Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 09-10-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

Morning news and comment and right into Eric Peters from EP AUtos, review of the Mini Cooper, The war against old cars in California (coming here soon?)

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausurrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Great to have you here on Wheels Up Wednesday, September 10th, 64 degrees. Had a little bit of rain up by my house. A little damp this morning, and we're going to see some off and on showers today too. And then drying up, getting wet again over the weekend.

Definitely, it's all of a sudden that, man, we just flipped the switch into fall, right? that kind of a feel, although it will be a little bit warmer, a little bit warmer for most of the rest of this week, okay? 11 minutes after six, you can join the conversation in 7705-633-770 KMED. Eric Peters joins me in a little bit with the wheels up Wednesday with a conversation on cars and reviews. I'm looking forward to his review on the little mini Cooper, which is now made by BMW, actually, even though it's meant to, you know, mimic the British lineage of it. And a pretty tiny little car. I'm just kind of curious how, what he thinks about that. So we will kick that all around.

And also talking about the Jay Leno law that went down in flames in the state of California recently just a few days ago. And Jay was trying to get this law passed, which would pretty much make it very easy or not have the emission testing then for the older and the antique vehicles. and they just slapped them in the face on this one. I mean, we're talking about the state in which car culture, well, that was part of the culture, and now they're doing absolutely everything possible to smack car collectors and people that are driving older vehicles. And this is not unexpected.

We've been kind of seeing this, you know, encircling and we're wondering, well, okay, all right, you're going to force-feed us electric vehicles. That's all right. I'll just keep my old vehicle going. Maybe someday will just all be turned into outlaws, and it's like, all right, you're going to arrest us all? We're just going to drive our cars, right? Drive our car. Yeah, register it, register this, right?

You can see that kind of world coming. I don't know. Maybe we would see that or not. But I was wondering what the rules were in Oregon, because I knew that if your car was a certain age, you didn't have to do the smog testing of it over at the I&M any longer, DEQ testing. You don't have to do that. And so here in Medford, we do have the smog testing, but it's only for vehicles 20 years or newer. Vehicles that are over 20 years old, you don't have to get that done.

So I try to think that, now see, the PT Cruiser, I'll have to get that done for another one or two license cycles. The 1982 Vanigan, hey, no problem. You know, they don't care. It is looking at me laugh as I drive by. But I have a 2006 Passat too. So, okay, yeah, next time we have to do that one, no I&M, just to do the registration, do it by mail. I can do this. But what I didn't realize, and this kind of goes to the J. Leno law, is that all vehicles that are registered in Oregon in the Portland area,

and I didn't know this until looking it up on the DEQ site, all vehicles in Portland, 1975 and older, 1975 and older have to pass the smog test. I didn't know that, did you? Yeah. I wonder if a lot of people will register their vehicles, you know, outside the Portland metro area to try to get around it if you have older or collector cars. But I don't know.

Well, of course, you can test it. Maybe they have lower testing standards for it. There's no way it's going to match, you know, modern. day testing, but you know, what, 1975 or older 50-year-old vehicle? My goodness, it would be pretty tough. They had early catalytic converters on some of the models that, a lot of EGR, old men, those things would be kind of a mess to keep those going, but they're a small percentage of the cars on the road. Nevertheless, because of the climate, they must be eliminated and you must be assimilated. You will be assimilated. You will be assimilated. You will be

assimilated yada yada yada okay we'll talk with eric about that coming up here in the next few minutes kevin stare at is also going to join me after eight o'clock i want to talk about that that story the daily courier had and i read it yesterday morning and i was i was so irritated with it but i didn't want to approach it yesterday but it has to do with um the guy that stole the pickup truck and smashed it through the armory the armory that gun store in grants pass smashed it through the plate glass windows, you know, just drove, stole a pickup truck, drove it in there, and he got a ridiculously, and I mean ridiculously, in my opinion, low sentence, five years, and even the recommendation was eight or nine, and Judge McShane is just talking about, oh,

you know, you remind me of my son. Well, let me give you just from the Daily Courier story, just a few of the lowlights of this one. And Kevin's going to talk about other people who have been charged with gun crimes and what was done with them when the system wanted to take them down. And then what is not being done to this guy, this California guy, after, you know, the guy's just like a walking felon, a walking a bunch of felonies. Okay, let me give you just a – and like I said, Kevin and I will explore this story more a little bit after 8 o'clock, but this is what we had. The guy's name Antone Wayne Bayard, all right? And he used a stolen pickup truck.

He's convicted of this now, rammed his way into the armory, stole 20 firearms, including a belt-fed machine gun worth $14,000. And he was sentenced Monday to five years in prison. So numerous 45s he stole 9mm semi-automatics Colt 1911 Delta Elite 10 millimeter and a Ruger super black. McCock, 44 Magnum, nice gun, and a belt-fed machine gun. But this was the part that I just started, it's like we have the Charlotte Judge kind of a thing going on at first, or the media, but anyway, here it is. It was recommended that he go eight to nine years to prison, but Judge Michael McShane said he felt the defendant was already turning his life around.

since his arrest and sentenced him to five. He's turning his life around. But if you look at his life, his life has just been one felony after another, after another. In fact, if I recall correctly from the Daily Courier story, it was like, you know, 14 felonies in the last few years. 14 felonies. And he killed a woman. In 2020, Bayard convicted a vehicular manslaughter for a hit and run in Riverside County.

