so to speak, into the manufacturing,

world of the cars yet that you're aware of, or is it just too far? Well, I think there is great hesitancy within the industry because on the one hand, the regulatory environment is more favorable now. And perhaps it would be, it would behoove them to start putting out more inline six cylinder engines, more V6 engines and developing engines of that sort. The problem is that if they commit to doing that, invest the money in doing that, and everything goes south politically. And we end up with, I don't know, a president Spanberger in 2028. And, And they just go back and reverse everything and put the endangerment finding back in. And it will bankrupt the industry.

They can't do it twice. They've already lost it. The estimate is something in the order of $115 billion. And that was all over the EVs, you know, the force feeding of EVs. And it's almost like the regulatory state has been trying to crush the automotive market here. And I think, honestly, they have been trying to crush them on one level. And this could do it. So what do they do?

You know, they're a rock and a hard place situation. If they were to invest in developing new combustion engine drive trains, that's a lot of money involved, and then find out that they can't recover their investment by selling it because the regulatory apparatus come back with a vengeance. They can't sustain that. They would have to know, before they're really going to start changing the design of the cars, Eric, what you're telling us then is that they'd have to know that there is political stability against screwing them to the wall with regulations from another politicians group, right? That's really what we're talking about. It's just common sense, isn't it? Would you throw your money at something that's as uncertain as this? I don't think I would. Yeah. Yeah. So President Trump, of course, is doing his best. Now, it would be helpful if instead of just doing it with executive orders and doing it in the administration, if they actually had laws passed. Laws are much more difficult to change, aren't they? They are, well, regulatory edicts are hard to change because after all, the bureaucracy isn't elected. You know, laws, at least you have the hypothetical possibility of voting out the rascal. you know, who gave you a bad law, I'm bringing in somebody who's better.

More profoundly, I'd like to see the administration just explain to people, you know, the nitty-gritty of these regulations and challenge what has been unchallenged for, gosh, my entire life, 40 years plus of, you know, we got to do this because it's going to, you know, it's going to result in a massive decrease in pollution. Well, let's, let's dig into that and see exactly what we're talking about. And let's require them to, to present some kind of cost benefit analysis before they impose these things on us. Indeed. Well, do you know what is coming in next week for the review? I do. It's actually coming today. It's the Grand Highlander, which is the three-row version of

the Toyota Highlander. And an interesting thing about it, I think I'm going to do a separate article about this all the way through 2022, the Highlander, like most large crossovers, came standard with a V6. And it was Toyota's excellent, 3.5-liter V6. But come 2023, because of all this compliance pressure, they went with a 2.4-liter turbochar. charged engine and that's what the current one has. And I dug into it a little bit. There's no fuel economy advantage. Interesting. It's almost identical mileage. And the little turbo four makes substantially less power. I think 265 versus 295 horsepower previously. And there's about a $7,000 price difference now versus 2022. And I thought to myself, so why would they do that? Well, ultimately it's

because that little engine, as you know, will not flow as much air unless it's under boost. And it helped them to comply with the carbon dioxide stuff, which brings us back to that endangerment findings. It is still more, it's still designed for the old rule, right? Still designed that way. Okay. Exactly. All right.

Well, I'm looking forward to it because I think the Highlander has been considered one of their best sellers, not only the best seller. I mean, sure, the forerunner is great, but it's the Highlander is almost like the civilized version of a forerunner, isn't it? Well, it's the family vehicle. And, you know, here's another very, very important thing for people to be aware of. Toyota just announced a couple of weeks ago that for 2027, the regular Highlander, the two-row version of it, is going to be an EV only. You won't have the option to get an engine in it any longer.

So thank God the Grand Highlander, which is the three-row, and it's only a little bit longer. It's about six inches longer. So you get the third row, and most importantly, you don't get a battery. You get an engine. So I think it's going to be very interesting to see how that plays out because I think that pretty much everybody who buys a Highlander is going to buy the Grand Highlander, with the engine. And I think Toyota's going to be left having to figure out how to get rid of a lot of electric highlanders. Boy, the electric, the, the EV rather, agenda has caused so much financial turmoil in the automotive world. It's just been, I mean, the only people who have been

able to make money at it, maybe Tesla, maybe Tesla. Yeah. And, and, you know, again, Tesla didn't make money selling EVs. Tesla made money selling carbon credits to Stalantis and a number of other manufacturers. and the rest of their money was based on stock market valuation, which was all predicated on the government, continuing to prop up the EV market and not only that, to effectively, as Trump put it, mandate EVs. So the market, you know, the stock market responded to that and thought, well, you know, Musk is selling these vehicles that people are going to have to buy. So let's buy stock in this company because clearly they're going to do well. But Musk himself, the company never really made money on the EVs per se.

We've been talking about that for years, that it was a carbon credit. It was the carbon credit. it was forcing other car companies to buy what Elon Musk was selling, not the cars, but the carbon credit, the permission slips, really, is what they were. Yep, exactly. Interesting stuff. Well, looking forward to the talk next week, as always, Eric, and thanks so much, E.P.Otos.com, E.P.O.S.com.

And we'll catch you then. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. 705. This is KMED, KMED, HD1, Eagle Point, Metford, KBXG, Grants Pass.