And I looked that story up. And there was this 63-year-old woman dead who died in this story. And Bayard sentenced to nine years in prison. And he was released on early parole. He was released early from the California prison system in 2023. So, you know, apparently we don't have enough, you know, native Oregonians to commit crimes. So he ends up absconding. He left

parole early exactly one week before he robbed the Grants Pass gun store and numerous other felonies. And the judge also said something like, oh, he reminds me, you remind me of your son. Oh, it's been so, you've made such bad choices. I'm going, what?

What? Okay. Now, Kevin, of course, Kevin Sterrett and I, both big gun guys, but we're also big on people who are committing big gun crimes to do time. And it's like Judge McShane, maybe we should start calling him Judge McShame, I know, McShame, S-H-A-M-E, I don't know. Maybe he's just a soft-hearted judge who just saw, oh, okay, well, you've only killed one person and 14 felonies. What does it take?

You know, what does it take to put somebody away for a little while and make it clear that, no, we're not going to tolerate your crap. Oh, but you're turning your life around. I'll tell you what, turn your life around in prison. Get back to me, Judge McShame. That's what I would figure. But yeah, we'll explore more and share some other stories of people who did much less and got much more. Kevin will have some of that coming up after 8 o'clock this morning.

K-OBI 5, yesterday, of course, being the fifth anniversary, the All Need of Fire. Remember, Mr. Outdoors and I were talking a bit about that. And, yeah, arson, but boy, that gets downplayed, right? Really does get downplayed. They don't want to talk about it. You know, for the longest time, it was climate change, right? It was climate change with, you know, arson being said in the 60-mile-an-hour windstorm, just absolute nonsense.

K.O.B.I, though, did do an official story out of yesterday. It said five years after the All-A-Mitting, I'll-Mita, rather. By the way, it's Al-Nita, not Alameda. I know a lot of people say Alameda. I even did that for a while, but it's Al-Mita. The public still hasn't been told what caused it. Despite being the largest criminal investigation in Jackson County's history, there is no indication the case is anywhere close to being solved.

It ignited in North Ashland before rapidly spreading north, destroying thousands of homes. Okay, yeah, we all know this. Authorities have confirmed the fire human cause, but have not disclosed how it started. The investigation remains active, though progress appears limited. Ashland Police Chief Ty O'Meara has stated repeatedly that there have been no major breakthroughs. 18 law enforcement agencies.

And we got nothing. There we go. And finally, a pallet cleanser. So that's bad news. I'll give you some good news. This was a crazy news. I heard this one on this morning with Gordon Deal a few minutes ago, and I looked it up. It was about that Peruvian family dog.

Somebody threw a piece of dynamite, a stick of dynamite, into a family courtyard in Peru. And then Manches, a 25-pound Cocker Spaniel Mix, who lives near this person. And by the way, the stick of dynamite was thrown into the yard of journalist Carlos Alberto Messias Zarate. Wow. How many names can we have? But he lives in Peru. And so the security camera shows that, uh, that man. The dog was the only one that saw the witness in the courtyard.

Some dirtbag lights a stick of dynamite, dropped it into the yard of the home. And so Manchester, the dog, grabbed the stick of dynamite and was shaking it back and forth. And apparently with her mouth and her tongue and ended up putting out the stick of dynamite. Put the fuse out with her tongue. Great story. My question for you this morning is, okay, great. We have the dog. We have the dog that saves the family, saves the family, puts the dynamite out with her tongue.

Would a cat do the same thing? Now, when I say this, now, a dog is sitting there and looking, I am going to protect you. I'm going to protect you. I'm going to go with it. I'm going to take it, take it back and forth. A cat, and I'm a cat lover, so understand. I think a cat would have been looking at that dynamite. and going, what's in it for me?

What's in it for me? Nah, I don't feel like getting up off the couch. Well, the dog is, I will protect you. I will protect you. I know, going and running around. But anyway, it's a great story. I thought that was great. The dog saved everybody.

It's 23 after 6. You're on the Bill Meyers show. Stephen Westfall Roofing is growing. Hi, I'm Lamont from Orleys, and I'm on 106.7, KMED. It's 625. Wheels up Wednesday, but, you know, we'll hold over a pebble in your shoe call. And I think you missed that one on Tuesday, isn't that right, Dennis? You wanted to get one in, but you weren't able to get it in in time on Tuesday.

Oh, it's not Tuesday. Sorry. All right. I lost track. That's okay. But anyways, I do have a pebble. My pebble is all these people that call Independence Day the 4th of July. I think when that happened was the beginning of the downfall of this country,

The press is like, oh, it's happy 4th in July. It's not what other holiday do you do that with? Do you do that with Christmas? Happy to December 25th? Hell no. Yeah, happy 4th, or then there's happy 4th, what is it, 4th Thursday in November, right? Instead of Thanksgiving? We don't say that.

Exactly. Happy October 31st? No. The only day that they felt the need that they had to change was Independence Day. Why? Because that's the day this country became great. and so they decided they have to get rid of people saying that. Dennis?

I taught my kids since they were babies that it's Independence Day. It's not July. It's not happy Fourth of July. Dennis, that is a big boulder in my boot, too. And I have said that every Independence Day here for many, many years, even all the advertisements, happy Fourth of July, happy Fourth of July. Well, you know, it's no different than going down to the bar on Cinco de Mayo, right? I don't do that.

I know, I know, but still... I'm an American. I love my country. Let me give you a real American salute then, okay? How about that, Dennis? Thank you, Bill. Thanks for the call. Tom's here.

Hello, Tom. It's not pebbling your shoe Tuesday, but I'm sure you have something interesting going on. What, Almeda, you wanted to talk about the fire? Yeah, you know, you're in contact with a lot of sources that I'm not and so forth. But one of the questions I've had is there were two or three bodies where the fire started that were found afterwards, and I've never heard the identity of those people or anything about them, and I would think that if you wanted to find out what's going on, if that was

released to the public and people know those people, that there would be some information coming. Have you ever seen the identity of those people? Yes, I did. There was one body that was discovered within the ashes of the fire that, you know, by where it started in Ashland, and that actually was a transient. There was a transient. I forget his name. It was released. It was a few years ago. So, but you could look that up, and it was released to the public, and it was not where the fire started, but it was a homeless person who had lived in the, in the Greenway area, had lived out there, and a concrete camper, and he ended up dying in the blaze.

so it's possible he had nothing to do with starting and he was just out camping and the fire overtook him yes it does appear that that is the case but like i said i'm a little sketchy on the details as far as his name but yeah he was identified and he died from the fire you know i i still my sort of gut reaction to the whole thing i think there's some kind of cover-up going on and i think all the politically correct people uh are thinking well you know it happens and there's nothing we can do about it. And there's no need to go prosecute anyone. It was just a one-time event, and there's no motivation to do that.

I think you have to look at some of the political activity and protesting that went on in the wake of that. Remember the Hawthorne Park takeover and the protests they were going, in which all the left-wing NGO-funded groups came streaming into Southern Oregon at that time? And it just happened to be, you know, around 60s. mile an hour wind event with an arson set fire but nothing to see here move along i guess well there's also the story the guy that was uh the antifa guy who was getting kicked out in bedford and uh taking back to portland or wherever and as he's getting on the bus he turns around says uh we're coming back we're going to burn this city to the ground you know and uh that's that's like you know

you don't hear much about that story or anything, or about how there are multiple fires at the very same time going across Oregon. It was organized. It was actually an organized takedown of Oregon here. How many fires? Do you know how many fires broke out at the same time across Oregon? Well, there were several dozen, I think, over the Labor Day. Yeah, several dozen at last check. But a lot of this, though, is also sparks from power lines. When you have high wind, the power lines legitimately will sit around and sometimes spark off in touch trees or touch each other. It costs a lot of trouble. 60 mile an hour is a big win. A big wind. I could see, you know, maybe two or three fires, but you say a dozen. No,

like I say, I have more suspicions than I do assurance by our government gods. Yeah, well, you could be right, but it would only be conjecture on my part, you know, could do is think, yeah, we think we know what happened. Can we prove what happened? Probably not. I guess that's what we're looking at. Tom, I appreciate the call. Thank you for that. 7705633. Another quick one. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. This is Bill. It's Vicki from the Applegate. Morning, Vicki. What's up? Yeah, I just wanted to comment on the fires. You know, Ashland is very environmental, and they're always doing studies in the woods on a frog or a flower that they think might not be anywhere else in the world. And because I'm a woodsy kind of girl, I've been places where I've seen tons of trail camps.

So if this was just – well, not only that, but everybody's got doorbell cameras. They got cameras all over the place. And my thought is that if it was started in a wooded area somewhere outside of the city of Ashland, there's got to be a trail cam somewhere that possibly survived the fire or maybe caught whoever started the fire. Well, there were some people of interest, a couple of people of interest, because this started near the Ashland Dog part is where it started. in that particular neighborhood and they don't know a whole lot more

other than that. There were a couple of people that were observed by the park at that point but they were never really able to identify anybody or get any eyes on someone who had something to do with it. That's why they were throwing all this

investigative money and time and effort at it but they've never been able to dig up much on that one and five years ago I don't know if we had quite the prevalence of the door camera and the security cam nation, I think we're certainly more security

cammed and ring doorbelled up today than we were probably back then, don't you? Okay, how about satellite footage then? I don't know if a satellite, if a CIA satellite was necessarily paying attention to Southern Oregon at that point, but I'll get back to you on it,

Vicki, all right? How about that? Check it out. Okay. Yeah, you watch those those spy shows on television. Hey, can we get the spy satellite to focus on this one of them they repositioned the camera and off they go. It'll be in range within about five minutes and we'll have about, you know, 10 minutes over the target, that kind of thing. Morning. Hi, this is Bill. Who's this? Hey, it's Concerned Citizen here in Medford.

Hello, Concern Citizen. What's on your mind? Yeah, I just wanted to update what I heard. There was 153 fires in two days dead across Oregon. and my sister was running a RV spot up in sail. There was multiple fires set around her. I had another set of friends who were driving down I-5 and found fires along the side of the freeway all the way down. It does look a little hinky. A little hinky.

Yeah, yeah. But maybe there is a case to be made that the state of Oregon didn't really want to find those people? That's what I would say. Yeah. It's just a suspicion. Just a suspicion. Appreciate the call, and thank you for that.

We'll catch up on the rest of the news here in just a moment. Eric Peters wheels up Wednesday right into it. The war on the old car. Supposedly that's going on. And Eric will get us the latest on that and latest reviews. And, of course, your calls and questions in a comment, if you have something in the motoring vehicle world that you want to talk about. An intelligent solution is influenced by experience.

This is Randall. Clickia Medford.com. This is News Talk 1063, KMED, and you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. 638. Wheels up Wednesday. Eric Peters is here. Automotive journalist at E.P.O.com. Eric, welcome back.

Always great to have you on. And, gosh, what has been going on in your world out in rural Virginia, huh? What's happening? Well, you know, let's just start by saying you always have the best bumpers. Blue Oyster Culp. Boy, that's a great way to start the show. Yeah, but that's the Blue Oyster Cult with no Cal Bell, though. That was the only problem with that song. It is true. It is very true. Well, this week, I'm driving the latest iteration of the Mini Cooper, which is actually made by the Germans, but built to look British. Great little fun car, but they have taken away some of the fun in that it's an automatic only thing right now. And I just, I find that very disappointing, particularly since this is interesting.

The vehicle is available with a manual in the UK and Europe, just not here. So what is it about the United States that makes it next to impossible to get a manual while even over in the European Union, which of course is regulated to death, as we well know. We hear about this all the time. But do you can still get a stick overseas? And it's for a very interesting reason. Yeah, they're regulated to death over there, but they're regulated in a different way, specifically with regard. to this business about having to save on gas. You know, we have a cafe, the federal requirement that vehicle manufacturers achieve a certain

fleet of average mileage. And if they don't, they get hit with fines and the fines are passed along to the consumer. That's how it works here. Over there, they don't have that. What they do is they apply extortionate gas taxes to fuel, but people still have the ability to buy what they want. Oh. Yeah, it's a really important difference, you know, because it's more difficult to make a car

with a manual score optimally on those fuel economy tests that the federal government requires. In Europe, they don't have to worry about that so they can build the cars with the manual. They don't have to worry about those compliance tests in that respect. But yet at the same time, out here on the West Coast, especially Left Coast, they are doing everything possible to make gas insanely expensive. When I was out on the coast a few weeks ago, regular, well, in Oregon, regular unleaded was like 380, probably more expensive than what you're paying because the West Coast always has more important or more expensive fuel. I'm sure that has something to do with carbon, you know, that kind of thing.

But you cross the border into California, and it instantly went up to like $5.15 a gallon at minimum. Oh, yeah. As soon as you cross. It's a double whammy for people in California in that they pay that much more for the fuel and they are denied the opportunity to buy a vehicle like this with a manual if they want one. You know, they're gradually being forced off the market, or I should say they practically have been. It's almost impossible to find anything new that still even offers a manual transmission in this country. Are there any American vehicles that are new, which still have a stick shift? You know which ones?

A few. A few. Well, let me think American. Okay, now I've got to walk that back. Okay, well, no, just available in America in the USA. How about that? Yeah, you can get a stick in the current generation Tacoma pickup, but only in the high trim models. and it's very expensive, which is exactly the opposite of the way it used to be.

That used to be the cheap one. Yeah, the cheap one, you got the stick, and then you had to upgrade for the automatic, huh? Yeah, I mean, that's why back in the day, they referred to there was a synonym for the manual. It was the standard transmission. You had a standard, right? Yeah. And the option was usually the automatic. It costs extra to get the automatic.

Well, now the automatic is de facto standard in practically every time. I wonder what percentage of drivers in the United States of America I actually still know. how to drive a manual transmission. You ever see any statistics on something like that? Just curious. Yeah, well, not offhand, but I bet you that if you break it down by demographic, and if you were to say people who are 40 and older, I would say probably better than a third, if not half of those people, know how to drive a stick.

Because when they were kids, when they were growing up, there were still a lot of cars with manuals, particularly the used cars that were available, the beaters, the second-hand cars. Yeah, you had to. And if you didn't know how to drive a stick, you weren't going anywhere in the car. Yep. Now, if you go down to the people who are, say, in the 25 and under cohort, I bet you there's probably not 10% of them but know how to drive a manual because they've never had the need to. They've never been exposed to one.

You know, they grew up in the family minivan strapped in the back, and that's probably what they learned how to drive on. And so it's kind of a feedback loop. You know, the fewer people who know how to drive, meaning fewer people who want a new car that has a manual. And so there's less market incentive, so-called, for the manufacturers to produce those kinds of vehicles. And then it's actually cheaper for the manufacturers to have just one type of car to put out there, one type of drive train. That's a really important point. You know, this is part of what I consider to be the Sovietization of our economy, and that

it's one size fits all. You know, over there, you got what was available. You went to the government store. The government store had a, you know, a shirt, and the shirt was either too big or too small, but that's it because that's all that was available. And that's essentially what we're getting now. Yeah, we have automotive cabbages. Yeah, Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union, at least, you know, if you eventually got your hands on a trabant, which was their little two-stroke car with a plastic composite body,

you know, at least it was like not too expensive, and it was a serviceable little car. You could kind of keep it running because it just had a little two-stroke engine. Now people are paying, you know, $35,000 and $40,000 for a so-called entry-law. level crossover. Yeah, it's hard for me to think of a $40,000 vehicle, almost the value of my first house in Medford as being an entry-level vehicle. That's just hard for me to go. Circling back to the Mini, that was another thing that I was kind of pressed about. Remember when the Mini was affordable? Yeah, it was about a $25,000 car, I recall, a number of years ago, and it was 25,000,

25,000. It was a lot less than that. If you go back, you know, five years, it was around 20. Oh. Now it starts around 30. Oh, okay. Is that just general inflation in the supply chain or something else? I think it's probably mostly due to inflation. In fact, probably all due to inflation, because if anything, they've decontented it. What do I mean by that? Well, the current model no longer has a really cute kind of retro interior with the, you know, the little chrome toggle switches that they had and the multiple gauges and all of that. It just has a single pie plate LCD screen now. Oh, yeah, I saw that. I saw that. I saw that in your

review of that, right? It's like a huge electronic pie plate in the middle of the dashboard. Yeah, and that's cheap. I mean, that's the one thing that is getting cheaper because those screens are easy to produce en masse for not much money. And if they can reduce their manufacturing costs, you know, when the car comes down the assembly line, instead of having to install and wire up individual switches to control things, they just plug in the touchscreen. That's it. And it, you know, moves on down the line. So it's cheaper for them so they can make more money. But you think that would be reflected in a lower price, but unfortunately it isn't. And I think for, you know, for many, they're going to have a problem because a car like this fundamentally, a little cute

little car is great for a young person, a single person, hasn't got to worry about a family and kids just yet. But when you start to get into the $30,000, $40,000 price range, typically those people are now, you know, kind of getting settled, they're getting married, they're having kids, and as much as they'd like to have a cute, fun little car, they need something more practical than that. Yeah. And it's too bad that they got rid of the gauges because, you know, the gauges, those retro gauges, were sort of the fun part of that Mini Cooper experience, if you want to term it that. Well, I think so, too.

And, you know, they tried to emulate it virtually, which I think is kind of sad. Like, they have a little button that you can push on the touchscreen for experiences. And one of the experiences is that it pulls up the old style chronograph gauges, or at least a replica, a facsimile, an electronic display that sort of looks like the old chronograph type displays. They kind of did that with the Chrysler P.T. Cruiser, though, in which they cheaped out as it got a little bit older. I have the, you know, the last, very last year one that I bought. And the interior was much more, shall we say, less luxurious than the earlier versions when the PT cruiser was new. And they had the armrests that came out of the seat themselves and such. And they

ended up going to a different style like an 06 or through. And I think it was because, like all car companies, all right, we have to cut the cost somehow, and that's what they did. That's how they ended up doing it. And some of the things that made the earlier models more charming ended up disappearing in the later ones. Yeah, and the irony is, in my opinion, I think it's kind of short-sighted. I think people are willing to pay for something that's cool. You know, so it kind of works across purposes. Instead of offering, hey, that's neat, I like that because that's different.

That appeals to me. And I don't mind paying a couple hundred bucks more for it. They take it away or take it out, and they give you less incentive to be emotionally connected to the car and want to buy it. Yeah, that is a problem. Yeah, the emotional side of the car. Speaking of which, great article you had over there, and I had missed it last week when we last talked,

but this is something which is a growing trend and kind of the Red Bicharta, you know, that old Rush song, that classic Rush song, about all the cars that are made illegal according to the motor law, right? That's what that, and that was written back in the 80s, I think, you know, that song. That, yeah, that was a Rush song from the 80s that was actually based on an article, I think, and wrote and tracked. It was circa like 1972.

Oh. I think Getty Lee was inspired by that article to write that song. But what you wrote on E.P. Autos, by the way, is the Jay Leno law. The Jay Leno law went down. And what was the story? What was Jay trying to do? And what does this portend for the future of motoring, I guess? Well, Jay, you know, as everybody knows, is a big car guy.

Like, he's got a vast collection of cars. He's really passionate about that. You know, there are things about Jay Leno that I don't like, but I'm with him on his love of old cars and his attempts to preserve them. And in his innocence and in his naivete, he put his considerable persona and weight behind a law that would have exempted on a rolling basis vehicles that are 35 years old or older from further, you know, for further California emissions testing, smog testing over there, which is a really difficult regime. for them to pass. And of course, it failed. It never even got voted on. It got killed before it went anywhere, which shows the anti-car animus in that state because it's got nothing to do with air quality. There are only a handful, very small handful of 35-year-old cars and older that are in daily use as drivers. Which also means that it's a fraction of the, of so-called pollution,

which is going on out there, too. Is this something which was just ignored just out of spite, out of meanness or some venality of the... I think so. Well, it's because there is an element that despises these old vehicles and everything that they represent, and they want to push them off the roads without formally doing it. They're smart enough to say, to know internally that, oh, you know, we can't just come out and say, you're not allowed to drive your old car anymore. What they will do is impose these regulations, these onerous burdens on people that are, you

know, getting more and more difficult to comply with. Now, in California, to give you an idea of just how bad... vicious it is. If you have, say, a 40-year-old car, 50-year-old car, my transams almost 50 years old, it has to have all of the factory original emissions control equipment installed and operational. Now, the thing is, 50-year-old car, you might not be able to find, say, a replacement air pump. That's what I was just going to bring up. I remember on Cadillac when I was a kid, it had the air pump that was part of the EGR, I think, is what that was, at that point, or the air injection system? In California, you can have a functioning vehicle.

that will pass the actual tailpipe sniver test. But if the replacement part, something like an air pump, an EGR or a catalytic converter, does not have the California Air Resources Board, CARB, approval number, you will fail the visual and therefore fail the inspections. So effectively, if you can't get that, if you can't get a CARB-approved replacement part for a 50-year-old part that just wore out and failed, you have to get rid of it, and you're trying your best to make the car compliant, and it doesn't pollute, it meets the standards for that year, they'll still fail you because you don't have that car of

part. That is bizarre. And I'm thinking about, like, that air pump is a classic example of a 1970s car. They had a lot of those in those days. And you would think that, gosh, you could just replace the belt-driven pump with an electric pump and still inject air into the exhaust system. I think that's what the air system did, didn't it? It did. To further the combustion process outside of the cylinders, it was kind of kind of kind of keeping that the exhausturing burning at ports, basically. To help mean things up. And so you would be accomplishing the same thing, but it doesn't have the right number on the pump. That is just insane. That's insanity. That's what that is. Well, it's not insane. It's very purposeful. It's very deliberate.

They know this. They're, they're malicious. They're not doing it out of a sense of, oh, we didn't know. We're sorry. Boy, we didn't mean, we didn't mean to do that. This is very purposeful. It's an attack on the cars. That's what it's all about. And, you know, for Leno's, you know, for, I think Leno learned a valuable lesson. He seems like a genuine nice guy in a lot of ways. Agreed. And a lot of times, genuine nice guys can be naive about things. and I think maybe he has been disabused at his naivete. I wonder if he's going to end up moving out of California because of this, and if other collectors will do the same thing.

He may, but, you know, he's in a unique position because he's obviously a very affluent guy. And, you know, when you're in that position, you know, you can pay $1,000 for an extremely rare NOS part that you need for your particular vehicle. Yeah, it's true. Ordinary people, on the other hand, can't. And so, you know, they are going to be facing a lot of problems on this. And, you know, the really important thing about this is, it's rolling. So it's not just 35 years old. You could have a 50-year-old car. You could have a 60-year-old

car, and they'll still require you to get the thing through smog. So again, it's just about pushing people who have these cars off the roads. Now, I looked up what the law was here in the state of Oregon, and we're kind of similar in some areas here. Now, the emission test that we have in the state of Oregon, in Medford, it's 20 years. 20 years or older after 20, then you're off the hook. So it's not that big of a deal here. in Southern Oregon. It's not the worst. Now, in Portland, though, they take it back to 1975. 1975, it has to be tested. So it sounds like California and Oregon are very similar in this. I don't know if it is to the point as you talked about in which, you know, it's not a

matter of passing the test, but it has to have all of the old equipment. I don't know if that's Oregon's rule or not yet. I think that's unique to California. And I think that if you want to get at this aspect of the maliciousness of it if they were to say, look, it doesn't really matter what parts are on the thing. As long as it passes the tailpipe sniff test for that year, whatever the standard is for that year, you're good to go. That would be fair and reasonable, but of course they're not willing to do that, which I think speaks to their motives. Is this something that possibly, and I know that, you know, try to get legislation out of the Trump administration, it could be mixed. You know, sometimes it's been successful.

There have been some rules which have been rolled back from the EPA. Is there anything EPA can do on this to, or let's say to kind of put a boot on Carb's neck? Carb is the California Air Resource Board, which is what, you know, they have. Well, maybe, you know, this is something that specifically affects already bought cars, obviously. It doesn't affect new cars. So, you know, it's harder to make the interstate commerce argument in that respect. And I don't know whether there's any interest, frankly, on the part of the administration to go to bat about this particular issue. So it's probably just something that people who live in California,

are going to have to deal with, and I think ultimately the best way to deal with it is to leave. But please don't come to Virginia, if possible. Don't come to Virginia if you're going to vote like in California is what you're saying, right? I don't blame you. We've been saying that about Californians for a long time, and yet I moved here from California. Be that as it may. Hey, we'll be right back. If you wanted to talk with Eric Peters, a comment on this or anything else for talking, the open road,

it's wheels up Wednesday, reviews, classic cars, new cars, it's all there. This is the Bill Maier's show, 770-563. says we're talking about the California Jay Leno law that went down. I think it was appropriate to have one of the least appreciated California bands ever, cheap trick in the bumper rotation. But we're happy to have Eric Peters back, E.P.O.O.S.com. Steve's in Sunny Valley, Steve, Eric, did you have something to say there before I went to Steve? No, no, no. I'm a big fan of Cheap Trick. Live at the Budaccon, remember that?

Absolutely. I think we were all issued. Well, in the late 70s, I think we were all in the suburbs issued. a copy of Live at BudaCon and the Fleetwood Mac, the Fleetwood Mac Dreams album, that one, too. Yep. Okay. All right, let me go to Steve and Sunny Valley. Steve, you're with Eric Peters. What's on your mind?

Yeah, when I was four, my dad bought in 1968, F-100 knew off the lot in California, and it did not have an air pump on it. Years later, California decided, well, then 68, some of them had air pumps, so you need to put an air pump on your car, and Ford would not write a letter saying, no, this car originally did not have an air pump. So we had to find an air pump and install it onto this truck. Man. Oyve, yeah, which meant having to get the specific manifolds for it, too, right?

Right, right. At the time, my brother-in-law worked at an engine rebuild shop, and he helped us out a lot with that. But it was very expensive, and if it wasn't for the sentimental value, I still have the truck. You do? We probably would probably would have. junked it. I have to ask you, did you take the air pump off now that you don't need it?

You know what? It is no longer on the truck. Oh. But I'm in Josephine County, so there are no smog requirements at all. The free county of Josephine. Thank you very much, Steve. Great story. All right. Boy, to have that kind of irritation, it didn't come with it, but California was going to make you put it on good and hard. That's... Yeah, whatever happened to X-post, there shall be no X-Post. post facto laws. You know, I mean, if the car was delivered and legal for sale and it was purchased, you know, hey, this is a legal for sale car, you buy it in the state of California, at that point

it should be exempt from anything that they decide to do further. But of course, that's never good enough. Yeah, that's what you would think. Hey, Dave, you have a question or comment for EP autos? Well, I have a question and a comment. Sure. Yeah, my 91 Ford pickup truck every now and again, the number three cylinder misfires, you know, doesn't actually fire right. And I was wondering, my friend's thinking there might be a vacuum problem or the wires seem to be okay, but he said it could be the number three wire to the spark plug is bad. I don't know which one. And then my comment is, is I'm here in Northern California, but my truck is licensed.

in Oregon. I don't have to go through it because it's a 91. Yeah? Yeah, there's always an end run, and with regard to your misfire problem, I mean, the simplest thing to do is to just check your wires for proper resistance. You know, sparkle of wires are generally pretty cheap. You could do with just buy a new set and put them on and see if that solves your problem. Hey, Dave, is that one that has a separate coil on each cylinder, or is it just still a

distributor type? It's a distributor with electronic ignition. Yeah, yeah. You know, I wonder if listener David is listening, maybe he'd have a suggestion. He's one of our mechanics that calls the show. Yeah, but it runs good now that I've got, you know, it ticks up, and it just every now and again it just got misfires and the kind of coughs. And then, of course, we took the suggestion and put in a push button to start it.

Yep. You know, just turn on the key and push button. Yeah, good plan. That's the way to deal with it. Thanks for the call, Dave. Let me grab another one here with Eric Peters at EP Auto. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. This is not so crazy.

I wondered if Eric had ever run into a shifter back in the 80s, a RAMF4, where you just shoved the shift forward and straight back and pull on a little lever if you want to shift down. I'm sorry, I didn't understand the question. Yeah, he was wondering if you had ever experienced the, and I had read about that, what did you call the shifter again, Gene? A RAM 4. A RAM 4 shifter. Made by Hearst.

By Hearst. Okay, yeah, I've read about that. I think I saw pictures of it. I've never experienced it, but it was... It's similar to, like, the lightning rod setup that they used in the Hearst Olds in the early 80s? I'm not too sure what that one was the like. Yeah, but you were saying you just shoved it back and forth, up and back and forth on it. That's all you did, the RAM, the RAM shifter.

Yeah, and if you wanted to put in reverse, you had to put the main shifter in neutral, and then you had a second lever that you push forward to put it in reverse. Yeah. Gosh, I've never heard it. I've seen. Yeah, it sounds similar to there's something called a manual automatic valve body in older cars that have non-electronic transmissions. And what you could do is you could leave it and drive and it would shift automatically

or you could manually hold it. And, you know, this is like literally a physical manual hold control and say first until you move the lever up into the next gear and the next gear and so on. and the lightning rod setup that I've mentioned just a moment ago was similar, and that you had one lever that was, you know, for the main, you know, park neutral drive, and then you had two more, and if you engage those, you could, you know, manually go one, manually go two, and then back up into three to get the third year. Yeah, I think what Gene was talking about was a method to fast shift a manual transmission.

I think it's what he was talking about. That was, I don't know if that was an aftermarket or not. I've never driven one of those. I read about something like that, maybe in car and driver or one of the hot rod, magazines back in the day, but I haven't... Yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff you used to be able to get. I think you can still get this one that's always fascinated me, and I wanted to play with it, but it was too expensive.

It's a company called gear vendors that made this overdrive that was kind of similar to what the big rigs have, and you would put it up, put it basically it mounted to the back of your transmission, and it gave you an overdrive gear in every one of the transmission's gears. So if you had a free speed automatic, you all of a sudden had basically a six-speed, all, you know, each gear having an overdrive. Oh, okay. That kind of reminds me of what they do on the big sound.

You know, the old Detroit diesels and things, right? Yeah. Yep. Another one. Really cool. But the last time I looked at it, it was like, I think, a $2,500 deal. Yikes. Pretty expensive overdrive for sure.

Hi, good morning. You're on KMED with Eric Peters. Who's this? Hey, Bill. It's David. David. How you doing? Hey, I saw your bat signal, so I had to give you a call.

Yeah, about Dave's misfiring on the number three cylinder. Maybe you can help the community out here. When you have an intermittent problem like that, I rigged that old, you know, he's probably change all those tune-up stuff, you know, it plugs the wires and distributor cap. You should look at the connector on the injector itself. They sell those, all the parts stores now, and you can just splice it and replace it. But on a rig that old, you know, all that kind of stuff is really suspect. So if Dave's listening, you know, it's probably $15 or $18 for a new electrical connector

for that injector. And if you're chasing your tail on it, it'd be a real cheap and easy solution. That is a great suggestion, David. And thanks for making that because I didn't even think about the fuel injection connector. It makes a lot of sense. Thanks. Yeah. All right. Thanks for responding to the bat, to the bat signal. See, Eric, that's what's great.

It's an automotive community here for this. It's wonderful, yep. All right. One more call, and then we'll have to let Eric get back on the road here. Good morning. Who's this? You're with Eric Peters. Oh, this is Corey.

Hi, Corey. That shifter that he was talking about was called the vertigate. It had a vertical H pattern instead of a horizontal one. And so it went through a... of gates as you just went straight forward, straight back, straight forward, straight back, and then you had to lift the lever to get it back down into the original position. Oh, okay. Eric, did you ever drive anything like that with that?

What was it called again? No, no, but you know, it sounds familiar. I remember some of this now. Back in the day, I never had a chance to try one myself. Hey, Corey, what was the name of that again one more time? Vertigate. It was a Hurst, a vertigate. Hurst, Ferdigate, okay.

Yeah, B-E-R-T-I-G-A-T-E. A buddy of mine had one on his 57 Chevy, and that was fun to row through the gears with. Was it easier or quicker? Was it easier or quicker to shift with that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, you didn't have to try to figure out if you were getting through, you know, from second to third, was especially, you know, it was faster there just because you didn't have to. to go over and up.

Okay, yeah. But it was on a, on a Monty Rock Crusher and a very high horsepower small block Chevy. And, yeah, that was a lot of fun. All right. Hey, but really appreciate the call, Corey. That's, I love stories like that, Eric, stuff that used to be. No, me too. It's part of, you know, it's part of what got me addicted to cars back in the day. Just this, just all this neat stuff, not just coming from the factory from the manufacturers,

but also down at your local speed shop, you know, or even just at many moments. and Jack, remember that? Oh, yeah. Go down there and find all kinds of cool stuff behind the counter. And even if you were just a teenage kid and had a, you know, I had a McDonald's fast food job kind of income to deal with. There's always something you could aspire to get and put on your car. To your point, there's a great article that we'll wrap with here and just suggest everybody

go to EP autos and read the first cars we once had. That was a great look back. You talked about your original, what, you had a Volkswagen bug, right? I did. Yeah, right out of college. I needed something cheap, but I could buy for it. you know, buy for the $700 that I happened to have, which was all I had. So, you know, I got myself a well-used old beetle.

And it served me very well until I was in a position to be able to get something more. And it makes me nostalgic, and it makes me sad to think that today those kinds of cars are largely not available to the kids who are coming up. You know, they're looking at the daunting prospect of having to spend, you know, $3,000, at the low end for something that's serviceable, that they can't service themselves and, you know, makes it very difficult for them to get that first car. I feel like the first wrong on the ladder, the car ownership has been kicked out from under them. And I think this is designed because everything about the raising of the young in our culture over the last 30, 40 years has been about trying to almost trying to knock any kind of sense of independence out of them. Would that be a fair way of looking at it?

Any kind of independence from... Oh, I think it's far too benevolent and kind for them. I think it's absolutely deliberate. It's inculcated passivity, helplessness, which fosters dependency. And this just feeling of resignation among the kids. Ah, there's no point. I might as well just play video games, even though I'm 35 years old and, you know, living in my mom's basement. And I don't need to, we don't need that. We don't want kids.

We don't want kids because the most important thing is to be a cubicle occupant in the corporate cog, right? Sure. That kind of thing. It's sad. It's depressing. You know, the Joad of Eve that we had back then. It just seems like it's not there anymore. And I'm doing everything that I can in my own feeble way to try to see if we can rekindle that somehow.

And for that, we salute you, sir. We'll talk next Wednesday. And what do you have coming up on the review stand? What do you know? We're getting an expedition, Fort Expedition, which has just been updated. And that's coming tomorrow. And I started to look at some of the stats about it. Would you believe the thing starts at about $60,000 now?

Yes, yes, I would. After talking to you these past few years, yes, whatever price that you, that it's insane that you quote, yes, I believe it. Okay. Isn't that incredible? I mean, I, you know, I like the expedition. I like the Tahoe, which is its main rival. I like big SUVs like that. But holy cow, you know, it wasn't that long ago that that was 60 grand that would put down 50% on a house or a house. I know. It's wild. Well, you know, you have to have the Ford expeditions and the Chevy Tahoe is because the government needs big, black, scary-looking SUVs to come scoop you up when you say the

wrong thing to them. Okay? That's true, and that's probably the main reason that the manufacturers of those vehicles still build them because they have become the law enforcement vehicle of choice. We'll talk more about that next week, Eric, thanks so much, okay? Thank you. E.P.O.O.com on KMED and KMED HD-1 Eagle Point, Medford. KBXG Grants Pass Town Hall News on the way here.